Today's Top Story...Well Not Quite, but I Care About It

From today's Columbus Dispatch:
Strickland, Dann seek near-total ban on wagering games
Governor also says he'd veto instant-racing bill

Frankly, this does not bode well for my dream of one day opening a poker room in the South Campus Gateway.

I Love Annie Duke

There, I've said it and I'm glad I said it.
In fact, I'll say it again.
I am totally in love with Annie Duke.

I'll be expecting the restraining order to be delivered to my door any minute now.

Seriously, though, not only is she a beautiful, strong and independent minded woman, she is also a genius.

At the poker tables, she's earned World Series of Poker championship bracelets in Omaha/8, a game that I'm afraid to even attempt to play because I can't quite figure out what a good starting hand is, and Texas Hold'em, at the 2004 WSOP Tournament of Champions where she outlasted a field that included Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and her brother, Howard Lederer.

Speaking of Howard, apparently Annie comes from a pretty smart family. In addition to "The Professor," theres's her sister, author and poet Katy Lederer, and her father, Richard Lederer, who has written dozens of books on language. Annie has even co-written her own book with David Diamond: Annie Duke: How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker.

She is also smart enough to have nearly gotten her PhD in psycholiguistics, or the study of how the human brain aquires language (huh???), a field so esoteric that most people have never even heard of it. She did, however, abandoned her quest for an advanced degree at the last moment to become a full time poker pro. (Get the book; the story's all there.)

The latest evidence of her mental prowess is that, as a member of The Mob, she has survived through three episodes of the game show 1 vs 100, answering thirty-three questions correctly and outlasting at least four contestants and a couple of hundred fellow Mob-sters. While 1 vs. 100 is pre-empted by the inferior Identity tonight, Annie's streak will, hopefully, continue when the game returns for a special episode on Christmas night.

Speaking of Poker...

...OSU senior to play for high stakes in Las Vegas (from the Columbus Dispatch Sunday August 6, 2006)

(POKER MOVIES) I Really Hated This One...

As I don't really have anything to new or interesting to say, here's another one of the series of posts on poker related movies that I wrote some months ago. When I first wrote this review of A Big Hand For The Little Lady, I was a little concerned about breaking the film critics' "rule" about not revealing the ending of a film in the review. How, I wondered, could I hold to that and still write an honest review when, after all, my problem with the film is the ending. Well, I reasoned, if I'm writing this to discourage people from seeing this film, then I don't have to worry about "ruining" the ending for them. Besides, as my friend Mustafa said to me a few weeks later regarding a completely different matter, "Rules are like bones, they are meant to be broken."--R"!!"T (Aug 5, 2006)

Over the course of last summer, as I strove to learn all I could about the game of poker prior to hosting my first game at my 40th birthday party, I watched quite a few poker themed movies. Some were very good and some, well, weren't, but there's one that I simply hate with an intensely burning passion. That exercise in wasted celluloid is called A Big Hand For The Little Lady.

In director Fielder Cook's 1966 film, a frontier family on their way to establish a homestead out west stop, when their wagon breaks down, in a small Texas town that is playing host to an annual high stakes poker game. While the wife, Mary, sees to the repairs, the husband, Meredith, a reformed gambler, gets into the game, playing with the money designated to buy their land, and is losing until he gets an apparent monster hand and promptly has a heart attack. While the town doctor sees to her husband, Mary takes his seat at the table. After securing a loan from the town banker to cover all bets, she wins back all Meredith lost and then some, along the way teaching the jaded old gamblers a few lessons about life, love, family devotion, and other such B.S.

Then, BOOM! the scene shifts to New Orleans and it is revealed that the "family" are con artists employed by the banker to exact revenge on the poker players for swindling him in a crooked land deal twenty years earlier. Up until that point the viewer is given no clue that the characters and the story are anything other than what they appear to be. I had invested emotionally in the characters and story as they seemed at first and when they were revealed at the last moment to be something totally different, I felt cheated, tricked and used. Twist endings are fine, but the person you should never trick is the viewer. I came away resenting this film and everyone involved with it. Except for Burgess Meredith, who played the doctor. After all, man, he was the Penguin and that makes him cool no matter what.

