Truth & Consequences: Reflections on the Grantland Controversy

I am probably the reason a woman killed herself.

This is an uncomfortable truth I thought I had left buried deep in my memory. But it crawled back to the surface last weekend as my Twitter stream exploded with references to a controversial article over on the ESPN-sponsored sports and pop culture journalism website Grantland. [FN1].

You probably know the basic background. Caleb Hannan wrote a lengthy piece titled "Dr. V's Magical Putter", ostensibly about a revolutionary new golf putter and its designer. Except Hannan took the story in a different direction. When the putter's designer—a woman nicknamed "Dr. V"—put her personal life off-limits to Hannan's questions, Hannan chose to dig deeper into Dr. V's background. Soon, it became apparent that many of Dr. V's professional claims either could not be verified (her past work on top secret military projects) or were false (her educational credentials). Hannan's nice little "woman designs golf club" story was morphing into a bigger, badass "con artist hawks golf club to suckers" piece.

Hannan and his story, however, veered wildly off course when Hannan dug up the most salacious bit of gossip: Dr. V was transgender. Now this fact had absolutely nothing to do with the golf club or even Dr. V's suspect claims about her credentials. But in keeping with the Grantland frat house / guys' locker room culture of sports writing, Hannan chose to make this fact the focus of his story. She used to be a dude, dude!

Hannan followed his out-of-whack moral compass straight to tabloid town. Hoping for a sizzling quote, Hannan outed Dr. V to one of her business investors. Dr. V threatened, cajoled, and ultimately pleaded with Hannan to have her history kept private. After the fact, Grantland's editor-in-chief Bill Simmons assures us Hannan did not "badger" Dr. V, never threatened to out her, and his story would never have been run with the transgender angle.

Still, Dr. V committed suicide.

Still, Hannan wrote his story about Dr. V, the transgender con artist.

Still, Grantland's editors published it.

* * * * *

Like a lot of guys my age, I'm a big Bill "the Sportsguy" Simmons fan. Have been since he joined ESPN.com as a special columnist in 2001. Simmons' genius is capturing in writing how guys really talk about sports—veering from analyzing games and player transactions, to relating the emotional rollercoaster ride of supporting a team through wins and losses, to cracking snarky jokes at the expense of friends or opposing teams, all seasoned with a hearty helping of personal anecdotes, movie quotes, and pop culture references. The relatively new Grantland site reflects Simmons' influence: the current home page features articles on the NFL playoffs, a significant MLB player signing, a discussion of the NBA rivalry between the Celtics and the Lakers, a history of the movie Swingers, and a diary from the Sundance film festival. 

Following the outcry over Hannan's Dr. V story, Simmons posted a heartfelt apology, taking responsibility for the decision to publish the article. I have no doubt Simmons sincerely regretted that mistakes had occurred. But in a few places, his apology turned defensive, undercutting his message. For example, Simmons wrote:

Before we officially decided to post Caleb’s piece, we tried to stick as many trained eyeballs on it as possible. Somewhere between 13 and 15 people read the piece in all, including every senior editor but one, our two lead copy desk editors, our publisher and even ESPN.com’s editor-in-chief. All of them were blown away by the piece. Everyone thought we should run it. ...

Anyway, we posted the piece on Wednesday morning. People loved it. People were enthralled by it. People shared it. People tweeted it and retweeted it. A steady stream of respected writers and journalists passed along their praise. By Thursday, as the approval kept pouring in, we had already moved on to other stories and projects.

There's more than a whiff of rationalization in this passage. Call it the "Cool story, bro" defense: If a dozen editors and a bunch of early readers liked the piece, it couldn't be unreasonable for Grantland to run the piece, right? But the problem here is that these editors and readers are essentially Grantland insiders, acolytes for the peculiar Grantland vibe, raised on the Simmons style. In fact, I'm willing to wager at least one Grantland editor threw out an Austin Powers line, "She's a man, man!" to appreciative chuckles. It's hard to hear a contrarian voice in an echo chamber.

To his credit, Simmons did acknowledge in his apology post that he and his editors had all viewed the piece through the same flawed "lens". But this fact does not justify or excuse the errors made. More troubling is that Simmons seems oblivious to the possibility that this particular flawed lens, this blind spot as to serious issues not commonly encountered when breaking down the NBA playoffs or cracking jokes about The Bachelor, might be an inherent fault built into the Grantland model.

Simmons' lack of introspection also showed up in this passage:

But even now, it’s hard for me to accept that Dr. V’s transgender status wasn’t part of this story. Caleb couldn’t find out anything about her pre-2001 background for a very specific reason. Let’s say we omitted that reason or wrote around it, then that reason emerged after we posted the piece. What then?

First off, Hannan didn't make Dr. V's transgender status "part" of the story; he structured the article so that the the transgender reveal was the story's big Crying Game payoff. Second, if the story were truly about Dr. V, her putter, and her questionable (even fraudulent) claims related to the putter, what difference does it make why Dr. V's background has a specific gap prior to 2001? Let's say Hannan had discovered Dr. V changed her name (maybe even illicitly assumed a new identity) in 2001 in order to escape an abusive husband—would that information be fair game for publication? Once Hannan and Grantland knew that Dr. V had a legitimate reason for the gap in her personal history, there was no legitimate reason to report that information. The mere fact that someone else might subsequently discover that information is irrelevant to any analysis of whether it was proper for Grantland to publish it in that particular Hannan piece.

* * * * *

The final point where I thought Simmons' apology missed the mark is in connection with the circumstances leading to Dr. V's suicide. Here, however, my views are much more complicated, and colored by my personal experience.

It was more than 15 years ago. I was a young associate attorney, just a few years out of law school. Sexual harassment suits were the new big thing, and one landed on my desk. A professional was being sued by a former administrative assistant over allegations of a series of improper physical encounters. My assignment was to defend the professional. Without question it was a big case for me at that point in my career.

