My First Celebrity Tournament

Dealing a celebrity tournament is a lot like dealing a non-celebrity tournament, except that a) Everywhere you look are the most beautiful-looking people you've ever seen; b) The game is slowed down a lot by these beautiful-looking people distracting the celebrity players by approaching them for chit-chat and the celebrities being unable to ignore them, due to their being so damn beautiful-looking. So some extra patience is required.

This was my takeaway from my first celeb tournament, "Get Lucky for Lupus", held earlier this month on the top floor of the swanky Andaz Hotel on the Sunset Strip. The event's website will presumably post some photos soon, at least some of which will contain a cameo by yours truly, but in the meantime, I managed to snap a few myself during my break.

Here's the table I'd just spent the first few rounds dealing:



The guy with his hand to his temple is Jesse Spencer, who plays Dr. Chase on "House", one of the few TV shows I actually watch with any regularity. On the far right, leaning back, is Peter Jacobson, who plays Dr. Taub, and - trivia note for your Chicagoans - is also the son of legendary CBS news anchor Walter Jacobson.



The guy giving the thumbs-up was probably the most popular guy at the table among the BP's (a few of which can be seen in the background). I had no idea who he was, but found out later that he was Bob "The Bachelor" Guiney. The photo doesn't really do justice to the lovely panoramic view of LA we had. Nice reflection of the flash in the window, though, innit?



I literally did not recognize any of the women there, not even women who I SHOULD have recognized, like Tia Carrere, of whom my "Wayne's World" memories still linger. The blonde in this photo is Torrie Wilson, who I believe has something to do with pro wrestling. The Asian guy on the far right is James Kyson Lee from "Heroes". Dealing, incidentally, is Mike Curley, one of my instructors at the casino school.

Casino School

This was my Q&A post about Casino School, which I graduated two months later. Feel free to ask any questions I didn't answer.

Hey, everyone...

So obviously I haven't posted in a while, largely due to being busy with a new script and going to poker dealer school, so I'm going to take advantage of this lull of a weekend and blather a bit starting with this handy FAQ on what the hell I'm doing in casino school.

Why casino school?

Part and parcel with being a screenwriter out here is finding alternative means of income during the inevitable dry spells. For me, that's been mostly office jobs, many of them temporary, which is to say, erratic, lacking in benefits, modestly salaried, and frequently just sort of awful, and in the last couple years, few things could cheer me up from the doldrums such jobs would cause more effectively than poker. So the fact that it took this long to occur to me to make poker my day job is really quite sad, but anyway, I had the belated epiphany back in March, just as my last, torturous office job was winding down, and here we are.

Also, it's a way to meet cocktail waitresses.

What do they teach at casino school?

There's a table games course (blackjack, baccarat, and pai gow) and the one I'm taking, the poker-dealer course, which covers Limit Hold 'em, Hi-Lo Omaha, Hi-Lo 7-card Stud, and Mexican Poker.

What in God's name is Mexican Poker?

Yeah, I hadn't heard of it either, but basically it's a 5-card stud game; the 8's, 9's and 10's aren't in the deck, you choose whether you want your card up or down on 3rd and 4th streets, there's a joker that's "wild" when dealt down and is either an Ace or completes a straight or flush when dealt up, a flush beats a full house--

Okay, stop, stop, stop, never mind. That sounds insane.

It is.

So how long is the course?

As long as it takes, which is to say that it's not really a "course" in the sense of there being "classes" to attend. Once you've learned the mechanics (shuffling, dealing, chip-cutting, etc.) and passed the written test, you're ready to start dealing Hold 'em (the students all take turns "shilling" for each other). Then when you're ready, they give you a "pre-audition", where basically you deal for 20 minutes and try not to screw up at all. Pass that, and you move on to the next game. Pass all four games, then you take the final, which is one hand of each game. Pass that, and you're ready to pound the pavement with your certificate.

Okay...So how long does all THAT take?

It varies, but if you're there every weekday and get in 3-4 "downs" (20 minute segments) per day, you're probably looking at 2-3 months, depending on how many times you screw up your tests.

So where are you now in the class?

I just passed Hold 'em and am on the verge of passing Stud, so I think I'm looking at another 4-6 weeks or so, provided that I don't botch the remaining tests as many times as I botched the Hold 'em.

