Yup. Thanks!

If it helps, remember that imposter syndrome is ubiquitous in grad school. Literally everyone is pretty sure they don't belong, or, at least, that they will be found out as a fraud far sooner than that really smart gal over there.

It sucks. But that uncertainty can also be what helps you keep looking for interesting things to think and write about.

Yeah, it helps, thanks. Of course, I know it already, but hearing it helps it sink in.

It also helps that the 1st assignment in the methods and theory course was a personal statement on "what do historians do," and when I got it back today the prof (who is also the outgoing director of graduate education) simply wrote "Good! You do not need me!" and gave me full points.

Still a grind, of course, but that definitely helps with the imposter syndrome.

Update for the fans? How was Biloxi? I'm going there this weekend.

Pro tip: the bigger the words you use, the smarter you become!

Since you brought it up...

***

The Washington Poast has a cool piece about The Brookland Literary and Hunting Club, which began in the 1940s as a group for black professional men who wanted to play poker. Thanks to Makonnen for passing it along.

One of my favorite players inducted into the Hall. He might be #1 given MJ's post-career foolishness.

At the moment it's something like MJ, Stockton, Lehhbron, Dirk, and this guy (also: how much of a bad-ass is Don Nelson?):

Well, I made a four pronged argument that historians research, analyze and explain the past, and that they (we, I guess) teach, but not just about the past. We also teach critical thinking, evidence evaluation, argument building, etc., though these skills are also taught in other fields. I based my essay on the popular quote "the past is a foreign country."

I like it. I'm not sure that I can come up with a definition of what literature folks do, in part because the discipline has expanded/devolved into a study of pretty much everything. But my definition would probably have something to do with narrative.

One of my favorite grad seminars was with a well-known historian of the South and his cadre of grad students. I can remember thinking they were cut from a very different cloth than the ruffians I normally hung out with in English, anthropology, and religious studies.

Thinking of taking a Lit Crit seminar, as a lot of my source material will be opinion pieces only tangentially tied to facts. I'm not sure if it would make me crazy, though, as my first forays in to Lit Crit seemed like a lot of balfflegab and argument from assertion.

I would definitely recommend taking classes outside your discipline, schedule permitting. It's a great way to see your own discipline from a different perspective, and you might also discover what not to do. A Lit Crit class could be good or bad; it would mainly depend on the prof and your peers imo.

Alternatively, you could read Absalom, Absalom! and call it a day.

I think I got called a ruffian! I always wanted to be a ruffian.

Martin Harris's Book

I may have already mentioned itt, but wanted to pass along info on Martin Harris upcoming Poker and Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America's Favorite Card Game. Martin is a veteran live reporter and a scholar of the game; he's one of the good guys, and I'm sure his book will be a great read.

https://dandbpoker.com/magazine/anno...er-pop-culture

confirmed ruffian!

An Oral History of Rounders

https://www.theringer.com/movies/201...n-david-levien

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from the piece.

Damon: It felt like, “****, this is cool. This is a whole world.” It was this subculture that I didn’t know existed.

Levien: We didn’t openly start pulling out notes. But occasionally if I would go out of a hand, I would scribble something down under the table because I didn’t want to miss it. And it was an amazing time. It was a time when if you read Doyle Brunson’s Super System and How to Play Winning Poker and like two other books you had a huge edge, which was very fun. Now, I mean, if that’s all you’ve read, that’s just enough to get you completely destroyed.

Levien: We didn’t want to explain language and dialogue. We thought [voice-over] would be a perfect tool because it’s very internal. These guys are sitting there looking at each other thinking. You can’t see the cards. We needed a way to open up what their thought process was.

John Dahl (director): I’m not a card player but I love sports movies. I read the script and I said, “This is kind of like a sports movie but it’s with cards.” I knew nothing about cards. To me, playing cards was getting a box of pizza, having some drinks, and smoking cigars with my brother and his friends, and losing 40 bucks playing poker. The fact that there was this whole inside world, I found really fascinating.

Dahl: I loved the fact that it was so inside poker. I remember some of the conversations with Miramax. “We can’t use some of this language because nobody’s gonna understand it.” And my argument to them was, “When you do a medical show, you don’t dumb down the language so that everybody understands what’s happening in an operating room.”