During the course of discovery, I learned that the plaintiff had a long history of mental health issues, including two hospitalizations for attempted suicide—one before and one after the events in question in the lawsuit. The deposition of plaintiff was difficult. It was a classic she-said-he-said case, and it would rise or fall with the credibility of the two primary parties. So, I had to pin down the plaintiff on the details of over a dozen events she alleged had happened, which my client denied entirely. Although I tried to keep the deposition as matter-of-fact as possible, the plaintiff repeatedly broke down in tears as she recounted her version of events. It was a grueling day for everyone involved.

Two weeks later, I received a large packet of new psychiatric records from the plaintiff's attorney. The  plaintiff had been hospitalized again for another week of in-patient mental health treatment. The emergency room intake note, dated the day after the plaintiff's deposition, read something like:

Patient brought to ER by husband. Patient was deposed in a lawsuit yesterday, was grilled very hard by an attorney about her pending sexual harassment case. Husband states patient has been highly emotional and depressed, has mentioned suicide. Patient states she just wants to get in her car, drive ... and end it all.

I was shocked and horrified. I didn't recall being confrontational in the deposition, but I did have to press plaintiff for details she was reluctant to provide, to enable me to determine whether her claims were credible and could be discounted or corroborated in any manner. I called her attorney who assured me he didn't think I had done anything improper (and he had not raised any objections or voiced any concerns about my line of questions during the deposition). Still, it was an uncomfortable fact that I had actually played a role in triggering plaintiff's suicidal thoughts.

Less than a week later, I got a call from plaintiff's attorney; plaintiff had passed away. The atorney faxed over a copy of the news article. As Caleb Hannan might say, a chill went down my spine. Plaintiff was the victim of a one-car accident on a rural road ... and it was almost exactly identical to the suicide scenario she had reported to the ER physician following her deposition. [FN2].

To my knowledge, plaintiff's death was ruled an accident. Nobody had reason to challenge that conclusion or press for an investigation. But to my mind, the coincidence is just too much to ignore. It was most likely a suicide.

It's easy to rationalize the situation. Plaintiff had a history of mental health issues, including suicide attempts. The legal process can be a terrifying and hostile environment for many folks, particularly when it involves claims which intrude deep into sensitive personal matters. Plaintiff put the details of the alleged harassment directly at issue by bringing the suit. My client was entitled to a defense of those claims, and if it weren't me taking that deposition, it would have been another lawyer, likely one with a more aggressive, confrontational style.

Problem is, it was me who took that deposition. Me who made plaintiff recount the details of multiple instances of alleged sexual harassment. Me who plaintiff pointed to as the reason for her thoughts of suicide following the deposition. Me.

I have often reflected on that experience. The past cannot be changed, but it is possible to grow from a tragic situation. I have tried to be more concerned with the experience of people brought into the legal system, and more aware of possible extra-legal consequences for those people. I know I have no legal or moral responsibility for that plaintiff's apparent suicide. I know there were many factors that contributed to her death. Yet I also know I was likely one of the prime factors, and that knowledge still haunts me.

* * * * *

Simmons's apology addresses the connection between Hannan's article and Dr. V's suicide:

To our dismay, a few outlets pushed some version of the Grantland writer bullies someone into committing suicide! narrative, either because they wanted to sensationalize the story, or they simply didn’t read the piece carefully. It’s a false conclusion that doubles as being recklessly unfair. Caleb reported a story about a public figure that slowly spun out of control. He never antagonized or badgered anyone. 

Let's set aside the "bullying into suicide" bit for a moment. Simmons' account of events is a bit of a whitewash. Dr. V wasn't a public figure, or to be a little more precise, her public status, such as it was, was clearly limited to the golf putter business. Dr. V's transgender status was a private matter unconnected to her public business activities. Further, the story did not "spin out of control". Events took an unexpected turn during the course of Hannan's research, but the story was always Hannan's to frame, Hannan's to write, and Grantland's to publish. Nobody forced Hannan or Grantland to move forward with the piece after Dr. V died.

Where things get morally complicated is the claim that Hannan "never antagonized or badgered anyone." I think that's correct in a narrow sense. But Hannan isn't quite so innocent as Simmons would suggest. Hannan, after all, outed Dr. V to an important business partner without any apparent regard for the consequences.

Here's Simmons' take on the outing issue, as he lists the lessons he thinks should be learned:

6. Caleb never should have outed Dr. V to one of her investors; you need to address that mistake either within the piece, as a footnote, or in a separate piece entirely.
(And maybe even ... )
7. There’s a chance that Caleb’s reporting, even if it wasn’t threatening or malicious in any way, invariably affected Dr. V in ways that you never anticipated or understood. (Read Christina Kahrl’s thoughtful piece about Dr. V and our errors in judgment for more on that angle.)

Address the improper outing of a transgender person in a footnote? Good grief. How about not publishing the piece in which a journalist's ethical lapse is the foundation of the entire story? At the very least, Hannan's decision to out Dr. V deserves more consideration from Simmons than merely lumping it in with a laundry list of errors, implying that outing a person is a mistake on par with using improper pronouns for a transgender person or crafting an inelegant sentence.

Frankly, though, the latter paragraph is much more troubling. To someone who is closeted, there is little more "threatening or malicious" than an intentional outing. Even if Hannan, Simmons, and the entire Grantland staff had a transgender blind spot, certainly in this day and age they have to be familiar with gays and lesbians; hopefully they don't need to resort to their GLAAD or AP handbooks to understand it is ethically wrong to out someone. Would Hannan and Simmons think it was acceptable to out a gay teen to his classmates, or a lesbian executive to her boss, just for the sake of getting a reaction quote? Would they be surprised if said teen or executive found such an outing to be "threatening and malicious"? Would they "anticipate or understand" that such an outing could lead to harmful consequences, such as the teen being bullied or the executive being fired?

