The Horseshoe Cleveland Casino

Well, I haven't posted in six months, and now I find myself living outside of Cleveland and commuting into the city to play poker a few days a week at the Horseshoe Casino. Here is my review of the place after several cash sessions and tournament entries.

Tournament deal analysis

Although it's not officially condoned by the casino, deal-making is pervasive in tournaments, and when I decided to start playing tournaments I knew that I would need to improve my understanding of this aspect of the game. As I've mentioned before, I think optimal deal-making is best viewed as an extension of sound poker strategy, even though I was originally reluctant to consider making deals. For this post, I'll quickly discuss the three deals that were under consideration in the tournament last week when I came in second place.

The Bubble Offer: The first deal offered came when we got down to eight players. The seventh place player would win nearly $1000, but eighth place gets nothing, so this is a rather severe bubble. It was suggested that we should all give $30 to whomever was knocked out next, essentially giving eighth place have a payout of $210.

A severe bubble like this creates a strategic advantage for the players with the biggest stacks. If the smaller stacks are playing optimally and mostly folding and waiting until one more player gets knocked out, the chip leaders can win all the blinds and antes hand after hand by simply putting everyone else's tournament lives at risk. As I said in my last post, the other players were playing far too recklessly, and so this effect was greatly diminished. However, the larger stacks still have some advantage to the extent that the other players realize they should be playing extra tight.

When the deal was offered, I was at or near the chip lead, and I refused the $30 bubble idea. My explanation to the other players was that, as the chip leader, I was clearly not going to be the next one knocked out, so it would make no sense for me to donate $30. I knew this made me look cheap and unsporting, but I didn't want to explain to my opponents the more subtle reason for my refusal: I didn't want to give up my strategic advantage against everyone as the table's chip leader. If the bubble gets $210 instead of $0, it's psychologically much easier to deal with, and so my opponents would not be as desperate to hang on to get into the money. In other words, I would not be able to steal the blinds and antes as easily. The other players, muttering about how cheap I was, agreed to make the deal without me. This didn't help my situation much (the bubble player would still be getting $180), so I objected that this was collusion against me. The floorman agreed. The players pointed out that there was nothing I could do to stop them. Indeed, I knocked out the next player before long and everyone gave the guy some money (I think one guy gave him $60 to cover my part). This is exactly the sort of awkward situation that made me dislike tournaments in the first place, as I mentioned in an earlier post about why I didn't play tournaments.

According to the other players, this $30 bubble deal is commonplace. I think I will continue to refuse it if I'm near the chip lead, but accept it otherwise. I wonder how long the other players will tolerate that!

Another option is to try to influence tournament policy to make something like this deal "official." If the eighth place player had been officially lined up to receive $400 of something, I could avoid the unpleasantness of needing to discuss under-the-table deals with poker players. Considering the strategy of trying to make more final tables but with smaller chip stacks that I discussed in my previous post, this extra payout place would also be advantageous to my EV if it were officially adopted. I think if I discussed the situation I experienced where the players all colluded against me (as the floorman agreed), the tournament administrators would consider making this change.

The proportional chop offer: The first deal of the traditional "chop" variety (where the rest of the money is split and the tournament is over) that was suggested was a proportional chop. This means that each player would get a proportion of the pot equal to the proportion of the remaining chips. I was well aware that this clearly favored the bigger stacks. In fact, it's easy to imagine the smallest stack(s) getting paid less than last place money and the biggest stack(s) getting paid more than first place money. It was not clear to me how exactly this would play out, but I was not about to be the lone holdout on this deal. At this point I had about 400K of the 1M chips in play, and there was about $14,000 left in the pot. This deal would have paid me about $5600, not far from the $6300 or so that was awarded to first place. I wasn't sure what my EV would be if I kept playing, but it seemed like it must be less than that. I simply started counting my chips and hoping everyone would go through with it. After about two minutes, one of the short stacks decided to back out, so the deal was off. (The defector happened to be one of the two people most upset with me for refusing to take the earlier Bubble Deal.) We continued playing.

I used an online calculator (which I don't trust because I found a logical inconsistency that suggested an EV of greater than first place money for someone holding 90% of the chips) that suggested my actual EV was $4340 at this point, assuming all players are equally skilled. If this were accurate, I guess my EV was closer to $4600 because I was almost certainly better than the average player at the table.

As I said before, the casino does not officially condone deals, although they do look the other way. This means that in order to end the tournament and make a deal, the players would have all had to go all-in blindly and have the dealer deal out hands until just one person was left. The casino would then hand out the official winnings to everyone based on where we were each knocked out, and it would be up to us to dole out the agreed-upon amounts. This requires a level of trust in other players that I'm not completely comfortable with. I do think it's pretty unlikely someone would have the guts to back out on a deal like this, but something similar did happen at the Bicycle Casino once (although not in a tournament*). In this case, whoever came in first would also have to fill out a tax form because it is IRS policy that anyone who wins over $5k needs to do that. I pay my taxes anyway, but this is still another unwanted complication. I'm also not entirely sure who would be doing the calculations. Together, these factors diminish the value of the chop somewhat - perhaps as much as 20% should be discounted from the EV of a chop to account for these concerns, but 10% seems more reasonable. Still, 80% of $5600 is still $4480, which is probably greater than the EV I would have by playing the tournament out. (I'm assuming the poker calculator was overestimating my EV as the chip leader. Perhaps my EV was actually around $4000)

Making the deal also has the added benefit of greatly lowering the volatility of our winnings. If we discount by 10% instead of 20%, it comes to $5040, so I do think the deal would have been well worth it considering all the above factors. As I will discuss below, however, there are still other factors yet to be considered. All told, I think the deal was worth it for me, but the fact that someone backed out was not the disaster for me that it seemed like at the time.

The First Place offer: After we had been playing with three players for about ten minutes, I had around 60% of the chips, and my younger opponent suggested a chop wherein I would take first place money (around $6300), and he and my older opponent would share second and third place (around $2400 each). I could hardly believe this offer - I couldn't lose! - but the older player did not seem at all interested, barely acknowledging that an offer had been made. We continued playing.

In retrospect, I think this older player, who later informed me he had trouble hearing, probably did not even realize a deal had been offered. The lesson I learned here is to be a little more assertive and persistent in pursuing lucrative deals. If this third player had still demurred after the offer was explained to him, as I expect he would have, I should have offered him $100 to take the deal, and been willing to go up to $500. I probably lost quite a bit of value with my passivity.

*****

I mentioned that there were some factors worth considering that I skipped over in the above analysis. As a poker player, I have many objectives beyond just trying to make optimal strategic decisions by maximizing EV. When it comes to making deals to split the winnings at the end of tournaments, one objective in particular competes with my primary goal of maximizing profit: I would also really like to play the tournament out to the end because that would allow me to improve through experience. I learned quite a bit about my competitors at the Charles Town casino by playing out the three player and two player scenarios in the hour or two after The First Place Offer was passed over. In order to effectively balance these two considerations (immediate EV versus gaining valuable experience that will help my EV in the future), it would be helpful to put a monetary value on the otherwise qualitative value of this experience. I will explore the question of how to do this in a future post. I expect it will involve discounting the value of my future income, which is a standard practice in economic theory.

