Poker Blog - FreddieMays

I’ve been in Brazil ten days now and I can’t describe how fantastic it is. The national surfing championships are taking place on the beach ten minutes from where I am staying all this week and its about 35 degrees out there. I’ve clocked a lifetime four hours surfing now so I think I might get on a board and show these boys how it’s done.

Our party of twenty has now become five and when the last four leave tonight I will be all on my own - Billy no mates. Well that’s not strictly true – I’m staying in a villa which has staff whom I have got to know. But I am the last man standing out of our group. I can’t speak any of the lingo yet so I’m sure to feel a tad isolated. But when you see sights like the one in the picture I’m about to show you, I really couldn’t give a monkeys!

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Time flies so fast! It only seems yesterday that I was hitting the “send” button for last week’s column and now I’m writing another one. I’ve been so busy it’s as if I literally haven’t had time to think in the intervening week.

There’s a reason for that – I’ve spent practically the whole week travelling. Planes trains, buses, tubes, taxis – you name it. After visiting a friend in York last week I made what was supposed to be a two hour trip down to London on Sunday evening. Well it would have been a two hour trip if we hadn’t got stuck right behind a train about 25 miles from our destination which had broken down because of a lack of power. We were too near to switch tracks and reversing wasn’t an option.

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I’m going to tell you about a hand I played in a $100 tournament in Las Vegas which didn’t quite work out. I remember it now because I just heard about another hand played recently by a famous player in the European WSOP which ended in glorious failure.  I think there is a lesson to be learned from both of these hands.

First of all, here’s my hand from the summer of 2008. Like I said, it happened in a $100 tournament in Las Vegas, in Binions Horseshoe. It was about 45 minutes in and I hadn’t got any cards at all so I’d just been folding for the most part and had a tight image. I had about 2200 chips from a starting stack of 2500 and the blinds were 50-100

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I heard a funny one the other day: my girlfriend is so fat that when she fell down the stairs last night I thought Eastenders was starting.

We’ll be getting on to Eastenders soon enough but I shall begin with a couple of poker anecdotes which I heard about this week.  Poker players love prop bets and challenges and this week I learned of two unusual ones.  The first one involves three poker playing mates - Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith, and Jeff Madsen. 

The bet is a form of “last longer” bet that poker players sometimes do in tournaments. The tournament in question is the 2010 LA Poker Classic and the losers of this bet will have to get a tattoo. It gets worse. The first person to bust out will have to get the faces of the remaining two players tattooed on his body (I don’t know exactly which body part). The second person to bust will only have to get the remaining player’s face tattooed, and of course, the one who wins the bet comes out of it unscathed.

So the three of them will each have a pretty much 66% chance that he will end up with a tattoo of at least one man’s face on his body. He could get AA cracked by KK on the very first hand of the tournament and because of that have a tattoo of two blokes’ faces on his back for life. The lucky winner won’t get a tattoo of a man on his body. (And that, as far as I can see, is the only upside, unless you are weird enough to consider “upside” to mean seeing your own face tattooed on another man’s body). 

Can you imagine in the year 2045 when Joe Sebok is sitting at the pool with a Jeff Madsen tattoo on his arm and his grandchildren ask:

“Hey Granpa Sebok, who’s that guy you got tattooed on your arm? Was he famous, did he play baseball? Was he the President or something?”

“No kids. It’s Jeff Madsen, a bloke who won some poker tournaments at the turn of the century”.

“You prick Grandad”

“Yep”

But it has potential to get worse, much worse, in fact nightmarishly worse.  Let’s say for argument’s sake that you did that bet with a young Gary Glitter, a man so hated that record shops removed his albums from stock out of disgust for him. Imagine what would happen to you if you walked into the Bricklayers Arms with a tattoo of Glitter on your neck? It might seem OK doing these things on the spur of the moment but you just never know what the future has in store when you get a geezer’s face tattooed on your body. 

I think that to spice this bet up a bit they should stipulate that the first man out should have the tattoo done on a different body part according to what hand he was beaten with. The unluckier the demise, the more prominent the body part should be. So if you got one pair beaten by two pair, no dramas there -  have it done on the sole of your foot. But if you got three of a kind beaten by a full house, well you have to have it done on your chest. And so on. 

They could also stipulate that the earlier you got knocked out in the tournament the bigger the tattoo had to be.  So if you did well, made the final table but your mate did even better, it could be the size of a stamp. But if you go out on the third level, you have to get a photograph sized tattoo done. 

This could get dangerous. Imagine you are Joe Sebok and you get a straight flush turned over by a Royal Flush on the first hand. Subsequently, many years later Jeff Madsen does an Ian Huntley, while all the time you’ve got a massive tattoo on his grinning mug on your forehead?

See the dangers…?

But that would teach him for making such a rubbish bet!  I understand that Joe Sebok wants to back out and I don’t blame him. Besides, this will affect their performances in the tournament. If I was playing against them and I had more chips than them I would stick them all in whenever I fancied. Would they be happy calling with pocket 10s preflop? Percentages would go out the window when they are facing the tattooist.

The second challenge was issued a while back but it only recently aired on ESPN. It was made by Antonio Esfandiari to Phil Hellmuth and it happened during the European WSOP after Esfandiari knocked Hellmuth out.  Hellmuth held J-8 against Esfandiari’s Q-J and he called all-in on a board of 8-10-Q-10-10. Despite having a worse hand before the flop, on the flop, on the turn and on the river, Hellmuth threw his toys out of the pram and whinged: “How the f**k do you get so lucky and hit a 10 so you can move in there?” He then bitched and moaned, in typical Hellmuth style and so Esfandiari offered to play him heads up for $100’000. Nothing new here – a lot of Hellmuth’s outbursts end with a challenge to play for money and it is at this point that he usually bottles it and pipes up. But this challenge had an interesting twist: the winner would also shoot the loser with a taser gun.

Now that would be funny to watch. I don’t know if Hellmuth accepted but I presume he did not. Maybe he should accept and use it as publicity for his book “Kill Phil”.

Anyway, on to the big news of the weekend: tonight Eastenders celebrates its 25th birthday. That’s 25 years of bleakness, misery and depression. But I am being harsh here. I cannot seriously disparage a programme which has brought us Frank Butcher, Nick Cotton and the king of the web-cam – old finger licking Dirty Den.

I confess - I have been watching Eastenders lately.  Having not watched it for years I started tuning in again for the sole reason that Phil Mitchell had lapsed back into alcoholism. Phil Mitchell, it must be said, is the greatest piss artist in the world*.  And in the spring of 2009 he provided all sorts of amusement when he fell off the wagon. Much to my chagrin, he climbed back on but it was too late by then. I had started watching again and the scriptwriters’ cunning plan to get the viewers back had worked.

* remember the cake at his son’s birthday party? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkSskKycyA

The producers are getting quite excited about this 25 years malarkey. Recently they have even had a countdown of the top 100 “duff duff” moments (for “duff duff” read “endings” if you don’t watch Eastenders).  If you were watching Eastenders last night you will have seen an hour long special where there were two weddings -  Ricky & Bianca and Bradley & Stacey. Ah, isn’t that sweet…

Well no, actually. Eastenders is getting so far-fetched, I thought. Two gingers getting married on the same day? Come off it, what is the chances of that happening in real life? And another thing, everyone knows that gingers turn milk sour, so why would the BBC’s Health & Safety department risk two in the same area at once, let alone on screen together? That sort of irresponsibility could lead to a whole herd of cows dying. Plus it’s the other actors I feel sorry for - two gingers - the smell of piss must have been terrible - like a CS gas cannister going off in a mini. Shocking.