Hannan deserves harsh criticism for his cavalier outing of Dr. V in pursuit of a minor sports story, certainly far more than Simmons' mild rebuke. But Hannan does not deserve to be blamed for Dr. V's suicide, and Hannan certainly does not deserve threats of physical harm. There seems no doubt that Hannan's actions were a significant factor in Dr. V's decision to commit suicide. But I do not think one can make the leap to from "significant factor" to "moral responsibility" in this case. Hannan outed Dr. V to one person. Dr. V might have feared Hannan would go public with the transgender story. But Dr. V might also have feared Hannan would reveal the questions surrounding her work, her education, and the scientific support for her golf putter. Those topics were all fair game for Hannan, and certainly a potential cause of mental stress for Dr. V. Also, Dr. V might have feared that, if Hannan discovered her secret so readily, it was only a matter of time before someone else found out, so it did not much matter whether Hannan outed her; Dr. V may have felt her outing was inevitable. Add in the fact Dr. V had prior issues with depression and attempted suicide, and it becomes difficult to pinpoint the root cause of her decision to commit suicide.

Caleb Hannan will always have to answer professional questions about his decision to out Dr. V. And, he will always have to live with the personal knowledge that, even if he wasn't morally responsible, he was certainly closely connected to Dr. V's suicide. That seems punishment enough.

As for Simmons and Grantland, even as I disagree with specific points in Simmons' apology post, I fully believe in the overall message Simmons was trying to convey—mistakes were made, and he feels horribly about the situation. But most important is Simmons' closing promise:

We will learn from what happened. We will remember what [Coach John] Wooden said — “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not doing anything” — and we’re going to keep trying to get better. That’s all we can do.

The point of criticism, whether in sports or the arts, is to spur reflection and improvement. Hannan, Simmons, and Grantland all deserve a chance to move forward and show that they have grown from this controversy. And hopefully all of the discussion surrounding this article will help others reflect and grow as well.

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[FN1]  Many excellent writers have posted on-the-mark critiques of Hannan and Grantland, and their troubling journalistic ethics in publishing this story in this manner; in my estimation, these posts by Maria Dahvana Headley, "Iron Mike Gallego", Tim Marchman, and Ryan Glasspiegel provide particularly insightful commentary.

[FN2]  I have intentionally omitted details re the car accident as a matter of protecting the privacy of plaintiff and her surviving family in the highly unlikely event the accident details could be tied back to the identity of the plaintiff. The details of the car accident are not important, only that they match the specific suicide scenario described by plaintiff when she was admitted to the ER.

William James Checks in the Dark

"What difference would it practically make to anyone if this notion rather than that notion were true? If no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing, and all dispute is idle. Whenever a dispute is serious, we ought to be able to show some practical difference that must follow from one side or the other’s being right. ...

It is astonishing to see how many philosophical disputes collapse into insignificance the moment you subject them to this simple test of tracing a concrete consequence. There can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference elsewhere—no difference in abstract truth that doesn’t express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and somewhen."

~William James, "Lecture II: What Pragmatism Means", in Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking (1907)

As a philosophy major, I was always strongly drawn to pragmatism because of its emphasis on linguistic clarity and logical consequences. The core principle of pragmatism, stated by philosopher William James above, can be paraphrased like this:  A difference, to be a difference, must make a difference.

I was reminded of this core principle of pragmatism this past week when an interesting debate erupted on the All Vegas Poker discussion forums over the relative merits of a common poker maneuver—checking in the dark. [FN1]  For those unfamiliar with the term, checking in the dark (or "checking dark") simply means that the player first to act on a subsequent betting round exercises his betting option by checking before the next board card(s) are put out by the dealer, rather than waiting to check until after the player is able to see the board card(s). Checking in the dark has been popularized by the televised antics of players like Phil Hellmuth (who at times seems almost addicted to the play). But I have to wonder, have any of the players who routinely employ the maneuver actually analyzed whether checking dark is a smart play?

Applying the principles of pragmatism—or Sklansky's Fundamental Theorem of Poker, if you prefer—if checking dark is a good maneuver, it will give a poker player some advantage over the player who employs the more traditional check. Now the player checking dark invariably will be playing the hand out of position, placing them at a distinct disadvantage. A player first to act will typically end up checking a rather high percentage of the time, either out of weakness from missing the board, or out of strength when disguising a hand that strongly connected with the board. However, a player first to act will find that leading out with a bet is advantageous in a variety of situations, including:

• Flopping two pair or a set on a draw heavy board.
• Betting a middle pair or bluffing on a dry, junky board.
• Blocking a bet the first to act player cannot call.
• Putting the opponent to the test on a scary board (e.g., a flop with an Ace, or a turn or river card that completes an obvious draw).

Now this isn't to say that a player will lead out with a bet on all of these boards on all occasions. The point is that checking dark deprives a player of the option of making these plays. Clearly giving up the option to lead out with a bet on hands where doing so is the correct play is -EV. So, if it has any value, the dark check must be a sufficiently powerful, profitable maneuver to overcome the disadvantage of giving up the ability to bet boards where doing so is the correct play.

Given the obvious disadvantages caused by checking dark, what are the possible advantages of checking dark? In all of the discussions I've heard and read on the subject, three reasons for checking dark come up the most frequently: a) checking dark reverses the position of the players when heads up, b) checking dark disguises the strength of a player's hand, and c) checking dark prevents a player from giving out information on the strength of his hand. On closer examination, all three justifications are spurious.

With respect to "reversing position" of the players, checking dark simply does not reverse the positions of the players, either actually or effectively. The player checking dark still acts first, he simply exercises that option prior to the next board card being put out. Here we return to the principles of pragmatism—what is the difference between checking dark and checking normally? In terms of position, there is no difference. If the player first to act checks, the other player can bet or check behind as usual, and it doesn't matter if the first check was dark or not. If the first player to act in a heads up situation checks dark, and the other player checks behind, the dark-checking player does not miraculously gain the ability to act, as they would if they were in position. So, as there is no difference in action whether the opening check is dark or normal, there is no positional advantage gained by checking dark.

