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Opened up PokerStars yesterday for a brief session. While scanning the available tables I noticed one with a little yellow square before it indicating that I had taken a note on a player at that table. That’s a relatively new feature at Stars, I believe. Curious, I opened the table, saw the player, and read the note.

I’m not as diligent a note-taker as I should be. Nor am I necessarily always confident in the quality of my notes, either. A lot of times inspiration for the note comes from a single hand, and thus may or may not offer sound information about how the player plays, more generally speaking. Even worse, sometimes that hand involved me taking a bad beat, and the note is really just an outlet for my frustration, a slightly more constructive alternative to whimpering in the chat box.

When I took a look at my note for this particular player — I’ll call him Drifter23 — I realized that it was indeed partially an example of one of those dubious notes taken after I’d lost a hand. The note read “gambler; won big pot v. me after getting it in real bad; plays PLO50 mostly, six-tabling (PLO25-6).” That latter designation tells me where I had encountered him — at a $25 max. buy-in, six-handed pot-limit Omaha table. Which is where I was finding him now. With a seat open on his left.

Noting that he’d more than doubled up at this table (to about $55), I took the seat with a vague expectation that I might well be playing a big pot with Drifter23. A couple of orbits went by without much incident other than the two of us having battled for a couple of smallish pots in blind-vs.-blind hands.

Then came a hand in which Drifter23 minimum-raised to 50 cents from UTG+1, I folded a crap hand from the cutoff, then a player I’ll call RowdyRon, who had $26.45 to start the hand, reraised pot (to $1.85) from the button. The blinds folded, and Drifter23 made the call. The flop came . Drifter23 checked, and RowdyRon bet $2.50 — about half the pot. Drifter23 then check-raised pot to $11.35, and after thinking for a while RowdyRon finally folded, conceding the $8.65 pot to Drifter23.

An unremarkable hand, it seemed, until the chat started up:

Drifter23: i thought you were gonna take it all that time
RowdyRon: fk up nit
Drifter23: youre more of a nit than i am for sure
RowdyRon: go suck a ball sack
RowdyRon: and buy lotto

The chat revealed at least three things to me. For one, these two apparently had butted heads some before I got there, it seemed. Secondly, RowdyRon’s calling Drifter23 a “nit” didn’t seem to jibe with my note on the dude, while Drifter23’s denial perhaps did. (In fact, I’m going to guess from the action and subsequent chat that Drifter23 had flopped a draw there and was ready to play for stacks — not that “nit”-like, really.) And thirdly, RowdyRon was clearly a jerk.

The chirping continued, and it became clear that the pair’s conversation had indeed probably begun sometime earlier. It also revealed a few more things.

Drifter23: as i said, if lotto gave me these odds…
RowdyRon: thats why ur break even over 50k hands
RowdyRon: what a wste of life
Drifter23: for sure
Drifter23: quite terribad
RowdyRon: i recommend find a new hobby
RowdyRon: thats just incredible
Drifter23: cheers
Drifter23: i recommend stop breaking pstars rules btw =)

I thought I had a little bit of extra info on Drifter23 when I’d sat down at the table, having taken my note on him during that earlier session. But RowdyRon knew even more. He’d obviously taken a peek at Poker Table Ratings to discover more about his nemesis. I wrote about this site a couple of weeks ago, one which tracks all cash games and where one can look up any player’s number of hands played, net profit/loss, and BB/100 for all stakes/games. One can even do some cursory analysis regarding their looseness/aggression, replay hands or sessions, among a few other investigations.

Drifter23’s reference there to PokerStars’ rules alludes to the fact that the site forbids players from accessing Poker Table Ratings for such information. In fact, the way Stars’ rules are written, one isn’t to look at PTR while playing (something Stars can, theoretically, check for), nor even while away from the tables, although there’s no way Stars can enforce that prohibition.

Unless, of course, someone pipes up in the chat box to volunteer that he’s accessed such info.

RowdyRon: now u angry hey
RowdyRon: i hit a nerve?
Drifter23: my observations tell me that only one of us are crying
RowdyRon: or learn to play
RowdyRon: youll be better off either way
Drifter23: thanks =)

As play continued, I thought about my little note on Drifter23. Hadn’t really attached that much value to it in the first place, but now I realized how easy it was to discover much, much more about him if I so desired. I also was now playing with an awareness that RowdyRon may well be checking my stats to see if I were a winning player, if I were a “nit,” and so forth.

