Why Cussing at the Poker Table is Good...

Major poker organizations like the WPT and WSOP have worked hard to curb the profanity-laced games of old into more family-friendly events.  And the way they’ve done this is by punishing those who can’t control their language with time outs where people often have to sit for 10 minutes while blinds are taken from their stacks.  Players like Mike Matusow and Todd Brunson have found out that poker big whigs don’t take the rules lightly either.

However, as looked down upon as cussing in poker is, there are plenty of people who think that swearing is good for the game - or at least the players.  An article I recently saw on the subject featured a Massachusetts College psychologist by the name of Timothy Jay.  Jay went on to note that cursing is actually good for people - especially poker players who’ve lost a significant amount of money.

When a person swears, they are releasing tension and frustrations that those who hold these emotions inside would otherwise not.  So, according to Jay, being a holy roller who turns the other cheek when they suffer a bad beat isn’t good for one’s health.  Another advantage of releasing your frustrations through cussing is that you’re less likely to resort to violence.  Perhaps this is a reason why you don’t see poker players brawling at the table after getting in a major verbal dispute (that and the fact that major money and sponsorships are on the line).

So really it’s in the best interests of the WSOP, WPT, and similar organizations to let poker players release their emotions through swearing.  And, in reality, even the WSOP understands this since they say non-excessive cursing that isn’t pointed at an individual is alright.  It’s only when things get out of control (a la Matusow) that they bring the hammer down.

Man busted for Fake Poker Chips...

I’ve often wondered that, if you could somehow get poker chips that looked close enough to the real thing, would you be able to cash them in?  Of course I would never try something like this as it’s just something I’ve pondered.  But I did get my answer today after reading a news story out of a Fort Wayne, Indiana newspaper.

The article was about a 39 year-old man named Derrick Watts who passed fake poker chips at a place called the Parnell Poker Place.  According to law enforcement officials, he did this from March 11th to March 30th and was able to make over $18,000 with the scam.  If you do the math that’s almost $1,000 a day!

Of course Watts, being the good Samaritan that he is, said he only intended to keep around $200 for every $1,000 that he cashed out in chips.  So when you factor Watts’ generosity into the equation, he was actually only making $3,600 over the 19 day span where he was cashing the fake chips in.

Still though, that’s a lot of money to be made from scheming on a small poker venue.  And having been to Fort Wayne many times over the year, I can guarantee that the Parnell Poker Place isn’t very large since I’ve never even heard of it.  And I can only imagine the hit they were taking when Watts was hustling them with his fake poker chips. 

I guess some good did come out of this story though because I learned that my little thought about how difficult it would be to con a casino or cardroom with fake poker chips is a terrible idea!

The Myth behind Pocket Aces in Limit Hol...

I’ve often heard No-Limit Hold’em players mention that one of the reasons they don’t like Limit Hold’em is because pocket aces don’t win here.  And as ridiculous as this thought may be, the concept of pocket aces being no good in Limit Hold’em is certainly worth looking into.

First off, you’ve got to look at how often pocket aces will hold up against other hands assuming everything went to the river in a 5 street hand.  And when you do the math (I didn’t, I just looked at what some poker site said), pocket aces will hold up about 31% of the time against the field.  If you look strictly at this then the argument starts to become clearer about pocket aces not winning in Limit Hold’em.  But that’s because we’re only scratching the surface here. 

So since we’ve figured out that pocket aces will win 31% of the time, or roughly one out of every 3 hands, let’s dive a little deeper into the subject with an example.  Let’s say that you play all 3 of your pocket aces in separate hands and each player on a 10 person table contributes an average of $10 to the pot.  This would be $100 per hand and you would be contributing $10 too for a total of $30.  So if you won 1 out of 3 hands, you’d be getting $100 and only spending $30 to earn this with pocket aces.

You don’t need to be a math genius to figure out that you’re making a total of $70 in this exchange which makes it clear that playing aces in Limit Hold’em are definitely profitable.  Of course things won’t always work out so nicely when you’re in real games, but the point is that you will come out on top by playing pocket aces wisely.

Is Face the Ace in a Bad Time Slot?...

Back in the 90’s, it would have been difficult to fathom the possibility of multiple poker shows appearing on TV at the same time.  Poker wasn’t the big phenomenon it is today, and your average person didn’t have access to the game since Internet poker didn’t really take off until the 2000’s.  But times have definitely changed, and more people are playing poker now than they ever did.  Seeing as how this is the case, there are more poker shows on TV now than ever.

The introduction of Face the Ace on NBC is a good example of this growing trend.  Face the Ace airs at 9 pm ET on Saturdays and features a single contestant trying to wade their way through 3 rounds of heads-up poker against professional players.  $40,000 is the prize for winning the first round, $200,000 is the prize for the second round, and $1 million is the third round prize for beating a poker pro in heads-up play.  However, a person can also walk away at any time in the first or second round and not risk losing their money.

And while this sounds like a cool format, Face the Ace is struggling mightily.  In fact, Face the Ace finished dead last out of the network shows in terms of ratings with a 1.54 million viewer audience.  This has me wondering if Face the Ace is in a completely wrong time slot.

Sure Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker have been really successful shows and set the bar for what is possible, but they’re also on networks and time slots better suited for a poker show.  Saturday night is typically when old people tune into TV because they don’t go out as frequently as younger people.  And with poker having such a young audience, I really don’t see Saturday night as a good time slot for a poker show.  Unless Face the Ace gets moved to another slot, I don’t think it will survive too much longer.

Poker World still courting Michael Phelp...

Michael Phelps is coming off of another highly successful swimming performance on the world stage (or unsuccessful if you consider that he finally lost a race for the first time in a while), and so everyone is once again taking notice of him.  As was the case last year, officials from the Asian Poker Tour are taking notice of him again too which means they are sending corny letters to draw him into the APT Macau event.

This year’s version of corniness includes plenty more innuendos about sharks, fish, goggles, and Phelps being a human dolphin.  If Phelps doesn’t end up playing in the event based on the lame-assed letter alone then I certainly wouldn’t blame him.  But one thing that the APT has proved is that they’ll be persistent in pursuing Michael Phelps until he agrees to do one of their events.

It also shows the poker world’s fascination with Phelps since his spike in fame this year hasn’t even come close to equaling last year, but poker organizations are still hot on the trail.  The thing is though, no matter how much poker organizations and players such as Doyle Brunson pursue Phelps, I don’t think he’ll be logging any major hours at the table until his swimming career is over.

And if the segment I saw on 60 Minutes is any indication of Phelps’s normal life, he doesn’t really have time to get involved with poker while he’s training.  Michael already has numerous sponsors breathing down his neck, and the workouts that his crazy swimming coach Bob Bowman gives him don’t allow for much free time either.  But once the 2012 Olympics are over with, we may see Phelps on the felt more often.