My opponent Brandon Lee, was a former 1900 player who long ago gave up chess for poker. We decided on a six-game chess match at 5 to 2 odds. Each chess game was worth 50 poker chips—after the chess match, we’d move on Heads-Up No Limit poker. There was a base of 100 chips each, so even if one of us swept, there would still be a poker match.

My first game was a sweet victory in the King’s Indian Defense, ending something like this:

I get to play ...Rxa2!

We moved on to heads-up poker. The blind structure was pretty deep at 1-2 with 15 minute levels, but I felt good about my chip lead—a starting stack of 275 to Brandon’s 225.

Things started off badly for me as I lost a bunch of small pots and I was down to 235 when we reached a critical hand. Brandon made it 7 on the button, I re-raised it to 22 and he 4-bet me to 83. He raised me off pots and showed bluffs a few times already, so I thought his range was much wider than it actually was. This is the danger of using too many “instincts” in poker. My gut said that he was trying to bully me, but logically, his range is pretty narrow. I five bet-him all in with QTs and he called with AJo. Everyone laughed at my play but at least I was a little over 40% to win the showdown and of course I made a flush on the river.

I now had him down to about 30 chips! Unfortunately, after folding a couple hands, he won a race with J2s vs. something like T9 and was back to 50 chips. A little later, we had this annoying hand:

I raised the button with T6s and he called. Flop came 467 rainbow. He checked, I bet out 12, he raised to 30 and I called. Turn was a 7 and he bet out 45. I thought for a while and folded—at the time completely unsure about my play. After the hand, I knew he had me beat because earlier he was showing bluffs whereas in this hand he sheepishly tossed his cards into the muck. Later he told me he had 35o for a sucker straight-more like a crusher straight heads up.

So eventually he regained a chip lead, the blinds blossomed and I got it all in with A3o vs. K5o. You can see the result of that race from my expression in the photo.

Overall, the format was very fun. So if you’re good at poker and chess, go ahead and challenge me. I’m hungry for a win.

First we interviewed Kami Chisholm aka “Dr.Kamikaze”, a gender studies professor and feminist film-maker turned poker pro. Although a HORSE specialist, Chisholm placed fifth in her first No Limit Hold Em 2010 World Series bid, the Ladies event. She was adamantly against men playing in the ladies event and even called out Shaun Deeb when he sat at her table. My co-host Amy Zupko and I asked her about being a woman in a male-dominated field, and whether people treated her differently and she responded matter of factly, “I am a butch lesbian, so my experience is different than a lot of women.” Dr. Kamikaze explained that she felt her image worked to her advantage in the Ladies Event, in that she was able to bond with the other ladies at the table, but also had a more intimidating, aggressive image. Kami also talked about the acceptance of gays and lesbians in poker, and the lack of sponsorships for openly gay players. I’m sure Dr.Chisholm was thrilled when she found out shortly after our chat that Vanessa Selbst signed with pokerstars!

We also interviewed player and promoter Zeljka Penzinger aka Cookie Cooks from Croatia. Cookie is a member of the Ladies Pokerica team and organizer of an upcoming poker tournament series in Croatia. Her favorite hand is queen nine suited, an inadvertent plug for 9queens. Unfortunately for me, Cookie has my header dominated. Speaking of which, I added a gallery by photographer extraordinaire Suzy Gorman to my photo page.

The next Women’s Poker Hour will feature Amanda Musumeci, the new bodog girl. Amanda was born and raised in Philly, and was featured in a recent Inquirer article. Amanda was insightful on bankroll management, game selection and the ladies event, so be sure to look for that show soon on womanpokerplayer.com.
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A Tale of Two Headsets

About four years ago, I went to a RadioShack and bought the cheapest skype headset in the store. With that headset, I commented on chess.fm shows from the World Championships to the US Chess League. The sound was OK, but I’d often pop an advil or four during the broadcasts, cause the headphones smashed my ears together and gave me wicked headaches.

This April, I lost a 10:1 chip lead in a heads-up match which would qualify me directly to a tournament I really wanted to play in Monte Carlo. The value of first was around $4500 while second was just $600. Afterwards, I ripped a glossy art magazine and a New Yorker to shreds, but it wasn’t enough. I needed to destroy a heavier item. Keyboard and monitors were too dear to my blogger’s survival instinct and NO WAY was I hurting googie (my pet name for my google phone.) So the target of my rage was bound to be those headphones of many headaches. On the other side of the Atlantic, the villain, Atheanna from Oslo was probably popping champagne as I smashed plastic. It was the first time I ever broke something after losing in poker (or chess for that matter), and hopefully the last.