In that post from a couple of weeks ago, I expressed a bit of bother about being tracked so closely (and not having the ability to opt out of the tracking). Having thought about it some more, I guess I’m less worried about it, although I still feel like my opponents’ knowledge of me ideally should be limited to hands they’ve played against me. And I remain cynical about sites having rules they can’t really enforce.

Kind of appreciated Drifter23’s reference to what his “observations” were telling him there, which I took as a cheeky allusion (intended or not) to RowdyRon’s having supplemented his observations with extra data.

I liked Drifter23’s apparent attitude as well. Can’t do much about folks investigating you like this. Nor about folks giving you hell in the chat box. Saying “cheers” and “thanks” and typing smiley faces seems as appropriate a response as any, I guess.

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For online poker sites to give back, that is. Lots of bonus programs and other incentives being doled out here at year’s end, it seems.

Been playing more on Full Tilt Poker than usual, mainly because of that bonus they offered me over there this month. Am still only having limited time to play, so I’ll probably only end up earning about half of the hundy they’re giving me in ten-dollar increments as I slowly accumulate those Full Tilt Points.

I continue to play primarily the $25 buy-in pot-limit Omaha games, usually six-handed, and usually only one or two tables at a time. Meaning I can only earn FTPs at a relatively slow clip.

I generally like the new lobby Full Tilt rolled out a few months back, although sometimes when looking for a game I find all of the little codes a bit headachy. Just a matter of getting used to them, I suppose. I have now and then unintentionally pulled up tables that feature certain variations on my desired game — e.g., the “cap” games, the “ante” games, the “deep stack” games. And every now and then I’ll even sit down at them before realizing my mistake. (It really doesn’t take much to confuse my jingle-brain.)

I have now and then purposely played the “cap” games — at my level, those games are capped at $10, meaning no player can put more than that in the middle on a single hand. Kind of pushes most of the play to the first two streets, as that limit tends to get reached with a raise and reraise on the flop. Basically requires everyone to play a short-stacker’s strategy, and I’ve found one often comes across one or two players at each table who are mainly just looking to gamble it up.

The “deep stack” games are the opposite, requiring at least 50 big blinds ($12.50) for the buy-in. One can also buy in for as much as $50 in these at the $0.10/$0.25 tables, so, really, if I’m a PLO25 player (as I am these days), I should be scooting back down a level rather than play these. Meanwhile, the “ante” games require everyone to kick in an extra nickel on top of the $0.10/$0.25 blinds, sweetening the pot a little more before that first action.

Otherwise, I’m strictly a PokerStars player. I do still have some cabbage over on Bodog, but only call that one up every once in a while as their poker room traffic is usually fairly low. PokerStars, meanwhile, always has a ton of tables going, and the site remains my personal fave for other reasons as well (the interface, support, etc.).

Speaking of bonuses, I got an email yesterday from PokerStars passing along their plans to change and add to their rewards system. Once again they are lowering the requirements to reach Silver Star, making it necessary only to accumulate 750 VPPs in a month to get there. That’s down from the current 1,200, and way down from the 2,000 it was when the VIP program was first introduced back in 2006. (I don’t believe they are lowering the requirements for the other levels: e.g., still 3,000 VPPs to get to Gold, 7,500 for Platinum, etc.)

Another new feature will be something called the “VIP Stellar Rewards” program which essentially gives extra cash for playing.

To clarify, FPPs are “Frequent Player Points,” and one earns those according to how much rake is collected. FPPs can be used to purchase various items or cash, or used to enter tourneys. VPPs, or “VIP Player Points,” are earned the same way, but cannot be redeemed — they are just to gauge where you are status-wise. However, if you move up a level, you can earn FPPs more quickly (e.g., Silver Stars get 1.5 FPP for every 1 VPP). Make sense? If not, you can read more here.

