Kansas City Harrah's Here I Come!

Well I might take a train,
I might take a plane, but if I have to walk
I'm gonna get there just the same.
I'm going to Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.
They got a crazy way of loving there
And I'm gonna get me some.

—"Kansas City" by Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller

This past weekend, buddy Jugweed and I journeyed into the wilds of Missouri to play some poker in Kansas City. Although KC is basically Jugweed's second home (as Kansas native and KU grad), let's just say that a Husker fan and a Jayhawk fan driving a car with Iowa plates through Missouri is generally a poor idea. Nonetheless, despite some sketchy weather, we arrived at Harrah's—North Kansas City in just over two and a half hours. Check-in was friendly, with the front desk clerk looking over my Total Rewards history and giving me a 50% discount on the room rate I had booked on the Total Rewards website. I'm fairly sure that the comp was in part because this was my first trip to that particular casino, yet it was certainly unexpected and greatly appreciated.

The hotel is very nice, with a sweet-looking conference area where I wouldn't mind spending some time for a CLE seminar or corporate retreat. The rooms were rather small, but were good quality, on a par with Holiday Inn Express, and perfect for a couple of guys who were just crashing for a few hours after a marathon poker binge (we stayed in a basic "deluxe" room, but I presume the "premium" rooms and suites are a little swankier).

We took a spin around the casino, which was clean, classy, and nicely decked out, but nothing spectacular—it would fit right in on the Vegas Strip as another Monte Carlo-esque mid-tier property. We then headed to restaurant row by the casino entrance for dinner, selecting Mike & Charlie's Italian Restaurant. We both had chicken spiedini for dinner—Garozzo sauce for Jugweed, Gabriella sauce for me—and cinnamon banana bread pudding for dessert. Tasty meal at a decent price.

Starvation averted, we headed to the poker room. The poker room has 14 tables, and all were full by 8:00 p.m. Friday night. There were several big games running—50/100, 10/20, and 5/10 NLHE, and 20/40 LHE—along with several tables each of 1/2 and 2/5 NLHE and 3/6 LHE. Intriguingly, a sign on the wall indicated that the room has discontinued all Omaha games "for lack of interest", allowing the room to roll the Omaha bad beat funds into the Hold 'Em bad beat jackpot. The room is off the second floor of the casino, but plenty of slot sounds and some tobacco smoke drifts into the room. Floors were good at starting games and seating players. Altogether a nice poker room.

Jugweed and I were seated at the same 1/2 NLHE table with almost no wait. One downside to the room is that the 1/2 NL buy-in is $60-$200, so the money in play is generally less than usual for 1/2 NL, and the effective stacks are likewise smaller. Still, the action turned out to be pretty good, with plenty of fishy play on display. During the first 10-15 hands at the table, one guy who I dubbed the "expert" tried to run over the table with big bets. On four or five occasions, the expert made a river bet, was called, and immediately said, "You're good" and mucked after being shown top or second pair.

I immediately targeted the expert, and tried to get into pots where he seemed to be raising light. I didn't win any monster pots, but the expert gave me at least $400 with bad bluffs and worse hero calls of my value bets. Gawd bless! In a bit of irony, the expert started button-straddling, and woke up with Aces twice in an hour. I joked with him that I needed to button straddle so I could get Aces. Instead, twice on the button I found Kings, and both times they held up for decent pots (including a payoff by the expert with top pair no kicker). I also managed to stack Jugweed once, when I made a rather sketchy turn call with a flush draw that hit, then pushed the river where Jugweed made a rough crying call with top pair. Altogether, I managed to turn a profit of ~$650 in about eight hours of play. Not too shabby for my first session in this room!

One interesting thing I noticed about the room was the use of these devices:

Basically, these are plastic chip stackers, used by the dealers to collect $1 tips. When $10 is reached (or $5 at the end of their down), the dealer will convert the $1 chips into $5 chips and put those into their personal toke box. I like this arrangement, as it noticeably extends the time between bank fills by keeping more $1 chips in play. An identical chip rack on the opposite side of the dealer is used to collect and color up $1 jackpot drop chips (or so it appeared).  Just an interesting innovation I had never previously observed.

