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Book Review: The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King by Michael Craig

Michael Craig’s The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King takes readers on a behind-the-scenes tour of (at the time) the highest stakes poker game ever played. In search of a new challenge, banking prodigy Andy Beal challenges the best poker players in the world to play for stakes so high that millions of dollars change hands in a session and even these seasoned veterans can barely handle the swings.

As a poker player, I found PBSK fascinating for a number of reasons. For one thing, there were a lot of little details about Bobby’s Room (the high-stakes section of the Bellagio poker room, named for Bobby Baldwin) and the people who play there that I didn’t know. Craig writes for a broad audience, but even as someone who is relatively in-the-know about the poker world, I came away with a much better sense of the culture and traditions of that game. There were even a few regulars I hadn’t heard of, which I suppose is in itself a statement about the nature of the game.

Title notwithstanding, the book’s truly central characters are Beal and Doyle Brunson, not Beal and Howard Lederer. Craig chronicles the two men’s parallel struggles, Brunson’s to herd a team of notoriously stubborn and independent poker players into a functioning team with a 10-figure bankroll, and Beal’s to find an edge against the game’s greatest.

For Brunson, there are logistical difficulties and personality conflicts. Few players could afford to take on Beal on their own, and in any event the banker insisted on playing heads up. Nevada gaming law requires any game to be open to any player, meaning that the only way to ensure one-on-one action was to give everyone who could remotely consider playing the option to buy a piece of “The Corporation”. This, in turn, meant getting everyone to put up hundreds of thousands of dollars and agree on who would play Beal when. No one was too keen on either losing his friend’s money or seeing his own money lost, plus Beal insisted on playing at inconvenient times such as during the World Series of Poker or at 8 AM.

This was no accident. Beal quickly realized that his only chance would be to push the pros out of their comfort zone by insisting on astronomical stakes, arriving in Las Vegas with little notice, and otherwise making things as inconvenient as possible for The Corporation. Over time, he also came to take elaborate measures to neutralize their potential advantages over him: sunglasses, headphones (to discourage conversation), a random number generator, a homemade abacus (sorry, you’ll have to read the book to make sense of that one), etc.

I found the insights into both the financial relationships that undergird the poker economy and the psychology of an amateur who would attempt to take on the best of the best to be quite interesting. PBSK isn’t just for poker junkies, though. In fact, the central conflict of amateur vs. professional makes it equally appealing to a casual reader with little or not knowledge of poker. The book is remarkably light on actual hands played or anything else that would require more than a passing familiarity with the game, and Craig does a good job of explaining what little the reader does need to know without ever boring his “insider” audience.

All in all, Michael Craig’s The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King is an interesting and fast-paced introduction to the high-stakes poker world built around an inherently intriguing story. Any poker player would enjoy it, and it would also make a great gift for anyone you’d like to educate about the vagaries of professional poker.

Yeah, I Hit and Run

Review: Rush Poker

Full Tilt Poker recently introduced some new small stakes tables in a format they call “Rush Poker”:

Available exclusively at Full Tilt Poker, Rush Poker* is the ultimate high-speed poker experience.

This new poker format is designed to minimize your wait time between hands and keep you in the action. You’ll join a large player pool and face a different table of opponents every hand you play. When you fold your hand, you’ll be rushed to another table for a new hand right away.

To play even faster, use the Quick Fold button to move to a new table for the next hand immediately.

The basic idea is that you always have a hand to play. The second you decide you want to fold, you are instantly assigned to a random new table, with new opponents, and have a new hand to play.

In my opinion, this is a fantastic idea and a great example of allowing online poker to be its own game rather than just a derivative of live poker. No one enjoys sitting and waiting for others to finish playing a hand so that the next one can be dealt, and now you don’t have to. Just because this is a necessity in a live setting doesn’t mean sites like FTP can’t take advantage of the magic of the interwebs to provide a better (or at least different) experience.