Anyhow, this “VIP Stellar Rewards” thing basically gives players extra cash on top of all the other benefits of the VIP program. Starting on January 1, 2010, everyone begins a new yearly balance of VPPs. Once you reach 750 VPPs total, you can spend just one FPP and pick up ten bucks. Then, when you get to 1,500, you get another $10. And so forth according to the schedule (see the table at left). As a recreational player, I’ve earned a little over 13,000 VPPs this year. If I earn the same number next year, I’ll pick up an additional $150.

I might be encouraged, though, to pick up the pace a little — indeed, there were a couple of months in there during which I earned 2,500-3,000 VPPs or so, so I know I can probably easy pick up more.

Definitely like the way Stars is gearing these programs toward the small-timers, giving them a little bit here and there to keep ’em playing. Seems like a smart strategy. It’s always nice to be constantly getting something back while playing, meaning that even a break even session is technically going to be a small winner.

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Back in September 2007 — several months after the UIGEA had become law and PartyPoker and other sites pulled out of the U.S. market — I thought I’d open up an account over on UltimateBet in order to give myself more options for places to play. Then, about six weeks later, the Absolute Poker insider cheating scandal broke. I had an account on AP as well, and knowing that both companies were run by the same folks, I decided it best to pull my funds from both sites.

About two months later (January 2008), news of an even larger cheating scandal over on UltimateBet first appeared. With subsequent reports we learned of the jawdropping magnitude of the UB scandal. Cheaters with access to opponents’ hole cards played on the site from June 2003 to December 2007, with 32 different people — including 1994 WSOP Main Event champion Russ Hamilton — linked to over 100 different accounts apparently having been involved.

Those numbers came from a September 2009 “final decision” by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, an outfit “empowered to regulate and control” online gambling sites by issuing them licenses. That “final decision” reports that Tokwiro Enterprises (who now owns UB) had paid $22,054,351.91 back to players who had been cheated on the site, as well as a $1.5 million fine to the KGC. The site got to keep its license, but is now on a one-year probationary period.

Needless to say, I was glad I got off UltimateBet when I did. I probably would’ve never looked back except for the fact that later in 2008 I heard UB spokesperson Annie Duke (on Poker Road Radio) saying that anyone who had played on the site and who wanted to obtain copies of their hand histories could receive them.

As I say, I only played on UB for about six weeks, and in fact only intermittently. According to my records, I had played only a little over 1,100 hands. And at my low limits, I was fairly certain I had not been up against any of the cheaters in my games. Still I was curious to see my HHs, and so made a request. I received a couple of promises back over the following weeks, but eventually UB support stopped answering my emails and the HHs were never sent.

In September 2009 — a couple of weeks after the KGC’s final report — we heard the surprising news that Joe Sebok had signed on with UB as a spokesperson and “media and operations consultant.” Like Duke before him, Sebok was saying things about making hand histories available, and so I once again submitted a request. I received a prompt reply that I would be getting my HHs “ASAP,” but weeks went by and nothing came. I sent another email in late October, and it was returned as undeliverable.

I sent a brief note on Twitter stating what had happened, and Sebok — whom I’ve met a couple of times while covering the WSOP — ended up responding to me. He said he’d look into it, and try to ensure I got my hand histories. It took nearly a couple more months, but I finally did get an email back from the “Poker Security Manager” with a ZIP file full of hand histories.

The ZIP file contains 614 text files, some of which include just one hand and others that have multiple hands (dunno why). The histories themselves are a bit difficult to parse — they are not the clean-looking ones you get from PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker — but I can make out the action at least. They’ve also sent me a large number of hand histories for hands in which I was just sitting out, meaning of the 854 HHs included, there are only about 700 hands of mine in there.

Since I keep my own records for all of my sessions, I can see that a number of hands I played on UltimateBet are missing, including two entire sessions. In all, it looks like I’ve gotten back hand histories for about two-thirds of the hands I actually played on UB.

To be honest, I’m not that interested in taking it any further and trying to get the missing hands sent as well. I know this amounts to fairly minute trivia, all things considered, but for the sake of completeness I wanted to report here how my little hand history saga has concluded. Kind of silly to think it took this long (over a year) just to send me these 700 hands (and that there are still 400 or so for which I didn’t receive HHs). But I do appreciate Sebok getting involved and helping me out here.

Still no plans to revive that account, though.

