Poker Mission Impossible

In January I got an email from Linda Köb, a producer of the show Galileo. No, I’d never heard of it either. Turns out it’s a German education, travel, science, news, reality TV show that has been one of Europe’s most popular programs for over fifteen years. They’re planning a series of episodes where one of their reporters, one Harro Füllgrabe, tries to learn a complex skill in a mere 48 hours. The skill du jour: poker.

I tried to explain to Linda that you cannot possibly teach someone to play poker in just two days. “Oh, that doesn’t matter,” she said. “We want to film the process. We’ll see how well he learns when he plays in a real cash game.” So off to Las Vegas I went — all expenses paid.

Harro turned out to be a fascinating character. He was a soccer enthusiast, sports reporter and most recently the star of “Harros verrückte Reise um die Welt” which translates roughly as “Harro’s insane travels around the world.” These have taken him to the Amazon rain forest where, following tribal tradition, he got hammered drinking a potent alcoholic “cocktail” while marching, dancing and singing with the Shaman of a Amazonian tribe, a temple in Calcutta where he handled a cobra, and a remote village in Papua New Guinea where he was groped by the village elder to find out how well hung he was. Here he is with the snake — you do not want to see the others.

Now here he was in the most insane place of all, Las Vegas, downtown on Fremont Street leaning on the Whisky Licker bar at Binions[1] with me, two of my poker playing friends, Linda Johnson and Bob Fisher who agreed to help with the project and the crew from Maximus Film, the production company.

Linda Johnson is one of the best poker players in the world. Known widely as The First Lady of Poker, she is one of a handful of women to have won a WSOP bracelet in an open event. She played poker professionally for some thirty years. She also published Card Player magazine and now runs Card Player Cruises and the charity Poker Gives. She still plays at the nosebleed levels. Her job was to teach Harro the basics: hand strength, position, when to fold, bet or raise.

Bob is a well-known local player who runs the tournaments for the WPDG (Wednesday Poker Discussion Group) and chairs the weekly meetings. Bob also has advanced degrees in Applied Mathematics and his job was to teach Harro about odds, how to count “outs” (cards that can win a hand), how to determine what the mathematically optimum play is and a little bit of game theory.

My role was, of course, psychological. I was to teach Harro about emotions and emotional control, how to read others, understand body language, how to look for tells and, most importantly, how to deal with the bad things that can (and will) happen at the table. Here we are in the desert getting ready to film a meditation session.

The next two days were a riot, one hilarious event followed by another one and all on tape. We talked poker in bars, at mock-up tables and at a staged play-money tournament. Bob took Harro to the roof top of Binions at night and drew equations on the protective glass walls around the deck of the swimming pool with the lights of Vegas twinkling in the background. Linda dealt hand after hand after hand explaining how to play position, how to understand what a good starting hand was, what a bad one was and, critically, what starting hands are justifiably called “trouble” hands — because that’s what you often end up in if you play them at the wrong time or in the wrong position.

In the desert we sat on ancient, red stone outcroppings, stared at desiccated cactus branches and talked about how to remain calm, how to refocus when your attention has wandered, how to control your emotions. We talked about when to be serious, when have fun, when to talk, when to listen. My main message: try to make the right decisions and do not worry what happens. If you made the right decision but still lost the hand, congratulate yourself. If you make the right decisions more often than the others you will be fine.

On the third day we held a real cash game: No limit hold ‘em with, $1 - $2 blinds. Binions hosted it, raked the pot like any other game and supplied a dealer. But the game was anything but ordinary. We brought in nine players from the WPDG. These folks are good. Two of them play poker professionally. One is a poker instructor and the others were all seasoned, experienced players. I, quite honestly, would not fare well against this line up. In fact, if it were the only game going, I’d go find another card room. We threw Harro into the lion’s den — until now he had never played a hand of poker in a real card room.

