The best opponent

I played $3/$6 at Palace last Saturday night, and doubled my $100 buy-in in three hours. A large chunk of this change came from a guy in seat 2, two seats to my right. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was confused about what drink the waitress had brought him, up until the point where the waitress realized how inebriated he was, and politely declined to serve him.

He left the table for a few minutes, and when he returned he staggered over one of the low rolling tables, splashing seat 1's drink. Ten minutes later, I hit an ace-high flush on the turn, raised and capped the pot against him, and he doesn't slow down on the river; I extract another $24 from him. He's frustrated after I show the nuts to his ten-high flush, and I conciliatorily tell him, "that's tough; there no way you could have laid that down." I didn't mention to him that it should have been easy to stop raising, though.

He plays several more hands, including several against one of the best players in the room, someone who is always here, and loses almost every time. The drunk offhandedly calls him "Mr. Lucky", and the rest of the table chuckles. We rib Mr. Lucky for the next 30 minutes, until he leaves to go get some dinner. A few minutes later, I'm dealt J9 on the button. I check, and the flop is J♦T♦6♥. I bet to see who else has a jack, and nobody raises me. The turn is a 9♥, I bet again, and everyone folds, except for Mr. Tipsy, who raises me. I put him on a 1-in-5 flush draw, so re-raise him. He stares at me, I joke about Mr. Lucky leaving the table, and tell him that I'm trying to make myself the new lucky guy. He re-raises, capping it, and I call.

The river is a Q♠, making a possible straight if he has an 8 or a king. I slyly check, and he asks me if I'm going to check raise him if he bets. I'm non-committal, and he bets. "I call. Two pair." I show my jacks and sixes. He shows me his A6, for a pair of sixes. Awesome.

(Oh, and my four-figure check from PlayersOnly arrived this week. Awesome^2.)

An 827% player edge at the office Christmas party

The theme of the office Christmas party was "Vegas, Baby," and I looked forward to some fun times at the poker table. Everyone got somewhere around $200 in play money to start, and after folding pre-wager on a hand of indian poker, I got dealt K♥J♥ in Texas hold 'em, in the small blind. It was $20 to me, and I raised to $40. Six callers, and the flop comes QT3, with one heart. I bet $40 again, and get two callers. The turn is a second heart, so I've got 23 outs on the river. I bet another $40 and get called. The river's a brick, I check and fold. Dang.

The next game is five card draw, and after my draw, I push all in with a set of tens. I'm beat by a set of kings, and leave the table after only three hands.

Ryan tells me that the roulette wheel's got crazy-wrong odds, and gives me $100 to play it. "Bet red and black and you'll come out way ahead," he tells me.

The payout for any bet is 20-for-1, except that individual numbers pay 30-for-1. Betting $20 each on even, odd, black, red, high, low, and the 0/00 split is an average payout of $1157, and is typically $1200. The table ran slowly, particularly because they quickly were running out of $100 bills, but after four spins, I ended up with $4820. I "tipped" the croupier a fake $20, gave the fake $100 back to Ryan, and won first place in the office Vegas pool, bringing home a basket of fancy chocolates, candies, and ... pickled asparagus? Good times.

(Yes, it's sad that I'm calculating the edge for games at the office Christmas party. I'm quite the geek, I'm afraid.)

Matching Wednesday scaled way back

In my mailbox from PlayersOnly.com this morning:

Starting in December the Match200 bonus will not be awarded every Wednesday of the calendar month. Instead, you’ll be able to register for this promotion and receive 1 bonus per month per account or household.

I figured that Matching Wednesdays was too good to last for long (deposit $200, get $200 more, playthrough $4200, profit!). In the four Wednesdays I played, I was +$100, +$400, +$100, and +$22. Not bad for a few hours work. It's still a good deal at once a month, and it'll help my cash flow to be able to get the payout check before I have to make another deposit. My gambling funds envelope is looking awfully thin with four $200 payments removed.

On top of that, I've started playing in their poker room. They're either really bad players, or my loosening up of starting hands is paying off. I'm inclined to think it's bad play, though, because the first time I did really well at online poker, it was at another casino that had a poker table "on the side." Kind of like my adventure at the bowling alley in Wenatchee a couple of years ago. Or, as my cousin used to tell it, like Tower Lanes in Tacoma (amazing -- link still works!).

Vancouver (WA) Cache Machine

The planning for the Vancouver Cache Machine is underway. January 5... yay!

