Rants

Remember when the Internet was flaunted as the marketplace of the future, offering lower overheads to traders and allowing them to pass these savings onto consumers.  Stuff costing less online is one of the main reasons, besides porn, that the Internet has become so great.

It's not just Ticketmaster that seem to have forgotten this vision though, with their convenience charge (charged per ticket - clearly its more convenient when you buy several), building facility charge (think I might use the spa after the support act...) and of course the "if we can't charge you over the odds to mail your ticket, you still have to pay to pick it up" charge.  First class stamp - two quid.  Collect from box office - two quid.  You now even have the option to print your own ticket for some events.  Two quid.

The auctioneers selling off the remains of the Stardust also charge a premium for buying online.  The auction fees are 10% if you buy on site, or 13% if you buy online.  Who am I to question the logic behind this?  I'm actually more concerned with the logistics of actually buying, storing and bringing home something as wonderous as this:

The auction starts a week on Friday at 11am PST.  That's 7pm over here - and can you think of a more perfect Friday night in than phoning for a curry and watching the sale of thousands of pieces of memorabilia from a classic Vegas casino?

Well yeah, you're right.  I do need to get out more.

I always expected the reception I'd get at Stoke Grosvenor would be frosty. This is a regular haunt for many of my former so-caled friends and other ex-poker buddies and I knew that whenever I went odds would be that I would bump into at least one of them.  Tonight for the £20 freezeout it actually took until level five and my second table move until I came face to face with any of them across a card table. As expected, they were ignoring me just as hard as I was ignoring them.

Allow me to introduce some characters: James Welsh, my estranged business partner on a poker-related venture and the mastermind behind UK Poker Info - a forum from which he has subsequently banned me for posting a strategy article with only the slightest hint of superiority - busted out a couple of hands later, moving all in without looking and tabling garbage that thankfully didn't improve. Jim Fryer, the former owner of an illegal poker club that is somehow no longer running, and who still owes me ninety quid for a table, was riding high with about 40k in chips allowing him the freedom of only playing every other hand whilst running backwards and forwards to have a smoke. Negative expection on two counts.

I never got to play a pot with Jim, and only contributed to only two hands at that table before I went home. I'd raised once with AQo and folded to a reraise all in, then made a squeeze play with AJ against an early position raiser and a caller. I still quite like the move, even though I ran into a squeezee (I need to know if I'm the first person to use that word) with AQ. I had a chance to nearly double my stack uncontested, which was fairly likely given the extreme tightness I had shown, and the prospect of taking a race with 4.5k in dead money wasn't too shabby. It's only real bad when you are dominated - and he calls. Which it turned out I was, and he did, thinking he was behind.

Earlier though, I had a confrontation with "Deadly" Darren Sutton. Daz is not someone I know well at all. I can really only remember one time I've spoken more than a passing sentence to him, which was actually at Nottingham Gala on the same day I discovered that my so-called friends from the saturday night game I have such fond memories of were a bunch of ignorant back-stabbers. Let's move on.

Darren comes over to tell me how nobody likes me, and then how I owe various people an apology and how I owe James some money. He tells me "you and him need to sort it out, or I will sort it out". Whether or not he has a point doesn't much matter - none of this is any of his fucking business, but he obviously loves the action. I am brought up to speed as he walks away. "You don't know me. I used to be a minder. I look after people".

Another person he is looking after tonight is Rob Ho, although I doubt this is with his knowledge or consent given that Rob is a martial arts expert and could cripple me as soon as look at me if he wanted. On the very rare occasions we had a saturday game without him, we would gossip around the table about how he is likely connected, a Triad probably. I owe him an apology, I'm informed, because of how I insulted him on the forum - by which he can only mean the "strategy article" I mentioned above. As I walk to the bathroom at the first break, Rob actually yells up from his cash game at me "Hey Chris, are you winning?". I'm so startled, I don't really know how to respond and mumble back god knows what before running away to take a piss. Unless it's part of an overly elaborate and highly doubtful good cop/bad cop routine, then Rob isn't holding a grudge. And I would have gone back to talk to him too, if it wasn't for those meddling kids.