Linda, Bob and I expected a fast crash and burn session. We got anything but. Harro played remarkably well. We coached him between hands if he made a mistake and talked about each decision. The game was a hoot, Harro told jokes, laughed it up, the whole table got into the action. People went broke and re-bought. Harro was up, down, even, down again. He learned one thing well — how not to lose too much with so-so hands, an important skill. Here he tries staring down one of the WPDG players while Bob, Linda and I watch. It worked, Tim folded.

On the last hand of the two-hour session he was down about $80 and did something really weird. When Randi (orange shirt) raised, he went all-in without looking at his cards! She called with A♠,K♠ and Harro turned over a truly pathetic hand, Q♥,3♦.

And when the five cards hit the board … well, you’ll have to tune in to the show to know how it ended. But it was pure drama and Harro knew it. If he hits the miracle we have a magic moment. If he doesn’t he goes broke and we have a tragic moment — either one is good theater.

Now that the show has aired (May, 2014) I can reveal that Harro hit the miracle card! The flop and turn were no help but the river was a Q, one of only six cards that would take down the hand. The whole room went nuts with high fives, hugs, fist bumps and looks of incredulity. Good theater!

So, we did it, I guess — turned a novice into a decent player in two days. He held his own with some of the best mid-level players in Vegas. We all celebrated in Binions’ steak house —  on Maximus’s dime.

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[1] Thanks to Michele Richardson of Binions for allowing us in, treating us like royalty and giving us the use of the grand old “Gambling Hall” and to Frank Schlattner, photographer.

Apolitical, random, off the freakin' wall rant: Dog Shows!

I love dog shows. I love dogs — other people’s dogs. The problem with dogs is that they have to be walked. I do not walk dogs. Rhiannon understands that if we were ever to have a dog she would have to walk it because I never would, ever! Not surprisingly, we have cats. That’s Obidiah Jones on the left and his brother Burney Blue.

Photo: Carys Jones

But we do love dog shows. In fact, when we were back in New York we went to the granddaddy of them all, the Westminster Dog Show. It was an absolute hoot. One of the great fun things about the Westminster is that you are allowed “back stage.” That is, you’re free to wander about behind the scenes where the dogs and their owners/trainers/handlers are. You can skritch a Papillon’s butterfly ears, get your face washed by a Labrador and talk with the folks who populate this strange world of show dogs and dog shows. And, yes, everything that was parodied in the hysterical movie Best in Show is there. The denizens of this slice of modern society are among the most eccentric you will ever encounter.

So, with all this upbeat feel for dog shows why a rant? Because the so-called purists of the world are a bunch of frauds and hypocrites. They all claim that they are judging these various breeds on the basis of how close they come to their dictated ideal form. If this were what they were actually doing I’d have no beef, but they’re not and all these so-called objective judges walk around with a set of biases that are easily seen in the record.

In the hundred-plus years of Westminster, Terriers have won Best in Show an astonishing 46 times. Working Dogs another 15 and Herders exactly once. You cannot tell me that breeders of Terriers have managed to develop dogs that are close to their ideal while those who work with Herders don’t have a clue. Terriers are cute, bouncy and engaging. Herding dogs are serious and focused. People love Fox Terriers and don’t, unless they grew up on a sheep farm, “get” Border Collies and the judges reflect these cultural biases.

These ideal forms are also supposed to derive from the functions the animals were bred for — and, for the most part, this is true. The sight hounds do indeed show a remarkable ability to spot the target, freeze and point directly at it. Those bred for herding have stunning agility and can herd virtually anything that moves — except, of course, cats. But these lovers of the breeds blatantly make surgical adjustments to these “ideal” forms. Tails are docked on Boxers, Dobermans and many other breeds. The ears are cropped on these and other breeds. The American Kennel Club argues that these procedures were put in place to facilitate the function of the original breeds — docking the tail of a hunting dog reduced the likelihood of it picking up burrs and thorns. There is a measure of truth here but it does not explain why they continue this practice with show dogs. In the UK where many of these working breeds were developed, both cropping and docking are illegal and this includes all dogs, even those whose life is wholly wrapped up in the “show” world. Several dozen other countries also have criminalized these surgical practices — but not the US.