Just kidding.

Anyway, in tonight’s episode they will be revealing who murdered Archie Mitchell on Christmas Day. And it will be filmed live! It should be interesting. If an actor is in one scene in the Queen Vic and then has to be in the Square, he will have to leg it out there to make his scene on time.  So I will be watching keenly to see if Phil Mitchell has any beads of sweat on his forehead when he appears in scenes close together. Now I admit I have been following but I really have no idea who battered Archie to death with the bust of Queen Victoria that sits on the bar.  So many characters had a good motive that I just can’t pick the murderer. So I have a very open book on “Who Dunnit”. 

Jack Branning – 7/2
Ronnie Mitchell – 4/1
Peggy Mitchell – 4/1
Bradley Branning – 5/1
Janine Butcher – 6/1
Phil Mitchell – 10/1
Stacy Branning – 10/1
Ryan Malloy – 12/1
Ian Beale – 16/1
Sam Mitchell - 16/1
Jean Slater – 25/1
Max Branning – 50/1
Roxy Mitchell – 50/1
Billy Mitchell – 50/1
Lucas Johnson (for his hatrick) – 100/1
Pat Butcher – 100/1
Minty – 100/1
Minty’s ex-missus – 500/1
Minty’s ex-missus son (the one in the wheelchair) – 1000/1
Patrick Trueman – 1000/1
Nick Cotton -  1000/1
Dotty Cotton – 2000/1
Dot Cotton – 5000/1
Tiffany Butcher – 10000/1

I’ve got Peggy in a bit shorter than I would because I know she leaves the show for good but as I said it was Jack right from the start I will be sticking with him as my tip. 

Just as importantly though I will be watching to see which actors lose their bottle and fluff their lines, or fall over or something.  If the actors’ characters were anything to go by I would make snivelling Ian Beale my favourite to fluff his lines. But to be fair, he has been in the programme for 25 years and is probably quite good at remembering scripts. But you never know.

Better still, Robbie (Dean Gaffney) has put in cameo appearances in the last couple of episodes. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Gaffney sprinted out of the Queen Vic in a rush and smashed his handsomely chiselled face onto the kerb?

Now that would definitely be a top 100 duff-duff moment.

Oi Terry, get back to work!

That’s what I’d be saying if I was a Chelsea fan (and let’s get it right, it would take some incredible stretch of the imagination for that to ever happen).   

John Terry was granted “compassionate leave” this week after getting the team bike up the spout and the story became public after he failed to suppress it in the courts. So tomorrow, when his team mates are playing Cardiff in the FA Cup 5th round he will be in Dubai begging forgiveness from his missus. Who said the romance of the Cup is dead?

I wish I could get compassionate leave for being a complete oaf.

“Sorry boss, I got into a bit of a punch up at the weekend and I’m in the nick. You know what I’m like when I have a drink.  Could I take the week off as compassionate leave?”

 “Ho ho, sure things Freddie, you haven’t had any compassionate leave since that hit and run accident you caused last year”.

Actually that reminds me of a true story, friend of a friend and all that. One Christmas after a heavy duty work party this drunken bloke and his equally slaughtered boss went for a spin in his boss’s new Porsche, stacking it almost immediately. His feet didn’t touch the ground. After a night in the cells he was straight in court and the judge, who didn’t take too kindly to a couple of pissed up City boys crashing their flash motor, sent him to prison for three weeks. It actually turned out OK for him though. His boss felt guilty because he had encouraged him to do the driving and he told all his colleagues that he was taking a Christmas and New Years holiday for three weeks. Which is stretching the truth to its absolute limit I suppose!

I can just imagine his return to work. Nice holiday? Yeah, magic. Got any photos? Erm..

Speaking of accidents, if ever there was an injury destined to happen to a player, it was surely Ashley Cole’s on Wednesday. His fractured ankle means England are short of a left back for the World Cup, meaning that John Terry will likely be reunited with his old team mate and formerly good friend Wayne Bridge (whose ex missus is the aforementioned bike…. well you know the story by now).

That means we can expect to see scenes like this again after England bottle it in another penalty shoot out:

Terry: ‘What a shit couple of years. Mum’s a thief. Dad’s a drug dealer. Missed the decisive penalty in a Champions League final and the tabloids are all over me for my off field behaviour’

Bridge : ‘Count yourself lucky mate…..I’ve just found out my missus has got the clap’

On the poker front I saw something this week that made me laugh:

A professional poker player and award-winning songwriter, Jason Mershon, has come up with a unique and ambitious plan to promote his new poker song called “Playin’ Poker for a Livin’.” In what is believed to be the first offering of its kind, Mershon is planning on entering the 2010 Main Event at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this summer, and is agreeing to share 50% of any Final Table winnings with the first 15,000 people who download and purchase his song at his website: (oh there’s no link because I’ve taken it away ha ha)

“It’s just my way of saying ‘thank you’ to those fans who like my new song,” says Mershon.

And my way of “saying thank you” for your generous offer was to remove the link to your website. Muhahaha. Notice he is proposing to share “50% of any Final Table winnings”. Which means he will only have to beat around 7000 players for your 1/15000th of his 50% to materialise into hard cash. Sounds like a blinding opportunity.

I wonder what makes him think he can make the final table? Well, let’s hear what Jason has to say: “I’ve won dozens of smaller poker tournaments in California and Las Vegas, so I figure it’s time to ‘go for the gold’ at the World Series of Poker.”

Figuring that he is “going for the gold” is the clincher for me. If he figures there is gold to go for, then I am sold. I’m sold on gold. Where’s that link gone? Jason I’m going to buy your song TWICE now, I can feel the gold rush!

Remember when the lottery was still a novelty and people used to say “if I won the lottery I’d give you X%” as if that was supposed to make them your best mate? What Jason’s doing is a bit like that. Of course you were supposed to respond with the same futile pledge whenever you were the beneficiary of such a great offer. But the cynic in me says that there’s a more sinister aspect to all this. If they made this “offer” to 500 people, maybe one day one of them might win, whereupon they could gently remind them of their former “promise” (which they had essentially forced upon them). 

That might sound harsh. I mean, on the face of it, what could be possibly bad about promising to give someone some money in the 1 in 14 million chance they got lucky? It’s a pointless gesture granted, but surely there’s no way it could be construed in the wrong way? Surely no-one could give them stick for it?

I did. 

I used to quite enjoy telling people that I wouldn’t share any of my winnings with them. “I don’t play the lottery and I never will”, I’d tell them, so there would be no winnings to share and so forth.  “But you like to gamble” they would say. “Ah” I would reply “I like to bet but I won’t take bad value. There’s a big difference”. A discussion about bad value and betting would then take place. I say “discussion” but most of the time they weren’t contributing and probably not even listening because they just weren’t interested.

So I’d take to just telling them I wouldn’t share any winnings with them full stop and not bother to explain why. Sorry pal, you wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain why it’s an awful bet so we’ll just leave it at “I wouldn’t give you the skids from my pants”. Harsh? Oh sod ‘em. The type of person who says “I’d share my lottery win with you” is completely disingenuous anyway. You just know they are exactly the type of person who would claim anonymity if they did win but should you happen to scoop it they’d hanker around you forever like some godforsaken ponce.