So what about the claim that checking dark disguises the strength of a player's hand? This argument essentially states that because the player first to act usually checks, a dark check prevents the other player from knowing whether a flop (or turn or river) was helpful to the dark-checking player. Let's assume a player acting first would normally check 70% of the time out of weakness, check 10% of the time out of disguised strength, bet 10% of the time out of strength, and bet 10% of the time as a bluff. A dark check has no effect on the check out of weakness play or the check out of strength play, as a dark check and a regular check each look the same to a rational opponent. But a dark check deprives the player of the ability both to bet strong hands and to bluff. So, a dark check gives no advantage to hands to a player who wants to check, but hurts a player by depriving him of the chance to bet certain hands. Assuming a player balances his donk bets between betting strong hands and bluffs, a dark check that takes both plays out of the equation simply does nothing to disguise the player's hand that cannot be accomplished by normal, solid play. But if a player is stupid enough only to bet his strong hands out of position, then a dark check might in fact be a decent play, though the move is likely more than offset by those hands where a donk bet is the correct play and the dark check leads to a check behind. Of course, such a player has a whole other kettle of fish issues to worry about.

Finally, let's look at the claim that a dark check prevents a player from giving out information as to the strength of his hand. We just looked at situations where a player checks his weak hands and bets his strong hands, but what about the more sophisticated player whose betting patterns do not reveal his hand strength? In these situations, advocates of checking dark maintain that the maneuver prevents the player from revealing whether they are strong or weak by taking out of consideration elements such as facial reactions and timing of response. Of course, this argument assumes the dark-checking player never looks at the board before their opponent acts. But if a player is bad enough to give off reliable physical tells about the strength of his hand, then checking dark is almost certainly the least of his worries—any decent player will simply eat the dark checker alive based on his physical tells which he will eventually have to give off when he inevitably looks at the board.

In summary, then, for most players checking dark is almost certainly a -EV maneuver compared to simply playing a hand normally and checking when appropriate. For a small handful of players—multiple WSOP bracelet winners and tell-spewing donkeys—checking dark might occasionally be a decent play. In other words, although plenty of players have convinced themselves they are making a sophisticated play by checking dark, their thought process is flawed. Good players don't check dark. [FN2]

"A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices."

~William James

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[FN1]  The debate was reminiscent of a similar debate on the AVP forums a few years back. Also, as is usually the case, Poker Grump has already weighed in on the debate with this thoughtful post.

[FN2]  Of course, players like Phil Hellmuth are sufficiently better than most of their opponents that they can overcome the -EV of using the dark check. That doesn't mean that checking dark is a good play on its own merits.

The Heart of a Champion

Monday's national championship basketball game between Butler and UConn was, in a word, terrible. For any basketball fan unaffiliated with either school, watching that brick-fest was tolerable only as an exercise in sports disaster porn. In that regard, the game was one of the industry's best releases since the Yankees shot their 2004 scheisse classic, Red Sox, Brown Briefs (of course, kink titles have an edge in the marketplace).

Going into this Final Four, there was great wailing and gnashing of teeth among the sports media bemoaning the fact that not one but two "mid-major" teams (i.e., college sports' hoi polloi) not only made it to the semifinal round, but also were matched against each other, guaranteeing one of them a spot in the finals and a real shot at an improbable title. Basketball's power brokers don't mind if the common folk scrub themselves up and sit quietly in the corners at the party, but when it comes to the Big Money portion of the Big Dance, they want to see basketball's bluebloods strutting their stuff. To basketball's self-appointed guardians, a mid-major upstart is a nice little storyline, but an actual mid-major champion would make a farce of such a serious event.

The interesting thing is that many of the same pundits who decry the increasingly common mid-major run deep in the Big Dance also openly advocate for increasing the number of teams allowed in the tournament, on the premise that a field of 68 somehow shuts out a "deserving" team. At first blush, VCU's run this season from one of the last two at-large teams into the field to a Final Four slot with a real shot at the title would seem to vindicate the concept of expanding the field. But what tournament expansion advocates really want is more slots to fill with teams from traditional power conferences. Power conferences (and their schools' alumni, administrators, and coaches) crave the added revenue (and job security) which attach to making it to the Big Dance, compounded nicely if several conference teams make deep runs.

Let's be clear about one point, however. Expanding the tournament field is not about identifying the "best" team as a national champion. Letting another 28 teams qualify for the field means adding another 28 mediocre teams that had rather, well, mediocre regular season results. For example, a team that went .500 in its own conference can't possibly be considered an elite team worthy of being called "champion", but somehow it's a travesty to many in the media that such teams usually fail to make the tournament. Imagine the horror if such a laughingstock entry actually combined some beneficial matchups with some fortuitous chaos from upsets of the true powerhouse teams and made an improbable six game championship run. Well, I suppose if that team were a basketball blueblood like UConn, then the media might politely overlook the anemic regular season performance while applauding the team's tournament championship. But heaven forbid a team like VCU or George Mason might actually sneak into the tournament and then get a little hot and a little lucky on a run to the title.

What college basketball pundits fail to recognize is an obvious fact of life in the world of poker: Expanded fields dilute the chances for the truly elite players or teams to win. It's no coincidence that John Wooden's marvelous run of 10 NCAA basketball titles in 12 seasons at UCLA occurred prior to 1975. Prior to 1975, only conference champions made the field, keeping strong second-best teams from strong conferences out of the tournament. Also in 1975, the field size expanded to 32 teams; UCLA was essentially seeded into the Sweet Sixteen round every season it won a title under Wooden.

UCLA's dominance in the pre-expansion tournament is analogous to the WSOP. In its early days, the fields for the WSOP were dominated by elite players, and elite players--Amarillo Slim, Doyle Brunson, Stu Ungar, Johnny Chan, and yes, Phil Hellmuth--were consistently in the running for the title, with the occasional Robert Varkonyi sneaking in. But with the "Moneymaker boom" in 2003, field sizes increased dramatically, and the number of elite pros making deep runs has dwindled markedly. As many in the poker world have noted, with deep fields comes greatly increased variance, and the elite players are more vulnerable to elimination by a no-name, less-talented player on a hot run. Goodbye Phil Ivey. Hello Jamie Gold, Jerry Yang, Darvin Moon, and Steve Dannenman--the mid-majors of the poker world.

A tournament champion--whether poker or basketball--is not about identifying the best player or team*; a tournament champion is the player or team which has the right combination of skill and good fortune at the right time. If you want the "national champion" to be guaranteed to be a truly "deserving" team, then the right solution is to limit the participants in the tournament to a very few of the very elite. If college basketball wants to avoid an "undeserving" mid-major champion, the best solution is contraction of the tournament field. In other words, college basketball needs to scrap the Big Dance and start a Basketball BCS.

