There’s a famous New Yorker cartoon, featuring two men, clearly residents of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, which has its de facto northern boundary at 14th Street. One says, “I haven’t been north of 14th Street in 20 years.” The other thinks for a moment, then replies, “I’ve never been north of 14th Street.”

Sometimes the poker world, and its heroes, can be like that. Particularly for the youngsters among us, it’s easy to get completely wrapped up in this game and its milieu. Especially if you’re one of those chasing SuperNova or SuperNova Elite status, and/or you follow the various online forums, track the SCOOP results, and so on – suddenly it seems like there’s not much time left for anything else.

Then there’s Barry Greenstein. I’ve known Barry since the late 80′s, when we played in the same cardroom (Garden City in San Jose, California). That’s not to say we were playing at the same table; Barry was playing in the biggest games and I was in some of the smallest. But the point is that 25 years ago, Barry was plying his trade, and that’s pretty much how he’s supported himself and his family since.

But along the way, even while becoming a world-class cash games player and major tournament winner, Barry has studied and learned the world around him.

This was brought into sharp relief yesterday when Barry was kind enough to spend a couple of hours chatting with his fans in the SCOOP Fan Club¹. When the questions were typical (“Do you feel good about making play X on televised hand Y?”), Barry’s answers were more or less what you’d expect from a serious professional player. But I knew he had a broader range and threw some non-standard queries at him. For instance, “Discuss the strategic importance of U.S. President Obama publicly supporting same-sex marriage in an interview yesterday.” Barry’s replied that it would force Obama’s likely opponent in November, Mitt Romney, to face up to the question of “equality for all Americans” during the campaign. Clearly he was aware of that interview and had thought about its implications.

Greenstein in a similar Q&A at the 2012 PCA

Then another member of the club asked Barry about his mathematics background. Barry said something about “(W)hile I was working on my PhD in mathematics…” That surprised me; while I knew he was a serious computer scientist and programmer, I didn’t know he had that advanced background in math. Hearing that, I asked Barry for his Erdös number (a measure of a mathematician’s publication-fu). Somewhat to my surprise, he said, “Well, I thought it was going to be 2 (an impressively low number), but I didn’t get author credit on (a paper) I did some computer work on, so I guess it’s infinite.” This impressed both me and the math-geek who’d asked Barry the original question.

Other questions elicited uncharacteristic (but wonted for Barry) replies that showed his forward-looking nature. “What was your favourite poker moment?” “I don’t know – it hasn’t happened yet.” This from a guy who has WSOP bracelets, WPT titles, and has been inducted into the poker Hall of Fame.

But lest you think that this has distracted him from his day/night job, you should have seen the discussion about his session lengths. “I generally average 16-hour sessions… Given my age, I’m trying not to go over 20-hour sessions.” Barry takes his job very seriously, and yet somehow finds time to inspect both the world around him and himself.

Perhaps we got a glimpse of how he does that on a recent EPT broadcast. He said he was reading a book on (I believe it was) “etiology”. When broadcasters James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton sounded confused, he explained that one of his kids was taking a philosophy class and Barry had a standing offer to read any text book that his kids had to use in school. Thus did professional poker player Barry Greenstein find himself wading through a philosophy text.

This method of supporting your kids has the excellent side effect of occasionally throwing a new and different subject in your face. While that may not hold specifically for dry philosophy tomes, I suspect that in general, PokerStars Team Pro Barry Greenstein relishes the opportunity to stretch his brain and learn a new thing or two. That’s how one keeps his Renaissance Man chops up to date.

¹ The SCOOP Fan Club is in Home Games club #634789, invitation code “scoopfan”. It’s open to everybody and we’ve already visitors such as Talonchick, Nanonoko, and David Williams. There’s plenty of room for new members so come on in.

Tags: 2011 | barry-greenstein | entertainment | italian poker tour | latin-america | news | planets | portugal poker series | russian poker series | tournaments | wcoop

Many of you know that in times gone by, I spent most of my Sunday evenings (“early Monday mornings”, actually) sitting on the rail of the Sunday Million tournament final table, managing deals, chatting with the players, and making inane comments when somebody busted out.