I’ve moved up in the World, so when the time came that I needed a headset, I went to Staples and picked the most expensive one in the store. Could I win back the love of my ears, which had endured so many years of helix abuse? “Yes,” said the soft fabric of the new headset, massaging my ears. Unfortunately, the new headphones distance the sound of my voice on the receiving end, reducing the pleasure of the listeners. Well for most listeners at least. People seem to either love or hate my voice. The majority like me, but detractors are vocal and graphic, like one ICC troll who said I reminded him of a strangled cat. It alarms me that anyone would know how that sounds–I’m clasping my hands around my neck now to try it: meogwghwgh.

So after a much anticipated week in the City of Sin, I’ll rebuy those earphones of frugal days. Then armed with a bottle of Motrin, I’ll call Amy, and the stories from Las Vegas will flow.

The fantasy: An online poker millionaire may have zits and an imperfect body but with a large enough bankroll and a propensity toward sunk costs & good times, he can be transported to a land of silicon, luxury watches and high stakes sushi. For instance, a quote from the very visible CEO, Dan Fleyshman in a Victory promo vid, “Nobody is going to go out there and do what we do. They’re not going to coin flip for dinner every time, they’re not going to go Tao and spend $10,000.” is complemented by a quote from playmate Sara Jean Underwood in another video “I think poker players are absolutely sexy. It involves money and what about money isn’t sexy?”, and then we see Antonio Esfandiari draped in bikini clad models insisting, “I”m on the clock.”

Victory Poker’s sole female pro is the aforementioned Sara Jean Underwood, 2007 Playmate of the Year.

The two leading American online cardrooms, pokerstars and fulltilt sponsor female players with proven poker successes. For instance, pokerstars female pros include Vanessa Rousso and Katja Thater. Jennifer Harman is on Team fulltilt while the ink is still wet on sweet-faced but lethal Internet phenom Annette Obrestad’s FT contract. Obviously, looks and style factor somewhat into any site’s sponsored players but for stars and tilt, it’s clearly not the primary criteria.

Although I have no intention of trying out, I had to find out if this VP reality show was a dudes only affair, and if not, if they were primarily seeking out those with hot measurements or hot poker stats.

I was in luck. There is a sponsored victory poker forum on 2+2 so I got rapid responses from members of the VP team to both of my questions below.

Question #1-
Do you have any plans to market to women? I noticed the video contest link today and it doesn’t seem geared toward ladies. Maybe you could sub the watch for a handbag if a woman wins? Also, a woman will obv crush the date with a playmate challenge so you’d probably have to figure out a way to even the playing field there- Jenium

Response from Victory Poker CEO Dan Fleyshman:

Jenium: I do market to women in different ways. I sponsor ladies events and actively support the LIPS Poker Tour for women. If a woman wins, she would still receive a watch, just a ladies edition instead! There are 18 male poker players on my team that a lady can choose for the date challenge : )

I agree with you, we’ve thought about it many times and there will be easy adjustments made to suit the ladies that make it as one of the final 25 contestants.

It’s great that Fleyshman sponsors women’s poker tournaments but not sure about the parallels here. A watch for poker players is obviously not to tell time, but to display your bankroll and inspire envy. A better corollary for women would be a collection of Louboutins. As for the men to choose from, nothing against Team VP members but if you want a male answer to Underwood, wouldn’t this be more appropriate?

Not that he’s my type or anything, just making a point

Question #2

Does a woman need a certain cup size to apply or is that something that she could work on improving during the competition?-Jenium

Response from Victory Poker sponsored pro, Keith Gipson:
We’re looking for a good poker player who gels with us. You’re gonna have to be smart and cool. Cup size is not gonna play a role as far as I’m concerned. But, Executive Producer is, in fact, the executive producer. So, a lot of what goes down will rest with him.

So there you go, cup sizes are not relevant to at least one member of the VP team.
But seriously, if Victory pros are so good at poker, why are they so simple to level? Eassssy game.