Lakewood gambling forum: a stacked deck

The president of the Tillicum/Woodbrook neighborhood association is on the record in favor of closing all six of Lakewood's casinos. So why, on December 4, are they hosting a forum on gambling at the Clover Park High School PAC? Well, they've invited the six casino managers, and 50 churches. Panelists will include one casino manager (who appears to only have tentatively accepted), the director of the Evergreen Council on Problem Gambling, and a professor from Whatcom county whose organization has recently sued the Nooksack tribe's casino (and lost).

I may show up to bring a little dissonance to their echo chamber. Their announcement is pasted below.

Following are the final confirmed panelists for the Lakewood citywide forum on gambling to be held Tuesday, December 4, 6:30-8:30 PM at the Performing Arts Center of Clover Park High School located at 11023 Gravelly Lake Drive, SW.

Moderator: Peter Callaghan, columnist and reporter with The (Tacoma) News Tribune.

Panelists:

• John Arbeeny, Lakewood City Councilman
• Pad Finnigan, Lakewood City Councilman
• Mike McKenzie, Lakewood Assistant Attorney
• Craig Mayberry, Lynden, WA - Professor at Whatcom Community College and at Western Washington University. Craig is spokesperson for the North County Alliance (NCCA) of Whatcom County that has a federal lawsuit against the recently opened Nooksack Tribe's casino. Craig believes "solutions to the social injustices (created by gambling) will only come through a grassroots effort by local communities to hold elected officials and government bureaucrats accountable to upholding the civil rights of all individuals, regardless of the amount of campaign contributions."
• Marueen Greeley, Executive Director of the Evergreen Council on Problem Gambling (formerly Washington Council on Problem Gambling).
• Gary Hess, Manager, Great American Casino (or possibly Greg Bakamis, former manager now in corporate office). One or the other is confirmed.

The format for the evening:

• 6:30-6:45 Doors open, seats taken and a presentation of the 2nd Annual Rudy 'Rebel' Baker Award for Outstanding Volunteer Community Service in the Tillicum/Woodbrook Neighborhood. As this forum is sponsored by the Tillicum/Woodbrook Neighborhood Association (TWNA); and as this forum replaces our regular monthly meeting for December, this is the one item of business we want to conduct the evening of the forum - Dec.4.
• 6:45-7:00 Introductions of Panelists by Peter Callaghan and two-minute statements by each panelist.
• 7:00-8:20 Interactions between panelists and audience, moderated by Peter Callaghan.
• 8:30 Adjourn

There is much at stake at this forum. Lakewood leads the state in card tables that, together with other gambling revenues, are slated to generate $2.36 million in taxes for the city next year. And a ban on gambling, supported by one of the largest churches in Lakewood, could mean the end of 800 jobs, "25 police officers, or requiring each city department to cut its budget by 10 percent" (TNT, 10/3/07).

General audience invitations have been sent to all six mini-casinos in Lakewood and to nearly 50 Lakewood churches. The PAC has a 600 seat capacity.

The Planning Advisory Board, that has been charged with the responsibility to study the impact of gambling in Lakewood with recommendations due in January, has also been invited as they have expressed the need for public input.

Thank you for your willingness to be a part of this citywide event, and for promoting it among those like-minded with your position.

Matching Wednesday

It's been a relatively gambling free few weeks, with one exception.

Three weeks ago a newsletter I subscribe to announced that PlayersOnly.com had a surprisingly good bonus offer. Deposit $200 on Wednesday, bet $200 on Wednesday, and you get a $200 bonus the next day. To collect the bonus, playthrough is 20x, or $4000.

So basically, deposit $200, get $200 more for free, and wager $4200. If you play blackjack, a 0.54% house edge game, you'll have an average loss to the house of $4200 x 0.0054, or $22.68, for an average net profit of $177.32. Even at $5 a hand, it goes fairly quickly.

The first week, I ended up $100; the second, $400 more.

PlayersOnly has the appearance of a fairly solid online casino. They've had glossy multi-page ads in Card Player and Poker News for several months now; they've gotten very little bad press on Casinomeister.com; and they have the recommendation of OBJ as one of the few sites that still take US players. I goofed on week 1 and deposited in their sister site, Sportsbook.com, and the withdrawal of a check for those funds arrived fairly quickly.

The only drawback -- any withdrawals after the first one each calendar month are assessed a $40 fee. Essentially, it's one withdrawal per month.

Happy Days match play: it's over!

It's a new month, and Happy Days changed their match play policy again. For November, you get a free match play when you bring in a toy for donation to a local charity. It's very altruistic on the casino's part, but the additional cost an effort of getting toys and bringing them in every day makes it hardly worth it. Essentially, the match play is over.

