I tried to hit the ground running, starting with my first post, The Playboy of Full Tilt.

Thanks again to everybody who read my Journal, and thanks to Linda Geenen and everyone at Pokerworks.com and team for a wonderful opportunity and a wonderful time. For me, it was magical.

Stay lucky.

Michael Craig 2/3/07

WHOA, WHAT WAS THAT LAST ONE?

Pokerworks had told me, for economic reasons, that they weren’t going to continue paying me the king’s ransom on which I had insisted since I started posting my journal here last July. We both agreed that I did a lot of great writing and performed a service for the site, and that they were great employers, administrators, and they compensated me richly. But they were moving in another direction and that didn’t include continuing my deal. They offered me a very generous revenue deal, which I ultimately turned down.

This isn’t lip service: Pokerworks has been great to me. Linda Geenen, who founded the site, administers it, and still produces Table Tango, was my first friend in poker and I hope she’ll be my last. The owners have been a journalist’s dream: they let me do whatever I wanted, they paid me what I wanted and on time, and until they decided to discontinue the deal, were 100% positive about what I was doing for them.

So Linda and the Pokerworks family remain my friends, and I hope and assume the feeling is mutual. My archive, which I treasure, will remain on Pokerworks for as long as Pokerworks wants to keep it online. If I continue posting a journal online, I expect to refer to my favorites from time to time and direct readers here to Pokerworks where they can read them.

WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME

I am in the process of negotiating with some other site – not a competitor of Pokerworks – to post my journal. That process will take about another week, but I didn’t want to leave Pokerworks or you hanging.

If I move to another site, Pokerworks will let me post a link. If you would like to be specifically informed of what I do – either moving to another site, starting my own site, or giving up blogging in favor of an e-mail-type newsletterish blogly kind of thing – you can e-mail me (mrchaotic@aol.com). If you put “MCJ Future” in the subject line, I will automatically put you on the announcement list. I may also, in the meantime, send out a dispatch on my recent journalings:

NeTeller – the multiple fantasy worlds that company, prosecutors, and the rest of us are inhabiting.

Mike Matusow – the sad story of how a Matusow bio project will include one less Mikey than I thought.

The Tilt Offensive – my 3 final tables in 2 nights, my subsequent losing of most of that money over the next few days, and the friends and enemies I inevitably accumulated along the way.

This won’t be my last post, though the next one should have little more than the location of where you’ll find me in the future. Posting this journal on Pokerworks has been phenomenal for me and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. This latest series of developments is, in one sense, an ending. But in more important way, it’s a beginning. It’s part of a new direction and focus for Pokerworks, which I enjoyed reading before I was associated with it, and expect to continue enjoy reading. And it’s going to take my writing in some new directions – some I’m looking forward to, and some that I can’t even anticipate. I hope you’ll stay tuned to see how it all comes out.

1. I entered the schedule on an Excel spreadsheet. It will cost $194,500 to play every event, not including re-buys.

2. I intend to play as many World Series events this year as I can afford. I feel I am becoming a very knowledgeable tournament player, am trying to learn all the games, am doing well online, and have a book on tournament poker coming out on June 1.

3. Of course, I can’t afford to spend $194,500 plus re-buys. But I don’t have to. I can subtract the Casino Employee, Ladies, and Seniors events, slashing my total cost of entries to a mere $192,000. Plus re-buys.

4. I have to sacrifice the HORSE Championship. Unless someone – or someoneS – wants a piece of me or I win a satellite, I’m going to have to pass. I’m down to $142,000. Whoo-hoo!

5. I can pretty painlessly axe the PLO Championship and the No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven and save $15,000 plus the rebuys in the Deuce. Those events are too close to the Main Event for my taste.

6. I have no interest in learning Triple-Draw or PLO Eight-or-Better so I can cut them out of my crowded schedule, saving another $2,500. That takes me down to $124,500.

7. In the interest in economizing, I can remove the following $5,000 buy-in events: PLO with rebuys, Pot Limit Hold ‘Em, Stud. That takes me down to $109,500.

8. I can get to nearly $100,000 if I make the decision right now that I won’t play the 6-handed events unless I am in the black, satellite in, or find investors.

9. Why don’t I cut out all the rebuy events? Andy Bloch told me last year that it was necessary to budget at least $5,000 for them. I’ll play the last hold ‘em re-buy event if I’m in the black. Otherwise, they are off the schedule. I’m under $100,000!

10. I love the idea of the mixed hold ‘em events, but I’ll skip the first one. It’s a $5,000 buy-in and is the very first event. I can stay home another day.

11. I’m going to sit-out Pot Limit Hold ‘Em. I already wrote out the $5,000 event. If I skip the $1,500 event and instead play another split event – Omaha EOB/Stud EOB, I can cut some Omaha EOB and Stud EOB’s out. In addition, playing the $2,500 split event gives me more starting chips and more play. And because it starts at 5 PM on June 3, I’m going to assume I won’t be able to play the $1,500 LHE event on June 4. $89,000 to play the WSOP.

12. The way it’s currently set, I’m playing 6/2, 6/3, 6/5, and 6/6. Especially because June 6 is Jo Anne’s birthday, I’ll go home after that. By skipping the next couple days and returning for the $2,500 NLHE on June 11, my WSOP bill is now just $76,500.