How many--

Move on.

Does all this dealing make you a better poker player?

I'm hoping it will eventually, but I wouldn't say it has yet, because the "shilled" games we play at the school does not remotely resemble how real games go, since a) We're not playing for real money, and b) Most players stay all the way to the end whether they have a hand or not (sometimes they don't even look at their hands), so the dealer can practice reading hands.

What's the hardest thing about dealing?

Well, creating side pots and learning the half-bet rule both take some time, but once you get those down, the hardest part is remembering to "clear" one's hands (i.e., briefly turning the hand palm up, so the ceiling camera sees it) EVERY DAMN TIME you touch the chips. Seriously, that's an exhausting habit to form. But I suspect this will be child's play compared to dealing with actual casino patrons in varying degrees of inebriation.

Hey, why are so many dealers Asian?

I have no idea. The students at the school are an eclectic mix of races and ages (not genders, though...It's mostly guys.), but yeah, when I head down the block to Hawaiian Gardens after school, the dealers are almost entirely Asian. (So I figure I'll have the "token" thing going for me...)

How much do dealers make?

It's mostly tips, but getting tipped every hand adds up; I'm told a full-time casino dealer makes somewhere in the $50-70K range, which beats those horrendous temp jobs AND comes with benefits.

Cool. Well, good luck with it.

(takes tip, taps it on the table)

Thank you, sir!

Pre-Flop Raises, continued

ME:

Okay, let's talk 6-3 suited (just to continue with your example).

According to my poker simulator, this is a hand that wins...

Against 9 opponents, 10% of the time;
Against 5 opponents, 13.5% of the time;
Against 2 opponents, 25% of the time.

For purposes of comparison, 7-2 offsuit, the worst hand of all, wins...

Against 9 opponents, 4% of the time;
Against 5 opponents, 7.5% of the time;
Against 2 opponents, 19% of the time.

So 6-3 suited is, depending on amount of opponents, somewhere between slightly stronger than and twice as strong as the worst hand you could have. This is not to criticize it, just to clarify where we are on the hand scale.

Okay. So to review, the arguments for PFR'ing with it are:

1. Everyone could fold, and you win the hand right there, pre-flop.

Well, obviously, that's an argument for PFR'ing with ANY hand. Question is, how often will this happen. Naturally, a lot depends on the amount of players and how tight they are, but by and large, my observation is that at the level of play we're at, a) there aren't a whole lot of pre-flop walks, and b) when they do happen, it's usually because someone made a monstrous raise like all-in because they have Jacks or something and don't want to take any chances of losing the hand.

But by and large, a 3-4x the BB PFR will get at least one caller, sometimes several. Let's face it, people like to see flops, especially when the stakes are as relatively low as our games are. And on top of that, not only are you going to get callers most of the time, but occasionally you'll even get a re-raiser. What then? Call (or re-raise) the re-raise? Pretty ballsy and not likely to work out. Fold? Probably the wisest move, and there go a few wasted BB's. So...a) doesn't do much for me. But let's look at...

b) The board hits your hand, and people don't expect it (because you PFR'd, so they assume you have something stronger than 6-3 suited).

Well, sure, we love that. But...

1. How often does that happen?

As said above, this is a winning hand (betting and everything else aside) 25% of the time (or in pessimist terms, a losing hand 75% of the time) against a mere two opponents. And that's IF you hang in there all the way to the river. How often does it SEEM like a potentially winning hand on the flop, i.e., how often would you like the flop enough to call a bet on it? Probably not too often.

And sure, if you don't hit it, you could continuation bet it, but that only works out if i) Everybody folds (so you don't win much) or ii) You hit your hand on the turn and/or river (which won't happen much).

So okay, I'll concede that when this hand DOES hit for you, it will probably pay off big...though again, certainly not necessarily. If I called your PFR with, say, A-Q, and a rag flop comes, I'm probably going to let you bet on it, and if you do, I probably fold. Done and done.

So now we're talking about a hand that a) Doesn't win much, b) The few times it does, it pays off big SOME of the time. Does that make it worth PFR'ing?

