Oxford Downs $1-$2 Cash Bomb

 You know how you can play Texas Hold ‘em for hours and just get a little above break-even or a little below break-even and then all of a sudden you have one big hand and it makes or breaks your entire day?  Usually mine is with pocket Kings. So here’s what happened yesterday:

$10 double board bomb pot and I am on the button with pocket Kings.  The flop on top is Jack high rainbow and the flop on the bottom is Ace King Jack with two clubs. The loose black guy in seat five opens for $20 and this is followed by a raise to $40 from the Latino guy in the eight seat. I’m thinking I have to make these guys pay to draw that flush or straight (except, of course Q-10 where I’m behind but with outs to a Boat) and while I’m probably ahead on both boards, it’s just the kind of thing where I might be able to find a way to lose on both of them. Like to two pair on the top and somebody catching a flush or a straight on the bottom so of course I shove it all in.  The black guy calls for about a $250 and the Latino guy calls for about $200. The board paired on top and the bottom ran out Club, Club. I’m thinking I’m dead to any club on the bottom and whatever Trips on top. They turn over their hands and neither has a Club.  Whew!  They both had pair/straight draws on top and bottom and bricked. I had them both covered and all the chips came my way.

Then I spent the next couple of hours C-betting the flop, checking the turn and bluffing the river and getting called. But I still walked away with most of my profits from the one big hand. No Limit Hold ‘em in a nutshell.

I suppose this is the way that the poker gods get me back to even from the day a while ago when I had the best of it on both boards after the flop and my opponent caught a flush on the top and went runner-runner for another flush on the bottom.

Sometimes, it’s just luck

Oxford Downs is a horse race track near my home in The Villages, Florida.  Not sure when they actually run horses, but they have simulcast wagering on races and a nice poker room with about 30 tables and, as you would expect, daily tournaments and cash games.

I recently took a seat in a $1-$2 No Limit Hold ‘em game, full nine handed table. I was able to dribble away about half my stack playing ABC poker, raising with my premium hands and following through with continuation bets. My raises got no respect, getting met with 3 or 4 callers and the obvious board draws seemed to get there. When I rivered two pair, it completed the flush. Ugh!

That is how I found myself playing like an old retiree trying to get lucky. I topped up my stack and after a limp, I tossed in my $2 call with a not-very-connected 10-6♦️ suited. This was followed by folds to the button who raised it to $12. As usual, no respect. The Small Blind called followed by the Big Blind and the limper came along, too. This offered me $50 in the pot for a $10 call and the opportunity to close the action, so I took it. Most of the time when I play, a hand like this is in the muck but this day, after getting beat up a little, I thought a change was in order.

The flop came 4♥️-6♠️-10♠️ Giving me top two pair and a lot of possible draws out there against me. They went check, check, check ahead of me and I bet $20 to make the draws pay a price to beat me. The button raised “All in” to $65. It wasn’t enough to get those draws to fold because both the Big and Small blinds called the $65 and the only other player in the hand folded.  It was up to me. I figured the all in player, the preflop raiser had a made hand like an over-pair or a set while the other two guys likely were on a draw and both of them still had about $100 behind. I thought that even if “All in” had me beat with a set, I needed to make the other two pay for the privilege of drawing out on me.  In the event I had the raiser beat, I wouldn’t mind if the other two folded. Turns out they didn’t. After I shoved the rest of my chips in, both players called creating a side pot as big as the main pot. The dealer did a nice job of pulling in the $65 from each player and creating the side pots.

All that was left to do was to run out the board and see what happens. A J♦️ showed up on the Turn and an innocent 3♣️ on the River. I showed my 2-pair right away. The original All In player mucked his hand. The Small Blind couldn’t win anything with a pair of 8’s and the Big Blind showed me what he missed when he tabled  the J♠️Q♠️.  Whew!

I can’t say it was the most skilled poker I have ever played, but it sure is fun to get lucky once in a while! 😁

Tony Dunst for the Bracelet!

I certainly hope that Tony Dunst starts a trend toward dressing better at the World Series of Poker. He has been setting an example for the last ten years, showing up to play poker in a suit and tie. This photo is from day one of this event. On day two he showed up in a crisp pressed blue and white striped dress shirt looking much better than those rubes wearing an outfit they could have worn to paint the garage last week. It would be nice to class up the joint a little.

At the day three final table he did sport his now familiar formal attire.

Tony did very well when I passed through his table on day 2 of the $1000 entry No Limit Hold'em tournament.  Twice he was all in and at risk of elimination during my stint at his table.

The antes had been collected and cards were out when Tony was in the Big Blind and the Under-the-Gun player, first to act limped in. One by one, around the table, each player folded up up to the Small Blind who tossed in the chips to call. I started to sweep in the three calls with my free hand when, showing a little panic, Tony says, "Wait!"