As 3:00 a.m. approached, tables started breaking and the action tightened up significantly. Jugweed and I stayed until our table went to five-handed, then we took off, allowing the other three players to fill open seats at other tables. Channeling our inner Cloutier / Ivey, Jugweed and I headed downstairs to cash out our poker chips and check out the craps tables. Several games were in action, so we wandered up to a table with room for us both at my favorite spot, the corner by the dealer. I had two hot rolls, a lady had two good rolls, and Jugweed contributed a solid roll as well, letting me walk away with an extra $1,200 profit, and leaving behind some very happy dealers who I put on the hardways and the line (with shoes) during my rolls. As I've always said, the three best words in the English language are "off and on".*

One interesting item of note is that the craps tables in use had the traditional yo (11) and craps (2, 3, 12) numbers on the layout along with the traditional "point" numbers (4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10). Under this version of the game, a yo on the come out roll is no longer an automatic winner, and the craps numbers are no longer automatic losers. This was a first for me, and it took a few rolls to adjust to the odds offered by the new bets offered on this game layout. Based on a little research, it appears this version of craps is referred to as "crapless craps", since the craps rolls are no longer automatic losing numbers, and there is no "don't pass" line. Although avoiding three automatic losing rolls while giving up only one automatic winning roll seems superficially advantageous, the ever-helpful Wizard of Odds demonstrates that the crapless version of the game has a significantly higher house edge than does the regular game of craps. In fact, the crapless version of the game offers essentially the same house odds as double-zero roulette—poor. But, with a few hot rolls and a focus on the better odds bets, the game is still a fun diversion.

After a good night's sleep, Jugweed and I drove downtown for lunch at Bo Lings, a Chinese restaurant located near the Plaza by the KC Board of Trade. Saturday lunch is a dim sum affair, and we had a dozen or so amazing dishes. As an aside, Jugweed's wife is of Chinese ancestry, with parents who actually grew up in Taiwan. Jugweed's wife and mother-in-law cook awesome Chinese food, and they wholeheartedly endorse the food at Bo Lings. I can certainly understand why, as I enjoyed all the food. Favorites included the chive balls, "shark fins" (dumplings with shrimp and pork filling), and shrimp claws. Stop by if you get a chance!

Roughly one-third of our lunch at Bo Lings.

After lunch, Jugweed and I stopped by the Ameristar casino to check out the poker action. This casino is incredibly elegant and classy, with decor befitting it's Mississippi riverboat heritage—think dark wood, colored skylights, and chandeliers, along with a replica train in the front restaurant area. The poker room is upstairs, and has at least 20 tables. There were four tables of players in a noon tournament, and three 1/2 NLHE cash games underway. I went to a table where I was seated next to Oscar the Grouch. Jugweed was sent to another table, where he was seated next to Danny Tims, a Bellator MMA fighter. Yup, that's how I run in player selection.

When life gives you lemons, make vodka lemonade. Oscar the Grouch was an old fella, who whined non-stop about how the dealers gave him bad cards, or dealt bad flops, or let opponents hit draws. If someone raised his blinds, or raised after he limped, he'd muck and mutter rather loudly, "F*ck off!" The Grouch cost me $75 late in the session, when he called a $95 all-in on a board of Q-8-5 rainbow with ... KJ offsuit. The Grouch's call gave me odds to call with my 76 for the open-ended straight draw, and we both blanked out to let the original bettor win with Q9 offsuit. Oh yeah, the table was that soft! The good thing was that the Grouch was out of cash and tilted off into that good night ... errr, afternoon.

So, did I mention the table was soft? Once again, players overplayed top pair like it was the immortal nuts, made bad bluffs, and called down light. I won $610 in roughly two hours of play. In one big pot, I doubled up for over $250 when I played Jc8c on the button, flopped top two pair, and got called on all three streets by Q5 sooooted who caught a Queen on the turn. How kind. I then parlayed that stack into a bust of the table bully for just over $400, when I played KhQd on the button for a raise. We went to the flop heads up, which was all low cards with three hearts. He checked, I c-bet, he raised, and I called. The turn brought the Jack of hearts, giving me the second nut flush. Bully led out, and I called, confident he would bet the river. The river brought a second trey, pairing the board. Bully checked, and I value bet $75. Bully pushed over the top for about $130 more. I snap-called, reading him for a bully move with a smaller flush. Bully proudly declared "Queen high!" and rolled the Queen of hearts. I rolled my hand and scooped a monsterpotten. Thank you, come again! Bully stomped off to rebuy chips while the rest of the table debated how they thought I misplayed the hand. The free poker lessons were greatly appreciated, gents!