Anyway, we all know there’s no value on the Lottery – the real value is on Amazon. Last week I ordered a load of poker books and DVDs from Amazon because I discovered you could buy stuff under the “new and used” sections for virtually nothing (I am exceptionally slow on the uptake when it comes to online shopping). I ended up buying about 10 items and with some of them the packaging cost more than the item! For example I got the film Rounders on DVD (new) for £1.88, which is Matt Damon’s finest hour for sure, barring his role in Team America http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWTzyU5MFgM

Some of the prices were just ridiculous - they had to be for me to buy this next one -  and so just for a laugh I bought a DVD called “Win at Poker with Phil Tuffnell”.  Remember Tuffer’s “Happy Days” catchphrase from the finance adverts he used to do? Isn’t it funny how you don’t see those adverts since the credit crunch? See, a recession doesn’t have to all bad news.

Anyway, I paid 57 pence for this DVD. But I can’t tell you if it was good value or not because I got so sick of the sight of Tuffers I switched it off after two minutes. The DVD starts off with Phil being a right geezer in his shades and blathering on about this and that. One of the special guests in the DVD was the “Devilfish” Dave Ulliott and Tuffers says “we’ll be speaking to Dave Elliott”.

At that point I just switched off. I figured if no-one could be bothered to correct an error as big as calling your special guest “Elliott” when his name is the incredibly rare “Ulliott” then there was no telling what sort of rubbish the rest of the DVD had in store. So I can’t confirm just yet whether the DVD is worth 57p.

Now I have to admit here, having just criticised the “Cat” for mis-pronouncing Dave Ulliott’s name I realised I didn’t know whether Ulliott was spelt with one or two “t”s. So I went and looked it up on Google and took a ganders at the Wikipedia link that came up first on the search. It’s a great read but in particular there is one classic quip from the Devilfish at the end that I had to share with you:

Ulliott took £10,000 with him on the trip, and was around even, until he entered the $500 pot limit Omaha event of the 1997 Four Queens Poker Classic. When the event reached the heads-up stage, numerous Vietnamese-American followers of Men Nguyen supported him by cheering “Go on the Master” at him. In response, Whitaker cheered Ulliott on by cheering “Go on the Devilfish.” Ulliott reduced Nguyen’s stack to one chip, and the tournament director insisted upon still taking a one-hour scheduled break, over Nguyen’s protests. Ulliott turned to Nguyen and said, “We’re taking the break, and in all fairness to you, I think you should go upstairs and think about your tactics.”

What a legend!

The schedule for the 2010 World Series of Poker was announced in December and not long after that, the “official rules of the WSOP” were released.  I won’t go into details of the playing schedule here - I only mention it because there is a controversial rule which caught my eye. From 2010, players will be allowed to use their mobile phones to text and twitter messages while they are at the table.

Has it really come to this?

OK, so the rule states you must be out of the hand with your cards lying in the muck before you can start twittering or texting. But that’s not the point. It’s rude to sit at a table full of people texting away on your phone. It’s rude for the same reason it’s rude to do it at the dinner table, or when meeting the President of the United States or when stood in the dock at the Old Bailey while being addressed by the judge. If you absolutely have to send a message, get up, leave the table and do it. But since when did anyone absolutely ever have to “twitter”? That is why this rule is being introduced by the way – so legions of morons can share with their legions of “followers” (micro-morons) whatever inconsequential and insignificant things are happening in their lives. 

So for what it’s worth I think it is a bullshit rule. What annoys me even more is that when I read the article reporting the story it didn’t say immediately afterwards that there had been universal howls of disapproval at the proposal. Presumably twittering is so important to some people that they have actively lobbied for this rule and the journalists, many of whom use Twitter “output” in their work, no doubt think it’s great. 

So in the 2010 WSOP you could conceivably get a table where everyone is wearing hoodies, shades and headphones and twittering on their mobiles the whole time so that no-one actually addresses anyone else during play. It’s not impossible that the micro-morons they are tweeting might actually be sat at the same table as them, in which case they could tweet back and avoid the need for real life communication entirely.

Is that what the organizers want? Tables of players with their heads buried in the mobiles tweeting stuff like:

“At the WSOP baby….. still a dickhead!”.

Sorry I should use the correct terminology and say “heads buried in their cell phones”. Because this is an American rule. And they can keep it. It will be a sad day if this ever catches on here. 

There’s a good argument that mobile devices should be banned at the table because they could be used for cheating, whether the person has folded his hand or not. And even if you don’t suspect the moron to be actually cheating it’s a legitimate reason to ban it at the table and admonish him. 

Bah Humbug. Maybe I’m getting old. 

Speaking of old, I thought I’d mention Doyle Brunson. Now he really is old - 76 in fact, and rather topically he likes to use Twitter. But I couldn’t help but take issue with something he said recently. After a trip to London Doyle had this to say:

 “Got back from London and it was the same, overcast and cold. I simply can’t find food there that I would give to Casper my dog. What’s wrong.”

Well the “overcast and cold” bit I can give him but I have to take issue with his complaints about the food. There are many, many thousands of restaurants in London and they can’t all be bad. Especially if you have got a few quid, which Doyle certainly has.  I find Doyle’s complaint about food interesting because it is a complaint I heard from another American when I was last in Las Vegas. He was about 25 stone as well.

Like I say, if you’re as rich as Doyle you shouldn’t have cause to grumble about the quality of the food in the capital. There are 48 Michelin starred restaurants in London, of which 39 have one star, 7 have two stars and 2 have three stars. I thought I’d share that with you as I just looked it up. (If you are wondering, as I’m sure you all were, about there being TWO restaurants with three Michelin Stars in London, the second is Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester, Mayfair. He got his three star award a coule of weeks ago, in January 2010. Gordon Ramsey, previously the only holder of the 3 star award in London, must be gutted, the poor old “ex-pro” footballer and poppers sniffing adulterer). 

So when he asks “what’s wrong” I respectively suggest that the answer is “it’s you Doyle”.  Besides - we’ve got McDonalds here – what is he complaining about?

Talking of golden oldies, TJ Cloutier has been in the news recently and the news isn’t good for him financially. He appears to have gone broke. 

Before I mention his bad financial luck I ought to say a bit about TJ Cloutier. In his poker career and 71 years on this earth TJ Cloutier has won 6 WSOP bracelets, $9 million in tournament winnings and God knows how much in cash games. He is part of Poker’s Hall of Fame and he is widely regarded as the best player never to have won the main event at the WSOP. He came 2nd in 1985 and 2000, 5th in 1988 and 3rd in 1998.  You might think of him as the Jimmy White of poker.

Surely the 2000 event was the cruellest. In that match he was heads up with about one tenth of the chips in play against Chris “Jesus” Ferguson but fought his way to almost level. In the final hand he had AQ against Ferguson’s A9 and they got it all in preflop. Ferguson, tired of being outplayed, decided to gamble in the hope he might end it all. It was a bad call.

In fact you can watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbV7Bgy0r7A

There is so much to like about this clip, especially TJ smoking at the table and the dramatic saxophone music at 58 seconds. And doesn’t TJ look like Fabio Capello? In fact I imagine that’s exactly what Capello would look like right this minute if he didn’t dye his hair black (he must do right – he’s in his 60s?).  It’s hard to believe this piece of film is only 10 years old - it’s more like something from the 1980s or even earlier!

Incidentally TJ Cloutier is also the owner of the most mis-pronounced surname in poker. (It’s Cloo-dier and I was told that by a girl in Las Vegas who had personally asked him so I won’t be having any arguments on this).

