He had more faith than I

Above: The St. Louis Cardinals win the MLB World Series.

Just read about an unnamed man who won $375,000 betting on two baseball outcomes. He wagered $250 that the St. Louis Cardinals would win the National League Pennant. Not content with this long shot, he also bet $250 that the Cards would win it all. Guess what, he was right?

The bet was made on Sept. 12 at the MGM in Las Vegas. At the time, the Cards were 999 to 1 to win the World Series.

You can read more if you click here.

Image copied from a Yahoo! news item.

Something new all the time

Above: The Horseshoe Casino has a Starbucks where I like to go get a Caffe Americano during a poker tournament break.

Something unusual happened in the 4 p.m. tournament at the Horseshoe today. There were 71 runners who paid $160 to get their 10,000 in chips. Nothing unusual about that.

The blind structure was the usual one that the Horseshoe uses except that levels were 30 minutes where normally they are 20. You wouldn't think that extra 10 minutes at each level would matter very much. I used the Arnold Snyder formula and was surprised to see that it made a large difference.

When we were down to 12 players, two from the money, someone asked how much would we get if we chopped. I've seen chops when the field was at the final table, but I'm not sure I've seen a 12-way chop. The answer was $833, so everyone at our table agreed. The Tournament Director went to the other table and they agreed, too.

Now here's where it gets weird. A guy at our table changed his mind. He said he didn't want to chop. The TD said that after everyone agreed, he wasn't allowed to change his mind (news to me). Then the guy said he never agreed in the first place. This was a big fat lie. The TD asked the dealer and he said the guy had agreed. Then the other players at our table confirmed this.

If you were the TD, what would you do?

I think he did a sensible thing. He asked everyone to wait and he called somebody more experienced than he. When he came back, he said he'd been told that once a chop was agreed upon, there was no changing ones mind. If at least two people were witnesses that the guy had agreed to chop, then it was a chop.

I've never seen anything quite like that before.

At the time, I had 75,000 in chips which would have been an (arithmetic) average stack at the final table, so I was fine to play. First place was $3400 which would have been something nice to shoot for. On the other hand, $833 was about fourth-place money. When the blinds and antes get high, one lucky (or unlucky) deal can change everything, so a chop was okay, too.

Photo by MOJO and taken with my P&S.

The champs

Above: Busch Stadium, a place of much excitement tonight.

Cards live to fight another day

Above: Busch Stadium was rockin' last Thursday (for World Series game No. 2) when this photo was taken. It will be rocking again tonight.

The World Series has been awesome -- a little bit of everything. Albert Pujols hit three homeruns in one game, Derek Holland pitched a masterpiece and each team has made comebacks -- it's been exciting.

Last night's game was amazing. No it wasn't a well-played game. Hoyazo called it unbearable (see here). On the other hand, Very Josie wrote in her blog that it was incredible.

Unbearable or incredible, which one? The answer is easy: I agree with both of them. It wasn't well-played, but it was thrilling. Lucky Duck agrees with me.

Tonight is for all the marbles and either Rangers' or Cardinals' fans are going to be disappointed. I'm a die-hard Cardinals' fan, but no matter what happens, I think this is as good as it gets.

Photo by MOJO and taken with my Canon at 1/60 sec., ISO of 400 and F-stop not recorded.

Can't seal the deal

Can't seem to close these things out.

At 10 a.m. CDT, there's a $12+$1 tournament that I like to play in each morning on Bodog. I get an espresso and settle in. Last week I had a fourth and a fifth. Yesterday I bubbled. Sounds good, but the money is in the top three places (there were 172 runners). First was $618 in this one, a big difference from what I actually won.

Today was typical. I had a good stack, but never a huge stack, then went card dead towards the end. For my bustout hand, it folded to me in the small blind and I moved in for 6 big blinds with Q-5 off. Big blind called with ace-rag. Brick city and I was history.

Time to mow the lawn.

Poker pearl #67

"U.S. Alleges Full Tilt Poker is a Ponzi Scheme" was a common headline not long ago. See here for an example.

In the Oct. 24 issue of The Poker Player, columnist and expert on gaming law I. Nelson Rose disagrees. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Full Tilt was worried about the U.S. Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act, so it used money from players in other countries to pay off American winners. Even if true, this has nothing to do with a pyramid scheme. Rose says the DoJ used the Ponzi scheme phrase to bring attention to the situation -- hype, in other words. Nelson adds that Full Tilt actually ran a real business and made profits raking pots.

Even though Full Tilt wasn't a Ponzi scheme, Rose did have some choice words for the Full Tilt owners.

"Full Tilt's insiders were greedy and stupid. While the company was losing players, they continued to pay themselves tens of millions of dollars, including, allegedly, funds they had promised players would not be used for operating expenses. Insiders, including poker-pros Howard Lederer and Christopher Ferguson, allegedly took out $443 million in the last four years.