Altogether it was a fun and profitable trip. I can't wait for my next trip to Kansas City. Kansas City poker rooms, here I come!

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* "Off and on" is the dealer call for when you are playing—and winning—a continuous come bet after the pass line point is set. For example, the point is 8. You place a come bet, and a 6 is hit. You keep playing the come bet, and if a 6 is hit, the dealer will say "off and on" to indicate that your established come bet is being paid (coming off) and your new come bet is being placed on the same number (coming on); instead of actually taking the bet down and putting the identical bet up, the dealer merely leaves both bets in place and pays you your winnings. When you have the table set (all point numbers covered by come bets—and odds, natch—on the board), any number rolled other than a 7 or craps pays you handsomely (or any number other than a 7 in the crapless version of the game). So, a continuous string of dealer "off and on" calls is a wonderful thing.

Moving Along

Time, time, time, see what's become of me
While I looked around
For my possibilities.
I was so hard to please.
But look around, leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter.

—Simon & Garfunkel, "Hazy Shade of Winter"

My posts have been a bit sporadic the past couple of weeks, and they are likely to remain a bit sporadic into the near future. However, let me explain. No, wait, there's no time. Let me sum up.

After nearly 16 years as a lawyer—ten of them as a full shareholder—with my current law firm, I am leaving for another career opportunity. Yes, I have finally been offered a spot as a Wall Street hedge fund manager and international playboy.

Naww, it's nothing that exciting. Instead, I've gone corporate, taking a spot as "Vice-President and Assistant General Counsel—Litigation" for a regional insurance company. Essentially, my job will be half management (monitoring complex or high exposure claims, overseeing outside counsel, and supervising in-house attorneys), and half litigation (defending first-party claims against the company). The job will offer a lot of variety and interesting legal issues, which is nice, considering my current practice rarely offers much in the way of intellectual challenges. Also, the pay and benefits are much better, and the long-term financial prospects are substantially better than remaining at my current job. Plus, the commute is all of five minutes.

Now, there will be some downsides to the new position. I won't have near the flexibility in terms of taking time away from the office, and my first year or so will require a ton of work getting my feet wet. Also, I will miss all the good folks at my current firm, where I have made many friends over the years. But, in a way, as the firm has grown, it has of necessity become more corporate, which inevitably leads to changes—and tensions—in relationships. It's kind of like a home poker game. It starts out as a few friends having some drinks, laughing, and pushing chips around. Then a few more people start joining in, and eventually, you have 30 players, house rules need to be written down, people focus more on money and less on camaraderie, petty disputes morph into long term grudges, and other players look less like friends or neighbors than another guy with an ATM card that resets at midnight (never mind that he probably can't afford to lose any money). Don't get me wrong, business and poker are about money. But never kid yourself—when the stakes get high, money can be corrosive to even the best of friendships.

Thankfully, this opportunity knocked at a great time. I wasn't looking for a different job, but this position is an amazing career opportunity and an interesting challenge. More importantly, I'm able to leave my firm while still on great terms with all my friends. After another five or six years in the firm, I'm not sure that I could have guaranteed such a happy outcome.

I don't believe in fate, but sometimes, things do just happen for a reason.

(Image source).

No Bad Beats? No Thanks.

"If it weren't for the river, there wouldn't be any fish."

—Ironman Santa Claus

Today is the planned launch date for a new Everleaf poker network skin, No Bad Beats Poker (NBB). NBB's gimmick is to offer No Limit Hold 'Em (and a few other games) free from those annoying "bad beats, suck outs, and bad luck." NBB promises: "Out play your opponents and build your bankroll! You’ll get your money back if you take a Bad Beat."