"You have an option," I assured him.

In button and blind games, when there are no raises, only calls, the player in the Big Blind has only the option to check or raise. Often, the dealer will, in that situation, clear the perimeter by pulling in the bets while offering the Big Blind the option to raise. About 80% of the time, the Big Blind checks the option and the dealer can then immediately put out the Flop. If the Big Blind raises, then any players still in the hand will have to decide to fold, call the additional amount or re-raise and the action continues. Pulling in the calls and offering the option speeds up the action a little. I only do it when all of the callers have put out the exact amount of chips and no change is needed. I probably shouldn't. The amount of time saved, even if it helps to speed up the rhythm of the whole game, is probably not worth the risk of putting out a premature Flop which would create a real mess and a Floor Supervisor call and waste a bunch of time and create a lot of bad feelings. Note to self:  Stop trying to speed things up by pulling in the calls while the Big Blind thinks. Just let them play at their own speed.

Tony took the option to raise and three blaze orange $5000 chips fell off his fingertips to the table. The Under-the-Gun player re-raised, quickly placing a stack of chips out. The Small Blind folded followed by Tony declaring, "All in!"

"I call!"

Tony tabled two Jacks and the caller showed an Ace-King hand.

Interesting tactic by the Under-the-Gun player.  He had been trapping, limping in (just calling) hoping to catch someone raising or trying to steal with a weak hand and pouncing on them with a re-raise.  This time, the trapper got caught in his own trap. His A♦️K♦️ was a slight underdog to Tony's J♥️J♦️.

The Flop came out Jack high with a ten and a small diamond card making the Jacks a huge favorite while the suited AK could only win with a Queen for the Straight or running diamonds for a "back door" Flush. Neither happened and Tony went from having a below average stack of around 125,000 and at risk to a nicely above average stack of 260,000.

Three hands later, Tony once again finds himself all in with a pair of Jacks up against a larger stack with an Ace-King and risking elimination if he loses.

Flop to the rescue. Although the flop paired the opponent's King, a Jack made the set, keeping him ahead and while a King on the Turn improved the opponent's hand, it made Jacks Full of Kings a near total lock vulnerable only to one card in the deck, the case King. One card of the remaining unknown 44.  A 97.7% favorite and then... ...no drama. An inconsequential small card falls on the River. Dunst doubles up again to over half a million chips and in reach of the tournament chip leaders.

On Day 3 of the tournament Tony showed up in his now familiar suit and tie, made the final table and was able to win his first WSOP Gold Bracelet. 

An Unusually Good Run of Cards

     "...in order for him to make money in this game, he's going to need an unusually good run of cards."  

          - Commentator on High Stakes Poker

Having been scheduled for the 1 PM shift and with nothing to do in the morning I decided to arrive a few hours early and play a little cash game. The "Live Action" cash games at WSOP run 24-7 throughout the series. 

I bought into the $1-$3 No Limit Hold'em game for $300 with my typical stack configuration of $280 in red $5 chips and a $20 in white $1 chips. There were two seats open at the nine handed table. I chose the seven seat. Almost immediately, another player sat down in the five seat with two stacks of red chips. The second hand I saw was 7-7.  I called a raise from the new player and we saw a flop that made both of us happy:  7♠️4❤️A❤️. Bet. Raise. Re-raise. All in. Call. 

Dealer put out the Turn and River. 

"Set of sevens."

"That's good." He threw his hand away and left table. 

A few minutes later a player, an older gentleman wearing a big black cowboy hat, sat down in the that same five seat and placed 12 green and white striped $25 chips in front of him. I sold him a $100 stack of red chips to get him started. And start he did opening up the first hand he saw with a raise. 

I called that raise and flopped a set of fives. He bet the queen high board and I called.  Another queen hit on the Turn. He bet. I raised and he went, "All in."

I said, "I have to call.  I have a Full House."

He replied, "I guess it don't much matter if a make this Straight."  Then he smiled, shook his head and reloaded with another handful of green chips. 

After a dealer change and a bunch of small pot wins and losses, I limped in with 8❤️7❤️ on the button along with several others. Flop came 7-7-2 and the table checked around to me. I bet $5 and got calls from both the Small and Big Blinds. A 9♦️ fell on the Turn. Check.  Check.  I bet $10.  The Small Blind folded, but the Big Blind called. 

I was suspicious. 

After the River card came 5♣️ and my opponent checked, I cautiously checked behind and showed my trips. He mucked. 

Then the Asian player next to me, who had been in the small blind, said, "Good thing you bet $10 on Turn or I beat you with 55."

Whew!

A few hands later, I raised holding JJ and after flopping a set of Jacks and getting no action, I took down another pot. 