Deadly Daz followed me into the bathroom. He followed me into the fucking bathroom! He stood next to me, and carried on with a routine which I pretty much ignored, trying instead to concentrate on whether he specifically was the reason I couldnt go, or just that there was another gent right there who was more interested in me than his own bodily functions. That would usually do the trick.  As I left (he was done before me, and didn't wash) he was waiting near the door to keep yelling across to me and point out exactly where Rob was sitting. I don't know why he was yelling. I didn't stop to see who he was with, whether it was even anyone I'd ever met before. Or whether they were impressed. I just kept walking. I don't know - nor did I care to find out - whether he was all talk. But I was glad to be back on the casino floor. As far as I know, there's no cameras over the urinals...

So there we have it. I was threatened and intimidated - twice - by a guy I hardly know in my friendly neighbourhood casino. Just one contribution to a general air of violence in the Grosvenor Stoke where threats, fights and beatings appear to be an everyday occurrance. When the cash game was announced, some cheerful soul piped up "will there be a punch up tonight?". Apparently there was yesterday, and it sounds like the crowd loved it. And I heard two guys at my table very openly discussing how they might teach someone a lesson. "Careful though, he's the kind who'll run down the cop shop first chance he gets", says one. "Yeah, but what's he gonna do with a fucking broken neck?", came the reply.

At Leicester Gala the £20+£2 tournament on Wednesday is now a £20+£7.

That's a 26% rake!

Well, no it's not. That would be illegal. Instead, there's a £5 "session fee" that you have to pay before you can register for the tournament. And apparently they not only have the backing of the Gaming Board to do this, Gala is piloting the scheme for them to see if works well enough to use at casinos across the country.

The fee does cover you for as much as you want to play that night, however. Whoopy doo. If you're very unlucky you could perhaps fit in two sit-and-goes (I have no idea if that's the correct way to pluralise it) but if you do well, or have no intention of playing anything else after you bust it's another five quid on top of a twenty quid tournament.  You effectively get taxed more when you win, than when you keep on losing.

The terrible thing is that people are already paying this. Even worse is that last night those people included me. Well, I'd driven an hour to get there and if I'm prepared to drive a 140 mile round trip to play in that game it does seem a little on the stubborn side to go straight home once I'm there. Won't be going again though.  Numbers were down, with 40 runners compared to the usual sell-out 56, but the night before they'd still managed to fill the room for the, effectively, £10+£6 tournament.  If they owned up to what the charge really was, that would be a 38% rake.

Las Vegas Advisor maintains a list of the poker tournaments in town with their respective percentage paybacks.  Only Sunset Station and Sams Town are this greedy, which actually surprised me a little.  Even the quick and nasty tourist tournaments on the strip are 80-85% payback.

Geoff and I spoke to cardroom manager Steve, who was obviously disappointed that he had to do this, knowing that it would drive away many of the regular players.  However this seems to be exactly what those higher up are trying to achieve.  You see, the Play and Party Poker Zone is not really a cardroom.  The casino is not interested in developing poker players or creating loyalty, because they do not generate any profits until they are either paying their 10% on three-figure buy-in tournaments or generating hourly seat charges in cash games.  And whilst a £100 tournament would attract a handful of gamblers who fancy a shot at a big prize, it's something that takes more effort to promote than a regular game, and not something you can do every night in a provincial casino.  So it's quantity over quality, and they just want to get as many players through the door as possible hoping that if you throw enough suckers in the direction of a roulette table then some will stick.

So why am I so upset about this?  I guess mostly because of the stealthy and semi-legal way in which it's been done.  The Gambling Commission's Guidelines for the Casino Industry document states that a registration fee may be no more than 10% or £50, whichever is greater.  Simply calling the charge a "session fee" doesn't cut it, and I just can't see how this is legal.