After that, it gets a lot murkier. How long I last, finishes in the money, and ruination of my marriage will determine how much more I play. Obviously, if I make a final table early that will fuel a relatively heavy schedule. If Jo Anne incapacitates me with a horse-whip, then I won’t, for example, be playing the $5,000 HORSE.

But I’m confident I can profit from playing a significant schedule, or least keep my losses under $50,000.

1. This is a pretty good schedule. I like the variety of events much more than in 2006.

2. Day 1 is June 1. The Main Event starts on July 6. Final table day is July 17.

3.  There are a lot of events, 55 total. That’s more than ever before and does NOT include any events running simultaneous to the later days of the Main Event. They are running a second bracelet event at 5 PM on 20 days. This raises the question: for an organization that wasn’t paying dealers well, wasn’t attracting the best dealers, faced a dealer revolt, and had a definite shortage of competent floor personnel, HOW ARE THEY GOING TO DO IT? I applaud the number of events and the variety, but it’s all for naught if they can’t RUN the events properly.

4. They are introducing more mixed events, starting with Event #1 on

Event #1, June 1, Mixed Hold ‘Em (limit and no-limit), $5,000 buy-in.

Event #5 on June 3 is Omaha Eight-or-Better/Stud Eight-or-Better, $2,500 buy-in.

Event#16 on June 9 is $2,500 HORSE.

Event #26 on June 16 is $5,000 HORSE.

Event #39 on June 24 is the return of the $50,000 HORSE Championship.

Event #40, also on June 24, is a second mixed hold ‘em event, this time with a $1,500 buy-in.

Event #51, on July 1, is the return of SHOE to the World Series, with a $1,000 buy-in.

I think the popularization of no-limit hold ‘em on TV has stunted the development of the other games, which is bad for poker in the long run. The World Series jumped on this bandwagon, though not to the extent of the casinos that are in league with the World Poker Tour. The Bellagio, for example, has eliminated its schedule of events other than no-limit hold ‘em for its several annual tournaments.

The mixed events bring to mind the high-stakes mixed games, which is the best chance these other forms of poker have of spreading to all the new players.

5. The casino employees event, ladies event, and seniors event are still on the schedule.

6. There is a $5,000 buy-in Heads-Up Championship on June 19. I’ll take some credit for this, thank you, though no one will agree with me.

7. The Rio will again host the Series and the announcement says it “will offer players more space, with up to 300 tables available for tournament and live play.” This will be interesting. Something BIGGER than the Amazon Room? An additional room nearby (or not nearby)? Shoving players closer together, like cords of firewood?

8. The Gaming Expo (a/k/a The Cheap Craporama) is also back, July 5-8.

9. Another new event debuting on the schedule is Pot Limit Omaha Eight-or-Better. Event #42, June 25, $1,500 buy-in. For those who think PLO doesn’t offer enough action.

10. The Main Event: Now that the Rio can accommodate 3,000 people per seating, there will be just THREE Day 1s, July 6-8. Harrah’s is apparently conceding that there will be fewer entries in 2007 than ’06. I know that was a foregone conclusion but not necessarily an inevitable one.

The online sites, as far as I can tell, are still going to run WSOP satellites, giving the winners cash to enter the Main Event (or not). This could be a boon to the sites because they can keep running the satellites (which make money and attract players) but still potentially keep the money on site.

In fact, a lot of players WILL take that money to the Series. I can tell you from experience that once you play in the Main Event, you want to do it again. Even if you play in the Main Event “just to do it once”, you’ll feel you’re missing something if you don’t come back. I know I’ll be playing in it this year. I can’t imagine someone who plays poker and has the funds together NOT playing it.

In addition, Harrah’s owns some casinos with poker rooms, right? What about running satellites out of those places between now and the Series? Instead of those moribund Circuit events, round up all the former online players and give them, at locations around the country, a chance to qualify “legit”. If I truly couldn’t afford to play the Main Event and was deterred by the new law from qualifying online, I’d haul my carcass to the local Harrah’s rug joint (they have one here in the Phoenix area) and wear out their poker room trying to qualify.

Nevertheless, they are set for 9,000 max, though they can always cheat by running a fourth flight on the off day, July 9, or cramming players together 11-handed like steerage, or continuing the abominable practice of seating “alternates”.

11. Harrah’s is continuing the rake the events to beat the band:

Buy in-

$500 – 10%

$1,000 – 9%

$1,500 – 9%

$2,000 – 9%

$2,500 – 8%

$3,000 – 8%

$5,000 – 6%

$10,000 – 6%

$50,000 – 4%

First, the links. The guy who posted the video is named Marty Smith, who I have never met or heard of. Maybe he is a poker expert with qualifications far exceeding mine. (I’m not proclaiming myself any kind of expert but (a) I play a lot of tournaments online, (b) I win, and (c) I spent a year putting together a book on tournament poker with Andy Bloch, Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Ted Forrest, and several other great players, so I learned a great deal. That said, I think one of my greatest strengths in poker analysis is that I’ll quickly admit when I get something wrong or miss part of the analysis. That comes from spending a lot of time reasoning and arguing this stuff through with Andy Bloch and Chris Ferguson.) Marty runs a site called FullTiltPokerReport.com. The YouTube video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufoOn39hcz0.

If he engages me in a discussion and points out something I missed or got wrong – or one of you does so – I have no trouble crying “uncle!” I call that LEARNING and I don’t mind being wrong about this stuff at all. But I don’t think I am.