After an orbit and another dealer change it was getting late and closer to the time for me to report to work.  I decided to gamble a little. I straddled on-the-button. 

A Straddle is a raise made "in the dark" i.e. before the cards are dealt. At the WSOP cash tables, a player can make this bet either from the under-the-gun position just left of the Blinds or when on-the-button.  It is not generally considered a good bet, but it does create action and raises the level of the game. 

I looked at my cards one at a time.  The first one was good. A black ace. Then I looked at the other. A black ace. Then, thinking I accidentally looked at the same card twice, looked back at the first. A black ace. Then I looked at both at the same time, just to make sure. Two black aces. Is that a tell?

By the time the action got around to me, four players had called the $6. I made it $22 to go and got two callers. 

The flop came with a red ace and all I could see was ♠️and♠️on the other two cards, so when my opponents checked to me I lead out $60 and took down the pot without opposition. 

A few folded hands later it was time to go to work. I made more money in that ninety minutes than I would make in the entire day dealing. Four sets and trip sevens built my stack to over $1000. A good start to the day. 💰😎

Hijinks at the tables

After watching all of these pros play tournaments you would think I could learn that patience is often rewarded and that you just can't waste chips unnecessarily and expect to do well in these contests.  I did not demonstrate those skills in last night's 5 PM Deepstack. 

Wednesday was going to be my first day off after nine days of work, so Tuesday looked like a good day to play a tournament after work. I spent the day dealing the Duece-to-Seven Triple Draw (day 2) and was out when the swing shift showed up.  Timing was such that I could get into the 5 PM late registration (level 4) where I start with 10,000 chips or wait for the 7 PM and start with 5,000 at level 1. I chose the extra 5k. 

Not that I made good use of those chips. In level 6 in middle position I raised with J♠️10♠️, got called by the button with the largest stack and saw a flop of 10♦️9♣️4♥️. I made a continuation bet of about half the pot and got called.  2♦️showed up on the turn and I made another half pot bet which was called. In my mind I planned to bet the river if any card came up that was Jack or smaller and check if anything larger showed up. Irritated when the Q♣️showed up I made an impulsive decision to bluff. Bad choice. My opponent called holding K♥️J♦️ to knock me out with the absolute nuts.  

Note to self: Middle pair is not a good hand to bluff with. It gets calls from hands that beat you and folds from hands you beat. No value in bluffing. The fundamental strategy of betting is to either get opponents with worse to call or get those with better to fold.  

After beating myself up for not playing smarter I decided to try my hand at the cash game and see if I could win back my buy-in. 

Good choice. Got lucky. Called a small raise on the $1-$3 No Limit Hold'em game with 3♠️4♠️ on the button. The raiser was an older woman at the far end of the table having an animated conversation with the player next to her. Another player in the hand asked, "You know him?"

"He speak my language." 

"What language is that?"

"Hebrew."

The World Series of Poker is truly an international event. 

The Flop gave me bottom pair with a 3, so I called her continuation bet. When the Turn added a flush draw for me I thought I could run a little bully bluff against her smallish lead and raised it 3x. Her response was to re-raise her short stack all in with top pair. I called for the small additional amount.

It's always good to have outs when bluffing: Flush on the River. The beauty of No Limit Hold'em. Voilà. Won back my tournament buy-in in one hand at the live action table. 

My pal Barry tells me he wins more against good players because the bad players don't know when to fold. The good players are willing to seriously consider folding a top pair or an over pair when faced with a raise on the Turn. Your typical small stakes cash player has a tough time with that decision. I know. I've gone bust often enough holding something like QQ or KK. 

Famous last words: "Don't go broke with just one pair!"

Halfway mark at 2016 WSOP

I have reached the halfway point of the 2016 WSOP having been here for about 3 1/2 weeks with that much to go. There is no shortage of work this year. We have six day work weeks and no shortage of overtime. So far, I have only dealt one final table, the $10,000 Lowball Draw Poker Championship. 

As usual, there is a lot of chirping and hand wringing around the dealer's break room about how much we get paid and what the "down rate" will be. If you're familiar with poker dealers, you understand that every 30 minutes a dealer sits at the table pitching cards equals a "down".  It's the basic poker dealer unit of work. A portion of every poker players entry fee is set aside to pay the dealers. That pool of money is divided by the number of "downs" it took to complete the tournament and each dealer gets paid for the number of downs they worked. Hence, the angst over the "down rate".  

Pleasant surprise for 2016, it seems the down rate will be up from last year. The increase is not because WSOP is taking more out of the player's prize pool, but because the smaller buy-in tournaments are better managed and have a more efficient structure. 

I say they are better managed because we have many fewer dead spreads. Fewer tables with dealers sitting at empty tables, collecting downs at the tournament start waiting for players. I also see fewer tables with multiple empty seats during the first levels of the tournaments. Better, more efficient management of the process of getting the tournament started helps to keep the "down rate" up.