* One Bicycle Casino promotion was to give away about twelve keys to a car over the course of a day, eleven of which were fake. At the end of the day, all the keys would be tried and one of them would work and that person would win the car. The twelve people agreed that whoever won the car would give the others some amount of money, maybe $1000 each. The lady who won the car backed out.

The Bike contests a prop's unemployment claim

Back on December 1, 2010, I was informed by the Bicycle Casino that they were eliminating my position as a host/prop for the $500 NL games. They told me I could choose either to become a prop in the $2 green chip section (where they play games like 8-16 limit and $80 buyin NL holdem) or be laid off. They gave me a sheet to sign that looked something like the following, except instead of the second option being "I choose to be laid off," it said something like "I prefer to quit," which might have imade it difficult for me to collect unemployment insurance payments. When I decided to "choose to be laid off," I was a little worried that I wouldn't get my benefits, but everything worked out fine.

I signed this form after HR agreed to rephrase the "laid off" option. (I removed my ID#.)

I'm bringing this up now because recently one of my former fellow props asked me if I still had this document. Back in December 2010, he and another prop opted to take the pay cut rather than be laid off. He was assured, as I was, that if he took this option he could continue to play the $5 yellow chip games in the Plaza section, even though his position would officially be as a prop for the smaller games in the Royal Section. Unlike me, he trusted them to honor this promise. I thought they would allow it for only a month or two, but as it happens, they actually honored it for over a year. Then they told him and the other prop that they had to start working in the Royal Section after all. He refused this role change and quit. The Bike then contested his application for unemployment insurance payments, claiming that he had quit and was not laid off. According to him, the Bike also claimed that the above document had never been offered. That's why he asked me if I had it.

As you can see, I did have a photo of the memo. It seemed prudent to have a copy for myself in case I had any trouble getting my unemployment benefits. I had several reasons not to consider the casino particularly trustworthy. These include several minor broken promises, rumors of illicit business dealings such as accepting kick-backs on overpriced renovation projects, and a clear disrespect for the props by some of the middle managers. Also, they routinely changed the expectations of our roles in minor ways without consulting us and sometimes without even informing us. In any case, if I was to be leaving, they wouldn't have any particular interest in doing me any favors. I had a chat with an employment lawyer who said it was best for me not to sign anything but that the above document sounded okay. I signed it and had no problem getting my benefits.


In the end, the prop won the case against the Bike, and he will be getting his unemployment benefits. I don't know what the ruling hinged upon exactly, but I guess it was that his agreed-upon role at the casino had been altered significantly enough to be considered an elimination of the position on the part of the casino.


*****


The big news today is that PokerStars has acquired Full Tilt as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice over last year's charges of fraud. It looks like foreign players will be getting their money back, but U.S. players' accounts remain in limbo.

Should poker players be willing to play in short-handed games?

Absolutely. Not only should you be willing to play short handed, but short-handed games are actually preferable to full-ring games.

Many players refuse to play unless a game is nearly full. Still more will play if there are five or six players but not if there are fewer than that. Sometimes, while sitting with three or four other players who are unwilling to play until more players arrive, I ask them why they don't like to play shorthanded. One such player told me that short-handed games are too expensive because the blinds come around too often. Sometimes it's simply that they don't want to play shorthanded in a game with me in it. Some players come for the social atmosphere and find that the competition gets too personal with fewer players. Other players seem to just like to sit around folding most of the time while waiting for AA or KK. Still other players probably have other concerns.

So, why do I think short-handed games are not only worthwhile but are actually better for poker players? Let's look at the three main concerns of a poker player: winnings, social experience, and game purity.

Effect on winnings: The old adage that "you need to play more hands when you play short-handed" is overly vague. The truth is that there is a much better way to transfer your strategy from a full-ring game to a short-handed game: When playing X-handed, play exactly as you would play in the same position relative to the button in a 9 handed game after the first (9-X) players fold. As I will now demonstrate, the two scenarios are very similar.

Suppose you are playing in the cutoff or button of a 9-handed game and the first five players after the big blind fold before the flop. If you have an idea of how to play in this situation, then you can play in a 4-handed game. There are only three very minor differences in the two situations. First, the 4-handed scenario would move faster because the deal would be quicker and you wouldn't need to wait for the first five players to fold. Second, the hand in the 4-handed game would be cheaper in most casinos because in most casinos the short-handed game would have a smaller rake and maybe no jackpot drop. (Both scenarios have four players left, so you are about equally likely to win the hand and end up paying the drop.) Third, in the four-handed game, you wouldn't need to worry about any bunching effects, and so the game is slightly easier if you are trying to combinatorially guess your opponents' hands. (As we will see presently, this is probably a negligible concern anyway.) So, the game is faster, cheaper, and easier. Faster and cheaper are clear advantages. Easier is a wash because it applies to your opponents as well as to you.

So, the strategy in a short-handed game has a nearly direct parallel to a situation most full-ring players are already familiar with: the situation where the first several players fold. Consider the implications of this. The first five hands after the blind are the least-often-played hands. They are the spots where you are most often sitting and doing nothing except waiting for your opponents to finish playing (and maybe gathering information to use against them). If you could just eliminate these five spots, you would vastly increase the rate at which you would have decisions to make. That is exactly what happens when you play short-handed. Winning poker players make their money by making better decisions than their opponents, so having more decisions in any given period of time translates directly to a higher win rate.

In addition, short-handed games require players to quickly gain a good sense of their opponent's strategies, because they will be going up against the same opponents in each hand. Also, the nature of short handed games is that they tend to fluctuate in size, requiring an ability to adjust to changing circumstances. These are skills that good players can put to better use in short-handed games than full-ring games.

I anticipate two main objections to my argument that short-handed games are better for your win rate. First, the situations I've described are not exactly the same. After all, in a 9-handed game where the first five players have folded, there is a "bunching" effect: because folded hands are slightly more likely to have contained low cards, the remaining cards are slightly more likely to be high (and thus strong). Just for a quick example, suppose the first five players will each play if and only if they are dealt an ace. Suppose they all fold this hand. If you are in the cutoff and also don't have an ace, then all four aces are still left and there are only 40 cards left (52 minus 12). For each of your opponents, the chance of having pocket aces is now 1 in 130 (4/40 times 3/39), much better than the usual 1 in 221. However, this is an extreme example. In practice, players do play some low cards and they do fold with hands like A2 (most players, anyway). The "bunching" effect is just not all that big a factor. Maybe I'll do a deeper analysis of this later. For now, I'll just say that I don't believe this is a big enough effect to contradict my claim that you can view them as being essentially the same. I concede that it makes sense to be tiny bit more wary of your opponents in the 9-handed game after five folds than in the 4-handed scenario, but making a big adjustment would be a mistake. You would be safe if you made no adjustment at all.