Anyway, during January, two of TJ Cloutier’s bracelets, including his 2005 WSOP $5000 No Limit Hold em event bracelet, appeared on eBay.  After being tracked down TJ admitted they were his bracelets and that he had pawned them. It wasn’t him who put the bracelets on eBay but the pawnbroker. He was quoted as saying

‘I don’t want to talk about it…yeah it’s mine…I was short…I pawned it….

For the record, the bracelet sold for $4006, which is a pretty paltry amount given his legendary status in the game and also considering its intrinsic worth.  According to Poker News Daily’s calculations:

“With its 96 grams (3.38 ounces) of 14 carat gold (58% gold, with 24 carats being solid gold) and 0.25 carats in diamonds, the cash value of the bracelet is roughly $2,350.”

TJ wouldn’t have got anything like $4006 from the pawnbroker though. However, there was a happy ending. The bracelet was sold to an online poker room (who clearly did it for their own publicity and so whose name I won’t mention) and they returned it to its rightful owner. I would laugh my head off were TJ to pawn it again. Or stick it on eBay and go play craps with the proceeds.

Ah, I shouldn’t laugh, but the last thing I’m going to do is say what everyone else is saying like “it’s sad for him” and “isn’t it terrible how he could lose all that money” and generally tut-tutting about how he has lost all his cash. Cloutier doesn’t want your pity.

So he lost a load of cash playing craps. So what? He will never want for being staked in a poker tournament and he will always be in the Hall of Fame. I bet he enjoyed himself spending his $9 million and he’s had a great life so far. What’s to feel sorry for?

On the theme of people falling on hard times I see that Gary Coleman, the dwarf actor from Diff’rent Strokes, has had a bad time of lately as well. Apparently he was taken into custody relating to an outstanding warrant for a “domestic incident”.  And it must be said he looked a right state in his mug shot.

From his glory days being signed by Kevin Keegan :

Keegan persuaded him to join Newcastle with this car in lieu of a signing on fee

to this mugshot in a Utah police station:

like Paul Gascoigne, life after Newcastle was never quite as good for Gary Coleman

Just a quick observation here, and I’m not mocking his height I hope you understand, but don’t mug shots usually have lines along the wall that act as height indicators? You know, like 5’-8’’, 5’-10’’, and 6’-0’’ marked against the wall in horizointal lines? Perhaps that is the 4’-2’’ line and the camera is too close up?

The article which reported this story charted Gary Coleman’s fall from grace:

“he received a suspended sentence for assault in 1998 after he punched a female fan during a heated row over an autograph. The woman, Tracy Fields, mocked Coleman’s lacklustre career as an adult actor. He said that he thought Fields was going to hit him, so he punched her”.

Well that defence worked for Steven Gerard and I jolly well hope his lawyer reminded the police that it should also apply to black midget out-of-work actors. But you have to ask yourself “Why didn’t she just hit him back - he’s only 4 foot 8?”

The article continued:

“Despite finding work with various bit parts and cameo roles, Coleman filed for bankruptcy in 1999, attributing his financial woes to mismanagement of his trust fund. Just last month, he auctioned off an autographed pair of his trousers on eBay for £248,000 to help pay medical bills.”

When I read that I was struggling to understand why Gary Coleman looks so pissed off. Compared to TJ Cloutier he’s had a right result. $4006 for a Hall of Famers WSOP bracelet or £248,000 for a midget’s second hand pair of jeans ?  If I were him I’d be spending a bit less time beating up women and spending a bit more time searching my wardrobe for a few more pairs of 18 inch waist jeans to stick on eBay. And then telling everyone about it on Twitter

I had a stroke of good fortune a couple of weeks ago when I was given a free £25 bet by Ladbrokes. The Australian Open was about to start and my friend suggested that Justin Henin was a good bet at 5-1. So on went my fee £25 and hey presto - Henin has waltzed to the final and is now even money. The amusing thing is that the friend who suggested the bet also happens to work for Ladbrokes. So cheers Ladbrokes! This must be like how a British bank must feel after being given loads of taxpayers’ money and then have the Bank of England buy its bonds for much more than they are really worth. Except they received 2 billion times more. And they didn’t say thanks.

Still the bet hasn’t won yet so I shouldn’t be giving it the big one because you know what happens when you do that! I think I’ll have a covering bet on Serena just to cover my “stake”. I wouldn’t want to “lose” on this one after my own personal “bailout” would I? That would make me a sort of punting equivalent of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

Anyway, having had this interest in the tennis it means I have watched a lot of the coverage on Eurosport and let me tell you it can be tiresome. There is one commentator in particular who I won’t name (because I’m only 80% certain it is the person I think it is) but all he can seem to say is “wow”. I’ll give you some examples.  Long rally ending in brilliant winner - “wow” Player scampers back to retrieve lob and hit winner. “Wow!” Player hits back handed cross court winner on the run – “WOW!” You get the picture. If he has been saying a lot of “wows” and something truly phenomenal happens he deals with the situation by pausing for a second and then unleashing a louder “WOOWW!” The other day I counted 4 “wows” in 15 minutes and this gets rather irksome as you can imagine. This bloke is in his mid forties and seemingly hasn’t learned any new words in the last 40 of those years. Maybe he is trying to sound “cool”? Sounds more like a moron if you ask me (which none of you did to be fair).
 
But even Mr Wow was trumped by the tournament’s official ginger haired on-court interviewer on Monday. Having just switched on after Murray’s 3-0 win over the giant American John Isner I was subjected to a horrifically cringe worthy interview which was so awful it was almost funny. So I couldn’t let it pass without comment.

At the end of the match this bloke came onto the court to interview Murray. I didn’t recognise him but he had floppy ginger hair and was really full of himself - quite the celebrity in his own mind. So I felt like I should know who he was. He proceeded to give the worst sporting interview I’ve ever heard. If you had asked Garth Crooks to go out there with the instructions to “stare at Murray as intensely as you have ever stared at anyone in your life and try to be the most serious you have ever been”, he couldn’t have done a worse job. Bear in mind the following exchange took part in front of 15,000 people courtside. His opening gambit was:

“Now Andy I know you do meticulous research on your opponents before every match so I know you’ll have done the same on me. What’s your opinion of me?”

Hang on a minute pal, you’re just the interviewer, he’s the famous one. And I for one don’t even know what your name is! Murray didn’t have an answer to this and I can’t say I blame him. It was a good job he was in such a good mood though. He had played brilliantly - “10 out of 10” according to the studio and he had won 3-0. Just as well because I would have loved to have seen floppy ginger ask him that question after losing the final. 

Then he said : “go on tell us something personal about yourself”

This was met with a perplexed look, a sort of nervous laugh, and a long silent pause as Murray thought of a possible way to dignify that with a response. Finally and quite humourously he said “see I can’t think of anything, I really am boring” so ginger nut offered some help

“tell us the last film you saw” (as if that was “personal” information).

Still Murray couldn’t think of an answer. Well this was getting really awkward now. Floppy hair suggested “Avatar” to help him. “No” Murray answered but then finally came up with “Bruno”. And that was basically it - interview over!

He released the poor Murray from the “interview” and as Murray was walking to the exit he said :

“Hey, you’re lucky I didn’t ask you about your sex life”

>
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WHAT? WHO IS THIS FLUFFY IDIOT? I asked myself. “Go on Murray, grab his Mike and shove it up his backside”. 

I made it my business never to find out the identity of this preposterous man but speaking to a mate the other day while we were watching the tennis he revealed all when our hero strutted on court after another match. Clearly my mate held similar views because he said.