The bigger thing is the tournament structure itself. In the past many of our tournaments began the first level with the blinds at 25 and 25. This year they begin at 25 and 50.  In addition the antes kick in at level 3 whereas in the past they didn't start until level 4.  The change makes the early levels more meaningful for the players.  In other words, it's easier to bust out of the tournament earlier, shrinking the field sooner. The players seem to like it. This is good for us and it seems to be working.  "Down rates" are higher than last year. How do you like that? The players are happy, the dealers are happy and management is happy!

WSOP 2016 Starts this Week!

Orientation was Sunday. The Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio was filled with dealers - and that was only those with last names A-L!  Frank Moreno, headliner at Planet Hollywood stopped by to sing a few songs to kick things off for us and then it was it was the expected mix of rules, things to know and pep talks. We got a pep talk from guest speakers Barry and Allyn Shulman, owners of Card Player Magazine and winners of over $6 million in poker tournament prizes. We were reminded that attitude is "a little thing that makes a big difference" and that the players, generally, are not interested in the dealer's opinion of whatever it is they are discussing. 

So now two days off and then start a six day work week. I guess management figured out that because this is a temporary gig, it is okay to schedule workers for a string of six day work weeks as long as they pay overtime, despite the fact that in the USA the five day work week is standard. For most dealers who have travelled and are paying for housing in Vegas while also paying for housing wherever they travelled from, the six day work week is nice. More money and less time to kill while in Sin City where there are all kinds of ways to spew money. 

Speaking of killing time, with nothing to do but kill time until work starts, I headed over to the Flamingo to play a little $1-$2 No Limit Hold 'em. In typical No Limit fashion I got it in bad and sucked out for a big win. 😎. 

Here's how the hand went:

I had JJ, pocket Jacks, in middle position and raised to $12.  The player next to me, a tourist from Germany, with a large stack made it $25. It folded to the Big Blind who only had $65 total and he put it all in. I figured that if I just called, the German would also and I didn't relish the idea of taking my Jacks against two players but if I re-raised, the German could fold thinking that since I made the fourth raise pre-flop it usually signals Aces .  I thought I also might be able to play an even larger side pot against the German and come out ahead if I lost to the short stack. So I shoved "All In". Since I was obviously trying to isolate the short stack, the German correctly determined that I likely didn't have Aces and since he was holding KK, he wasn't going anywhere, anyhow.

So I said a little prayer to the nonexistent Poker gods for a Jack on the Flop, but it came out K-Q-10 missing my Jacks on both sides and leaving me with an up-n-down straight draw.  After a 4 on the Turn, the River brought an Ace to give me the "Broadway" straight beating both my opponents who were holding AA (the Short Stack) and KK (the German). So I went from about $175 to over $400 one lucky hand. 

According to Barry Shulman's Card Player Magazine Odds Calculator, I was about a 5 to 1 underdog (16% chance to win) in that hand. This is not really a good bet for me as I was only collecting less than 2 to 1 when I win. If I keep making bets like that, it will not be long before I am broke. 

I played about even for the next couple hours and went home with a profit.  

Poker is lots of fun when you get lucky. It's also fun when you can pull off a bluff and steal a pot. Professional poker player Antonio Esfandiari once said, "In poker, over the long term, everybody gets the same hands. The profit is in what you can steal!"

What to do with my Memorial Day holiday?  I hear that Steve Wynn moved and expanded his Poker Room and the new location is now in the Encore next door. I might need to go check it out. 

HPT Ameristar East Chicago

We had an excellent tournament at the Heartland Poker Tour's stop in East Chicago January 14 to 25, 2016.  Record breaking crowds nearly overwhelmed the staff.
I knew when I first checked in that we were going to get a lot of work because Ashley in HR told me that she was only able to hire 24 dealers rather than the 30 that Jeremy (HPT Tournament Director) had asked for.
Turns out we did better than expected in terms of turnout. We had the largest Main Event field of any HPT stop outside of Colorado.  Apparently, poker starved Colorado has by far the largest turnout of any HPT sites.
I found that remarkable because Ameristar East Chicago closed its Poker Room and converted it to Baccarat last summer.  They compete with a small poker room at The Majestic and also the Horseshoe Hammond and they have a beautiful Poker room with a large local following.  So even without a poker room Ameristar EC had record breaking turnout and no cash games on the side.  We heard complaints from players, but it didn't stop them from coming.  Seems that if they wanted to play a cash game they just drove over to the Majestic or to the Shoe.
At HPT stops they usually staff the final table on Monday with local dealers and let the travellers go but no poker room, it was staffed from the temporary crew.  I saw this coming and bought by return plane flight for Tuesday in case I got the chance to deal the final TV table - and that is the way it worked out.
The old geezers did the early shift and the ladies took it the rest of the way to the winner.
HPT produces a television show of each tournament and airs the shows on cable channels across the country. Cox cable, here in Arizona doesn't carry it, but I still will be able to see it when it becomes available on the watch.hptpoker.com web site.
I probably won't get on camera too much because most of the time I was dealing there was a camera right over my shoulder focused on the players.  In all it was great fun knowing that we were making a TV show "in front of a live studio audience!"

