The odds in Vegas and Israel June 26, 2008
Posted by Jennifer in : poker, travel , add a comment
About 30 hours after start time, the Ladies World Series of Poker ($1000 buy-in), was down from 1190 players to 34. Under the gun, I looked down at two black kings. I raised; I was re-raised by a serious Russian girl in middle position; I re-raised all in and she called. I was happy to get all my money in preflop. She turned over one of a few hands I expected (I knew she didn’t have aces cause she asked for a count after my re-raise), a pair of queens. A queen came on the flop; my stomach turned but straightened up again when a king popped on the turn. The river was the yuckiest heart I’ve ever seen, which gave a flush to my enemy in the hand, Svetlana Gromenkova. My melodramatic father said it was the worst moment of my life. Assuming for a second there’s some merit in this declaration, does that mean it was a particularly terrible moment or that I’ve had a great life? My brother and backers said things like, "gruesome but nice run,” “that’s poker but you did great.” Weeks later, my boyfriend admitted that in his heart, he felt I should have played tighter in that spot—an excusable comment from someone who doesn’t know about the ranking of poker hands.
There was one person I wanted to clock: the tournament director came up to me after the hand and started raving about how wonderful it was that I came in 33rd out of 1190 players. Although I was not crying, he turned on the "I’m talking to a small child voice." and repeated himself cooing, "You came ahead of over 1100 women. That’s amazing!" At the time, I was more focused on losing $60,000 of value to a 4:1 shot than on my poker talent or the luck it took me to get that far. A TD would never talk to Gus Hansen or Phil Ivey or even my father or brother after a bad beat. I wish I had punched him cause then the KK vs. QQ moment would speedily be replaced by a worst moment: being carried out of the Rio in handcuffs.
Svetlana ended up winning the event and the $224,702 prize. She was one of the best players I saw at the tournament so I can’t argue with the result. I tried making small talk with her early in the tournament about the Borgata, Brooklyn and trying to learn Russian, but she couldn’t have been less interested. I’ve mentioned in a previous blog that women poker players too often shun math in poker. Svetlana and various other professionals in the tournament (Kathy Leibert and the "first lady of poker" Linda Johnson played at my table for a while) were definitely exceptions.
One player that impressed a lot of people was Shavonne Mitchell, who finished in 22nd. I sat down at her table and the women started whispering to me: "She’s such a bitch", "She sucks all the air from the table.", “She wins at the biggest NL Hold Em games at AC,” "Don’t get involved with her." Well, I played with her for about 5-6 hours total and I can say definitively that she was NOT nasty. For instance, when I went all in with 10 4 off from the button with 6x the BB plus antes, I easily defeated AJ in the BB by rivering a wheel. 
Shavonne was one of a few at the table who didn’t complain about how there is "no justice in poker" and she reacted in a similar way when she suffered a bad beat of her own. So, Shavvone clearly had enviable table presence and instincts, but IMO, there were just way too many instances in which she committed 1/3 of her stack with preflop raises and then folded to all in re-raises. Her style definitely made an impression; I wish white women would step up like she did and behave and dress like divas at size 10, size 12, whatever.
As for my play, I’m happy to say I played my worst hand of the weekend in a 100$ buy in warm-up tournament at Binion’s in downtown Las Vegas, a day before the main ladies event began. I had about 20x the BB (there were antes) and min-raised from EP with KQs. I got one caller — a pretty tight woman who had me covered, just to my left. The flop came JT5 rainbow, and I idiotically did not push the flop. I then convinced myself to fold after my opponent’s bet. I was burning for a couple hours…it feels awful to play too tight. After this, I decided I was rusty and needed to focus on two personal goals for the big ladies event: not to play too tight if I got to the bubble and not to commit too much of my stack preflop without deciding whether or not to call or make an all in bet. I’m happy to say that I think in 15+ hours of play, I succeeded pretty well in these goals, although there were obviously a few hands I’m still not sure about. At some point early in the tournament, I was probably the chip leader (hard to tell for sure with so many players.) That was exciting because there was another big stack at my table, and I got heads-up with her a couple times, which gave me a glimpse into the never-never land of deep-stacked poker. I even bluffed on the river once against her with absolutely nothing, my proudest moment of the tournament. River bluffs rarely seem profitable enough to me in my usual short-stacked scinerios, because a reasonable bluff usually represents too large % of my stack and I’d rather save it for a situation where my opponent is even less likely to have something. I think I have the talent for deep-stack poker, although I’d need experience to tell how good I could get at it. I had little time to muse on my success and failure, as three days after Vegas, I was off on my second trip to Israel.
