I noticed an overwhelming number of people reading my last blog and they had many questions regarding the unbelievably bizarre ruling by the WSOP from my friend who nearly went bust in a hand vs. a player NOT even in the event.  So I thought I would post a follow up to expand on my story.  My friend John Mcclain (who I am co-backing for the WSOP events) sat down at a $1,500 WSOP Nl holdem event earlier in the series.  A man sat next to him and showed his ID and registration ticket to the dealer who then handed him a stack of chips.  My friend got involved in a reasonably sized pot that he lost to the man next to him.  That man then said, “Isn’t this great that we only have 5 people at the table for a shoot out event?”  John then said, “This ain’t a shoot out.” They called the floor and the guy thought the event was on one day when in fact it was on the next day and he sat at the table that was apparently assigned to him for the next day’s event.  No one caught the error when he sat down at the table and the man played the event thinking he was in the right event.

The floor talked about it and ruled that the man’s chips would be removed and he was told that he showed up on the wrong day.  So no harm no foul, unless you are John.  John then said, “Uh, we’ve got a problem here.  Is it possible that I can lose a chunk of my starting stack to a person NOT EVEN IN THE TOURNAMENT?”  The floor talked it over and came back to him saying that he “lost his chips in good faith” to the man.  Yeah that is no joke.  They really said he lost them “in good faith!”  My first reaction when John told me this story was what a crock that was.  Don’t we all register for WSOP events in “good faith” that we will actually be competing against people who are ACTUALLY REGISTERED FOR THE EVENT!  I just have no idea how anyone can actually put thought into that decision and come up with “Sir, you lost your chips on good faith to the man not event registered for the tournament.”  Seriously?

I guess next time the November 9 come back for the main event final table their fiercest competition may just come from the rail.  One of them might jump onto the table and check raise someone out of a big pot!  I mean seriously, the jokes are endless on this one.  How can this ruling be possible?

EDIT

I just wanted to follow up on a few more questions people had and one more opinion of mine on the situation.  John sat with the man not in the event for several hands.  John thinks the reason the floor decided to say he lost the chips “in good faith” was because the man had played so many hands at the table that it would be an incredibly big deal to try and rectify the situation on the spot.  To truly make it fair, they would have to consider every hand played with the man at the table to be dead and to give people their starting chips back.  They would also have to reset the clock.  Of course by doing all of that, you would have to completely stop the tournament and let the one table that John was at play poker for as long as the tournament ran with the blind structures back to where they were.  Once the table caught up to the rest of the tournament, then everyone could resume.

Doing something like that is obviously not practical, and with no fair way to really handle the situation, they just told my friend he lost the chips “in good faith.”  So I agree with the WSOP in the sense that they were in a spot where there was no equitable thing for them to do.  But where they are obviously screwing up is that they should reimburse the entry fee to John and probably the entire table who played a joke of an event.  Certainly just telling my buddy John that he was SOL with the chips he lost to the phantom player is absurd.  I think he should get his $1,500 in tournament credit and he should have gotten to free roll the event he was in.  That would’ve been fair in my mind.  Anyway, I will post more updates on this as my friend John is going to take his case to the WSOP floor again today and see if they decide to do the right thing before he possibly escalates it further.  I sure hope for the sake of John, the WSOP, poker in general (and to a very small extent, myself who lost money in this event backing my friend) that they do the right thing immediately.

My buddy who I am backing in some WSOP events came to my Vegas home tonight.  We got to talking and we were telling stories about our series so far.  He said that in one of the events this series he lost chips and almost busted to a guy WHO WASN”T EVEN IN THE TOURNAMENT!  That’s right, the guy who he lost chips to was sitting at the table and right after he won some chips off of my buddy, the guy said, “Man isn’t this great to be only 5 handed in a shoot out?”  My buddy said, “Uh, this ain’t a shoot out.” They called the floor over and sure enough the dealer forgot to check his registration card and the guy walked to a WSOP $1,500 buy in event when he was really registered for some shoot out that was on another day!

The floor came over and the man was told to leave the table and come back for the event he registered in.  My buddy, told the floor, “Hey, we’ve got another problem here.  Is it possible that I can lose chips to someone not even in the tournament?”  The floor crew got together and ruled that my buddy lost his chips “in good faith” to his opponent.  My buddy was stunned.