The casinos who have put pressure on the Gambling Commission to take action against borderline-illegal clubs - who take a "service charge" out of every pot, don't anyone dare say the word "rake" - are hypocrites.  Now is a time when poker desparately needs a new way of being regulated to protect the player from an inevitable undesirable element.  If indeed the GC are behind this scheme, as Steve suggested, all they have managed to come up with is a way to allow the regulated venues to charge an unlimited rake and legally fleece their players.  Well, I guess that's what casinos have been doing for years, just not quite so blatently.  Meantime the clubs that do cater for those that just want to play some cards (there's no blackjack, no roulette, just a 10% rake - let's call a spade a spade here) are still waiting to hear whether they will get shut down.

So America can't play poker online any more.

That's not strictly true.  As I understand it, and to be honest I haven't done extensive research to work out which versions I've read are the complete truth, it's going to become an offence to fund gambling transactions through a US-based financial institution.  The bill - which has still not become law - does not make it any less legal than it currently is for Americans to play online poker.

Today my mailbox started filling up with newsletters from various affiliate programs reacting to the news.  Interestingly, I've not yet had anything from a poker site directed towards me as a player, only as an affiliate.  A few statements have been issued, with a handful of sites claiming it's business as usual (well done particularly to Absolute Poker, whose shirt I am wearing inadvertently today, but had I realised the significance it would be with pride) and the rest saying, well, really we don't know what to do yet.

Here are some excerpts from the emails I received today:

"As of today Betfred have stopped taking business from US customers in the wake of recent prohibitive legislation by the US government. To clarify, this means that US residents and/or US citizens will not be able to use Betfred at all for telephone betting, online sports betting, casino or poker."

"Our software and ECash provider for Sunpoker.com, The Sands and Omni Casino, CryptoLogic and ECashDirect, have made the decision to no longer service US registered accounts.  Consequently, all accounts with US based addresses will no longer be able to play in the casino or poker room as of 12PM EST today October 3rd.  Our sister casino 49er Casino uses a different provider, Real Time Gaming (RTG) who has not announced any changes due to these new regulations."

These two seem to be simply overreacting however the legislation may have given them the final push to block access to US players.  It's unlikely that this is the real reason for kneejerk.  Last week William Hill already decided to dump their US players, probably in light of the Peter Dicks and David Carruthers arrests.  It makes sense that Betfred would follow suit, and the tone of SunPoker's email suggests that they wouldn't care if they still had a payment provider that hadn't jumped ship.

"(InterPoker) regret to inform you that from 11am EST on 3rd October 2006, we will be closing all US gaming accounts. Player’s balances, minus uncleared bonuses, will be returned to players  within the next 3 - 4 weeks by check and you will cease to earn revenue share from these players in the future."

InterPoker also use EcashDirect and Cryptologic, so I guess their hands are tied too.  However this is quite drastic.  Less than three hours after this email was sent, all their US accounts are being automaticaly closed.  However they are going to take nearly a month to send those guys their money back.  The final statement is somewhat redundant - how could you earn revenue from a closed account anyway?  Or do they mean they're just going to keep that commission anyway?  This is what started me thinking... and then...

"PartyGaming will no longer accept wagers from US customers once the act becomes law. Customers resident in the United States, or accessing us from the USA will no longer be able to access our real money gaming services. ... Percentage Plan revenues from US customers will continue until the point those customers are unable to play for real i.e. until the legislation becomes law."

This is huge.  Party's stock price has plunged by over half since Friday, and understandably so when they have reacted so dramatically so quickly.  Almost all of the other major operators' statements have been undecided until they work out how the new law will actually affect them.  Party - the largest on the net - have immediately said that they will block access to US customers.

My cynical mind sees a problem here.  Firstly, their play money servers will remain available to US players.  Whilst play money poker is clearly not illegal, why would they bother keeping the servers open?  PartyPoker.net only exists as a decaf version of the real thing to give new players a taste for the action.  And it works.  So if there is any possible loophole to exploit, Party will be back in the market.  Whilst Ecash is solely a gaming transaction provider, Party would be able to carry on using Neteller at least - a European company that has already stated that the US law cannot touch them.  I just don't believe they really mean this.