The people who run the Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) have been kind enough to offer me a seat on the rail at some SCOOP final tables; I jumped at the chance.

But we thought that we should also take advantage of the new technologies out there. So, we’ve created a PokerStars Home Games club called “SCOOP 2012 Fan Club”. Everybody can join. Just go to the Home Games tab in the PokerStars software lobby, click on “Join a club”, put in the club ID (#634789) and the invitation code (“scoop2012″). We’ll accept your application as soon as we see it.

Once you’re a member, click on the club wall and join the conversation. I’m going to be hosting the following final tables:

2-M final table on May 7th – $215 NL Hold’em

21-M final table on May 14th – $215 NL Hold’em

34-S final table on May 18th – $55 FL Hold’em

34-M final table on May 18th – $530 FL Hold’em

34-H final table on May 18th – $5200 FL Hold’em

Whenever I’m at a final table, I’ll be chatting on the wall and answering questions. We’ve also got a ton of Team Online and Team Pro people hosting SCOOP final tables; I’m sure many of them will be doing the same; we hope you’ll join us.

These tournament series are a great way to bring the PokerStars community together; please join us in the Home Games club where we can hang out, cheer on our favourite players, and watch two weeks of great poker action.

You can also join us on Twitter. Just use the #scoopfan hashtag to join the conversation.

Join Lee Jones on the rail for SCOOP 2012

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Amarillo Slim passed away this past Sunday (April 29th, 2012) at the age of 83.

Those relatively new to poker might recognize his name only vaguely, which is a pity. He won the 1972 World Series of Poker, defeating seven – yes, seven opponents. Actually six because Doyle Brunson bowed out when they were three-handed.¹

Slim took that win and parlayed it into national (and international) prominence. Unlike most other poker players (of his heyday or any time), he was a born extrovert and people loved to hear him talk. He was an old Texas road gambler and hustler; he was just doing what he always did – trying to make a buck. But while he was doing that, he yanked poker into the public spotlight. He appeared on the Tonight Show 11 times, and every major TV morning show of the time.

Amarilo Slim at the 1974 WSOP–(Image courtesy David Schwartz, coordinator of the Gaming Studies Research Center)

He was the face of poker for a couple of decades; an entire generation of Americans, when they think of a professional poker player, has a vision of Amarillo Slim, even if they couldn’t tell you his name. But with his height, slender frame (“I look like the advance man for a famine”), cowboy hat, and boots, he became an icon of the game.

He could have – perhaps should have – gone on to be one of the grand old men of the game, the gambler emeritus invited to every major poker tournament, creating a wake of gawking and tweeting admirers in his path. But in 2003 he was arrested for indecency with a 12-year-old girl (his granddaughter). He pled guilty to misdemeanour charges, paid a fine, and that was that. The case was over, but so was his career. A movie about his life, with Nicholas Cage playing him, evaporated. Later, Slim said he pled guilty only to save his family the agony of a trial; he produced signed affidavits saying that the original charges were not true.

As Greg Dinkin, the co-author of Slim’s memoir, says in a wonderful blog piece:

Because he had been telling his own version of the “truth” for so many years, no one knew what to believe. Including me. As well as I knew the man, your guess as to what really happened is as good as mine.

But that’s not why I’m here. I want to thank Amarillo Slim for the stories, for two reasons. First, because those stories allowed him to spin a world that America found intriguing, and helped poker on its first tentative steps toward respectability. Second, because he told a great story and we need to be told stories. We are a race of story tellers and story listeners; Slim captivated us with his stories.

He ran black market cigarettes in Germany after World War II, looked down gun barrels in poker games, and almost died winning a prop bet involving rafting the Salmon River. He was from an older, wilder time and his adventures, forgive me, trump the coolest new sushi bar our SuperNova Elites are visiting.

Amarillo Slim at the 2009 WSOP

Are all of his stories 100% true? Unlikely. But many of them are probably 100% true and there’s a kernel of truth in most of the rest. But every one, bar none, is a wonderful tale. You forget where you are and are absorbed into Slim’s story, his world. As my colleague, Nick Williamson, pointed out, “You’re entertained – that’s what matters – not the absolute truth of the story.”