Rush Poker has a couple of implications, the most obvious of which are that you can play dramatically more hands per table-hour (though presumably fewer tables simultaneously) and that you have little opportunity to get reads on your opponents or build up a table dynamic with them.

I underestimated how significant this second factor was going to be. There’s a world of difference between a relative unknown and a complete unknown, and even in a few dozen hands I can get at least a bit of a baseline on how someone will play. Even at $.50/$1, the highest stakes at which Rush Poker is currently offered and where I am presumably far better than the general population, I found myself in surprisingly many spots where I wished I had at least a vague idea of whether someone was loose or tight, passive or aggressive.

That said, you will run into the same player more than once, especially since multi-tabling is possible. Over 444 hands at 6-max tables, the most I ever saw any single player was 8 times. At the time that I quit, there were 200 different players playing, and 355 “entries”, which I assume means that the average player was playing fewer than 2 tables at once.

As for getting more hands, I managed 444 on two tables in about an hour and a half. That comes out to 150 hands/table-hour, which is 2-3 times what I get at a normal 6-max table. That seems about right.

I lost three buy-ins in that 444 hands, but I also lost a pre-flop coin flip, flopped a set vs. a straight, flopped top pair and a flush draw vs. a set, rivered two pair vs. a set, and had someone river a straight flush on my full house, so overall I feel like I was in OK shape despite my experience in dealing with the fishies.

If you want some more thoughts on how to adapt to Rush Poker, Michael Craig made some interesting posts on the subject recently on the Full Tilt blog.

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Liv Boeree Pictures in Maxim Magazine

I had the pleasure of playing with Liv Boeree in the 2008 WSOP, spent basically an entire day sitting on her immediate left. Poker media are generally pretty quick to promote anyone who can handle chips and has two X-chromosomes as both ravishing and a competent card player, and it’s a nice change of pace to meet a woman who actually fits the bill. She was certainly easier on the eyes than most of the greasy, overweight slobs I find myself staring down (and yes, I’m aware that I could fairly be described as a greasy, overweight slob myself- thanks for pointing it out, though).

That said, I don’t think this Maxim spread is particularly flattering to her. I bet you’ll look anyway though. Just be warned- I chose a pretty tame one for the blog, but obviously some of the pictures are Not Suitable For Work. Oh, and thanks to Wicked Chops Poker for first bringing my attention to Liv Boeree’s photos. If you weren’t satisfied with these pictures, they’ve got quite a few more of other women, most of whom have no connection whatsoever to poker. You’re welcome.

If Ever There Was a Spot to Fold Bottom Set for 109 BBs…

No-Limit Hold’em, $50.00 BB (9 handed) - Hold’em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

UTG+1 ($3450)
MP1 ($5000)
MP2 ($5422)
MP3 ($4925)
CO ($3521)
Button ($9048)
SB ($4750)
BB ($8768)
Hero (UTG) ($5763)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 8, 8
Hero calls $50, UTG+1 calls $50, 1 fold, MP2 calls $50, 1 fold, CO calls $50, 1 fold, SB calls $25, BB checks

Flop: ($300) A, 8, 4 (6 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $222, UTG+1 calls $222, MP2 calls $222, CO calls $222, 2 folds

Turn: ($1188) 3 (4 players)
Hero bets $899, UTG+1 calls $899, MP2 raises $5150 (All-In), 1 fold, Hero raises $4592 (All-In), 1 fold

River: ($12387) 10 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: $12387

Results:
Hero had 8, 8 (three of a kind, eights).
MP2 had 4, 4 (three of a kind, fours).
Outcome: Hero won $12725

This is a pretty unique spot where there’s just no way bottom set is good. I bet into five players on a super-dry Ace-high flop. After getting called in three spots, including by CO, who is a fish who is not going to let go of any Ace without a fight, I bet out again on the turn. Not only that, but UTG+1, who’s a pretty decent player, is showing a ton of strength by calling twice. It’s awfully tough to put all three of us on hands that are losing to 44, and even harder to come up with worse hands that are calling a shove.