Now I understand it can work both ways.  My buddy could have easily won some chips and it would have stunk to have to give them back.  But my God, how on earth can you lose chips to someone not even playing in the event?  Can you imagine this happening in any other sport?  What if Lebron James just walked onto the basketball court and scored a bunch of points for the team you were playing against?  Do the points count?  In golf, if I just show up to the Masters and make my way past the guards with my golf clubs, can I go out on the course and try and win the Masters? I mean c’mon!  How on earth can they get together and come up with THAT ruling?  What if my buddy had gotten busted by someone not even registered for the event?  I can say one thing, if I got busted in a $10,000 buy in event by someone not even registered in the tournament, I would at least get a refund come hell or high water.

I am sure the WSOP has a rule book they go by, but given the enormity of the event that they run, they ought to spend more time putting in more thought to potential situations that could arise and come to logical conclusions based at least in part to player input.  Respectable players would I’m sure be more than happy to give their input.

In golf they have a rule book and a “decisions on the rules of golf” book.  The “decisions” book has an official ruling on every conceivable situation that has ever occurred.  I think the WSOP should do the same because arbitrary rulings like losing chips to someone not in the tournament need to be ruled out.  And when you make on spot decisions like the floor does at times, rather than referring to a well thought out rule book made prior to the event, you add in the element of poor judgment that could sway what they consider to be the most prestigious poker event in the world.

I’d be interested in hearing if there is precedent for something like this?  Has someone else ever come across something like this?  If so leave a comment.  Coming from a golf background, I just can’t even imagine how it is possible that you can lose to someone NOT in the event. I realize that if the error had occurred later in the event after he busted several people who may have driven home, it could get ugly.  But in my opinion the WSOP should step up to the plate and give those people a refund or at least let them free roll another event with a similar buy in amount.  That would be the least they could do for their mistake.  Certainly penalizing someone for your own mistake should not be an option.  The WSOP overall does a pretty good job all things considered.  I know their job isn’t easy.  Which is why I’m saying we need a more well thought out rule book that takes into account all of the crazy stuff that can (and likely will at some point) happen.

I’ve been meaning to make a post following up on the Pay It Forward project I started last Christmas for a long time now..  For those who haven’t been following my blog since then, last Christmas I decided to play poker out in below freezing temperatures alongside homeless people to raise money for them.  I wasn’t able to play the entire time outdoors because at one point the temperatures were less than 10 degrees and my computer wasn’t even working properly in that kind of weather.  So I played some outdoors and some indoors, depending on the temperature.  I did this for 5 days and raised about $21,000.

While some of the money went into a general fund, most of it went to 3 specific people.  That was really my goal for this project.  Rather than give it to a lot of people, just like in the movie Pay It Forward (in the movie, the idea was if 1 person did something nice to 3 people on the condition that they did something nice for 3 people, an epidemic of kindness could spread throughout the world and change the course of humanity), I wanted to try and see if I could help facilitate a huge impact on 3 people’s lives.  So I figured for about $6,000 a person, that kind of money could give 3 homeless people an apartment for 6 months, food, utilities, insurance (or repairs for their car if they had one) and basic living expenses.  From there it would be up to them to find a job and take advantage of the opportunity.

I could not possibly be more proud to report that I have gotten a chance to meet the people that my poker profits were able to help out and ALL 3 of them are in jobs that they are loving and their employers are impressed, with a couple of them even getting promotions!!  They are all about to be on their own with the prepaid rent expiring and all of them will remain in those homes as self sufficient, valuable members of the community.

Meeting them was quite a powerful experience.  To hear their stories and what they have been able to do with the opportunity got me a little choked up.  They could not be more spectacular people and while they were super grateful for the opportunity, I really only played a small role in their success.  Someone who didn’t want to better themselves would’ve just taken the opportunity to put their feet up and watch TV all day for 6 months and wind up exactly where they started.  But they seized the opportunity and seem to be very happy, hard working and loving people.  I could not be more happy for them and could not be happier with the outcome of this project.

While most people were very supportive of what I did, there were some who just thought I was lighting money on fire.  Some just shook their heads like I was crazy and could not figure out why I was helping people who “clearly do not want to help themselves.”  Those words are theirs, not mine.  But you see, while I get as depressed as anyone with the way human beings behave sometimes, I do believe the overwhelming majority of them are good people who often just make one or two poor decisions OR are just a complete victim of their circumstances.  People think because they can’t imagine themselves homeless that it only happens to lazy drug addicts.  That is definitely not the case.  In fact you need to look no further for proof of that than the person writing this blog.