Second, the facts. This was at the final table of the Full Tilt $350,000 Guarantee on November 26, in which I finished fifth. As near as I can remember it, this was the situation:

Five players left, blinds at 25k-50k, antes at 10k. [Note the 20% ante as well as the short-handed table. They figure in my analysis, but not Marty's.]

I was fourth in chips, with about 500k. Another player had just lost a huge pot and had, I think, 42k. He would be forced all-in within a couple hands. The other three players were tightly bunched with 2.2M, 2M, and 1.9M.

Third, here’s how it went down. I was, I think, in the cut-off with A-Qs. It was folded to me. I went all in. The microstack on the button folded. The chip leader, in one of the blinds, called me with 4-4. I didn’t improve and was eliminated.

Marty Smith’s argument is that I should have folded everything but A-A and MAYBE K-K. But he says he would have thought hard before pushing in with K-K. There was a $6,500 difference between 5th and 4th place and I committed a “brain burp” by playing A-Qs. 

I know there is a principle out there that says, “Sometimes it’s a good idea to pass up a good bet when you can fold your way to more money.” But what are the limits on this principle? When does it apply or not apply? Does it have anything to do with later payouts? Stack sizes? According to Smith, fold everything but A-A.

That can’t conceivably be the right way to play. I will explain the reasoning, but if you think that way, you will find it impossible to succeed in tournament poker. You might make it through some satellites, or sneak into the low money occasionally, but then it’s extremely unlikely that you can win a big prize thinking this way.

Let’s first establish what happens if I fold my A-Qs. I’m down to 9 BBs. The micro-stack is probably going to be eliminated in a hand or two. It will cost me 115k every four hands. With the other stacks having 40 BB, my blind will be under attack every hand (which is 50% of the time when we’re four handed).

If I wait just two rounds and succeed in doubling up, I’m still in about the same position I am when I made the decision to move all-in.

And what if the short stack DOESN’T bust on the next hand. Marty mentions, as a reason I should fold everything, that the short stack will get 2-3 callers. That means if the guy wins, he has 150-200k. With me folding everything but A-A until that guy’s out, I don’t think his chances of passing me if he wins that all-in hand are all that unreasonable.

In the final analysis, if I played it Marty’s way, there’s almost no way I could finish higher than 4th. I have to concede 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place money (that’s $83,000, $51,000, and $33,000, by the way) to the bigger stacks and content myself with the extra $6,500 by finishing 4th instead of 5th.  The chances of me moving up, especially if the shortest stack lasts more than one hand, aren’t much greater than the chances I’ll follow his advice and STILL finish fifth.

NOW, what good and bad things happen if I do what I did, moving all-in with A-Qs?

First, what’s the chance I’m giving up $6,500 by moving all-in with A-Qs? If Marty’s analysis is correct and my opponents are thinking as smart as he is about this, everyone should fold to me unless they have A-A. After all, if I’m folding everything but A-A, what are they going to think when I move in and they have something like 4-4? Obviously, that guy who called with 4-4 didn’t think Marty’s way of thinking was correct.

Even assuming Marty is wrong, most people are going to fold. No one has a really huge stack here. Even the biggest stack, the guy who called with 4-4, was calling off more than 20% of his chips. With 3 of the 5 remaining players pretty close in chips, who wants to put in 20-40% of their chips calling someone who obviously has at least a pretty good hand?

Mike Matusow, who is an excellent tournament player, especially in the endgame, was apoplectic about that guy’s call. Think of all the hands I could reasonably have. Heck, think of the hands I could have that Marty Smith would tell me to fold: J-J? 8-8? 6-6?

I think the chances everyone folds are 80-90%. They need AT LEAST a top 10-20% hand to call me here, and it needs to be at the high end of that range because of the combination that they would respect that I must have a strong hand and they would either be a tiny favorite or a big dog.

If there’s just a 20% chance I’m going to get called, then 80% of the time I’m going to pick up 125,000 chips. An 80% chance of picking up 125,000 chips is HUGE. That gives me close to 650k, which increases the penalty to one of the bigger stacks (who all have the same amount of chips) of picking on me and being wrong. It also gives me enough chips to make a meaningful reraise, or conceivably make a raise and fold, or make a loose call when the micro-stack moves in to see five cards with the other players.

But I actually WANTED to get called. 3d paid $7k more than 4th. 2nd, another additional $18k. 1st added another $32k. If I get called and win, my 1.3 million in chips puts me right in the thick of things, and my equity in a four handed game where no one has over 2 million has to be far, far greater than the $6,500 if I fold my way to elimination.

A-Qs has a 49% chance against 4-4. If everyone folds 80% of the time, these are the results and their likelihood:

80% – they all fold, I have 650k. My chances of finishing better than 4th improve at least marginally.

10% – 4-4 calls and I win, giving me 1.3M. With the luck factor in a short-handed game (by the way, my understanding of short-handed play is one of the strengths of my game, mostly by virtue of most players having little experience or understanding of how the game changes – I was schooled by Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, and Andy Beal), my chances of winning aren’t worse than 20% and could be as high as 40%. I don’t know what value you put on that, but it’s got to be greater than $6,500 – four players with huge blinds and antes, fairly close in chips, splitting $192,000?

10% – 4-4 calls and I lose, eliminating me. I lose the $6,500 I’d make if I held out until the smallest stack busted.

This didn’t seem to be a close case. In fact, if I thought the players at that final table thought anything like Marty Smith, I’d have made the move with any two cards.