There are three Aces, three 8’s, and one 4 unaccounted for (from his perspective). Best case scenario, the fish has a bare Ace, so that leaves two Aces unaccounted for. If neither UTG+1 nor I has a set, then we must both have Aces Up. It’s pretty unlikely for either of us to have A8o or A4o, so there aren’t too many combinations of A8s or A4s for us to have (As4s, Ad8d, As8s). Weigh that against three possible combos of 88 that any of us could have and one combo of AA that I could have (since we’re assuming CO has an Ace in his hand).

On top of that, it would be pretty bad for either of us to call his shove with two pair (except maybe Ad8d, which also a flush draw), and there really aren’t draws to protect against, so while I think he may be able to fold the turn, I definitely think shoving is bad.

The Racial Politics of The Blind Side

I've been vaguely aware of both the plot of The Blind Side(homeless black teenager from broken family is adopted by wealthy white family and goes on to play pro football) and the critiques of its racial politics for some time, and despite its unexpected box office success, I've had little desire to see it. I'm currently in Florida visiting my grandmother, though, and she wanted to see The Blind Side, so see The Blind Side we did.

I don't much care for Sandra Bullock, but she's exactly as good as everyone says she is as the loving, no-nonsense matriarch of a wealthy Southern family. And the movie in general is pretty much what you'd expect: cutesy, saccharine, uplifting, and formulaic. I's good for what it is though, with a remarkable story, quick pace, witty dialogue, and genuinely likable characters.

As for the film's racial politics, I can't say that I entirely agree with most of the critiques I've seen, though I do have a few of my own. A. O. Scott's review for the New York Times encapsulates the most common criticism of Blind Side:

To the extent that Michael represents a social problem (or maybe a whole bunch of them, including poverty, drug addiction and family dysfunction), the solution depicted is individual, charitable and, at least implicitly, faith based.

The fundamental problem with this critiques is that it expects entirely too much from a movie and from an individual. Granted there is a temptation to read more into it, but The Blind Side is a small movie about one person and one family. It is not a polemic, and it is not an overtly political documentary. It does not explicitly advocate anything. It simply tells the story of one extraordinary woman who welcomed a complete stranger into her home and loved and cared him as her own son.

I don't think the film has to be interpreted as a statement about either the causes or or the solutions to social problems like poverty and drug-addiction, though I would certainly disagree with anyone who maintains that private charity is a sufficient solution. Granted, The Blind Side is all but silent regarding the circumstances of Michael's youth and the complex web of forces, both social and individual, that dooms so many young men to the violent death that Bullock's character, Leigh Anne Tuohy, realizes, via internal monologue voiceover, could easily have been the fate of her adopted son. But I don't think that every artist who touches on a theme like poverty is obligated to explore every facet of the problem and offer a solution, and in fact I think all but the best art does well to steer clear of such overt politicism.

I also don't think that Tuohy's behavior is charity, precisely. Charity is fundamentally an economic relationship, not an emotional one. The vast majority of charitable dollars given in the US are donated in a disconnected way. People give money either directly to a panhandler they barely know and will probably never see again, or indirectly through a large organization that pools and distributes their money, again almost always to people they do not know and will never meet. Motivations for charity are varied and complex. They usually include good will, but they rarely include love, at least not the kind of emotional, interpersonal love that a mother has for a son.

This is the real limitation of charity, the reason why the critics rightfully consider it an insufficient solution. People will give enough to alleviate immediate suffering, but rarely enough to prevent future suffering or change underlying conditions. It is all well and good for the relatively wealthy to give their excess, to give what they have above and beyond what they feel they need, but few are willing to sacrifice for strangers in the ways that they would for their own children.

This is the remarkable thing that Leigh Anne Tuohy did, and while it is not a large-scale solution, it is as much as many individuals can accomplish and more than most, critics of The Blind Side included, will ever do. Private action is absolutely not a substitute for government action and institutional change, but too many people use their inability to accomplish the latter as an excuse not to attempt the former.