Vanessa Selbst’s blog entry on NAPT with her hand analysis was great, the kind of thing that inspires me to improve in poker. I also listened to an interview with Vanessa on pokercast where she talked about how important it was for her to be a role model to young girls, who rarely see openly gay figures in the media–great thing to say. I voted for Selbst to make it into the WSOP tournament of champions event and will definitely be checking her blog out regularly, in spite of gray text on black background.

I played next to Vanessa Selbst in the 2007 Ladies World Series of Poker–we had just broke down to the final two tables, I was super-short and she was seated to my left. I was not happy about having to shove with almost any two into her monstrous stack but met an even worse fate getting all my money in preflop a few hands later. I had AQo in the Big Blind against JJ (who raised two off the button) and AA (who re-raised in the Small Blind). The woman with aces was upset that JJ sucked out on the river to knock her out, and had some nasty words about my play. I remember being consoled by the fact that Selbst said I was right to go in (assuming I lacked major reads on the first two raisers).

Liv, the ultimate modern Renaissance woman, seems to have enthralled the entire 2+2 community. Well you gotta be either enamored or intimidated by an astrophysicist/guitar-playing/model/journalist/poker champion. Seems made up right? Check out the following clip of Liv interviewing Ron Jeremy, which shows that she thinks a level ahead of the porn star– in his own game:

It was also interesting to watch Mayor Nutter play chess against a 9-year-old girl from the program. Normally when political figures offer to speak at a chess event, they only make the ceremonial first move. But Nutter took it very seriously and ended up playing the entire game, which lasted 45 minutes. His aides, who were impatiently watching said it felt like it took 4.5 hours. See the full story in the Philadelphia Inquirer and look for some moves from the actual game on my CLO blog.

In another example of finishing what you start, I played the last chance €215 Ladies Luxury Poker Club Monte Carlo direct qualifier. I was seriously considering not playing because it may be hard to get to Europe in the new few weeks due to the volcano. But it just felt wrong to play so well in the first six and reject my final shot especially since I’d won a super-sat into it. Also I want to support stars’ efforts to promote women’s poker and it’s hard to find a $300 online tournament with such good value.

In the start of the tourney, I felt a little distracted and call-ey. But during the middle and end, patience, math and some luck ( I got kings at a good moment) came to the fore and I final-tabled with an average stack. Two €3500 packages were at stake and there were three consolation prizes for 3rd-5th of €530 Euros (about $700). Sadly I mini-bubbled for 6th (the big bubble is obviously third). The hand I busted on was pretty trivial. I had sixes on the button with a M of 10, was called by the shortest stack in the SB with AJs and lost the showdown, ace on the river Lost another showdown for the rest of my meager stack and ended up with the sub-consolation prize of €10 Euros! I did have some interesting hands earlier in the event like this one against the most aggressive player at the table:

I’d bet/fold against a lot of the tight players in ladies events, but against this player, my plan was bet/re-raise all in, since she’s perfectly capable of raising here with air. She did checkraise/fold so it worked out well, but later I wondered if my play was clearly +EV or if I was overestimating her range.

Speaking of aggressive female players, I bought the James McManus tome, Cowboys Full on the history and culture of poker and read two articles on WomanPokerPlayer.com, HeSaid and SheSaid summing up his thoughts on the supposed lack of female ability in No Limit poker tourneys. The main argument is that women are too risk averse for high stakes poker. I find this very oversimplified. Patience and bankroll management are also very important poker skills which women may have more cultural aptitude for. It’s not clear that these are easier to learn than aggression. Often the testosterone pumped men tend to be the worst players of all, garbage raising machines. I think it would be much easier to teach a peaceful woman to push T9o on the SB with a short stack than to teach an egomaniacal dude to fold most hands out of position. The argument that women are ill-suited for NL poker smacks of a foregone conclusion, “women play poker less than men and don’t cash as often,” so let’s explain why that must be the case, ignoring the fact that tons of “aggressive” male players have lost their shirts on poker. Poker is not just about how much you win, but also sadly, about how much you lose. Otherwise, we’d all be rich.

I played a lot of online poker in March and April and felt I learned a lot, but I’ll be taking a break till my yearly WSOP/National Open trip in June to focus on other projects, such as promoting the 2010 US Chess Championships in Saint Louis. The event will feature a 10K guaranteed blitz Open for just a $40-50 entry fee. Hope to see you there!