The other thing about Amarillo Slim was that he knew one of his jobs was to promote poker (a lesson that wouldn’t go amiss with many of today’s superstars). I met him only once, in the late 90′s at a tournament at the Orleans. People wanted to talk to him, get autographs, have their picture taken with him. He worked the crowd, shook hands, and cracked jokes. He never forgot that he was, first and foremost, a salesman.

Go read Slim’s memoir, Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People. The stories, almost without exception, are fantastic; the book flies by.

Whatever, whoever Amarillo Slim was, we owe him a debt of gratitude for growing poker and for leaving us with a wealth of tales interweaved into our game.

______________

¹ The circumstances around that departure are unclear; poker was a lot less transparent then.

Tags: archives | Asia Pacific Poker Tour | colleague | delicious | doyle-brunson | estrellas poker tour | game | Super Tuesday | twitter | wbcoop | wcoop

No company is an island, and that includes PokerStars. We have suppliers, professional services, affiliates, the list goes on. One of our key partners is Poker Strategy, a training and news site.

So when they invited me to attend their VIP party in London this past weekend, I jumped at the chance. It was a great opportunity to meet a bunch of the VIP members from their site and get their opinions.

And opinions I got. From the moment that I said “Hi, I’m Lee Jones from PokerStars…” the barrage started. But it was a good barrage. They told me what they like, what they don’t like, and how we can do our job better.

Which, of course, is why I was at the party.

Maybe the most interesting idea I heard was how Zoom Poker may act as a teaching tool for new and/or weaker players. One top pro said, “Look – new poker players get bored. They play more hands than they should. But Zoom gives them a new hand so quickly, they don’t get bored. It’s just not that long between premium hands.”

Others laughed and pointed out that it’s not just the newbies who get bored and play too many hands. And another shook his head and chuckled, “Zoom teaches you patience. And discipline. Man, when somebody bets big in Zoom, they have it. Every. Single. Time.”

I also got a lot of suggestions about Sit and Go formats and dealing with data-miners. I gave out plenty of business cards and have already heard from two or three of those people.

After a three-hour dinner, we moved into the main part of the nightclub, which was not the place for discussion of what our players like and don’t like about PokerStars. Here is what it looked like:

Sadly, this medium can’t convey the 100+ decibel level of “I Will Survive”. I stuck around for a bit, but then one of the PokerStrategy members wanted to give me his suggestions for what Zoom stakes levels to offer. So he screamed it into my ear at the top of his lungs; I knew it was time to go. I gave him my card and the international sign for “Send me an email.”¹

I came away with some good ideas and thoughts from important customers; it was a productive evening. Right up until “Dancing Queen” came on.

¹ Point to the other person, mime typing, indicate the output flying through the air to oneself.

Tags: archives | estrellas poker tour | eureka poker tour | france | harrah's | london | micromillions | planets | pokerstars | twitter | UKIPT

The Super Tuesday just keeps getting more and more super. As in super-sized.

The field of 442 players for the 12/20/11 edition of the weekly $1,050 no-limit hold’em tournament marked the largest Super Tuesday field since February 8th when 475 played. It also represented the third straight week there has been a significant jump in the number of entrants (from 373 two weeks ago to 413 last week).

That meant a prize pool of $442,000 — almost three times the tourney’s $150K guarantee — to be divided by the top 54 finishers. And barring any final table deals, the winner would earn a huge payday of $84,819. Since a deal had been made at the final table of that 2/8/11 tourney, tonight’s haul would mark the largest amount earned at a Super Tuesday since 1/18/11 when WithEez1 won $86,849.60 after besting a field of 487.

After four hours that huge field had been reduced to an even 100. At that point three players had increased their starting stacks of 5,000 to more than 60,000 — nemets, 88ROTT88, and fcaler185.

By then three representatives of Team PokerStars had been eliminated: Team Greece challenger Alexis “J0hnny_Dr@m@” Zervos (302nd), Ana Marquez of Team PokerStars Spain (267th), and Anders “Donald” Berg of Team Online (179th). That left just two Team Pros — Johnny Lodden (Norway) and Jude “j.thaddeus” Ainsworth (Ireland) — both of whom were hovering near the 15,000-chip mark.

