What’s the Opposite of I won?

My poker tournament experience has ended. I didn’t win. That’s not to say I didn’t have a god time or I didn’t play well. Except for one small move early on, which I now question, I was pretty happy with my play.

I got to bed early (for me) last night. Sleep was not very good and I was up just after 6:00 AM. I left the house around 8:00 and drove the 70 minute trip to Foxwoods.

Though the roads around the casino were reasonably busy, I realized as soon as I got to the valet parking area that Thursday morning was not prime time. Mine was the only car there and a nice young woman quickly walked up and gave me a parking ticket.

If you’ve never been to Foxwoods it is a world unto itself. The complex is immense. It was, and may still be, the world’s largest casino. As big and bold as Foxwoods is, the area surrounding it is the opposite. Surrounded by the town of Ledyard, there is still plenty of farmland and low density housing and businesses in the area. As you approach from the north, the high rise hotels dominate the rolling terrain of eastern Connecticut.

I got to the poker tournament desk at 9:26. I know this because it’s on my receipt. I said hello, paid my cash, chose between a hat, t-shirt and $10 in food coupons (food – though not used) and headed toward the tournament.

How fitting is this for a seniors poker tournament, we were in the Sunset Ballroom!

I walked into the ballroom. It was a breath of fresh air because I felt, I looked, I (probably) was the youngest person in the room. I’m used to being the oldest at work. This is more fun.

I scouted the room and didn’t see anyone I knew. Then I spied Jimmy Christina.

I have described Jimmy here before, so let me be brief. Jimmy is not tall, though he easily stands out in a crowd of people. His gray hair is pulled back in a ponytail. He has a Southern New England accent&#185 delivered in a voice reminiscent of a gravel road. Standing in his tuxedo, he is the absolute height of incongruity.

When I grow up, I want to be Jimmy Christina.

There’s one more thing about Jimmy. If you watch him from afar, you will see a constant stream of people coming up to him, saying hello. All of them are smiling. Jimmy is smiling. He is charming.

I moved to my seat at table 30, seat 8. The room was filled with long, narrow, Texas Hold’em tables. Each was set to comfortably seat nine players. The dealer sat in what looked like an executive’s office chair. I am told they hate it because it has no back support.

This tournament was ‘sponsored’ by “Oklahoma” Johnny Hale. Johnny is old school poker, back when it was all guts and instinct. It was the era before mathematicians quantified the game’s nuances into a series of odds and ratios. Johnny introduced some other older players, shilled his own line of merchandise and books and led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. He is everything you expect from someone who goes by the name Oklahoma Johnny.

In a poker tournament, you buy in for a fixed amount and then get tournament chips, in this case $1,500. They’re not good anywhere else, just in a tournament and can’t be turned into real cash. You keep playing poker, hoping to survive as more and more players bust out.

Today’s tournament had 295 players. The top 25 would win money, starting at $777 and going up to better than $40,000. The goal in tournament play is survival. Survivors are paid. Winning is of secondary importance. I hope that makes sense.

Since the game was No Limit Texas Hold’em, anyone could bet all of their chips on any card. It didn’t take long until someone did – and walked away the first loser. I was one player closer to the cash.

Compared to online play, live poker is very slow. And compared to online play, I’m not multitasking. The game at hand gets my undivided attention.

With forced bets and a few cheap peeks, I quickly turned my $1,500 to $1,350. I was somewhat uneasy, though it didn’t affect my play. I was very self conscious. I didn’t want to be out early. I didn’t want to look like I didn’t know what I was doing.

At the far end of the room a big screen TV displayed the current stats. What were the blinds (forced bets for two players each round)? How much time was left at this limit? How many players were left?

Table 30 was one of the first to get broken up. As players leave, and some tables have empty seats, tables are combined to allow everyone to sit at tables with a similar number of players. I was sent to Table 8, Seat 1.