Second, you may argue something like:

Sure, those scenarios are essentially the same, but you are overlooking some real advantages to having those early-position hands that exist only in full-ring games. These afford me important opportunities to apply my superior poker skills. For one thing, I can use the time after I fold these hands to watch my opponents play. Since I'm more observant than my opponents and since I'm better able to apply new information, this represents a real advantage to me. Even ignoring this, my basic strategy in these EP hands is far superior to some of my opponents. The biggest weakness of many of my opponents is that they play too loosely, and this weakness is most pronounced in EP. Why remove these opportunities for my opponents to play badly?

These are reasonably strong arguments. It's true that playing short-handed eliminates some opportunities for strategic advantage, and for a thorough analysis, I would need to consider the value of these strategic advantages. For now, let me just give an intuitive explanation for why I don't think these arguments are strong enough contradict my claim that short-handed games are better. Yes, we are giving up some opportunities to gain value over our opponents through superior use of observation and superior play in EP. However, there is an opportunity cost to these advantages. For the benefit of getting to sit and observe your opponents, you are losing the opportunity to actually be playing more hands and applying your strategic advantages; if you really want extra time to observe your opponents, you can achieve that in a short-handed game by simply sitting out a few rounds and watching. As for your advantage over your opponents who play terribly in EP, this comes at the cost of the advantage you have over your opponents' LP and blinds strategy. Every hand we would get to play in EP is replaced in short-handed games by extra hands in LP and the blinds. Since these are hands that you are much more likely to be playing (rather than folding), it seems to me that your advantage over your opponents here is likely even greater than the advantage you have over your opponents in early position. I agree that it is much easier for your opponents to play terribly in EP, but it is also much easier for you to play great in LP and the blinds, because they often involve lots of decision making deep into hands. Playing "great" in EP basically just means having the discipline to fold a lot.

There are some rational explanations for why a winning player would have a higher EV in full-ring games. Perhaps they really aren't good at playing in the cutoff and on the button compared to their proficiency at playing in early position. Perhaps they thrive on post-flop situations that are multi-handed. Perhaps they don't have the ability to concentrate in the way that is required when you need to make many decisions each hour. Perhaps they make their profit by preying on players who play poorly in early position, or perhaps they play in a venue where such players are particularly prevalent. Perhaps their game does not lower the fees for short-handed games. If these describe your situation, you may have a strong case that you have a better EV when playing full-ring games. However, I don't think these are common characteristics of poker players or venues, and, in any case, any advantage you may have in EV per hand when playing full-ring games would have to outweigh the increased number of hands you are able to play in the faster short-handed games. A 4-handed game likely has twice as many hands per hour than a 9-handed game. Asking a player to make twice as much per hand in a 9-handed game than a 4-handed game is a very tall order.

In the end, I think that with a smaller rake and a greatly increased decision-rate, short handed games make for much more efficient winnings.

Big advantage to short-handed games, assuming you are better than your opponents in late postion and on the blinds.

Effect on social atmostphere: Full-ring games afford players the opportunity to sit back and relax. They chat with their opponents and even discuss poker strategy without worrying too much that the player they are speaking with will play many hands with them. Basically, the game is less contentious. On the other hand, they can sometimes get boring and players get impatient with each other for playing slowly.

Small advantage to full-ring games.


Effect on game purity: Smaller rake means slightly less negative effect on the game. Fluctuating game size requires a flexible strategy, which I view as a slight positive. However, some would argue that a full-ring game, with its slower pace and emphasis on patience and observation, is the way "pure" poker was meant to be played.

Very small advantage to short-handed games.


Unless you come mostly for the social experience, you should prefer short-handed games.

Should Poker Players Point Out Dealer Errors?

I think so, but this may be specific to my own peculiar view.

At a poker table, it is the dealer's job to make sure the game is being played by the book. Some dealers are better at this than others, and even the best dealers make occasional mistakes. Bets are miscounted, hands are misread, players are directed to play out of turn, anti-collusion rules go unenforced, pots are split incorrectly, and any number of other mistakes can happen. When I notice these things, I like to point them out and get them corrected, but when I do some other players sometimes get upset. Should I be pointing these things out? Let's look at the main factors.

1. Effect on my winnings. 
The only direct effect is that I will usually point out errors even if they were in my favor, such as an opponent putting in two many chips to call a bet. I lose money when I do that.

One indirect factor is the effect of either upsetting or pleasing other players. However, there's not that much they can do about it, and not many people take these things very personally, anyway.

Another indirect factor is that new players might feel more comfortable in the casino, which may help to make the average competition a little softer.

This category is a wash, with maybe a tiny advantage to NOT pointing out errors, especially those errors that directly result in more chips for myself.

2. Effect on the social atmosphere.
Usually, if I don't point out an error, it will go unnoticed by whomever it hurt. So, by pointing out the errors, I might be making the social atmosphere a little more tense.

An indirect effect is that everyone can relax a little more about the whether the rules are being followed. We can trust that somebody else will usually point out any mistakes.

Another indirect effect is that players might trust each other a little more, which I think encourages a better social atmosphere in the long run.

For me, the major reason I like to point out any errors I see is that the alternative is unfair to inexperienced players and players who are new to a casino. For inexperienced players, they obviously are less likely to realize if a mistake has been made. For players new to a casino, they suffer from the fact that the other players are likely to know each other and be inclined to look out for each other. So, errors that were made in the new players' favor are more likely to be pointed out and reversed, putting new players at an unfair disadvantage. When this happens, the social atmosphere becomes much worse. However, these situations are rarely so clear cut as to make a big difference.

Personally, I just feel better if I do what feels like the "right" thing, so I would be particularly uncomfortable if I ignored errors. You may be different.

Advantage to pointing out errors, but this may be partly specific to myself.

3. Effect on the purity of the game. This depends on what you think "pure" poker means. To me, it means a game of poker played by the rules, but other purists might argue that poker should be a purely individualistic game, and no player should say anything that could help another player out, even if it's just to ensure that rules are being followed.

Advantage to pointing out errors, but players with different philosophies may disagree.


I personally would certainly like it if players took a more active role in policing their games, but it doesn't seem likely that we could overturn the prevailing mentality that players should avoid getting involved in other players' hands.

*****

I accepted a spot in the PhD program in statistics at UMBC.

*****

I've been posting on a blog called "Skepolitical," a portmanteau of "skeptic" and "political." My most recent post was on Attachment Parenting.

Should No Limit Holdem Players Want Antes in Their Games?