Norton: I remember laughing at the line, when I read the script, Worm says, “What did I ever do to that guy?” And Matt’s character says, “You ****ed his mother.” And he goes, “Well, she was a good-looking older woman.” I remember reading it and I was like, “I’m in. That’s it. I’m doing it.” There’ve been many scripts that I’ve done because of one line in it.

Norton: [I saw] John do a couple of takes where his accent was like way off. Way off! And having me and Matt kind of look at each other, like, “Is he ****ing around or what?” And then having him look over at us and kind of bump his eyes like, “Oh yeah, I suck sometimes.” You know what I mean?

Soooo...Rounders 2?

September Results, October Goals



[81] Play 100 hours
[92] Write 60 hours
[] Inculcate mulish tyros with the notion that the purpose of good writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity

I've been collecting some images for a talk involving the anti-aging movement (what's that? you didn't know that we're gonna live forever or at least till one fiddy?)

Robot Davinci

Tithonus

Life Goals

Guaranteed to Trim Ten Years off Your Life!

October Goals

[ ] Play 100 hours
[ ] Write 60 hours
[ ] Pet a moose

We need 408 hours by Jan 1 to hit our yearly poker volume goals; I'm comfortably ahead of pace on writing volume.

Dafuq is on that chip?

Poker Faces in the Crowd: Katie Pansano

I interviewed Katie Pansano, a gambling-loving grandmother who grew up in an historic Nola neighborhood. We discussed writing, growing up poor in New Orleans, and how she busted out of the $365 Monster Stack tournament at the Million Dollar Heater..

Lucky Dogs ketchup and mangled hope?

Nice read.

Interesting in that it's at least the second time you've interviewed a woman player who feels they are mostly preyed upon poker-wise at the table, and yet from an outside perspective (from an old white man, totally objective, lol) it kinda seems the opposite is more likely to happen (if anything at all).

Makes you wonder how accurate everyone's views of themselves and how people are reacting to them are (including my own).

G100%OMCnitimage...Ithink?G

Thanks GG!

It does indeed. I’ve talked to a bunch of female players who feel this way, although I can’t say I’ve drawn conclusions about whether they’re “bullied” at the table more than anyone else. There are just so many counterexamples and competing factors involved.

What varies, among these women, is how they respond to being a perceived target. Just as you exploit your perceived OMC nittiness by relentlessly overbluffing—amirite?—stronger female players find ways to punish their opponents’ aggression.

Maria Konnikova spoke on this subject not too long ago in a NYT interview, and I’m eager to see how she tackles these topics in her book. She was asked: If poker is an analog to real life, does it help or hurt to be a woman?

Lol!

Two sessions ago I'm putting in a 12 hour session at my 1/3 NL table. I haven't won a hand in like ~6 hours, but of course I hadn't played one either, so, yeah. I go on a bit of a rush at the 11.5 hour mark, and take down 2 pots in an orbit preflop with untabled QQ/AA. Whoop, I'm actually even for the day at this point! Then pick up KK. I 3bet preflop, and the caller caught in between decides this is a good time to flex his FE and jam his $120 stack over my $50 3bet with QTo. Into. Me. I don't have my shirt tucked in, maybe I should tuck in my shirt?

Yesterday's session. Tuesday. I haven't played a hand since Sunday, but I've been at the table for 4 hours. Keep getting junk like JJ and folding them preflop, obviously. A Button straddle, both blinds limp, I limp KK cuz, obviously. Limps around to straddle, he raises, is flatted by both blinds, I make it $140, straddle folds, the SB shoves $160, and the BB flats. With T high. The BB flats this action I created with T high. He's got $160 behind, so understandable.

I'm kinda convinced image means absolutely nothing in a lot of games. Either that or I have no comprehension whatsoever of what my image is.

Just as applicable to women players, or any other group, imo.

GcluelessimagenoobG

Only a few steps remain for you to reach legendary OMC-nit status at the tables:

1. Wear a teeshirt with an image of your face and the caption, Image is Meaningless
2. Buyin for min
3. Limp-jam AA. Fold all else pre
4. (Optional) if ur in Nola, complete steps 1-3 while munching on a Lucky Dog!

