"There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker..."

"There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker.  The upper class knows very little about it.  Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful.  Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a flush.  It is enough to make one ashamed of the species." - Mark Twain

The Long View of Tony Shelton

Las Vegas, NV, USA - The Las Vegas Sun has a very good article up about a long time (since '69) Vegas staple of the poker scene, Tony Shelton. I especially liked the following excerpts from the piece, which exhibit some of the generosity, bravado, insanity, benevolence and character present in the poker world.

His first assignment: a pot-limit Omaha cash game with blinds of $25 and $50, a big poker game by any standards, and huge at the time.

The lineup included Doyle Brunson, Puggy Pearson and other high-stakes gamblers.

"It was about six or seven of them," Shelton said. "Right there sits Doyle. Right there sits Steve Wynn. Right there sits Puggy. They said they were playing Omaha. At the time, I didn’t know what Omaha was. I said, 'Mr. Brunson, how many cards do I give these people?'

"Well, everything stopped. Doyle sat back, he looked at me and he pushed back his hat. He said, 'Here's what we'll do, son. You give us each four cards. Deal 'em low, deal 'em slow and deal 'em off the top, and I'll help you run the game.' Doyle was a very nice man. If he had been a real (expletive) and said get this (expletive) out of here, I would have been finished before I started."

...

He befriended many world champion poker players, including Jack Straus, who won the 1982 World Series title and was known for his heart and generosity.

One day Straus was walking down Fremont Street when a busted-out gambler came up behind him and asked to borrow $200.

"Jack reached in his pocket and pulled out two hundred-dollar bills and handed them to the guy back over his shoulder. He didn't even look to see who the guy was. He told me, 'Oh, hell, if I saw him he might think he has to pay me back.'"

Shelton recalls the time Binion asked Sailor Roberts, the 1975 world champion, if he could play a few hands for Roberts in a no-limit Texas hold 'em game at the Horseshoe.

"Now, nobody could refuse Benny," Shelton said. "So Sailor says, 'Sure.' He goes to get a coffee and smoke a cigarette. He comes back and Benny has all Sailor's chips in the middle. I don't know how much it was — $10,000, $6,000, whatever. Sailor leans over and he says, 'Well, son, you got all my money in the center, whatcha got?'

"And Benny says, 'I don't know. I left my glasses at home. I just didn't want all these son of a (guns) to think they could bluff me.'"

You can read the full article Poker Veteran Has Seen It All, here.

"Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life..."

"Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens." - John Lukacs

The Russians Are Coming

Las Vegas, NV, USA - I've had a couple of good sessions in a row now and I'm starting to build a little momentum that I can hopefully ride through the rest of the series. In my last session, I played an interesting hand with a Ruskie player whom I had been observing/marking my entire time at the table. I had watched him raise pots to $70 pre-flop with jackoff (J6o), as well as make a significant number of bluffs. He wasn't a horrible player as I'd also seen him fold straights and over-pairs. But he was still too aggro for his own good and I felt that given the opportunity, he would bluff off all of his chips to me. The Ruskie was in the 10 seat and I was in the 1 hole. So I had position on him all night, except for the following hand:

The pot is raised in early position to $12. Three players call and it comes to the Ruskie on the button who just calls. I look down at AQ and call. (I could have made a big re-raise here to isolate, which would have been a fine play, but I decided just to see a flop first. The rest of the table was pretty tight and I am out of position. If I hit the flop and encounter any resistance from anyone but the Ruskie, I will likely fold). The big blind calls as well and we see the flop 6 handed.

The flop comes Q-10-8 all clubs. I check, looking to see what develops. It's checked around to the Ruskie. He bets $35. I really have no choice but to call here. I know that the other players are not going to stay in the pot without made hands and any made hand here such as a set or baby flush is going to raise, save for the nuts. The nuts might smooth call. So in this rare case I am essentially calling for information. I am pretty sure that I am ahead of the Ruskie in the hand.

Everyone else folds. Awesome. No one has the nuts, which also means that the Ruskie might be drawing with the A. The turn is the 10. I don't love it, because my opponents' range is very wide and he could be betting second pair on the flop, but I decide to stick with my read. I check to play pot control and let him fire another bet that I can call. He fires $75 on queue and I beat him into the pot with my chips. My plan for the river is to fade a club and then hope he fires a three barrel bluff on the river. If a club comes, I check fold.

The river delivers the 6. I study my opponent and he looks to me like he's intent on trying to steal the pot. He gave off some timing tells on the turn, that helped me reinforce my read on him and I felt like he's going to be firing the river with air. I only have top two with an ace here on a three flushed and paired board, but I feel like it's good and I am willing, nay going to try to commit the rest of my chips to this pot. This is after all the spot that I have been waiting for with this player. My hand rates to beat him the vast majority of the time and if he just happened to wake up with Q-10 here or he made some kind of miracle hand with 66 or my read is totally wrong and he flopped the nuts, than I will live with that result. But I make a living because my reads are usually right and I trust them.

So after studying him, I check again, because I know he can't help himself. He moves all-in for about $400. I don't even have to think about it, because I've already played the hand out in my head. I snap call him and he says, "You win." He doesn't want to show his hand so I say, "You can muck it if you like."

(There is a competitive advantage for me to not show my hand to the rest of the table here at showdown, because if he mucks, I take the pot and don't have to show. If that happens, the rest of the table will assume that I had a full house and I will happily reinforce that belief so that I can go on to steal many more pots than I might be able to otherwise).

He tables AJ. I show my hand and the table goes a little nuts because of the insta-call with only top pair. One player remarks, "Wow, what kind of read was that?" Ferve would later point out that a non-club K on the river would have been bad. It certainly would have. I was so locked into the A and given that my opponents' range was so wide, I wasn't thinking too much about his kicker. The K for example could have been a disaster card for me, because it would have been much tougher to put him on a straight at that moment, since I would have thought that he would have re-raised with that hand from the button pre-flop.

Thankfully that hand worked to perfection and certainly an argument could be made for a different and more aggressive strategy, but I felt like the plan that I employed was optimal for that particular situation and table dynamic and I can't complain about the outcome. It did make dinner with Ferve and KJ McG a bit more enjoyable afterwards. It also made it my treat!