Poker Slammer

Job Creators?!?

2011-10-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

I just don't understand. Maybe you can help me here. The Republicans/ Tea Party say -no demand- "Don't tax the Job Creators!" So the natural question is; who are the job creators? They say its everyone making over $250K per year. Really? I find that hard to believe. I see trust fund babies playing (losing) poker because they don't have anything else to do. They "make" $250K per year, so I guess they are job creators?

But why take their word for it. Why take my word for it. Why don't we implement a tax code change that solves the problem so we won't have to take anybody's word for it. Here's how it would work. If a company or individual hires one person during the tax year, they get a tax benefit of X (we could work out the specifics later). If they hire 2 people they get 2X. On the other side, if one makes more than Y (say $250K/year) and they don't hire anyone, they pay extra their normal taxes plus Z. In this way, we would be using the most powerful tool in the capitalist quiver, incentives, to help get the job market kick started.

The reality of the average corporate balance sheet is that they carry a huge amount of cash. We (the nation) need these companies to put this cash to work now. If they work the numbers and see that they can invest in people and new projects at a price that will equal doing nothing, or to at least make it incredibly advantageous to invest that money rather than sit on it, they will do it. Trust me, I went to Columbia Business School. These folks want to maximize their return. They want to look good. They'll invest it. In today's environment, they are incentivized to do nothing. The global economy is shaky. Their bosses (everyone has a boss) are nervous about risk. So they sit on it and are praised for doing so. We all love praise.

More to point - Why isn't anybody talking about this? Why do we take the Republican moniker "Job Creator" at face value? Why aren't the Democrats challenging them? I'm concerned that the men of money in corporate America are making too many of the calls. They don't want to do anything like this (due too this concept of maximization discussed above)and they have the power to smother it. Let's hope that isn't the case. Let's hope that in America, we make decisions on the basis of one person = one vote, not one dollar = one vote.

Our Eletronic Brains

2011-01-10T12:03:00.001-08:00

I'm hardly a Luddite. In fact I've been battling Luddites all my life. As a Professor of Management of Technology, I embraced technology in all its glory. I developed online courses which I turned into a profitable business. Technology is good. Its always coming. It changes things. It changes things faster and faster.

The problem, for me, now is that it is getting into my brain. No, I'm not talking about implants. It's not physically getting into our brain, its engulfing our world view.

How often do you check your email? Recent polls show that people check their email more than twice a day on average. With that comes the expectation that if you send someone an email, they should get back to you within 24 hours, if not faster. That in turn makes you compelled to keep on top of your emails, your voice mails, your Facebook, your texts and tweets and whatever else your hooked into. So you keep checking. And checking. And replying.

The brain is a very pliable organ. It likes routine. Why do you think most old farts like me are set in our ways? We developed our own rhythm to life. But this rhythm we are developing now is too rushed. Too obsessive. Too impersonal by feeling personal. How many people do you interact with whom you have never met. That number is skyrocketing for most of us.

Can't change it. Technology is what it is. No one controls it. Never have, never will.

I have decided to change it for me anyway. I check my email twice a week now. I don't use Facebook much, unless I get an interesting note for an old friend or I upload a nice picture for all you e-addicts out there. NO tweets. Way too voyeuristic and obsessive.

So how you doin? I'm gonna read a book.

Freedom

2010-12-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

Yes, it is true, I haven't posted in a while. The truth of the matter is that I have had nothing to say. I often wish the media would take that tact sometimes instead of filling the airwaves with crap.

Now I do have something to say, It has to do with our nationally cherished word - freedom. A word that seems simple enough to understand. The ability to do what we want seems to me to be as good a definition as any. As Americans (which is really a false way to refer to citizens of the United States. Aren't Venezuelans Americans as well?), we think that our country is the freest in the world - the freest that ever existed on earth. We have the right to think whatever we want. We have the right to do whatever we want (within the law). etc. It is a glorious concept and country we live in. Unfortunately, slowly and unceasingly our freedom has been eroded over time without us really noticing it. Freedom is disappearing in the United States of America.

Let me explain. As a young person, you are encouraged to select a profession that best suits your interests, needs and talents. But as a young person, you have very little information as to make the best selection. So lets say you select "exterminator." You learn how to exterminate by getting training which you get by borrowing money. Nobody is going to train you for free. You get a job. You climb the slow pay ladder to a reasonably comfortable position. You fall in love and get married. Have kids. Buy a house. Open a retirement account. Now you are saddled with a mortgage, debt to pay for the things all Americans must have - cars, furniture, vacations. Don't forget taxes. The biggest kicker of all is Health Care Insurance. Huge premiums are required to be paid every month. Pay up buddy, or die when you get sick. Now its all over. If it turns out that you hate being an exterminator - too bad for you. You can't go back a pay to train for another career. The debt and other fiscal responsibilities will crush you. Where is your freedom now, Mr. America? You can't pick up and go on that two month cross-country trip you always dreamed of - got to pay the mortgage. No time to write that novel - got to save to send the kiddies to college. No time for nothing. Just work. slave, work.

I know, in the past, I've cautioned anyone who has shown any interest in becoming a professional poker player. I'm changing my tune. Poker is one of the few professions that, if you become proficient, allows you to keep your freedom. You can play when and where you want to. If you have good year or month, you can easily take a year off and do something else. The biggest hurdle to even this last bastion of freedom is this insidious Health Care Insurance we all must pay for. I call it - the great enslaver. Its as much as a mortgage for most households. I would argue that other countries that don't have it are freer countries. Give me the Swedish system, the English system, hell I'll take the French system over ours any day. The people there are freer, they live longer (check that statistics), are healthier and are surely more happy than us.

Don't let the politicians pull the wool over your eyes. A single payer system for health care is the only way to go if you, like me, value real freedom.

Embracing Probabilities

2010-08-16T10:34:00.001-07:00

I think the hardest thing for the non-experienced player to understand about poker is the concept that you can lose when you make the right play. So many people have come up to me and said (in essence) "Poker has to be all luck because I was watching a final table on TV and this guy was always ahead when the money went in and he end up in last place." And certainly that is true, often times the player who plays the best is not rewarded. Its seems to go against the meritocracy concept the US is said to embrace.

The thing is poker is all about the concept of probabilities. And probabilities is a concept that seems clear on the surface. If you flip a coin there is a 50% chance that it'll be tails. But the more you burrow into the deep underpinnings of future predicting, it become problematic to many people. Such as the fact that if you flip a coin 20 times in a row and it turns up heads every time, what are the chances that it will be heads on the 21st time? Same as before: 50%. So #1, probabilities are independent events. But at the same time, if you flip that coin 10,000 times, by the laws of math, it'll be heads 5,000 times almost exactly. Wow.

I had a recent run in with the probability monster, actually three run ins. Last week, I get all my money in with pocket kings (about $700). I'm up against Ace-King. I lose to a straight. Three days later I get all my money in (about $1500) with pocket aces against King-King. I lose to a set of kings. Just the day before yesterday I get all my money in with King-King (about $900) versus Ace-Queen and Jack-Jack. I lose when an Ace hits the board. I'm not saying these occurrences aren't painful. They are (for a little while anyway). Poker is a streaky game as is the case for anything involving probabilities.

But the way to consider it is, I think, in terms of a master, lifetime list. When these situations come up, your going to win most of the time, but you are going to lose as well. In the case of the last scenario, you'll win 2 out of every three times AND when you win you'll be getting 2:1 on your money. No real gambler would ever pass that up. But you WILL lose one out of every three times as well. So when you lose, you need to put it into the loss list and forget about it. Its inevitable that it will happen. But probabilities are an immutable law of nature. In the end, you'll be a winning player.

Trust me.

By Feel or by the Book

2010-08-03T08:27:00.000-07:00

One of the most difficult aspects of poker is the concept of "feel." World class players, I believe, are born with a natural feel for the game. They understand probabilities intuitively. They find it easy to completely transfer themselves into the head of their opponents. And, maybe most importantly, they have no fear.

There are thousands of very competent players out there. They've learned to compute probabilities quickly and accurately. They have a good poker demeanor (poker face). Pricing opponents out, making big lay downs and value betting are not a problem. But what they don't understand is that those are the easiest parts of playing poker. The real tricky parts are; making the tough call, re-raise bluffing, trusting your read and sticking with a false story and completely immersing yourself into the other person's head. Anyone can win with an ace high flush. Win with a pair of fours and I'll be impressed.

I think one of the reasons that a proportionately higher number of top players come out of Europe rather than the US is that in this country we are so self oriented. We rarely take the time to see the world from another's perspective. Its all about me. Do I have the best car? Should I be making more money? How can I get this guy to do the deal that benefits me the best.

In Europe, people are more concerned about making other people feel comfortable. They are very hospitable. They are very interested in your opinion. This world view is great for poker. You need to care about the other person. What drives him or her? Where is their comfort zone? Then you need to act on that understanding. Faking it won't work. You need to really care.

I also think, they are less materialistic than Americans. Because they care less about money, they value it less and they don't care as much if they lose. This leads to a lack of fear and more aggressive stance at the table. Controlled and measured aggression leads to success. The best players are not afraid to lose. They know its inevitable and they accept it and use it to their advantage.

Ah Europe. When's the next plane?

Forest or Trees?

2010-07-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

Poker as a microcosm of a philosophy of living continues.

I recently returned from a 5 day camping trip with my daughter to the Adirondacks. This is an actual picture from the lake we stayed on. This an annual trip and I've been doing it for 17 years. Just as yoga centers me on a weekly basis, this trip is a yearly cleansing experience. We leave our watches, cell phones and wallets behind. Our days are filled by reading, meal preparation, swimming, talking and, most importantly, thinking. The numberless, civilization void clears the brain paths for clear contemplation. Big picture thinking dominates. I look back at the previous year, the previous five years as well as set future goals.

This year, I find myself in a transition. I've sold my Internet Learning Company in December and I found myself going through a series of emotions. At first, I felt a dire need to start up my next venture right away. I almost frantically researched the marketplace for a significant gap that I could fill. I came up with quite a few ideas. Poker courses. A linking program to increase web site visibility. Commercial Real Estate. Writing my second novel. Financial Investing work for my fellow poker players. Applications for apps that can be controlled by the users brain waves. Only the "linking" idea I deemed a non-starter. All the others had merit and I struggled to select the one project to focus on. (I'm not a very good multiplexer.) Then I started to feel guilty whenever I was working on one idea because I was neglecting the others. My stress level gradually increased. My blood pressure rose. I was making myself ill.

But out there on Indian Lake, I could decompress and see the forest. I saw my life as a poker tournament. I was well into it. I had amassed some chips. Not enough to see me through to the end, but enough to sit back a little. Increase the percentage of hands I played in an ABC style. Don't need to jump into risky situations. I realized I needed to let the tournament come to me. Let it unfold a bit. Make mental notes on what was happening and, most importantly, give opportunities a chance to present themselves. Don't force the action. I have time now to enjoy time with my wife and my four kids. I can play poker to make ends meet. Feel everyday.

So I've changed course a bit. I'm monitoring all the project ideas I initiated, but I'm not stressing over them. When an idea materializes that is interesting, potentially lucrative and pings a passion within, I'll know it. I feel better already.

GasLand - Must See TV

2010-07-01T09:16:00.000-07:00

Like all Americans, I care about this country. I believe in freedom for the individual such as online poker which I have discussed in previous entries. But almost everything pales in comparison to the health of our environment. If something is hurting our air or water, we need to stop it. But I was also trained as a scientist and real proof must be presented for all cases.

Josh Fox received a letter from a gas company offering him $100,000 to let them use his land in PA to drill for natural gas. He decided to look into the matter in detail and produced an HBO documentary - GasLand. The movie just came out on June 22. Its a chilling story. I urge everyone to see it. If you get HBO, its available on demand.

To put it tactfully, Josh is not happy with the gas and oil industry. He claims that the "fracking" process is poisoning wells all over the country. The industry says he is overstating the case. Since the story is so scary, I decided to do some homework on my own. Here is my take.

Josh did us a great service in bringing this story to light. It something that needs to be discussed openly. We also need much more data. Too many questions are not addressed. Such as, how many homeowners have filed complaints about their wells? Where are they located? What studies have been done to date? Who authored them and what do they show? If there haven't been any recent studies, then we need to get some good scientist on it right away. I'm also dissappointed with Josh's map of the waterways. It is drawn so far off scale and hurts his credibility. It looks like New York State is 75% water, for example. He also fails to show proper balance relative to the stories he tells. Some of these incidents were supposedly debunked. Give us everything, Josh, not just the pieces that help your argument.

Now on the industry side. The biggest problem I have with their counter argument is that they never fully explain why they are so fearful of having the EPA oversee their activities. Isn't that why we have an EPA? They claim the states are doing a good job of oversight. They also cling to a 2004 EPA report that purports to prove that the process is safe. First of all, I have trouble believing the Bush EPA was an impartial entity. The former CEO of Haliburton was the VP for crying out loud. Secondly the EPA did not do any independent research on the issue. It simply performed a mega-study and based its findings on other studies several of which were performed by the industry (which to me have no value due to sever conflict of interest).

I must say however, being the experienced poker player, I spied two tells on the industry website. The first one was that they claim that methane mixing with water does not pose a health risk because methane is a gas and it doesn't get in to the water. C'mon fellas. Who in their right mind would tolerate methane gas coming out of the tap when you turned on the water. The other tell was that they said they would take full responsibility for any damage to water wells that they caused. But they wouldn't take responsibility for a poisoned well if the fracture already existed and they just kind of inched it along. You kiddin' me.

Bottom line. To President Obama: Clearly this oversight must fall under the EPA. The industry defended the status quo by saying it would cost jobs. Not good enough. If this is as harmful as Mr. Fox makes it out to be, it needs to be addressed. Secondly, a panel of top scientists including a few from industry and from the environmental community (as long as they have stellar credentials) needs to be empaneled on a Presidential Commission. Finally, a moratorium on new drilling should be put in place until all this can be sorted out. I don't think anyone would disagree with the statement: Drilling for natural gas is fine as long as we can be absolutely sure that it is environmentally benign.

Next time I'll get back to poker.

A Good Run

2010-06-22T05:50:00.000-07:00

In the end, the best you can do is have "a good run." We hear it all the time. Most recently in regards to Tom Watson. The guy is 60 years old and is still competitive on the PGA Tour. Witness the British Open last year and again in the US Open this year where he was tied for 16th after 3 days. He has had success at the sport for 45 years. Now that's a good run.

Another example is my father, Dr. Welton M. Gersony. The man has excelled at his calling, Pediatric Cardiology for 50 years. He still loves his occupation dearly and more than anything, at 78, wants to continued to be consider a leader in the field.

And in poker, no one has had a better run than Doyle Brunson. He has been playing poker for 65 years. Still loves it. Is still great at it. A lucky man.

Ruminating on the concept of "a good run," it seems that, especially when we are young, we think we can get more out of life than is possible. In the end, the very best we can hope for is "a good run." A period of time on earth where there is a beginning, a middle and an end in which things generally go quite well. Nothing goes perfect all the time during our run. Watson and my father both went through difficult divorces. Doyle survived the death of a daughter. They dealt with their difficulties and though I can't get into their heads, they, as well as many others, focused on the positive and got the most out of their passions.

Sure, we can all fantasize about having it all, money, great relationships, skill, recognition and fame. But rarely do we see these things for what they really are. They are fleeting. If they give us pleasure, satisfaction and happiness for some period of time, than we are blessed. Things that are not worthwhile need to be shed. For it is not only the thing, it is the thing in relation to time. If there is something you are dreaming of doing or acquiring, you need to do it when the window in time opens for such a thing to be done. If you don't, the window may be closed forever.

Poker, again, has proved to be an excellent microcosm of "a good run" concept. We even use the exact same phrase to describe it. We also call it "running hot" and "being on a heater." Every poker player can remember a good run. Sometimes it lasts for a few days, maybe a few weeks and occasionally for months on end. But one thing is always certain. It ends. But in poker we have multiple lifetimes. We may have many good runs (and bad ones - to be discussed some other time). Maybe that's why successful players rarely quit playing the game. There is a sense of immortality about the game even though we know, like everything else, it ends. Every session starts with a birth. Every hand is a new beginning.

Although most people think it is depressing to think of our lives as a finite time parcel, I think it allows us to live happier. We are aware of the transient nature of our existence so we try harder to squeeze every drop of satisfaction we can out of it. We don't let small things get us down, we learn to let a bad experience disappear into the past. We look at every minute as a gift and we learn that to achieve greater happiness, we must give happiness to others. For satisfaction does not only come from material acquisitions and a pampered life style. For some (myself included) these goals are only a small part of what gives inner peace. Achievement, help and honest actions are much higher on the list. In the end, it is not about us as individuals as much as it is about us as a whole.

Now go out their today, focus on your passions and enjoy your run.

Poker Etiquette

2010-05-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

Etiquette? What does that have to do with the rough and tumble world of high stakes poker? I often feel this is what many of the young players think. To many of them, its something ladies worry about at tea parties - nothing to do with them.

As it turns out, poker etiquette is an absolutely critical aspect of the game - especially for anyone who expects to play fairly regularly. Etiquette is where you show the quality of your character. It indicates the degree to which you are to be trusted. It shows to the world whether you are a straight shooter with a good ethical backbone or if you are a conniver, a cheat, a selfish imp who has no respect for others. So if you play regularly, you will be playing with the same players over and over again. Furthermore, those players will interact and trade stories about your exploits at the table. It's amazing how fast a good or bad impression of a player will circulate through the table in cities all over the country, if not the world.

Obviously, if that impression is negative, that profile of you will stay with you for a long time to come. Here are a few examples; Jamie Gold refusing to chop after he made a deal; Rich Gordon's "back up the truck" comment on Poker After Dark; The discovery of tournament poker chips in a well-known players hotel room. (Rather not mention the name in case you are unfamiliar with the case.) Each of these players are going to spend years and years to live down these breaches of etiquette. Some will recover more easily than others, but once you cross the line, it is brutal trying to win back a reputation as a clean, trustworthy player. I always tell young players to err on the side of generosity. If you misread your cards and your opponent mucks the winning hand. Offer to give him the pot anyway (or some portion). If you catch a glimpse of an opponents hole cards, let them know that that need to protect their cards better. etc.

You want people to trust you no questions asked. If you offer a deal in a tournament or its a backing arrangement, you don't want to have to prove your good character over and over again. Keep being consistently honest and aware of all nuances to the etiquette game. Treat everyone with respect. Be careful how you talk about others. Its not hard and it may even seem silly at times, but in the end it is absolutely critical for aspiring professional players.

If you make a brazen breach there may be card rooms where you could never show your face again. If you make an honest mistake, go above and beyond the rules to make things right. In the long run, you'll be glad you did.

Position, position . . . Position?

2010-05-05T06:18:00.000-07:00

We always how important position at the poker table is. As we all have heard a million times. Its best to act last - that's why we call it "having position."

For many years, I've understood why this is so, but as a player, I've haven't put a priority of having position as many others pros have. Something inside of me was saying; "Position isn't all its cracked up to be." But I could never really put my finger on why I subscribe to this notion.

The other enduring rule for the good poker player is to find a seat at the cash table in which the loose crazies are on your right and the ABC rocks are on your left. The theory is that you want all the raising to be ahead of you so your not so easily trapped into a big, expensive hand with marginal cards. And yes, you guessed it, I'm going to challenge this convention as well.