Upon my arrival in Israel, I was placed for about an hour in a holding area with Muslim and Arab familes. Of course this is because my last name is Shahade, a Lebanese name: when you google it, besides the chess accomplishments of my family, you’ll find some entries about fundamentalist Muslims. In the holding pen I was slightly scared yet exhiliarated by the thrill of being in something similar to a jail. I struck up a conversation with a beautiful Palestinian-Californian college student, Leena. It turns out she is blogging about her experiences in Palestine, and managed to pass the interrogation by feigning lack of political thoughts- "Jessica Simpson couldn’t match up to my apparent ignorance." I had an easier time. After an hour waiting for the interrogation, I was done in two minutes after explaining that my mother is Jewish and showing off my “Learn Hebrew in 10 minutes a day” book.
Less than an hour after the ordeal at the airport, I was eating amazing falafel and hummus in a neighborhood called Abu Ghosh, at a place named, funnily enough, The Lebanese Restaurant. Hummus has remained a staple on my trip, while eggplant, grape leaves and halva ice cream are also fighting over my stomach.
The people have been very nice despite repeated warnings from Israelis back in America that I should expect lots of shoving and gratuitous bumping, mockery of my crude attempts to speak Hebrew, and my thighs that are naturally smaller than in the winter, but between which you still can’t stick two magnetized 1 shekel coins. True, I have encountered Israeli men with big eyes, who will hit on you when your boyfriend goes to the bathroom and an Israeli-Palestinian boy who screamed “Muslims Only” when I tried to approach the Dome of the Rock, just to photograph it. But I found all these experiences telling or funny, not traumatic.
July will be a stressful but fun month as I’ll take my tiny pink laptop on the road for events in Philly, Chelsea, NY, Camden, St. Louis and Belize. Air-conditioning is not as popular in Israel and that doesn’t bother me. Back home, I sometimes forget to enjoy the heat.
Shalom, Jennifer
drs are boring May 29, 2008
Posted by Jennifer in : books , add a comment
Last week I dreamt that I willfully swallowed a few pills that would kill me within a few hours. After the suicidal act, I had several final meetings with friends and family. Through it all, I was full of regret over my obviously poor decision. The idea of pumping my stomach occurred to me, but this was a rational thought, and in my dream state, it only flitted in and out, unable to take form. The emotions in dreams are more pure and intense than in waking life, because human rationality, mostly absent in dreams, tempers both joy and sadness. I woke up and at first I was very happy to be alive. But I also felt guilty and depressed the rest of the day.
To cure myself, I visualized my dream, refused the pills and went running instead. This is a technique that my former therapist taught me in New York. It’s also in lines with Rodger Kamenetz’s book, The History of Last Night’s Dream, which is an ambitious and literal analysis of dreams. Kamenetz, who also wrote the Jew and the Lotus, often uses the Old Testament as a source. In the chapter, "Jacob the Hero of the Revelation Dream", Kamenetz writes about how Jacob’s initial response to going up a ladder to god and heaven is appropriate awe, but then turns into analysis of how he can use the dream to improve his waking life: "Jacob turns a brilliant promise (to be protected by god) into a mere bargain."
I worry that the many biblical quotations limits the audience of Kamenetz’s book, and I wish there were more dramatic examples from the lives of others, especially women and children. But the book did affect me in that my inkling about dreams has now turned into a conviction. Dreams may be related to life, but I prefer to think of them as an opportunity for a second life. Last night I dreamnt about a man sliding through the most dangerous streets of Philadelphia on a board, his face toward the concrete. I don’t care why I dreamt it, I want to tap into the pure fear and sensual pleasure in it. Sure, it would be great if my dreams could reveal to me the secret of happiness, but maybe for that to happen, I need to focus on dreaming happy dreams.
Dreams are a tricky subject, very similar to drugs in that the experience of having them tends to be interesting only to you, your mother and your lover. This week, I was reminded of the two risky "dr’s" when I went to a "story slam" which totally packed a fancy Philly Old City bar at 8:30 on a Tuesday night. Despite my lack of a seat, I was thrilled. In spite of the limitless joys of facebook, Wii and reality TV, we want to go out! Summer is here!
Although the overall quality of the participants was pretty high, several of the contestants wrapped their stories around drugs. I felt like I could be talking to any dude in the world about how fucked up he got the night before. I mean, what do people want after stories like that? An Advil and some congratulations on still being alive?