Final note: How good is A-Qs? If, instead of dealing out cards, you dealt out numbers between 1 and 100 and the goal was to have the highest number (A-A would be 100 and hands like 3-2o and 7-2o would be 1 or 2), how high is A-Qs?

A-Qs, to open a pot, would be about 97. Andy Bloch and Chris Ferguson have analyzed this carefully. Andy has shared his numbers with me (and they’ll be in THE FULL TILT POKER STRATEGY GUIDE – TOURNAMENT EDITION, coming out in June) and I understand that Chris’s aren’t too different. These rankings come from a simulation that, though unlike a lot of situations in poker, is very relevant to a short-handed all-in-or-fold game. In the simulation, the only hands better than A-Qs for open-raising are A-A, K-K, A-Ks, A-Ko, and Q-Q. Out of the 1,326 two-card combinations you can get, only 34 (about 3%) are better than A-Qs. And it’s not even 34 – it’s 24 because without the ace and queen of diamonds, there are only 3 A-A combos and 3 Q-Q combos. Instead of 16 A-K combos, there are just 12.

Let’s also note how unlikely I was to run into a small pocket pair as a caller. Put yourself in the position of the guy with 4-4. What’s he think I’m moving all-in with? Liberally, he might think I’ll move in with A-K, A-Q, A-J, or any pocket pair. That works out to 120 hands, about 10% of all my possible hands. For half of those hands (pocket pairs 5-5 and above), he is just 20% to win. For 10% of those hands, I moved with 3-3 or 2-2 and he is 80% to win. For the other 40% (A-K, A-Q, A-J), he is just slightly better than a coin flip, depending on whether I am suited.

If you add it up, I think 4-4 is 38% to win against all those hands. Is that worth calling off more than 20% of your chips? If you take Andy Bloch’s hand rankings and assume I raised with the best THIRD of my hands – which includes pocket pairs but also hands like 8-6s, K-5s, A-2o, K-5s – 4-4 is only 49.5% to win.

CONCLUSION

The rational aspect of my decision to move all-in with A-Qs is that it was one of the very best hands I could expect to get during the endgame and the overwhelming likelihood was that no one would call and I’d pick up the blinds and antes, which were substantial.

The emotional aspect was that I WANTED to get called – in fact, if I had known that player had 4-4, I would have pushed in anyway. A 50% shot at the bigger prize money, like $33k for 3rd, $51k for 2nd, and $83k for first was worth it for me. Between the luck factor and my relatively advanced understanding of the endgame, a coinflip to get myself to par for the last three spots was easily worth it.

I welcome Marty Smith’s explanation, and anyone else who wants to take a position. Like I said, I’m certainly capable of making mistakes in analysis or missing ideas or concepts that could tip the balance considerably.  But I know there’s more to it than “fold because someone else might bust.” There’s gotta be.

XANADU

I started cleaning my office on the 30th. I’m not going to say which month. It has been my highest priority task every day, meaning it is the task I am most frequently looking to postpone. My office used to be the living room of our house. It’s probably the largest room, and it’s still not big enough.

The office houses treasures from the four corners of eBay. I’ve been reading about some of the world’s great art collections recently – more on that later – and one description of the collections of the great industrialists (e.g., Hearst, Morgan) mentioned that J.P. Morgan owned TWO Gutenberg Bibles.

That’s me – dozens of Moleskine Notebooks in every style except the music notebook, nearly 40 Montblanc pens, a collection of “lucky” items (Buddhas, dragons, Spongebob Squarepants playing-card stickers, jade, coins), numerous mechanical watches, files and boxes of files on my previous two books and a dozen or so ideas for books, and a couple hundred articles I’ve saved or printed with a similar notation on the first page: “Interesting?”

THE THOUSAND DOLLAR MISTAKE

I’ve been playing a lot on Full Tilt the past several days, including in the site’s first $1,000 + $60 buy-in MTT on Monday night. I was impressed that they got 124 entries for the tournament, especially because the site went offline for a few hours (including, I think, voiding the big satellite tournament into the $1K).

The tournament paid 18 places and I finished 15th, for a $480 profit. But I’m going to have to think seriously about playing in it in the future. The first problem, which wouldn’t necessarily prevent me from playing but seemed odd and awkward, had to do with the structure. Because so many people were playing so conservative and there were many very good online tournament players in action, it seemed like a relatively large number of players had pretty similar stacks as we got near the money. Because of the conservative play, it seemed an extremely high percentage of the field had only about 10-15 big blinds. Maybe it was an accident of this particular day, but there wasn’t very much play near the money.

The bigger problem for me was a personal one. Paying $1,060 doesn’t look to be an efficient use of my online tournament capital. Among the records I’ve been keeping the last couple weeks is how much per hour it COSTS me to play online. I am occasionally playing the $24 + $2 events, but mostly $69 + $5, $100 + $9, $150 + $13, and $200 + $16. Excluding the $1K, it costs me about $70 per hour to play tournament poker online. Add the $1K to a two-week period where I played online A LOT, and my cost-to-play jumps to $85.

This is really just another way of saying my bankroll isn’t big enough to pay that amount. You have to kiss a lot of frogs to succeed in tournament poker. I’ve been very profitable the last couple weeks, yet I’ve had just three positive days out of fourteen.

I might take a flier on a satellite into that tournament – though Chris Ferguson tells me that if your bankroll isn’t big enough to play the tournament, it isn’t big enough to play the satellite – but unless I get some investors, I’ll probably pass.