The cards have started to cooperate with me as of late after a horrendous down streak, probably one of the worst of my poker career. Part of my success was to position myself not to the left of a wacko player who continuously overplayed his hand, but to sit to his immediate right.

My strategy was quite straightforward. At the table were mostly experienced players, most of whom I had played with many times and all were very aware of the lunatic sitting to my right. Who couldn't notice that he was entering almost every pot and raising or re-raising 50% of the time. We all knew he was not valuing his hands properly. No one gets playable hands near 100% of the time and no one gets premium starting hands 50% of the time. The 5/10 no limit game we were playing was essentially a 25/50 game. We all knew that we were going to be putting in at least $50 into the pot pre-flop if we were to play any hand.

It was fairly early on that I realized that my position against this guy wasn't the worst position, but the best position to be in. Every time he raised, players would roll their eyes as they were forced to put in $50, $60 or up to $100 on a hand such as J10 suited, when in a "normal" game they'd rarely put in more than $40. What a set up this was for me. When a big hand came my way such as QQ, I'd limp. Mr. Mental Institution would immediately make it $75 or some such thing. Good players would reluctantly call. Often three or four. I'd then make it $500 or more. My position allowed the pot to be built up substantially so I was making a $300 or so win risk free. Occasionally, the lunatic would call me. Now I could push again on the flop and he'd fold. So my position still benefited me. It was a wonderful thing. I made a killing that night.

There were other tricks I was gathering well. For a full review of my revolutionary new strategy - the new position in position poker - go to my poker courses and have a looksy. Go get 'em.

Poker - The Evil Twin Paradox

2010-04-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

One of the key tenets of understanding how to play winning poker is to understand the concept that I call "the evil twin."

In the course of a cash session, you will be presented with a number of decisions. And you will be creating decision situations for your opponents. To the untrained eye it seems impossible to know what to do. For example, lets say you raised pre-flop with a pocket pair of sevens. Its folded around to the big blind who immediately calls. The flop comes out:

Queen; Five; Deuce

The big blind comes out betting. Its your turn to act. What do you do?

These situations come up over and over again. Your opponent either has you or the evil twin is that he doesn't. In a nut shell, this is what good poker is all about - dealing with the situation of the evil twin. The player who makes the right move in these situations more often, will be a winning player over the long run.

So how do you make the right play? The short answer is that its much more complicated than it appears. I've created a course on the "Evil Twin" concept at PokerSlamU.com. But in a nut shell, you are in a duel. The more unclear you make it for your opponent - the better. Most people will just fold if they are unsure. The more data you can pick up on your opponent - the better.

When it comes to your image, the most common and best strategy is you want to be perceived as a relatively tight player. You, most of the time, want your opponent to fold. Believe me, those pots add up fast. If you're having a card dead day, you can still have a profitable day if you can successfully create a tight player image, raise no more than once every two rotations or so. Consistently bet your cards. That is the best I can tell you in a paragraph.

When it comes to choosing a twin when you are put to the test, take as much into account as possible. Most players who are betting out do not have it. Most players do not like to be raised and are intimidated. Understand what each player is capable of doing. Most recreational players, for example, are incapable of making a big bluff re-raise against a tight player. These are only a few of the critical pieces to the puzzle that you are putting together.

Feel becomes critical. I'm most comfortable in a 5/10 no limit game. Whenever I dip down to 1/2 or 2/5, I don't do as well. I find the players are more willing to call. There is less at stake. Smaller stacks. Less at stake. So if I'm card dead, I have a hard time manufacturing wins.

Find your comfort zone. What game best fits you. The better you get, the more successful you'll be at the higher limits.

Leaving it All Behind

2010-04-12T09:08:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but sometimes I get this strong urge to move on out. I'm not sure if its because I moved a lot when I was a kid and its in my blood, or its my need for adventure or maybe I just need a change.

Don't get me wrong, I sincerely believe that each and everyone of us who have the privilege of living in the 'ol US of A are blessed. I think its more about the way we live that causes me angst. I'm tired of the treadmill. Make money to pay the bills. Be sure to have health insurance. Each day that passes I feel regret for the things I could be doing. For doing things that I personally value. Things that are simple but are hard to do because of the need meet the requirements of our ever increasing responsibilities.

What am I talking about exactly? I'm not exactly sure but I think it revolves around an urge to chuck all the "stuff" and experience life freely on a more basic level. And by golly, I'm going to do something about it.

The wonder of the Internet (as I discussed in my past post) does allow freedom. My poker course web site is run by a webmaster in Colorado, whom I never met. I use a graphics designer from Long Island and the site itself resides on a server in I don't know where - Internet land, I guess.

My current plan is this: I'm going to continue to upgrade and develop my poker courses, give away all my key poker knowledge which has generated hundreds of thousands of dollars for me over the course of my poker career (about 9 years). I'm going to develop a few more web sites with my partners and build them into premiere sites. Then, in October of 2012, I'm hitting the road with my wife and my #3 daughter and my son. (Maybe my #1 and #2 daughters will join us for a while.) I'm going to design and build a specialty van, buy a pop up trailer and sell my house. Then for the next year or two or three or longer, we are going to hit the road. Really get to know this country and all its natural beauty. Believe it or not, my wife loves the idea (what a wife!). I can continue my poker career (mostly online) and continue to work with my partners on the web sites - have cellular broadband will travel.

Has anyone else thought about doing this? It'll be a journey within a journey. An experiment in living. An adventure like none other. Hope I can pull it off. I'll keep you posted by documenting the trip right here. Stay tuned.

The Birth of a Company

2010-03-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

After I sold my company, CEU.com, in December 2009, I thought I'd take some time to think. Think about life, family, friends, goals and, of course, my next business venture. I thought it'd take a while, but lo and behold, in a matter of months, I have not one but three ideas for my next Internet business. I'll only consider Internet businesses because its what I know, it doesn't require oodles of cash to get started, it comes with a free distribution and communication system, no inventory . . .

You may think that its all been done. But after taking some time to think, nothing could be further form the truth. Why? Because the Internet is constantly changing. New tools become ubiquitous (e.g. smart phones). New capacities are added (e.g.wireless broadband). People are using the web for new things. There are always new combinations waiting to be discovered. My biggest issue is editing my choices. I'll continue to offer advanced poker courses through PokerSlamU.com. That goes without saying. But I've been approached by experts in several fields and some investors, now it becomes an issue of matching and making decisions on where to focus my time and money.

But I can see why the entrepreneurial road isn't for everybody. There is no job security. You need to go with your ideas and live or die by your own hand. I have certainly found myself in many panicky situations. But when I come face-to-face with trouble or a hurdle, I've learned that they always seem insurmountable at first. Over time you find a series of solution options. You pick one. If that doesn't work, you pick another. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten about this was from Bob Stupak, the founder of the Stratosphere Hotel in Las Vegas. "The most important thing for an entrepreneur is perseverence. Almost any company can be a success if you keep making appropriate changes and don't ever give up."

All In

2010-02-22T07:35:00.000-08:00

What really makes hold em the poker game of the times is the All In move. Nothing is more exciting then when an athlete gives it everything they got or when a professional pushes the limit in their field. "Here it is," they say, "I'm ALL IN."

Poker brings the move to a high state of visualization. You only have so much ammunition. You've been ever so careful in building it up over the course of a tournament. But now you've put it all at risk by shoving every single chip you have at into the center of the table. It's double or nothing. It's do or die. I love it.

But the All In move is all about timing. Not just doing it when you have the nuts - the best possible hand in poker. That move is relatively easy. You can't lose, so why not. In fact that is NOT the best time, usually, to make the big move because most of the time, your opponent is going to fold and there is no value to be gained. I was just in a tournament where I saw the worst All In move in history. Its the table chip leader against the second in chips. Thge chip leader bets 5X the big blind pre-flop. The second chip leader calls. The flop comes out 10-10-4. The chip leader bets out 10X the big blind. The second chip leader goes all in and the leader folds. The second chip leader proudly shows the table pocket 10s. Ouch. A huge opportunity lost. He had position. He had an unbeatable hand. He could have easily doubled up. Horrible - just horrible play.

The All In move is about (1) getting called when you have the best hand; (2) protecting a lead in a hand; (3) forcing your opponent to call on the river because they feel they are priced in; and, most importantly (4) re-building your stack when you are short. Of course all these situations are shown in detail on my poker courses. Its all about feel. Its about creating a tight image, then making the move and forcing strong hands to fold. Or creating a loose image and getting medium strength hands to call. Its about deception. Making the move when you look desperate. Making the move on a player that is tilting. Doing it when you sense weakness. In poker the important thing is often not what you hold, but what is in your opponent's hand. So many opportunities that players let get away. Too many to go into all of them here.

Its a move that is to be used very sparingly early and early mid of a tournament. Why? Because the gain is small compared to the risk - getting eliminated.

I love that the "All In" phrase has popped up in general language. I see it in the newspapers. "Obama goes All In on Health Care." I see it professionally. My father, who is respected Pediatric Cardiologist, told his boss, "Either we fix our budget or I QUIT." He was certainly all in.

Good Luck with your all in bets. Make sure you're prepared. Your opponents are primed and, most importantly, make sure the risk/reward equation is in your favor.

The Art of the Bluff

2010-02-03T15:10:00.000-08:00

Poker Skills are the same as business skills. Yeah. Yeah. Heard it a million times. Lets get to the specifics. Show me, don't tell me - the mantra of every good writer.

There is no better example than in the art of the bluff. Does he or doesn't he? Will she or won't she? Does he have it?

Many people see the bluff in isolation or out of context and think, "wow, that's neat. Bet a lot and your opponent folds." But in actuality, the professional bluff does not happen all of a sudden. It is a carefully built strategy that results in bluffs taking strategic pots. no one can win at poker by bluffing willy nilly. Its an extremely high risk move that costs you much more when you lose than it gains you when you win.

Now lets think about it in terms of business. A failed bluff can be very costly. "I'll quit if I don't get that raise." "That's my last and final offer." A professional at business uses this tool in very specific situations. First, he must size up his opponent. Is she a risk taker? Does he exaggerate? Does she lie?

Secondly, he needs to understand the importance of the deal to himself or his company. A systematic Cost/Benefit Analysis is needed. If its critical, tread carefully. If there are other options, can be more aggressive.

Thirdly, is the bluff bordering on unethical behavior. In the end, your opponent will often learn the true state of things. If you cross the line you jeopardize future deals with that and other agents. A much underrated concern is that if you go to far, you'll have to live with your unethical act for a long time if not, if its flagrant enough, for the rest of your life.

In poker, the same issues are involved. A reckless bluffer will get called more often and see a net loss on his annual ledger. An unethical bluffer (certain comments, motions etc.), will label the player and the person (the game often extends beyond the boundaries of the felt) as untrustworthy. Bluffing the wrong type of player or in the wrong situations are huge net losers in the long term.

A bluff is the culmination of a story. You build your reputation at the table. Playing selective hands takes the frequency tell out of the equation. Never show your cards to build this image. Uncertainty is the pro's best friend. Then you look for the ideal situation:

Semi-bluff whenever possible
Attack the ABC player
Look for bona fide weakness
Pay attention to patterns in their game
Bet enough (too much is much better than too little)
Look for positional advantage

There is much much much more to consider and talk about in bluffing strategy. On my site, I give many examples and rate the quality of the bluffing situation. Soon it will become second nature. You'll know that there are situations that your opponent will know he most likely has the best hand, but he absolutely cannot call. The risk is to large. This knowledge and ability is probably the single most important skill that separates the pro from the amatuer.

In the end (without counting continuation bets), you should be bluffing no more than three or four times a session. And four times is too much. But be aware. Once they start to see what you are doing modify. On top of that, your personality, ethical backbone and understanding of the type of players you are up against skews the strategy accordingly. What a great frickin' game!

Luck?!?!!????

2010-01-23T13:59:00.000-08:00

Very interesting things I've been hearing about the concept of luck. This post falls under the category of poker imitating life or is it the other way around?

Bill Gates was asked; "To what extent was it just pure luck that Microsoft became as big as powerful as it did?" His response was that luck played a big part. It was luck that he developed computer skills as a youth instead of some other skill such as tiddlywinks. It was luck that he hooked up with the perfect partner. It was luck that he got into the marketplace just as the personal computer was taking off.

Sergei Brin was asked to what extent was luck the reason Google got as big as it has gotten. He answered that it was lucky that he found the perfect partner. It was lucky that he got into the market at the right time. etc.

All the time we hear that luck is so important in poker. Sure its important. Its important in every human endeavor. There is no getting around the fact that much of human course depends on factors that are not in that humans control. i.e. luck comes into play. Now is it 100% luck that Gates and Brin were successful? No, of course not. They were good at the skills they needed and were hard working and creative. But those factors alone do not guarantee success by any stretch. You gotta have a little luck. The more the better.

Then it comes to how you define luck. Is it luck (bad) that I lose all my chips to a loose player when I have the second nut flush when he's got the nut flush. Well kinda. But I was never ahead and many would argue that I was outplayed to certain extent. But luck was a certainly a factor.

More often we think of luck when we are ahead in the hand. Top set against a straight draw kinda thing. But this is the weakness of the unpatient, inexperienced player. Luck happens. My favorite player handling luck is Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. I've seen him lose with a full ouse on the flop to a runner runner higher full house (1:90 Leader). He simply stood up, shook his opponents hand with a smile and walked off. Which is all you can do and all you should do. Your job as a poker player is to get your money in good. i.e. when the odds are in your favor. Then let the probabilities do their thing. You'll win in direct proportion to these odds, which means, more often you will win.

So come on already. Stop sweating the bad beats. They'll happen. And they'll keep those weak players coming back.

Thinking about Time

2010-01-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

Do you ever start thinking about a concept and the more you think about it the more mysterious and unknown it becomes? Lately I've been thinking about the concept of time.

I have always noticed (and I'm sure you have noticed it too) how time does not always seem to move at the same pace. When I'm in a good poker game, for instance, time seems to go by quickly. When I'm immersed in a writing project, time moves even quicker. When I'm waiting in the Thai restaurant for my take out order, time slows way down. But is that time itself or how we are perceiving time? Maybe time is only a perception.

But time itself is measured in increments that are supposed to be very specific. Did you know that the "second" is

the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom.

It used to be 1/86,400 of one rotation of the earth. Don't ask me how they came up with that. Why 1/86,400 and not 1/100,000? I'm sure the original development of the second was the average time for a human heart to beat once or the touch football concept of saying the word "Mississippi." Then they backed that period of time into the time of the earth to rotate. In any case, this wasn't working out anyway because the time it takes the earth to rotate is lengthening. Our days are getting longer. (Another strange concept.)

The real problem with all these approaches is that time in actuality could be moving faster or slower at different intervals. We can use man-made (artificial) devices to measure it, but we have no idea whether we are accurate.

I was playing at the Borgata the other day and I suffered a bad beat and lost my stake. The usual situation when a set on the flop gets blasted by a flush drawn on the river. Now the first sensation is pain. (I never continue playing after this happens, by the way, and I don't recommend it since poker is a very mental game and your mental state is not ideal.) But as time goes on, the pain dissipates. And it dissipates at different rates for different people. This makes me think that time might be individually based. After all, don't older people feel time as moving faster than young people. The theory being that the unit of time is a much smaller percentage of their entire life span lived so far. Won't a mosquito feel (if a mosquito can "feel.") time very slowly since their entire life span is only a few weeks? So time is relative. Right? But that doesn't really work because time is a universal concept. This brings us to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Time must have a duel nature.

Which led me to believe that time might be controllable in a certain sense by the individual. We can choose to live fast and make time move fast. But that doesn't make sense to me because why would we want to hasten the time to the day we die. Don't we want time to go slow, so we can savor life and all its amenities?

So I've decided that I will control time. I will take things slow, I'll contemplate my surroundings. I'll enjoy those times when time seems to fall away, but I'll try to savor them to the maximum. I don't think we can ever really understand how time moves. It's just one of those mysteries of life that along with many others that keep me thinking.

Its Over!! . . . Now Back to Business

2009-12-29T03:38:00.000-08:00

I'm sure you have all been at the edge of your seats wondering what happened to Neal Gersony's company. Did it sell? Did the purchase fall through? Well it's good news. On December 24th, CEU.com was sold for cash. We do have a few small clean up issues regarding a shareholder who believes we may have booked his share ownership wrong. (It never seems to end.) But the money has been sent out and I'm now the proud owner of no shares of CEU.com and a resigned Board Member to boot.

The first few days after the sale have been a bit hazy. I've been at it for so long. There is a loss of groundedness feeling that has left me feeling like a drifting soul in an endless universe. But isn't that we actually are anyway? Am I not feeling the true feelings of "humanness?" I can do what I want now, I suppose, though the money won't last forever. Its not the big bucks (less then a million) that you hear about in the business pages of The New York Times. But it is reassuring to know there is a big cushion there for my four kids and wife.

So what's next? Well its time to fulfill some of my dreams. We are looking into living on an island off the coast of New Jersey (something I've always wanted to try). I plan to take up sailing. Do some traveling; NYC tomorrow; Philadelphia in a few weeks; Arizona at the end of January; LA in February; Florida in March; a big trip with my middle daughter in April . . . I also plan on getting back into the tournament circuit a little bit - mostly concentrating on Atlantic City + maybe the Main Event (except I usually go camping in the Adirondacks in July). Also might do some painting/sculpture as well as write of course. I have a second novel in the works as well as a detailed "Anatomy of a Tech Start-up" nonfiction book that is just underway.

As one of my favorite running backs of all time said after his retirement, Calvin Hill. "Life is a smorgasbord. You finish one item, its time to try something else." I'm ready to try some new things.

As far as venturing goes, I have an idea for operating a sailing and motor boat co-ownership program on Brigantine Island. I have a ways to go on that one. I also am planning some major additions to my poker course site - stay tuned. Be well all.

Couldn't be Closer to Closing

2009-12-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

I never like to go more than a week without blogging. Need to keep regularity in my life and those of my readers. But this week, things really started heating up with the sale of my Internet company.

Its been an emotional roller coaster like you wouldn't believe. The CEO wants to stay on, then he doesn't, then he wants to consult. My senior IT guy doesn't like the Non-Compete contract. The buyers are throwing deadlines at us. People are making promises that aren't being kept. OhMyGoshness . . .

I now have to deal with my closest colleague who is purporting something that isn't. Excuse the vagueness, but these are very confidential and touchy proceedings and I don't want to disclose anything I shouldn't be. It's the nature of the beast. You should be satisfied that you are getting this much. After everything is all said and done, I'll provide you with some of the juicy details.

But my philosophy continues to be - take the high road. Fore go some cash, add on some risk . . . whatever. If my mind is free of negativity its worth it.

The good news is that I was told today that we have a very good chance of closing before Xmas and what a Merry Christmas (even though I'm Jewish) it could be this year. Mazel Tov Jesus!

Going With the Flow

2009-12-06T06:28:00.000-08:00

I'm not one who generally likes to follow the crowd. In fact, I mostly look for reasons and excuses to go my own way. I think its genetic. But I've learned that when it comes to certain things in business and poker, going with the flow is an absolute necessary for success as well as your mental health.

In poker, one is often tempted to step out and push hands that shouldn't be pushed. Your tempted to make the "big bet" call when deep down, you know its a bad idea. This can be especially tempting when you're running bad and you are cravng a win. You want that money back that has been draining out of your bankroll, but that money is lost forever. You need to stay disciplined and develop your table image and look for that ideal bluffing situation as it manifests itself organically. You can and will make new money, but never think you going to get old money back.