The statement about affiliate revenue makes me very suspicious.  Even if it becomes difficult to play poker online, some players will be serious enough and make enough money to carry on despite the hurdles they have to overcome.  The biggest players are those likely to have an illegal rakeback agreement, and even if they don't many will have been referred via an affiliate bonus code.  Party already has a history of closing down affiliates who give a share of commission back to their players - so here is an ideal opportunity to sever those affiliate ties and take back the 25% of the rake they are paying out.

You have to wonder just how much that affiliate commission amounts to and whether it is comparable to the amount of business Party stand to lose if they had simply issued an "undecided" statement.

During the week I had become fairly impressed at just how quickly I was managing to get around town.  When the lights are with me, I can make it from our driveway in Green Valley, five blocks from the Beltway, to pretty much anywhere on the strip or downtown in under 20 minutes.  I caught a break and made it into Caesars, dumped the car in the Colosseum Valet (which is deathly quiet when there are no shows on, and not far from the Poker Room) in not much more than 15, which is pretty damn cool.  Even having to negotiate the World's Busiest Intersection (it would be, wouldn't it) I can fly into the Tropicana and walk over the bridge to the MGM or Excalibur (I'm starting to much prefer the latter, on account of the wheel you spin with any four-of-a-kind, or aces cracked.) in next to no time.

Obviously there's more traffic at weekends.  I'm in the minority of visitors that stay in Vegas for more than 2 days at a time.  During the week, the casinos wish you "enjoy your evening".  As soon as Friday is here, that becomes "enjoy your weekend".  I wish I could, but getting anywhere and doing anything is just a complete nightmare.

Last Saturday I went home early because I failed to park anywhere. I started with the Tropicana, but valet was full and I was decieved by the fact its parking garage has only one level so I wasted too long here looking for a space and ended up back on the crawling strip. From there I tried the MGM but their valet was full, and the only way out after seeing the sign that tells you the bad news is back into the horribly slow queueing traffic. There's no way to even try to self-park, even if you assume there will still be spaces, once you find out that Valet is full. This week it took a good hour to get as far as being rejected by the Valet parking at Caesars on Friday night, because I'm not a Harrah's Diamond VIP member.  To get this honour, you have a full year to earn 10,000 Total Reward points, equivalent to total stakes of $50,000 on slot machines or $100,000 on video poker.  Even being this reckless (best case: it costs a theoretical $1000) for the sake of priority parking wouldn't make the strip traffic move any faster, although I'm sure many Diamond VIPs expect it to.

About half an hour was spent in a queue to turn off Flamingo Road, which has the World's Longest Intersection Signal Sequence (as determined by me, but unofficial), and only allows two cars to turn left onto the Strip every ten minutes.  This also gave me plenty of time to fume about the unnecessary punctuation on the road sign indicating "Caesar's Palace" for a new dropoff only zone, clearly no use to me when driving on my own.  The missing apostrophe has been the World's Most Famous Grammar Error for 40 years - why change it now?

So having to actually park my own car (god forbid) I fight my way up to the top floor of the garage and finally get in a space.  Then it's down four floors in one elevator, and three more in another.  This makes no sense.  Plus, the second one is full of people leaving the Celine Dion show, and I wait for ten minutes without seeing a single down elevator with room for a person in it.  Parking my own car, and having to use the stairs - what on earth is this town coming to?

With 6 left, 5 of the remaining players wanted to make a deal but the chip leader thought that having about 12 big blinds was plenty to make sure he would take first place and said no. That particular idiot ended up third for a little more than $500, whereas a 5-way chop would have landed him about $650.

After one more player busted there were two large stacks and three that would be forced to move very shortly. Claire suggested a deal with the other two short stacks so that nobody goes home empty handed, basically to split the 3rd and 4th money into three equal prizes for the 3rd to 5th. Floorman Rodney calculated that it would make $228 each leaving the top two prizes unchanged. He yelled "put the cards in the air" and briskly walked off, clearly not caring much for having to work out a deal for such a small amount.