"Greedy and stupid, but not necessarily a crime...Not every company that loses customers' money through incompetence is guilty of a crime."

It seems to me that if you take money that you are supposed to pay to people, that's stealing, but what do I know?

You can read the full text of Rose's article if you click here.

Poker pearl #66

Above: Phil Hellmuth is on the cover of the Sept. 21 issue of Card Player magazine.

Phil Helmuth was asked what he thinks the future is for online poker in the United States.

"Online poker is going to be licensed and regulated very soon.... If you look at what happened in Italy and France, you'll get a decent idea about what could happen here in the States. France and Italy legalized online poker and it exploded overnight by nearly 10 times the original number of players. I have no doubt that the same would happen here. If my prediction does come true, I think we'll see a WSOP main event field of 25,000 players."

Cards playing with house money

Above: A super-fan poses for this shot one hour before the World Series game Thursday.

When I was a kid, the highlight of each summer was when Dad took me to St. Louis to see the Cardinals. Willie Mays was the best player in baseball, but my favorite was Stan Musial. He hit for average and for power, but I also liked him as a person. I remember reading that after a baseball game, he was smoking a cigar. There were photographers around. "Don't take any photos of me smoking," said Musial. "Don't forget the kids." He realized he was a role model and didn't want to set a bad example. He'll be 91 years old next month.

Going to a World Series game was on my bucket list, but I can scratch it off now. Thursday, I saw my first one and it was exciting. The Cards lost 2-1 when the Texas Rangers scored twice in the top of the ninth to pull out a squeaker. Besides being an exciting game, Stan Musial was there!

I'm disappointed they lost, but anything now is icing on the cake. Hardly anyone expected them to beat the Philadelphia Phillies. They were underdogs to the Milwaukee Brewers. They are underdogs (according to the oddsmakers) to Texas. Heck, they were lucky to even get in the playoffs. They got hot at the right time and a good Atlanta Braves team had to collapse.




Above: TV cameras were everywhere. Here they zoom in on players doing their pre-game stretching. Click to enlarge any of the images.


Above: The first pitch of the game was from Jaime Garcia to Ian Kinsler.


Above: The grounds crew kept the field in good shape.


Above: Albert Pujols is the face of the Cardinals' franchise, but is a free agent as soon as the World Series is over. Do you expect him to return or will one of the rich teams outbid St. Louis?


Above: David Ortiz was honored before the game as the winner of the Roberto Clemente Award. Boston fans, such as this one, remember that he hit 54 home runs in 2006, the year the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.

First photo taken by an usher. The others taken by me and with my Canon at F/4, 1/60 sec. and ISO 400.

Poker pearl #65

Above: The October issue of Ante Up has an excellent article about something called decision fatigue.

In a recent post (see here), I referred to something I called tournament fatigue. Since then, I've found I was on to something, but it's more properly called decision fatigue. I didn't know what it was called, but I did see the behavior.

When people have to make many decisions, you could say they become overwhelmed. When they have to make decision after decision, something in their brain wears down and their ability to make quality decisions deteriorates.

According to a piece in The NY Times (see here), decision fatigue is different from ordinary physical fatigue. The more choices you have to make during a day, the harder it becomes for your brain and the brain looks for shortcuts. At poker (late in a tournament), I sometimes see players move all in when they know better. I also see players who go into fold mode -- they can't pull the trigger. Playing too passively is just as bad as playing too recklessly. Both are ways for the brain to shortcut the difficult decision-making process. It's like they are saying, "What the hell, I just don't care anymore."

Here's an excerpt from an Ante Up article (see link beneath image above) that cites studies by Roy Baumeister:

His studies show people with the best self-control are the ones who structure their lives to conserve willpower. They don’t schedule endless back-to-back meetings. They avoid temptations like all-you-can-eat buffets, and they establish habits that eliminate the mental effort of making choices. Instead of deciding every morning whether to force themselves to exercise, they set up regular appointments to work out with a friend. Instead of counting on willpower to remain robust all day, they conserve it so that it’s available for emergencies and important decisions.

Now that you're aware of this phenomenon, can you create tactics to conserve your willpower and avoid decision fatigue? Can you apply this to poker or bridge?

For another interesting The NY Times article titled "Why You Need To Sleep On It," click here.

Wikipedia has a section on this topic here.

Online pokering more fun when you ca$h

I've started playing poker tournaments on Bodog. I've played before, so I guess I should say I've started again. This one was at 10 a.m. CDT that had a $12+$1 buyin with 191 runners.

I finished fifth in the one today and fourth in one yesterday (sorry, no screen shot, you'll have to take my word for it). Hey, retirement works for me.


Above was my busto hand. The big stack was aggressive and raised with A-8. I moved all in and he called! I'm not sure what he thought he could beat, I mean really. I guess the fool was a super-user and knew what was coming on the flop.

The Cardinals fly high

The Cards are in the World Series! Admit it -- you didn't think they could do it, right?