So you need to stay in the flow of the game, especially in the case of tournament poker. Let things develop. Make low risk bluffs. Splash around. Have fun. Think over and over in your head - Let the tournament come to me. Let the tournament come to me. Of course i get into this in great detail in my poker courses.

In business, transactions have lives of their own. Many deadlines will be set. Very few will actually be made. That's because, the pace of the negotiation or the application or the whatever is in the hands of more than one person and each will have his or her own pace, motivations and manner of handling a deal. And then you have the lawyers. Don't get me started on this topic. These guys are motivated on a whole separate criteria. Billable hours, anal investigation and overkill contingency issues. But sometimes they surprise me and they are actually in synch with the players in the deal. But never, ever, let the lawyers take the lead in a deal. (I'll get more into this another time.)

The reason I bring this up is that the closing date for the sale of my company has come and gone. It was suppose to be December 4th. Now I could sweat and grind my teeth and make lots of phone calls and email inquiries. But I've learned over the years that all these things are counterproductive. Best to sit back and let the deal take the curvy, roundabout course it will inevitably take. In another words - go with the flow. At this point you should have done the work already - the terms have been agreed to, both sides are motivated to complete the transaction, the lawyers have incentives to move things forward, but have no say in how the deal is constructed. It'll happen. If doesn't, it's probably better that way. There was probably a flaw. It's as if your partner (or yourself) had a miscarriage. There was a flaw in development. It wasn't going to be viable. It wasn't meant to be. If its early term - let it go. However, if its very late term, such as my deal, a miscarriage would be a tough nut to swallow. Our latest hurdle, was employment contracts. It caused delays. But it has been worked out and we're heading down the stretch. Everyone wants to close before the first of the year. Who knows where the capital gains tax rate will go in the future. The only thing that we know for sure is that it will go up.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Anticipation

2009-11-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

I can't help it if I'm an optimistic kind of guy. Everything, it seems to me, has an upside and a downside (well almost anything). So I always try to find that good piece and focus on that when presented with a situation.

Latey, for instance, I've been on pins and needles about my Internet company. Well its not all mine, but I am the founder and I own the biggest chunk. Anyway, we have a buyer. But we've had this buyer for going on 13 months. Its amazing how these things can get dragged out. If I hear the phrase "due diligence" one more time, I think I'll have a conniption.

At the present time, we are in the home stretch. We've leaped many a hurdle. We are suppose to close on December 4th. But as everyone seems to take great pleasure in reminding me, many things can still go wrong. So what am I suppose to do. I'm not a good multiplexer, so its hard for me to start my next projects - real estate and another book. I do keep my poker learning web site current and updated, however. But its very hard to concentrate when this huge milestone in my life is dangling in front of me, drifting in and out of sight.

But I found the silver lining - enjoy the state of anticipation. It is, after all, a great feeling - often surpassing the thrill of the thing actually happening. Its just a hard concept to get your arms around. So I've meditated on past good things that have happened to me and tried to recreate my emotions prior to the consummation of said event. My conclusion is that its all about the dream. Whether it happens or not (I shouldn't say that - it is going to happen), I think about the travel I'll be doing with my wife, I get excited about playing in some big poker tournaments, I look forward to spending more time with my eldest two daughters, about getting an RV and heading to Canada, about studying the real estate market and making some super shrewd investments. This makes me happy. I've had some happy days just anticipating. Even if it doesn't happen (knock on wood), I have accomplished a very important thing in just being happy for a period of time. After all, happiness and contentment is a state of mind. The richest person in the world can be miserable, while a poverty stricken Chilean can be ecstatic.

This method of thinking about the world suits me. That's why I play poker, especially poker tournaments. I may not make the money time after time, but each time I miss I know it will make that eventual win that much sweeter.

By the way, I am also anticipating a great Thanksgiving this year. Most of my family seem to be getting together for a few days. Hope you have a good one too. Pleasant thoughts to all.

"How" over "How Much"

2009-11-11T09:56:00.000-08:00

We all want money. Right? Count me in. In our American world, money is very important. It buys a lot of great stuff. Most of us are focused like a laser on getting as much of it as we can. But a much overlooked aspect of accumulating money is not just the "how much can we get?" but the "how do we get it?"

The knee jerk reaction is: "Who cares? As long as we get it and the more the better." But if you really think about it, the "How" may be more important.

Lets start with the trust-fund, rich kids of the world. Because the money was simply dumped on them, most of them (there are exceptions of course) drift about, looking for excitement through drugs or sex or other high risk behaviors. They don't have the motivation to go out and develop themselves and as a result, many of them are not what I would call happy. They don't reach their potential.

Then you have the lottery winners. If you ever read about what happens to these people after they made their big cash, a majority of them end up in all kinds of trouble, lots of problems and more than a few suicides.

Finally you have the greedy businessperson. They try to screw over anyone and everyone in order to maximize their take on any transaction. They push the limits of legal behavior and, to them, ethics is an academic word only. If you can get away with it, its OK. I'd argue many of these people may put on a facade of happiness with all their material possessions amidst their circle of like-minded "friends." But I'd argue that they are in a constant struggle with their conscience. They seek out therapy. They rationalize. But what's done is done. They can never turn back their misdeeds which become clearer and clearer to them as they approach their inevitable demise.

I'd argue that making a nest egg through honest hard work and effort in which you treat everyone you come into contact with in a fair and open manner should be the goal for everyone. Of course, we really need that first $40,000 every year to survive, especially if you have a family to support. But as that number rises, the money becomes less and less a necessity and more of "an extra." When you start to reach the nosebleed status of making millions and millions, it becomes merely a status symbol - a scorecard. When it comes down to it, our mental state is much more important than the size of our house. It's infinitely worth it to nurture your honest and straight-dealing reputation over striving for money at any cost. Having respect as a result of the quality of your character is an invaluable commodity. It doesn't come easy. Many shortcuts will present themselves. Be a poker player and get a "read" on where each road will potentially lead. You may not get filthy rich, but you'll be happier and more content. After all, who would want to be Russ Hamilton or Bernie Madoff. Keep it.

Phew!

2009-11-03T07:01:00.001-08:00

I didn't want to leave any of you hanging. My daughter is going to be fine. The lump on her neck had no melanoma, lymphoma or any cancer of any kind. It's what is called a reactive lymph node. Easily treatable. I made camping plans with her to celebrate. We're also goin' into the big apple next weekend.

It's amazing how everything pales in comparison to the health of our kids. Now I can focus on the last days before the closing of the sale of my company. I'm going to meet the new owners today for lunch. Ciao.

Was George Right?

2009-10-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

Lately one episode of "Seinfeld" has been ringing in my ears. I can't remember much about it except that something good had just happened to George and he becomes very nervous and paranoid. His reasoning was that, nothing good happens just by itself. It is always accompanied by a bad even that is as bad as the good event is good.

I laughed along with everyone else. "That's a good one, George. That George, what a flake."

But yesterday, I had some very good news. I can't go into it now, but I promise to reveal it in a future post. I'm all smiles and having a good time chatting to my buddies at the company I founded, when I get a call. It's my ex-wife - who only calls me directly when something bad has happened to one of my daughters. I can't bear to answer, so I send it to voice male. After my cold sweat subsides (her name and voice always seem to do that to me), I check the message. My #2 daughter has a suspicious lump on her neck. My good news paled in comparison to this shock. This 17 year old is the happiest, most upbeat, well adjusted (and talented and smart and . . .[I could keep going on]) person I have ever known. I immediately call her and she's taking it like a trooper. They did a biopsy and we'll know more on Monday. I know it is just an inflamed cyst or swollen lymph node and nothing more. I reassure her. We joke around like we always do. Everything is going to be fine.

Being the Other Person

2009-10-19T07:07:00.000-07:00

In poker, some of the most important skills have nothing to do with cards. One such skill is the ability to transport your consciousness into the body and spirit of another person. The poker player becomes the other player. As hard as that sounds to do, its actually very logical and a common skill among top tier players. In fact, how often have you looked at a hand that you may have just been observing and you thought; "Its obvious he had that hand. What other hand would he have played like that."

Sure its much easier to understand a hand once you see the cards at the end, but the skill of putting a player on a hand is not some mystical skill that requires ESP or a sixth sense. Its a two fold process. You use logic to determine what the range of hands could be. Then you fit that logic with the capabilities and style of the player(s) involved. The result is often a very few number of possible hands that are likely. As you become a better player, you'll start to incorporate more personality traits, more setting specific facts and there is actually no end to how good you can be at this. That is why even the best players claim that they are still improving all the time. Of course I talk about this extensively and provide exercises in my online poker courses.

This skill is also a critical skill in business. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I'm involved in some long and tedious negotiations regarding the sale of an Internet company I founded ten years ago. It surprises me how weak many business people are in this critical skill. I think it is ego more than anything else that keeps people from trying to put themselves in the other persons shoes. The hardest thing for many people is the process of letting go of all your wants, needs, tendencies and personal characteristics. These traits are what make us who we are. Its like letting go of the self. But this must be done before you can refill the now empty vessel with the traits of the other person. This takes practice and a will. Then you have to have the faith in yourself to follow through on the resulting read.

This is not what they teach in Business School. I should know after two business degrees and 15 years of university teaching experience. What would really be useful for the budding and mature businessman and woman is an intense course in reading an opponent in poker. The only way to get into the head of your competitor, vender, buyer or customer is to get out of your own first. I'm in the process of setting up a Poker/Business Skills Conference in Vegas in the near future. It'll be the business training of the future. See you there.

Poker/Life/Happiness

2009-10-11T09:42:00.000-07:00

I saw an interesting thing at the poker table I had never seen before. A young, conservative-looking fellow was about to sit down at the table, but before he did, he clutched a cross that was hanging around his neck, looked skyward, closed his eyes, kissed his icon and genuflected.

Did this guy serious think that the gods would favor him now that he blessed himself or whatever he did? Lets get something straight here. There are no poker gods. Nothing but probabilities determines winners in any given session and, in the long run, you need to know what you're doing if you want to come out ahead.

This is not to say that I eschew the spiritual. Absolutely not. Although I'm Jewish, I've always found myself most comfortable with the Buddhist approach. Peace and harmony must be found from within. All things go in cycles and are interconnected. Things are never too good or too bad. Moderation. Acceptance. Humbleness. Almost an indifference leads to true contentment.

Think of it this way. There are six important aspects of our life; (1) Relationships; (2) Our Health; (3) The health of those whom we love; (4) Career; (5) Financial; (6) Art (or hobbies, art and passions). Hardly ever, if ever, will all these parts of our life be going great at the same time. Some will go well, while other flounder. Even within each category, we'll have sub-aspects that are going well and sub-aspects that are hurtin'. Accept that this is how things are. Work on what needs working, but don't sweat the bad stuff.

For me, poker has been a tough road to hoe as of late. I'm feelin' like poor Utah in Vegas. I get kings, someones got aces. I hit a straight, someones got a higher straight. Sometimes it goes like that. Its the nature of probabilities. They are streaky. But if something isn't goin' well, consider it as an opportunity. The 'ol lemonade from lemons way of thinking. Now when I go to the poker room, I'm very focused on lowering my risk at the cost of winning a big hand. I'm practicing low risk poker. For example, instead of raising just enough to keep one caller in when I've got pocket aces, I now go all in. I'll take the small win during a cold spell. I'm workin' on the low risk gear. Keeping all gears in tip top shape will only help your game. Also, I take this opportunity to focus on bad streaks for a new course on my poker education site.

But as it so happens, one of my weak relationships has improved markedly. I don't think I did anything different (I may have without realizing it.), but things just suddenly got warmer and happier.

Also, as I mentioned in the last entry, my first business is close to being sold which would be a boost for my financial situation and for my career goals. I'll give you an update on this soon as the lawyer cloud drifts away.

I hope most of your six aspects are doing well.

So you want to Start a Company

2009-10-01T11:38:00.000-07:00

I haven't talked much at all about the company I started many moons ago. Since things have been heating up there recently, its been on my cranial front burner.

First some background. for those of you who are interested in starting your own business and for the just curious. I was a professor in a business school at a small, regional, New England university in 1994 when I walked into my office and my computer had sprouted speakers. I played around with some sound files and with PowerPoint and immediately felt that this was the learning tool of the future. You could put any kind of image on the screen and have a friendly voice explain things to you. You could play the class over and over again until you got it. The professor needed to just record his lecture once and from then on would only need to add updates and improvements.

Fast forward to 2001. I was pretty much burned out on academic life. One introductory class I had taught 50 times. So I lined up some investors and set out to create an online company that delivered continuing education credit to insurance agents. It was a slow and arduous journey.

Today we have two potential offers for the company. In two or three months this long adventure may finally be over. I won't suddenly become rich, but at least I won't have to worry about how to pay for college for my four offspring. But it's never over until the check has cleared the bank and at least three or four more steps remain before that happens. I'll keep you posted.

What I wanted to talk about here are the most important lessons I've learned from this process. If anyone is interested in the full story, I'll be writing a book about the whole experience. Stay tuned for that. Anyway, here are the lessons that stand out for me at this point.

Hook up with someone who has been through the process before AND who is highly ethical. You'll need him/her all through the journey. I was SO lucky to find an initial investor/co-founder who turned out to be the most honest and honorable person I have ever met.
Never give up. Whenever you run into a road block, you should think; "What are my options for solving this problem?" Not; "Oh no, this isn't going to work."
Keep your costs as low as possible.
Pay attention to your corporate legal papers. Little things that don't seem important in your Shareholders Agreement, often are HUGE later on (like now for me).
Let things simmer. After you implement something new, don't rush to judgment. Give things some time. It'll also give you some down time to do something else. It'll also help you to avoid popping a blood vessel. Burn out is a big problem.

In the end, nothing is more career satisfying or just plain fun for me then creating an entity from nothing. Actually hiring people. Seeing that first sale. Watching things grow. Actually taking a salary. I tried to enjoy every step along the way.

However, what continues to amaze me is the greed in which many people are trapped. I, unfortunately, got some greedy %*$#& involved who turned out to not care about anything except themselves. These unhappy people were the biggest disappointment for me. People who I thought were decent turned out to be something else. That's the biggest reason why I'm praying I cash out now. Greedy, unhappy people are no fun to deal with and if its not fun - I don't want to do it.

Dalton Trumbo

2009-09-23T08:21:00.000-07:00

If you missed it, you must see the PBS documentary about Dalton Trumbo. He was a screenwriter, a magnificent screenwriter from the 1950s. But more importantly, the man had ideals and he refused to surrender his values at, what turned out to be, great personal cost. But this blog isn't really about Dalton Trumbo. It's about Edward Lewis.

Mr. Tumbo was accused of being a communist by McCarthy in the early 50s. He refused to cooperate with the Unamerican Committee. He accused McCarthy and his henchmen as setting up a concentration camp for writers. Dalton was sent to jail for two years and then blackballed from his profession. He struggled mightly financially and socially. His friends were afraid to be seen with him. His 8 year old daughter was harrassed at her school to the point that she had to be pulled from the school. A treasure trove of Dalton's letters were recently discovered and are the most moving pieces of writing I have ever read.

But what I really found fascinating was the interview with Edward Lewis, the fine film producer who was 90 years old. This man had made tremendous amounts of money, won numerous awards for his films and had a wonderful marriage and several very successful offspring. He was ruminating with the interviewer about his life and said (I'm paraphrasing):

"As one gets toward the end of one's life, one spends a lot of time looking back at what they did over that time that they can say they are really proud of. Even though I lived an almost idealic life in so many ways, by far and away, the most proud moment in my life was when I insisted that Dalton Trumbo be listed in the credits for the movie Spartacus. Everyone said not to do it. He was toxic. He was blackballed. But the man wrote the screenplay and I demanded that he be given his due credit. It was the first movie after he was blackballed that he was given credit for. Nothing in my life compares to this act I did which I did just because I thought it was the right thing to do."

Its so easy to get caught up in the whole American dream shtick of trying to accumulate as much money as possible at any cost. But when it comes down to it, the only thing that really matters is the good that you do in the world. Make money - sure. But whenever you get an opportunity to do the right thing just for the sake of doing the right thing, grab it. You'll be a much happier person for it.

Tourney #2

2009-09-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

So I finished 15th in the $340 event. Next was the $2000 event. Again in this tournament I was not getting playable starting cards through the first five hours. In many ways, I find this to be not such a horrible thing. It forces me to throw away a lot of hands and since it was a deep stack tournament, I had plenty of time to be patient. It was a good time to develop the proper table image. In this case - tight. Most times, eventually, you start to get some hands and you start to hit a few flops.

My patience paid off in spades. I hit a set and Mr. Aggressive went all in ahead of me. Big win. Then I was getting paid off with some big pairs. Very few times I was called after the flop. Then as we floated down to thirty players, I hit card dead territory. Something we all hit at one point or another. Then I just got caught. My 400,000 in chips had drifted down to $260,000 and I knew I had to make something happen, if my cards didn't improve on their own. So I'm in the small blind, one of the tighter players who had a lot of chips, but uncharacteristically, was playing a lot of hands was on the button. Its folded around to him and he makes a standard 3X raise or $75,000. I've got 88 (remember that hand last tournament?). I really don't have a choice in my mind. There's a good chance the button is weak or not strong enough to call a big raise. I go all in. He instacalls and shows me AA. I lose. I'm out in 22 place but I win $5000.

Recapping my efforts in these two tournaments;I finished 15 and 22nd and I netted $7000. I very good week. But I was really pleased with was my play, especially in the Mega. I was able to tread water very nicely during a prolonged card dead phase. I picked the proper times to steal and developed a perfect table image. It wasn't about the cards at all. It was about creating a proper pacing; playing the player and keeping an eye on average chip stack and other indicators. But most importantly it was about picking the moments to raise in which it was virtually impossible for my opponents to call if they didn't have a very narrow number of hands. This is so critical in professional tournament play. My risk control was allowing me to build up a stack without (or rarely) risking my chips through to the river. Again, in my courses, I spell this out in great detail.

I love tournament poker the most because it is existing in time-space continuum. Its about seeing the world as it exists, evaluating each moment in relative terms and evaluating choices and making the proper one in this best manner. Its almost important as how you bet as how much and when to bet.

Now I'm sitting in my hotel room in Atlantic City. Another deep stack tom'w. I hope I continue my focus. Especially since my cash game has been killing me lately. But that too will pass.

Back to the Felt

2009-08-31T08:08:00.000-07:00

After some fun in the sun and all kinds of hassles with my business, CEU.com, which we are trying to sell (more later), I'm back blogging. The way it is suppose to be. Not only that, but I'm going to talk about what we all love - poker. Live-in-the-moment Poker!

It was great to be back in live tournament play. I played two events at Foxwoods and I thought I might be a bit rusty since I haven't been in a real event for about five months.