Two of the main triggers of the poker boom in the 2000's, the movie Rounders and ESPN's well-produced broadcast of the WSOP (especially the Moneymaker victory), both specifically glorified the game of no-limit holdem. Rounders famously quoted Doyle Brunson calling NLHE the "Cadillac of poker games." Brand-new poker players came to the casinos looking for holdem games, especially no-limit holdem games. Before long, veteran stud players migrated to the no-limit games hoping to prey upon the newbies. The result is that, compared to holdem games, stud games have plummeted in popularity since the 1990's. Today, stud games feel downright antiquated.

One distinguishing feature of stud games is that they use antes, and, as a result, antes now seem as antiquated as the stud games they're used for. Actually, while antes are almost never used in NLHE cash games, they do usually come into play in the later rounds of tournaments. This is cause for consternation among some tournament players, mostly because the antes increase the effect of luck as compared to skill. Perhaps ironically, then, one place you can occasionally see antes in NLHE cash games is in the very high-stakes games, where you might expect the players to want to maximize the importance of skill. The reason they like antes is that many of these top players have recognized the problem I mentioned midway through my previous post on jackpots: standard NLHE has very little action if everyone in the game is playing a strong, solid, tight and aggressive game. To fix this problem, top pros have sometimes decided to add antes to their games. So, should the rest of us be advocating for the introduction of antes into our NLHE games? Probably, but let's look at the major considerations.

1. Maximizing winnings.
2. Having an enjoyable social experience.
3. Having a pure, intellectually stimulating game of poker.

All three factors have opposing forces that I will attempt to weigh against each other.

1. Maximizing winnings: If you are a strong player with a given set of opponents, your EV will probably be slightly improved if you are using an ante. With more action, you will be correct to play more hands, and this will give you more opportunities to use your superior skill against your opponents. Also, there will be more money in each pot, which means more potential profit. There are two major drawbacks, however. First, your expected volatility will certainly rise substantially because the antes directly increase the luck factor and, with more money being bet, you will effectively be playing higher stakes. This will possibly force you to move down to lower stakes. Second, your typical opponent's biggest weakness, playing too many hands, will suddenly become much less of a liability. Your weak opponents will be playing better even if they fail to adjust for the introduction of the ante. This is all subjective, but my guess is that these factors give a bit of a net boost to EV.

The previous paragraph assumes "a given set of opponents," but we must  also consider the effect on the player supply in an ante game versus a no-ante game. In the short run, only good players seem likely to want to use antes. The first players who will want to make the move to "ante NLHE" are those who are confident in their ability to adjust to the new strategic challenges posed by the introduction of an ante and those who recognize the problem I just described with NLHE losing action if you are at a table of solid players. We can expect that these players are better than average, and they will certainly not be novices. Despite this, I think that in the long run, bad players will really enjoy the antes. Having more action and higher volatility is way more fun. If we can get to the point where antes are no longer a novel concept, novices will be happy to play with them. In the long run, which is what I'm primarily concerned with in these blog posts, I think the antes will attract more bad players than good players because of the increased luck factor. Another small net positive for EV.

2. Social experience: For most people, getting to play more hands is more fun. Sure, there will be the odd player who likes to sit back and wait for AA or KK, but who needs those guys anyway? Others will object to the increased luck factor, but just as many will enjoy it. In the short run, some players will be put off by the novelty of antes, but others (such as myself) like thinking about novel strategic situations, and in any case the novelty will wear off. A net positive.

3. Pure, stimulating game of poker: Some purists, including yours truly, are just concerned with having a robust, stimulating, fairly-played game, unencumbered by factors introduced by the casino such as jackpots, rakes, or confusing rules or promotions. The antes affect none of these factors except that they have the potential to engender a much more stimulating game by discouraging tight, nitty play. Some purists additionally want a traditional or low-luck game of poker. For these players, the antes may be a problem. From my perspective, however, the antes represent a major boon to the game itself.

Many of the factors above relate to my personal preferences, which may make it hard to convince other players (or my readers) to come to my side if they are not already so inclined. For example, if you understand the importance of having luck in a poker game (this is what attracts the bad players) but you still think it's better to try to minimize it, there's not much I can do to convince you that antes would be a good thing. Also, my approximations on the effect on EV are certainly up for debate. However, if you agree with me on these factors (and you should!) then you'll agree that introducing antes is a really good idea.

I wonder whether we can ever really make the jump to adding antes in lower stakes games. Perhaps it's like the QWERTY keyboard: research shows it's not optimal, but it's just not worth making the switch. It's not surprising that the high-stakes NLHE games were the first to adopt antes. Nobody playing those stakes is going to have an issue with getting outside their comfort zone to play a slightly novel form of poker. (Well, maybe Andy Beal.) They're not worried about scaring away new players, and they are looking to maximize the amount of action in their games. It's also possible that these high stakes games have fewer action players and are thus more prone to going cold.

All of these factors that encourage the use of antes diminish as you go down in stakes. What I think needs to happen for antes to become prevalent is for enough regular players to realize that the top pros are playing with antes. When that happens, the game will no longer look as weird and novel as a Dvorak keyboard. In the meantime, regular players can advocate for antes by convincing their fellow poker players that antes are a good thing and by asking their floor men to make "interest" lists for ante games.

Should Poker Players Want Jackpots in Their Games?

This is the second in what I hope will become a series of posts on the things that (good) poker players should look for in an ideal casino game. Regular players in poker rooms hold sway with the casino management, and this series can be viewed as my personal commentary on what I think you should be lobbying for if you are a good poker player.

Entering "jackpot" into the search field on this blog yields many instances of my bemoaning their existence in my games, but in truth my disdain for jackpots has waned recently. (This is decidedly not due to the fact that I've won a substantial amount from jackpots, which many of my casino acquaintances assumed would change my negative opinion of jackpots in general. Talk about results-oriented thinking!) There are many different types of jackpots awarded in poker games at casinos. In Los Angeles, the "Bad Beat Jackpot" is by far the most pervasive, but in Las Vegas, I think the "High-Hand Jackpot" might still be more common. Both usually take $1 out of each pot (sometimes only if there is a flop) and award money to players in rare instances such as losing with a very strong hand (Bad Beat) or just winning with certain types of very strong hands (High Hand).

For this post, I'll be thinking primarily of the "Bad Beat" type of jackpot, which I think is the worse of the two. I'll be looking at how it affects the three main concerns I mentioned in my previous post:

1. Maximizing Winnings.
2. Having an enjoyable social experience.
3. Playing a pure, intellectually stimulating game of poker.

I don't have anything to say about concern #2 here, but some players may have a strong personal preference for or against jackpots. Personally, I don't like them much. Let's look at concern #3 and then #1.

If playing a pure game of poker is your main reason for coming to a casino, you will hate jackpots, especially bad-beat jackpots. For purists, putting finely-tuned poker strategies to work against real opponents is the essence of what makes playing poker worthwhile. It can be a joyous experience to put theory into practice and have it work out. Jackpots destroy this by changing the players' incentive structure, thereby interfering with the logical inferences about your opponents' decisions that characterize a pure game of poker. These disruptions are most evident in Bad Beat Jackpot games during hands where there are two Aces on board, because the easiest way to win a jackpot is for a third Ace to hit the board while one player has the case Ace and the other player holds a large pocket pair. Winning the actual pot becomes insignificant, with players focusing only on making sure they do not miss out on the 1/40 or so chance at winning a few thousand dollars.