So how does NBB pull off this poker miracle? The basic rules are:

• You must be playing at a No Bad Beats Poker table or tournament
• At least one player in the pot must make an All-In wager
• At the time of the All-In wager, your win probability (for that pot) must be greater than the Bad Beat Cutoff % posted in the table description (i.e., 70%).
• You cannot fold at any point in the hand
• You must lose the contested pot (i.e., cannot hold the high hand at showdown)

As an aside, the last two rules are really pretty silly to list at all. If you either fold or win the hand, you haven't been the victim of a "bad beat" in any commonly accepted definition of the term. (NOTE: The NBB FAQ page has more detailed explanations of the NBB game procedures).

Now it's important to note the effect of the bad beat protection. If two or more players get it all-in before the river, and the hand with the higher probability of winning loses (and the probability of winning is high enough to exceed the table bad beat threshold), the favored hand gets all of their wagers (not just the all-in amount) refunded to them from the pot. The winning hand (the one that sucked out) wins the remainder of the pot.

The entire NBB concept is horribly flawed. In terms of execution, it appears that NBB regards a "bad beat" as any time a favored hand loses to an underdog, even when the underdog has a substantial amount of equity in a pot. The scenarios used by NBB to explain the game play generally use a bad beat threshold of 60%, 65%, or 70%. In other words, if two players get it all-in on the flop with an overpair against a flush or straight draw, the overpair will typically find itself in a "protected" status, even if the drawing hand had proper odds to make the call. Or, in a preflop all-in between two pocket pairs (say the ever-deadly Aces vs. Kings), the higher pair is roughly an 80% favorite. The higher pair essentially gets a freeroll, winning the entire pot if the lower pair does not improve, while getting a full refund if the lower pair sucks out.

The NBB concept also impacts proper play. If the bad beat threshold is 65% or less, hands like overpairs and top pair might be well-advised to push against obvious drawing hands, to gain the NBB protection. By contrast, pure drawing hands generally shouldn't be played aggressively out of fear of generating a negative freeroll situation. Pushing preflop with Aces should be an almost standard play, while hands like Kings, Queens, and Ace-King might be auto-folded against tight players who push all-in preflop (which immediately suggests an interesting new way for tight players to steal preflop).

One interesting scenario which occurred to me is that a monster draw on the flop might well be able to gain NBB protection, and have a freeroll at hitting their draw. Imagine JhTh against 6s6d on a board of 9h8h2d. According to Cardplayer.com's odds calculator, the monster draw is more than a 70% favorite. So if the monster draw pushes (or calls) an all-in the draw wins the entire pot if it hits, and loses nothing if the draw misses. That's right, miss your draw, keep your money!

Much of the egregious idiocy of the NBB effect on game play could be remedied with a simple requirement that the bad beat threshold be a minimum of 85% or 90%, high enough that "standard" plays like pair vs. pair preflop, or pair vs. draw postflop, aren't eligible for NBB protection. Setting the threshold at 90% would essentially require a two-outer (e.g., set vs. overpair) or runner-runner on the flop, or a four-outer on the turn (e.g., two pair vs. straight or flush) before NBB protection kicked in.

Even if the NBB protection threshold were set at 90% or above, the entire NBB concept is flawed. Looking back at the Aces vs. Kings all-in preflop matchup, the Aces have roughly 80% equity in the pot. When the Aces win, however, they get 100% of the pot. The extra 20% of the pot above the Aces' equity point is properly regarded as money that is "on loan" to the Aces until the hand arrives where the Kings suck out and win the pot. The problem with the NBB concept is that it essentially steals equity from underdog hands and awards it to favored hands.

Finally, the NBB concept is objectionable merely as a matter of game philosophy. In football, one doesn't let a team drive to the one-yard line, then simply award them a touchdown because statistically teams score touchdowns from the one-yard line with a 90% or better rate. Likewise, the point of poker is not to wait until a highly favored hand is dealt to you by chance, and then simply declare victory. Poker is supposed to be a game of skill. Maneuvering opponents to call bets with bad odds is a key skill for winning at the game, if not the key skill. But opponents will quickly learn not to make such poor plays if they know that the favored hand is essentially insured against losing.