My own problem with the Blind Side is that it makes everything look so easy. This is both an artistic problem and a political one. As a film, Blind Side lacked conflict. I'm struggling to remember a single problem that occurred that wasn't resolved within minutes of its introduction, and I couldn't tell you what the central conflict of the film was supposed to be.

This is a political problem because Michael is too easy. He is a perfect son, easy to get along with and unfailingly polite and lovable from the moment the Tuohy's take him in. Michael is easy to love, and this is what makes The Blind Side's message about the power of love so fundamentally weak. There are plenty of endangered children who have as much potential as Michael, who are as deserving of love and opportunity as Michael, but who are not such easy children. They fight, they steal, they use drugs, they join gangs. They need loving, caring adults in their lives at least as much as a "gentle giant" like Michael does, but they have far more trouble finding the support that they need.

I's certainly unfair to compare a mainstream Hollywood production to a great American novel, but I'm reminded of Richard Wright's introduction to his novel Native Son. Wright, who had previously written Black Boy, an autobiography about his own childhood experiences with poverty, racism, and hunger, chose a far more controversial protagonist for Native Son.
The fictional Bigger Thomas is a thug, a thief, a murderer, and a rapist. Wright does not ask us to love him, but he does ask us to understand him and to see him as both a villain and a victim.

Wright realized, after Black Boy, that he needed to give his audience a challenge. Wright himself was too easy a young man to sympathize with. Bigger Thomas forces us to sympathize with a far less sympathetic character, and in so doing, makes a far stronger statement about the effects of racism and poverty.

The best indication that The Blind Side doesn't advocate private charity as the be-all and end-call to social problems is that this solution is most explicitly proposed by Leigh Anne's predictably patronizing and snobby country club friends, who seem willing enough to donate and host fundraisers if Leigh Anne is organizing a "Project for the Projects." What these ladies lack is genuine concern of the sort that would compel them to pursue meaningful change or follow through on such an initiative. While it would have been nice to see Leigh Anne radicalized by her relationship with Michael, ready to invest her considerable resources in a larger-scale solution, her life and story are still an inspiring example of the love that is necessary to accomplish real social change.

What Leigh Anne will not accept for Michael, no parent, white or black, should accept for any child, white or black: no roof over his head, deteriorating clothes, ignorant teachers, and threats from drug dealers.  Yet these are exactly the outcomes that millions of American parents, white and black, would never tolerate for their own children but are willing enough to accept for other people's children. Real improvements for children with troubled lives is going to require the relatively privileged to extend their circle of moral concern to include more than their immediate families, to care enough about all children, even and especially the most difficult cases, to protect and fight for them the way Leigh Anne does for Michael.

The Best Thing About Live Cash Games

Here's a few miscellaneous hands I made notes to post about. These first two were from my first night here, at $5/$10 NLHE, and the last one was from today in a pretty nitty $10/$25 game with a couple tough players.

River Check-Raise

Two limpers, I complete J6s in the SB, BB checks. Flop KJ6, all diamonds. I bet $35, the first limper raises to $75, the other players fold, and I call.

Turn 5d, we both check.

River Jc, I check, he bets $150, I raise to $550, he pays me off.

Slowishroll

Two limpers, I raise to $65 with 88 in MP and get 3 calls. Flop 458 rainbow, I bet $200 into a $275 pot, one of the limpers calls and the others fold.

Turn J, he check-calls $400.

River is an offsuit 3, and he open shoves about $1500. I actually thought for a while before calling here just because I couldn't figure out what he had. With two pair or a lower set, I'd expect him to have raised by now for fear of letting a four-straight show on the board. There also weren't many draws to speak of that he could have missed and would now be turning into a bluff. I kind of felt like 76 was his single most likely holding, but I certainly wasn't sure enough that he couldn't have a lower set or a random bluff or something. I called and he indicated for me to show first, basically saying he was bluffing, and he mucked when I showed.