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I’ve mentioned here a couple of times how I’m participating in an NFL pool this year, Pauly’s Pub. The league name comes from its commissioner, the Rt. Hon. Dr. Pauly. It’s a straight-up “pick ’em” pool — meaning everyone picks winners for all the games (i.e., not against the spread).

I started the year slowly with my entry — “More Cowbell” — then had a nice stretch of four weeks or so during which I got back into contention. However, with three weeks to go I am now a longshot to make the money (i.e., the top four spots out of 40). I’m currently tied for eighth, but am five games behind the two teams tied for third. Would be remarkable somehow for me to gain that much ground over the last 48 games, I think.

Overall this year I’ve picked 143 of 208 games correctly. That’s just 68.75% overall, although better than almost 96% of the tens of thousands participating in ESPN’s Pigskin Pick’em game. My worst week was Week 7, when I only picked a miserable 7 of 14 correctly. My best came the following Week 8, when I chose the right team in 11 of 13 games.

Kind of interesting to see that of all of entries on ESPN, the absolute best anyone has done is 158. That’s basically just getting one more correct per week than I have. The top entry in Pauly’s Pub, “Fear the Ginger,” a.k.a. Lance Bradley (Bluff Magazine Editor-in-Chief), has hit an impressive 155. He appears to have locked the sucker up, as our buddy Julius Goat (“Some Jive-Ass Slippers”) is in a distant second with 149.

We’re all searching for a system, I suppose. Except for those who have already discovered theirs. For example, if I understood a series of tweets Mr. Goat sent out last week correctly, he makes his picks following a complicated rubric based on the relative fear induced by team names.

Topping the list as the least threatening names (according to JG) are the Browns (“‘The Browns In the Superbowl’ sounds like a euphemism. Not a good sign”), the Cardinals (“only intimidating if you are a seed”), and the Chargers (“once was much stronger, but in the age of cell phones and laptops it has downgraded to wussy accessory”). Search his Twitter timeline for more. (And for even more grins, start following.)

I’m not much for gambling on sports, really. Not too long ago I wrote a post here called “Confessions of a Non-Gambler” in which I explained how poker actually tended to diminish rather than encourage whatever small urge I might have had to wander over to the sports book and place a bet. The utter lack of control — which I know some enjoy immensely — is what tends to make sports betting less fun for me.

That said, I’m digging having a rooting interest in every single game this year. I’m an NFL fan anyway, and can thus be engaged no matter who is playing or what the situation. But this year I’m finding myself living or dying with every friggin’ game. Whether I miraculously make the cash or not, the increased fun I’ve had following games was most certainly worth more than the modest entry fee.

Thus, relatively inconsequential games like that Detroit-Cleveland epic from Week 11 in which the Lions (whom I picked) lost on the last play 38-37 now stand out in my mind as the most memorable of the year. So do other, more significant games like that New England-Indianapolis debacle from Week 10 in which Belichick crazily went for that fourth down late. (Had the Pats there, I did.)

But I’ve won my share of games on last-second plays, too. Much like the percentages in poker, such things tend to even out, I guess.

Not surprisingly, I’ve done best when trying to predict games involving the league’s worst teams. Have only missed picking games involving the St. Louis Rams (1-12) and Detroit Lions (2-11) a single time all year. (And, as mentioned, could’ve been perfect with Detroit thus far if not for that game they lost to the Euphemisms.) Also doing well with the two remaining undefeated teams, the Indianapolis Colts (13-0) and New Orleans Saints (13-0), having only picked against them twice each. Of course, I assume most everyone has done well with those teams.

Meanwhile, I’ve guessed incorrectly seven times when picking games involving the surprising Cincinnati Bengals (9-4), the uneven Jacksonville Jaguars (7-6), and the disappointing Pittsburgh Steelers (6-7). I also have missed seven games involving the hard-to-figure San Francisco 49ers (6-7), although one of those was a Thursday game I forgot to pick. (Did get the Niners right last night, though. Woot!)

So, fellow NFL prognosticators… how have you done? Let me know. Meanwhile, I have some injury reports to study.

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I continue to play mostly on PokerStars, from which I’ve had zero trouble when it comes to cashing out a chunk every now and then (via eCheck). Currently have some cabbage on both Full Tilt Poker and Bodog as well. Did take out a small chunk Full Tilt several months back (via paper check), but haven’t cashed out from Bodog in over a year, I think.