“Since when does Jim Courier think he is a celebrity/comedian/personality”?

So now I know. I can’t say my life has improved for knowing this information though.

Anyway, I seem to have run into quite a lengthy side track there so let us return to matters of poker and our old friend Anurag Dikshit made the news this week because he has finally ended his connection with Party Poker by selling off his remaining stake in the company. Anurag Dikshit wrote the software for the poker site and is one of the founding members of Party Poker. He once held 27% of the shares in the company and Party Poker was worth $6 billion at one point, making him a billionaire until the USA passed the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. This sneakily passed piece of naff legislation knocked 75% off the Party share price overnight.

Regular readers will know that I am sympathetic to the plight of this chap after he got roughed up by the US Department of Justice. He agreed to pay a $300m fine for breaching the 1961 Wire Act (basically for allowing US citizens to play poker). Many say he should have fought this nonsense charge but when you’re mega rich, want the easy life and have aggressive American lawyers threatening you with God knows what then I can’t say I really blame him. 

Anyway, while the selling of his stake is not that newsworthy of itself there may be a clue from this act to what might be happening with a wider issue – the legality of US online poker. Listen to this quote from the source where I read this story:

“The 38.8 million shares of Party Gaming stock held by Dikshit amount to £114 million and helped to drive the price of Party Gaming PLC up during trading on Tuesday and Wednesday. Opening at 277.10p at the start of trading Wednesday, Party Gaming PLC trended up 14.2p over the course of the day, finishing at 292p.”

This comment implied that the share price rose as a result of Dikshit selling his huge stake. What this article glaringly failed to mention was that such a rise after a huge sell off contradicts all economic theory and is virtually unprecedented. When you sell over 10% of the entire share capital of a company, then as a rule, that share price does not rise. If you are ever rich enough to try it, by all means have a go and try to sell 10% of any listed company’s stock over 2 days and report to me what happens: I promise you that the price will plummet and you will lose a fortune. 

Someone once likened the process of a broker selling off a large stock position as akin to the British prisoners who dug the tunnel in the film “The Great Escape”. They would take small pocketfuls of earth out to the yard and release it through holes in their pockets onto the yard bit by bit, rather than dumping big clumps of earth that the guards might see. In the same way, a broker would sell little bits at a time for if anyone in the market notices it becomes obvious who you are, what you are doing and everyone will offer you peanuts for your stake. 

But Party Poker’s share price did not plummet.  It went up and this rather begs the question “why”?

The reason that the share price has gone up is because Dikshit washing his hands of the company is seen as a move away from their “tainted past” (not that he’d done anything wrong) and will position Party for a  return to the US market if the law should change. With Dikshit still to be officially sentenced in 2010 this would have not been as viable. But will the law change? Nothing official has happened on the UIGEA debate since 3 December 2009 so should we be optimistic that the dreaded UIGEA will be repealed and online poker will become legal in the USA?

Well this share price rise is a clear sign that the market seems to think so. The news that Dikshit has severed links has clearly sparked a buying frenzy because people believe Party will be back in business in the USA. And let’s face it, people who vote with their wallets usually know more than Joe Soap. 

So this share sale marks the final insult for Mr Dikshit.  Shafted by the sneaky UIGEA, 75% wiped off his company’s value overnight, his fortune slashed to a fraction, bullied by the US legal system into handing over $300million and threatened with unspeakable things, he is compelled to cut his ties with the biggest project of his life.  And the news of him doing so forces up the share price, gains he ain’t ever gonna see because he no longer holds the shares! I honestly hope he sold them to a friend and that he still retains the beneficial ownership.

And in theory he might still go to jail for two years when he has his sentencing on 16 December 2010 (although in practice he will have agreed that he wont go to prison as part of the deal and the DoJ will have insisted he doesn’t reveal this so they can still appear to be acting tough)

Maybe we shouldn’t feel too sorry for Mr Dikshit. There are probably a million people who could have written that software and he got 27% of the company for his troubles. If I had been the founder of the company, then trust me, no computer programmer would have wound up with 27%.

Well the jolly old Iraq “inquiry” rumbles on and Tony Blair is giving evidence as I finish this piece. So I shall spend the next hour or so watching him for tells which I will try to profit from at the poker table. Seriously, that’s all the “inquiry” will be any use for.

You can’t even call it an “inquiry” truthfully. The other week when Alastair Campbell said “I stand by every word in that dossier” no-one enquired “HOW”? When he said that “Britons can be proud of what we have achieved in Iraq” none of the 5 chinless wonders on the panel enquired “WHY” let alone shout him down with howls of derision. If they can’t make those basic “enquiries” when prompted so easily, you can’t really call the whole charade an “inquiry” can you?

So I suggest if you watch it yourself that you play a little drinking game with the following rules. Every time Blair says “I believed I was doing the right thing” drink two fingers worth, likewise drink 2 fingers worth if he says “we make moral decisions, not just legal ones” (or any variation thereof). 

If he says “God told me to do it”, say “WOW”, get up the off licence, buy a can of special brew and down it in one.

I’ve got a confession to make but first, let me tell you about a couple of hands I played this week.  

I was taking part in a big cash game with deep stacks online. First off I got dealt a pair of threes under the gun and so I limped in. It was raised in middle position and there were a few callers. I made the call and the flop came AQ10 rainbow. I checked and the initial raiser bet the pot. One player called. I thought they were bluffing so I called with my pair of threes. The turn was a Jack and I checked-called another pot sized bet. My beautiful magic three came on the river. I went all in and got called. Unfortunately he had AK and made a straight! Unlucky. 

I bought in again and the very next hand I was dealt AK of hearts. The flop was 10-8-2 with two hearts and I was up against the same opponent who beat me in the last hand. I called his pot sized bet on the flop and did the same on the turn, determined not to let him get the better of me. But I still hadn’t made a flush or even a pair. He went all in on the river for double the size of the pot. It was a big bet but I just knew a heart was due so I called, hoping to hit my flush. And the 6 of hearts appeared on the river. I made it! 

Anyway, back to the real world and if you are wondering how I managed to play two hands quite so badly, then wonder no more. I didn’t – I’m making it up. In fact if you believed me I’m a bit insulted - it will be a cold day in hell before I play either of those two hands that way. But stranger things have happened. And this week one of those stranger things happened. In was an even more unlikely scenario. 

I did something unthinkable. I never thought I’d say this but I have to confess:

Forgive me Father for I have sinned….

I actually found myself cheering Man Utd on Wednesday. There I’ve admitted it. Go on, shout abuse and throw stones at me or something, I deserve it. I know this is indefensible behaviour but I will try to explain my actions. To be fair, I’m exaggerating when I say I was “cheering”. I never at any stage “cheered” or opened my mouth to offer encouragement. When me and my mates say we “have a cheer” on something we mean that we have a financial interest on that outcome, usually a bet of course. Well in this case I hadn’t even had a bet.

I never bet on Man Utd. To bet on Man Utd transgresses everything a gambler should stand for: value. Man Utd always go off at shorter odds than they should do because of the sheer weight of money bet on them. So as well as not wanting them to win on account of the fact I dislike them intensely, I never bet on them either, for the simple reason that it is never, ever value to do so.  This little arrangement suits me just fine.