So first I enter the $340 event which attracts 1093 entries. For the first six hours, I got very poor cards and worked hard to tread water. The longer I could survive with crap hands, the better chance I'll have when the mother load of starting cards comes in. At one point my 15,000 starting stack was down to under 4000. I skanked my way back up to 9000 or so when I went on a mini-rush. I get pocket aces and made a standard 3X raise. I got one caller. An old guy with a lot of chips who didn't seem to know what he was doing (I just moved to the table). It was gift time when the flop came out 6-6-A. He checks. I check. Turn puts 2 diamonds out there. He bets 3,000. I call. Diamond on river. He goes all in with his flush and I, of course, call. When you get situations like that, you can see why making big, strategic lay downs is important (more on that and plenty more on my courses). I got two more courtesy double ups. Another weak player goes all in for 15X. I have AA again. He has 8-8. (I would feel his pain later.) A few hands later, I'm peeling back one ace and I hear; "I'm all in." The woman had over $100,000. I peeled back another ace. "I call." She had A-4 of hearts. The flop brought a 3 and a 2. The turn brought a second heart. It's never easy. But I won and was now table chip leader.

I cruised into the money. Picked up a lot of chips around the bubble. Now we were down to two tables. I had about $420,000 in chips. Just before a break I get 4-4 in the cutoff. The BB is $30,000. I raise to $100,000. The SB goes all in for another $120,000 to me. This was a sucky position. I knew I had to call. He was getting low and would certainly push with A - (any high card). So I figured I was a slight favorite. And I couldn't just abandon my children out there. So I called. He did indeed have AK. So I was happy, but my happiness did not last long when a K hit on the flop. Now I was short and the blinds were going up to 20K; 40K. I got my stack back up to $380,00, but we were in push or fold territory. I decided to fold 9-9 when an early "all in" was called by the guy on my right. It turned out to be AK against AJ and I would have tripled up!!! Instead I went all in with 8-8 and was called by pocket AA. I finished 14. Remember 1093 started. Cashed $2399.

I'll tell you all about the Mega Stack Challenge ($2000) next time.

The End of Jobs

2009-08-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

No this isn't a blog about the charismatic CEO of Apple Computer. Its about work. Rather how we work. The need for workers. The end of an era.

Today it was announced that worker productivity increased 6.4%. The largest increase in six years. So what's the big deal. People are working harder to keep their jobs, you may think. That's a good thing or, at worst, a minor economic statistic. Right? I suppose it depends on your point of view. Lets look more closely at this paradigm-shifting trend.

Back when I was studying for my doctorate in Management of Technology, I learned that as new technologies are introduced into the marketplace, efficiencies increase. Incrementally, it became relatively easy for four workers to produce what it took 5 workers to produce in the past. The new workers had better tools. It was expected. Historically, this was a very good thing. Companies became more profitable. Stock prices went up. We could produce more food, goods and services to meet the needs of an ever growing population. But now we have reached a level of automation which is allowing companies to produce more with a relatively sparse work force.

I have experienced this phenomena first hand. In 1999, I founded a company called CEU.com, an Internet education company that provided continuing education courses and credit to insurance professionals. We had about five employees at first and served, on average, 200 customers a month. Today we have seven employees and we service 2000 customers a month. If and when it grows to service 20,000 customers a month, the company will only need ten or eleven employees to keep things humming.

Lets look at this on a macro scale. If other companies are also finding the Internet and other technologies are allowing them to meet demand with exponentially fewer workers, then the need for humans in the workplace will decline overall at an alarming rate. Suddenly, efficiency is going to create a massive social problem. The US, in essence, will need, not the approximately 100 million jobs it provides today, but at best, 50 million or even less.

The minds of economics always assumed that there would be a migration of factory jobs to the service sector and that has been born out. No need to worry. Although most politicians focus on the migration of jobs overseas, its really automation and the corresponding productivity increases that are causing this decline. But worry we must. Now the service industry is finding all kinds of savings through the use of technology. There are fast food restaurants that are completely automated. Education can happen much more efficiently over the web (e.g. CEU.com). Even health care can provide on line diagnosis and treatment through remote medical servicing. Then you have online pharmacies and other management efficiencies as well. Of course we'll still need nurses, school teachers, doctors and lawyers in great numbers, but not in the kind of numbers we required in the past. Beyond a doubt, the net number of jobs needed will decline markedly. This current economic recovery could be the first "job shock" of many to come.

Lets extrapolate out what this will mean from a social and economic perspective. Most manual labor jobs will disappear. Many professional jobs will decline as well. Think programmers (surprisingly IT work will decline as do-it-yourself programs predominate), editors (book and news media), managers in general and, most obviously, journalists. Think what must be going through the mind of a 2009 graduate from a Journalism program. She applies for work and finds hordes of experienced out-of-work journalist competing for the trickle of low paying jobs.

In the future, "a real job" cannot be made available for every qualified individual. A job can no longer be the center of our lives since so many of us will not have one. It can no longer be the source for our health care, material needs, retirement nest egg or the way we spend most of our time.

Now is the time to begin thinking about a country in which only half of the working age people are needed to do the jobs that need to be done. What then will the other half do? I do not presuppose to have the solution. But it will mean that Laissez faire capitalism, as we know it, will no longer work. It will had run its course. Money will become more and more concentrated in the hands of the relatively few owners and controllers of the means of production. Does this language bring to mind any images. How about Karl Marx? What goes around, comes around.

World Series of Poker Reflections

2009-08-05T13:02:00.001-07:00

The World Series of Poker for 2009 has come and gone. Its now being shown on ESPN on Tuesday nights.

There were some interesting developments this year. The most interesting was the re-emergence of Phil Ivey. For true fans of poker and for the serious player, there should be nothing better than seeing the most skilled player in the world succeed in big time tournament play. To the inexperienced eye, it looks like luck, luck, luck - all over the place. But the key to poker success is getting and keeping those sometimes slight edges over the competition. It so good to see that this one player is showing the world that poker is a skill game.

For those of you who don't follow this closely, Phil Ivey has won two tournaments (bracelets) at this years World Series. But the truly amazing thing is that he made the final table of the Main Event as well. Do you realize how difficult that is? 6500+ entries. Eight days of playing. Not only that, but he hit a serious swoon in the later rounds and had to fight back to get into contention. He has made so much money in poker (and betting on himself) that he tipped the dealers the entire $90,000+ prize money he won in his first victory.

It goes to show that if you work at your game. Keep looking for leaks and trying to improve every session, you too could be a regular big winner at the tables. In the long term, poker has nothing to do with luck. Did I say that already? Check out my courses if you want more detail.

30,000 Days

2009-07-21T12:49:00.000-07:00

For most people, 30,000 days is a long life. Think about it, you'll go through 30,000 days, one-by-one, and then its over (we'll save the "what happens to you after you die" chat for another time). You'll wake up 30,000 times ( or thereabouts) and you'll go to sleep 30,001 times.

Now lets break that down. For the first 7,000 days you are young and, hopefully, care-free. But many of us struggle with our youth. What are we going to do with our life? Will I ever meet the perfect mate? Blah Blah Blah. For the most part, however, I'd like to think most of us just enjoyed being young.

Then at the end, lets say our last 7,000 days, we're old. Things don't work as well as they used to. We've seen and heard quite a bit, so we are a little jaded and almost always stuck in our ways. Look at old grandpa sittin' in his chair watching The Price is Right. Nothing seems new and exciting anymore. Lets face it, in some ways, a human is like a car. The best miles are the first 7,000. The worst miles are the last 7,000.

Now in between we work. We work hard because we are told that you need to save for retirement. You need to work to have health care insurance, pay for the kids college and the mortgage and other things as well, but I'd like to focus on this saving for retirement ridiculousness. You are telling me that I should work away in my prime days (16,000 days) so I'll have money for the worst 7,000 days of my life? A time when I don't really want to do much. Maybe a little travel. A little gardening perhaps. Not too much though, that back isn't what it used to be. And those hips, always sore. So we are supposed to, in a way, sacrifice our happiness during our prime 16,000 days so we can have money when the 'ol bod is starting to break down? I hear of kids in their early twenties putting money away for retirement. Putting trips and fun on hold so they can have money during their broken down years. What the . .? Are they crazy?

Let me offer an alternative. I'll call it the John Mellencamp father's world view (since I heard that this is what he preached to his son). We try as hard as we can to enjoy every day that we can. Of course, not every day is a good day. But we make it our first priority to enjoy each and every day to the maximum extent possible. Then, on our 30,000 day, we can look back and say; "You know. I had good days 26,500 of those 30,000 days. That's not bad." Bonk. Out go the lights. If you stick to the popular model, you'd be lucky to score a 10,000 because you may be doing a job you don't like for most of you're life, then you'll be too old to max out on enjoyment in those later days.

Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't be "responsible." That you shouldn't strive hard to reach heights. You should. But I think in doing so, many have taken their eye off the ball. If you're not having fun, what's the point?

So come on every one, lets try to get that score up. You can do it. Lets start right now. What did you do that was fun today?

Your Own TV Show

2009-07-05T21:55:00.000-07:00

Here's a hypothetical for you.

You have your own TV show. On that show you show off all your talents. You may recite some poetry. You may tell a story or two. Perhaps you play a musical instrument. Guests with complementary talents also participate. The show starts out crude, but over the course of twenty five years, the show is refined and you are pleased. Then you are tapped on the shoulder.

Its the Chief Technician. He says, "I don't rightly know how to tell you this; but you see those cameras over there." You glance at the cameras that have been religiously recording your weekly show for twenty five years and you nod. "Well those cameras don't work. Never have. Your show was never broadcasted. Well gotta go. Don't want to keep the missus waiting." He leaves. You sit down in a daze.

Then two bedraggled looking gentlemen come up to you. "Sir, you don't know us, but I'm Elmer and this here is Floyd. We clean up around here. We just wanted you to know that we so look forward to your show every week. Don't tell no one. But we stop cleaning and sit over there yonder and watch your show every week. Never missed a one for twenty five years." Floyd grinned widely just before they shook my hand with a little half bow and then walked off.

Now a pessimistic man would have just sat there and cried I'm sure for wasting his creative life away on a show that was never shown. A hopeless man would have cried harder. But an optimist would have been happy that his show brought joy into the hearts of two men and it really didn't matter if two people enjoyed the show or two million liked it. Is it about getting as many people as possible to see your work? Or is it internal? You did it. It was something that you could be proud of and, as a bonus, two others liked it very much. Do we do it for others or do we do it for ourselves?

Emily Dickinson comes to mind. She wrote all of her poetry on scraps of paper and folded them up and stuffed them into a dresser drawer. She never sent them to anyone. No one ever read them, as far as we can tell, while she was alive. Then fifty years after her death they are discovered, published and , well, you know the rest.

Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick and as far as he knew it was a commercial failure. It wasn't until sixty years later that some academic brought it to life and it is now an American classic of course.

I'm not sure where I come down on this exercise in existential crisis. I do know I get a great feeling when a stranger comes up to me and tells me how much he enjoyed my novel. I suppose if only one person read my book and liked it, that would be enough. At least it should be. Shouldn't it?

Nixon/Frost

2009-07-02T14:19:00.000-07:00

I was greatly interested to check out the movie "Frost/Nixon." But before I watched the movie, I went back and watched the original annotated interview. It was fascinating. But I thought David Frost was just one step away from really hitting the home run. Nixon admitted that "mistakes were made." But he framed it in a way that was not illegal or immoral. All Frost had to do, in my opinion, was ask Nixon what exactly were those mistakes.

In the movie, Langella (the actor) is much more contrite than Nixon actually was. But the movie was enjoyable. Sheen was perfect as Frost. The underlying conflict is brought out well. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I went back on line and found some additional clips from the original interviews.

Now I was never a "Nixon-phile" in any sense of the word. But I was fascinated by one of Nixon's responses about life in general. He talked about how wanting to be rich and spend your life playing golf or fishing or hunting and going to parties was misguided. He said that life was about struggle. it was about trying something and working hard to make a vision happen. It was about being constructive. It was about being creative. People talked to much and thought too little.

I couldn't be in more agreement with our former president. I see many people who are good at poker for example. The are able to make enough money to get by and even afford some extras in life. But they aren't creating anything. They aren't pushing themselves to be constructive. In the end, they will not be happy. Everyone has talents and abilities. But these traits need to be developed. Need to work at them. Take a chance, a calculated chance, of course. Try to do something and see what happens. It almost doesn't matter if you are successful or not. Try. Try. Try. If you don't, you'll wish you did.

When it cones down to it, risk is not as risky as you think. You at least gave it a shot and it'll be something you'll be glad you did. I guarantee it.

Heater!

2009-06-28T15:43:00.000-07:00

I'm now officially on a heater. What's a heater? It means whatever move I seem to make, whatever play I decide to do, everything always seems to work out. I played everyday this last week and each day I won over $1500. Hey I need the money to fund my web site as well as pay the bills at home.

This wave of cash got me thinking as I was perusing the New York Times Book Review Section. A couple of books came out about the workplace. Discussing how people feel about their work. How they value all the time they spend on the job. In very few cases did anyone ever say that they love their work so much that they would do it for no pay (lets assume their basic needs were met somehow). That got me thinking about poker. I love the game. I'd play it for pennies if that was the only game in town. But I can make serious money flopping in poker rooms. Each of the last four years I've made over $75,000. One year I made over $190,000. So here I am thinking, if I can make enough money at poker to meet my family's relatively normal financial needs, I can spend the rest of my time really enjoying life's basic and exotic pleasures.

What would you do if you didn't have to worry about where the money was coming from? For me it's all about spending time with my four kids; 19, 17, 3 and 10 months. Like the time I took them ( I only had two at the time) cross country in a 24 foot RV. Now I'm thinking about taking a longer trip in a smaller Type B class RV. We'll go down to Florida in November, spend time with the parental units then continue to Key West. After the holidays, we'd hug the gulf coast and make our way all the way to San Diego as slow as molasses. Be there by February. Then we'll store the RV and take a cruise ship to Baja. Stay down there in a rented villa for say six weeks. Then we cruise back and jump back into the RV and hug the Pacific Coast all the way up to Alaska. We'll get to Fairbanks by mid July. Then we'll whine our way back through the Canadian Rockies and get back home in Connecticut by September. That's my dream. Does that make me irresponsible? Shouldn't I be slaving away at a high pace at some job or activity because thats what we're all suppose to do? Excuse me, but I'm gonna live. If I can swing it (I can't at this point), I'm gonna savor every moment with my three daughters and one son. When I'm ready to die, I want to be able to honestly say to myself that I enjoyed this journey we call life. I didn't just go along with the crowd. I didn't save for "retirement." I lived. I may have risked as well, but I enjoyed it.

For those of you who read Poker Slam, you know all this already. I'll keep you updated on how things turn out.

Zen Poker

2009-06-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

I love the concept of Zen. Its everywhere. Its other worldly, but its something we experience and witness all the time.

When a typist zips across the keyboard at 100 words of minute. He's experiencing Zen. When a cabinet maker cuts a plank of maple, she's experiencing Zen. When a major league batter hits the ball, he's in Zen.

The mind becomes blank. The body takes over. A flow comes over you. Things become crystal clear. You can almost see the results before they happen. A peaceful feeling permeates. A focus relaxation is achieved. I love it. I just love it.

And, of course, Zen happens in poker. It just happened to me yesterday as a matter of fact. It was like each of the players had their hole cards pasted on their chest face out. I KNEW what everybody was holding. You know what they are going to do. You know if you have are ahead or behind. I wasn't reading tells. I wasn't thinking about the betting patterns. I just knew. As a result, I had a big winning day.

Its really hard to intellectualize what is happening when Zen is occurring. Practicing an art, game or sport has something to do with it surely. By training the body and mind to react rather than think, Zen is developed. But its more than that. Things come together. You're in a zone. The Zen Zone. Maybe it has something to do with intercepting brain waves. Being at one with all the signals. Being a super receptor. You're apart of the world rather than an observer. An intricate piece of the puzzle. Your letting yourself go. Someone or something else is at the controls.

When it happens, its a great experience. And when it happens at poker you feel like a mind reader - a mind reader with a few more dollars in his pocket.

The Library - Good Bye Old Friend

2009-06-12T08:09:00.000-07:00

Before sunrise at most Buddhist Temples an artist will carefully create a work of art out of colored sand. He or she will work for hours creating a composition of exceptional beauty carefully arranging the sand almost grain by grain. Upon completion, the artist places the work in front of the main entrance. Within minutes it is ruined by the in and outgoing traffic.

The purpose of this activity is to embrace temporariness. The only state that truly exists. Everything, even suns and planets, exist for a period of time, then they die. Nothing is permanent.

I love this concept. In today's modern world, we are constantly trying to hold on to things. It causes us stress and anxiety, because you can never really hold on to anything very long. It all goes. One way or another. Rather than fighting the inevitable, we, like the Buddhists, would find life more satisfying if we could learn to accept how things are.

Capitalism is a somewhat Buddhist construct because it allows companies to die and new ones to be born. It constantly revitalizes itself. This cyclicality has come to be known as creative destruction. To me, it is the key aspect to why, economically speaking, Capitalism works best.

Now lets consider libraries. I've always loved libraries. Now that I'm a writer, I love them even more. But, unfortunately, the useful life of libraries is coming to an end. Good bye old friend, I'll miss you.

Why? In the digital age where all the books of the world could fit on a device that fits in a briefcase, the need to house huge piles of bound paper is anachronistic. You want a book. Simply download it wirelessly to your ebook reader and you got a book. Libraries waste all kinds of natural resources - paper, energy etc. It doesn't make sense to have these lovely warehouses all over the place to store copies of tomes that are being stored in hundreds, if not thousands, of other places. Time to move on. Wipe those tears away and get over it.

My hope is that libraries are transformed into something else altogether. Something that we need and is useful - community and study centers. Many libraries are making the transition, but I think they need to step up the pace. The inevitable is the inevitable and getting with the program rather than fighting it is in everyone's best interest.

Here is one approach I like. A small library in Iowa has stopped purchasing books and periodicals. Its purging itself of all the old, unread books from its shelves. A select number of books are kept on around the perimeter as an interior decorating device. Good. Good. Then they are dividing all the space up into individual cavities and group rooms with one large community area. It provides wireless access, printers, ebook readers, helpful tech and content experts and most importantly to me, real comfortable chairs. Writing groups, book clubs and other meetings are set up on a calender that is, of course, accessable on line. One employee is in charge of scheduling lectures and readings and various artful activities. Discussion areas are encouraged in lounge-like areas. Coffee and drinks are available. Snacks and light meals too. Great job Iowa!

By vacating an old institutional concept that has little or no viability, we can solve a major problem that our digital world has spawned - lack of human interaction. I guess, if you want, you can still call it a library, but that would be like calling an eagle a horse. By calling it what it is, people will go there because they'll know what it is. Hey you marketing experts out there - come up with a name. Millions work on their own. If they could have a place to go to do their work and get the resources they need and the human contact they crave, it will be utilized and flourish. Maybe even be profitable.

This is not something anyone will need to go out and push for (though I wish they would). It'll happen on its own, one way or another. Hopefully sooner rather than later. I for one would like another place to go to run my businesses and write my stories. Iowa here I come.

The Great Speech

2009-06-05T07:14:00.000-07:00

I've never been one of those zealot pro-Americans. Love it or leave it. America as center of the world. etc. In fact, I've always felt more at one with the European world then with my own country. But now, finally, we have a man who personifies all that this country is, but hasn't been for so many years.

If you haven't watched or listened to President Obama's speech from last Thursday in Cairo, Egypt, I urge you to spend 55 minutes to be truly proud of America and all she stands for. I think it will go down in history as one of the greatest overtures an American president has ever made to a sector of the world, in this case, the Muslim community. He is humble. He is respectful. At the same time, he is hard hitting and to the point. By putting his views out there and making a super salient case that is in everybody's self interest, he invites anyone to make a counter arguement. Beutifully done, Mr. President. Bravo.