About 6 years ago I had a heart attack and my employer (who also happened to be my father) said he would not pay me for my time away from the job.  With only a little money from disability, high living costs and medical bills, I wound up with only $1,000 to my name (apologies to those who have already heard this story) and rent do in a couple of weeks.  I put all $1,000 online and hoped for the best and a few weeks later after running pretty good at the tables, I had my rent money plus another $5,000.  From there I have never looked back.

The point is that I was lucky.  I was a new poker player and my skills were decent, but without a nice run at the tables, I could have been on the streets just as easily.  And I can tell you I took no drugs whatsoever and since I am known by many as one of the hardest working people in online poker, I am sure no one will doubt me when I say laziness was not the reason I almost became homeless.

On a seperate, but somewhat related note, I am involved in a book project that Albert Pujols was gracious enough to lend a hand with.  For those who don’t know who he is, he is one of the best American baseball players to ever play the game.  ESPN recently voted him baseball player of the decade.  When asked about all of the fame, money, celebrity and opportunity that comes with being Albert Pujols, he didn’t seem all too impressed with it.  He said he feels grateful to be able to play baseball for a living.  When asked about the money, he just told us he didn’t really care about it and he tries to just give most of it away to help the poor in the Dominican Republic and to serve his foundation.

A lot of what I took from that conversation is that for the rich and the famous, those who choose to sleep with a ton of women, blow their money on champagne and all of the other random stuff rich people do are a dime a dozen.  Anyone with money can just walk around like a rich guy and blow it all, thinking they look cool.  But to me, what is cool is a guy like Pujols,  Albert keeps his head down, works on his game and what do you know, is the best baseball player in the world right now.  When he is done being the best ball player in the world for the season, he then tries to be the best human being he can be off the field.  Guys like Albert have my respect.  People like the 3 people who were part of the Pay It Forward project have my respect.  And while I don’t look down on people who want to enjoy their lives to the fullest extent, I would encourage them to take a close look at a guy like Albert Pujols and see that there are other ways to enjoy success.

n my last blog I wrote how I thought the guys who played in the WSOP ladies’ event were pretty sad. I have thought about it quite a bit more, and well, I think it is even more sad. I just can’t get my head around why on earth someone would do that. I did listen to Shaun Deeb’s you tube BS video and all I can say is that I think it is a crock of shit. I think he made a very poor decision to even make a bet that includes dressing up in drag and playing the ladies event, and I also will not be convinced that he did it to take some kind of stance on this issue.

I think that is what bothers me the most about this. Shaun Deeb not only made a stupid decision to play in the ladies event, he then backed it up with some lame excuse. Give me a break Shaun. There is no way on earth you care this much about the ladies event that you are doing this as some sort of political stance on the issue. If you are, then that is maybe even more sad considering the 10 million other more important issues in this world you could be taking a stance about. If you were really taking a stance I am all for taking stances. Shoot, I played online poker outside in 12 degree temperatures this past Christmas to take a stance on supporting homelessness. I spent the time outdoors playing online next to homeless people in an effort to raise money for them. So I know about doing crazy things to take a stance for something. What Shaun did was just a phony cover up to pretend he actually gave a shit about womens equality when really he was just being a jack ass.

I am glad the WSOP gave him a hard time and I hope they continue to give him a hard time this series. He tried to make a mockery out of an event that while he may not agree with, was designed with all of the best intentions. Whether he agrees with the event or not, thousands of women showed up to play poker on a day many of them have been looking forward to all year. And what do they show up and see? Some jack ass in drag trying to ruin their good time. Not only that, but he wasn’t trying to just prove a point. He was trying to make money! I had originally thought that all of the money was going to charity, but he said in his video that “a portion of the profit would go to charity!” So if he was doing it to take a stance, why wouldn’t he donate the whole thing? It is seriously pathetic and I don’t feel bad if they harass Shaun for the rest of the series.

I happened to be married to a woman who is a fierce advocate of woman’s rights. We have talked about women’s rights quite a bit over our marriage and what we have agreed upon is the notion of separate, but equal. Some women who are feminists want everything to be equal, but in reality, that makes no sense. Women are different than men. First of all, women have different anatomy. They have different hormones and everything. No matter how much we may want it to be equal, when raising a family, my wife is just more naturally inclined to care for our baby. She can breast feed, I can not. I could cite a million examples like that. So my point is, we believe the goal is for everything to be equal where it makes sense to be equal, but when there are situations where it clearly makes no sense to be equal, we strive to be fair within the inequalities, if that makes sense.