It starts Wednesday in St. Louis. I couldn't go that day, but I scored a ticket for Game 2, Thursday.

If you click the image above, you might look for Section 233, Row 8, Seat 1. Not the greatest view, but you'll be watching on TV and I'll be at the game. Nuff said.


Above: Everyone knows the NY Yankees have won the most World Series. Did you know the Cards rank second? For a list of previous winners, check out Wikipedia here.

Photo by MOJO and taken last Wednesday with my Canon.

Local tournaments are fun when you win

I realized yesterday (Saturday) I hadn't played live poker for more than one month. What's the advantage of living near the Tunica casinos if I don't take advantage, right?

The Gold Strike tournament had 56 runners and we started with 10K in chips. I was up early, then dribbled down to 6K. Two players limped for 800 and I moved in with ♦K ♦J. Both limpers called me! That can't be good news, but the flop had a jack and the river was a king. One of the limpers proudly turned over K-10, haha.

After that, I had a series of medium pocket pairs and bet them hard with continuation bets to build my stack. Then this: A guy with a big stack limped in. He normally came in for a raise, so I decided he didn't have much. I made a big reraise with ♦K ♦10 -- he called! The flop was 10-x-x and the limper moved in. I called and he turned over ♠J ♣10. My hand held and I was a big stack now.

Seven players got paid. When we got down to four of us, three had big stacks and one guy a small (but playable) stack. We did a chop where we got eight times the buyin and he got 5 times. Nicely done, MOJO, nicely done.

I saw a guy do this twice. A short stack moved all in and he held K-K. Instead of reraising, he just called. Because it didn't cost that much more, the big blind came along for the ride. The flop had an ace and the big blind won a nice pot with ace-rag. If the guy had reraised, he would have won a nice pot.

When we were down to two tables, again a shot stack moved all in and again the same guy had pocket kings. Again he just called so another player called and ended up winning the pot when the board came with four spades. The K-K guy didn't have a spade, but the other caller did. A reraise would have driven him out and allowed the K-K to win.

"I could have raised," the guy said, "but it's more important to knock somebody out."

Wrong. It's more important to build your stack, A-L-W-A-Y-S.

I saw one other huge error. When there were six of us left, a guy moved all in. Another guy with a similar stack called with ♠A ♣10. The first guy had a bigger ace and took out the A-10.

"I knew I shouldn't call, but I was tired of folding," he said.

I call this tournament fatigue. When the blinds and antes get so high, there is stress on every hand and you just want it to get over with, but you can't give in to those feelings. I'm more patient than most, but I find I have to fight that myself.

A little rain doesn't stop a Cardinal

Above: Before the game in St. Louis Wednesday night, the rain clouds rolled in. The rain was more of a on-and-off drizzle.

The St. Louis Cardinals won Wednesday night by a 4-3 score. Apparently when I go there, I'm a good luck charm. They should bring me to all the games, no?

Do you think the Cards can make it to the World Series? They need to win one of the two remaining games. Maybe I'll have a chance to get some more photos, ya?


Above: The color guard participated in the national anthem before the game.


Above: Three of the best in the game: Prince Fielder, Ryan Braun and Albert Pujols. Pujols and Fielder will be free agents after the season is finished.


Above: St. Louis fans have fun: A Cardinal is abusing a Milwaukee Brewer.

They said it couldn't be done

Above: Guess what this is.

Nobody gave St. Louis much of a chance to advance past the Philadelphia Phillies. Yes, the Phillies are considered the best team in baseball, but in a five-game series, anything can happen.

I heard Mike Shannon say (on the radio) that anyone who has not been to a playoff game in St. Louis doesn't know what they are missing.

Guess who will use the ticket (shown above) to go to the St. Louis Cardinals' first home game of the NLCS next Wednesday?

October means baseball playoffs

Above: The iconic Gateway Arch overlooks Busch Stadium. This shot was taken before the St. Louis/Philadelphia baseball playoff game Tuesday. (Click once or twice to enlarge the photos.)

I traveled to St. Louis yesterday to watch a baseball playoff game. The place was full of energy. A sold-out crowd enjoyed an exciting game that the Philadelphia Phillies won 3-2.

It was disappointing to lose (if you are a Cardinal fan like me), but it was an exciting game and fans got their money's worth.


Above: Cole Hamels pitches to Albert Pujols as Ryan Howard looks on. The game started at 4 p.m. local time to accommodate television and there were horrible shadows. This helps the pitchers and the game was scoreless for the first six innings.


Above: The pre-game show included the famous Budweiser Clydesdales.


Above: The place was rockin'. At one point with the bases loaded, I got a text message from my buddy, Richard. "Is it loud there?" Heh, heh, very funny, Richard.


Above: The mascot and cheerleaders were on top of the Cardinals' dugout amid a sea of red.


Above: This guy actually thought the Cardinals could win. Getting old leads to delusions, I think.

Photos by MOJO and taken with my Canon 40D.