Hellmuth number fourteen number one

$10,000 entry Razz Final Table

I had the privilege of being one of the three dealers to deal the final table of Event 17, the Razz Championship. It is not only a "Bracelet Event" but it is also considered a "World Championship" as are all events at the WSOP that have a $10,000 entry fee.

The three of us, Eric Green, Shaun Harris and I, began setting up two tables for the last sixteen players at about 1:30 pm and finished up a little after midnight.

What is Razz?  It is a variation of 7-Card Stud lowball. It is dealt like 7-Card Stud but the winning hand is the lowest combination of five cards, the best being A-2-3-4-5-x-x. Straights and Flushes have no bearing on the hand value. Some say it is not really Poker because it does not use the conventional poker rank of hands but the essential elements of poker are there: the ability to win pots with the best hand at showdown and the ability to win by betting to convince your opponent to fold.

We started the day with two tabes in the northeast corner of the Amazon Room. Shaun was on 446, Eric on 449 and I was on first break.  Every half hour we rotate, so we do 30 minutes at 446, 30 minutes on 449 followed by a 30 minute break. We ran this rotation until around 3:30 when the seventh player had busted out losing all of his chips. With 9 players left we took a quick break and moved our table into the Amazon Arena, the stadium like setup where Championship final tables are broadcast live on the Internet, recorded and archived.

Dealers stay in the same rotation but responsibilities change. One dealer is at the table, one acts as a runner assisting the floor and players with whatever is needed and escorting any player busting out to the payout clerk for processing, and the third on break. The difference is that when on a final table, you get paid for all three positions as if you were dealing continuously.

That is the rotation we were in. The extra money isn't really important to me, although I appreciate being fairly compensated for my labor, I get great personal satisfaction from being in the center of the arena, on camera, with a lot on the line and proving to myself that I can perform well under the stress.   On this day, I was quick, accurate, precise and my procedures were by the book right down to clearing my hand after the cut (a procedure many dealers fail to perform). It can be tough. You have an earpiece in your ear with a producer giving some instructions as you deal. There are many spectators in the stadium all watching your moves with multiple video screens showing every action and a set of video cameras with potentially thousands of viewers all around the world watching the game you are running. Seeing that I do this part-time as a hobby rather than for a living, I'm pretty proud of being able to perform in the arena.

But enough about me. Phil Hellmuth, who has won the Main Event and won more WSOP Bracelets than any other captured his 14th bracelet by winning this 2015 World Championship Razz Event. Eric Green had the privilege of dealing the final winning hand.

Reports of the Death of Poker are Greatly Exaggerated

Poker seems to be alive and well.  Last week the World Series of Poker held a tournament marketed to the masses. They called it The Colossus. At $565 it was the lowest entry fee of any event the WSOP has ever held where the winner receives one of the coveted gold bracelets in addition to the prize money. The result was the largest field ever for a live poker tournament. 22,374 entries were sold with multiple starting times over two days with the stipulation that if you busted out of one flight you could enter again into one of the later flights.  Unknown how many re-entries were logged. First prize was the bracelet and $638,880 of the over $11 million prize pool.

The popularity of the event also boosted the success of poker at other venues. WSOP's own 3PM Deepstack tournament set a record with 2149 entries. Planet Hollywood and the Golden Nugget were scrambling for dealers for their tournaments that run simultaneously with the WSOP. At the Wynn Poker Room their tournament was sold out and for the seven or eight tables of $1-$3 No Limit Hold'em there were 91 people on the waiting list to get a seat.

As the tournament was marketed to more recreational players, it was not without controversy. When the prize pool payouts were announced Twitter exploded. Many were incensed that the winner wouldn't come close to winning a million dollars. The structure that was used, like all other bracelet events, paid out to all who made it into the top 10%. Spreading out $11 million to over 2200 winners looked nice to the guy that finished in 1000th place but many were still disappointed that it works out that the winner would "only" get about 6% of the total prize pool.

The other controversy is with the dealer pay. A portion of the dealer's pay is determined by a small percentage of the entry fee, known as "tokes", divided up by all the dealers according to how much time they spent dealing. Looking at the small fee and the slow structure of the tournament, many dealers were worried that the toke rate would be very low. In fact when it was announced, dealers were in an uproar over the smallest toke rate in the history of the WSOP. It was about 30% lower than previous rates. One of the best paid dealer jobs in town had become one of the worst. The upside was that there was a lot of work. Many dealers were able to work double shifts with overtime making less per hour than elsewhere but logging many more hours. All in all if the toke rate goes back up next week, it will be an anomaly.