After going 38-39 in October (+$355), the grand total of my five months of match play: 184-194, +$1,825.

So... back to poker. I may have mentioned it before, but I've figured out what may have been the hole in my game. I've been playing ring games like tournament games, and playing too tight. I played for about an hour yesterday, and ended up $64, a lot of which was playing hands like A6 and then keeping with it after an ace flopped, or playing 32o from the small blind, getting in for cheap, and hitting two pair on the flop.

A lot of the hands I won were when my lone opponent folded on the river. They're on a lot more busted flush draws than I expected.

Beating the long timers

I went to Happy Days on Friday night to play the midnight tournament... except it turns out that there's no midnight tournaments on Friday nights. I sat down at a $3/$6 table instead, and was dealt QQ to start, netting $26 on my first hand. The guy to my left was a non-stop talker (the way I like it; it keeps the table happy and spending money).

Happy Days has a monthly freeroll where the players who have put in the most hours at the tables get to play. The chatterbox let me know that the guy two seats to my right was the current time leader, that the woman to his right was high on the list, and that chatterbox himself was also in the top 40.

In other words, he told me I was outmatched. In spite of that I played for 45 minutes, then got out when I was ahead $46. The most amusing hand was when I was dealt 87o, and the board came 4T9/7/9. I mistakenly thought the 7 was a 6, and played as if I had a straight on the turn. Oops. I continued the agressive play on the river, and the other players folded.

My final hand was TT, in middle position, and I raised pre-flop, of course. Chatterbox re-raised to $9, the two blinds called, I capped it at $12, and the other three players called me. The flop came 6QJ. It was checked to me, and I went in for $3. If they had a Q or J, I think they would have bet. Chatterbox called, making me think he might have a J. The turn was a 9, it was checked to me, I bet, chatterbox called, and the blinds folded. The river was nothing, and I bet. Chatterbox inexplicably called and showed a 7♠8♠. My tens won, I bailed out.

All politics are roadkill

I'm driving my daughter and her friend home from school, and in the lane to my right is an SUV with signs on it advocating Lisa Ikeda for city council, and also advertising Lisa's "Ponders Landmark Cafe." I smile a bit, because as I told my daughter, she's the candidate I voted for, in spite of her casino opposition, mainly because she makes a good french dip sandwich.

"That's her?" my daughter asked, excited.

I speed up a bit to get a better look.

"Yep. That's her." "Hit her!" comes the yell from the back seat.

"What?"

"Extra points!"

The Orion Experience

I'm at the Starbucks at 1600 Olive in Seattle, and The Orion Experience just finished their show. They're kind of a cross between Save Ferris and the latest Duran Duran album, and their ska-pop sound and high energy made for a great time. They're on the way back to NYC, but I hope they continue to do well and return to the area again.

I bought their album, Cosmicandy, and will be listening to it in the car on the way home.

Boom in the Valley

I've posted this to a friends-only mailing list, to the Tacoma LiveJournal community, and to the News Tribune's Lights & Sirens blog. Might as well finish up by posting the same thing here.

I was at the Target on Union, and left about 3:00. I saw the black clouds of smoke pouring into the sky. I got onto eastbound SR16, and traffic was slow, because the flames were very visible and shooting into the sky; the fire department obviously didn't have control over it yet. People were parked on the Sprague overpass watching it, and as I approached the Valley overpass, some people had pulled off to the side. The flames were shooting up well above the north side of the overpass, not gently licking the sky, but jetting up as if they were being accelerated out.

Halfway across the overpass, I turned off the radio and opened the window, because I wanted to see if I could hear the fire. As I rolled down the window, the whole north valley burst into an explosive fireball. It was bigger than most Hollywood type explosions, rocking the car. Maybe the equivalent of four simultaneous gas station explosions, if they were done in a movie.

My first thought was that I was glad the window was down, so that the pressure inside and outside the car was equalized, preventing the window from shattering. My next thought, as the wave of heat swept over, was that I needed to roll up the window to shield myself from the heat. That was a bit too late -- the left side of my face is still a little pinker than my right, and it still stings a tad.

My next thought was, "gee, I'd better swerve left a little bit to avoid that falling, flaming piece of scaffolding.". I did, but it clipped the car in the lane to my right. KING 5 news interviewed someone else who saw flying metal, too.

I kept driving off the viaduct, adrenaline coursing through me. It had gotten warm enough that I wanted to check my car's paint to see if it had gotten damaged.