Drug and alchohol experiences and dreams are difficult topics because they resist a beginning-middle-end. Instead they are "experience" stories in which you go into a bubble, have a great time, and leave the bubble, essentially unchanged unless you actually did something dramatic due to the dream or the drug: It’s the drugs are boring paradox.
The concept of dreams being boring was best expressed to me in the Built to spill album, Almost Perfect. Unfortunately, the transcription of the lyric will not do justice to the line, so I suggest you buy the album.
Another thing you should do if you live in New York is attend the Whitney Biennial by the end of the week. (Closes on June 2) I loved a piece on blind people touching elephants. It reminded me of day-long photo shoots with my friend Gabi in the abandoned Brooklyn pool where the video was shot. It also reminded me of being 19, when I was mostly driven by the pursuit for new sensations. Sensuality now has to share space with ambition: A tough pill to swallow, but not worth dying over.
ChessFest 2008 May 18, 2008
Posted by Jennifer in : Photos, chess , add a commentI had a great time in Tucson last week, where Jean Hoffman and I put on ChessFest 2008, a celebration of chess that included a human chess game, a blitz tournament and a blindfold exhibition. The photo gallery below shows off some of the highlights. For more information on ChessFest 2008, check out 9queens.org and my longer story on uschess.org, which includes details on my human chess game against Kevin Zhang.
What Eggers and Obama Have in Common April 30, 2008
Posted by Jennifer in : books , 6 comments
I went to preschool at Trinity Church, the same place in which I voted for Hillary Clinton last week. Memories of forced naps and bananas swirled as I realized that I was still torn. My final choice was not only based on colorful blazers and gender; more importantly, I like Hillary’s chances against the vicious attacks that the Republicans will unleash against either candidate. I love Obama’s writing style and his ability to inspire and shake out apathy— I even have some regrets about casting my ballot for H.C. I still believe in my logic, but I worry that I’ve become part of the problem, the divisiveness that is dragging this race out, and will make it harder for either candidate to win against McCain.
To console myself, I thought about the positive side of the long drag. Perhaps the proximity of the result to the actual ballot-casting will allow the interest in the race to peak in the summer, and simmer until election day in November.
So, what do Barack Obama and Dave Eggers have in common? They both have terrible book titles. I know this is an easy criticism to mock, since both have written big bestsellers, but seriously, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope? In a title-only book contest, those would be low on my list. I love Obama’s writing, but I hope he consults me on title #3.
I resisted reading Eggers for years because of the annoying title, Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius and then also rejected What is the What? which sounds like a book that you can only read if you’re really smart. To me, that’s pretentious titling and also absurd, since the book is an accessible and soul-searing memoir of a boy’s walk through war-torn Sudan, and his eventual immigration to America.
I gave into What is the What?, because it was selected as the "One Book, One Philadelphia." I enjoyed it more than any book I’ve read this year. It’s beautifully written, brilliantly structured and the ending is sublime. The next book I read was of course, Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius, which was also great for the first 100-150 pages, but then became virtually unreadable in its self-obsessiveness. In his debut, Eggers failed to solve the problem of keeping first person narration interesting for 400+ pages, but in What is the What, he solved it in a brilliant way: although the narrative voice is always Valentino Achak Deng’s, the audience shifts. In one chapter, Deng directs his writing to his pious upstairs neighbors, and in the next, it’s a jogger that he checks in at the gym he works at.
After voting, I ate a Calamari Caesar salad (as good as it sounds) and gave up on Heart-Breaking Work of Staggering Genius. On my way home, I ran into a black man, who was pushing a cart with a limp. He may have been homeless. He asked me "What is that, auburn hair?" I told him I’d call it red, and we both agreed that regardless of nomenclature, it was a great color. This type of exchange has become typical for me in the past few weeks: the number of black men who have hit on me since going redhead has gone through the roof, while white men flirt with me the same amount, maybe even less. For instance, today at the 7-11 I got: "I want to have a redheaded baby."
I asked the man on the street if he had voted yet, and he told me not yet, but that he was on his way to the polls. He looked at me, and said, "you’re voting for Hillary right?", an annoying question because he was right but how did he know? I avoided the question, and asked who he voted for. He said "Obama" and I said, "yeah, he’s great, good choice." So I wished him well and walked off but he asked louder, "So who did you vote for?" I waffled again and said, "Both good choices." When I was already on the other side of the street he shouted the question one more time. I didn’t want to admit to a probably homeless and definitely poor black man that I voted for H.C. But I couldn’t lie and could no longer escape his inquiry. I was already across the street when I finally yelled: "Hillary." Before walking away, he told me: "Good choice too."