I asked my wife about the ladies’ tournament and she said she did not see how it would harm women in the long run to have some sort of separation between the sexes for one event of the year. She argued that in practically every other sporting like endeavor, there has been a men’s, women’s and senior’s (and usually a junior, but we can’t have a junior championship for obvious reasons) championship, so why not poker? Is poker not on ESPN nearly every single day? I’m not saying poker is a sport, but why on earth would it be such a horrible thing to have a few different division’s of champions? It gives the ladies and the seniors their day to shine. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, who has more to lose in a given debate. If we do away with the ladies and the seniors event, who wins? I can’t think of anyone, to be quite honest. But we know through the participation numbers that it is quite clear women (I am not sure what the seniors attendance looks like) enjoy this event. Like DN said, his female asst. looks forward to this event every year. Why are we trying to take that away from her and others like her?

Anyway, to all of the ladies out there, I apologize on behalf of men that so many of them have such extreme view points when it comes to this. I am not sure why anyone takes such an issue with having a woman’s event. I think it is cool and I hope that the WSOP doesn’t chicken out because of this latest fiasco and take away the event I know so many of you look forward to. Same goes to the seniors event. I hope they keep that title alive as well. For the rest of the guys, I think we have like 60 + events here at the WSOP (plus London) so no need to try and sneak in the ladies event in a dress to try and win a bracelet.

This whole thing reminded me of a conversation I recently had with a buddy of mine. We just look at what human beings do to each other and it really is quite sad if you think about it. I mean take BP for example. They are pumping millions and millions of gallons of oil in to the water on a daily basis. They have worker’s who are coming forward saying they ignored safety practices and cut corners in the name of a buck at every turn. Their practices lead to the deaths of I think 11 people in the blast. Many analysts say the damages are in the tens of billions. What does BP do? They try and fix the problem with the cheaper option first and then try and give out a 10 billion dollar dividend!!!!!!! I mean I seriously can’t make this shit up. So my friend and I were talking and he just said, “Go Humans!!” So that has pretty much become my go to phrase whenever I hear about people doing selfish and dumb things. So congrats to Shaun Deeb for becoming the official jack ass of the 2010 WSOP!!

I’m getting ready to play the cash games and tournaments today on Poker Stars.  I decided to skip the weekend WSOP event because tomorrow the $2,500 6 max NL tournament begins and if I made it far in the weekend event, I would have to miss Monday’s event.  Instead I decided to just play online and spend some more time with my family.  I am enjoying relaxing on this trip and especially enjoying laying on the floor and playing with my baby girl.

So far I am 0 for 6 in tournaments.  The worst tournament by far for me was the Venetian deep stack event.  I got dealt absolute rags all tournament, yet somehow managed to stay alive until day 2.  On day 2 there were 18 people left to bust before the money when I lost an all in flip to go broke.  Not only did I play for 16 hours only to get nothing, but I busted right at 5 PM so it took me an hour in traffic to get home.  If I could design the worst possible outcome for a tournament, I would say making it to day 2, busting shortly before the money AND having to leave the casino in rush hour would be about right.

I read DN’s blog about men playing in the ladies event and I couldn’t agree more.  I can’t believe 6 guys did that.  I mean I don’t care if some of them lost a bet or were just trying to be funny or whatever.  Just stay the fuck away from the ladies event guys.  How hard is that?  After my good friend Casey Martin won the right to a golf cart on the PGA tour through the Supreme court, a few knuckleheads tried to argue that they should have the right to play the LPGA and some even took their case to court.  I just think it is downright pathetic that people do stuff like this.  If you can’t cut it at what you are ultimately trying to achieve, don’t go looking for some silly loop hole.

The women get one event a year at the WSOP. As DN pointed out, it is good for the game as it brings women out in the 1000′s just to play in this event.  I have only sat with 3 women all month, so generally speaking not a lot of women are playing the WSOP.  But they do come out for that one. There is nothing unfair about it.  Because it is not an open field event, as Barry Shulman pointed out, the event does not earn POY points.  Sure, the winner gets a bracelet, but I think it is great that there is a designated ambassador for women’s poker each year.  So what is the harm in such an event?  Who loses?  Even in the most cut throat sense, if some of these men weren’t so stupid they would realize that getting 1,000 women excited about playing poker is a good thing because they might start playing more poker and stimulate the poker economy.