[By the way, the rail was active, vocal, and critical during the $1k. That's fine by me, even when they go off on me. Oddly, it is an educational experience. Repeatedly, the railbirds were critical of (me, mostly) making raises late in the tournament without premium hands. For example, I raised in middle position with J-9s. The player in the blind re-raised all-in and I was getting 3-to-1 to call, which I did. The other player had A-K. I caught a jack, he caught an ace, and we went on. Naturally, I heard no end of how stupid I was for raising with J-9 and for calling an all-in re-raise with it. It reminds me how little many players understand about the endgame and the need to steal to keep pace with the blinds and antes, as well as the concept of pot odds. There was even one guy ragging on me for calling the 3,000 chip re-raise into a 9,000 pot because J-9 couldn't possibly be getting the right odds against two overcards. Sometimes, there is a reason WHY the rail is "the rail."]

ROSETTA STONE

The worst job in writing has to be review of a copy-edited manuscript. This book is 530 double-spaced pages and there are about a dozen marks on every page. I have to review each of them, some in sufficient detail so I can answer queries or disagree with a change and explain why.

For instance, I use the expression “Rosetta Stone” in my Introduction in describing the first time I laid eyes on SUPER/SYSTEM. The copy editor put a slash through the “S” in Stone, denoting that it should be lower-case. I didn’t think so, but I had to marshall my reasons. In the end, I referred the copy editor to www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk. The Rosetta Stone has been on exhibit there since 1802, and THEY capitalize the “S” in Stone.

Imagine having to engage in debates like that on every page of a 530-page manuscript. And that’s one of the GOOD ones, because I got to learn about the Rosetta Stone, at least. (Napoleon found it in 1799 and had to give it up as part of his surrender to and subsequent treaty with England.)

THE MOUTH VS. THE THIEF

I spent three very interesting days with Mike Matusow last week, doing interviews in connection with some as-yet-undetermined project involving his life story. Now that we are, as I used to say during my days as a litigator, “at issue,” it’s time to wrap up the deal between me and Matusow.

I offered Mike his choice of two deals: partners for the whole she-bang, or I take a salary and get a small piece of the profits. Frankly, I’d rather be partners, but it has to be either/or: I’ll work in collaboration on spec for an opportunity at the fortune that awaits if we hit the ball out of the park, or I’ll give up the lion’s share of that fortune if Mike wants to pay me what he loses in a bad hour online.

His agent, Rich Belsky, hasn’t told me which of the two Mike wants, only that some other people are being brought in to review and alter some of the language.

Tempus fugit, Rich!

I’ve been reading books about art theft over the last two weeks. I didn’t know WHY exactly. In fact, the writing of the books I’ve read so far has been weak. I find the subject-matter fascinating, though each author who focuses on a particular theft in the narrative feels obligated to tell about all the OTHER famous art thefts. Consequently, I’m constantly being re-introduced to the same thieves, the same works of art (though a few masterpieces have been stolen repeatedly), the same museums, and the same detectives.

Without really planning on it, I may have found the subject of my next book. How about an art thief who was a local rock ‘n’ roll legend, has his own web site, has been released from prison to help authorities recover OTHER stolen art (usually failing but his release was not conditional, or, in one instance, a painting HE may have stolen), and may have been responsible for the biggest (in dollars) unsolved crime in history?

If Mike Matusow’s representatives drag their feet, this is a pretty intriguing Plan B.

FINAL NOTE

As part of my attempt to make this Journal All-Clonie-All-the-Time, here are a few pieces of info about her recent doings:

1. Clonie is now a brunette.

2. Clonie won the $25,000 Guarantee tournament on Full Tilt on Tuesday night. I finished just 256 places below her. My take was $35.23. Hers was over $8,500. I mentioned to her after the tourney that I seemed to remember something about us each taking 50% of each other, but it was late and she was tired and maybe her Internet connection gave out or something because I didn’t get a response ….

A. Gerald Ford, upon taking the oath of office.

B. Saddam Hussein, swingin’.

C. Me, finally grabbing some cheese on Full Tilt.

D. All of the above.

I’d argue for D, but that’s just me.

A FORD, NOT A LINCOLN

Gerald Ford was really more of an idea – and an ideal – than a person in national life. He was a pretty undistinguished member of the House of Representatives for decades, not responsible for any important piece of legislation. If he hadn’t become Vice President, he would have been most remembered for trying to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

But he took a pretty crummy job at a pretty crummy time, succeeded two pretty crummy guys, and restored some legitimacy to the U.S. government, despite the fact that he was the only Vice President not elected as part of a popular vote and the only President who was not elected by popular vote as either President or VP. Still, he was honest and decent. Even though he was excoriated for decades for pardoning Nixon, most people think (and I agree) that we were better off not taking the prosecution of Richard Nixon to its conclusion – and I was and am someone who thought he justifiably resigned in disgrace.

I can add just a couple things to all that’s been said about Ford in connection with his passing and his funeral:

1. Gerald Ford was right-handed when standing up and left-handed when sitting down. Ponder that for a minute. He was a skilled golfer and skier, and remained skillful at both until well into his eighties. Nevertheless, he occasionally appeared clumsy. If you were right-handed standing up and left-handed sitting down, you might be clumsy too.