(POKER MOVIES) "The Cheater's Game"

(To be quite honest, I am just horribly depressed today and do not feel like writing anything. However, a few months ago, I wrote a series of entries on Poker-themed movies that I was planning to post when the Rat Pack Bar League started up again. Since that apparently ain't gonna happen, I will instead being posting them on days like today when I can not conjure the energy to come up with an original thought. This first entry in the series offers an overview of the way Hollywood has portrayed the game of poker over the years. Future entries critique specific films.)

I've heard a lot about how the recent explosion in the popularity of poker, fueled by televised Hold' Em tournaments, has done much to dispel the "negative image" of the game. It's true the game has had a bit of a P.R. problem throughout its history, often being regarded as the exclusive province of cheats and hustlers. In fact, according to many of the books on poker that I have read (and I have read many) poker was widely known as "The Cheater's Game" in the 19th century.

One of the things keeping this negative image alive in the public consciousness is the way the game has been portrayed in movies. In nearly every "poker movie", from The Cinncinnati Kid to Maverick, there is some sort of cheating going on or scam being run. Even Rounders, one of the linchpins of poker's newfound popularity, has Ed Norton's Worm, an unrepentant cheat.

When there's no cheating going on in a film, the image presented of poker players is still less than flattering. For example, in Robert Altman's California Split, Elliot Gould and George Segal's characters are portrayed as pathetic losers who turn to gambling to fill a void in their souls. Then there's High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story (a.ka. Stuey), a biography of the three time World Series of Poker champion. While Ungar may have been, as many claim, "the greatest poker player who ever lived", he is hardly a positive role model, what with the cocaine and the Mafia connections and all.

Why can't someone make a film about a well-adjusted, honest family man who happens to be a professional poker player? Say, something like: Ten-Deuce: The Doyle Brunson Story. That's box office gold, baby!

Straight Talk

It was a hectic weekend here at The Word From On High HQ. I finally had to crash Sunday afternoon, so that's why I didn't get anything posted yesterday. Sunday morning, I, along with fellow cartoonists Max Ink, Millard Draudt and SPACE-man supreme Bob Corby, prowled the Ohio State University campus and surrounding environs posting flyers promoting the Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo, which occurs this coming Saturday. (But you know that because you're planning on being there, right?) The night before was the monthly poker game, which lasted until about 1:30 a.m. The good news is that I finally managed to beat Eric when it got down to heads-up between the two of us starting shortly after midnight. I will freely admit, however, that my victory is perhaps due more to a big mistake on Eric's part than to my own skill at the game.

We were playing No Limit Hold'em and just a few hands before the end, I was holding Ace-5 and the flop was 4-6-8, giving me an inside, or gutshot, straight draw. A 7 would have given me the straight. I checked, and Eric looked over at my pile of chips and asked how much I had left. I told him that if he tried to put me all in, he wasn't getting called. I wouldn't have been getting suficient pot odds to gamble on the chance of a 7 popping up. Eric laughed. "In that case, I check, too." That was the big mistake, because the next card, the turn, was a 7. Now I was ready to go all in, and the fool called. His hole cards where a 6-7, if I remember correctly, with no flush possibilties, so the only way he could win was to make a full house, but the 9 on the river only made my straight better.

Of course, I realize that if I'm going to beat him next time, I'll really have to work for it. He surely won't make the same mistake again, especially after he sees me gloating about it to the whole world here.

The Literary Lederers

I was starting to get a little worried after trying to call my sister Ann several times on Tuesday night and her not answering added to the fact that she hadn't picked up when I called the night before. Finally, around 9:30, her oldest daughter, my 10 year old niece Samantha, answered as I was leaving another message. I don't know why Ann didn't hear the phone on Monday, though it was close to the girls' bedtime when I called, but this time she and her three daughters had been at the home of our sister Patty. Patty's phone, however, was, according to Sami, "dislocated," so I could not have reached them there.