Fires in Paradise April 11, 2008
Posted by Jennifer in : books, chess , 1 comment so far
Last weekend, I traveled to San Diego for "Disorderly Conduct", a program of video arts, conversations and installations at collector Eloisa Haudenschild’s 20-car garage, which she converted into a gallery and performance space. I had some insights and weird experiences that I’d like to share.
1. San Diego is stunning from every vista, almost too good to be true, so I asked around for ugly San Diego tours. The hotel’s shuttle bus drvier Freddy clued me into a hidden dwarf city, but my answer came at a brunch that was part of the weekend’s decadent schedule of events. I met 15-time author Mike Davis, who co-wrote a book on precisely the topic of my curioisity, "Under the Perfect Sun: The San Diego Tourists Never See. " I’ll get back to you on the book, but here are some photos of beautiful San Diego and one that reminded me that there’s always an ugly side.
2. The weekend’s headline event was a chess tournament with candles as pieces, Burning Boards by Glenn Kaino. The candles descended in height from king to pawn except the rooks, which despite being the second most powerful chess piece, were actually shorter than the bishops and knights. This, together with the decision to not do anything about the fact that the black candles burned faster than the white demonstrated that aesthetics, not chess accuracy, was Glenn’s top priority. And he was successful; Burning Boards debuted last year at the Whitney Museum, but even that event couldn’t hold a candle to last weekend’s dramatic, stark installation. Thirty chessplayers and artists lit their pieces on fire and then the diaphanous curtain was drawn, revealing the action to dozens of spectators.
I wrote about the chess in a uschess.org article, where you can play through my game with Liu.
I felt lucky to be in a home created out of passion for art. Books were stacked on tables because wall space was reserved for photographs and paintings. The house was so impressive that one probable millionaire from the area looked around and asked me, "Is this how the other half lives?" but then soon admited that he really meant, "is this how the other .006% lives?"
3. In San Diego, I met my 9queens partner Jean Hoffman, who I email several times a day but haven’t seen since October. Jean has been amazing at promoting 9queens and getting it off the ground.
Check out this article in a Tuscon paper, which both describes the organization and promotes the ChessFest benefit that I’ll be attending next month. If you happen to be in the vicinity of Tuscon in May 10, definitely register or come and say hi.
4. The Disorderly Conduct program included a lecture on the Aesthetics of Murder led by artist Daniel Martinez (pictured below playing against Glenn Kaino in Burning Boards) and writer Mike Davis.
The discussion explored whether the repetitive watching of the most disastrous events in our times makes audiences and the media complicit in creating heroes, even artists, out of villains. Another implied idea of the conversation was that you can understand evil better if you momentarily remove morality from consideration. The topic idea came from the 19th century British author Thomas De Quincey’s essay, "On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts." Honestly, I was not able to focus my ears, because images of Columbine, Abu Ghraib and 9/11 were projected and running on youtube loop. I purposely avoid those sorts of images as I think they are totally pointless unless educational or edifying. Why do I ever have to see Columbine? I feel that my life and the life of the victims would be ever so slightly better if I NEVER saw it. I felt attacked, which I suspect was part of the point .
5. Since I was in California, I read the L.A. Times for a change. Of course the L.A. Times is a great paper, but I had to laugh at the front-page story, "Cosmetic Surgery Business Sags as Purse Strings Tighten" I came up with even better headlines: "Plastic Surgery thins as recession pumps itself with collagen implants" or "Plastic Surgery wrinkles as Recession schedules yet another face-lift." In all seriousness, I found the article surprising; I’d think it would be even more important to look beautiful during a recession.
Burning Boards in San Diego April 4, 2008
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This weekend, I’m off to San Diego to participate in the West Coast edition of "Burning Boards." Artist and chessmasters will compete using candle pieces, forcing the chessplayers among us forgo deep analysis for exit strategy in case of fire. I’ll also meet my 9queens partner Jean Hoffman and my Chess Bitch publishers. Should be really fun so long as my unruly hair doesn’t go on fire. I probably should have nixed my nail polish due to its flammability, but I couldn’t resist.