Until then, I'm going to keep rooting for the mid-majors.

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* Head to head combat, with the current champion taking on challengers, is the only clear cut method to determine a "champion" who is also "best". Which means that I am the three-time belt-winning champion of Words With Friends versus "Real Dawn Summers" of Clareified fame. How 'bout them apples?!?

Posted from my iPhone using BlogPress.

A Bad Beat Bakes My Noodle

Oracle:  "I'd ask you to sit down, but, you're not going to anyway.  And don't worry about the vase."

Neo:  "What vase?"

[Neo turns to look for a vase, and as he does, he knocks over a vase of flowers, which shatters on the floor.]

Oracle:  "That vase."

Neo:  "I'm sorry."

Oracle:  "I said don't worry about it.  I'll get one of my kids to fix it."

Neo:  "How did you know?"

Oracle:  "Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?"

—The Matrix

The weekend after Thanksgiving, I played a session at the Meadows ATM.  A lot of discussion at the table surrounded the bad beat jackpot (BBJ), which was at a record $113,000 and climbing (I'm not certain if the jackpot has been hit in the past couple of weeks, having instead been playing poker in Vegas).  Now Prairie Meadows has fairly liberal rules as far as BBJs go:  the losing hand need only be Aces full of Jacks or better (one ace playing from your hand for full houses), while quads can be a qualifying hand without a pocket pair, so long as the hole card plays as a kicker (e.g., A8 vs. JJ would qualify on a board of 8-8-8-J-J, while 98 vs. JJ would not qualify—though it would still be a sick beat).  So, getting a BBJ up over $50,000 or so is a rare event.

As is the usual case when BBJs get higher than normal, there were tons of stories flying around the table about BBJs previously hit, as well as the usual bad beat stories about BBJs nearly hit, or hit and disqualified (Prairie Meadows DQ'd one BBJ a few years ago because a player not in the hand saw the losing player about to muck and told him to table his hand).  My favorite near-miss story involves Fred, a local uber-nit (though I hasten to add that Fred is a decent fellow who has always been friendly with me).  About a year ago, Fred folded AdQd to a preflop 3-bet, and wound up missing out hitting a royal flush against another player's quads.  If you want to needle Fred, just muck AQs face up and say, "Fred, how would you play Ace-Queen suited?" with a completely straight face.  Hilarity will ensue!

The point of this post, however, is to look at a common talking point involving BBJs—whether players sitting out of a hand deserve a table share (or some financial reward) when a BBJ hits.  For those unfamiliar with BBJs, it is typical to divide the jackpot between the winning hand, the losing hand, and the other active players at the table (or even all active players in the room).  Prairie Meadows awards 50% of the jackpot to the losing hand, 25% to the winning hand, and divides the remaining 25% among all other players who were dealt into the hand (they also allow an absent player to be dealt into one hand after leaving the table, so long as they have chips behind).

It is common to hear players claim that, if a player sits out of the hand and a BBJ hits, they should still be given either a full table share, or at least a significant payoff from the winning and losing hands.  The theory behind these kinds of claims is that "the bad beat would never have occurred if Player X had been dealt into the hand, so Player X should be rewarded for causing the bad beat" (see this recent discussion thread over at All Vegas Poker (AVP) for a couple of examples of this argument).*  These kinds of claims are pure nonsense.

The implicit premise underlying this type of argument is that Player X caused the bad beat by deciding not to play the hand.  After all, if Player X did not cause the bad beat, he clearly has no moral claim to any share of the jackpot ("moral" here used in the sense of fairness or equity, as opposed to a technical claim to a share, which the player clearly does not have under the rules).

In order to analyze whether a player sitting out of a hand can be said to have caused the bad beat, let's first consider all the factors that require perfect coordination to bring about a particular bad beat:

• First, the deck must be shuffled to permit a bad beat to occur.  That is, the deck must contain a series of cards that, when cut in the proper spot and dealt to the proper number of players, will result in a qualifying bad beat.  It is theoretically possible for some decks—likely most decks—to be shuffled so that no bad beat can occur.  It is also theoretically possible for a deck to be shuffled to permit more than one bad beat to be dealt, depending on the cut and the number of players.  Let's call a deck with at least one potential bad beat lurking in it a qualifying deck ("QD").
• Next, the deck must be cut in the correct spot to bring the QD's potential bad beat into play. There is theoretically a 1/51 chance of the deck being properly cut to bring the bad beat into play.  However, because most dealers do not cut close to the top or bottom of the deck, a certain percentage of potential bad beats never have a chance of being dealt out of an otherwise QD.
• Once the deck is cut in the correct spot, the proper number of players must be dealt into the hand.
• Once the players are dealt in, the betting must proceed in a fashion that permits the two qualifying hands to make it to the river.  For example, a hand like 22 or 96s might be driven out by a preflop raise, or a hand like 88 might fold to a flop bet on an eventual board of Q-Q-J-8-8.
• Player betting decisions may be determined by external factors.  A player holding a potentially qualifying bad beat hand may fold because of a large raise from a player who seems likely to hold a strong hand based on playing style or physical tells.  Or a player with a potentially qualifying bad beat hand may fold because they just lost a big pot and are looking to play only the strongest starting hands, or because another player in the hand is short-stacked and doesn't offer correct implied odds to play a suited gapper starting hand.
• During the entire hand, there must not be a dealer error that affects the two qualifying pocket hands, nor the qualifying final board (e.g., no flashed cards, no premature burn and turn, etc.).  Note that there will be a certain number of non-QDs that can become a QD as the result of a dealer error which is corrected in the normal course of play (e.g., a flashed pocket card is replaced, a boxed card is discarded, a premature river card is replaced) (let's call these "near-QDs").  Bonus noodle baking—Should a player sitting out of a hand still get credit for "causing" a bad beat if the bad beat would never have occurred but for the subsequent dealer error?

