Inspiration #2

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.