The Movie Assassin, Leonard Cohen, Narratives are Harmful

"The Movie Assassin: How The English Patient almost ruined my life," by Sarah Miller

An interesting interview with Leonard Cohen's son came out a few days ago. I don't know much about Cohen, aside from his song "Hallelujah," of course. Any favorite albums come to mind?

In How History Gets Things Wrong: The Neuroscience of Our Addiction to Stories, Alex Rosenberg doesn't deny that stories can be wonderful as art and effective at eliciting emotions that then push action. But, Rosenberg tells The Verge, stories also lull us into a false sense of knowledge and fundamentally limit our understanding of the world.

Leonard Cohen is perhaps the singer I have the most respect for without listening to his tunes very often (I would recommend watching some live shows). While the fellow is from Montreal, he is rarely seen as representing La Belle Province, for some reason... Part of it is that he is English (and thus does not represent the French culture) and because his art transcends a specific culture/location, me thinks.

I guess that the lure for Cohen in my case, lies in the story of the man (perhaps moreso than the artist himself) : he struggled mightily with depression and it was only with the help of Buddhist meditation that he overcame is existential angst. Which I can relate to.

His books might be something to look into as well. While I have never read any, I did watch a film (inspired by a novel of Cohen) which deeply enthralled me (I think this was 20 years and I again could relate to the romantic/existential appeal of the narrative).

A last note : like many others from the 90s, it is the movie Natural Born Killers that introduced to me Leonard with the song The Future ; epic song as they come

^^^
Three very interesting pieces Ben, thanks for linking them.

As usual your thread gives me the feeling I'm not totally wasting the time I spend on 2+2.

While I was reading the first article you linked, I couldn't get the idea of a slightly more vulgar Elaine Benes out of my head, and that perhaps the writers of Seinfeld had some interaction Sarah Miller around that time. However, I guess it could just be that many people felt similarly about the English Patient, but didn't have the platform or gravitas to speak honestly about it.

Thanks for sharing!

Nice to see the Canadian content! I'd add that I also think the film of The English Patient is claptrap. But the novel is great.

And Cohen's early songs (such as "Suzanne," "Sisters of Mercy," "Hard Lovin' Loser," and "That's No Way to Say Goodbye") had a powerful effect on me in my twenties--perhaps life changing. It was one of the interesting sidelights of the years that I worked for his Canadian publisher (McClelland and Stewart) that I met him twice (very briefly) and that he once called me at home. I was out but my then-teenaged daughter answered and told her friends for weeks that she had spoken to Leonard Cohen!

I saw four of his concerts in Toronto--he had by then become a great performer. Of his albums, many are exceptional, but I prefer the later ones, after his voice gained its raspy tonalities: there are some great lyrics on I'm Your Man and The Future, and there's interesting work on everything that came after. If I were to select my funeral music it would be You Want It Darker--some of which he recorded as he lay dying in a hospital bed.

His books of poetry are quite good, but unless you're reading for historical reasons, I'd suggest taking a pass on his two novels. The Favourite Game is pleasant but very indebted to the early Philip Roth. Beautiful Losers was a success de scandale in its day and while it still has some power it hasn't aged well.

Thanks for the insight, Dubn. I didn't know any of this. I'm definitely drawn more to Cohen's lyrics and philosophy than his voice—sorta like Dylan, although I've never found his voice as grating as others do—but maybe this will change as I listen more.

I'm currently listening to some Cohen on YouTube and the first comment I read is pretty amusing:




We must both fight the good fight and not *totally* waste time on 2+2

As I read that essay I kept wondering when Miller would invoke the Seinfeld English Patient episode. The fact that she didn't is probably meaningful in some way: is it better to point to the elephant in the room or ignore it? Maybe it's best that she didn't. Dwelling too much on the film might have distracted from her discussion of fraud and integrity, which seem to be the essay's most important points and which I find really interesting.

The time has come to confess that I haven't seen The English Patient. (I have, however, seen every Seinfeld episode including the episode that Zombie mentioned above...oh yeah!)

Miller's essay makes me want to see the film. It sounds terrible.

I'm listening to "Suzanne" now and realize that I do recognize it, and will probably recognize others. Great song. Thanks for the album recs, I'll checkem out.