Notice that out of all of the necessary conditions for a particular bad beat, a player's decision whether to play a hand only affects one of them—the number of players initially dealt into a hand.  But an individual player's decision whether to play a hand is only one small factor in determining the final number of players dealt into a hand.  Let's consider a few common situations that affect player decisions whether to play a particular hand:

• Player 1 is new to the table and must decide whether to post in (or take the blinds in Vegas), or to sit out and wait for the blinds to hit (or for the blinds to pass in Vegas).
• Player 2 gets a phone call from his spouse.  He has to decide whether to take the call and be dealt out, or ignore the call and play the hand.
• Player 3 is racking up to head home, and has to decide whether to see another hand.
• Player 4 is supposed to meet his buddy for dinner.  His buddy drops by or texts to tell him either to leave immediately, or to play a few more hands, based on how well his buddy is doing at table games or in the sportsbook.
• Player 5 is a nicotine-addict and has to decide whether to take a cigarette break or play.
• Player 6 has to decide whether to take a restroom break or play.
• Player 7 sees a friend across the room and has to decide whether to go greet him or play.
• Player 8 is called to a new game or is given his table change request.  He has to decide whether to take a hand or move immediately.
• Player 9 has been absent from the table and has to decide between paying his missed blinds and waiting for the blinds.
• Player 10 just busted out and has to decide between buying back in short, locking up his spot while he hits the ATM to reload for a full buy-in, or calling it a night and letting a new player sit down.
• In the case of one or more empty seats, there is an added decision by the floorperson whether to fill the empty seat(s) from the list, from a table change request, or from a table break, or whether to leave the seat(s) empty.  The floor decision is then followed either by a dealer decision to deal or wait for the new player(s), followed by the decision of the new player(s) to play or sit out that hand.

Notice that, in a situation where a QD is in play, there will be up to ten relevant player decisions that affect whether the proper number of players are in a hand so that the potential bad beat may actually be dealt.  But, no one individual player decision, in and of itself, determines whether the bad beat occurs.  Rather, it is the aggregate of the decisions that ultimately matters.  After all, once a QD is in play, it doesn't matter whether a particular player is in a hand, it only matters that the correct total number of players are in the hand.  Thus, an individual player's decision to sit out of a hand is no more and no less important than the independent decisions of all the other players at the table to play or sit out of the hand.  However, the sum total of all of those independent player decisions are interdependent in creating the final conditions for determining whether the potential bad beat will be dealt.

To think about the situation a little more deeply, let's say that a QD is in play, and exactly eight players are needed to be dealt into the hand in order for the bad beat to hit.  Six players are clearly going to take hands, but four players are making legitimate decisions whether to play.  If two of the four "on the fence" players sit out and two play, did the two that sat out "cause" the bad beat any more than the two that chose to play?  Did the two that chose to play that particular hand "cause" the bad beat any more than the six players who were going to play the hand regardless?  What if two of the players making decisions are friends who rode together; if one chooses not to play and his friend goes along with the decision, did the player who made the decision to leave "cause" the bad beat while his friend who acquiesced in the decision did not do so?

Let's look at the same situation from a different angle.  Let's assume there is a QD in play. All that is needed is for exactly six players to play the hand.  But, because of various player decisions, eight players take hands and the bad beat is not hit.  Which two players do we "blame" for "causing" the bad beat to miss?  If that question strikes you as nonsensical, isn't it equally nonsensical to credit a player who sits out of a hand with "causing" a bad beat that hits?

Just to be thorough, let's examine bad beats in online play (but first, you may want to take a quick look at these discussions by Shamus—Part 1 and Part 2—and Poker Grump regarding online card randomization processes).  According to PokerStars, they use a truly random shuffle to "set" an entire deck at the beginning of a hand.  PokerStars also utilizes "user input, including summary of mouse movements and events timing, collected from client software" as one source of entropy to ensure a truly random shuffle.  Based on this method of shuffling, should we consider each player whose "user input" contributed to the shuffle that results in a QD to be a "cause" of the bad beat?

Now, to really bake your noodle, let's look at Full Tilt where, instead of "setting" an entire deck at the beginning of a hand, the software instead waits until a card is needed to be dealt to a player or to the board to randomly select a card from the remaining "deck" of undealt cards.  Since there will never be a QD in play (since there is no deck), can we ever claim that player decisions to sit out or take a hand "cause" a bad beat?  If one player's decision to auto-fold or mull over his playing decision causes the next random card to be drawn to "change" (i.e., be different), and the resulting card results in a bad beat, did the player's decision how fast to play his hand "cause" the bad beat?  More to the point, using Full Tilt's card randomization process, can we ever meaningfully consider any player decision to be the "cause" of a bad beat?

The assertion that one player's decision whether to play or not play a hand "caused" a bad beat reminds me of the classic "Horseshoe Nail" proverb:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

Of course, for something as significant and subject to as many independent factors and decisions as the outcome of a large-scale battle, it is nonsensical to attempt to trace the root "cause" to something as minor and as remote as whether a horseshoe nail was in place. In reality, there were almost certainly hundreds of independent factors and decisions at play that contributed to the outcome of the battle.  Similarly, a poker bad beat hand is never dependent on one or even a few factors and decisions, and it is equally nonsensical to describe any one individual decision or factor as the "cause" or even a "cause".

Perhaps the best way to analytically describe poker bad beats is to regard a hand of poker as an example of chaos.  Chaos theory describes:

"dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions" where "[s]mall differences in initial conditions ... yield widely diverging outcomes ... rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.  This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved.  In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable."

Any poker hand is "deterministic" in the sense that it plays out in a predictable manner pursuant to a consistent set of rules.  However, every poker hand is also highly sensitive to initial conditions, including the deck shuffle, the cut, player decisions and actions, dealer decisions and actions, floor decisions and actions, and even the decisions and actions of persons remote from the game itself (e.g., the decision of a player's spouse to eat dinner or keep playing slots).  Alter one or more of the initial conditions for a given poker hand, and the hand will likely play out in a significantly different manner with a substantially different outcome (the proverbial "butterfly effect").