St. Patrick’s Day Poker March 25, 2008
Posted by Jennifer in : feminism, poker , 2 comments.jpg)
On St. Patrick’s Day, I took the train to Atlantic City to play in a Ladies World Series of Poker Circuit event. The tournament began with a good omen as I ate a delicious bagel on the boardwalk and struck up a conversation with a man who gambles profusely enough to have his pick of comped rooms in Vegas or Atlantic City, but loses too much to rent an apartment. When I told him I was playing in a 200+30$ poker tournament with about 400 entries, he told me:
"That’s great! The first prize should be about half a million dollars!"
I explained to him that he needed to shave off a zero, but he did not believe me, insisting for several minutes that it would indeed be a six figure prize. When he did begin to realize I may be right, he prefered to pretend we had differences of opinion rather than admit his error. My fear of shame defeats my fear of lies too so I can’t really blame him. Who knows? Maybe there are two ways of looking at it.
The math blunder was a great omen for the day, in which all the chips I gained by skill and not luck were based on the inability of my opponents to do basic math. I came in 21st out of 369 players, good for my entry fee back plus 200$. Not a great payday considering that i was trapped in a chair with only cookies and chips to eat for 9+ hours. But it was exciting. And yes, I was mad when i lost with AK on the river to trip sevens. The ladies and the crowd clapped loudly for the 7, but broke into an apologetic, half assed congrats when they realized I’d been stacked. I’m never popular at these things, especially at the end everyone hates me cause I keep saying "all in" and in response I hear a lot of "Why don’t you play poker for a change?" Which brings me to my next point.
One interesting thing about women’s poker tournaments is that the players tend to be very weak in the endgame, when math dominates all other considerations. Take this typical example. I have about 7x the Big Blind plus there are tons of antes. So basically, I’m really short stacked, and my effective stack size is more like 5x the BB. From middle position I push all in. The Big Blind thinks for like two seconds and turns over JJ, and says "RESPECT." OK, for those of you who are not big poker players, JJ is like fifth best hand in poker, and to fold there when I have so few chips is a terrible decision.
As a thinking feminist, I can’t escape the disturbing truth that the majority of women poker players I’ve competed with ignore or mock math. Perhaps women are too often taught to go with their heart, and rely on their "female intuition." Also maybe women are attracted to poker because of the glamour, and it’s not glamorous to calculate pot odds, while trying to gaze into your opponent’s soul IS glamorous? One of these days, I will get to the bottom of it all. Along the way, I will enjoy my beautiful expected value.
Hats and Rose-colored glasses March 22, 2008
Posted by Jennifer in : books, poker , add a comment
I first heard about Martha Frankel’s new memoir, Hats and Eyeglasses about online poker addiction, in a lurid piece on NPR. I was laughing while listening because the interviewer was very bad at masking extreme SchadenFruede, or pleasure in the misfortune of others. Her questioning style was in the vein of a modern day morality tale, and I kept expecting the next inquiry to be "Why didn’t you stop playing after losing your first 300$ in ten minutes?" and "what was the difference between your advance for this book and the total credit card debt?" and "did it destroy your sex life?"
Martha Frankel, like me, grew up in a house of games, where "Never play to an inside straight" was as important of a principle as "use butter when baking." Later she became a celebrity interviewer, famous writer, and her fascination for poker grew. It’s hard to tell whether she was talented or just fascinated, because in the book, she makes it seem like it took her a long time to grasp very basic things, like the ranking of hands.This could be just to make the book more accesible. In Positively Fifth Street,James McManus did the same sort of thing, and he was known as a very good player, so his "geewhiz" attitude was definitely disingenous. In Martha’s case her skill level is less clear, but she wins in live play, in casinos and cruises, largely due to her poker coach and cousin Keith’s excellent mantra to "Crush them all by folding." (That’s really my friend Donny’s quote, but same point.)
The worst thing about the book is that Martha strongly implies that there is rampant cheating, robots and collusion in online games. She does allow the possibility that she played badly on Paradise Poker, but briskly, as if it’s a minor possibility not worth more than a paragraph or two. The childhood stories are so much more vivid and considered than her account of addictive internet gambling spell, which is both the book’s selling point (that’s all NPR wanted to talk to her about), but also its most superficial and defensive part. Despite the hidden truths that remain, most poker players hate to admit when they lost, so what Frankel did reveal required bravery.
Hats and Eyeglasses offers insight into gambling addiction and the risks and benefits of an extremely independent marriage that somehow survives catastrophic online gambling losses. I would never back Martha Frankel in a poker tournament, but I must say that in terms of men and publishing, she seems to be blessed.