It would take a little over an hour for the field to be trimmed to 54 and the cash bubble to burst. Shortly after, Ainsworth would be eliminated in 53rd for a minimum cash of $2,210 after his [Kc][Qc] failed to catch up to Gerritss’ [6d][6s].

Soon 50 remained, led by AoPao (162,030), Joshua “bbbbb33″ Weizer (147,746), nemets (117,802), and moneyinbag (107,032). Meanwhile Lodden continued to hang on with a below-average stack, sitting in 35th.

They were closing in on the seven-hour mark when just 18 remained, with Jack “jackellwood” Ellwood having moved in front with more than 306,000, bbbbb33 next with about 287,000, and nemets third with just under 258,000. And Lodden was still there as well, remaining alive in the lower half of the counts.

Lodden would soon begin to add to his stack, and was starting to move up to challenge the leaders as eliminations continued. It would take about an hour more for the next nine to fall — Bryan “bparis” Paris (18th, $3,978), Puntakun (17th, $3,978), e1mdopp (16th, $3,978), Obär89 (15th, $4,862), MO G Kush (14th, $4,862), route666 (13th, $4,862), Paul “paulgees81″ Volpe (12th, $5,746), lb6121 (11th, $5,746), and MeatPounder (10th, $5,746).

The final table was set.

Seat 1: KaptianKush — 194,923
Seat 2: anti-durrr — 261,513
Seat 3: jonyctt — 259,122
Seat 4: nemets — 253,139
Seat 5: bbbbb33 — 346,106
Seat 6: jackellwood — 239,002
Seat 7: AoPao — 193,779
Seat 8: sparky522 — 135,948
Seat 9: Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden — 326,468

bbbbb33 sat atop the counts as the final table began, though Lodden was closing in and anti-durr, Jonathan “jonyctt” Concepcion, nemets, and jackellwood weren’t too far behind.

They made it to the eight-hour break, then soon after Lodden was opening from middle position with a min-raise to 9,600. It folded to Jonathan “jonyctt” Concepcion on the button who called, and nemets called as well from the small blind. bbbbb33 then reraised to 35,585 from the big blind, forcing a fold from Lodden. jonyctt, however, responded by shoving all in for 248,922. nemets quickly folded, but bbbbb33 called the shove, leaving himself about 50,000 behind.

bbbbb33 showed [Ah][Kd] while Concepcion had [Ad][Qh]. The flop came [Ks][7d][Jd], pairing bbbbb33. The turn was the [2d] and river the [3c], and jonyctt was out in ninth. Meanwhile, bbbbb33 had seized the chip lead, pushing up over 616,000.

About a half-hour later the blinds were 3,200/6,400 when nemets opened for 12,800 from under the gun, then jackellwood reraised all in from two seats over for 120,782. It folded back to nemets who quickly called, showing [Kd][Kh] to jackellwood’s [Qc][Qs]. Bad timing for Ellwood who was drawing dead by the turn when the board came [9d][Jh][Jc][Ks][9h], sending him out in eighth.

It would take about another half-hour for the next elimination. By then the blinds had moved to 4,000/8,000. The hand began with anti-durrr raising to 16,000 from UTG. Next to act, nemets reraised to 32,000 and the table folded back around. anti-durrr responded with a reraise all in for 167,903 total, and nemets called.

anti-durrr had [Ad][Jc] and needed to catch versus nemets’ [Qc][Qh]. The flop gave anti-durrr one pair, coming [4d][Js][2s], but the turn was the [Td] and the river the [4c], and anti-durrr was knocked out in seventh.

Twenty minutes later the blinds were 4,500/9,000 when AoPao raised to 19,999 from the cutoff, then Chris “Sparky522″ Parker reraised his short stack all in for 24,505. KaptianKush called the reraise from the big blind, and AoPao called as well.

The two remaining players checked down the [3s][6s][Ks][Qd][6c] board, then KaptianKush showed [5c][3c] for treys and sixes. The other two mucked, giving KaptianKush the hand and sending sparky522 out in sixth.

Just a few minutes later Joshua “bbbbb33″ Weizer opened with a min-raise to 18,000 from under the gun, then KaptianKush reraised to 44,670 from the small blind. nemets folded from the BB, Weizer pushed all in for 251,049, and KaptianKush called.