The whole table gave me shit for not snap-calling, but I don't regret thinking it through. It was such a weird spot for him to shove, and it was a 150BB decision, so I'm not going to apologize for taking my time even with a strong hand.

Oh, OK- That Works

This one was at 10/25. I open to $100 with KJo in MP. Action folds to the BB, who is the weakest player at the table, a white guy in his late 50's or early 60's who played pretty loose-passive relative to the rest of the table. He looked like he wanted to call before even looking at his cards, and sure enough he tossed in three more green chips pretty quickly.

Flop comes 952r. He checks, I bet $125, he calls very quickly and nonchalantly.

Turn 2. He checks, and I feel like he probably just has A-high here (and not AK, so my outs are usually live), so I bet $325. He again calls quickly.

River Q, and I give up and I tell him that a pair is good. He tables KT. Ship it.

The Best Thing About Live Cash Games

You get to see and hold your winnings!

The Babboon and the Grasshopper

Ever since reading Tommy Angelo's excellent Elements of Poker, I've been working on keeping calm and focused while playing live poker. This is no mean feat: the pace is glacial and the company grating. There are a million reasons to zone out, wander around, or get annoyed with someone. My mother, a yoga instructor, recently gave me a Thich Nhat Hanh book, and that, combined with Angelo's advice, which itself draws largely on the famous Buddhist scholar, gave me some things to work on at the table. Specifically, both advise focusing on your breathing as a way to stay calm and conscious in the present moment.

As I say, I've been working on this for a while, and on Day 1 of the PCA, I felt like I was doing it about as well as I ever have. I was a statue, sitting placidly at the table, back straight, hands in my lap, slowly and deliberately breathing in and out.

With about two hours left in the day, my original table broke, and I was moved across the room to meet a new group of players. I walked deliberately but unhurriedly across the conference center floor to take my new seat. Two seats to my right was a heavy-set kid with greasy hair, an unkempt beard, a backwards ballcap, and a basketball jersey stretched out over his considerable gut. He was loudly recounting the hand that had vacated the seat I now occupied, in which the European kid to my left (who spoke barely a word of English to defend himself) got it all in with AK in a three-way pot and busted ADZ, who'd held KK. The big hairball seemed to think this was an awful play and was telling everyone who would listen about it, though as best I could tell he'd not actually been involved in the hand himself.

I was still unracking my chips when the dealer said something about a player mucking his cards. Players don't muck cards. Dealers muck cards. Players discard cards, and then dealers muck them, the shaggy sports fan corrected her, loudly and matter-of-factly. She nodded in acknowledgment, but he insisted on explaining the distinction several more times, in several different ways. I had finished unracking and was just sitting there, not reacting to this at all or even looking at the downy detractor, but taking it all in nonetheless. Annoyance slowly crept across the dealer's face as the guy continued to bloviate, but she said nothing, and neither did anyone else.

About ten minutes passed, most of which was to the tune of the meatbag's constant rambling. He talked virtually nonstop, to no one in particular, about things going on in the room and hands he'd seen, always returning to this AK vs KK situation with the Euro-kid on my left. I ignored it all, though, barely playing a hand, just breathing and looking and listening and sitting upright quietly and attentively.

So I'm just sitting there, I'm a rock, so fucking impassive that the Buddha would shit himself with shame to see me, when this same loudmouth recounts some story and specifically refers to mucking his cards. He finishes the anecdote, with none of the rest of us saying anything for fear of giving the impression that we're paying attention or want him to continue. I let a couple seconds of silence go by, still stone-faced and unmoving, and then quietly say, never looking at him or even turning my head, Players don't muck cards.

Only the people on our half of the table could hear me, but several of them chuckled. He's right, Hairy assured them. He's making fun of me, but he's absolutely right. I didn't acknowledge him or anyone else, didn't crack a smile or in any way show pleasure at the reception my needling had received. I couldn't help but notice the dealer beaming her appreciation at me, like she wanted to have her way with me right there on the table. But I was all business, dark shades and brim pulled low. No time for that now, ma'am.