"Dislocated" Maybe I should send that to Richard Lederer. That's exactly the kind of cute malapropism that he compiles in his Anguished English series of books.

Now, if that surname sounds familiar to those of you who follow poker tournaments on the tube, it is because Richard Lederer is, indeed, the father of two of the game's top pros, Howard Lederer and Annie Duke. The only time he mentions his famous offspring in any of his books that I've read, however, is in a chapter of A Man of My Words: Reflections on the English Language entitled My Kids The Poker Players in which he reviews the many phrases originating with the game of poker that have made their way into the mainstream vernacular.

You know, I think it's sort of ironic that, given his nickname of "The Professor," Howard is just about the only member of his family who hasn't written at least one book. Annie Duke has written, with David Diamond, a combination memoir/poker instruction manual called Annie Duke: How I Raised, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed and Won Millions at The World Series of Poker. Chapters alternate between an account of Duke's victory in the WSOP Omaha-8 tournament and the story of the various obstacles, both physical and psychological, that she overcame before finding her true calling as a professional poker player. Most of the instructional asides focus on Omaha 8, the game Duke is best at, with a little bit about Texas Hold'em, the current most popular poker game. The final chapter recounts her victory in the 2004 WSOP Tournament of Champions, playing Hold'em, which netted her a two million dollar prize.

Youngest sister Katy is a poet who has published a volume of verse called Winter Sex as well as the memoir Poker Face: A Girlhood Among Gamblers. One of those books I've read and the other I have tried to read. Most poetry really doesn't grab me. Poker Face, though, is definitely recommended reading. It's not only a compelling portrait of growing up in a dysfunctional family, but, when in conjunction with her sister's book, offers a different perspective on some of the same events Annie Duke describes and a more complete picture of the life of the Lederer familu.

Papa Richard leads the publishing pack, however. Including the Anguished English books and A Man of My Words, he has authored nearly three dozens volumes and writes a syndicated newpaper column, Looking At Language.

Anyway, Howard has released a couple of instructional poker videos and teaches poker seminars, so I'm guessing it's only a matter of time before he writes down all that wisdom and joins his family in the literary circle.

"Bar League Poker Dead In Ohio" Says Rat Pack

This just in from The Word From On High news satellite, hovering in geosynchronous orbit exactly 23,000 miles above my head.

As you know, about the time I revived The Word, a Texas Hold'Em game at Conti's Pub & Club here in Columbus was raided and several players fined. As a poker player and participant in the Rat Pack's Winter Poker League (not a member of the Rat Pack, however--should any actual member misconstrue that statement as me claiming to be one of them), I was quite upset by this turn of events and have been keeping myself and my readers updated on the story as it progresses. Here is the latest development, posted on the Columbus Poker Meet-Up Message Board on Friday by the board's moderator, known as "Rat Pack Planner":

"FYI, the TFPL (which runs a large number of bar leagues, has suspended all bar league games in Ohio. Seems that one of their bars was recently raided also. Bottom line- Bar League Poker in Ohio is dead until further notice. All bar league games are subject to police raids at this time. Illegal charity games probably will also soon be targeted, although, with each county prosecutor, enforcement will likely be unbalanced, and dependent upon the influence that some of these groups may have over individual prosecutors."

This upset me because the poker league was was one of the few things other than going to work that got me out of my apartment and interacting with other human beings, not to mention that it was good, cheap practice for my own monthly home game. However, according to a reply posted yesterday on the Meet-Up boards, it was also illegal.

Fortunately, in, quite literally, laying down the law on the leagality of poker in Ohio in clearly understandable layman's language, "Chuck" did allay any doubts I had entertained about the legality of my monthly game. I'd seen a copy of the statute in question on some web site once a few months ago, but that did nothing to clear the matter up for me, as it was written by and for lawyers and was thus in impentrable legalese.