Weizer turned over [Ah][Th] while KaptianKush had [Jh][Jd]. The community cards came [Ts][Qh][6d][8d][5s], and they were down to four.

At that point KaptianKush had pushed in front with 835,794, with Johnny Lodden and nemets almost dead even with Lodden at 500,691 and nemets at 500,432. AoPao, meanwhile, was fourth with 373,083.

Lodden began to slip a bit, however, and had dipped under 300,000 when the following hand took place.

The blinds were 5,000/10,000, and AoPao opened for 20,000 from UTG. Lodden made it 45,000 from one seat over, then KaptianKush four-bet to 111,255 from the small blind. nemets folded, as did AoPao, but Lodden reraised all in for 288,941 total and KaptianKush called.

johnnylodden: [Ts][Th]
KaptianKush: [Kh][Ks]

Bad spot for Lodden. The five board cards came [Jc][4s][7c][8d][6s], and Lodden finished fourth.

Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden

The tourney had just crossed the ten-hour mark when chip leader KaptianKush — now over 1 million — opened for the minumum from the button, betting 24,000. nemets reraised to 72,000 from the small blind, and AoPao stepped aside. KaptianKush then made it 144,640, nemets pushed all in for 523,207 total, and KaptianKush called.

nemets had [Ad][Qh], but KaptianKush’s run good had continued as he tabled [As][Ks]. The flop paired nemets, coming [Qc][2d][3s], but the turn was the [9s] and river the [4s], giving KaptianKush the spade flush and sending nemets out in third.

RSS readers click through to see replay

Heads-up play began with KaptianKush enjoying a comfortable lead with 1,581,367 to AoPao’s 628,633. AoPao battled back, however, and about 20 minutes later had pulled even with KaptianKush. And over the next 20 minutes AoPao would edge in front, eventually building a 2-to-1 chip advantage he’d maintain through the 11-hour break.

The pair battled on, then came two hands in short order that quickly decided the tournament.

In the first a series of bets following a [Jd][Td][Ah] flop led to KaptianKush committing his entire stack with [Jh][Ts] (bottom two pair) against AoPao’s [Ad][3d] (top pair, nut flush draw). The turn brought the [Jc], improving KaptianKush to a full house. The river was the [4d], giving AoPao a no-longer-good flush, and KaptianKush had retaken the chip lead from AoPao.

Then, just two hands later, AoPao opened with a 2x raise to 40,000 from the small blind/button, and KaptianKush called. The first three community cards came [4c][5d][Td], and once again the flop brought fireworks.

KaptianKush led with a bet of 44,800, AoPao made it 100,000, KaptianKush reraised all in, and AoPao called with the 762,711 he had left.

KaptianKush had [7d][6d] for both a flush draw and an open-ended straight draw while AoPao had [Jd][2d] for a better flush draw. The turn was the [2s], giving AoPao deuces, but the river was the [3h], giving KaptianKush a straight and the Super Tuesday win.

RSS readers click through to see replay

Congratulations to KaptianKush for winning the biggest Super Tuesday since early February and earning a handsome $84K-plus score!

Super Tuesday results for 12/20/11:
1st: KaptianKush ($84,819.80)
2nd: AoPao ($62,985)
3rd: nemets ($46,410)
4th: Team PokerStars Pro Johnny Lodden ($35,360)
5th: bbbbb33 ($24,752)
6th: sparky522 ($18,785)
7th: anti-durrr ($14,365)
8th: jackellwood ($9,945)
9th: jonyctt ($7,337.20)

Have you read Lee Jones’ reflecting on PokerStars’ 10th Anniversary and the prospects of the 100 billionth hand (due in the coming year)? Check it out.