Bad poker players continue to play badly because their bad bets are occasionally rewarded. Similarly, casino pit game players keep playing because they occasionally take the house for a big score. But if the swanky casinos of Vegas were built on small house gaming edges (often 5% or less), why do poker players need bad beat protection when they can repeatedly get their money in the pot with a 30% or better edge? Bad beats and suckouts can be frustrating, but they are the bait needed to land the biggest fish. NBB is the epitome of killing the goose that lays golden eggs.

"Las Vegas is a city built with money won from people who aren't very good in math."

—Penn Jillette

D-Bag O' the Day (v.1.19)—Color Discrimination at the University of Virginia

Iowa state senator Brian Schoenjahn had a D-Bag O' the Day award all but locked up after introducing a bill this week which would make it illegal to "manufacture for sale, sell, offer or keep for sale, import, distribute, transport, or possess any caffeinated alcoholic beverage". That's right, the national hysteria over Four Loko has escalated to the point that a state senator in all seriousness is proposing what I suggested with tongue firmly in cheek—a ban on mixed drinks using a caffeinated mixer (e.g., Vodka Red Bull, Captain and Coke, Jack and Coke, Irish coffee). Truly a d-baggish nanny state proposal worthy of recognition, but unfortunately it is little more than a historical footnote to the epic d-baggery of one Jason Bauman.

Bauman is an associate athletic director for sports facilities at the University of Virginia. This past week, the Cavaliers hosted the North Carolina Tar Heels for a mens' basketball game. A Tar Heel fan, Greg Demery, scalped a second row ticket for $100. However, when Demery went to take his seat behind the Cavaliers bench, he was confronted by a security guard and director Bauman, and eventually forced to leave his seat and was relocated to a less desirable seat in the 17th row. But just what was the point for strong-arming Demery?

Was Demery's ticket a fake or reported stolen? No.

Was Demery drunk or causing a disturbance? No.

Had Demery violated a no-scalping policy? No.

Demery's one and only error was ... wearing North Carolina Tar Heel colors.

Yes, that's right, the University of Virginia practices color discrimination:

"We don't allow people in those seats to be dressed in the opposing team's apparel," Bauman said. "Because he was in that section, we moved him."

Athletic department staff members get free tickets for games, Bauman said. Since the incident, he has tracked down the staff member who received that particular ticket. The staffer had given four tickets to a friend, who sold this one to a scalper.

"We're dealing with that internally," he said.

Staff members are allowed to give away tickets they are not using, Bauman added, but "they know they are responsible for the people who sit there."

—Leah Friedman, "Troubleshooter: Tar Heel Fan Booted from Seat at UVA" (Triangle News & Observer, Jan. 14, 2011).

Seriously? The Cavaliers require fans to root for the Cavaliers in order to sit in certain seats? How ridiculously oversensitive and insecure. What if, instead of selling the ticket, the staff person had brought a friend who happened to root for the Tar Heels? Would Bauman have booted that person as well? What's next, separate concession stands and restrooms for opposing fans?

The best part of being a sports fan is to trash talk fans of other teams. Two seasons ago, I took buddy Santa Claus (an Iowa St. fan) to Husker Mecca (Memorial Stadium in Lincoln) for the CyClown-Husker game. I was able to secure first row, 50 yard-line tickets for what ended up being a debacle of a loss for the Huskers. Santa Claus was decked out in CyClown gear, strutting around and being an obnoxious yahoo, nearly getting into a half dozen fights. But nobody suggested he shouldn't be able to sit in that prime seat in the midst of the great Husker Horde. Or how about back in 2001, when roughly 40,000 Husker fans managed to take their Sea of Red show on the road to Notre Dame, where they outnumbered the home fans? Notre Dame's coaches and athletic director were embarrassed by their fans' ticket scalping, but they never suggested the Husker fans should be removed.

I don't particularly care about the legalities of Bauman's actions or the underlying policy. Legal or not, restricting fan seating areas by team, or requiring fans to root for particular teams to attend the event is simply anathema to the American sports tradition. The problem for Baumann is not with the random opposing fan getting a ticket in the home team's inner sanctum. No, Bauman's real problem is that his own fans are willing to sell prime tickets to opposing fans, something that simply doesn't happen for the truly elite sports programs:

Stealth bomber flies over Memorial Stadium in Lincoln.