Seeing the WSOP set records and seeing poker rooms all over town overflowing with poker players makes me feel pretty good about the state of poker these days.

2015 World Series of Poker begins today 5/27/2015

Good post in Poker News. Poker News Daily click here

Holding 2♥ -2♦, how often do you flop a set?

There are a number of ways to figure this out.  Figure out how many possible combinations of cards there are on a flop and, of those, figure out how many of them contain the cards you are looking for.

You could make a list and start counting, but that would take a long time.  Better to use a little math to figure it out.  Of course, somebody has already figured this out, like some ancient mathematician trying to figure out how many color combinations you could weave into a rug with a given set of colored yarns.    If you let n be the number of cards left in the deck to choose from and let k be the number of cards you are choosing, then the number of possible combinations you can get (without regard to the order of the cards) can be represented by a formula that looks like n! / k!(n-k)!.   

Fortunately, we have Google.  We don't need to multiply out all of those factorials.  We don't even need to know the formula or call it the binomial coefficient.  We just need to know how many cards we are choosing from the deck and how many cards are in the deck.

Google built a tool right into their search engine to make it easy for us. Just type in "50 choose 3" where 50 is the number of cards in the deck and 3 is the number of cards.  It will return the number of possible combinations.

We can use this handy tool to help us figure out our solution

How many possible flop combinations are there?  There are 52 cards in the deck and we are holding two of them.  The flop contains 3 cards,chosen from the remaining 50 so:

50 Choose 3 = 19,600  The number of possible flop combinations

Seeking 2♣ plus any combination of any of the other 49 cards

49 choose 2 = 1176

Seeking 2♠ plus any combination of any of the other 49 cards

49 choose 2 = 1176

Note that 1176 contains flops that have both 2's and another card and 2♣-2♠-X is the same as 2♠-2♣-X so we need to pull out the duplicates.

Subtract out duplicates of 2♣-2♠ plus any of remaining 48 = 48

1176 + 1176 – 48 = 2304

So now we know that of a possible 19,600 flops, 2,304 of them contain one or two deuces and give us a very strong hand.

 2304 /19,600 = 11.755%

Of course, there is more than one way to skin a cat.  My old poker buddy who was a college professor and did a lot of research using statistics and probability didn't like my alternative method because it was subject to a tiny little bit of rounding error.  But it works.  It is a method of figuring out how many times you miss catching a deuce on the flop and simply subtracting that from 100% to see how often you hit it.

Alternate method:

2 of 50 is 4%, so 96% of the time, the first card misses.

Of the 96% of the time that the first card misses, 47 of 49 or 95.92% of the time second card also misses and 95.92% of 96% is 92.08% of the time.

Of the 92.08% of the time that the first two miss, 46 of 48 or 95.83% of the time the third card misses also. This means that 95.83% of the 92.08% or 88.24% of the time all three miss which means that 11.76% of the time, you flop three or four of a kind.

By either method, you will flop a set or quads about once every 8.5 times you see a flop or, saying it another way, the odds against flopping a set are 7 ½ to 1.

The Colossus of Poker

The WSOP begins on Wednesday, May 27th with the Casino Employees' No Limit Hold'Em Tournament. The event is limited to people who work in the industry. Even the dealers hired to work the WSOP are eligible to enter. In fact, upon being hired dealers are asked for their shift preference (Days, Swing, Graveyard) and if they plan to play in the employee event. It is a way to ease into the summer's biggest poker festival with a "soft opening" and test all the systems for registration as well as all of the support needed to put the entire event together. Despite the limited nature of the field, last year there were 876 players entered. 

While there are some smaller events scheduled for Thursday, the real kickoff is on Friday with the "Colossus". This tournament is projected to be the largest ever live poker tournament in the history of poker. To start with, the "Colossus" has a guaranteed prize pool of $5 million and an entry fee of only $565, the lowest entry fee of any WSOP Bracelet event. In order to clear the guarantee, the tournament will need 10,000 entrants.

 The tournament is set up with four starting flights to accommodate the anticipated crowds. The concept is that players may enter any flight and if they unfortunately get eliminated they will be allowed to re-enter in a subsequent flight. Pre-registration is open for all four flights, so a player wanting to make sure that they have every possible chance to get their share of that $5 million can register in advance for all four flights. Any unused entries are refunded. Flights will begin play at 10 AM and 6 PM on Friday and Saturday. Players remaining from the four flights will be combined on Sunday and play will continue through Monday with the final table of nine players on Tuesday.  According to a report from Card Player Magazine, The Colossus may already have enough entries to be the largest field of players in the history of poker.