KOMO radio reports that the explosion was felt a few miles away. I believe it. I'd be surprised if the Java Jive, south of the overpass, is still in one piece.

Awesome.

[Update: The News Tribune just posted some good video of the explosion. I think that was my car that crossed the SR-16 supports about three seconds pre-boom. Toasty.]

[Update 2: YouTube videos here and here.]

September match play results, four month summary

I went 23-34 (40%/60%) with Happy Days match play in September, netting +$135. The First Card Ace promo at Chips/Palace added another $75. Other lucky side bets came up with another 157.50. However, with my lousy poker play and unlucky craps and roulette play in Vegas, I ended up down $88.20 for the month.

Overall, June-September, match play has put me up +$1470, at 146-155. Good thing, because I gave back $678 of it, and $400 of that was at the poker tables. I guess I'm still trying to find the slow leak in my game.

Do you know where you are, sir?

Quick wrapup. Friday night at the Imperial Palace poker table, I dropped another $87. Saturday morning I stopped back in to the conference and the four people there plus the podcaster were obviusly very bored; one person left during the hour I was there; I got the impression that several of us were flitting in and out.

As my last poker game, I headed over to the $4/$8 game at the Bellagio. I knew I was overclassed, and was pleased to only drop $35. The best quote at the table, though, was when a new player sat down to the dealer's right, the table welcomed him by taking his first bets from him, and he asked "Is there a bad beat jackpot?" The dealer looked down and shook his head, and the guy to my right, a relative loud mouth, looked at him and jokingly said in a snooty voice, "Do you know where you are, sir? This is the Bellahh-gio." Heh.

I think I saw a recognizeable poker pro in the high limit room, but I can't place his name. It might have been Johnny Chan, but I don't think so. I'll look thru some back issues of Card Player and see if I can figure it out.

My poker money, on its way to Detroit

After extensive research and a bit of shoe leather, I found a 5 cent video poker machine with a theoretical 0.07% player edge. Problem is, the variance is about 70, so until you hit the $200 royal flush, you're gonna be very slowly losing money. I played the machine (at Hooters) for a little more than an hour, before boredom over took me, and I bailed out down $30.

I then went to Imperial Palace and played poker for another 90 minutes against a crew of six former college roommates from Detroit. It was a lot of fun, and I stayed even until the table started shrinking. I suck at short-handed play though, because I view it through the inaccurate perspective that fewer players increase the value of each hand (this is wrong) instead of the correct perspective to treat empty seats as folding players. I dropped $65 in about four orbitz before the four of us at the table broke it up.

I then went a little tilty, and tried to win some of it back at roulette, but dropped a Benjamin there.

I hit the craps table at Bill's Gambling House at lunch (I had a match play), and extrordinary bad luck dropped me down another $62.

I've read that the poker tables at Paris are very fishy, primarily because it's in the middle of the casino, which pulls in the gambling types. I'll hit that after the final session at the conference tonight. I'n going to bail out early. It's a live-fire network defense exercise, and when it started, I was one of about 60 observers. After they all discovered how exciting it is to watch people through CCTV as they maintain a network -- with no screenshots -- I'm one of the last six.

The PaulDotCom Security Podcast is recording, but that can only do so much to keep the interest up. I'm outta here.

Binion's

It's the birthplace of the WSOP, the largest poker room downtown, and it's... well, it's a bit of a dive.

It's got the wall of photos of champions, but it's not really a structural wall -- it's a half wall in the middle of the room, as you might find in a museum, for displaying artwork. The dealers are old and crusty, and all of them talk with various accents: Russian, southern, Spanish. The other players are either really good or first time players, there's no in-between, except me.

Three hours of play, and I bailed out as I fell back down to breaking even.

The most amusing thing to me is that I've got a WSOP game for the PC that came out in the early 90's, and this place feels like it was last modernized at about the same time. Sadly, I think only six of the three do2n tables were in use, and when I sat down at the table, I was the 4th player. Eventually, it filled up, but I suck in short handed games.

Still, it was cool to look down at T2o, think "the Doyle", and realize this was where it happened so many years ago.

I folded.

Ye Olde Poker Roome

I played $2/$4 limit at the Excalibur last night. Cheey, but not scary chezy like Circus Circus. Players were a little better than the Imperial Palace, but not great. It not only seemed like I was playing with the typical crowd from the Palace casino in Lakewood, but the guy two seats to my right was from Olympia, works as a car dealer in Shelton, and we chewed the fat about the poker rooms at Little Creek, Hawks Prairie, and Red Wind.