Opposing fans will find it difficult to scalp a ticket outside the two

designated visiting fan sections (southwest corner, upper right of photo).

(Order this and other full-size official Husker photos HERE).

The best method for keeping opposing fans out of your prime seats is to put a competitive team on the floor or field. Bauman's silly efforts to enforce fan segregation simply reflect the insecurities of a second-rate athletic program.

The Vizzini Leak

Man in Black:  All right. Where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right ... and who is dead.

Vizzini:  But it's so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you: are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet or his enemy's? Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I am not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool, you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.

Man in Black:  You've made your decision then?

Vizzini:  Not remotely. Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows, and Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.

Man in Black:  Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.

Vizzini:  Wait 'til I get going!

—The Princess Bride

The poison-duel scene in The Princess Bride is a comedy classic in which the villain, Vizzini, matches wits with the hero, the "Man in Black". Vizzini works through elaborate rationalizations for why the poison may have been placed in each of the two wine goblets, hoping to catch a tell by the Man in Black as to which goblet is truly poisoned. Eventually, Vizzini manages to talk himself into and out of believing that the poison is in each of the two goblets. Finally, he resorts to a ruse to try to cheat his way to the right solution, only to discover ... well, watch the scene and find out!

I often think of the Princess Bride poison-duel when confronted with a poker player who "tanks" for a ridiculously long time during a hand. I can only imagine the inner dialogue must run something like this:

"He overbet the river, so he's trying to look strong, so he must be weak, so I have to call. Except he knows that I know that "strong means weak", so he must actually be strong, pretending to be weak, so he looks too strong, knowing I will think he's really weak. So, clearly I must fold. However, he's a young guy wearing an Ed Hardy hoodie, so he's a big bluffer, so I must call. But he's only shown down the nuts tonight, and he has a tattoo of a donkey sh*tting diamonds out his azz, so he must have a strong hand, so I must fold. But ..."

It's actually kind of humorous to see some of these deep-thought moments at the table, when it's pretty obvious to most of the table whether the bet represents a value bet by an almond broker, or yet another bully bluff by the table maniac. It's truly astonishing how often these deep thinkers make the wrong decision.

A psychological quirk that might be in play in these situations is the surprising fact that deep analysis often becomes over-analysis, and over-analysis is often no better than a simple wild azz guess in terms of results. The fault in our thinking process arises from attempting to factor into our decision far too many factors, leading us to put undue weight on peripheral factors, or to minimize the weight given to key factors:

This is known was a “weighting mistake,” and it’s a serious problem for conscious deliberation. When we try to analyze our alternatives, we tend to search for reasons to choose one team over another. The problem is that we’re not particularly good at figuring out whether or not these reasons are relevant. In other words, we’re rationalizing, which is quite different from being rational.

—Jonah Lehrer, "You Know More Than You Know" in The Frontal Cortex (Oct. 12, 2010).

Studies have shown that the best decisions by experts are reached not by an immediate "gut" reaction, nor by a deeply analytical thought process, but rather by "intermediate decisions", where an expert is given the problem to consider, and then briefly distracted by other matters before being asked for their conclusion. In that situation, the expert has sufficient opportunity to allow his brain to rationally process the decision in light of the expert's knowledge and experience, but prevents the brain from over-analyzing the situation and out-thinking itself.

The upshot of this research is that, while we should approach problems rationally, sometimes more thinking is poor thinking. Although our immediate gut reaction at the poker table might provide a valuable starting point, it pays to give some extra thought before making our final decision. But it pays equally well if we learn when to turn off the logic circuits, because ultimately we can rationalize almost any play we want to make if we give our brain time to focus on the factors supporting that decision.

As any Princess Bride fan knows, two of the classic blunders are:  "Never get involved in a land war in Asia", and "Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line." When it comes to poker, let me add this blunder to the list:

"If you find yourself talking yourself into a call or a fold, you're an idiot if you listen to that fool."

"You have defeated my Scandi, and bested my Grinder ..."