About half an hour goes by without me saying anything to Chewbacca or anyone else. He'd actually kind of calmed down. Then a short stacked player moved all in for only two times the blind. After some consideration, Sasquatch flat called. I had 65o in the small blind and considered making a move. Slowly my eyes took in the short stack and then the caller, who was staring back at me knowingly. I mucked (sorry, discarded), the European who'd been the subject of so much derision called, and the big blind called.

The flop came QJ2, all clubs. It checked around to Tubby, who bet 3K. His fishy friend called, and the big blind folded. The turn was blank, and they checked it through. The river was an offsuit T, and now Euroboy quickly threw 11K into the pot in what could only be a show of extreme strength. I expected to see a straight or better.

The portly pontificator snap-called and discarded angrily when the kid tabled 74cc for a flush. You're the best. You're too good, the guy began his berating, standing up from the table. I should have had you crushed on that flop. How do you do it? How do I not have you crushed on that flop? I have fucking Kings with a club, and you flop a flush. Unfuckingbelievable. The one time I try to trap. I'm trying to induce a back-raise from this guy, he points over at me with one meaty paw.

Growing red in the face, he was beginning to look more and more like a primate. I was severely tempted to tell him that I'm at least as likely to play back at an isolation raise as at a flat call, maybe even moreso, but I just sat placidly, eyes forward. I couldn't have gotten a word in anyway.

He's really gone now, foaming at the mouth, eyes wild, speckles of saliva glistening in his beard as he snarls and rages. The Eurolucksack understands barely a word of it but seems to find it just as amusing as I do.

I'm looking now for opportunities to get involved with this guy, who I'm sure is in spewbot mode. At 300/600/75, I open to 1800 UTG with ATo. He makes it 4200 from the SB, and I can't resist the pot odds. Flop is 855 with two diamonds (I have none), and we both check. Turn is the Qd, and he checks again. I toss a little T4400 underbet out there, ready to bet 15K on the river if called. He ponders for a while and raises to about 16K, and I, with just a hint of a contented smile on my face, quickly fold.

He fires his cards angrily into the muck, and, huffing and puffing, stares daggers at me. After letting him fume for a few seconds, I ask, with genuine concern, What's the matter? It's the longest phrase I'll utter to him all day.

Somewhat surprised by my verbacity, he shakes his head confusedly for a moment and explains, Just... not happy with the result of the hand. I mean, I won it, but... I mean, I guess you didn't have anything... I can't give you a free card though... versus your range... you could have the Ace of diamonds... he fumbles some more, throwing around some disjointed jargon and generally failing to make much sense.

A few minutes later, he asks me if I'll tell him what I had when we're done for the night. I turn to look him in the eye, shake my head slightly, then face front and resume my thousand-yard stare. You won't tell me? No? We can't share stories at the end of the day? It's not like we're going to play together tomorrow, bro. I continue to stare straight ahead and give him a little half shrug.

He spends the rest of the night fuming, ostensibly at the Euro but really I think at himself, while I take measured in-breaths and out-breaths. Then I get into my big pot at the end of the night, where I'm all-in with 66 on a 5c6c8d flop versus 74 and AcJc and eventually lose my ass to the straight. He oohs and aahs for a while over the size of the pot, and then starts giving his take on it. Wow... I mean, wow. Set, straight, nut flush draw... nothing anyone can do there. No one can get away from it... he has to call, referring here to his favorite Eurokid. Maybe you can get away from it? he looks at me, then corrects himself, No, no, you can't fold.

He says this last like he's reassuring me. Are you sure? Are you sure I can't fold? You know I'm hugely pot stuck? Do you get that? Do you get that I'm that I'm (equity wise) a near favorite to win it, you FUCKING BABOON?!?!?!?