Tags: australia | Baltic Poker Festival | delicious | entertainment | eureka poker tour | lee jones' journal | napt | russian poker series

Tags: entertainment | European Poker Tour | journal | lapt | lee jones' journal | pca | select-language | tournaments | wcoop

Now some people say that you shouldn’t tempt fate
And for them I cannot disagree.
But I never learned nothing from playing it safe
I say fate should not tempt me.
– Mary Chapin Carpenter, “I Take My Chances”

A couple of days ago, all of us in the PokerStars Isle of Man office were invited to troop upstairs to a room where they were giving away hoodies commemorating PokerStars’ 10th anniversary. We have a generous employer, and this was just one of many ways in which we’ve been celebrating ten years of pitching electronic cards to our customers.
Along with the hoodie, each of us got a candy bar. Not any candy bar, mind you, but one made by the preeminent confectioner on the island. Setting aside the unfortunate point that they were milk, rather than dark, chocolate, these candy bars were extremely special in another way. You see, ten of the bars distributed throughout the PokerStars family around the world contained a special gold inner wrapper.

Yes, it is Willy Wonka time for Stars employees.

I won’t say what the prize is for the lucky ten individuals who found the special inner wrapper, but suffice it to say that it is Extremely Cool.

And that brings me back to the queue of people heading up the stairs. I found myself standing behind “Bob D”, a long-time PokerStars marketeer and true poker player.

“Bob,” I suggested, “What say you get your candy bar, I get mine… and then…we swap.”

Bob’s body almost quivered with joy.

“Absolutely! I’m in!”

We got to the room, collected our hoodies and chocolate bars, and then, to the horror of the lovely HR people who were handing them out, blithely swapped chocolate bars.
Now at this point in the story, the reader finds him or herself in one of three groups:

Those who are puzzled by the fuss,

Those who are appalled at the idea,

Those who giggle with delight and would have demanded a three-way rotation had they been in the room with Bob and me.

For those of you in the first group, allow me to explain: by swapping candy bars, Bob and I are simply stirring the probabilistic pot. Of course, it doesn’t change in the least our chances of receiving the lucky candy bar, but it shuffles the deck again, changes the state of the universe, and may – may – upend it.

It is, in part, this ride on the variance rollercoaster that puts the gleam in a poker player’s eye; Bob and I simply wanted a quick spin around the track.

But I will grant that there are those who look askance at tempting fate. They see an order in the universe and messing with that order is, at a minimum, chaotic. At worst, well, I was in the break room getting coffee and ran into Donna from our treasury department. Told her what we did.

Donna looked at me like I’d grown a second head.

“Why, I could never do that.”

That is why Donna, bless her, works in our treasury department. Her job is to maintain control and keep the PokerStars beans smoothly flowing from one jar to the next as appropriate. The last thing she wants is somebody creating randomness for the sheer joy of doing it. Be very glad that Donna works in the PokerStars treasury, rather than Bob and me.

You see, a true poker player knows clearly what he can control and what he can’t. We can control our decisions and, in some indirect way, our opponents’ decisions. But the specific card that comes flying off the deck, be it plastic or electronic, is utterly beyond our reach. Once you embrace that reality, you don’t fear fate. You know that it doesn’t care, the cards don’t care, and there is no “right candy bar”. You laugh into the gale of probability and dare it to blow harder.

In our poker games at people’s houses, we often deal the cards in a, ah, non-standard fashion. For instance, the dealer will pitch the first card in clockwise order (as normal) but then reverse direction for the second card. I always watch to see which newcomers are uncomfortable with that. Those who are perturbed have a chink in their armor; they are looking for (or fearing) signs in tea leaves that simply aren’t there.

A true poker player knows this: there are more than 8 x 1067 (8 followed by 67 zeros) possible orderings of a deck of 52 playing cards. Consider: when PokerStars deals its 100 billionth hand in the coming year, it will be hand number “1 x 1011″. In short, even PokerStars has not made so much as a statistical scratch in the available deck orderings; it’s a virtual certainty that the game of poker and/or the human race will vanish long before all 8 x 1067 shuffles have been done. So when Roger pitches the cards two at a time, the result is identical to dealing normally from a slightly different shuffle – one that has probably never existed on the planet, and probably never will again. How could we possibly worry about which particular one it is?

By the way, neither Bob nor I found the special inner wrapper in our candy bars. But I bet we had more fun not winning than most everybody else in the office.

Mary Chapin said it perfectly:

“So cut the deck right in half – I’ll play from either side.”

Tags: 2011 | cards | dealer | delicious | eureka poker tour | European Poker Tour | facebook | festival | france poker series | lee jones' journal | russian | tournaments