Anyway, here are the pertinent portions of Chuck's rather long post:

"The Ohio Revised Code is very specific about legal and illegal poker in the State of Ohio!!!

"If you play poker in a public place...Bar, Resaurant, Retail Store, etc...It is illegal. Period! You can't do it, even for fun with zero buy-in!!!

"You may only play in a private location...like someone's private home or their garage or their back yard...etc!!! And if you play in a private home...You are ONLY legal if the house does NOT take a rake (have a built in profit taken from each buy-in). If the buy-in is $20 and there are 20 players...The entire $400 better be paid out or you just broke the law!!"

Well, it looks like this issue is settled, at least for now, though I would like to see the law change so that Free Bar Leagues can exist. As long as no money is exchanged, and Brian, the Rat Pack's tournament director was very careful about seeing to that, then it's not really "gambling" and hurts no one.

Random Movie News

I left all my notes at home so I've been searching the web for something to write about today. The Movie Blog has been a great source and, infact, has a few items worth commenting on. Such as Lindsay Lohans desire to play Wonder Woman in the upcoming film, and a new poker themed film called Deal starring Burt Reynolds. I'll probably get back to those later. I actually have a whole series of posts on poker movies that I'm saving for the right time, or a time when I'm truly desperate for content, and I'll address Deal when I start putting those up, and I have my own reasons for not wanting to see Lohan playing Wonder Woman.

So, that leaves us with the upcoming Simpsons movie, the trailer for which accompanied the Ice Age: The Letdown..er...Meltdown, to comment upon. I don't know many details and, according to the reports I've read, there really aren't that many besides a release date set for July 27 of next year, but my first impression was this: It's official--The Simpson has "jumped the shark." The whole trend of movies based on popular TV series is something that The Simpsons, were it still at its peak, should be viciously satirizing rather than participating in.

Hold'em Raid Update

Finally, got a reply to my post on Meet-Up.com about the raid on Conti's Pub & Club last Monday. Here's a bit of it:

...there (are) allegations that money had been bet 'under the table', and if that is so, then this would have been the cause of the bust.

Well, that changes things. If laws were broken, then laws were broken--no matter how you may feel about said laws. (Personally, I think it's hypocritical for state governments to ban poker yet sponsor a lottery.)

Of course, if the Big Cheeses of the Rat Pack are convinced their league is perfectly legal, why postpone it? If you ain't doing nothing wrong, you ain't got nothing to fear. At least that's the way it's supposed to work in this country.

Going to Extremes.

I'm not quite finished with the whole subject of the raid on Conti's Hold'Em game on Monday night. Yesterday, I showed this quote from the 10tv.com story:
"There's a little known law in Columbus that prohibits bars and restaurants that serve alcohol from allowing patrons or employees from playing games of chance on the premises."
And I asked:
So, is not merely "gambling", by which I mean the actual wagering of US cash money on the outcome, but the game of poker itself which is prohibited by the statute?
If it is the games and not "gambling", or the wagering of cash money, that is outlawed, therein lies the trouble for the Rat Pack Poker League, and the path along which the law, if enforcement is taken to its logical extreme, becomes ridiculous.
Many games not traditionally associated with gambling could be called "games of chance". Backgammon, for instance, involves an element of chance in that your choices in moving your pieces are dictated by the laws of probability as they affect the fall of the dice. In fact, backgammon is the only other game I can think of that combines skill and luck to almost the degree that poker itself does. No coincidence, then, that many top poker pros, most notably Gus Hanson, are also world class backgammon champs.
Hell, just about any game played with dice is a "game of chance", including Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit. And any card game where the distribution of the cards is randomized by the act of shuffling the deck (i.e. any card game) is a "game of chance", including Go Fish and Old Maid. True, your highly unlikely to see most of the games I've mentioned being played in bars, but if they were, the players would be flagrantry flaunting the law.
And don't even think of flipping a coin. Say you see a hot redhead across the room and can't decide whether to go talk to her or jsut give up on women altogether and go crawling back to lthe Catholic church so you can become a monk. So, you pull out your lucky Kennedy Half Dollar to help you make up your mind and your ass is busted by Elliot Ness.
Keep in mind that I have not read the actual text of the statute, but am basing all this ranting on that sentence I quoted above. If anyone knows where I can find that law on the web, let me know.
For now, however, I probably will move on to other subjects until there are any further developments.