Anyway, enough about that.  Friday night I took my wife to NOBU which was absolutely off the charts.  I love that place.  After NOBU we went to see Richard Vos who was playing at the Harrah’s Improv.  He did actually improv it. There were no rehearsed lines from what I could tell.  I thought it was because he was drunk.  He looked drunk!  But then he said later he had been sober for 23 years.  So I was like wtf?  He just acted like he was totally wasted so I was giving him the benefit of the doubt, but I guess he was sober and just didn’t feel like putting in much effort on this show.  Luckily he is pretty damn funny without even trying so we still had a good time.

Well, poker has been rough so far.  I can’t get anything going in the tournaments.  I know a lot of pros have had lots of terrible starts to the WSOP and then out of nowhere they bink a bracelet.  So I am going to avoid getting too low about the way the WSOP is going until I bust form the main event.  I know I am playing some good poker, that much I am sure of.  I actually feel like I really worked to peak for the WSOP and I feel I am playing great.  I don’t think I have made even one decision at the felt that I hated.  Maybe a few I later felt wasn’t optimal, but no real poor decisions.  Basically I am just running poorly, plain and simple.  But it’s early.  I will probably play another 10 events so anything can still happen.

In honor of the World Series of Poker, I’ll be putting up an excerpt from my book, Treat Your Poker Like A Business, for one day, and it’ll come down after 24 hours. If you’d like to buy the book, you can do so on this site or on PokerStars, where you can get it for 1900 ppl’s. Thank you for your continued support!

For someone known as a professional gambler, I have very little gamble in me. About two years into my poker career, I got a tip that the quarterback in an upcoming college football game was injured and was not going to play — something that was not common knowledge. I was in Las Vegas at the time, and laid down the one and only substantial bet I’ve ever made on a sporting event. The next three hours were some of the most grueling of my life, and I was completely disgusted with myself for putting myself through the agony over an outcome I couldn’t control.

I ultimately won the bet, but felt as though I’d lost for having laid the wager in the first place. This event also defined for me the essential difference between poker and conventional gambling.

Before you dedicate yourself to turning your poker into a significant income stream, it’s important you understand why being a poker player qualifies as a profession in the first place.

For something to be considered a profession it must contain two vital components:  The game must be beatable, and it must be a game where skill is the predominant factor.

This question has become more than an academic one in recent years, as in October 2006, Congress barred the use of credit cards for online wagers. Horse racing and stock trading were exempt, but otherwise the new law hit any “game predominantly subject to chance.” Included among such games was poker.

To me, defining poker as a game of skill is actually quite simple. To do so, you just need to forget about winning at poker and think for a moment about losing. Is it possible to intentionally lose a poker game? Yes, of course. But is it possible to intentionally lose a game like roulette or craps? No, it’s not.

In games of chance, the participant cannot control the outcome. Whether your intent is to win or lose the lottery, your odds remain the same. The superstitious may disagree, but no matter how many times you pull the handle on a slot machine, your odds remain the same each time you put your coins in the slot.

But in poker, your actions can influence the outcome of a hand. You will absolutely lose if you choose to fold every single hand no matter what cards you hold.  If you call bets with a hand that cannot win the pot, you will also lose every time.  This is the difference between a game of chance and a game of skill.

It’s common knowledge among poker players that chance is a factor in any given hand, but over many hands poker skill will even things out, with the more expert players making a profit. At the higher stakes games I play now, I win approximately 55 percent of the time. If I play 20 tables at once, I expect to show a profit at 11 and lose at nine.  This is a slim profit margin, but a profit nonetheless. If I were playing quarter games, my win-loss ratio would be about 80-20, meaning that if I played 20 tables, I could expect to win at 16 of them and lose at four.

There are some games that are skill games, but are not necessarily profitable. Take blackjack for example: It is most definitely a skill game because the outcome can easily be influenced through your actions. You can lose every single hand to the dealer if you just keep on hitting until you bust. Conversely, you can play mathematically perfect blackjack and do much better; however, the odds are stacked against any person who doesn’t count cards, and the game cannot be beaten in the long run.

In poker, we’re competing against other people in what I feel is the perfect marriage of chance and skill. A poker player is frequently all in with a card or two to come (and possibly several more cards to come if there’s an agreement to “run it twice”). There’s certainly a rush that comes when you are all in, especially given the aspect that chance will ultimately dictate in which direction the chips slide.

But if you’re a skilled poker player — or at least more skilled than the opponents you’re facing — you’ll more often than not have a mathematical edge on your opponent because you’ll have a hand or run a high percentage bluff that will that will have a better chance of winning the pot.

In poker, if you continually make good decisions and risk chips with the best hand more often than not, skill will be the primary factor in whether or not you win or lose money.  Games of chance cannot make that claim.