Then there are those damned haircuts! Why do they shave poodles in ways that really should embarrass any self-respecting canine? And why are Portuguese Water Dogs given a hind-quarter trim? And why are no other breeds permitted to do these things? It’s nothing short of arbitrary and idiotic and it has nothing to do with what the breed’s ideal is. You don’t breed with scissors.

Finally, on that “breeding to form” bit…. The supposedly ideal forms that breeders aim for have morphed from function to dysfunction. Bulldogs bred for a stout, powerful jaw and wide-stance, which made sense back when they were “bull” dogs with a dangerous job to do that required stamina and stability, now suffer from hip dysplasia and breathing problems. German Shepherds, for some unfathomable reasons, are now supposed to have a sloping body and lower hind legs. The result, of course, is that many suffer from hip problems. Pekinese bred for short legs, a pushed-in face and rich coat, are now barely able to waddle across the show floor and, like all the other “smashed face” breeds, often have serious dental and respiratory problems. The breeders here have allowed their prized “ideal” forms to drift away from the original functions. They have become fashion accessories.

So let’s get serious guys. No more surgical interventions no more shaving. If you can’t breed for a Doberman with a short tail then let’s enjoy the ones with long tails. If poodles have long, fluffy coats all over their remarkably athletic bodies then let’s admire them without those stupid pom-poms on their flanks.

And stop breeding dogs for human pleasure when the results seriously damage the health, well-being and quality of life of the animals we all love — even those of us who refuse to do “walkies.”

Irony in Anarchy

David Kushner has a brilliant piece in Rolling Stone on Ross Ulbricht, the very strange, fascinating character behind the infamous Silk Road web site.

Silk Road, for those who haven’t followed this saga, was the first of the semi-secret Deep Web sites buried in the underground levels of the Internet to deal in illegal, criminal operations. The Deep Web is actually huge and contains enormous amounts of information (libraries, medical records, police files, military information, court records, government files, security sites, etc.) that lies outside the reach of regular browsers. You can’t get there with Firefox, Google or Explorer; you need the specially designed browser Tor which you can, if you wish, learn about here. Even Tor won’t get you past the firewalls that most of these Deep sites have but it has one big advantage. It allows you to cover your tracks in cyberspace with doubly-encrypted layers. The url used for a cocaine retailer’s site you visited won’t work the next time you try to get there because it is erased as soon as you leave the site to be replaced with a new one that only can be found with Tor. Similarly, your cyber-identity is encrypted so those you contacted cannot trace you. Tor has, of course, legitimate uses in that it keeps annoying robot-sites from finding you, tracking your activity, sharing data on you and, of course, cramming your inbox with ads. The anonymity makes it perfect for those who, like Ulbricht, wish to engage in activities that governments and other authorities frown upon.

Silk Road trafficked mainly in drugs, weapons, forged documents like fake passports and Social Security cards and “for-hire” folks if you wanted some nasty deeds done. It was, till the feds shut it down, rather like eBay or Amazon where you merely clicked on the desired product which was promptly deposited in your cart. Payment at the checkout was in Bitcoins, the cyber-currency famous for anonymity and untraceability, and delivery was straight to your home or business in the classic, plain brown envelope or box.

Ulbricht, as Kushner explains, was driven by many motives, some rational and others truly screwy. At the core, however, was a commitment to a pure, Randian-style Libertarian vision of society. Accordingly, Kushner describes Ulbricht as sticking to individualism, rugged selfishness and a disdain for those who disagree or who have not gained a foothold in the strange, unempathic Atlas Shrugged world.

But as the article progresses slowly ironic notes leak in. As Ulbricht’s dealings become more complex he finds he needs help. He has to hire others, make contacts with dealers, managers, money-launderers, hit-men, agents of various kinds. And, of course, he finds that he now cannot operate in full anarchistic mode. He needs rules, regulations, guidelines for the business. He has to build a cultural code by which to operate. In short, he begins to create a mini-government with him at the head!