Well, that brings us to: What's the advantage of PFR'ing with it over just calling with it? Let's explore that option:

a) If you just call with it, you still have the mystery on your side. If you don't pre-flop raise much, no one will really know WHAT you have on any given hand. So not much advantage either way there.

b) Sure, if you PFR and get a caller or two and hit your hand, the pot will be bigger, but on the other hand, if you don't PFR, you're more likely to have MORE callers, so that's that many more people that you've got a great hand hidden from after the flop. One guy could have Jacks, one guy a flush draw, one guy top pair or even two pair, etc. So again, I'd call that a push.

c) The fact of the matter remains, it's a relatively weak hand, so what it boils down to: Most of the time, calling with it is a waste of a BB, and PFR'ing with it is a waste of a few BB's.

Again, not making the argument that you should NEVER pre-flop raise with it; clearly it's worked out for you enough for you to have some fondness for it. Point is, the arguments for calling with it don't really suffer in comparison, and the arguments AGAINST pfr'ing with it instead of calling have some weight. On balance, I'd say it's the sort of hand you PFR with once in a while, just to mix things up, and depending on the circumstances.

The arguments for PFR'ing with Jacks and Queens are a bit stronger; you PFR when you don't want to see a flop, but IF you do, you're still probably in pretty good shape.

DOUG EBOCH:

I would take issue with the assumption that if you PFR you have to make the continuation bet when you don't hit. One of the reasons to play low suited connectors and low pairs is they're supposed to be easy to get away from. If you play 3-3 and get nothing but over cards, why make the continuation? That to me is the pointless move... unless you've put an opponent on a specific hand (perhaps by reaction to PFR) that you think you can beat or push him off of.

Where I do like a simple call of the BB is in late position. That's because one of the problems is in most of the games I play you'll rarely get a chance to see a flop with a simple call of the BB. If you're on the button and nobody's raised you might have an opportunity. But if you're in early position and you don't raise, what do yo do when someone else raises 3xBB? If you have 9's do you re-raise? Call? What about low suited connectors or low pairs? If you fold you've just thrown away some money. So you've completely defeated your attempt to see the flop cheap. Sometimes making the raise yourself means others will only call and then you're the one in the driver's seat.

At which point, the topic morphed into continuation bets, which I'll start a new thread about soon.

Feel free to post your own thoughts below and continue this scintillating chat...

Pre-Flop Raises

Following are the highlights of a conversation from last summer about one of the more contentious issues in Hold 'em, the Pre-Flop Raise (PFR). WARNING: It gets kinda wonky.

Some good arguments in favor, but on the whole, I'm still against 'em.

ME:

When I first started playing, I rarely did them, did pretty well for a beginner.

Then: Read a bunch books, watched the videos, started following the pros' advice, raised pre-flop whenever the experts deemed appropriate, followed them up with continuation bets if need be...

Game went straight down the toilet.

All but cut the PFR's and am doing a lot better now (particularly in tourneys). The more I think about them, the less sense they make to me. I could expand on this and probably will in the near future, but for now I'll just put the question out there for my fellow poker players:

Do they work for you, or am I right in feeling like they kinda suck?

DOUG EBOCH:

I think they're needed when you have a big hand to get the riff raff out. I was in a tournament at Hollywood Park. I had 2-5 in the big blind. The player under the gun (who had just lost a big pot) called. Three other callers. So I of course checked my option.

Flop came A-3-4 giving me a straight nobody could have predicted. The player under the gun went all in. He had pocket aces. I knocked him out of the tournament and if he'd made even a moderate raise I would have folded pre-flop.

If you've got a big hand I don't think you want to allow a bunch of limpers in. Too easy to lose the nest egg!

MIKE BAUM:

I just don't think the 3x big blind is always effective in doing what it's meant to do -- and as Doug said, get the riff raff out. But generally speaking, the pre-flop raise is a good thing. But like anything else, it's all situational and position.

ME:

To be clear, I'm not saying it's NEVER a good thing to do, just that on balance, it probably loses more money than it wins. You're putting at least 3x the big blind in on a hand that could easily come up zilch on the flop, and then when it does, the onus will be on you to put in even MORE money (4 or 4 more BB's at least) for a continuation bet, just so it's not obvious that you didn't hit the flop...except lots of players will suspect it IS a continuation bet, so you very well might not scare anybody out, and now you've put in 7-8 Big Blinds on a completely shitty hand. And even if you DO hit the flop, you won't necessarily make much money (having pre-flop raised makes it a lot easier for the others to put you on a hand), and could even lose a big stack, depending how things go down.