2. I own an honest-to-goodness Gerald Ford artifact, given to me years ago by my dad. It’s a rotogravure section of a Detroit newspaper with a picture of the 1934 University of Michigan Wolverines football team. Gerald Ford, the center, is in the center. (It was originally saved not for Ford or the Wolverines – I believe the U-M football team was 0-11 that year – but because the 1934 baseball World Series had just ended and on the back were pictures of the Detroit Tigers.)

SAY GOOD BYE TO THE BAD GUY

I’m having trouble reconciling my feelings about the death penalty with Saddam Hussein’s execution, but good riddance. I think the President thoroughly botched the Iraq War but I’ve never opposed him for wanting Hussein out – though I have opposed Bush on nearly every other conceivable ground. (Bush has been good to Israel, which is to some degree related to his hatred of Hussein.) I don’t think it’s unreasonable for each U.S. President to be able to designate one Super Villain and be allowed any means necessary to get him. Maybe it would have been better if Bush had designated Osama bin Laden – it’s been a boomtime for Super Villains. But Hussein was one of the most evil men since Hitler.

Notwithstanding, I want to resurrect something I wrote about Hussein 4 years ago and share it with you. At a low ebb in my writing career, I had worked for a web site owned by the AMERICAN SPECTATOR. You remember those guys, right? The ones who brought forth the Arkansas State Troopers who, if treated properly, would tell you what went on behind closed doors when they were supposed to be protecting then-Governor Clinton?

I’d tell you it was dirty money but I don’t even know that for sure. The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy owes me $1,200. They didn’t pay me for my last 12 columns, including the one I am about to reprint.

A tiny bit of background, to set the stage: Before the Iraq War, while Hussein was still in power, in October 2002, there was some talk of giving diplomacy one more try. (His sons were still alive as well.) That’s when I wrote the following, which starts with the then-current situation and ends with Saddam’s fictional death.

Killing Saddam Hussein … With Kindness

By Michael Craig

October 23, 2002

President Bush says he will give diplomacy one more try. Whether this is just a head-fake toward peace designed to gather some international support or a real attempt to avoid war with Iraq, we owe it to ourselves to explore alternatives. I have heard widely varying estimates on the cost of a war, from $9 billion a month from the Congressional Budget Office, to White House figures of $200 billion. Naturally, there are a lot of variables in the cost, but no one seems to be willing to itemize or explain the components.

While we look over the menu at the possible prices, let me suggest one last diplomatic solution which, though unconventional, could end up satisfying everybody involved: offer to buy all Saddam Hussein’s weapons and his presidency for $9 billion. Furthermore, to secure the agreement, we make him a U.S. citizen and give him and his family diplomatic immunity, as well as immunity from prosecution of all past crimes.

A lot of people will initially find it repugnant that we would pay a gigantic sum to a tyrant, in effect rewarding him for making the world such a miserable place. But stay with me here. I floated this idea by some folks when I was playing blackjack in Las Vegas last weekend, and there’s a way it could work.

See, there’s a catch. He has to live the rest of his life within the Las Vegas city limits.

When he gets there, he hit him with the fine print. The $9 billion is like a lottery payout – equal installments over thirty years. He’ll balk, but when he sees we’re really going to live up to the rest of the agreement, he’ll take the one-time $1.8 billion payment.

With a billion-eight in his pocket and diplomatic immunity, he won’t have much else to do but gamble. Hussein is obviously the gambling type, and he probably thinks he’s smarter than the game. Vegas loves that kind of action. His family will love the high-roller lifestyle. His wife used to go on million-dollar shopping sprees in New York and London. His son wears outlandish suits, with red-and-white stripes or with a lapel on just one side. That wouldn’t even stand out in Vegas. A guy who used to be a singer in Iraq said Uday would have parties where there would be five men and thirty women. While he was singing, Uday would come up on stage and make everyone drink enormous amounts of cognac. Then he would take out a machine gun and fire at the ceiling. On the top floor of Caesars Palace, that happens all the time.

Saddam’s mistress has said that his idea of a good time is wearing a cowboy hat, smoking a cigar, and watching videos of his opponents being tortured. That sounds like going to a Tyson fight at the MGM Grand. A documentary said that he likes to fish, but gets impatient, throws a grenade in the water, and has a diver get the dead fish. I’m sure, if you bet enough, you could do that in the fountains at Bellagio. He dyes his hair and wears a relaxation mask to minimize his wrinkles: Canyon Ranch Spa at the Venetian. All his palaces have waterfalls, fountains, and pools; he would be right at home in a lanai suite at the Mirage.

I give Saddam five years in Las Vegas, during which time he will set off a new economic boom in the city that will trickle down to the rest of the country, and be a danger only to himself. [To readers: Remember that I wrote this in October 2002, so these are projected headlines into the future from that time. MC]

Hussein Beats Aladdin Out of $100M

June 1, 2003 – Over the Memorial Day weekend, Saddam Hussein enjoyed a breathtaking run at Baccarat and won as much as $100 million at the Aladdin. The exact amount isn’t known, because the casino was unable to make good on the payout. Consequently, owners and creditors of the resort, in Chapter 11 since 2001, have turned over ownership to the former Iraqi dictator. “I think this should erase doubts in the West that you’d never hear from Saddam Hussein again,” said the jubilant gambler, who also announced he would close the Aladdin for three months and reopen it with a more “authentic” Arabian theme.