Um...Cohen called you at home? There has to be a story there—do tell

The Little Red Book of Gambling Wisdom, edited by Paul Lyons (2012)



The Little Red Book is a wide-ranging compilation of quotes on gambling. By "wide-ranging" I mean from Plato to Voltaire to Melville to to Barthelme to Brunson; it's that comprehensive. For readers interested in gambling—or a particular game like poker, pool, horse racing, or the slots—the book is a kind of gateway that might lead to deeper exploration. Here are a few quotes that jumped out to me, along with some books that might be worth exploring later. Seems appropriate to start with Canada's Bob Dylan

***

Games are nature’s most beautiful creation. All animals play games, and the true messianic vision of the brotherhood of creatures must be based on the idea of the game.

—Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers (1966)

Looking for where the action is, one arrives at a romantic division of the world. On one side are the safe and silent spaces, the home, the well-regulated roles in business, industry and the professions; on the other are all those activities that generate expression, requiring the individual to lay himself on the line and place himself in jeopardy during a passing moment.

—Irving Goffman, Where the Action Is (1967)

A number of moralists condemn lotteries and refuse to see anything noble in the passion of the ordinary man. They judge gambling as some atheists judge religion, by its excesses.

—Charles Lamb, Essays of Elia (1812)

It is not absurd to try diagnosing a civilization in terms of the games that are especially popular there.

—Roger Caillois, Man, Play, and Games (1979)

* Caillois argues that we can understand the complexity of games by referring to four play forms and two types of play:

Agon, or competition. E.g. Chess is an almost purely agonistic game.
Alea, or chance. E.g. Playing a slot machine is an almost purely aleatory game.
Mimicry, or mimesis, or role playing.
Ilinx (Greek for "whirlpool"), or vertigo, in the sense of altering perception.

*Poker features both alea, the random shuffling of cards, and agon, the strategic decisions of discarding cards and betting.

***

For the true gambler, money is never an end in itself. It’s a tool, as language is to thought.

—Lancy in The Cincinnati Kid (1965).

It is said that the Earl of Sandwich invented the most common item of food that bears his name so that he could manage to eat without leaving the gaming table.

—Lyn Barrow, Compulsion (1969)

Can one even as much as touch a gaming table without becoming immediately infected with superstition?

—Dostoevsky, The Gambler (1866)

The cards knew about his wish and deliberately gave him bad hands to irritate him. He pretended that he was quite indifferent to his hands and tried turning up the box as long as possible. On the rare occasion he could deceive his cards this way, but usually they guessed and, when he did resort to opening the box, three sixes grinned at him and the king of spades, brought along for company, smiled sullenly.

—Leonid Andreev, The Grand Slam (1899)

At gambling, the deadly sin is to mistake bad play for bad luck.

—Ian Fleming, Casino Royale (1953)

We do not what we ought;
What we ought not, we do;
And lean upon the thought
That chance will bring us through

—Matthew Arnold, "Empedocles on Etna" (1852)

His hands became nervous when he picks up the card, exactly as if he were holding live birds instead of inanimate pieces of cardboard.

—Maxim Gorky, describing Tolstoy at cards.

A man who can play delightfully on a guitar and keep a knife in his boot would make an excellent poker player.

—WJ Florence, Handbook on Poker, 1891

Good high-stakes poker players are neither noble nor greedy. They've sized up their fellow players, know a good deal about probabilities and tendencies, and wish like poets that their most audacious moves be perceived as part of a series of credible gestures.

—Stephen Dunn. Stephen Dunn, "Gambling: Remembrances and Assertions" (in Walking Light, 1990)

***

David Spanier, Easy Money: Inside the Gambler's Mind (1998)
John McDonald, Strategy in Poker, Business, and War (1950)
Paul Auster, The Music of Chance (1990)
Timothy O’Brien, Bad Bet : The Inside Story of the Glamour, Glitz, and Danger of America's Gambling Industry (1998)

I'm gonna assume that this is NOT the same Tim O'Brien who published this 2015 gem

Bret Harte, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," 1870
John Lukacs, Poker and American Character
Edmund Berger, The Psychology of Gambling (1958)
Rex Jones, The Railbird (1984)
John Grissim, Billiards: Hustlers & Heroes, Legends & Lies, and the Search for Higher Truth on the Green Felt (1979)
David McCumber, Playing Off the Rail: A Pool Hustler's Journey(1996)