It’s Main Event (ME) time already! The ME is the pinnacle of poker, and thousands of players are flocking to the Rio. Many an amateur player’s bucket list gets a check mark this time of year. The proliferation of amateurs plopping down 10k, many of whom have little chance to go deep, is what makes […]
Posts in category Poker
The WSOP Grinds On
The big thing that happened in the past week, that not a lot of people care about because it doesn’t involve a big name, is that a man named James Moore won the 65-and-older Super Seniors event for the second straight year, beating 1,719 players this year and 1,475 last year. Unreal achievement! Maybe the […]
WSOP Week One
In the past, the first week of the WSOP had been crazy. There were tons of players with lots of money and the cash games and tournaments were packed. This year seems quiet in comparison. The cash-game area isn’t nearly as busy as I expected. Tournament participation is down 10% or more over last year. As […]
It’s WSOP Season
In the words of Bruce Buffer, “It’s time!!” Already? The greatest unfairness of aging is that time passes more quickly, or at least it sure seems to. Seems like yesterday I was getting out of my chair for the final time as I got KO’d from the 2016 Main Event, just short of the money. […]
Poker Players and Golf Gambling, Part 1
As much as I like poker, my favorite gambling game is golf. The combination of physical skill, the ability to perform under pressure, and understanding of the gambling aspect and negotiating skills, not to mention getting out of the poker room and being outdoors in beautiful settings, playing a fascinating game, make it a natural […]
The Cheating Game
I learned many things about the game of poker from Jim McManus’ excellent history of the game, Cowboys Full. One thing that surprised me was that, in the early days of poker in America, cheating was so rampant that poker was widely known as the “cheating game.” On Mississippi riverboats and throughout the Old West, […]
Mean Streets
I had dinner the other night with some guys who have been around Vegas poker for a long time. Naturally, there were lots of stories. One thing we agree on is that there were a lot more “characters” when the players were from the “road gambler” era than there are now. I’ve always held a […]
Those Damned Books
I started playing poker very young. I remember seeking out books that would help me improve, but back then I was pretty much limited to people like Oswald Jacoby and Herbert O. Yardley. I got to Vegas in 1980 and started playing seriously. In discussions with some of the old timers, one of their criterion […]
In Your Face
I’ve always had a thing about sportsmanship and basic manners. I was raised to respect opponents and was taught that being a good winner is at least as important as being a good loser. When I watch a hard fought game, I watch closely the way both sides behave at the conclusion, and am heartened […]
When Experts Say Opposite Things
When I was in graduate school 45 years ago, plus or minus, I heard about an incident many years prior to that at the University of Chicago. It appears that there was an elevator for a campus building with a “Students Only” sign on it. One professor entered and was challenged, presumably in a friendly […]
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