There is another, subtler, consequence of jackpots on the purity of the game that is often overlooked. The $1 jackpot fee is taken from each pot, and this affects optimal play. A slightly smaller pot means that it's optimal to play slightly tighter (and, if other players make are making that adjustment, it becomes correct to play more aggressively). This is a minor disruption, but it is made worse by the fact that another $5 is usually being taken out for the casino's rake, and my sense is that each extra dollar taken out is marginally worse than the previous. (Consider, for example, the effect of taking the first dollar out of a $1000 pot compared to taking the thousandth dollar out after already removing the first 999!) In No-Limit Hold'em, which already has a problem of having too little action when everyone in the game is solid, the problem is especially pronounced. A future post may explore the possibility of adding an ante to NLHE games in order to liven them up a bit.

The jackpots introduce opportunities for corrupt practices by players, dealers, and administrators. Honest players now have one more thing to be on the lookout for in order to protect themselves.

When a jackpot is actually hit, the game comes to a screeching halt. Winners celebrate, decks are examined for evidence of cheating, administrators skim off the top of the jackpot (legally and sometimes illegally), ID's are taken out, and forms are filled out for tax purposes. A nightmare for a purist who just wants to sit and play poker.

I hesitate to call myself a purist (after all, it ranks third on my list of concerns), but maybe I am. Certainly, I'm sympathetic to this way thinking, and I consider "game purity" to be the major reason to dislike jackpots. I previously would have told you that Maximizing Winnings is my primary issue with jackpots, but the effect of jackpots on winnings is actually pretty complicated. Let's examine the pros and cons.

Having often argued against jackpots, I'm well-versed in the negatives. The simplest possible analysis is to look at the EV of each dollar paid into the jackpot. In California, I've been assured that the casino is allowed to take 15% for administrative costs, so each dollar returns 85 cents at best. (This is assuming you can trust administrators not to skim off the top.) The money you put in will sit around for months, on average, so the net present value of that money is slightly less than 85 cents. Then, you are expected to tip. (Tipping can be forgone, I suppose, but everyone I know has tipped after their jackpot wins.) Most players tip 5-10%, so our return is now down to about 75%.

Things are still worse than that, though, for several reasons. First, jackpots increase the volatility of our win rate substantially. Second, the deck-checking is unfairly biased towards delaying the jackpot payouts, because they are occasionally cancelled. (Once in a while the deck-check reveals a bad deck and the jackpot is not paid, but is it very rare for a deck to be checked when the jackpot is not paid out. This means sometimes payments have gone into the jackpot drop in hands that would have been voided had the jackpot been won and the deck checked. To be fair, the decks should be checked every time a dollar is paid to the drop, but this is impractical for obvious reasons.) Third, the slightly smaller pots mean tighter play becomes correct, and this can cut into the win rate of strong, creative players. Fourth, when the jackpot is actually won, the game will be delayed, eliminating winnings you expected to have during that time playing poker. These factors are hard to quantify, but I would say that between the EV and volatility issues another 5% of utility is lost. So, we are at about 70% return, assuming there is no cheating or illicit skimming by the casino management.

I've heard a few good arguments for having jackpots amid many weak arguments. The most worthy argument is that jackpots attracts amateur players.  All else being equal, having to play the jackpot drop costs me about $4 an hour and in the long run I get paid back about $3 in jackpot winnings. So, ignoring strategic effects and time delays, it really only costs me about $1 per hour. On the flip side, a single fish at the table is certainly worth much more than this. Even just a slightly weak player can make up for that $1/hour jackpot loss. Moreover, a good player will tend to play hands that have a good chance at making a jackpot, such as high pocket pairs or big Aces. This means that, for good players, the return on investment should be slightly higher than for weaker players. My sense is that this is a very minor effect, but I could be wrong. It is something, at least.

In conclusion, I would say that the only very significant effect of jackpots on any relevant concern is on the purity of the game. Jackpots are unmitigated disasters for game purity. However, your bankroll will benefit if the jackpot scares off the other poker purists. Purists tend to be good players. If your only concern is for making money, the jackpot might actually be helping you in the long run by attracting worse players to the game. Keep in mind, however, that if these worse players are not in the game at any particular time, you would certainly be better off without the jackpot drop.

*****

I did not get into the UMD College Park Applied Math department. I am leaning towards accepting the position in the PhD program in Statistics at UMBC.

Advice That Will Help Both My Opponents and Myself

Most of the advice and analysis on this blog could easily be used against me if readers found me at their poker table. (Indirectly, it can hurt me even if we never play against each other by marginally improving the play of the average poker player.) I enjoy doing strategy and hand analysis on this blog, and I think it's been worth any small amounts of EV I may have lost.

A commenter (Rick) suggested that I give some advice that would actually help me if it were followed by my opponents. This sounds easy: Just give bad advice! An intriguing idea, but it wouldn't make much difference because my poker-playing readers can mostly discern bad advice from good, anyway. Fortunately, there is another way: Give advice that helps not only me but also my opponents. This is clearly the angle Rick was suggesting. This seems like a good idea, so I'm going to devote a few posts to encouraging behavior that will improve the culture of casino poker.

When I'm in a poker room, I have three main concerns. Players will surely differ on the relative importance of these three factors, but I think nearly all players are implicitly concerned with these three things. For me, I would rank them as follows.

1. Maximizing my winnings. This is an explicit goal of most players, and the main concern of most poker pros. Like other poker players, I tend focus on ways in which I can win money from other players, but there are also plenty of things players can do to help not only themselves but also other players (either all the other players or some subset).

2. Having an enjoyable social experience. Poker is a social game, after all. Occasionally, I will come across players for whom this seems to be the primary goal of their poker games.

3. Playing an interesting game of poker. This is the concern of the poker purists, who play for the love of the game.

The first piece of advice I want to give is conventional wisdom but is very difficult for many people to follow: Be nice to the bad players. This helps the other players fulfill Concern #1 because the bad players are likely to stick around for longer. It usually also helps the bad players fulfill Concern #2. Unfortunately, poker players are often too immature to resist castigating bad players for bad beats and the like. Personally, I also wish that people were nicer to the good players, but that is not necessarily good for fulfilling Concern #1. There are a few of players at the Bike who are so unpleasant that I tend to try to avoid them, and I imagine it is good for their win rate to get me out of their games.

That's it for today. Stay tuned for my next attempt to help improve the culture of casino poker.

*****

I've been taking an online course on game theory run by two professors at Stanford.

*****

I got into the PhD Statistics programs at UMBC and George Washington, but without funding. I'm still waiting on UMD College Park's PhD program in Applied Math, Applied Statistics, and Scientific Computation.