What continues to drive me crazy, is the response his speech got in the U.S. mainstream media. All I saw were articles about how he uses the Internet so well to promote himself. Who gives a damn about that, man? Talk about the content!

On the other hand, I continue to applaud my country for having the strength and the fortitude to elect a black man as president of the United States. In some ways, I don't think it has really sunk in. We have an African-American holding the highest office in the land. It almost means that the days of racial discrimination are over. How can anyone now, point at the US and say, "You discriminate against minorities." Fine, if you believe that, go tell it to our black president. The symbolism alone could change the world. But guess what, on top of his physical characteristics, he's the smartest man ever to hold that office in my lifetime. What a combination. The man is taking the high road and remaining open to anyone who has another "way." If you can prove that another "way" is better then his way, I have no doubts, he will change course. No more hyperbole. No more party shanagins. No more power plays. Just a strict meritocracy of ideas.

I've heard fellow citizens say things like, "oh he's just another overly smart Harvard-type, who makes good speeches." So are you saying you don't want to have the smartest possible president you can have who values the rule of law, moral responsibilities and peace? That's like saying, "I don't want that guy to bat clean-up, he's too good a hitter." Clear your head and think anew. We all find it easier to fall back into old ways of thinking. America's self interest. Military might. Political wins. But those days are over (Thank God). Now we must think in terms of empathy, giving before taking and realizing that our own way of life is not the only valid way to live.

I would even go so far as to say that, Barack Obama's understanding of the world was symbolized and manifested in his ability and love for the game of poker. In poker, you absolutely must put yourself into the other person's shoes if you want to win. You must see the world through their eyes. If you don't, in the end, you will lose and in today's tumultuous world there is much more at stake then a few chips.

Plato, Pain and Poker

2009-05-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

Pain and pleasure are funny things. No one likes pain and everyone (as far as I know) likes pleasure, but you really can't have one without the other. Think about your right ankle for a minute. It feels fine (hopefully), but its not really giving you pleasure. However, if it was shackled for days with a metal chain that was digging into your skin you'd be feeling pain. When the shackle was taken off you'd feel incredible pleasure. This situation is how Plato starts out his famous work known as The Last Days of Socrates. Socrates makes a very convincing case that pleasure can not really exist without pain. Its the contrast, not the state itself that creates pleasure and its brother, happiness.

It seems to me that Plato must have played poker (or the Greek equivalent). We poker players feel a lot of pain - especially in tournaments. We get so close only to lose to a weak player who makes a bad play so many times. We enter a tournament and lose. We enter another tournament and lose again. But if you play well and don't give up, sooner or later you're going to go deep and eventually win. When that happens, the pleasure is far greater than all that pain we experienced up to that point. Its ecstasy. Its like the gods love us. We feel at one with the universe. OK, maybe that's a bit much. But the point is that all that hardship allows us to feel this high degree of happiness we couldn't otherwise experience.

The same thing occurs with entrepreneurs. You fork out lots of money for a long time to create and build a business. For the longest time you get nothing in return. Roadblocks. Fighting entrenched competition. Fear of losing everything. It ain't for everyone. Its tough. Its stressful. But when you finally get those first customers. You get some positive feedback. You keep improving your product or service, flashes of success suddenly appear. Its a great feeling. I've known one successful entrepreneur who told me, the most important thing in starting a business is persistence. Don't give up. Keep trying to improve your product or service and in the end, you'll be successful. Too many people throw in the towel too early. Don't be afraid of pain. In the end, it's the only way you can feel the triumph of success on a whole other plane.

Stick with it, my friend, and everything will be alright.

Making the Final Table

2009-05-20T07:04:00.000-07:00

There is no greater feeling than making the final table of a poker tournament. Its the result of hours and hours of play. Usually you've played in numerous other tournaments struggling to make the money and more often getting eliminated on some bad beat of some kind. But when you've finally made a final table, all that pain is transformed into a wonderful bliss of the spirit.

So now that you've made it, what is the best course of action. The first thing I'd say to keep in mind is forget about all those televised final tables that you've seen on TV. Players are making herculean calls with A4 or 33 and sucking out. Others are making gigantic bluffs against big stacks. etc. Remember that they are only showing selective (usually wild) hands that are not the bread and butter of success.

The key things that I cover in my courses on playing the final table are (1) your chip stack, (2) your relative position, (3) the blind structure, (4) your goals, and (5) your opponents profile.

On top of these factors, you must keep in mind that the cards are going to dictate much (not all) of the action and you must continue to let the tournament come to you. The exception to this rule is if you are playing a short stack. If you only have 7 big blinds or less, be ready to gamble. So lets talk about short stack play first.

Before you sit down be sure to carefully analyze the chip stack situation. If you are ninth (last) in chips, think in terms of having nothing to lose. Most of the time the final results closely mirror the chip stack proportions. That is, the chip leader is most likely to win and the ninth place player (you in this case) is most likely to finish 9th. Realize that if you are able to move up three or four notches, you did a great job.

As a consequence, you do not have the luxury of sitting back and waiting for AA or KK. You gotta play hard while you still have some fold equity. If you win without a caller you can add as much as 25% to your stack and that gets leveraged substantially if you double up in subsequent hands. So you are not only looking to get a playable hand, you are also looking to find a good opportunity to get your money in.

Here are the basics. Don't look to do battle with anyone who has raised ahead of you, unless you have a premium hand. The only exception to this is if you are in the blinds or on the button and you have an ace or king and a loose player raises in late position. There is a good chance that you are ahead. If he decides to gamble and call and you are indeed ahead, that's fine. But there is a good chance that he'll fold and give you a nice pot uncontested - and that's even better.

But mostly you are looking to move in - all in - if you are folded around to and there are four or less players left to act. In this case you may not even choose to look at your cards at all (just pretend to) because if you do get called, the most likely scenario is that your cards are live and you're only a 60/40 dog. You're going to have to gamble. Get that into your head. The absolute worst thing you could do is to get blinded off. The number one rule of short stack play is: Thou shalt not get blinded off. Remember that your opponents don't know what you have and a big bet to them immediately means strength. It might surprise you to see what people will fold in these situations. After all, they want to move up the pay scale as well. Amateurs will tend to tighten up and experienced players are not going to want to risk flop, turn and river.

So these are the very basics. In my course, I get into the nitty gritty in detail. But whatever happens, enjoy the experience. It may be a long time before you make another final table.

I'll talk about playing larger stacks in later posts. I now you can't wait for that.

LIVE and FREE Poker Course Previews

2009-05-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

An important announcement regarding my poker courses at PokerSlamU.com.

Drum roll please . . . . . . . . . . . You can now access any or all of our courses for FREE! Not the whole course of course, but a free preview. It took a lot of quality programming from my webmaster, but its done and up and running.

I'd greatly appreciate feedback as to any aspect of the courses, the web site or the registration system. That's how you improve. Keep taking advice and making it better and better, just like poker skills.

That's all. Just a quick announcement to those who are interested. Peace.

Poker Skills/Life Skills

2009-05-07T12:39:00.000-07:00

I know poker is just a card game to most people, but to the real enthusiast, poker skills are some of the most useful skills one can attain. I'm not really sure why this particular game mirrors the skills one needs in life better than all the others, but it does.

First of all, to be a fine poker player you can't worry about the last hand. No matter how bad that beat was, just as no matter how unfairly you were treated in the office. That was then and it, in a sense, no longer matters. If you dwell on the past. If you let the past effect your judgment going forward, you will be weakened. We call it "tilting." And it happens all the time. One bad beat. Another bad call. Leads to an overaggressive play. Before you know it, ipso facto, your broke or felted as we say in the biz.

At the same time, you can't be thinking about future hands. You may be down and you want to get back to, at least even, but if you force the action, you'll lose that ephemeral feel for the table. You acted before you developed the proper table image. Unless you get lucky, and sometimes you do get rewarded for making a bad play, you are going to lose. Its all about patience (especially in tournaments). Its all about picking the precisely best moment to do the precisely correct play. Its a surer bet and, in the long run, will lead to success.

In poker, you are forced to consider the present over all other time phases. It isn't easy. You want to get that win. You want to be in the mix, not on the sidelines. But your time will come. As the old joke goes; "Patience, Jackass, patience."

The other overwhelming concept about poker that I love is that it boils down our economic life to the bare essentials. I know something you don't know. You know something I don't know. I need to try to figure out what you know, before you do it to me. The overriding key situation is when we both got ziltch. In that case, the one who shows some testicular fortitude, some, but not too much, well thought out aggression, will win. You win those pots, or at least win most of those pots, and you'll make a lot of money playing poker. You better be one confident son of a bitch to play my game.

The game is me against you. Mano a mano. Bjorn against Utah. Bring on the cards. I'm gonna kick your ass.

Bluffing

2009-04-27T04:53:00.000-07:00

I've just finished an 85 minute course on playing the middle phase of a poker tournament. The more I thought about it and talked to my fellow pros, we all came to the same conclusion - Its all about bluffing.

I also found out that teaching someone how to bluff is not very straightforward. Some people are born to bluff and they need to learn to tone it down. But mostly, the human beast is very cautious. We probably picked up the trait as we saw a fellow primate make a poor decision, such as eat a hard red berry, or fail to check for mountain lions as he walked a winding trail. In any case, we tend to not take chances and be wary of what we do. In poker, this can be a problem.

The way I decided to best get people to feel comfortable making bluffs was to first review, in great detail, the best times to bluff. I came up with my top six. The #1 best time to bluff is known and utilized regularly by all good players. In fact, I didn't have to discuss this one at all because I have a full 60 minute course on it - the continuation bet. #2 on the bluff parade is the position bluff. If everyone in the hand checks to you, more times than not they got nada - a very good time to put in a bet. I review a group of simulated hands showing these bluffs and the other four situations with analysis on my web site.

The next thing I talk about is not the bluff itself, but the hands leading up to the bluff. You need to create the right image - tight and ABC. I would say 40% of making a good bluff can directly be attributed to the hands you already played. Which also involves the chemistry of the table, your profile of your opponents and momentum. Bluffs are not something that should be over used because they are very high risk. When your mojo is working, you're feeling confident and cool. This leads me to the next most important factor - your demeanor. Then finally chip stack, overall strategy and goals need to go into the overall bluff percentage you want to hit.

There was so much to cover, I'll need to add another course on advanced bluffing methods. Who'd have thought there was so much involved in throwing your chips in a pot when you have nothing. Go figure.

Balancing Act: Life as in Poker

2009-04-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

I think unconsciously, we are all making decisions on a sliding scale. There are always extremes and we are always adjusting how we live, act and relate based on our mood, our goals, our upbringing etc. For example, there is work and family. How much should we focus on our work and how much time should we spend with our family? In the short term, there is a drive to be at work and make as much money as we can. Be successful. Be rich. But in the long term, we find out that accumulating excess cash at the expense of spending time with our family is an empty pursuit. Not many people on their deathbed say; "I wish I spent more time at the office."

On the other hand, we do need to make enough to ensure our family's security and to achieve some personal satisfaction. So we slide our actions on the "Family/Work scale" that works best for us.

We also have scales relative to Eat/Starve. Friends/No friends. Organize/disorganize. Exercise/relax. etc. Life is a big balancing act where we try to keep things just right. When things are out of balance, we can fall down the evil road of drugs, alcohol or infidelity or some other unhappy failing.

Personally I do yoga once a week. Been doing it now for 22 years and haven't missed a week. Besides working wonders on my weak back, it gives me a chance to reflect on the balances in my life. Many times we are unaware of the scale and we fall into these ruts. I don't say I completely "unskew" my ruts (far from it), but I use that meditative time to make some adjustments.

Poker works almost the exact same way. I'm currently working on a course on Tournament Play during the middle phase. A good player carefully slides each scale in a dynamic way as new information and situations change. For example, in tournament poker it is absolutely critical that you make moves (bluff or semi-bluff). How often you do so is the sliding scale. You may slide toward bluffing a lot if: prior attempts were successful; you are the chip leader; your opponents are playing passive (ABC) poker; good opportunities keep presenting themselves; you haven't been getting good starting cards etc. The good player keeps changing his or her bluff percentage based on everything in his or her poker universe. The weak player plays the same way every time. Being aware in poker and acting on what you perceive leads to success in the long term. And guess what? It's all about the long term.

Poker Think

2009-04-10T13:23:00.000-07:00

Often in the poker room, a player will come up to me and ask; "Did I do the right thing?" Then he or she goes on to describe a particular hand, the betting etc. I reassure them that they played it fine (which they usually did). Now that I have these intensive poker courses, I get inquiries from people who ask me something like; if you have AK and a player goes all in ahead of you, do you call? I sent them a response that essentially amounts to; "it depends."

My real feeling about these scenario interactions is that if you ask a question like that; you're not getting it. You're not thinking like a successful poker player. Poker is a game where you not only need to take a myriad of factors into account when you consider what to do, but you also need to work hard to NOT play hands the same time every time. Deception is a HUGE factor in being a quality player. You're trying to throw your opponents off. You're trying to get in their head. Frustrate them. How in the world could you possibly do that if you play hands by way of some formula. Can't be done.

Also, the world of quality poker is a world of probabilities. A very tricky world. You take into account the probability that you have the best hand. The chances of hitting a draw. The chances your opponent will fold. This all makes poker so interesting. So you need to keep a running sense in your head how often you performed certain moves and try to keep your proportion within a prescribed success range. As I've been thinking about poker and poker strategy, I figured a dozen or so detailed courses. But it wasn't even close. First one needs so to understand poker think. Then one needs to know how to play basic (ABC) poker. Then all the standard situations need to be reviewed and analyzed. That just lays the groundwork. Now we need to get into tournament poker. Then live, cash poker. Then advanced moves. By the time I was done, it was clear 60 to 70 hours (courses) of instruction would be necessary. I'm up to 13 courses on the site and I'm having a ball reaching back into my pedagogic grab bag and creating all kinds of content, exercises and interactions. At least 50 more on on the drawing board and are coming available at a rate of about 3 every two weeks. (That's why I'm offering unlimited access now for only $4.99/month. The offer is only available for the next few months or so. The price will be much higher later on.)

If you decide you want to be a great poker player, expect to put in hours and hours of study, work and practice. Some say you need ten years to get to the highest levels. I think you can get there much faster. But you have to be focused and motivated. But most importantly, you gotta love to play the game.

Looking at the World Differently

2009-04-05T04:22:00.000-07:00

Ever since I've made the jump to playing poker for at least part of my income, I've noticed some very interesting effects on my general life outlook.

First of all, I see money in a very different way. Since it comes and goes in waves, it has lost much of its significance to me. By that, I mean for example, I hired this book promoter (Kennata) a few months back to set up some book signings. Kennata could notta do anything right. She turned out to be totally incompetent and I pretty much lost all the money I paid her and she took 100 of my books and never returned them. In the past, I would have been very disturbed and resentful and I would have pulled out all the stops to get my money back. Now. I say, "Darn, $3200 down the drain. That sucks." I move on. It's like I had a real bad day at the tables. Everything is compared to a day at the tables. I get a tax refund check for $4500. Nice. A good day at the tables. Money is coming into my pocket and leaving it far more frequently than before. It's the way of the poker pro. I think this is a positive change in my world view. I see money more clearly for what it is. It isn't the be all or end all for my existence. Far from it. Just the makings of a bad day or a good day. No big deal. I can now focus on the really important things in life. Time. Family. Friends. Creating. Art.

I think it has also forced me to be much more aware of the moment. Just as Utah becomes existential in the tropical wilderness, I've become more attuned to the present. For example, every time I get a nice payoff from a tournament or big cash win, I use a formula for the disbursement of my winnings. Let's say I just won $10,000. Of that I take 25% ($2,500) and put it away. I use another $2,500 for everyday expenses. Another quarter is reinvested into my poker bankroll. And, most importantly, I spend $2500 right away on something fun, something I can enjoy that very moment, usually with my wife and family. Once I took my wife on a two week trip to Italy. Another time I bought a big flat screen TV. A cruise. Refinished our basement. A cross country trip in a monster RV. Five days in St. Lucia. All in the last five years or so. Poker has allowed me to enjoy the journey. To experience, savor and relish all the steps along the way and not sweat the small stuff. Thanks poker, you've opened my eyes.

NInes (Ughh!)

2009-03-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

For the last few weeks the circus has been in town. Foxwoods, my home casino, has been hosting its semiannual major tournament. In the Spring, its called the Foxwoods Classic. I've been able to finally fit in a few events into my schedule. And of the three tournaments I played so far I kept running into these damn pocket nines. Unlike our smiling friend in the picture, pocket nines did not win me any first place trophies.

There are many plays in tournaments poker where you have to be bisexual (you can go either way). Pocket nines seems to present those situations more often than not. Let me give you the lowdown.

Here I am minding my own business at the $1500 buy-in event. I'm not getting any cards, but with guile and aggression I'm staying pat. We started with $7000 in chips and I have about $6200 and we are three or four hours in and playing the 200/400 level. I'm on the big blind with - you guessed it - pocket nines. The first guy to act has about $18,000 in chips and has been getting good cards. Not stepping out very much that I could tell. He raises to $1100. Less than the standard 3X, so its likely he has a good pocket pair or AK. Possibly AQ. The cutoff calls and I call. I mean I have to at least call. I could raise and see where I'm at, but that is really risky now that the standard has been set. Plus I'd be opening up the betting for more action preflop. I'd either have to go all in or put more than 50% of my chips in the middle. Just to see where I was at? I don't think so. The 80% play (see my courses for more on the 80% play) is to call.

So here comes the flop. 7H....4C....2D. So, without a nine coming out, this is about the best flop I could hope for. The problem is that my read is that this under-the-gun guy has me beat with a bigger pocket pair. I could bet out. Nothing wrong with a $1500 bet. But what am I going to do if I get raised all in for my last $3600? I gotta call and I gotta be beat. If not by the under-the-gun guy than by Mr. Cut-off. So I check and hope it gets checked around. Nope. The original raiser makes it $2600 to go. Cut-off folds. I gotta put in 50% of my stack to call. 100% just to make a min raise. Tough. Tough. Tough. What was I hoping for? You can go either way on this one. Shove or fold. Use and trust your read. My read was: he had me beat. I mucked. Later, I saw him get kind of frisky with borderline hands and I can't be sure my read was right. But he did mention to his buddy that he had pocket aces earlier and got only a little action. Could that have been this hand? We'll never know. I fought through three quarters of the field and finally succumbed when I tried to steal and was called in two places. I lost and was out.

Then in the $1000 event I got even deeper into the tournament. There was about 20% of the field left. Again I'm way below average in chips. I got about $9000 when we started with $6000. I'm under-the-gun with....right, pocket nines. Not a lot of decision here. Gotta shove. I did. The very next guy called me with queens and out the door I flew.

In tournament poker, you go as far as the cards will take you. You can't win or even make the money just by bluffing and stealing your way in. You have to win a few easy pots with the best hand. Keep the odds in your favor and everything works out in the long run. Winning at poker, tournaments and cash is all about the long run. But please, easy on the pocket nines.

Its LIVE!!!!

2009-03-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

Its hard to believe. But after lots of careful planning, hard work - a dream is born. The dream to transmit all the knowledge of the poker pro universe to the wide world is now a reality.