Around me, the room was alive with the sound of cards being riffled and chips clinking. It is a steady castanet sound which permeates the room. It is actually reassuring to hear. I looked down at the stacks of chips in front of each player. Already there were huge differences with some players close to busting out and others amassing fortunes.

Life at Table 8 didn’t go much better. Slowly, as if I had a leak, chips were disappearing from my stack. Before long I was down to $320.

With a forced bet of $75 and a number of players already calling in front of me, I went all in with a pair of 4s. Being dealt a pair is good – but 4s… well even a pair of them… is no bargain. If anyone else matches any card other than a two or three (unlikely they’d be played anyway) you’re dead meat.

On the fourth common card, ‘the turn,’ a third 4 was dealt. I had a set (three of a kind) and was now back to nearly the $1,500 I started with. A few more good hands had me up to $2,000.

Meanwhile, on the TV screen the numbers were changing. As tables were consolidated the player count went down – 225, 200, 175, 150. My chip count had me below the middle of the pack, but I was still playing.

And then, I drove into oncoming traffic at full speed.

The limits had gone up to $100/$75. A few players limped in with minimal bets when the action got to me. My cards – two red Aces. In Hold’em there is nothing better to have than a pair of Aces. I raised to $300.

A few players dropped out and then, across the table, another player pushed his chips toward the center. He was all in. In order to play my Aces, I’d need to match his chips.

I had Aces. There is nothing better.

I pushed my chips in as we both turned over our cards. He showed another Ace and a Jack. This was wonderful. Additional Aces wouldn’t help him. He needed two Jacks or some ridiculous out of the blue miraculous one in a million shot… and there would only be five common cards with which to accomplish this.

The dealer rolled three and then one and then one more. Of the five cards exposed, four were 7, 8, 9 and 10 (the 8 coming on the last card, know as the River).

I still had my Aces. He had a straight!

I was left with a few hundred dollars. It didn’t take long to lose that when my King, Queen was beaten by a Queen, Jack.

I had played four hours and fifteen minutes, finishing 102 of 295.

Good play can get beaten. It is, after all, gambling. Yes, there is skill, but skill tempered by chance.

I’m glad I played. I enjoyed the tournament. I wish I would have come home with some more money.

&#185 – Usually limited to far Eastern Connecticut and Rhode Island, this regionalism makes a Boston accent sound soft and gentle.

The Maltese Falcon

Earlier this week, as I passed by TCM, there was a promo on for classic Humphrey Bogart movies being shown this weekend. I set the DVR. One, Casablanca, I had seen before. The other I had not. Tonight I watched The Maltese Falcon.

I am 54. For 54 years I’ve heard about this movie – what a classic it is. I am so unhappy to have watched and felt it fell short – very short.

The Maltese Falcon is a detective thriller. It is a perfect example of film noir. From Filmsite.org:

The primary moods of classic film noir are melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt and paranoia. Heroes (or anti-heroes), corrupt characters and villains include down-and-out, hard-boiled detectives or private eyes, cops, gangsters, government agents, crooks, war veterans, petty criminals, and murderers. These protagonists are often morally-ambiguous low lifes from the dark and gloomy underworld of violent crime and corruption. Distinctively, they are cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, sardonic, disillusioned, frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive and ultimately losing.

Black and white in this case is more than the film stock. The movie itself was shot to produce stark scenes with little gray. I was surprised to see at least a few jump cuts (film editing errors) in the action scenes. Even at the theater they would have been obvious.

The story itself is very complex and in some ways implausible. I’ll look past that. It’s the dialog, not the story, that upset me the most. It is stilted – and not just because the movie is over 60 years old. The words were trite.

Bogey is fine. He was better in Casablanca, the African Queen and a bunch of others. There’s less to like about Mary Astor and Elisha Cook Jr. Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre are the best parts of the movie.

I am so used to seeing these two ‘done’ by impressionists that I forgot what they were really like. Both men put real life into over-the-top characters. Joel Cairo (Lorre) and Kasper Gutman (Greenstreet) could have become comic strip characters had lesser actors played the roles.