What is Your Biggest Weakness as a Poker Player?

This is another interview-style question that seemed like the type I might get after my Mathematical Poker talk back on February 14. Since I haven't been playing poker recently, these questions have provided a good excuse to keep this blog alive for the past several weeks. I hope to address some other poker issues in the coming weeks, but this will probably be the last in this question-answer format unless a commenter has another question worth answering.

The one thing I think would most help my poker income would be to put more effort into game selection. I'm not sure if this qualifies as a "weakness": most players neglect game selection as much as I do, so I'm not actually particularly weak. Doing game selection has some drawbacks, especially in live poker: it is conspicuous to scout out various tables before playing, it cuts into the time you could be playing, and it annoys the floorpeople if you keep changing tables (especially at the Commerce, in my experience). Still, the effect of having a good game can overwhelm any effect of marginal improvements in my own strategy when it comes to my win rate. I state this without data; perhaps I'll find the motivation to do a bit of analysis to back up (or falsify) this idea. Drawing from my memory, however, it really does seem that some tables at a casino can be clearly seen to be better than others, I am pretty confident that selecting a good game is far more important to my winnings than any small fluctuations in my own play or adding a few extra minutes of playing to my session. In a similar vein, I have rarely tried to make stabs at higher limits, despite my belief that this can be a useful endeavor, and I've had several strong players tell me I should be playing higher stakes. I guess I just don't consider myself much of a "gambler" and I would like to keep it that way.

Historically, my approach to game selection has been as follows: spend 20 seconds scanning the room for known fish or for a table seeming to have an unusually good time. (Occasionally, it helps to play with players who are good but who are particularly skilled at making other players play badly. Rarely, it can also help to notice recognize a player I know focuses on game selection, and I can be confident that any game he is in will be a good one.) Then, when I'm in a game, I am rather aggressive about selecting against staying there. That is to say, I will ask for a table change within 5 minutes if the game is not great. (This can annoy the floorpeople and gives your opponents some information about the type of player you are.) To improve my table selection would require that I spend an extra couple of minutes watching a few hands at each potential game until I find one that is quite juicy, and there are usually one or two of these if you look hard enough. If I don't find a juicy game, I should still be able to select one that is at least pretty good.

At the table, my biggest weaknesses are probably concentration and exploiting strong players, which are related. Against weak players, I am perfectly capable of focusing and probing their weaknesses, but I tend to just model strong players as "perfect" and try to play optimally against them in a game-theory sense. This creates a sort of feedback loop of being distracted from the game if I'm up against only solid players, because I don't feel the need to concentrate on them and this creates boredom. In truth, I do think even good players are exploitable, and this becomes especially interesting once they start trying to exploit me; I tend to be a step behind the competition in such situations (not a big deal, since I think my standard game is unusually difficult to exploit in the first place). I think the problem is that finding opportunities to exploit these weaknesses seldom arise, and it takes an awful lot of patience for the effort to pay off. Perhaps other players are fooling themselves into thinking that it's more worthwhile than it truly is, but the bottom line is that most other players seem to have deeper wells of patience and concentration to draw from than I do when it comes to studying their opponents.

Do players at the casinos usually know who the props are?

This was another of the questions from my Swarthmore math talk, which I'm revisiting and answering on the blog.

To varying degrees, all of the props at the casinos in Los Angeles try to blend in with the customers. Some will outright lie to customers about whether they are props, while others might make it obvious without even being asked. In general, none of the props wear any identification, and the casinos operate under the assumption that it's better if customers don't know that there are any props at all. I think we were technically supposed to tell people the truth if we were asked, and I know that the floorpeople needed to inform customers of who the props were if asked. Beyond that, there was a lot of secrecy. Shortly after I started at the Bike, we had a meeting in which one of the supervisors told us that if someone asks us if someone else is a prop, we should just say we don't know. "It's not really lying because for all you know, he quit that morning and isn't a prop anymore." If you are concerned about who the props are, just go ask a floorman.

In practice, the regular players at a casino do know who the props are, but new players usually do not. In fact, the new players usually don't even know that there are any props at all. I didn't know when I started going to casinos.

Why didn't you play online instead of live?

A commenter suggested I answer this question, which is similar to one I was asked after the talk.

It's true that playing online makes a lot of sense for a professional poker player. You can play from home, you can play way more games per hour, and you can keep track of very useful data on yourself and your opponents much more easily than in the casino. Although the competition is tougher (or so I have heard and believe), if you can beat the games online, it makes way more financial sense to play online than in a casino. If you get good enough at multitabling shorthanded games to win even 25 cents per hand, you can earn more per hour than someone playing live and winning $4 per hand. In addition, it's likely that the ratio of your win rate to your volatility will be relatively low because every $X that you win will come over many more hands, evening out the wins and losses. So, why didn't I play online?

There are three main reasons. All of them have to do with focusing on abstract issues related to my quality of life as opposed to my finances.

First of all, I simply don't enjoy playing online and playing in a casino remains fun. I just prefer being around people to sitting in my house at my computer. I like the structure of going out and avoiding the distractions of being at home. I like the culture of live poker, playing with real cards and real chips. I also like the aspects of pure poker that get obscured by online play, which is actually my next point.

The second reason is that online poker isn't real poker, but merely a good substitute. I want to be able to look at and talk to my opponents. I actually think this is a minor aspect of real poker, but it still matters and it still makes the game more fun and interesting. Perhaps most importantly, I think live poker is more "pure" because there is probably less cheating. It's way too easy to collude in online poker ("hey, I've got pocket aces, can you raise for me now?"). Being able to see your opponents not only makes it harder for them to cheat but also makes them less likely to want to cheat. Several people have admitted to me that they have colluded online. I doubt most of these people would be willing to cheat people in live poker because it just feels so much meaner to cheat a real person than an avatar. All of this is ignoring the "superuser" problem of poker site employees helping their friends cheat by revealing opponents' hands. (Online poker scandals listed here.)  We also have the issue of poker bots, which are probably beatable but certainly diminish the "purity" of the game.

Third, it simply didn't seem worth getting back into online poker after the UIGEA was passed, which was a year after I moved to Vegas. I actually did try to deposit money once or twice since then, but when I realized it would be a complicated process I gave up and never looked back. I also try to be lawful whenever possible (I'm one of the few pro poker players who makes an effort to report his earnings to the IRS accurately and I don't attend obviously illegal home games), so avoiding online poker lets me sidestep the ambiguous legal standing of online poker in America nowadays.

So, basically I had a strong personal preference for live poker, cheating seems more rampant online, and the laws make things complicated.

Hollywood Casino at Charles Town

I've completed the move to Mt Airy, Maryland, and Calvin is in a daycare center that he seems to like, so I have a bit of time to give my adoring fans an update.