Link to Card Player Magazine Article

WSOP 2015

Yes, it is getting to be that time of year again. WSOP 2015 is just around the corner. Got my invite back. It included a note that my driver's license on file had expired and I needed to visit Human Resources in person to update it and update the I-9 form that goes with it. This little visit to HR entails a 5 hour drive from Scottsdale as well as a return. I shouldn't complain. A couple years ago that was an airplane flight from Tampa which is a lot more expensive than the tank of gas or two I'll burn up. My sister, Terrie, who lives in Sun City volunteered to keep me company on the drive, so I booked a room at the Orleans for us (no rooms available that week at the Rio) and we headed up through the desert. I spent my 15 minutes in HR, they were quick and efficient, and headed out to find some discount show tickets. Tix 4 Tonight had some discounted seats available for "Showstoppers" at the Wynn. The show was entertaining. It should be. It was a compilation of great musical numbers from Broadway shows in the recent and the distant past. I really enjoyed the "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago. If you are one of those people that hates Broadway musicals, you would really detest this show. Me, on the other hand, I've had an interest in musical theatre ever since I saw my sister (yes, Terrie, my travel companion) in "West Side Story" when we were kids. So I have been "processed". Orientation is Sunday, May 24th, and the first tournament begins May 27th. Official link to the WSOP Schedule here.

Keystone XL Pipeline

Is the Keystone XL Pipeline good or bad? I looked at arguments from both sides. The Keystone pipeline already exists and the segment that transports oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico refineries has been in operation since January of this year. XL will roughly double the capacity of the pipeline. The industry wants to build XL while the environmentalists want to stop it. Building it would increase US imports of oil from Canada, specifically from the tar sands of Alberta. This oil is “dirtier” than imported oil from OPEC . The groups seeking to reduce greenhouse gases oppose this project on that basis along with other environmental concerns. The objective of the pipeline is to increase the capacity of the existing pipeline so that more crude oil from Canada (and also Montana, BTW) can be transported to the refineries on the Gulf Coast. Understand that the US gets about half of all the oil it needs from domestic sources and the other half from imports from other countries. Canada and Saudi Arabia are the two largest suppliers of oil to the US by a wide margin. The pipeline project will shift the supply of about 500,000 barrels per day of oil from other sources (including Saudi Arabia and OPEC) to Canada. Per US Energy Information Administration, Canada and OPEC each supply about 3.4 Million barrels of crude oil to the US per day. Shifting that market share from about 50:50 to 40:30 in favor of Canada is a big shift. I favor initiatives that reduce our need to import oil from the Mideast. Blocking the pipeline does not do anything to reduce the demand for oil in the US. We will refine just about the same amount of oil to meet our needs whether we buy it from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela or from Canada. I would rather see the money go to private companies in Canada than to governments in OPEC countries. Will it affect the price of gasoline in the US? Evidence suggests that it will. While there are arguments that it will cause the price to rise, recent developments in the world oil markets suggest otherwise. Recently the price of a barrel of oil has dropped from over $100 to around $75 and the price of gas locally has gone from near $4/gal to around $3. Most people agree that this is a good thing for our economy despite the fact that cheap gas reduces our incentive to lower our overall consumption. The cause of the reduction in price is twofold. There has been a worldwide reduction in the demand for oil and basic economics dictates that when demand slows for any product in a competitive marketplace, the price will fall. More pointedly, it has been widely reported in the financial media that the Saudis perceive the tar sands oil production to be a threat to their share of the world’s oil market. Because oil production from sources such as the tar sands has been increasing, the Saudis have decided to protect their share by reducing the price. Their intent is to reduce the incentive to produce oil from the tar sands by making it less profitable to do so. The Keystone Phase III which only opened in January is already having an effect reducing the amount of money we send to OPEC and we haven’t even started building XL yet. In my opinion, the people trying to block Keystone XL should redirect their efforts at reducing the US consumption of oil in our cars and trucks, in our factories and in our consumer products. That would be a more effective way to combat the expansion of greenhouse gases. If we did things like converting all semi-type trucks to natural gas and all local taxis and delivery vehicles like school buses and mail trucks to electric we could put a huge dent in oil imports while cleaning our air and preserving our environment. In the meantime, we should build the XL expansion to the Keystone Pipeline.

A Republican or Democrat Economy?

