The odds in Vegas and Israel June 26, 2008
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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
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.