He says Red Wind is closing their poker room; I'm not surprised. The one time I tried to play there, they canceled their tourney due to lack of players.

I was down $50 in the first 90 minutes, but realized I was playing like I'd done a few months ago, loosened up a little, didn't bet suited aces as strongly, and ended up ahead $16 on the night.

Tonight, I'm bonus hunting my way to Binions. My table game luck has been mediocre, and I'm a few bucks down in spite of the bonuses. Hopefully, that'll turn around downtown.

Losing, Wynning

Emboldened by my $70 win at IP last night, I jumped in feet-first to the $4/$8 table at the Wynn poker room. It's by far the most elegant poker room I've ever been in. Cushy chairs, rich wood paneling and cabinetry, a hushed reverence among the players, and no posters for $1 Corona on the walls... Snazzy. The player to my left quietly muttered a f-bomb once when his flush got out flushed, and the dealer seemed seconds away from calling security before the guy apologized.

The woman to my right, although smokin' hot and posessing an equally hot James Bondian eastern European accent, got highly offended (in the way that high-maintenance people do, like Lovie on Gilligan's Island) when she called a bet on the river. The player who she called won, and when he remarked that he feared she'd had an ace, the dealer (correctly) pointed out that if she'd had an ace in this situation, she'd have raised him instead of calling. She didn't like this commentary on her game, "right in front of me, like I'm not here." The dealer apologized, although I think they were both out of line.

Oh, yeah. I dropped $100 over about 90 minutes. The players at this table were the best I've ever been up against (sorry, home game compatriots), and although I started playing premium hands only, then mixed it up when I thrice got my raises folded to (tiny pots, grrr), I frequently missed the flop; the cards weren't coming.

Finally, with only $18 left, I make a pure bluff stab at the pot pre-flop with a late position raise to $8 with 5h3c. Two other players call. The flop comes 2h4h6d. The big blind bets, I raise, he puts me all in, I call. The 7h and Th fall, and my flopped straight loses to his J high flush.

I think I'll head back to ghetto poker tomorrow. The elegance was nice, but its obviously better on the bankroll to play with folks who hope their pocket deuces will hold up.

Poker in Vegas: Imperial Palace

After class and they keynote last night, I went a-wandering. I intend to play poker at the two nicest rooms in Vegas (Bellagio and Wynn) and at the fishiest* (Excalibur and Imperial Palace).

I wandered past the Bellagio poker room (surprisingly small, about the same size as Muckleshoot), but I wanted to prove to myself that I could win in the fish rooms first. On the way to IP, I stopped at Treasure Island for a $5 bonus (lost net $10), then at the ghetto-on-the-strip Casino Royale (free $50 in very limited slot pay, net $0, as expected).

At IP, I started a $2/$4 limit table, and we played six, seven, or eight-handed for a couple hours. One guy had never played poker before; straightforward play worked against him.. The guy to my left always failed to hide his cards when he peeked at them; heads up, I checked and folded AJ against his 76 on a flop of 669. A couple sat down, but as they approached, the dealer remarked that they had raised every hand pre-flop the night before. When I got into pots with them at the table, it was with made hands, raising to get heads-up. Most to the time, they folded on the river. Net +$71.25 (yes, they used quarters for their 10% rake).

I then headed back to the hotel, dropping $30 on the roulette wheel at O'Sheas, another fine ghetto property.

* According to allvegaspoker.com

Forensics quote of the day

"A 9mm wouldn't work. You've gotta use a .357. Voice of experience." - Student in my forensics class, correcting the instructor's suggestion of the best, fastest way to destroy a hard drive.

Thank goodness for the $20 trick

I arrived at the SANS conference at Caesars' Palace at about 1:00 a.m., and used the $20 trick when I checked in, hoping for an upgrade. They upgraded me to a 900 sq. ft. suite for the first night, but I have to change rooms today. But what a room it was. Bigger than my first apartment, marble everything, a walk-in closet big enough to do ironing in, three thermostats for three different rooms (yes, one of the two bathrooms had its own thermostat)... wow.

They assure me that my new room is almost as nice, but has more techy stuff. It's a bit of a hassle, but I overheard another hotel guest complaining about the alternative he got. Caesars' overbooked: he was told to check into the Flamingo last night instead.

Followup: based on the price on the back of the door of my new room ($700 is listed for a $180 room) the room I was In last night was a $6400 room ($25,000 listed on the door).

(Jaw drops)

I doubt I'll ever see the inside of a room like that again.