Please stop by PokerSlamU.com and check it out for yourself. There are currently 11 courses with over 13 hours of instruction. Be one of the first 100 subscribers and I'll give you your second month FREE.

As we speak, instructors are busy coming up with new courses to add to the site. An additional 45 courses are in the works. You'll learn so much, you won't believe it. If you have any interest at all in becoming a good, if not great, poker player, this is the place to go. If you have any problems or are disappointed in any way. Drop me a line to my personal email ngersony (at) gmail.com.

I look forward to seeing you on the felt!

Damn Pirates!

2009-03-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

Here I was. Playing a little 2/5 No Limit waiting for the 5/10 to open up. The guy next to me says; "I've been reading your book. Really good."

"Thanks," I said. It really is nice to hear from a satisfied reader. "Did you get the iTunes version or did you order the book through Amazon?" I continued, trying to get a sense of which form of the book is most popular.

"Well," he says sheepishly, "I've been reading it on line."

"The Kindle version?" I ask skeptically. Something wasn't right.

"Well," he says after a delay. "Actually I found a copy on line and I've been reading it off my computer."

"A pirated copy of my novel, Poker Slam?" I was truly surprised.

"Yes. But I knew you from this poker room. I decided I wasn't going to read it anymore off this site. I'm going to order the book from Amazon. Or I'll buy a copy from you if you have one on you?"

"No, but I can bring one in next time."

This was quite a shock to me. I thought pirates only went after the rich music artists and their fat cat record label. You figure those guys make so much money anyway, a few traded copies on the Internet couldn't hurt anything. But now I must admit that my view has changed.

It really isn't fair that struggling artists and writers work long and hard on their art at no pay and then when they finally get it published, people just distribute a single copy over and over by way of the Internet. Now I can understand both sides of the issue. If it's there, why not grab it for free. No one is going to catch you. And its so easy. But if we continue down this road, artists will be unable to make a living and create all this great art that we love.

Anyway, I hope you think about the poor uncompensated artist when you consider downloading a pirated copy of a book, movie, song or other art form. We need to keep the artists going. Life without their products is a life much less interesting. If we could only get rid of the damn pirates, then no one would be tempted.

Play Poker for a Living?

2009-03-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

When you really think about it; it is extraordinary that people can go to a card room, play poker and make enough money to pay the bills and live rather comfortably. They even have to pay their own health care insurance. Their tax rate, however, is a little lower.

I've been questioned about this a number of times during my radio interviews. The interviewer is often incredibly shocked. "You mean they just play poker? That's it? They make a living from it.? I don't believe it." I try to explain to him that the IRS has allowed people to put as their official occupation "Poker Player," for some time now. I'd estimate that 50,000 (plus or minus a few thousand) people in the US alone consider themselves professional poker players and list themselves that way on all official government forms. I know it sounds hard to believe, but its the truth. I, myself, derive a major source of my income through poker. You can do it because its a game of pure skill and there are a lot of unskilled players out there.

I've lately been approached my some financial Wall Street types to help them with their game. I guess its not surprising that more and more people are looking for other sources of income. We know there are a lot of Wall Streeters looking for work and there is no work to be had. It seems to me that there is an increase in the number of players looking to get better and make some extra cash playing the game. I see a little more activity in the big games then I did before the economic downturn.

So if you are thinking about taking this route, make sure you get those skills sharpened. I'm not saying you NEED to take my online courses at PokerSlamU.com. There are other ways to get the experience and the requisite abilities. You could play thousands of hands on line and that'll take time and money. And who wants to mess with those corrupt online proprietors. Those stinkin' Asolute Poker guys who let Hamilton use a software program that allowed him to see everyone's hole cards. Who needs 'em! The other way to learn is to hire a personal coach. I've seen this work, but it is expensive. The going rate is $300 - $500 per hour. Make sure the guy has documented success or really good references. There are also coaching web sites that only cost between $19 and $49 per month. They are mostly geared to the online player and are not very systematic in how they present their information. Its mostly a lot of young guns playing poker online and talking at the same time. "This is why I bet that. . .This is why I folded." etc.

But for $4.99/month, a full money back guarantee, a great FLASH interactive player that works on both your computer and your mobile phone and 50 courses that build on one another; you can't go wrong. At least check it out. You won't be sorry.

The Poker Depths

2009-03-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

Until I became immersed in my latest project to put poker courses on line, I didn't really know the game had such depth. It doesn't make any sense. You get two cards, there are five community cards and you try to make the best five card poker hand. Simple, right?

But the more I chart out the courses and the more I research and contemplate the subject, the more amazed I become as to all the intricacies of the game. First I figured a dozen or so one hour online narrated courses would do the trick. But then it becomes obvious that 12 to 15 courses barely scratches the surface.

I realize I need a couple of preliminary courses for the beginner spelling out the rules of the game and basic knowledge. Then I'll need another 15 courses to review basic hold 'em concepts that apply to both tournament and live (cash) play. The next phase will be another 15 to 20 courses on tournament strategy. Then I'll need another 15 to 20 courses on intermediate to advanced live game concepts. On top of that there will be several courses on "Bankroll Management" and other life style issues faced by the poker pro. Before I knew it, I had over 60 courses mapped out. And that only included No Limit Hold 'em. Afterward, experts in Omaha High/Low, Stud and Pot Limit Omaha High will each contribute another 15 to 20 courses each.

What makes the subject so deep is that you have three key perspectives of the game that overlap various key situations that make for much variety. The perspectives are the three Ps of poker:

Probabilities - the math and numbers of the game
Psychology - reading opponents
Presence - creating your own image

Online delivery of courses is perfect for the conveyance of this type of knowledge. Its presented in a slick FLASH "movie." The user can stop and start, replay and skip around to his or her hearts content. Interactions are right on the screen. This means that experienced players can focus on the areas they are most interested in and the beginner can replay as many times as they want the critical concepts explanation until they get it and practice it for free on any of the "free play" poker sites. In essence, the user is in complete control of the experience. He or she decides how long to spend on a particular course and every other aspect of the educational process. The courses conveniently ask you if you'd like to continue where you left off when you re-enter the web site.

Also, from a quality standpoint, the courses are easy to improve, upgrade or correct. Students are good at finding mistakes and these mistakes can almost instantaneously be corrected. The courses just keep getting better and better. The explanations get clearer and clearer. If you have any interest in improving your game, I can't think of a better way to do it. If i could, I'd do it.

Course Demo is UP!

2009-02-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, my latest venture is PokerSlamU.com. It's a site that will eventually have 50 courses on poker. It will start with some preliminary courses on the rules of the game, but it will then have Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3 courses on Basic Hold 'Em, Tournament Play and Live Games respectively. Since I'm a former Business School Professor, I couldn't help but structure the courses like a University Major. Each course will build on the preceding one. You can also specialize in online, tournament or live play.

I'm proud to say, I've finished the course demo and it can be viewed online. I hope to have the first batch of 12 courses up within a week or two.

This venture is very similar to the company I started back in 1998, CEU.com. In that case, I created an online course delivery system for insurance agents. It was a new way for them to get those pesky CE credits that the states where now requiring. It's still going strong today. The difference is that in the case of PokerSlamU.com the technology is much better.

Let me know what you think of the interactivity, the clarity and the sound. The platform is FLASH 10 and I've been very pleased with its capabilities and ease-of-use for the viewer.

I'll keep you posted as courses are added.

The Frustrations of Tournament Poker

2009-02-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

I know. I know. Poker tournaments are ridiculous. You get in with the best hand time after time and eventually some numskull sucks out and you lose all your chips and out the door you go. It seems just ridiculous. All luck. Play for hours or even days and get nada.

I hear it all the time and its true. You need to have a very thick skin to play tournament poker. If you are cashing in one out of every five tournaments you are doing very well. But the suck outs over and over and over again can test anyone's ability to stick with it.

I just finished two rather frustrating examples myself. I'm in a shoot out. (A tournament where you stay at one table until three players are left then it consolidates into a regular tournament.) I breeze through the shootout phase. The next day there are 70 players left out of 204. That means that 20 get paid. I churn, grind and bluff my way down to 23 players. I'm short stacked. It's folded around to me on the small blind. The big blind is a gambler. I have A9 of spades - a 76% hand. The blinds are too big to just call. It's either all in or fold. I couldn't fold. I'm just the type of guy who has the hardest time playing soft. It might have been the best play, but I was playing to win, not simply to cash. I went all in and the big blind called me with 55. Two spades on the flop all the cards above a five. The turn pairs the board. I have the maximum number of outs or close to it - 21. But I don't get there and out I go in 22nd place.

Then two days later I'm in a $600 event. There are 99 players. I get down to two tables. Only 9 get paid. We are now down to 15 players. I'm on the big blind and short stacked. Under-the-gun (1st position calls). Two others call. I have 9/10 of diamonds. Now I could go all in, but I know the 1st position guy has a big big hand. So I check. The flop comes J/8/3 rainbow. I go all in with my open ended straight draw. The 1st position guy calls immediately. The rest fold. He has KK. A ten on the turn. More outs. Blank on the river. Home I go in 15th place.

I kick the dog and punch the wall, but really I'm not that upset. I made the right plays. I got lucky on a few coin flips along the way and I went as far as the cards could take me. Poker tournaments go like this: lose. lose. win a little. lose. lose. lose. lose. win a little. lose. lose. lose. lose. win a little. lose. lose. lose. win a little. win a little. lose. lose. lose. lose. lose. lose. lose. win a little. win a little. lose. lose. win a little. lose. lose. win a huge amount! lose. lose. lose. lose. win a little.

It's just the nature of the beast. If you played well. Won some coin flips. Bluffed successfully a half dozen times or so. Then you did all you could do and you should be satisfied. Its kinda like the salesman who knows he needs to call a hundred prospects to make one sale. You just have to shake off the losses. If you can't then tournament poker is not for you. Tennis anyone?

Stop! Thief!

2009-02-09T03:49:00.000-08:00

Here is an entry I'd like you to think about and I'd really appreciate it if you give me your feedback. I'm going to change the names of this true story to protect the not-so-innocent.

Back in the summer of 2006 I had a big run at the WolfTree poker room. They had a great $150 re-buy tournament on Tuesday nights which I won six times. Each time netting an average of $15,000. The guy who ran the event was Ken and his assistant, Hobo.

Then in the fall of that year, Ken and Hobo are no longer running the tournament. I talk to my friends at WolfTree and it turns out the two were skimming thousands of dollars out of the tournament. Their scam was to pocket chips during the color-up periods and steal the same amount of cash from the prize pool figuring everything would balance and no one would know the difference. I had some inkling something was amiss when I saw Ken playing in a 10K event in AC. How could a floor person buy into an event that high? Then there was always a player complaining that his chip stack was low after a color-up break.

So WolfTree doesn't want the bad publicity so they don't press charges against him and Hobo, but they force them to leave. (They probably didn't care that much because it wasn't the casino's money, it was the player's. If it was the casino's money they'd throw away the key.)

So for a while, I'm pissed off about this since I was the one who lost the most money. I figured they probably took $5000 out of my pocket alone. But there wasn't much I could do and, being the easy going guy that I am, I forgot about it.

Now yesterday, I'm competing in a little shoot-out tournament and I make it through to the second day. And who is sitting at my table? You guessed it, none other than Ken the thief. I couldn't believe it. Also sitting at the table is an old poker friend of mine named Billy. Ken is trying to be all nice and friendly to me and I'm just burning up inside. I give him the cold shoulder. Billy didn't know about the scam and was chatting it up with Ken. I'm thinking, if I get knocked out before this Ken prick, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind. I'll stand like Moses and point at him and say something like: Thou art a THIEF! Return to me what is rightfully mine, oh crook! But seriously, I really wanted to say something to him. He had some nerve strutting in there and thinking the past is the past and he was somehow our friend.

We both get pretty deep into the tournament. I got knocked out in a race with Billy and finish 22 out of 204. Not bad but they only paid 20. I stand. I put on my jacket. I shake Billy's hand. I wave to the other players. I ignore Ken's salutations and leave.

I know I did the practical thing. I didn't make any waves. I didn't leave Billy in the uncomfortable position of having to play with Ken after I call him a crook which I really really wanted to do. But I didn't. Should I have done or said something? What do you think? Please post a comment or send me an email. I'm dying to hear what you would do.

The USA and Gambling

2009-02-06T05:21:00.000-08:00

Where does our country stand on the question of legal gambling? We can't seen to make up our minds. We need to make a fundamental decision here. Is gambling an activity we are going to allow or outlaw?

In my mind, we have already made the call on this issue. Gambling is here to stay. We have legal casinos in 28 states. Horse racing is in almost every state. Lotteries are not only condoned by government, they run 'em. They market them. Its apparently OK for states to run numbers. Fine. But if states can push gambling on us, why not let everyone choose what kind of gambling they like to do?

But there are those out there who feel we are not capable of doing the "right" think with our money. We need laws restricting what we do with our own cash. I'm speaking mostly of those evangelical Christian republicans who say that gambling is not apart of "family values" - whatever those are - and should not be allowed. But those people seem to think lotteries and horse racing are OK. I don't quite get it. Lotteries are 100% luck and horse racing is at least 90% luck. How is this not gambling? What makes these activities OK and others are not?

Its time for some consistency in our policies. Its time to get away from these obvious facades. This is not about any kind of "values." It's about the certain people who have control of certain gambling ventures and influence in government. That's all there is to it. Case closed. This has nothing to do with "family values" or "christian ideals." It has to do with money and business. Powerful people are making a lot of money and they don't want to lose their monopoly. Plain and simple.

Also, when it comes down to it, we're talking Bill of Rights here. I work hard for my money. Shouldn't I decide where it goes. Do I tell the Baptists in Mississippi how to conduct their prayer meetings? What business is it of anybody else how I spend my Fall Sunday afternoons. Who am I hurting when I bet a few bucks on the Super Bowl? Man 'o man, it just makes my blood boil sometimes when I hear these people trying to rationalize their views on this stuff. You live your life buddy and I'll live mine.

Case in point is that ridiculous law called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. It makes it illegal to play poker and casino games online but allows an exception for horse racing and lotteries. How do they pass that and keep a straight face?

We need to make this all right. Maybe the new president, a poker player, will get some rationality injected into our system. I understand he has his hands full at the moment with the economy and all. But when you get a second, Mr. President, can you help us poker players out a little. We'd really appreciate it.

Two Interesting Hands

2009-02-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

I've been on two poker trips recently; Las Vegas and Atlantic City. In each trip a single hand stood out from the rest.

In Las Vegas, I started out slow. Couldn't get a hand. Couldn't hit a flop. Finally, oh finally, I get pocket aces under-the-gun, first to act. Now you gotta understand this table was somewhat wild. The World Championship of Rodeo was in town and we had a cowboy at our table sitting to my right (luckily) who was playin' every hand and hitting everything. Draws, full houses, you name it. So cowboy was on the big blind. I wanted to bet enough to get him heads-up because I knew he was calling anything. So I raise to $100 in this $5/$10 No Limit Game. Which was higher than I would generally bet. The guy to my left calls and, of course, cowboy calls. The flop comes out 7, 7, 4 rainbow. Guess what cowboy does? He bets $1400 straight out. I have about $1300 in front of me. What the . . .?

Now I'm deep in thought. If he had a 7, wouldn't he check, let me or the other guy bet, then go all in? Was he playing an over pair or maybe even a single 4? Pocket 4s would fall into the same category as a 7. Finally, the only hand I could put him on was 5, 6. I called. The guy next to me takes a few minutes, then folds. Probably had jacks.

The cowboy, shakes his head and says; "I've got a little kicker problem." Not what I wanted to hear. My read was off by only one blip. He didn't have 5, 6. He had 5, 7. After cursing to myself as I staggered out the Bellagio door, I had to admit that his play was very creative. If you hit a big hand and you know your opponent has a big pair, just go all in right off. He'll never know what hit him. I know, believe me, I know.

The other hand took place at the Borgata in AC. Again, I started out the trip really slow. Lost half my bankroll in the first day. So I was in another 5/10 no limit game on day 2. Just got to the table. I was again under-the-gun. But this time I had the premium, but very worrisome hand of AQ of hearts. I made it $60 to go and got 6 callers and the big blind was next to act. Turns out he was very short stacked. "I'm all in for $110," he says and tosses his few chips forward.

I immediately ask the dealer if I can raise. I figure its a great way to show strength and, besides, I needed to pare down this field. The dealer says; "I don't think you can raise because you made it $60 and the $110 the big blind bet isn't double that." Immediately the players at the table continue the action by each of them calling. "Hold it. Hold it," I say. "Call the floorman over please."

"FLOOR," the dealer yells and over waddles this pear-shaped nebishy man with crooked glasses and bad skin.

"Well I think thats right. You can't . . ."

I immediately cut him off. "Excuse me but I raised 50 not 60, so he min raised me, so I can raise. Right?"

"You gotta point there buddy." I was on foreign turf so I needed to be convincing. "Yes. The man can raise," the pear then walked away trying, in vain, to straighten his glasses.

"I raise," I said in a firm, authoritarian voice. "$350 on top." I figured they'd all fold at this point. How could they not put me on a huge hand. Then I'd get mister short stack big blind heads up.

"I'm all in," came a declaration from the next player to act. Like a flash, everyone folded and it was back on me.

The guy seemed to be playing solid poker. What could he have? It seemed that he was too good of a player to smooth call with AA, KK or QQ or even AK, although the last two were possible. Hell, anything is possible. But it seemed, unless this guy was some kind of a whack job, the most likely hands for him to hold were JJ or 1010. Maybe AK was third. If he had the first two I had to put the rest of my stack in, about $800. If he had the third, I should fold. I liked the first two hands better, but I wish I had a better profile on the guy. Too much money in there. 60 X 7 + 150 + 700 = 1200. Plus the matching 800. Thats 2.5 :1. Gotta go for it.

"I call."

The guy had QQ. Luckily the flop came out AKK and I held up. But did I make a bad call? Or did this guy make a poor smooth call for my 60. I just gave the guy more credit than he deserved and it cost me. I did not have a clear sense of the players at the table. But in poker, as in life, things often work out for the better in the end.

Inspiration #2

2009-01-26T06:14:00.000-08:00

Shortly after I watched the movie, Shane, my next inspiration occurred just a few days afterward. I sometimes wonder if it was key that these events happened close together allowing my mind to interweave the two experiences. Or possibly my mind would have created the same story even if they occurred years apart. But as with many things in life, serendipity reigns supreme.

Anyway, I get home from Atlantic City in April of 2006 and I see that a writers conference is being held in Hartford, CT, not far from my home. I decide to splurge on the modest fee and check it out. Although the keynote address was delivered by a famous pop novelist, the conference seemed to be loaded with reporters and journalists. It turns out the main sponsor is a newspaper, The Hartford Courant. A bit disappointing.

I try to make the best of it and I attend several of the sessions; "Reports from The Green Zone," "The New Journalism;" "Internet and the News." They were all a bit dull and not what I was looking for, so I decided to head home. Then I passed a sparsely attended lecture on investigative journalism. I don't really know why, but I went in and sat down. This old, round guy got up and blah blahed about doing your homework and writing good notes and I started to doze off. Then out of nowhere he started to tell a story of one successful journalist investigation. I, of course, like stories, so I opened one eye.