The only three really strong scenarios for pre-flop raising (barring crazy-ass shit going down) are: a) Everyone folds to you pre-flop...So you won a few blinds at most; b) You get some callers, you miss the flop, you make a continuation bet, and everyone folds...so you won a few blinds at most; or c) You hit your hand really strongly on the flop, and someone else hits it slightly less strongly and doesn't put you on your hand. Which is i) infrequent, and ii) just as likely to win you a nice-sized pot even if you DIDN'T raise pre-flop.

Whereas...

If you generally call the BB (or call a raise, if your hand's good enough), a) Putting you on a hand is much harder, b) You've got a lot less on the line, and c) The onus is NOT on you to bet the flop. If you hit the flop, great: Let someone ELSE bet it, and you call or raise, and no one will be able to tell what you have. If you miss it, big deal, so you fold.

I guess my attitude toward hands have kind become like De Niro's in "Heat"; always be able to walk away. Much harder to do if you've PFR'd, and even harder if you've continued.

VAUGHAN:

First of all, I don't think you can talk about PFR's in one context, because there is position to consider, and quality of the hand itself. For example, PFRs with QQ and JJ is different than PFR with 6-3 suited, and the texture of each is different with position.

So, given all that, I'm going to use the latter here - and talk about 6-3 suited, which is one of my favorites, for purely random luck of draw reasons. I could easily be talking about 8-7, 5-2 or whatever - but this is essentially all small suited connectors - that have the advantage of probably being live cards, but the disadvantage of being of little equity if it comes to a high card showdown, or even pair v pair.

Now then, it's way different to do a PFR with these cards in first position than on the button, but for the moment, I'll ignore that, and we'll just talk about the PFR itself. The goal of the PFR in this case is misdirection. By raising with 8-7 suited, you are giving yourself 2 chances to win. a) everyone folds. b) you hit something people can't see. I think you've been arguing strongly against a), but neglecting how much money b) can net you over the long run. Your argument that you would get those big pots either way is not necessarily true. If you raise with 5-2, presumably the only callers you get are serious ones. If you limp with it, and hit your big flop, people may leave more often than not. With PFR, You'll crack Aces and get paid off big, or you'll lose 7x blinds and have to run away. Over the long run, the hidden stealth of your raise with low cards pays for all the run ins with big cards or misses.

And then there is texture to consider on the flop - this is key. This is everything. You don't have to continuation bet - you can play it however you need to. You can get away from 6-7. Or you can can raise big and represent. Now if the texture of the board is a single high card, like an A, then you can use that. If you get called by a pair of 9s in late position or a loose player playing Q10, and the flop comes with an Ace or a King - then your continuation bet looks solid. How can they call you? And if they do, can they really call your bullet fired on the turn? No. If the board comes all low cards, or suits not related to you, and they fire back - you can let go. The PFR is not the death of you at all - it is one aspect of the texture.

Now I have testing the PFR many times with 6-3 suited, trust me. I have played tourneys where I did and didn't do it. I have had most success by raising it - mostly choosing button late position so that, like I said, ppl fold or I can represent a big hand if I don't hit my suit or straight. However, every once and awhile, I have limped with it, mostly in the BB or SB, and I have hit big - and seen the side of the argument you are talking about. Wow - if I can hit big like that, why waste 3x all the time - just pay 1x and see where it gets me. Because, playing 1x calling all the time will get no one to fold, and then your wimpy hand must have equity to beat high card, which you know it does not. Then how much money do you have to spend to win that pot? Those 1x calls are throwing money away when we talk about PFR with small connectors.

If you raise 3x in late position with the small connectors, I guarantee you will make more, or lose less (both key in poker) than doing the 1x call all the time.

Continued in next post...

Welcome!

Hey, everyone!

Welcome to The Chip Chap's blog!

I'm going to start with some poker-related material I posted on a now-defunct blog, just to get the ball rolling, and then start posting the new stuff.

Enjoy...