About halfway in, I started looking for a way out. I fought the urge and watched until the end. It just wasn’t satisfying.

Back in the 60s, I used to listen to albums by the Firesign Theater, a comedy troupe. One of their albums featured an entire side called, “Nick Danger: Private Eye.” It wasn’t until tonight that I realized they were doing The Maltese Falcon!

I feel like a fool, having missed the joke for all these years.

There is one very memorable line, always associated with this movie. As Bogart is carrying the Falcon out of his office, a police detective asks what it is. “The stuff that dreams are made of.”

I wish I’d said that.

Losing At Poker

A few weeks ago, I hit it big at Pokerstars. I turned $3 into $966, winning a 1296 person tournament. I felt as if I were on top of the poker world. Since then, I’m not sure if I’ve won a hand!

OK – that’s an overstatement. Still, the poker fortunes have decidedly turned. It’s not that I’m playing badly (I’ve really worked hard to avoid going into tilt). It’s just a really long run of bad cards – and it’s driving me a little nuts.

If there’s a way to lose, I have found it. This past weekend, playing in the same tournament, I finished 128th. Only the top 81 were getting paid. I played my Kings against another player who had 2s. Of course the third two turned on the last card.

That in and of itself isn’t unusual. Bad beats are a part of poker. It’s just I’m getting ‘bad beat’ all the time.

Last night, with a King, Queen in my hand, I watched 2 more Kings come up. I bet them hard, all the way to the end, only to see my competition turn over King, Ace.

Helaine has hit the same rut too! She just told me about her loss this evening, playing Kings against a lower pair and losing when her opponent made trips on the river.

It can’t last forever. Well, actually, it can. It shouldn’t – but it can.

Rather than squander my money away, I have moved down in stakes, hoping to gain some advantage by playing less savvy opponents. Still, we’ve given back a few hundred dollars of our winnings.

Right now it’s frustrating.

Oh – one more poker note before I go. Last night, one of our reporters interviewed the winner of the 2004 World Series of Poker. Greg Raymer. Though he’s physically built like a poker player (don’t ask, but think about all that sitting), he seems a sharp contrast to last year’s big winner Chris Moneymaker. Raymer is an attorney from nearby Stonington. He’s well spoken and seems well liked. And, he plays at Pokerstars and Foxwoods Casino – the two main places I play… just for a whole lot more money.

How I met Rev. Jesse Jackson

I get my hair cut at work. I know. That’s one of the most decadent priveleges my job affords me. In the last 15 years my hair has been cut outside of this building once; on the morning of my daughter’s bat mitzvah,

Today, I was sitting in the men’s dressing room with Francine (Queen of Hair) giving me a little trim.

By the way, if given half the opportunity, Francine would work on my hair for hours at a time, until each individual folicle was where it belonged. But, even when I rush her, she’s unreal.

So, Francine is clipping away and the door is open to the hallway. I tend to look at the mirror and call out to people who are passing by. A tall figure walks by, stops, and sticks his head in.

Jesse Jackson.

So, what do you do when you’re sitting, with a ‘bib’ on, trying to keep hair off your clothes with a woman spraying water on your hair? Is there anything clever to be said at all?

The Reverend Jackson and I do not see eye-to-eye on all issues… in fact, maybe not on most issues. However, I must admit he is a charming man… very approachable and seemingly without pretense (in our short meeting). There is no doubt, he is one of the most recognizable, revered, and reviled, people alive today.

I am astounded by the number of people at the station who say they’ve met him before. He is a person who makes loads of one-on-one contacts. That’s a major strength.

He is tall and a little rumpled in his dress. He was accompanied by, though not surrounded by, a group of tall and large black men.

I’m sure he needs bodyguard protection, he is a controversial figure with a lot of enemies. But his ‘protectors’ were not at all menacing or threatening or even overly cautious here in the television station. But, they were big. I’d feel safer.

I wonder if he’ll remember meeting me? I will remember meeting him.