Republican or Democrat, which one is better for the economy? It is always an interesting question. Generally speaking, since the Republican party seems to represent “management” and the Democratic party, “labor” it seems logical to assume that the Republicans would be more pro-business and the economy would do better following their policies. That may or may not be the case. I think everyone will agree that when the economy is doing well, things are humming along and unemployment is low and jobs are plentiful. So the Unemployment Rate should be a good indicator. So how has the country done under the different administrations since the 1950’s? I start at the 1950’s because before that there are too many distortions such as World War II and the fact that the parties didn't really line up the same. For instance, Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican, however, he was considered a “Progressive” and an “Environmentalist” busting up monopolies and establishing the National Park System to preserve natural habitats which today would likely be leaning more in the Democratic party camp. Since the 1950’s I wanted to look at where the unemployment rate stood during the periods of leadership of our two political parties. Since we are looking at the effect of the party in power, lets look at the unemployment rate at the time each party took office. Here are the results from US bureau Labor Statistics for January of years noted: Eisenhower (R) 1953 to 1961. Unemployment went from 2.9% to 6.6% Kennedy/Johnson (D) 1961 to 1969 Unemployment went from 6.6% to 3.4% Nixon/Ford (R) 1969 to 1977 Unemployment went from 3.4% to 7.5% Carter (D) 1977 to 1981 Unemployment went from 7.5% to 7.5% Reagan/Bush(R) 1981 to 1993 Unemployment went from 7.5% to 7.3% Clinton (D) 1993 to 2001 Unemployment went from 7.3% to 4.2% Bush (R) 2001 to 2009 Unemployment went from 4.2% to 7.8% Obama (D) 2009 to present Unemployment went from 7.8% to 5.9% Weird, huh? When the Democrats are in power, the employment picture gets better or stays the same. When the Republicans are in power, the employment picture either gets worse or stays about the same. You would think the opposite would be true. Oddly, it is a similar situation for the deficit: You would think that conservative minded Republicans would hold the line on spending while the tax-and-spend liberals in the Democratic party would run up the bill. Nope. Recently, during the administrations of Clinton and Obama, the deficits were reduced versus when Reagan, Bush and Bush were in power, deficits skyrocketed. It makes it tough to know who to vote for, doesn't it?

Some Highlights from WSOP 2014

Just a few work days left to clean up the Main Event. Probably some highlights to come, but here are some of the highlights of my WSOP experience so far:

Dealt H.O.R.S.E. Final Table in the Arena "Thunderdome" where there was prize pool over a million dollars, won by Tommy Hang.

Dealt $1500 Draw Lowball Final Table won by Steve Wolansky.

Dealt $10k Draw Lowball Final Table where Paul Volpe defeated a table of pros including Jason Mercier and Daniel Negreanu to put a cool quarter million dollars in his pocket. During play, when I dealt Daniel a winner, his rooting section starting cheering, "Go Buz! Go Buz!" Daniel remarked, "Wow! Dealer fans. Cool!"

I also dealt the Final Table of the $10k 7-Card Stud World Championship where I dealt the back to back hands that eliminated Phil Hellmuth in sixth place after starting the Final Table third in chips. Matt Grapenthien won it by overcoming Todd Brunson's huge initial chip lead in a marathon heads up battle that lasted long after the evening shift took over.

I know I represent all 1100 WSOP dealers when I do a final table, especially when it's being broadcast. I try to be smooth, precise and professional, and not look too nervous in front of the cameras. I hope I represented you well.

I want to thank the folks like Robbie and Bos who over the years have made suggestions to me on how to be a better, more professional dealer and also my friends, who among them are some of the best Poker dealers in the entire world. — feeling blessed.

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2014 WSOP Main Event starts 7/5

So far I've had a pretty productive Series.  Although some weeks were slow and some were crazy busy I got to deal a bunch of fun games. 

I dealt the Final Table of four tournaments: $10,000 2-7 Draw, $1500 HORSE (mixed games Hold'em, Omaha 8, Razz, Stud, Stud 8). $1500 2-7 Draw and the jewel, the $10,000 World Championship 7 Card Stud. Famous-wise, Daniel Negreanu was at the $10k Draw Final and Todd Brunson and Phil Hellmuth squared off at the Stud table.  I also dealt Stud to Gabe Kaplan of "Welcome Back Kotter" fame, the day before the Final. 

The final days of work here begin with the start of the Main Event on Saturday. This is where the lion's share of the money is made. Hopefully I go deep in the event and make it all even sweeter with a nice fat paycheck. 

Monster, Monster Stack

7862 Unique players. No re-buys, no re-entries. Two flights in one day and several waves added. Everybody started with a full stack. Those who began the day at either 1:00 or 5:00 PM started with the blinds at 25-25.  Later "waves" which began as late as 10:40 PM started with their 15,000 chip stack at whatever level the 5 PM flight was at. Even at level 5, the start of the last wave, the blinds were still at just 100-200 with no ante.

The $1500 entry Monster Stack Tournament at this year's WSOP generated the largest ever field of unique players for a single starting day at a poker tournament.  The prize pool of over $10 million gives $1.3 million to the winner.