Have started thinking more and more about December 1 — the date the final regulations for the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 are required to be implemented by banks (or “designated payment systems”). Those finalized regs suggest cashing out will not be a problem even after that date, but that depositing will. I have seen reports here and there that a few banks have sent notices to their customers regarding their intention to start complying with the UIGEA come December and block transactions with online gambling sites. Haven’t received any such notice from my bank (yet).

Efforts have been made to delay the UIGEA’s implementation, including the introduction of legislation (Barney Frank’s bills in the House, Robert Menendez’s in the Senate) as well as an appeal to the feds to use their authority under something called the Administrative Procedure Act and simply put implementation off a year in order to give these other bills a chance to be heard. There’s really no way of predicting whether or not such a last-minute delay could happen — but time is running out.

Meanwhile, I play on. Had a strange hand of pot-limit Omaha ($25 buy-in, 6-max.) last week I thought I’d share, not so much for the sake of talking strategy — although there’s a little of that to consider — but mainly because of the statistical improbability the hand ended up demonstrating.

The hand came up during a semi-rough stretch for yr humble gumshoe, which may partially explain the seeming impatience I showed. After having lost a bit elsewhere, I had arrived at this particular table about a half-hour before, and so had played around 25-30 hands with this same group. One of my opponents — LtBradshaw — I had played with before and considered to be an essentially solid player who tended to avoid nonstandard moves. He had been doing well at this particular table, and had $55.15 when the hand started. Another player — RockyRococo — I had never played with before. Rocky had lost one buy-in under questionable circumstances, was doing a lot of calling out of position and other not-so-great moves, and thus seemed from the small sample to be a much less tutored player. At the start of this hand he had $23.45. I had $23.35.

The hands I had played at this table had been entirely uneventful, aside from Rocky’s having lost that buy in somewhere along the way. (Incidentally, he didn’t lose it to LtBradshaw). The hand began with the UTG player limping in, then LtBradshaw (UTG+1) raising the pot to $1.10. It folded back to RockyRococo in the small blind who reraised to $3.25. The action was on me in the big blind, where I had been dealt . As I say, I was down a bit and wanted to play my double-suited rundown. Could’ve reraised, I suppose, but I figured my hand played well against multiple opponents and so I just called the extra three bucks.

The UTG player folded, then LtBradshaw repotted it to $13.25. (“Why, hello there, aces,” thought I.) RockyRococo quickly called, leaving himself just about ten bucks behind. Calling seemed silly here — I, too, would be committing over half my stack — and as I say, I was feeling a bit stubborn. Also, now I figured I was up against aces and kings (or even better, aces and aces), which made my hand seem even more playable. So I pushed my stack all in, and both my opponents quickly called, creating a total pot of just over 67 bucks.

Even though we were all in, the cards were not flipped over as I suppose one of my opponents had removed the check mark from the “Show Hole Cards When All-In” option in the lobby. So I had no idea what they held as the community cards were dealt.

The flop came , which delighted me — two pair, and an open-ender. Not bad at all. The turn was the , which didn’t look so good, and when the river brought the I assumed I was cooked. The cards were flipped over. RockyRococo somewhat surprisingly turned over . He and I both ended the hand with two pair. And LtBradshaw? ! (Wrong about them aces, I was.) He’d backed into a straight and took the pot.

All three of us held sixes and sevens, and the case six and case seven had come on the flop. I imagine the other two liked the flop, too, although for Rocky it was terrible, leaving him just 7% to win the hand. And by the end, I’ll bet LtBradshaw didn’t care to see those three overcards like that, but they’d ensured him the pot.

By the way, that phrase “at sixes and sevens” refers to a confusing situation, a world out of whack. (Read more here.) The fact that we’d all three gotten it all in before the flop with those hands was a bit out of whack, for sure, although as I suggest, I think there was something in the dynamic of two reasonably sound players (me and LtBradshaw) and one apparently loose cannon (Rocky) that helped cause that to happen.

’Cos weird stuff can occur if you get the right (or wrong) combination of people interacting with each other. Like the passage of some bizarre, unfocused law against transferring money from online gambling sites. Or the delay of such a law’s implementation. One never knows.

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