I’ll happily bet against them of course – gleefully in fact. And often with dire financial consequences, which is just one of the many reasons I can’t stand Utd. I’ll never forgive them for their Champions League Final victory in 1999.  With about 4 mins to go and trailing 1-0 to Bayern Munich the spread firms were quoting 0.6-0.8 on the goal supremacy. Well this was a stone bonking value bet with a capital V. Having created naff all scoring opportunities in 86 minutes they were implying that they expected 0.3 Utd goals in the next 4 minutes! (I suspect the spread firms were trying to balance their lop-sided books but it’s not impossible that some diehard Utd fans were actually selling at 0.6).

I thought I would be just nicking an easy 0.2 of a goal so I had a massive bet, with the added bonus that Bayern Munich might catch them on the break and I’d win 1.2 goals (if my memory serves me correctly Bayern had a really great chance late on).

Anyway, we all know what happened next – Utd scored not one but two goals and I wound up losing 1.8 goals, a whopping 9 times what I had planned on winning. Oh the agony. It wasn’t my biggest ever loss but it had to rank as the most gutted I’d ever been after a losing bet. In the space of 5 minutes my “low risk small return” value bet had turned into a massive unmitigated disaster. And all perpetrated by Man Utd!  What a nightmare.  I’m re-living that nightmare as I write this, believe me.  In fact, right this second I can see an image of Teddy Sheringham’s grinning face! Arrrrgh!! Snap out of it……

Anyway, I digress. To get back to my confession, I hereby admit that on Wednesday 20 January I did actually want Man Utd to beat Man City towards the end of their Carling Cup semi-final, or at least get a draw. The reason is quite pathetic really. Down my local boozer there is a £10 football competition which runs all season where you have to predict the finishing positions of all the teams in the Premier League with bonus points for selecting the winner of the FA Cup, Carling Cup and Champions League. The winner gets the lot, which I imagine could be around £500 and I am right up the top of the pile.  My selection for the Carling cup is Man Utd.

So now you see. Not a bet, but a financial interest none the less. But it wasn’t until Tevez scored a dodgy penalty that I actually gave a hoot who won. 

As you will have probably seen, he cupped his ears to the Utd fans gloating as if to say “I can’t hear you” and started doing his “talking hand” gesture (which I didn’t understand the meaning of at the time).  As he was goading the Utd fans I couldn’t help feeling what an ungrateful little sod he was. 

In the past 3 ½ years Tevez has managed to play for three clubs and still cannot speak a single sentence of English. He is a total mercenary and as little time as I have for Man Utd’s legions of plastic “fans”, I do seem to remember that they all pleaded with him to stay and always gave him massive support. I bet Fergie wanted him to stay as well, probably knowing full well that Ronaldo was off to Madrid but not wanting to break any confidentiality agreement to the likes of Kia Joorabchian.

And here was Tevez taking the piss out of them all, giving it the big one half way through the tie when they still had to play a leg at Old Trafford. Hasn’t he heard of the “early cheer”?

But then I realised the truth! 

And if you look at today’s tabloids you will see it for yourself from the horse’s mouth. It transpires that all Tevez’s abuse was not aimed at the supporters. Instead it was all aimed at one man.

If you put really crap facial hair on a rodent, it would look like this

In a radio interview given in Argentina he called Neville an IDIOT and a CREEP and a BOOTLICKER. And you know what? I make him absolutely right. Despite his lack of English Tevez knows a crawler when he sees one. So I can only say “Fair play to you Tevez” and please accept my apologies for getting the wrong end of the stick on Wednesday. 

Tevez confirmed that it was only Gary Neville he was having a pop at and his “talking hand” gesture was because Neville had been spouting off in the paper saying that “Man Utd were right to sell him” and that “Tevez wasn’t worth the money” etc (all unbeknown to me). Neville can’t possibly believe they were right to sell him so Tevez is right - he is just saying it to curry favour with the manager. I couldn’t see at the time but a different camera angle showed Tevez clearly seeking out Gary Neville, with Neville giving him a one fingered salute in return (wouldn’t it be great if Neville were to get a disciplinary for that?)

Now you might think I am being a little harsh on young Gary so it’s worth devoting a little space to Mr Neville here. Over the years, Man Utd have had plenty of characters play for them whom I didn’t like. I mean really didn’t like. Personally I find Christina Ronaldo to be the most offensive Man Utd player of all time and up until a couple of years ago I hadn’t noticed anything that particularly offensive about Gary Neville.

However say I were to ask my Liverpudlian friends “if Man Utd went sky diving on a team bonding exercise and one of them accidentally took a tent up instead of a parachute, who would you prefer that person to be?” the answer is always “Gary Neville”

In fact I was quite shocked at the depth of feeling against poor old Nev.

Take another hypothetical example. Say I were to go to Anfield and ask: “if some Man Utd players were giving a football lesson at a local school which was near an army firing range and a stray bullet made its way on to the pitch and tragically killed one Man Utd player, who would you prefer that unfortunate player to be?”

“Gary Neville” would be the instant response without even pausing to exhale on their Benson.

And if I were to ask “say a Man Utd player was crossing the road and a motor cyclist hit him, knocking him into the path of a juggernaut which ran him over and sliced his head clean off, only for the motor cyclist to run over to the scene of the crime and stand over the corpse, take his crash helmet off and reveal himself to be GARY GLITTER, which Utd player would you want that to be?”,

within a nanosecond the answer would be the same: Gary Neville. 

The reasons they don’t like him range from his incessant moaning and his badge kissing at Anfield to his self appointed Trade Union representative role in the England Squad, when he tried to get them to strike because the FA had the temerity to ban Rio Ferdinand for missing a drug test.  Others just point to a sheer lack of talent. And on that point, when we talk about bootlicking you have to wonder just how far he must have crawled up Fergie’s back passage to get a 5 year contract at the age of 30 in one of the best clubs in the world, injury prone and with no ability to speak of. 

So, sympathies for G Neville aside, I have to say that I have been converted by the views of my Liverpudlian friends who are people whose opinions I respect. So move over Christina, Gary Glitter is putting on his leathers and he’s not aiming his moped at you.

Of course I’m not wishing any harm on anyone here but just as no one likes a grass, no one likes a crawler. So speaking hypothetically, I’m just saying, that if either Ronaldo or Neville HAD to be horrifically decapitated in a random accident perpetrated by a filthy old nonce, then of the two, I suppose I would prefer it to be Gary Neville. 

PS: I hear John O Shea is out for the season, which means G Neville is one step closer to actually playing that second leg at Old Trafford against Man City. And if Man Utd win, I don’t expect Gary Neville to hold back with the celebrations. City fans will be like their Liverpool cousins in wishing that Gary had been “glittered”.

Poker aficionados among you will no doubt be aware that the popular player Amir Vahedi died on 8 January 2010 aged just 48. Amir Vahedi was probably best known for making the final table of the World Series of Poker in 2003, the year that Chris Moneymaker won. I didn’t know much about him to be honest but since his death I read a really interesting account of his story and it’s worth sharing.

Amir’s early adult years were spent in the Iranian Army during the Iran-Iraq war which killed half a million people. The Iran-Iraq war has been compared to World War 1 because of large scale trench warfare, bayonet charges, use of barbed wire, human wave attacks and Iraq’s extensive use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas.  Vahedi quite rightly decided to bugger that for a laugh and escaped Iran to seek refuge in Pakistan.

However, travelling through Pakistan had its own dangers and he eventually found himself confined in an Afghani prison for many months. I wasn’t able to establish how this happened exactly, but needless to say, being holed up in an Afghani clink is a very bad beat indeed.  When he was released he got himself a forged passport and made his way into Soviet East Berlin of all places. After that he made his way into West Berlin. I assume this happened when the Berlin Wall came down because you could get shot for trying to cross over but again, I don’t know exactly. Eventually he was allowed to relocate to California as a political refugee.