The whole thing is wonderfully ironic and he doesn’t have a clue. In fact, no Libertarian I have ever talked with about these issues has a clue. Government isn’t some monstrosity that bleeds away the creative life force. There is nothing inherently bad about government. In fact, as Barney Frank put it, government is merely what people do when you get a bunch of them together. Governments are natural agencies that must emerge whenever groups become too large or complex to function without a well-articulated structure. Even the most ardent Libertarian, the most devoted anarchist, cannot operate without some regulatory scaffold.

Whether you judge government to be good or bad isn’t a position about principle; it’s about process. Whether you believe that governments should be small or large isn’t a matter of theory; it’s an empirical question. Are the regulations set up reasonable? Are the conditions sensible? Are they workable? Are the tax codes fair? Is property protected? Are the rights of others in balance with the rights of owners? How many agencies do you need to accomplish these goals? These are the questions that matter.

So let’s stop the nonsense. Stop pretending that the small government gang — the ones who, in Grover Norquist’s terms, want to shrink government to the point where it can be drowned in a bathtub — have anything sensible to say. They don’t and until they think through these issues with just a smidgen of intellectual dispassion they never will.

Spike's* pork, leek and parsnip in cream sauce

Time for a foodie blog. Frankly, I’m a bit strung out on politics and nothing interesting has happened (to me) in the poker world other than getting knocked out of last week’s tournament three spots from the money so on to another of my passions.

Lately I’ve been playing around with some very ordinary ingredients looking for interesting ways to combine them. I came up with this one the other night. It was one of those ‘holy shit why am I awake?’ moments where your eyeballs are open and your mind’s cranking away at 3 AM for no obvious reason.  My favorite trick for getting back to sleep is to take a wander through my mental ‘fridge to see what’s there. What was in mine that night was:

3 strips bacon — fried, broken into small bits (use thick cut, it’s so much better)

2 pork chops, bone in or out, 1” thick — brine for 3-4 hours

1 leek (just a bit of green) — sliced thin

1 parsnip — julienned

2 scallions — sliced thin

1/4 lb shitake mushrooms — sliced

bunch of herbs — parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme (pace P. Simon), oregano

2 cloves garlic — smashed, chopped

1 T flour

1/2 c cream

1/4 c chick broth

And when I played around with these I found a neat way to combine them. Like my ‘shroom and pasta dish, I’m wary of claiming I’ve found something new, but here’s what worked:

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fry bacon, set aside, leave the fat in the pan

grill pork (gas grill if you have one, oven or pan fry will work), set aside

sauté leek, parsnips, scallions, garlic and mushrooms in bacon fat (add butter or olive oil if needed)

add flour, continue cooking for a couple of minutes

add herbs, cream and chick broth

return pork and bacon

cover and simmer for half-hour

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A tossed salad and roast potatoes and it’s a pretty nice way to clear out some of the stuff in the fridge.

A word on brining: pork has become an almost tasteless meat, no fat and dry and boring. The best way to rescue it is brining. The standard brine of 1 T of kosher salt for 1 gallon of water works fine. Let the pork chops or loin slices sit for a couple of hours in the brine in the ‘fridge. dry off and do the s & p thing before grilling.

*Back when I played poker online my screen name was Spike the Cat.

Why "Deficit" is a Four-letter Word

Paul Krugman has an interesting column in today’s NY Times. It reiterates a point that he’s made oh, maybe, three hundred or so times in the past couple of years. Heck … maybe more. It’s the classic Keynesian position that, despite the random howlings of the few deluded austerity hawks remaining, just happens to be right. In a recession, deficits be damned; throw money at the economy.

What’s interesting from the psychologist’s perspective isn’t the truth of this principle. It’s like an earlier column on the Libertarian approach to economics, why it is so hard to get certain ideas across to people, especially those with a rightward political tilt? So let’s take a look at what there is about human thinking that makes Keynes hard to grasp.