He says, and I don't know if any of this is true, that there was a great runner, a track athlete, in the early 1960s who was breaking all the records for intermediate distance running and he was only in his teens. He was big news in the track world, the next Roger Bannister. After one special race where he beat all the best known milers in the world he suddenly disappeared. This caught my attention immediately. It seems that he left a note to his young wife saying something to the effect of "I can't do this. Good bye." The man just left everything behind. Now I was on the edge of my seat. Why did this guy leave at the height of his powers with the world of track begging for his attention? Was he rebelling? Did he have an alternate view of how to live your life? What could it be? I was dying to find out

The lecturer went on. Twenty years later, a young investigative journalist decided he was going to track this guy down. Yeah! He went back and talked to all the players, his wife, his friends, his coach, everyone. Hurry up, damn it. What happened? What happened? He checked airline records, financial records etc. etc. The reporter tracked him down to some far off island. The guy was living like a beach bum selling beaded necklaces to the tourists as they sunbathed. Now this was a bit of a let down. The reporter took him out for a few meals and tried to get answers to why he left. But a coherent conversation was not to be had. It turns out the guy was suffering from some sort of severe mental illness. Now that was more of a letdown. But it got my brain synapses firing. What if the guy was found and he had other, more interesting reasons for dropping out of society? I was at the edge of my seat as the story unfolded, why wouldn't my readers be pulled in as well.

Obviously I can't tell you exactly how this ex-runner became Willie Jamison, it'll ruin the fun when you decide to pick up Poker Slam (or listen to it on iTunes). For those of you who have already read it, you know what I'm talkin' about.

Childhood Emotions

2009-01-22T06:59:00.001-08:00

We, hopefully, will live long and fruitful lives. But the most intense period of our lives, for many of us, are those four coming-of-age years we spent in high school. During that time we gained our first tastes of independence, we made blood friendships and, of course, we did a number of things for the first time.

That first girlfriend, the one we will never forget, introduced us to pleasures that will never be duplicated. But maybe even more vibrant was the pre-girlfriend. The girl you yearned to be with, even if it just meant walking next to her down the hall. The girl I would gnaw off my left arm at the elbow if she would just give me the time of day and maybe a few pleasantries. A touch or a kiss were absolutely unfathomable. A glance and a smile from her kept me satiated for days. Now that girl is probably a stepgrandmother in some far off Texas hamlet or some such thing. But that's not the point. The point is that the intensity of feeling could only happen back then in our teenage years. Never to be reproduced yet many continue to try for years afterward.

That was the effect I was trying to get in the relationship between Utah and Jill. Especially in Chapter 8. The nervousness of the moment. The blood rushing to the head and other extremities. The uncertainty of what to do next. Yet the exaltation of the connection far supersedes the profound consternation. The relationship is strong but it is clunky. A struggle between commitment and freedom. Her interests versus his. Sensations ebb and flow.

I tried to draw on the purity of the emotion. Back then, it didn't matter in the least if her family had money or if she lived in a homeless shelter or a mansion or that her father is unemployed or mayor. Stuff we think are important now had no meaning to us back then. The connection was one-on-one, myself and her, spiritual. Yet for almost all of us, material and status and "career" issues grow in importance as we get older and the spiritual aspect lessens. We know why, but it's sad all the same.

The Big Game

2009-01-20T10:55:00.001-08:00

Barack Obama plays poker. By all accounts, he seems to love the game. Now that he is officially President, lets analyze his playing style. How one plays poker says much about the kind of a person he is.

From all the accounts I could find, the president is what we in the poker world would call "a rock." He never enters a pot with a mediocre or worse hand. He waits patiently for a playable hand. When he is in, many of his fellow lawmakers (his opponents) say, he is a fiscal conservative. If he is confronted with a big bet and his hand did not improve or did not improve much, he'll fold. He doesn't chase straights or flushes. He simply bows out and looks for a better spot to get his money in. Once in a great while, he'll bluff and it seems he is almost always effective when he does so. But for the most part, his opponents say "when Barack is in a hand, he's usually got the goods."

To me, it seems the President is an intermediate player. Beginners are tempted to chase cards. They stay in a hand as long as there are some cards that could come out that would make them a winner. They fall in love with big starting hands and are slow to give them up. Pros love these players because they sweeten the pots and they lose most of them. Our President seems to understand this propensity. I would say he is more of an "ABC" player. He bases most of his decisions on the odds, the mathematical part of poker. If the odds say that he most likely has the best hand, he'll bet or call or even raise. Otherwise he mucks.

I think this bodes well for our country. We want a leader who is calculating, careful and fiscally conservative. We want someone who steps out only when he is sure that he is right. If it turned out that the President bluffed a lot, that would be bad. The bluff is a weapon that should be used sparingly and only when you have built a convincing story around that bluff. President Obama seems to understand that. He bluffs when he knows his opponents cannot call. I like that. It's the first step to moving his playing skills to the next level. Really good players find just the right proportion between playing ABC and bluffing. Just enough so that your really big hands get called and just enough so that the bluffs are folded to. This could be the toughest skill to master. Right now, it seems Mr. President bluffs too little.

I'm a little concerned that the President doesn't play the players as much as he could. In big games, this is critical. If your playing a loose, wild player, try to have the goods, but the goods don't have to be as good as you would need against a tight player (like the President). I hope the President focuses more on the psychological side of the game as he pursues poker greatness. Think more about who he is up against and slightly less about the cards he is holding. Think of the game as on a sliding scale constantly modulating your moves based on what you think your opponents are thinking. Confuse them. Play with their head. Keep them off guard. Don't always do what is expected.

But most crucially, please Mr. President, don't go "all in" unless it is absolutely necessary. I'm sure George Bush would like to have his all in bet back against Iraq. Oh, one more thing Mr. President, don't forget to read my earlier blog on how to fix the economy. You're welcome.

Shane

2009-01-18T08:03:00.000-08:00

At one point in writing Poker Slam, I was plot blocked. I couldn't figure out how best to make Utah's experience compelling. Then two things happened. One of them was Shane.

It was late one night after a poker game in April of 2006 where I was too wired to sleep, so I turned on the telly. Just starting was the movie, Shane. I wasn't sure if I'd seen it before, but I remember hearing that it was a classic. I decided to watch it. I was mesmerized for 117 minutes. What a great movie. If you haven't seen it, you're in for a treat.

Several key story telling techniques inspired me. The first concept was; keep your audience interested by dripping out details of the key characters. Don't pour out all the characterizations at once. I, along with all viewers, was so curious about who this Shane guy was. What was his history? Where did he come from? How skillful was he? I mean I was dying to know.

The second concept was "less is more." Don't have the characters make grand gestures or actions. Don't try to spell out explicitly what they stand for or what they are all about. Show things in the simplest possible terms. The simpler, the more powerful. In Shane, one of my favorite moments was when the name "Jack Wilson" was mentioned and Shane suddenly stopped what he was doing and raised his head up. That little gesture said it all. There was some connection. Did they have a gunfight? Were they once partners? Who would have thought that a simple glance could send shivers up your spine.

Finally, the movie showed me the power of building tension by having characters talk about the characters that haven't appeared yet. But not only talk about them but to have their name stir emotions. What a powerful way for the audience to get to know your heroes and villains before they make an appearance. We learn that this Jack Wilson is one mean son of a gun. But we learn it by the fear his name inspired not by grotesque pronouncements such as; "That Jack Wilson killed a hundred men in Dodge City." We just see ranchers eyes widen and quiver ever so slightly.

These techniques added some fascinating layering to the movie. There was sexual tension between the rancher's wife and Shane. There was respect from the son. There was a range of responses from the other ranchers towards Shane. And, in the end, we still never get a clear impression of who or what this Shane was all about. He puts the welfare of others over his own, yet he was an outlaw. But is he? Says who? He's Christ-like. And, of course, the classic ending. There's more I could say but I don't want to ruin it for people who haven't seen the 1953 Oscar-winning film yet. Is Poker Slam the new Shane? I would not be so bold as to say so. I tried. You'll have to compare them for yourself.

Is Poker Luck or Skill?

2009-01-15T06:51:00.000-08:00

Another common question I've been getting on these radio interviews revolves around the question as to whether poker is gambling or is it a game of skill. To me, someone who has played lots of poker at all different levels over the years, the answer seems very clear.

In the short term, poker has a large luck component. Let me illustrate it this way; If I were to play you one hand and I got pocket kings and you got pocket aces, you'd probably win a lot of money off me. But you were "lucky" to get aces when I got kings. However, if we played every day for three months, all the card disbursement probabilities ("the luck") are washed out. That is, you and I are going to get aces and kings the same amount of times. Therefore the game turns into one of who plays the various situations better. i. e. Minimize their losses and maximizes gains. The results are now essential based on pure skill.

Its analogous to the casino that sets up a table for playing craps. They know that the probabilities are 55% in their favor (or thereabouts) and they know on a daily, if not hourly, basis how much money that table will take in based on the traffic to that table. If the take is below a certain level, they know something is wrong.

Probabilities are a very ephemeral concept. But they are as rock solid as any mathematical concept. They are carved in stone. The more often you flip a coin the closer and closer the distribution will approach 50%. Yet each flip is independent of all the other flips. So even if you flip a heads twenty times in a row, the chances of the next flip being a heads are still 50%. Kinda weird when you think about it. Shouldn't the odds tilt back in favor of tails since it has fallen behind? Nope. It doesn't tilt back yet over time the two outcomes will, for sure, equal out.

So if you play a statistically significant number of hands, all the luck is essentially pulled out of the game. I estimate that you need to play somewhere around 500 to 600 hours of poker to reach this level. Consequently, its quite easy to see if you are a good poker player or not. Play 600 hours of poker, keep careful and honest track of your wins and losses and see if you are in the red or in the black. If you're ahead, then you know what you are doing. If you're way ahead, you're a first rate player. If you're in the red, don't give up your day job just yet.

How to (start to) Fix the Economy

2009-01-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

We all know about the falling, and many say, crashing economy. Having been trained in business, I feel it is my duty to speak my mind on a fix.

I think first and foremost we can't and shouldn't give free rides. Free rides are bad. They reward poor business models. They allow poorly managed companies to continue to overpay failed executives. And, lastly, its darn expensive. We keep hearing all these ridiculous numbers $7oo billion, $775 billion, $1.9 trillion. The numbers lose all meaning. Just random jottings on a page. And giving people tax rebate checks. What's that going to do? I'm sure most people did what I did. They said thank-you very much and stuck it in their checking account with the rest of their general funds. I didn't say, "I'm going to put that money aside and buy a new car to help our beleaguered automakers." I'm sure you didn't either.

Why don't we do this. The U.S. Government will give a rebate to anyone who buys a car or a house within the next six months. If you buy a new car (American built only) and you can qualify for financing, the government will send you a check for $2000. If you buy a house, they'll send you $10,000. That way people will perk up and consider buying a car or a house who hadn't really considered it before. The banks would start lending again. Credit will flow. People could use the rebates to do whatever they want and a further stimulus occurs. Cars will sell, but only the ones people want. The cost? Lets say 8,000,000 households (8% of total households) decide to buy a car. That would be a good number considering 6,700,000 cars were sold in all of 2006. So obviously the automakers would do very well and there would be plenty to go around. But the cost, you ask, the cost? Well 8 million times 2,000 comes to a paltry $16 billion. A mere pittance.

Now on the house side. Lets say 5,000,000 households decide to take up the government's offer. The cost to the government is $50 billion. And the benefit? More houses would be built, workers would be working. Housing related business, many of which are small, will get a nice pop. Credit would be flowing. Psychologically, it would be a tremendous boost. We use the great aspects of the capitalist system to pull us out of this mess. Namely; competition and incentive (or demand).

The total cost of the program would be less than half of what we gave one company, AIG. I hope that gives some perspective on what $700 billion can buy. If it works, we could do the same thing for other industries or run the plan for another six months. Or increase the rebate amount. Are you with me? Tell your friends. Send an email to President Obama. Lets call it the Trickle up Plan.

Radio Radio

2009-01-09T10:18:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been doing a number of radio interviews. They've been a lot of fun. Not only am I able to get word out about the book and its bestseller ranking in Greece, but I've been able to kind of take the pulse of the non-poker playing world as to what most interests them about poker. I also enjoy the bantering back and forth. The argumentative (and there haven't been many) interviewers will push back on my claims and force me to make a strong case. Being a former Business School Prof, I enjoy the challenge.

I'll come back to several of the topics I discussed in these interviews in later blogs, but for now I'll focus on the overall view of poker. One of the most common issue that comes up is whether poker is a good thing or a bad thing. Some people lump poker in with gambling and give the knee-jerk negative view. My response is that poker is essentially a form of entertainment for most players and a form of income for a select highly-skilled few. To say poker is just a bad thing is like saying that violence in movies is bad. Or nudity on the beach is wrong. But I do try to stay balanced. Poker has definitely been detrimental to some people. Some over confident, college-aged males come to mind. Utah's adventures in Las Vegas depict the nasty underside to choosing a poker livelihood too early. I've run into young guys I met in the poker room who three years later were begging for money on the streets of Las Vegas. Now that is the extreme case. But it should be taken as a cautionary example to the downside of jumping into a poker career before one is ready.

The other aspect of this is that even if you are mildly successful at first and say you stay in the black for five, or six or seven years, eventually you will hit a dry spell. That is the nature of the game or any game that involves probabilities. If your bankroll cannot handle it, you may go down the unpleasant route of borrowing to play. This can spiral out of control quickly and is not advised. Also, if you decide you want to return to your career training or education five to seven years later, you'll be behind in every sense of the word and you'll find yourself trying to justify those years to educators, to recruiters and to employers.

Now all that being said, Poker is a great game and to those who have carefully developed and nurtured their skills, it can make for a great livelihood. In the long run, poker is a game of pure skill. Gambling and luck are completely washed out once you've played a statistically significant number of hands. So you must be prepared. That is one reason why I'm creating a series of on-line poker courses which will help players develop poker skills in an easy-to-use course system with audio and actual examples of key types of hands and situations. I hope to have these courses up and running by the end of February. Check back regularly at PokerSlamU.com for updates. Whether you decide to take my courses or learn some other way, be sure you develop your skill level properly before venturing into a poker career or to higher level stakes. Your bankroll will thank you.

If you want to hear my recent interview on WBZ Boston, click here.

I love Greece

2009-01-06T09:58:00.000-08:00

So there I was the other night logging on to my computer . . dum de dum dum . . checking my email as I usually do when I noticed a web alert about my book. It looked like Poker Slam was included on some sort of list. That's great I thought. Probably someone included the book on their ten favorite poker novels or maybe poker books or somthing like that. But then I notice that the link is on the apple/itunes site. So I click on it and lo and behold there is a list of the ten most popular fiction audiobooks by european country. I scanned the various countries and then I saw it. In Greece, of all places, Poker Slam is the #6 bestselling fiction audiobook! I knew my narrator, Rich Brennan, had done a great job reading the book, but it had only been listed on iTunes for a few months. Well then I figured maybe they didn't sell many audiobooks in Greece, so I perused the other books listed. Candace Bushnell, the big-time author of Sex and the City was ahead of me twice. OK, I can understand that. I heard her books were very popular overseas. Phillip Roth was ahead of me. I'll accept that. Edgar Allan Poe. He's a world acclaimed master after all. Anne Rice. She's big I'm told. Then little 'ol me. After me I notice Stephen King. Talk about an ego boost.

The next day I talk to some of my Greek friends in the poker room. They say that Hold 'em is huge in Greece. They play it everywhere. They also say that everyone speaks and reads english. But they are amazed, as I am, that the book is listed so high so fast. There are over 6000 fiction audiobooks available on iTunes. My best guess is that some Greek found the book randomly, liked it and told his or her friends about it and it just snowballed. I certainly didn't do any marketing or promotion in Greece.

So I've concluded the following. Work hard on a book. Keep editing it and make it the best you possibly can, make it available and somehow people -- where ever they are -- will find out about it and if they like it or resonate with it, they'll buy it. Secondly, audiobooks are much bigger than I had previously thought. We live in an iPod, digital, internet age. The future for stories and "books" may not be in books at all, but digital downloads in audio or possibly text form. If people aren't reading paper books, find out what they are doing because people will always want stories -- on that I'm quite certain. But they have to be good stories. Interesting. Relevant. Thought-provoking.

So now I'm planning my book tour to Greece. Let's see. I'll rent a boat and float from one island to another waving to my Greek friends as I go. I guess I'll have to learn a few phrases in Greek. For now I'll just say ευχαριστώ πολυ Greece. See you soon.

P.S. Update. I just passed Candace. I'm #4 now.

The Poker Mind

2009-01-04T04:55:00.000-08:00

Poker in so many ways gets to the depths of human nature. Determinism and fatalism is something that poker players think about all the time. I can't tell you how many times I've been driving home from a tournament and thought, "why did that king on the river have to be a king?" A king being the only card that lost the hand and tournament for me. It could have so easily been a three? Or a seven? Why did it have to be a king? We are asking the poker gods. We are asking the Prince of Fate or whatever else you want to call him or it or . . . what pronoun do you use for a spiritual figure? Anyway, why did that card have to be a king anyway?

The good poker player learns to put these incidents behind him. For me, it takes a few hours of "why oh why" and then I'm fine. It finally sinks in that I made the right play. In fact, I made a rather good play and the call was exactly what I wanted. I had pocket aces and my opponent flopped a pair of kings. I wanted him to call my all-in bet. I was trying to trap him. And if it happened all over again, I wouldn't do a thing differently. And if this hand kept happening over and over again, I would be way, way ahead. A big part of poker is probabilities. In the end, if I keep getting in with the hand that has the better odds of winning, I will be a winning player. Of course, I console myself, there are going to be some nasty losses along the way.

It reflects the two natures of man; the rational and the spiritual. We wonder why things happen the way they do. We pray. We often have trouble comprehending events. Yet we also know that 7:1 means that you are going to lose one out of every eight times. When that one happens, accept it. Move on. Some players are better than others at doing this. Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, despite his religious nickname, is the epitome of the mathematical rationalist. I've seen him lose to a one outer full house on the river and he calmly got up and shook hands with his lucky opponent and left the room. Mike Matusow is the spiritualist. He rants and raves and cries when the unlucky world crashes down on him. "This only happens to me" and "I can never win" come wailing out of his mouth, when deep down he knows that its not true. The man has won millions over the years and is a world class talent.

This duality pulls at us all the time. Why can't we accept what we know is inevitable? It's hard. Many people cannot accept negative events -- ever. In poker too, we always remember those bad luck hands that came at the worse possible time. For me it was when Doyle Brunson hit a two-outter nine on the river in the 2005 Tournament of Champions. The event was memorialized by ESPN and for some reason, they continue to replay it on ESPN Classic every chance they get. (What did I ever do to you, Mr. ESPN?) I also was deep into the LA Classic in 2006 when my Ace/King hit an Ace - Seven - Four flop and my all-in bet was inexplicably called by pocket Queens. Ace on the turn. "Overkill" some numskull at the table said. Then . . . Bam! Queen on the river. I lose. So just as hurtful events in our life are never truly forgotten, but rather integrated into our being, the process is mirrored in poker (on a much lower scale of course).

That may explain why many professional poker players are . . . how can I say this politely . . . strange. They must face the inevitable body punches that everyday life hits us with, then they must face the pounding that poker dishes out. Ah, but those poker victories. They bring our positive emotional state to another level altogether. What is the analogy relative to the real world? Nirvana? Could be.

Where are Books Going?