How times change. What would be the chances today of an Iranian who had served time in an Afghani nick and lived in Soviet East Berlin legally being allowed to live in the USA?  I’m guessing slightly worse than even money. 

In Arnold Snyder’s book “The Poker Tournament Formula” (bear with me on this for a minute), Snyder has an interesting chapter on player types where he characterises different types of players with names. Some are named according to their favourite hands and he gives these players names like “Ace Masters”, or “Flush Masters”. Some are named according to their demographic, for instance “Canasta Ladies”, “Cagey Codgers”, “Ball Cap Kids”. Others are given more personalised names eg, “Wimps” and “Oafs” and then he has this name “Boat People”.  Well I suppose they are a decade or two behind us in the PC stakes in the US, despite having a black president. But what Snyder means when he talks about “Boat People” at the poker table is immigrants who have seen hard times and are certainly not going to be scared of a big bet. You might get them to fold but to do so you have to go all in. Don’t try to bluff a “Boat Person”.  You won’t frighten him.

In my experience it is definitely harder to bluff people in live play than it is online. Some people get stubborn in live play and they don’t want to lose face by backing down. Online they don’t lose face when they fold but when you are sitting right in front of them it becomes harder for them to release a hand.  In fact I think some people would actually rather call and lose just to prove the point that they can not be bluffed.  But just think when you get a player like Amir Vahedi at the table. Half his mates were killed in Iran, he’s been to war, shot at, thrown in an Afghani prison and lived in Communist East Berlin.  In that context, how bothered do you think he is about your little check-raise? 

They could write a book about Amir Vahedi’s life story. I imagine it would have a little bit more content than a Peter Andre autobiography. And there could yet be another chapter left in his story. An early autopsy discovered that his internal organs were working perfectly when he died and although he suffered from diabetes, they still haven’t established a cause of death yet.

From the old guard to the new and there was news out this week that the Swedish professional poker player Jonas Danielsson, has decided to retire from poker at the mighty age of 26.  Jonas, who plays high stakes online under the name “Nebuchad”, has apparently taken a huge hit to his bankroll and decided to call it a day. A rough translation from Swedish of his reasoning was:

“The fire and passion I had for poker is now complete. It’s like a bonfire that burned all night and now (it) hisses in the morning.”

Now I have a memory for certain things and I happen to remember a couple of years ago Jonas Danielsson was sponsored to write a blog for an online poker site. One day I had a look at it and in about the third paragraph of the first post I read he said something like “I had to take the Lamborghini to the garage for a service today”. It was such a weird thing to say in a poker blog and so out of context with the rest of his post. Maybe we were supposed to be in awe of the fact he drove a Lamborgini? He finished the post by saying he’d returned to his hometown and was in a club when someone announced on a loudspeaker to the whole bar something like “top online poker professional Jonas Danielsson is in the house so he will be buying drinks for you all”. He said in his blog something along the lines of “Yeah, it cost me 30 thousand kronor. But it’s not the money, it was so embarrassing”.

Not too embarrassing to write about it in a public blog though? It was such a gratuitous display of ego it was almost comical. 99% of the time I would be sympathetic to any man down on his luck who has done his bankroll. But listen to this:

There were “hints,” he says, from his fellow players that he should step down in levels and attempt to rebuild, which Danielsson pushed aside for two reasons. First, Jonas writes, “I should not have to work harder in my life, if I play my cards right. Secondly, going from top to bottom anywhere on the table and the risk of going out is too much for my vanity psyche. Without exaggerating, I would find it hard to look people in the eye.”

So having played $200-400 no limit, to drop down to $25-50 would heap shame upon himself and he would no longer be able to look people in the eye? Does he seriously credit the “people he couldn’t look in the eye” with so little common decency that they would think less of him?   The only explanation I can come up with is that maybe he assumes other people are like him.

The most successful professional gambler I know once told me “You will pay for an ego”. And how true that is in the case of Nebuchad. It is very probably the desire to play the highest stakes which has cost him his bankroll yet his ego won’t let him start over at lower stakes because it demeans him. 

Anyway, I have a prediction. He won’t be gone for long. Poker players ALWAYS come back, especially the good ones, and he is clearly a top player.  Besides, if dropping down from the nose bleed stakes is beneath him, how will he possibly suffer working for a living like everyone else and taking orders from people?  He’ll be back alright.

Speaking of which, I made my return to the tables this week and I’ve really enjoyed it.  I’ve hit on a “system”, or should I say “quota” that seems to suit me and keeps me free from tilt. I realised something very obvious this week and I have acted accordingly. Because I play up to 8 or 9 tables at once I play an awful lot of hands and you just can’t avoid getting a few bad beats if you play 2000 hands in a session. The problem is taking a bad beat when you have 7 other tables on the go and the prospect of a couple more hours of this situation.  All too often after a bad beat I would end up re-raising all in with AK and running into KK or calling all ins with 99, only to lose a race with AK. And this all made me very cross and invariably cost me money. So what I do now is just play for 60 to 75 minutes. Once I reach the point where I’ve taken a couple of bad beats it’s OK because I know that I’ve only got another 30 or so minutes to play. If I thought I had three more hours it would get a bit soul destroying and in the past that is what has led to bad tempered tilt and losing. Not any more. The beauty of this is that I can have a 15 minute break after a session and then get straight back to work. It also means that I know in advance I can only lose a moderate fixed amount in any session.  So it’s all good.

There’s just one thing that irks me now. My new super duper software that I bought has a facility where you can check whether you got lucky in a session. You click on an option called “Expected Value Adjusted Results” and it tells you what you should have won as opposed to what you actually did win. While this would work perfectly for cash games I am not so sure it gives accurate results in tournaments and sit n gos. As I understand it, it works out what you should have won by calculating your expected preflop equity only in “all in” situations. 

Well you can just imagine after a hard fought win when you check out your results and the computer tells you that you were lucky and deserved to lose. Even worse is when you have been beaten and you look to the computer for some solace that you were at least unlucky? No chance. Sometimes it tells you that you were LUCKY to lose what you did, that you should have in fact lost a bundle more!  I never thought I could go on tilt after my sessions had ended!

In other news this week, David Carruthers, the former CEO of BetOnSports, was sentenced to 33 months on “racketeering charges” resulting from his company’s accepting wagers from US citizens. David Carruthers got a mention in this column last month when we discussed the heavy handed tactics the USA uses on foreign nationals who offer betting services to US citizens. 33 months was the maximum he could have got and that’s exactly what they gave him. Cheers, Uncle Sam. BetOnSports was also fined $28.2m but the US authorities won’t see that money because BetOnSports owes creditors in the UK and will have to pay them first under UK law. Shame.   

Carruthers was under house arrest in Louisiana since 2006 so if he serves his whole sentence it will have been almost 7 years since they picked him up at Texas airport. And he only stopped there because he was changing planes on his way to Costa Rica! Bad beat. How he must wish he had taken a private jet.

Do you know I haven’t played any poker for over two weeks now?

I expect you didn’t but I shall enlighten you.  I took a bit of a beating on the tables just before Christmas and took it quite badly (as is usually the case). We’re not talking losses like Isildur1’s four million in a single session of course. I even made a profit on the month but it would have been a decent profit before those late hammerings got me. So it was enough to make me press the “sit out” button for a while. I thought I would take a little break and work on my game away from the table.  Of course, this is far more easily said than done, as we shall see.