I'm going to apply to Master's programs in statistics, applied math, or biostatistics, planning to start in Fall 2012. I'm not sure what to do in the meantime, but I do have one better-than-expected option. Hollywood Casino in West Virginia, less than an hour away, is much nicer than I expected. I was imagining something akin to Hollywood Park Casino, due to the fact that it's on a racetrack and in West Virginia (which I unfairly imagined as being rather run-down). Also, it's similar name encouraged the comparison. The fact that their HR department was unfamiliar with the term "poker prop" did not seem to bode well, either. 

In actuality, the casino seems new and the casino floor has the feel of an upscale Vegas casino, a la the Wynn. One drawback is that it feels even more packed with loud slot machines, but it's not too hard to get past those and to the poker room as long as I use the East entrance in the future. (Unaware of this, I used the West entrance on my visit.) When I finally made it to the poker room, it was packed. This was an overcast Saturday afternoon, so that was to be expected. I chatted with a floorman, who told me they have thirty tables, and there were usually wait lists on the weekends. They had discussed expanding downstairs, but that would have displaced some valuable slot machines. That's probably okay, though, because I am more likely to go during the week, when he said they usually only have about 20 tables running. The poker room shares an entrance with the stands for the racetrack, which could cause some unexpected disturbances. Their biggest game is a 5-10 NLH $300 minimum buy-in game, which is very similar to the game I got very used to at the Bike last year. Occasionally they have a 10-20 NLH game, too. They also had some PLO games running, which is also supposedly becoming more popular in Los Angeles. 

I asked the floor man about props, and I was surprised to find that he had never heard of them. When I explained them, he assured me that they have none of them and that employees are not even allowed to play at the casino. Oh well. 

In other news, friend and occasional commenter Rick Schoenberg has an awesome-looking textbook coming out in December called Introduction to Probability with Texas Holdem Examples. Reading the blurb makes me want to go back and review some of those concept analyses I wrote two years ago. That will have to wait until several other projects are finished, I'm afraid. 

Moving to Maryland

The Los Angeles era is almost over (for me, anyway). Brigid got a good job out in Mt. Airy, MD, so we'll be moving there this summer. The closest poker room, I think, will be "Hollywood Casino" in Charles Town, West Virginia. It's actually not very far from Mt Airy, but this still probably means my poker career is over or at least on hiatus. Although poker has treated me pretty well financially the past few years, I haven't really felt passionate about it. Even moving up in stakes after I got laid off didn't help. I've already stopped playing poker except on rare occasions, instead watching little Calvin and investigating my other options.

I've mentioned my interest in trying something else several times on this blog (I did well on the LSAT in February), so this is could work out well. I'll likely go back to school, but not until fall 2012, so I'll pursue some other projects in the meantime. I'll use this blog as well as my twitter feed to give any substantial updates, but don't expect regular posts (or tweets) for a while.

Live at the Bike

My poker/wordswithfriends buddy Aaron (@ALLINAK) tells me that there was a pretty good 5-10NL game at the good 'ol Bicycle Casino yesterday. I had heard the game was dead; I wonder how they got that game going again, but it may be in part due to the Live at the Bike production. I just watched the first half of a $25-$50 NL session that made me really sad that they let me go. That was a juicy, juicy game, but it was much bigger than I'm used to playing. I also think playing on Live at the Bike could actually be help my game a bit, because the commentary is like free coaching. I think Nichoel is a good player, and I would certainly be interested to hear what she had to say about my game. Of course, the fact that anyone else can also watch me play would be a big downside.

I haven't been back to the Bike since being laid off. Considering how tough the Commerce's 10-20 game has been my past few sessions, I might find my way back to the Bike at some point. It just seems kind of wrong to be playing there without getting paid.

The (Poker) World in Turmoil

After playing very little this year due to LSAT studying and visitors, I went to the Commerce yesterday and was filled in on some gossip. Haig Kalegian, the Bike's managing general partner, has supposedly been bought out by a group including Hashem Minaiy, the Bike's CEO. I know both of them a little bit, Haig better than Hashem.  Meanwhile, several people tell me the Bike no longer runs the $500 NL game that I used to prop. This is particularly interesting to me because when I was laid off my supervisor told me they had a plan to keep the game going without me. I wonder if it was their plan all along to kill the game or if they just couldn't keep it going.

My winning streak ended in January... but it doesn't mean much since I only played seven hours.

Did you know there's a whole community living under Las Vegas?

Brigid should be finishing up her PhD soon (probably by the end of the year), so we may be on the move again as soon as September. Fortunately for me, poker rooms seem to be cropping up in the east as legislators look for new ways to bring in tax revenue. For example, there are big plans in Cleveland.

I've Been Laid Off

December 10 was my last day at the Bike. They offered me a position as a prop for the 8-16 limit and $80 NL games, which paid much less. I decided to strike out on my own, hopefully finding another similar propping job elsewhere. I really liked it at the Bike - good atmosphere, decent food, good relationships with most of the people there - and I had a pretty sweet deal, so I'm quite disappointed to be let go (despite having recently considered leaving).

In the past few weeks I've made my first trip to the Commerce in three years and my first ever trip to Hawaiian Gardens. My tentative plan is to play mostly 10-20 NL at the Commerce, probably three days a week, unless I can find another propping job. I played there on Monday, and the game seems just as beatable as the Bike's 5-10 NL, so I think it should be good as long as I can take the swings. Compared to most poker players, I'm quite good at dealing emotionally with swings, but I think it will be a lot harder if I'm playing less often, especially considering the higher stakes.

Hawaiian Gardens seems like the most likely casino to be hiring these days, but they don't pay as much and I would probably have to work overnight. On December 4, three days after I was told I was being laid off, I went to Hawaiian Gardens for the first time to check it out. There were a ton of games going, mostly low limit, but they also had two 5-10 NL games, which is more than the Bike usually has. The games were pretty good, and the food excellent, but the atmosphere is rather chaotic. I think it might be draining to work there forty hours a week.

With my free time I might try to do some poker studying, in which case I'll have some fodder for some analysis on the blog.

Winning Streak Stays Alive

I haven't had a losing month since September 2009 (-$415), and in fact have won at least $1500 each month. When I posted last time, I was up about $2200 with only four days to go in October. I lost almost all of that in the first three days of that week, and was up $84 going into Friday. I try to make a point of not worrying about streaks or short term wins or losses because they can only interfere with the ultimate goal of making optimal decisions on each hand, but the streak was on my mind since I had written about it the previous week. Anyway, I had a big day on Friday, and won just over $3000 for the month. Streak stays alive! I will probably not update on this regularly because I don't want it to interfere with my play.

Rumor has it that the Live at the Bike game is set to resume next week. A section of the Plaza (the poker section where I play) has been cordoned off with a table that will be fitted with hole cams. I don't know why the Live at the Bike was shut down a few years ago, but it really seems like a great idea: people will find the live feed on the internet and learn about the Bike, and lots of people will probably show up just for the novelty of playing in a "televised" game. I'm not thrilled with the idea of being filmed and my cards being broadcast, but if that's what brings in the customers, I'm all for it.