War Brewing Between Hussein, Wynn

December 14, 2003 – Casino-owner Saddam Hussein has escalated his feud with Le Reve owner Steve Wynn [Note to readers: Le Reve was the name of the project at the time, which was not, back in October 2002, slated for a specific opening date] after Wynn supposedly told the former sovereign of Iraq that the casino would no longer accept his action. Hussein has tried to put a brave face on the situation, complaining that the casino was too drafty and the mountain looked phony. But insiders say Saddam is furious that, with his Baghdad casino project hundreds of millions over budget, he won’t get a chance to win back the $400 million he has supposedly lost at Wynn’s place. “My resort will be nicer than anything Steve Wynn ever dreamed of when it opens in February 2004.”

Rumors of Hussein Family Gambling Abound

July 7, 2004 – Sources in the gaming industry estimate that Saddam Hussein and his son Uday have lost as much as one billion dollars at the gaming tables. The Husseins, legendary high-rollers who hail from Iraq, have reportedly snuck out of the country in violation of UN rules and gone on high-priced gambling junkets in Australia and Nassau, where they lost more money.

Baghdad Returns to Chapter Eleven

June 17, 2005 – The Baghdad Casino, in financial trouble since opened last December with Rosie O’Donnell as its New Year’s Eve entertainment, finally filed for bankruptcy yesterday. This is the latest setback for the Hussein family, big gamblers from Iraq who also own the casino. Caesars Palace joined the list of casinos that have turned down Saddam or son Uday’s requests for lines of credit. The property, formerly the Aladdin, formerly a vacant lot, formerly the original Aladdin, has been in bankruptcy for most of the last twenty-five years and locals believed it was inevitable it would happen again.

Floorman Stricken at Craps Table

October 23, 2007 – Saddam Hussein, a night-shift floorman at Pit No. 3 at the Imperial Palace Casino, collapsed on the layout last night and was pronounced dead on the scene by casino medical personnel. Hussein was remembered by other members of the pit crew as a boisterous man with a penchant for tall tales, from his adventures as a high roller to the time he was supposedly an Arabian warlord. Said a stickman at the table as they hauled away the corpse, “Sammy was one of a kind. He would insist that he once took a swing at some Washington, D.C. bigwig. We’ll miss his wild stories.”

THE TILT OFFENSIVE

I decided back on December 18 to start keeping detailed tournament records of my play on Full Tilt. It seemed I was cashing in an extremely high percentage of tournaments, but not making the big final-table money. I wanted to evaluate my total buy-ins, the number of hours I was playing, etc.

Well, keeping records cured me of all that. I cashed in exactly 2 of the next 50 tournaments.

Just when I was getting ready to give up online poker and find out about taking the Arizona bar exam, variance caught up with me, or lost me, depending on perspective. On the last Friday of 2006, I played in 4 of the biggest tournaments the site offered:

$150 + $13/$20,000 Guarantee

$24 + $2/$25,000 Guarantee

$100 + $9/$30,000 Guarantee [short-handed tables]

$69 + 6/$16,000 Guarantee

In the $25,000G, with a field of over 1,700, I dodged nearly 1,000 people in an hour and quietly busted. But I snuck into the money in the $16,000G, finishing 44th of out 45 who got paid. I remember almost nothing of the tournament, though, because I had started the $30,000G an hour before, and that tournament, with only 6 players per table, required a lot of attention. I finished 8th of 481.

But my big triumph of the day was finishing 4th out of 285 in the $20,000G. I eventually got busted by Johnny Bax, which I think is the screen name, on Full Tilt and elsewhere, of WSOP bracelet winner Cliff Josephy. And frankly, he misplayed two of the hands at the very end where he won all my chips, underbetting (with a short stack) superior hands, getting most of his chips in after the board put me ahead, and getting bailed out when all the chips were in the pot. He underbet with J-J, allowing me with A-6 to hit an ace on the flop. THEN he put in all his chips, after which he caught a jack on the river. He called my big re-raise with only 3-3, assured of being significantly behind or only slightly ahead. It was the best situation I could hope for with A-4, and I caught a four. But there were 2 diamonds on the board, and 2 more on the turn and river giving him an ugly flush and the last of my chips.

But no hard feelings, especially because I had apparently perfected the art of winning with the worst hand with all the chips in the middle in the $30,000G.

At least for a day, I’m no longer miserable about my play or my results.

JESUS ROCKS

Chris Ferguson was brilliant and deliberate as usual. In 4 pretty intense hours, we covered 16 pages in our revision of his post-flop chapter. I don’t know if that’s a good ratio. The chapter is nearly 60 pages long and it’s hard to get Chris focused and motivated on this work. He is doing commercials for Full Tilt in LA next week and then, on January 8, he’s off to Australia for the Aussie Millions. He’ll be half-way around the world when the real actual final non-negotiable irrevocable true-line serious point-of-no-return REAL deadline hits on January 11, 2007.

We have 20 pages to go, plus the PLO chapter, which is about 35 pages. He also has this idea – let’s call it a “pipe dream” – of writing another short chapter on money management of tournament buy-ins. I don’t have a Ph.D. in this stuff, but I count about 15 hours of work, excluding the Money Management chapter, which would be both cool and useful. I’m also not counting “another pass” which Chris undoubtedly would want. Maybe I want it, too. My editing marks on the pages we’ve done so far look like someone has dropped a huge quantity of black thread on them, so much that the original words are barely visible.

It being Christmas time, I thought it was appropriate to ask Chris about his nickname, with which he has a friendly though occasionally uneasy relationship. When did you get it?