Where is everybody?

Still no buzz on the Poker Meet Up message boards about the raid of Conti's on Monday night....I was hopin' to stir up a little mess o' trouble here in Cyber-Land.
Thanks to Eric Clark for his comments and for bringing the outrage that I was looking for.

Something To Talk About

When I checked back at the Meetup.com message boards, there was still no discussion of the Conti's Hold'Em bust, so I started one, complete with links to the story on 10tv.com and my original post. Hopefully, this'll start some ripples in the online Columbus poker community.
Oddly enough, I did come across a thread about the raid on a Yahoo group called Virtual Society, a singles group to which I admit with some embarassment that I belong. Apparently, the members of this group have had some bad experience with Conti's Pub & Club and some seem to feel the owner's getting what he deserves. I can't say. I'd never been there--though if I'd known they were playin' Hold' Em, I might've dropped in. Anyway, I'll link you to Virtual Society, but you have to be a member to see the message boards.
One other thing I'm wondering about. According to the 10tv story:

"There's a little known law in Columbus that prohibits bars and restaurants that serve alcohol from allowing patrons or employees from playing games of chance on the premises."

So, is not merely "gambling", by which I mean the actual wagering of US cash money on the outcome, but the game of poker itself which is prohibited by the statute?
I'm running out of time, but I'll have more on this soon.

Conti's Raid

A little background here. From October through the end of January, I participated in something known as the Rat Pack Poker League at Skully's on Tuesday Nights. The Rat Pack is a local organization for serious poker players. The League consists of two freeroll (no buy-in) mini Texas Hold'em Tourneys each night, with the winner getting a prize (usually a Gift Certificate good for food at Skully's), but what you're really playing for is points. The top five finishers got between 12 and 20 points and everyone got 5 points just for playing in each game. At the end of the season, the top 30 point-earners were invited to the final tournament, which offered serious prizes, such as poker chips, plastic playing cards and poker table tops for the winners.
I'm proud to report that I earned a spot in the finals and made it to the final table, finishing in 8th place and taking home a set of Copag brand plastic playing cards ($30 value, according to the All In magazine Holiday Gift Guide).
I enjoy the Rat Pack League not only because I like to play poker, but because it actually gets me out of the house and interacting with other human beings rather than sitting around watching TV and moping about how crappy my life is.
That's why this story on the Channel 10 early news grabbed my attention. The police raid on the Texas Hold'Em night at Conti's Pub & Club does not bode well for the future of the Rat Pack Bar League. Even though the tournament director has gone to great lengths to enforce a policy of "No cash on the gaming tables" designed to avoid even the appearance of the dreaded spectre of "gambling", and there is, as I stated, no buy-in or entry fee, that apparently cuts no water with The Man. From what I gather, the Conti's event was similar to the Pack League, nonetheless fines were issued by the police to the players.
One man interviewed in the televised report opined that the police should have better things to do than raid bars and harass card players (how about those smoking ban violators, for instance. Now there's a threat to National Security for you), and I agree.
The other thing that surprises me about this is that the message board of the Internet poker group sponsored by the Rat Pack is so far silent about this. Given the above stated implications for the Bar League's future, I'd think the baords would be a burnin' and a buzzin'.
Of course, I saw this report at 5:30 a.m., and as I write this, it's just after 6 p.m., so maybe once peolpe see the evening news (if the report is repeated), then the reaction will roll in. I sure hope the Pack ain't gonna just roll over and take this lying down.