Supposedly on Thursdays we'll also have a "2-11" game in the Plaza, played $100-$300 buyin NL for high only. I'll need to do some strategy analysis if I play. 2-11 is basically a variant of Omaha, and I don't even really know Omaha strategy very well. I guess nobody really knows 2-11 strategy yet, but good Omaha players might have a head start.

I've mentioned before that it might become awkward if people at the casino found my blog. This has happened, but not in quite the why I envisioned. I thought the awkwardness would be among the players, who I occasionally write about. Instead, one of my supervisors found the blog! She called me into her office to let me know it's being monitored, but it seems like they are pretty much okay with it.

Slow Days at the Bike

I changed my schedule; I still work four days, but now I work Mondays instead of Tuesdays in order to accommodate Calvin's daycare schedule. Yesterday, the $500 NL game never got started. This was the first time I've worked on a Monday since February, but this has never happened that I can remember on any day other than maybe once on Friday, which is always slow. Also, on Friday, the game didn't start until 6:45pm, 15 minutes before I go home. I've been playing Hi-Lo Stud (down about $500) and some $300-$500 buyin no-limit (up about $600). They did have a list for the $500NL game yesterday, and there were two $300-500 games going. Supposedly a lot of the regular players are at the Commerce for a holdem tournament series. I do hope the game kicks back up again soon, since I think it's the most profitable for me. Also, they might lay me off otherwise!

Meanwhile, people have been talking about the murder of a $20K jackpot winner on his way home from Hawaiian Gardens late Thursday or Friday night. The story is that the victim fought back against the thief and was hit by a car driven by the thief's accomplice. His girlfriend apparently escaped unharmed. There was some speculation at the casino that the girlfriend may have set him up.

This sort of thing is, of course, unfortunate, and for me it's also rather scary. I personally leave all but a few hundred of my cash at the casino each day, but I'm not sure a thief would realize I did this. It's not hard to recognize me as one of the regular players in the $500 NL game, and it might seem reasonable to assume I carry my entire bankroll with me. Indeed, I think there are a few people who do this. Unfortunately, this must make us all very tempting targets.

Chairs, Dealers, Lawsuit, and the Full Tilt Book

I like the atmosphere at the Bike. I think it's very player-friendly, especially in the Plaza section, where the food is free. However, I have to say that the chairs are mostly terrible. There are a few that are very comfortable, but about 80% of them are broken. Whenever a new player shows up at the casino, he complains about the chairs. Today someone said he felt like he was on a boat and was getting seasick. Instead of getting new chairs, the Bike has reupholstered some of the old ones, seemingly unaware that most of them were already broken and needed to be replaced. I'm afraid this means they have no intention of replacing them anytime soon.

The Commerce is getting over some more serious issues. I heard that ten out of eleven of their Dealer Coordinators were fired last month, and over one hundred dealers were suspended. Supposedly, most of the dealers were bribing the DC's in order to be put at the best tables (presumably, the tables with the best tippers).

The lawsuit against the Los Angeles casinos for their Jackpots has been thrown out by the judge. My understanding is that the jackpots are required to be "No Purchase Necessary" like any other sweepstakes. The casino does take out $1 per pot to fund the jackpot, but they offer people the opportunity to play for free. I've never seen it, but a friend told me he tried this out one day at the Bike. He and a couple other players sat at a table and were given tournament chips. Nine hands were dealt out, including to seats without any players. The flop, turn, and river were dealt, and if the jackpot was hit, the casino would pay out 10% of the jackpot at the normal ratios. So 5% would go to the losing hand, 2.5% to the winning hand, and the rest would share the other 2.5%. This was repeated ten times, and then the table broke. Seems pretty ridiculous to me, but that suffices to cover the casino legally.

I bought The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition. I was told that Chris Ferguson had some interesting things to say in the book (specifically, that it is worth avoiding difficult decisions, which I contradicted in my NLHE: TAP analyses). I thought it would be good to try to read Ferguson's arguments before I go to the event I mentioned in my previous post. Besides, the book got good reviews.

Hollywood Park Casino

Last post I explored the possible reasons why I didn't like playing at the Commerce. It's not really a horrible place but since I was focusing on the negatives I suppose I made it seem like I thought it was. In any case, I continued going there because I had heard bad things about the closer casino, Hollywood Park. Specifically, I had heard "it's a dump." I'd been there three or four times, but somehow I was still thinking of it in the context of what I had been told instead of forming my own opinion on it. Since I started thinking more critically about the Commerce and decided to look for alternatives, I thought I should give Hollywood Park another chance. I actually think it's quite similar to the Commerce. It has many of the same problems that I saw at the Commerce: gaming industry rather than tourist industry focus, anonymous feel, unclean restrooms, silly "jackpots," and some obnoxious patrons. Upon further review though, I couldn't see any other major drawbacks to Hollywood Park. There are several minor drawbacks that I'll elucidate here.

One minor problem is that Hollywood Park has no tables at very high limits, and it doesn't attract a high-profile crowd like the Commerce can. This eliminates any chance of my having a Nicky/Bijou type experience there. This would have been quite unlikely at the Commerce, too, because the high limits are in a completely separate room, so I would never get a chance to see them come in (lower limit room ends at 5-10 NL). The Commerce waiting lists are slightly more smoothly administered. (At Hollywood Park Brigid and I were once on the 4-8 limit list together and once we got to the top of the list they opened a new game. When we got there the table was completely full and we were shut out despite having been at the top of a rather lengthy list.) Hollywood Park lacks also lacks shuffling machines. I guess another problem with Hollywood Park is that to get inside you have to either walk a rather long distance from the parking lot or climb a steep hill, which is what I usually end up doing. I suppose the lack of an adequate entrance justifies the "dump" description to some extent. One night it also smelled like horse manure in the parking lot (Hollywood Park is a race track with a casino attached). Another reason it was called a "dump" may be due to some racist inclinations from players whom I'd asked about the place; there are far more black people at Hollywood Park than any other casino I've ever seen. To some, this may, unfortunately, give off a feeling of being lower class or something like that.

There are some advantages to Hollywood Park. For me, of course, it's closer. Most of the dealers and other employees are fluent in English. In general, the other players are not nearly as obnoxious as at the Commerce. This is especially true at the lowest limits, which is important because the situation in those games is so bad at the Commerce that Brigid could hardly stand playing there anymore. Hollywood Park seems to only take a $4 rake even at 3-5 NL and up, where the Commerce now takes $5. Hollywood Park also has a comp system that gives, I think, $1 credit every hour. I'm not sure if that's quite right since I've never tried to use it.

The most important factors to me are: driving distance, profitability of the games, and enjoyment factor. Since the profitability is about the same at both places, the Commerce would have to be much more enjoyable to make up for the driving time. Considering the obnoxiousness of the players there, the Commerce's enjoyment factor just doesn't cut it. I think I'm going to start playing at Hollywood Park most of the time.