“I’ve had it a long time. It wasn’t given to me by any one person, or at any one time. There were people who knew me as Jesus at UCLA, people who knew me as Jesus in dancing. ”

In exchange for this information, I gave Chris a holiday gift, a small box of mints called “Jesus Rocks.” He told me one of his favorite gifts on this theme was a flask engraved with an R. Crumb-type drawing of Jesus and the words, “What Wouldn’t Jesus Do?”

MATUSOW ROLLS

I spent time with Mike Matusow on December 25, 26, and 27, recording stories from his life all three days. Naturally, this was not approached as work in a conventional sense. We had to wait until the football game was over. We had to wait until he was too disgusted with online poker. We had to wait until after we went out to eat.

Three days with Mike is more than I can make sense of. Highlights/lowlights:

1. I took 112 pages of notes from interviews for his life story.

2. He went through 2 cell phones during this period.

3. He ate 3 different types of sushi that he swore were the best he ever ate, his favorite of all time.

4. I got to know his girlfriend, Jessica, who is a very nice person. She has an instinct for just the right amount of his crap to put up with.

5. Notwithstanding the former, Mike and Jessica got into a fight and broke up. In my car.

6. I brokered a peace treaty over lunch at a place called I Love Sushi, despite Mike professing his desire for a dish called “Tastes Like My Ex-Girlfriend.”

7. Matusow is a gazillion dollars in debt but his voicemail – which I had to listen to because the problem with one of his broken cell phones is that it only works in “speakerphone” mode – had 19 messages and it seemed each one was from some guy who OWED Mike money and his story of how he couldn’t make a payment.

8. Mike is a much more intelligent person than I gave him credit for. Put aside gambling addition and TV theatrics and his inability in Full Tilt chat to spell accurately any word longer than 4 letters. I had assumed, because I knew he was not highly educated in a formal sense or informal sense, that he wasn’t, outside poker, “smart.” After spending these 3 days with Mike and going over aspects of his life story, I think it’s a lot easier to question his choices and what he’s done with his intelligence than it is to question its existence. I think someone who did IQ-type testing on Mike would conclude that he reads at a high-school or better level and understands and can apply new concepts.

Maybe someone doing such testing would contradict me. Certainly, if he rarely opens a book or a newspaper and lives like Howard Hughes (if Hughes had online poker instead of mason jars of urine and the film ICE STATION ZEBRA and the TWA antitrust case to keep him busy), he can be criticized for overly narrowing the focus of his world and the quantity of information he can receive. But he’s a smart guy in ways I didn’t appreciate before.

PARKER’S POSIES

I spent some time, as I often do in Las Vegas, at Paradise Pen, the pen store at Fashion Show Mall. This is one of the best places to buy pens I have ever visited. Julie, the manager, is great. I was looking for a refill for an unusual pen I had picked up recently someplace else. She opened it up and said, “It takes a Parker.”

It takes a Parker? For some reason, I started listing Parkers. A partial list, to which I welcome additions:

Bonnie Parker (Clyde Barrow’s partner).

Dorothy Parker – a good one to think of in a store that sells writing instruments.

Wes Parker – first baseman, Los Angeles Dodgers, early Seventies. I have his autograph, so there’s a “pen nexus” there as well.

Charlie “Bird” Parker – jazz legend.

“Colonel” Tom Parker – Elvis Presley’s manager.

Peter Parker – Though a fictional character, notice how you never see him and THE FLASH in the same room?

Sarah Jessica Parker – She was great in the film LA STORY, and I guess she was in some thing for HBO that was big.

We’re working now on Chapter 3, How to Bet. When I mentioned to him how deep we were in the editing process, he asked, “Did the editor notice how weak Chapter 3 was?”

I laughed. My editor, Dan Ambrosio, plays poker and understands poker, but neither he nor any other editor at Warner Books (which I think is going to be called Hachette Books any day now, as Hachette Book Group bought Warner Book Group early in 2006) is going to find fault with any poker strategy that Chris Ferguson has, in good faith, put on a piece of paper.

But he was serious.

Ferguson has incredibly high standards. Even if there are few people who could judge between the quality of the chapter as it was last week and its quality now that we’re finished, it matters TO HIM. I appreciate that and identify with it. I like to think that I, too, have very high standards, though I am the one whining about meeting the deadline and I got all my degrees (B.A. and J.D.) in the standard amounts of time.

Today, we finished Chapter 3. At one point, I held things up – we’re generally going slow because at least one of us is playing on Full Tilt at all time [writer's note: Chris is up to $208 in his Zero to Hero experiment and was playing a $1 MTT Turbo, in which he got eliminated just before the money; I was playing a $50+ $5 MTT HORSE, which I'm still in, with 15 to go]  - to debate, with myself, out loud, whether a particular word should read “opponent’s” or “opponents’.” It was all about where to put the apostrophe because ….

Welll, let’s just say it looked wrong and I was thinking out loud about which would be correct.

Chris said, “Michael, you’re probably the only person in the world who will notice the difference.”

“Well,” I reminded him, “You’re the one who was worried that the editor read the 520-page manuscript and thought your chapter looked weak.”

“I WAS worried about that.”

“So how is this different?” I said. ”We’re working at the margins of the world here, Chris. I thought you’d be used to that by now.”

“Fair enough, fair enough.”

When we finished, he asked me to e-mail him the chapter “to give it one more pass.” That means we will never be done.