2008-12-28T09:10:00.000-08:00

Being a novelist, I've been having an up close and personal time with the publishing industry. It has been a sobering experience. Did you know there are more people in the US who don't read books than those that do? I was shocked. There are millions and millions of people in this country who don't enjoy that wonderful satisfaction of losing yourself in a story. It's one of the great joys of life - up there with sex, sports, games (poker), learning, nature, movies, music and socializing. Especially as you age and sex and athletics are not as accessible, you need as many of those other things as possible to enjoy. When I run out of things to enjoy, pass me the cyanide tablets.

The industry is suffering as a result. Small and medium-sized publishing houses are going under or hanging on by their fingernails. Even Random House is reorganizing itself. The convoluted literary agent system is falling apart. New authors cannot get any traction because the large houses only want to invest in less risky books such as Stephen King or Nelson DeMille (the author whom many of my readers say my style is most similar too). Who can blame them, they need to feed their kids.

Its always been a business, of course, but now its been taken to a new level. Editors want you to have a diverse set of characters to attract a larger pool of likely readers. They want you to set the book in cities that have a larger reader base such as Seattle. They want very happy endings. They want the book to mimic some past best seller. And I understand all this. But where is it leading? Unfortunately, to boring sex -- mediocrity between the covers.

Now if some new, talented and clever author publishes a great novel with a small press, it is almost guaranteed to be the tree falling in the forest. It won't get reviewed. It won't get promoted. It doesn't really exist because no one will read it because no one will know about it. The author won't write anymore books because she'll have to feed her kids as well. A sad, sad state of affairs.

But I'm an optimistic person and I think things will shake out for the better in time. Its hard to predict what will happen, but it is clear that all books will eventually be "published on demand." Why spend big bucks on large printing runs when those books have to be inventoried (more $), They need to be shipped and returned if not sold ($). Plus they use trees and energy in large quantities. You will also select the form you want to experience the book. "Download to your Ipod - click here." "Download to your eBook reader - click here." "Print a copy and send - click here." Hey, I do it myself. But I'm a pioneer. My ancestors where pioneers from Latvia. It's in my genes.

I just hope a clear way materializes that allows good books to rise to the forefront. I'm so tired of seeing these "lowest common denominator" books on sale everywhere. If some alien came to this country and perused our book scene they would probably think that only a few hundred books are published a year. But in fact, 300,000 are published.

Oh and you guys out there. Start reading! Women make up 75% of the book buyers (and presumably readers) in this country. Poker and football are great, but sometimes there is nothing better than reading a good story that you just can't put down. Not as good as great sex, but believe-it-or-not, its close.

Rich and Poor

2008-12-25T07:19:00.000-08:00

As the holiday season is roaring through as it seems to every year, I find myself thinking about goals, life and the "big picture."

Sure its great to be rich I suppose, but it seems that so many people who achieve that distinction fall short in the happiness area. I often wonder why that is. Millionaires committing suicide. Lottery winners years later wishing they never won. What the heck is at work here? I thought vast riches make us happy. The Great American Dream. etc. etc.

Riches seem to be but one piece of the puzzle -- and maybe not even that. Of course we need enough money to cover our basic needs plus a little. But it is also critical that we pursue honesty, credibility and fairness in our everyday life. Hey, it's Christmas, what the heck did you expect me to say. I can't help it if its true as well.

Poker forces you to wear your opponents shoes. What makes him tick? What is his tolerance for risk? Is he capable of deception? Does he care about money? (You'd be surprised how many people there are like Fred Stallworth who have little regard for the green stuff.) Sometimes I feel like I'm transcending their souls. I'm so attuned to my opponents view of the world that I feel as if I am them. I play like them. I adopt their tendencies. I can read their minds for god sake! That, my friends is "the zone" of the poker world. It doesn't happen often, but when it occurs its magical. My cards are very secondary. Often I won't even look at them. I find it happening the most in tournaments when I'm at the table with a similar group of people over a long period of time -- six or more hours.

So this got me thinking of the famous UltimateBet program that could read other peoples hands. Russ Hamilton alledgedly used it to fleece millions from online players. Now he must live within a community (the poker player world is fairly tight knit) where he'll be despised. Are those illgotten gains going to be worth the hatred he'll be facing in heeps? If I was granted the power of seeing my opponents hands, would I want it? Gone is the excitement of making a great read. Gone would be the adrenaline rush of winning a big tournament. Guilt would permeate. Poker for me would lose much of its appeal. Gone is the satisfaction of winning a fair fight. Gone is the deserved respect from your peers.

Ask yourself what wish you'd make if you were granted one by Leroy the magical dealer. Would you want to live forever? Not me; who would want to outlive their kids. Would you ask for $10 billion? Too much responsibility. Keep it. The power to heal the sick with a touch? They'd be breaking my door down. When it comes down to it; Leibniz may have been onto something; "we live in the best of all possible worlds." We can't truly enjoy the happy unless we get a dose of pain as Plato tells us. That seems to be the way the world works. Maybe pursuit of a pampered life isn't what we want after all. Maybe we need discomfort to feel alive. We need challenge to keep us going. Maybe we need to focus outward rather than on ourselves. Feed our primitive mind. Maybe Willie was on to something.

But, hey, what do I know. I'm just a poker player.

Xmas at the Table

2008-12-24T05:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas is a special time of the year. Songs. Trees. Giving - especially at the poker table. I've been running a little cold lately. Nothing horrible, (not as bad as Utah in Las Vegas) just not picking up cards at the right time. So yesterday I was getting more of the same. Fold. Fold. Fold. I patiently waited for a playable and payable hand. The problem was that everyone else at the table knew what I was doing. That's when you can get into a really bad run. When you finally do get the damn cards, everyone folds. So it is absolutely necessary to your poker well being to continue to mix it up. But now instead of playing weaker hands 20% of the time, I'm now down to 10%. (I explain all this more fully in my step poker course system which is coming out in late January or early February) Since I'm in a regular 5/10 No Limit game and most of the players are good, they have a good sense of where I'm at. Thank god (which is what we are suppose to do this time of year) there are a few players I haven't played with before. And one of them, I'll call him Santa, gives me a wonderful Christmas gift. The poker elves give me a few gifts as well.

So I limp in with A9 of hearts in second position after the "under-the-gun" guy, Santa, calls. A few other guys call. The flop comes out 8, 7, 5 with two hearts. Santa bets $60. I make it $160. The next guy to act takes a few minutes, looks at me, then folds. Thank-you very much; I'm looking to get heads up or take it down right here. (He claimed to have laid down a set of fives, but I find that hard to believe.) Santa calls. The turn is a beautiful jack of hearts. So beautiful. Gift #1. Santa checks. I don't put him on a set or two pair, so I check as well, hoping he hits something. A gorgeous black six comes on the river making a four liner. Gift #2. Mr. Claus bets out $250. Gift #3. I sit and contemplate my options. I only have $705 left, so a min raise would look kinda silly. I figured, I'd go all in and try to make it look like a steal. He'd call if he had a straight I figured or rather hoped. Santa calls instantly with two pair. With a four liner on board and three hearts, he called with two pair! Gift #4. Merry, merry Christmas.

The poker Christmas gods give and they taketh away. After this hand, I'm card and bluff dead for several hours. Then I get top two pair on a rainbow flop of 10, 9, 3. I bet $30 into a pot of $35. I get two callers. An ace comes on the turn and I'm ready to take it down right now. I bet $125 into a pot of $125. One fellow calls me. I put him on QJ or a medium 10. An innocuous-looking 6 comes on the river. I bet out $150. He raises me to $400. I too-quickly call and he shows the 7/8. That's the problem with playing with weak players. He called $125 on the turn knowing he had only 8 outs. I'll take that call every time. I really shouldn't have called the river. I was hoping he hit his 10/6 (But would he really raise me with a 10/6 with that board?). It wasn't a bluff situation and his bet was not a bluff-sized bet. My turn to be Santa Claus. Hey, It's the season of giving.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Fighting a Bad Streak

2008-12-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

At times it feels the world just doesn't like you. Here take that - your car breaks down - and that - my course geek turns out to be a brick and I need to start again with a new guy - and an upper cut to the jaw - weather cancels my promo trip and money twirls down the drain. I hit a dry spell at the tables just as my expenses mount. As you can see, I've been having one of those bad runs. And like poker, you need to stick it out. Keep your loses to a minimum. My three month old son smiles at me as I pick him up this snowy morning. Stay focused on what is important.

I'll always remember an interview with a WWII vet, Frank, who went back to visit the battlefield in France where, in 1944, he was assigned to sit in a foxhole and wait for the Nazis to pass by. Then he and the other foxholers would sneak out at night and attack their rear. Well things went horribly bad and a gang of Nazis discovered the ploy and were going from foxhole to foxhole and unloading seven or eight shots into the heads of each American G.I. Imagine what Frank felt as he saw and heard each of his buddies plead for their lives as they raised their hands in surrender and then be cold -bloodedly killed. There was no escape. When they got to Frank's fox hole, he stood and raised his hands as his comrades did. The Nazi pointed his gun at him, then smiled. He did not fire. He just inexplicably threw the camouflage netting back over the hole. That night, Frank snuck into the woods and made his way back to the American camp.

Frank was now in his late 70s and he said since that time when he had accepted his inevitable death, nothing can ever get him down. Nothing is as bad as it seems. Everything passes. Money is only money. A career is only a career. If there is love and respect, relationships can be repaired.

Poker is good training for adopting Frank's enlightened outlook of the world. Some stretches you just can't win no matter what you do. The cards are against you and there is nothing you can do about it. You need to get through it the best you can- minimize your losses. Easier said than done as your bankroll dwindles and you wonder how you are going to make rent next month. Then it happens. In one magical hand, all the despondency of the past is washed away. It's like the past never happened. You're back on your feet again.

Utah reached those depths of despair. He hit bottom and lost faith in his quest. But he cleansed himself mentally and reawoke with a soldier's mentality. As Edna said, "Don't give up. Don't ever give up."

Omaha. Here I come. Nope.

2008-12-19T04:43:00.000-08:00

I'm suppose to be on a plane right now. A plane to Omaha. Why am I sitting here in front of my computer and not on a plane to Omaha? The Hartford airport is gridlocked. I somehow got bumped ( I guess I don't rate with Delta) and there is craziness there with a big winter storm coming in later this morning.

It's really too bad. The Omaha Public Library had me scheduled for a while and gave me a big spot on their web site (see event posting). I was also suppose to be at Harrah's and a bookstore. But when it snows it snows. I hope they understand my predicament. Maybe we can reschedule. So it looks like I'll be working from home today, building my online poker courses, scheduling future events, making a few calls and emails etc. etc. . And of course, the snowed in day will allow me to have some good time with my 2 year old daughter and my 3 month old son. Maybe it's god's way of telling me to slow down and enjoy the simple and truly important things in life. Utah and Willie would approve.

Five Diamond Classic at Bellagio

2008-12-18T09:11:00.000-08:00

Poker tournaments require a significant time commitment. Usually a couple of days. Since I had to do various book promo activities, I could only fit one event into my schedule. I played in the $1500 buy-in event on Wednesday, December 9th. I show up ready to go and scope the 168 player field. Not many pros. I only see a couple. I weave my way to my table and amazingly enough the most well-known player in the room is seated right next to me. It's Humberto Brenes. You may have seen him on TV. He's the crazy Costa Rican who likes to chat, laugh, wear funny hats and make fun with his little toy shark. Well the shark wasn't there, but Humberto was his usual animated self. I've played with him a few times in the past and he seemed as surprised to see me on his right as I was to see him on my left. Damn, what a horrible spot. Anyway, I play my usual game. I mix it up early with a bunch of raises when the risk is low. And everytime I do, Humberto gives me a suspicious smile. "You play a lot of pots, my friend," he says to me on more than one occasion. I smile back and show him a few of my hands after everyone has folded. Of course I only show the good hands. "Sure, this time you have something," he says. I fell into his trap of showing even those hands. I knew he was looking for information.

A quarter of the way into the tournament, Humerto starts hitting a bunch of flops. Bang, he nails a straight on some dude who goes all in against him. "I call," he says sheepishly as he scoops the pot with his monster. Now the worst has happened, a great player (I love his game) is on my left and has a huge chip stack. I now have to slow down as he calls or reraises me just about every time I enter the pot.

As we approach the halfway point, I hit a cold patch and my stack has dwindled. I have probably 80% of the average stack. I know I needed to keep my fold equity solid. Unfortunately, I bluffed a bit more than I normally like to due to my card dead status and I know Brenes has me pegged as a loose player. Finally I get KK in early position. The first guy straight calls the big blind. I think long and slow. "How best to maximize my situation," I ponder. I have the perfect table image at this point. My objective is to raise enough to get one or two callers. Then if no ace comes on the flop, I'd go all in -- the standard play. I raise to three and half times the big blind. Humberto immediately goes all in. The field folds around to me. "If you got aces, you got aces," I say as I slam the rest of my chips into the pot and flip over my cowboys. "I thought you bluffing again," he says as he turns over Ace - King. But he's all smiles as he shakes my hand and says, "Very nice. Very nice." His smile slips away as the flop, turn and river fail to produce an ace and his chip stack takes a substantial hit. Now he can't stop talking about the hand. "You bluff too much. I don't think you have anything," he says to no one in particular.

Prior to that hand he had won numerous pots, but Humberto doesn't like to lose. "He bluff too much," he repeats to the dealer. But before you can say "Costa Rican on tilt" (I was hoping he was, but he wasn't). He wipes out a player with two pair and takes out another with his own pocket kings. Again I get nothing for an hour or so. I try to steal, but get caught each time. Now we are down to 55 players. I'm down to 40% of the average chip stack and the blinds are huge. I got maybe two and half rotations left. In middle position, I see an ace as my first card and make what I hope is an ominous raise for half my chips. Brenes calls immediately. The flop is King - Ten - Four. I immediately go all in hoping he folds. Would you believe it, he's got pocket aces for about the fourth time. I flip over my Ace/Five. Needless to say I'm out of the tournament. Humberto is very gracious. He stands and gives me a warm handshake and a shoulder shrug. Whattayagonna do.

Humberto is one of those players I love to play with. The man loves life. He's always having fun and he is so good. I definitely picked up a few moves watching him play. Wouldn't you know it, he went on to win the tournament. Good job Mr. Brenes. It couldn't happen to nicer guy.

Las Vegas Trip

2008-12-17T08:04:00.000-08:00

Last week I was in the sin city, the second biggest gambling town on the planet (Macau is #1). I was there to do some book signings, play in some events at the Five Diamond Classic at the Bellagio and generally do whatever (within reason) to get some visibility for the 'ol book.

The tournament and cash poker action was very interesting. Dorothy, I knew I wasn't in Connecticut anymore. They play a different kind of poker out here. I mean I should be used to it, I've played in Las Vegas near a dozen times, but it seemed different this time around. Like Fred Stallworth, there were a lot of characters out there who didn't seem to care a lick about money. Anyway, I'll get into the poker side of things in a later entry. Here I wanted to talk about my very first book signing.

The book has only been out for a few months, so I asked other authors and so-called industry professionals about how you get people to read your tome. The old timers all said that you needed to do a book tour and set up book signings in various cities. So I naively asked, "Doesn't the publisher help with that?" The response was usually a hearty laugh. For all you aspiring authors out there, let me give you some inside dope; the publishers do nothing! Oh sure, they'll get it listed in various places and maybe help with distribution. But unless you're John Grisham or Stephen King, they essentially say; "You're on your own bub. Go get 'em."

So, I make a few bucks in my regular 5/10 no limit game and go find myself a publicist. She's a busy little bee contacting the casinos and bookstores and libraries in that desert town. Finally she lands gigs at the Tropicana, the oldest casino on the strip (but whose complaining) and the Gamblers General Store.

Now Vegas is not a place where people are going to file into a room and sit down calmly and listen to a quaint little lecture by yours truly and ask quaint little questions about my book while they sip tea with their pinky extended. No, in Vegas everyone wants to PARTY! So my bookish little publicist was shocked (utterly) when no one wanted to sit down at her little event. They came. They looked around. Not seeing any naked dancing girls, they left. There was one exception. This man in his mid 60s stopped by, sat next to me and said, "What's this here poker all about?" I, having nothing better to do, so I take out a deck of cards and showed him the basics. The man had on a big tan cowboy hat, a mustache and a long braided ponytail. He was a Navajo Indian. He talked slow and gave me a stare which I read as either, "I know all this already -- move on, move on;" or "What the hay are you talkin' about pale face?" This guy could be a good poker player.

I find out the guy is from some small town in northeast Arizona called Dead Cat or some such thing. He had never left his ranch in the last 30 years. He decided to drive the 14 hours to Las Vegas because, for the first time, two Navajos had made it to the rodeo championship which was in town that weekend. That explained all the cowboy hats, the occasional YEE HA and the bowlegged walkers in town. Anyway, I had a lot of fun listening to the old guy (I should talk) and teachin' him poker.

My jitery publicist would occasionally stop by and pull me away to meet some disinterested diners. You see, they put us in the Garden Cafe which is way in the back of the hotel and they set up our "event" all the way in the back of the restaurant. So foot traffic was a problem. Also, considering the poor economy which the casinos are feeling big time, my poor publicist had decided I should show up at people's table as they ate their breakfast in order to drum up business. Not a good idea. Morning is not a good time for Las Vegans. "Hi, this is Neal Gersony. He is an author and a professional poker player," she said to the overweight guest as he shoveled pitchforks of scrambled eggs into his mouth. He'd freeze and slowly turn his joweled face my way as yellow goo dripped from his chin. "So whaddya want me to do about it?" he was obviously thinking. After a half dozen more futile attempts. "Oh we just here fo' the Jackson family reunion. You best be gettin' along now. Ya hear." I snuck away back to my Indian friend.

Did you know that the Navajos are the largest native American tribe in the US? I ordered some breakfast for my new buddy and chatted the morning away. I signed and sold a few books, not many, but a few.

First Blog Entry

2008-12-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

Here is the first, the number one , numero uno entry for my spankin' new blog. I intend to fill these pages with info about my professions (poker and writer and entrepreneur). Hopefully I'll do it in such a way that will make your bleak days bright and your bright days dark. I'd say I'm a humorist, but doing so would be like saying I smell really great when everyone knows you can't smell yourself.

All seriousness aside folks, my book, Poker Slam, may come up once in a great while. (More info at www.PokerSlamU.com) But really I'm more looking forward to talking about my next book which is in the thinking stage -- i.e. I'm thinking about it and haven't wrote a damn thing down yet. Input is always very very welcome. Why waste time thinking up something new when people send me their ideas for free? So keep those cards and letters coming in. I'm at ngersony(at)gmail.com.

I guess the tradition for blogs is to vary your topics of discussion. So sometimes I'll be analyzing my high stakes no limit poker hands that either cracked me or cracked them. Other times I'll be talking about interesting things that happened to me on the road. I recently got back from a one week stint in Las Vegas. I picked up some good stuff in that town (or bad stuff depending on your point of view). A recap of that trip will be forthcoming soon. I won't be talking much about my book, but I do regular radio interviews, so I'll keep you up-to-date on upcoming ones so you can be sure to listen in. Of course I'll be giving you the unfiltered inside scoop on what I'm experiencing as a first time author -- novelist. Hope you find this blog entertaining that is all that is meant to be.

I look forward to sharing, not baring, all with you all.