The dealer restarted the game and announced "The next player out gets $228. The player after that gets $228 and the next player gets $228". Claire busted out the next hand, moving in with a small piece of the flop and getting called by a slightly larger piece. Needing to make 2nd place now to win any more money there was no point hanging about.

Claire wandered over to the floorman to get her winnings, only to be greeted by a bemused look and to be told "we're paying four spots". Why? Because one of the players didn't agree to the deal, he said.

So we went home, empty handed and disappointed.

Like hell we did.

The dealer had announced the deal, and four of the five players and everyone watching thought that this was how the game would being played out. Three players were going to gamble and lose, but still take home more than they bought in for. The other two would probably end up splitting the 1st and 2nd prize money for about $1200 each.

So how did Rodney deal with this situation? His decision, he said, is final. There was no deal. What the dealer says means nothing. You've misunderstood and hard luck. Please keep your voice down. There's nothing more to say. If you want to take it up with someone else...

Yes. We do.

But before that, we sat and tried to calm down a bit. We tried to figure out what actually happened. I remembered thinking that the floorman had walked away rather quickly after he said to restart the tournament, but with the dealer announcing so clearly what the deal structure was I couldn't see how there was any doubt about the deal. He argued with Claire that a chop is a chop, and if three players agreed on money then they have to drop out of the tournament. Well, I've made that kind of deal before. I've made it at the Strat, too. Besides, that would be a horrible deal, giving up any chance of the big money in exchange for a share of only the lower prizes. However small your chip stack, you still have equity in the rest of the prize pool.

So did the player that apparently objected - a different player this time - know Rodney? Was there going to be a deal if she was 5th but not otherwise? Well that's a little paranoid, but it makes you wonder. She didn't say a word when the dealer announced the deal, but why not? She may actually have said no (even though nobody else heard it) but then decided to keep quiet and let the other players think they had made money and bust each other out whilst she clung on for 2nd or 3rd. Possible, but I don't even think she had enough chips to be sure of doing that, even if we credit her with the ability to be that deceptive.

We couldn't figure out why on earth it was being handled this way. We had a floorman who had already failed to communicate with the players and with his dealer, and was now stubbornly waving a "my decision is final" flag without even trying to find out why the dealer and most of the final table players thought the tournament structure had been altered. This man clearly has no people management skills - you'd think there are better career decisions for him than casino floorman.

One of the players made a motion that we should stick around, as if they were going to carve up the money anyway. But it didn't take long for 4th place to go home, taking the original $171 prize money. He agreed that it was all bullshit, and then promptly left the building. So what do we do? Hang around and wait for a handout? Don't think so.

The pit boss we approached found it amusing that we were asking to speak to the casino manager. He knew it wasn't his ass on the line so maybe he just likes to see someone causing trouble. Or maybe he likes to see how people react when they meet shift manager Scott for the first time. Kinda scary, mediterranean looking with a nice bit of bling on his fingers. He's probably connected, at the very least. And we're bothering him for what seems like the sake of $200. Hey it's the damn principle now.

Well we actually got a result pretty quickly, and our car didn't blow up on the way out. The valet would have been the one getting whacked anyway, not us. Scary Scott spoke to plonker Rodney and to the dealer and the result was that Claire was getting paid the amount the dealer had told her she'd be getting. Scott went back to work, probably looking for cheats to take to a back room, whilst Rodney became very friendly, but still procrastinated and it took a good hour to get paid. He had to bodge it by putting the payout through as a high hand jackpot.

All in all, a ridiculous situation to be in. Claire finished 5th and ended up with a bigger payout than the 4th place finisher, for basically causing enough of a fuss to get paid to shut up and stop wasting the casino management's time.

Technically it's +EV but it just shouldn't have happened.

Oh we had some fun yesterday we did. That all comes in part two though, because I'm afraid this is a bit long. Let's start with the actual poker.

We both played in the 8pm tournament at the Stratosphere, which is a $50 buy in with one rebuy and one add on. The structure is pretty brain dead really. You start with 2000 chips for the initial $50, but get 3000 for the $40 rebuy. The $40 add on gets a further 5000 but you can only take it after two hours, and then only if you also took the rebuy.