Viewed in this manner, any single player decision to play or not to play a particular hand is merely one of a large number of initial conditions for a given poker hand.  From time to time, there will be a very small subset of initial conditions for a given hand that may lead to a bad beat jackpot, but hitting the bad beat jackpot even in those situations requires the fortuitous combination of precisely the right subset of initial conditions.  Any one player's decision whether to play or not play a particular hand is no more significant than any of the other relevant initial conditions.  Although a player's decision to sit out of a hand may set up a relevant initial factor for the subsequent play of the hand, he has no more caused the resulting bad beat than has a butterfly flapping its wings in China caused a tornado half the world away in Nebraska.

So, there's no logical reason to give any player at a table credit for "causing" a bad beat just because they made a routine poker decision.  After all, poker isn't craps.  Same dice!


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* Similar arguments apply to any "cooler" type of hand (e.g., AA vs. KK, or set over set), in which the hand would never have occurred but for various player decisions to play or sit out the hand in question.  But, the argument is most commonly raised in discussing bad beat jackpot hands.

ET vs. Hannibal Lecter—Heads Up for Rolls!

Hannibal Lecter:  First principles, Clarice.  Simplicity.  Read Marcus Aurelius.  Of each particular thing ask:  What is it, in itself?  What is its nature?  What does he do, this man you seek?*

Clarice Starling:  He kills women.

Hannibal Lecter:  No.  That is incidental.  What is the first and principal thing he does?  What needs does he serve by killing?

Clarice Starling:  Anger, um, social acceptance, and, uh, sexual frustrations, sir ...

Hannibal Lecter:  No!  He covets.  That is his nature.  And how do we begin to covet, Clarice?  Do we seek out things to covet?  Make an effort to answer now.

Clarice Starling:  No. We just ...

Hannibal Lecter:  No. We begin by coveting what we see every day.  Don't you feel eyes moving over your body, Clarice?  And don't your eyes seek out the things you want?

—The Silence of the Lambs

I have often thought of this movie scene when confronted by one of poker's extreme playing styles—the calling station.  When confronted with an uber-calling station—an ET, if you will—the standard poker advice is:  "Never bluff a calling station."  Why not?  Well, what do calling stations do?  They call.  Clearly, an opponent calling is a poor result if you are bluffing.

Although this is sound advice, the tactical analysis is misplaced on the proper response to calling stations, without focusing on the reason calling stations call.  Calling is regarded as an independently meaningful action, a product of rational thought, when it is actually a mere reaction, a manifestation of a player's underlying psychological state.  A calling station isn't calling because it is a logically sound play.  Instead, a calling station calls because something in his nature makes him call excessively, to his detriment.

But why should we care why an opponent is a calling station?  Because knowing the underlying reason for excessive calling can help us tweak our tactics at the table to maximize our value from these players.  Consider these different psychological types of typical calling stations:

• Donkey Calling Station—The classic calling station, this is the player who calls because he has an irrational fear of folding a winning hand.  The Donkey calls preflop with marginal cards, because if he folds and the flop would have hit him with two pair, trips, a straight, or some other monster hand, he feels he has made an error.  Postflop, the Donkey calls with any draw or pair, because he fears if he folds, his hand will improve to a monster.  On the river, the Donkey calls because he is afraid of being bluffed.  Being bluffed means you were hoodwinked, and the Donkey fears looking like a fool; losing a pot is not just losing money, it's losing face.  A Donkey calls out of fear. 

"Oh well, maybe he's bluffing again." 

• Scrooge Calling Station—This is a slightly different kind of donkey, usually a decent to good player who has allowed catching a string of bad hands or being slapped around by a table bully to alter his natural style of play.  The Scrooge calls preflop with a wide range of hands, because he has seen his premium hands lose to "junk", and he is desperately trying to connect with flops to get some momentum rolling; surely this is the hand that turns it all around and gets his money back.  Postflop, when the Scrooge connects with the board at all, the Scrooge eschews betting and raising because he is afraid of building a big pot he will only lose, or because he is afraid he will get raised back and be forced to lay down his hand and give up his investment.  The Scrooge also calls much more loosely than he usually would, because he is looking for a reason, any reason, why he might win the pot just this one time—just this once, his opponent won't have pocket Aces, an overcard won't flop, he'll catch his draw, or his middle pair will pick off a bluff.  The Scrooge is calling solely because of the money; he can't lose every hand, can he?  A Scrooge calls out of greed.

"Call big or call home!"

• Hero Calling Station—This player should be regarded as a particularly aggressive caller.  Although that concept may be a bit counterintuitive, the Hero is not calling out of fear of being bluffed, but because he enjoys picking off bluffs.  Preflop, the Hero calls with a wide range because he expects to outplay you postflop, rather than beating you with a better hand.  Postflop, the Hero is not a player who upon occasion analyzes a hand and concludes he is most likely up against a bluff.  Rather, the Hero is a player who actively seeks opportunities to strut his stuff like a poker peacock, calling big bets with bottom pair or King-high just to show off his superior poker hand-reading ability.  The Hero loves to "put players on a hand" he can beat—Ace-King, busted draws, "air"—and will often go to extraordinary lengths to rationalize making a spectacularly thin call.  A Hero calls out of hubris.

Captain Hero makes the call.

Each kind of calling station requires a slightly different response.  Preflop, if you are playing a relatively tight style with good starting hand selection, you should raise more liberally against a Donkey or a Scrooge, as both of those players are playing too many marginal hands, just hoping to connect with a flop.  There is good money to be made by building pots knowing that the Donkey or Scrooge will miss the flop and fold to a c-bet more often than not, and that even when they hit a flop, they will likely still be behind.  You should want to play big pots against calling stations willing to chase draws or call down with less than top pair.  By contrast, a Hero is not paying much attention to hand strength preflop, and building a big pot might play into a Hero's aggressive postflop style.  The key to maximizing value from a Hero is to have a good hand by the time the big bets get made on the river.  So, raise only your very best hands, and limp the rest.  There will be plenty of time to build a hand after the flop.