First, there is a principle in the field of “behavioral economics” that is far more important than most realize: the ± asymmetry of money. One reason why this principle goes unheralded is because most don’t even realize that it exists let alone grasp its import. When we say money is ± asymmetrical we mean that, psychologically speaking, losses tend to be more meaningful than equivalent gains. Losing $1,000 feels more negative than winning $1,000 feels positive. And this principle operates in the abstract. That is, merely contemplating these kinds of losses and gains produces these emotional reactions — though, of course, they are much more dramatic when real money is involved.

This principle tends to make people risk-averse. That is, they get twitchy when confronted with the possibility of a significant financial move in the negative direction — and this “twitchiness” is greater than the pleasure felt when contemplating the possibility of significant gain.

When the government throws money at the economy to stimulate growth the immediate impact is an increase in the deficit and an increase in total government debt. Keynes showed, unambiguously, that the long-term impact of a “stimulus package” is positive because the money put into the economy is spent and goods are purchased which results in manufacturers needing to produce more which results in hiring which gives more people money to spend which results in …. The economy grows, personal income increases, corporate profits go up. The result is an increase in tax revenue which eliminates the deficits. But, because of the asymmetry principle, the emotional negative experience of the immediate loss overwhelms the contemplation of ultimate improvement in the economy. Hence, Keynes’s approach makes people feel uncomfortable and they tend to dismiss the theory without thinking it through.

Second, timing counts — which, of course, is implied in the above. When you increase the size of the deficit it has an immediate negative impact. The government has to borrow which increases debt. That long-term gain that Keynes’s model predicts is long-term; it’s going to occur in the future. The further off, temporally speaking, an outcome is the less tangible it is and the less influence it has on current beliefs and actions. So people have this sense that if government spends it goes into debt now, immediately. And even if Keynes is correct and things will be better later, there’s that lingering feeling that well …. hmmm … like maybe it won’t because the ineffable future is harder to grasp than the current reality.

Third, Keynesian economics has counter-intuitive elements largely because people confuse personal finances with government finances. They are made unhappy when they see their government not balancing the budget. They point out that they can’t do this. They can’t spend more than they make because to do so would invite financial ruin. So, the argument goes, the same holds (or should hold) for governments.

This line of thought is wrong on several counts. For one, the average family doesn’t act this way at all. They routinely spend more than they make. Credit card debt is at an all-time high. They take out mortgages on homes, buy cars on time and run up debt in manifold ways. What counts here isn’t the absolute size of the debt but the debt relative to income or, in the case of government, the GDP. The psychological element here is an old one. Most folks have rather poor sense of themselves and a feeble grasp on what they actually do. As behavioral economists continue to point out, most decision-making isn’t rational and it often is made without regard to self-interest.

And there’s another big difference: governments can print money. They have to take care not to print too much or it will encourage inflation but they sure as hell can print it. They also can control the value of the currency, set interest rates and modulate the cost of borrowing. In fact, when they are prevented from doing these things or have these kinds of flexible financial moves restricted it can be catastrophic. If Greece (and to a lesser extent Italy and Spain) weren’t tied to the Euro and able to modify their currency they would not be in anywhere near the economic mess they’re currently in. Canada has, in just the last few weeks, been devaluing the Canadian dollar. The weaker dollar is making it easier for Canadian goods to be exported, discouraging Canadians from going into the US to make purchases and encouraging Americans to visit — all of which will increase Canadian productivity and give the economy a kick. It’s worth noting that these moves are being made by a Conservative government.

What’s the answer here? I don’t know. I spent a half-century trying to get complex, subtle ideas across to college students. One of the more effective ways, I discovered, was to keep saying the same thing over and over. So Professor Krugman, keep it up. We can use another 300 or so repetitions of the classic Keynesian principles and maybe, just maybe, they’ll get through to the austerity crowd.