Just thinking back to poor old Isildur and his $4m one day loss for a minute, I shudder to think how badly I would react to a loss like that. I’ve been known to hurl laptops at the wall after losing a big pot and no item of furniture is 100% safe when I am playing. When I’m three or four buy-ins down I can play really really badly. It’s frightening to imagine how badly I would play if I was ever 20 buy ins down. Especially if the buy-ins were $200k! 

Anyway, I decided I would go away and do some work on my game. The problem was I wasn’t very good at that either. I went and bought one of those super duper poker software trackers that stores all your hand histories and your opponents and then spews a bewildering array of about 9 billion statistics at you. 

As I don’t understand what nearly all of these statistics even mean I have just got even more confused and helpless. I seriously think that even by this time next year I won’t understand even 50% of the functionality of this piece of kit.  And just you just try getting the damn thing to work in the first place! Just installing it sent me to the brink of insanity. After installation I was required to set the thing up to read hand histories, etc. There is a 200 page document online saying how it all works, containing hundreds of links to yet more instructions.  It’s all a bit much for me. I wondered if it is it possible to tilt while not actually playing poker? I can very much assure you that it is.

You see, when it comes to computers, it would take me 6 months of intensive study for me to reach the level of “idiot”.  Luckily I was able to enlist the help of a very helpful chap from Canada who I met playing poker online at Paddy Power. He used a programme called Teamviewer so he could do all this for me. None of these verbal instructions like “select this option Freddie, press this button Freddie”. Oh no, they would be far too easy to mess up! We just got on Teamviewer, he took over the controls and did it for me in completely idiot proof fashion.  ‘Tis a marvellous thing the internet!  The one thing that puzzled me was why there had been 15 withdrawals from my bank account around the same time I handed over the controls.

Never mind, it all seems to work. And if I knew how to work the thing and if I understood the functionality then it would be a really impressive tool!  That’s two very big ifs and it is probably what I will spend the rest of 2010 finding out. 

There is one beneficiary of my self imposed hiatus from poker. My next door neighbour no longer has to listen to the anguished shrieks of “HOW CAN YOU PLAY THAT SH**T!!!!!” at 2 o’clock in the morning from his screaming lunatic of a neighbour. 

There could be another benefit of not playing so much – to my right wrist.  Interestingly, I just discovered one of the physical effects that sitting at a computer for long periods has had on me.  Yesterday I saw a chiropractor for the first time. I sometimes wake up with a cricked neck and I mentioned this to a friend who by some massive coincidence just happened to have a couple of free vouchers to a local chiropractor on his person. (Lucky hey? Well actually no, because after examining me the chiropractor recommended 24 sessions with her at £30 a pop with overtones of grave consequences should I choose not to). Last week I didn’t even know what it is that chiropractors do but a quick look on Wikipedia told me all I need to know –they fix backs and necks. I’m not selling chiropractors short here – take a look for yourself on Wiki under “chiropractors” and it says “they do backs and necks”. Yep, “Backs and necks - £30 a pop”.  That is literally what it says. Last week I knew nothing - now I know everything about them.

Anyway to cut a long story short, while I was there the lady asked me to grab these two bits of metal together in my right hand as hard as I could. It was the same sort of mechanism as the brakes on a bicycle I suppose, with a dial where she could read the measurement. Duly done she asked me to repeat this with my left hand, which I did. 

“So you’re left handed?” she said after reading the measurements.

“No I’m right handed”, I said. 

“Right handed people are usually 20lbs stronger with their right hand. You are 20lbs stronger with your left”.

“That’s good isn’t it? Means I’ve got a strong left arm haven’t I”, I chirped in my glass-is-half-full optimism.

“No, it means you are 40lbs weaker in your right hand” she replied, slamming the half empty glass right back on the table.  

She attributed my puny right wrist to long hours sat at a computer with a mouse in my hand with all the movement coming from the elbow. Good grief. Is this what years of sitting in front of a computer has done to me?  Whatever next?  If I google too much will I suffer a severe muscle wasting disease by middle age? Will excessive searches on Wikipedia leave me with the bone density of a 95 year old?”

It can’t just be me. Surely millions of office workers out there must have the same issue. Is this how the human race is evolving?  Will the advance of the computer literally turn us into a race of limp wristed screen warriors? Who knows?

With no poker to play my gambling instincts had to find another outlet. This was a useful lesson to me purely because it reminded me just how terrible I can be at gambling. You see I used to bet on everything – football, cricket, rugby, tennis, oooh and darts. I used to love betting on the darts, especially in running. In a game of darts I could back the favourite, flip flop to the outsider, then change my mind again and go all in on the favourite. The more the game went against me the bigger my stake would be to smash my way out of trouble. I could end up having my entire account funds tied up in one game of darts in the final leg of the match with a best case scenario of a £12.14 profit and a worst case of armageddon. I used to love it.  

But that all gradually stopped when I discovered poker. I actually managed to plug those leaks on sports betting (before creating a new bigger leak at poker, but that’s another story). So on Boxing Day when I had nothing to do I headed off to the dogs for the first time in about 7 years. I used to love the greyhounds as well you see. Nine races and five winners later I congratulated myself that I hadn’t lost my touch. What an easy game! Back I went a couple of days later and broke exactly even. The third time I went it must have been out of sheer desperation for a bet, for it was a “BAGS” meeting. The name BAGS stands for “Bookmakers Afternoon Greyhound Service” and really does say all you need to know - it is a service for the bookmakers. When you bet on a BAGS race you are basically betting on an impossibly handicapped race with the more inconsistent dogs on the track’s kennel strength, with the bookmakers betting to a 140% book for good measure. You can not win over any decent length of time! Yet I knew all this before I headed off to the track and I still went. Like I say, it must have been desperation. I failed to notch a single winner in 11 bets and that is actually quite impressive when you think about it. It’s probably going to be another 7 years before I see a dog track again.

So I turned my hand to cricket betting-in-running on the third test between England and South Africa. I was no better at that. After flip flopping from South Africa to the draw and even briefly to England, then back to South Africa and finally the draw again, I had to suffer 17 agonising balls as England’s numbers 10 and 11 blocked out for the draw.  My account funds were all riding on the game. Even if England blocked it out I was a small loser but if they didn’t – well - that wasn’t worth thinking about.  What made this even more nerve wracking was the fact I was in a pub with no TV and I wasn’t even watching the game. I had to get the last ten balls by text updates and each time my phone beeped disaster was only one click away.  Like I say, agonising. It was just like the old days on the darts. 

Nice as it is to know that I am still a chronic degenerate gambler at heart, I actually can’t wait to get back to playing poker and being bad beated at the river.  Ah, compared my to other forms of gambling, that would be bliss. Come back poker, all is forgiven!

I’m going to finish on something completely different because I just couldn’t resist this snippet I read recently.  Being a huge fan of the film Team America I had to share this with you:

“The family of a Korean-American missionary believed held in North Korea said Tuesday they are working with U.S. officials to get him returned home. Robert Park told relatives before Christmas that he was trying to sneak into the isolated communist state to bring a message of “Christ’s love and forgiveness” to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.”

Poor old Robert Park. I wonder if he’s in Kim’s fish tank with Hans Blix?

If the crackpot leader of a secretive communist state claimed that an illegal alien entered his country for the purpose of spying and the accused claimed that the aim of his visit was in fact “to bring a message of Christ’s love and forgiveness” to Kim Jong Il, who would you believe?