Popstflop, the Donkey and the Scrooge are fairly similar before the river, willing to overpay on the flop and turn to chase draws (including two pair "draws"), just in case they "get there".  By contrast, a Hero calls (or "floats") on the flop hoping their opponent is continuation betting with "air" or a weak hand, and might show weakness on a later street.  If their opponent bets the turn, the Hero calls, certain that their opponent is still weak, maybe even being a bully and trying to buy the pot.  In any event, all three kinds of calling stations will call larger than normal bets on the flop and turn.  The Donkey and the Scrooge will call up to pot-size bets because they want to get to the river and see if they make their draw or their hand is good.  The Hero calls because he is looking for weakness, and an overbet of more than the pot looks weaker than a standard half to three-quarters pot sized c-bet. 

On the river, the differences between the kinds of calling stations truly become important.  The Donkey and the Scrooge are willing to pay off a moderate value bet, usually up to about half the pot, with a marginal hand.  But neither will pay off a large bet on the river, as paying off a big bet loses face for the Donkey and money for the Scrooge.  However, because the Scrooge is generally a better player and more motivated by money, he is less likely to call with a weak hand unless presented good odds, so dial back the size of the value bet more for a Scrooge than for a typical Donkey.  By contrast, in the case of a Hero, it pays to overbet for value on the river, as the Hero is more likely to smell a bluff, is actively seeking out a bluff, and will seek the bigger psychological thrill from picking off what looks like a big bluff. 

Looking at it in terms of postflop betting patterns, the different styles might look like this in terms of percentages of the pot:

• Donkey:  Big-big-medium (75-100% / 75% / 50-65%)
• Scrooge:  Big-big-small (75-100% / 75% / 25-30%)
• Hero:  Big-bigger-huge (75-125% / 100-125% / 75-150%)

One other major difference between a Donkey and a Scrooge is how they react to winning.  A Donkey will continue to be a calling station regardless of results, as his calling is driven by a fear of being shown up, of being wrong.  A Scrooge who wins a few pots, however, is highly likely to revert back to his "normal" playing style, whatever that might be.  After all, once he's won a few pots, the monetary incentive for irrational calling is alleviated.  So, with a Scrooge, be careful how you handle him once he has money; you'll likely find he's "switched gears".  The Hero, of course, will continue to find opportunities to show off for the crowd no matter how many times he is wrong, so long as he occasionally gets to preen after a successful call of a bluff (hopefully someone else's!).

Calling stations are the most lucrative type of opponent over time.  Extracting maximum value from the ETs you encounter is a major key to profitable poker.  Doing so is certainly easier than dealing with maniacs!

ET tries to cure Isildur1's bankroll "Ouch".

After that donkey sucked out on the river, I ate his

liver with some fava beans and a nice vodka-Red Bull.

---------------------------------------------

* Lecter was apparently referencing this quotation from the Stoic philosopher:

This thing, what is it in itself, in its own constitution? What is its substance and material? And what its causal nature [or form]? And what is it doing in the world? And how long does it subsist?

—The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (translated by George Long)

The Absurdity of Poker

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.

—Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

Once upon a time, I was a philosophy major, spending my days thinking deep thoughts (my nights were mostly spent drinking beer with friends at the recently closed West End Lounge, thinking less than deep thoughts).  Strangely, when I read my friend Poker Grump's post today, one of those deeply buried philosophy neurons fired across a synapse that escaped those college Jagermeister shots:

Last night I played there [Excalibur]--for the first time in six months--for 5 1/2 hours. The best hand I made was two pair. No trips, no straights, no flushes, no full houses. I had two pair twice, never even top two, winning with it once, losing to a straight the other time. As for starting hands, the only big pair I ever had was K-K, and of course that lost to A-Q when an ace flopped.

I don't even know how one might begin to calculate the odds of that sort of run of near-nothingness, but it seems astronomically improbable.

There's really no way to describe to a non-poker player the feeling of incredible frustration that can build up when you are folding junk hand after junk hand, and when you do get a hand, you either miss the flop or you flop a draw that doesn't get there.  There's a reason poker players refer to "grinding" when talking about long poker sessions, and why they talk about being "card dead" when faced with Poker Grump's situation.

I recently did some random calculating when I was in a card dead slump of my own.  Let's say I average five eight-hour sessions per month (40 hours/month, or 480 hours/year), and four Vegas trips where I average fifty hours per trip (200 hours/year).  Just to be safe, let's round it up to 750 hours a year spent playing poker.  Now, let's assume I see an average of 30-35 hands per hour, which means I probably see roughly 24,000 hands of poker every year, or 2,000 hands per month. So, using the odds for hitting various poker hands, I should expect to see roughly the following hands during the course of a "typical" month:

• Pocket Aces:  9 times, and one set of aces.
• Pocket Kings:  9 times, and an ace will flop 2 of those times
• Pocket Yaks:  9 times, and an overcard will flop 5 of those times (and Yaks will lose every time)
• Pocket pairs: 118
• Flopped sets or better (assuming all pocket pairs see the flop): 14
• Sooooted cards:  480 times
• Playable sooooted cards:  160 times (estimated; your mileage may vary)
• Flopped flushes:  4
• Flopped flush draws:  17
• Made flushes:  10

The numbers don't lie—poker is going to be a Sisyphean task most sessions.  So why bother playing?  Why go through the tedium, not to mention the agony when your rare good hands lose?  To me, poker is is rewarding precisely because it is a struggle—a struggle to improve your skills, a struggle to beat good opponents, a struggle against your own emotions and doubts, and yes, sometimes, a struggle against Fate itself.  Sitting down at a poker table, winning hand after hand, session after session, might be every poker player's dream, but in reality no player would ever enjoy the game of poker if it were so easy.  Card death, missed flops, bad beats, and suckouts are certainly agonizing, but they make the hot streaks, well-timed bluffs, hero calls, and monster pots all the sweeter.  To enjoy poker, one must suffer.

All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing.

—Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"

For better or worse, poker is my thing.  Because I love the game, I must learn to love the boredom and the painful losses that are part of the game.  Of course, I don't wish too much poker suffering for myself or my poker friends!  As for Poker Grump, when he finally breaks out of this card death slump, I hope he takes the opportunity to rebrand himself as "Poker Zombie" ("Poker Jesus" probably risks a trademark lawsuit or a playing card thrown through the carotid artery).