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From Perfectly Reasonable comes a story about a poker playing physicist.

It’s not an entirely mathematical game. It’s not solvable by a computer, and there’s not an exactly perfect model. It’s based on an infinite number of variables. It’s not just the odds of having the best hand, drawing the best hand, the size of the pot, or other numerical factors. There are non-numerical elements such as, “Did that guy just get beat really bad his last hand?” or “Did he just get into a fight with his girlfriend? Maybe he’s aggressive now, and prone to making dumb plays.” There are so many things on display during the game that you have to be watching and thinking about. Playing good poker is half art and half science.

I have to agree. Math only takes you so far in the game. Although if you don’t have a basic understanding of the math I don’t think the art half is going to make up the difference. So maybe instead of 50/50 I would put it at 33/66?

On High Stakes Poker Barry Greenstein said “LOL Donkaments” after winning a big hand. Because of that lots of lots of fellow poker players are giving money to one of Barry’s favorite charities - Children, Inc.
Link to 2+2.

Nice hand, well played…

BARGE 2006 Trip Report

Flew in. Arms tired. David Brenner and everything on the airport tram. Nice guy.

Upset locals at Imperial Palace. Room ready. Wash face. Head to the Venetian.

Lazy pineapple. Quartered, quartered, quartered and never hit high draw. Three winning hands and down half the stack. Next please.

Paris in the morning. Cards in the air. Coffee cups don’t fit in the cup holders.

Lobah Sabyl straddles, calls re-raise, draws five. Oh my. I didn’t read the chapter on how to play $20 bets from Chen. Goodbye.

Venetian in the morning. Post early. Play a single hand. Five people get up. The last person sitting looks at me and leaves too. Maybe I shouldn’t of raised? Or was it the badge?

Being a morning person in Vegas is no fun.

Twenty seven hands, no aces, no pairs, no suited connectors and no wins. I let Team Jam down.

Sushi. Sake. Win over/under second year in a row. My only positive EVevent.

Aces don’t improve. Kings up let me down. Flushes become pale. Straights become crooked. I want them to call those hands but why do the poker gods reward them? Sake before stud is not a good idea.

Let’s buy some players. Let’s buy back ourselves. (Ahead at end, who could have known?) How did this “Mr. Joseph” thing start anyway?

TOC goes well. Survive Gavin at my right. “If five four suited cannot beat Ace-Ten my game is shot to hell.” Survive Sabyl at my right but not by much. Final two tables. What do you mean only nine pay? Go on tilt. Go home early. Rather go out raising then wait for killer blinds.

Dealer shows five. Stuck at fourteen. There are no face cards left in the deck. Hit it! Stay at twenty. Dealer still makes twenty one. A shuffle and half a deck later dealer shows ace. Nothing but face cards. Buy insurance? No? Told you so. Still up. Let’s walk away. Never seen counts so extreme. Still have no clue what switching top cards, only paying one to one and dealers pushing at twenty two do to basic strategy. It cannot be good.

Lose no-limit race as Ace falls on flop. At least it was quick and painless. Time for Chinese poker. Never played before? Sure we will have a fun game at a dollar a point. Split the pairs in the middle please – or not.

No poker for you at the dinner table. Sorry. Don’t you know who I am? Good job Phil but you still owe us a dollar for the longest running bad beat story at BARGE.

Oh there are two Aces in the middle. Kings full no good. No wonder Scottro said fold. When you cannot read a simple Chowaha board it is time to go. Still drop a rack – hopefully mostly in dealers buckets.

Time to leave. Somehow up just a little. Thanks Chuck. Thanks Peter. (Hope I never hear either of you called to a house phone five hours before starting time again.) Thanks everyone else.

Cograds to Sabyl’s finish at the WSOP. 56st place and the top woman player this year. A very very good run. Many fellow ARGers seem to be having a wonderful WSOP this year.

Pledge for Life

Bill Chen, one of the smartest people I have ever met and a fellow arger, is at the final table of the $3,000 Limit Texas Hold’em event at the WSOP. You can follow his progress here. I understand he took out Phil Hellmuth!

Cograds and best of luck at the final table!

I finished 202nd (out of over 2000) in the PokerStars Blogger tourney. I went all-in in the big blind with QQ and got called by Aces. PokerStars made sure there were no doubts about who should win by flopping another Ace for trips. Another Ace on the turn gave the other player quads and I was toast.

There were a couple of hands I wish I could of played over but over all I was happy with my play. It has been a while since I have had a chance to play in a hold’em tourney so I was clearly rusty.

The last live game I played was just a cash game. I wasn’t with it. Red Bull didn’t help. After winning a couple of hands early I didn’t win a hand the rest of the afternoon. After losing my buy in 3 times in a row in about 3 hours I left. Sometimes you just have to know when to walk away I guess. Went home and broke even for the day playing PLO.

Andrew spent about a year’s salary (I know he used to work for me) on a ring and actually proposed. She said yes. We are very very happy for the both of you.