Overall it sounds like you're playing with 10,000 chips and blinds starting at 25/25 which should great, even though the 15 minute levels keep things moving rather quickly. Except that because you have to wait two hours for the add on, it all gets a bit stupid. Two hours at 15 minute levels puts you on level 8 before the break - blinds are then 300/600 with a 75 ante. This is a three-table tournament, but with alternates it finished up with 40 entrants, although most of the 10 alternates were players who had already busted out and bought straight back in. This defies logic as you end up making a loss with anything less than second place.

Unless you have been very lucky in the first 90 minutes it seems to me that you have almost no reason to play a hand in the last two levels before the break. If you have an average stack of 6000-7000 chips, you have no room to manouvre (for Harrington fans, your M is about 4) so it's push or fold time. And in that situation, if you move in and get busted the downside is much greater than the downside to giving up a few blinds and either having to rebuy for $90 or go home without being able to take the great value add-on. By sitting tight you might lose 1600 chips in a round but you can then pay $40 for another 5000 - still better value than the rebuy.

I'd said to Claire that if I was playing this tournament online, I'd be using maximum time bank every hand - often a great tactic in "turbo" tournaments! That didn't really matter though, as the dealers only managed to get in about four hands every level at that stage so it did only cost one round to survive the last two levels. The 50 and 75 antes really slow the game down with at least half the players needing change every hand.

After open folding pocket 7s twice at the 300/600/25 level (tell me there's a reason to get involved here - I can't see one!) I managed to steal one round of blinds just before the break. I saw A8o on the button and it was folded to me. The small blind, one of three Danish guys in the tournament who were in town to report on the WSOP main event, was already making the motion to fold and I had the big blind well covered so I moved in. Even then, I wasn't sure this was a great move.

After almost everyone added on, the push-fest took a one level break and then continued as normal. We both made it to the final table but I'm short-stacked, even after my crazy double-up with Q5o, and take a long shot gamble on my big blind with 67o. There is an all-in raise and a call ahead of me but I'm in for 3000, have 6000 left and don't have much choice but to take just better than 4-1 pot odds and hope they both have unpairred big cards. I am against AK and JJ - the flop brings an Ace, the turn makes me a straight draw but the river is no help and it's a double knockout. I finish 8th.

This structure is just bizarre. The first 6 levels play well, then when the add-on approaches it becomes wrong to play almost any hand. Then after the break you take a coin-flip to reach the final table and it just plays like a short-stacked sit-and-go to the end. It's not terrible, but breaking after 6 levels instead of 8 would be a huge improvement.

Anyway, 6 players left and Claire is still in...

I saw an advert on the tube for an investment company, which included the peculiar phrase:

"A simplified and full prospectus are available on request".

The phrase sounds so awkward that I have to think that it's could well be correct, even though it just sounds wrong. Surely someone in the marketing department would have said "hang on, are you sure about that, it doesn't quite read right" before it went to print, and they would get it checked out. Either they'd use correct grammar even if it's a bit unusual, or they're going to word it in such a way that makes it easy to read, even if not quite correct.

Or, behind door three, this could be just a cunning advertising ploy to get their branding to stick in my head. I've considered this, and of course it's worked because I can remember clearly which company's advert it was. However this is highly cynical, and just a little paranoid, so let's move on.

I think we can rule out this being one prospectus that is both simple and full. As well as the use of the verb are being mostly what makes it sound clunky, the concept of a prospectus being both of these things makes little sense. It sounds like they have two versions - either you're smart enough to read the full prospectus, or you're a fool and just want a quick overview written in words of one syllable (I hope it's illustrated too) before handing over your money.

So should it be using the word "both" to clarify things? This might help, if they insist on not pluralising prospectus. However it's an ideal opportunity to use the comedy plural prospecti and that would stick in my head just as much because everyone loves cacti and octopi.

I don't know. And this is a pretty pointless entry. But it's still stuck in my head and I had to get out.

Sorry.