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We are almost there. The last day of the year. How are things stacking up for you, in terms of your win/loss total for 2009? Don’t do anything silly today to try and manipulate it into something you like better.

Me? I might play a little today, but I have a lot of other writing to do, including finishing this here recap. Following Part 1 (Jan.-Apr.) and Part 2 (May-Aug.), here’s the rest of the story:

September

In UIGEA news, a lawsuit brought by the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA) that challenged the law’s constitutionality was dismissed. This story was strangely spun by many (in particular, iMEGA) as good news because in rejecting the case the 3rd Circuit District Court made reference to the fact that individual states get to say what is and what is not unlawful internet gambling.

Fact was, this distinction had been noted in the UIGEA all along (i.e., this new case didn’t really change anything on that front), something I pointed out in “iMEGA Suit Claiming Unconstitutionality of UIGEA Dismissed.”

During the first part of September I was occupied with helping cover PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), and so there were a few posts this month reporting various happenings there. In the last one of those posts, I was inspired to comment on the repeat successes of guys like Daniel “djk123” Kelly, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, and Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko in “PokerStars WCOOP Concludes: It’s a Skill Game, Jo.”

Was watching the U.S. Open in there, too, and in “Matching Up Poker and Tennis” I attempt to draw an analogy that addresses the old luck-vs.-skill debate in poker. “The Poker Hall of Fame: Will Anyone Be Worthy?” notes how the new voting procedure appeared to guarantee that either no one or just one person would get in this year. And “When Winners Lose, and Losers Win” relates the story of that wild hand at EPT Barcelona between Tobias Reinkemeier and Roland de Wolfe in which de Wolfe mucked a winner.

As far as my own play was going, I was running good in August and early September, partly evidenced by “Shovels, Clovers, Valentines, and Squares” in which I tell about flopping a straight flush. Then hit a bad patch, some details of which I shared in “I Get Up, I Get Down.” I also see that I began and ended the month with a couple of posts about stack sizes in PLO: “Topping Off” and “Don’t Want No Short People ’Round Here?”

September also saw the Kahnawake Gaming Commission issue its so-called “final decision” on the UB insider cheating scandal, which I talked some about in “Final Decision on UltimateBet: None of My Business.” And, as you’ll recall, soon after came “The Sebok Surprise” in which the well-liked pro signed on with the beleaguered site.

October

The month began with the conclusion of the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, in which Barry Shulman enjoyed a couple of fortunate hands against Daniel Negreanu heads up to take it down. Talk about that some in “End of Story: 2009 WSOPE Main Event Concludes.”

Then our attention gradually turned toward Vegas and the upcoming conclusion of the WSOP Main Event. On October 7 I noted there was just “One Month Left to Hype the November Nine.” I think Harrah’s, ESPN, et al. ended up doing okay during those next few weeks to get us all (and others) interested in the sucker come November. Case in point, a week later in “That’s the Way We Do It” I admit how I was starting really to get into the ESPN broadcasts of the Main Event. And near the end of October I was marveling with everyone else at that hand in which Phil Ivey mistakenly mucked his flush, giving Jordan Smith an undeserved pot in “Not Exactly Ivey League.”

These posts from October all have self-explanatory titles, I think: “PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge Debuts,” “The Poker Hall of Fame: Sexton Selected,” and “Kentucky Still Hoping to Be Master of Your Domains.” Well, maybe I should explain that last one. Had to do with the still-ongoing appeal of the appeal, now being considered by Kentucky’s Supreme Court, in that case regarding the commonwealth’s desire to block or seize domains hosting online gambling sites.

Then there are some posts in there with titles that definitely need explainin’. “Playing As If Your Life Depended On It” made references to both Tommy Angelo and The Seventh Seal. “Up, Up, and Away!” concerns our friend “balloon boy” (remember him?). And “Call and Response” does a little theorizin’ about the significance of blogs, Twitter, and how we use this here interweb to relate to each other.

Early in the month I made it to the movies to see a decent comedy called The Invention of Lying. I reviewed that one over on Film Chaw, then wrote about it here, too, in “First, the Invention of Lying; then, the Invention of Poker.” That post caused me to evoke James McManus’ new book (which I was reading at the time), Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker. I’d eventually review it here in “A Good Read: McManus Tells the Story of Poker.” Soon I’d additionally get the chance to review Cowboys Full more formally over on the Betfair site, where I’d also interview McManus.

November

First half of November was all about the WSOP Main Event final table. In “Post-Production is 20/20” I talked some more about Ivey’s mistake versus Jordan Smith, including sharing Barry Greenstein’s thoughts on the matter. Then in “Kopp Busted!” I talked about seeing ESPN’s coverage of another crazy hand, the one in which Billy Kopp lost it all to Darvin Moon with just a dozen players left.

Then we finally got there. In “2009 November Nine Just Hours Away… Time for Special Tactics!” I talked a bit about Phil Hellmuth saying he’d coached Jeff Shulman to employ a “special tactic” to “shock the world.” Then I gave an overview of the nine players at the final table in “2009 WSOP Main Event Final Table: Welcome Back, November Nine.”

Discussed that bizarro Hand No. 90 in which Darvin Moon made the big bluff then folded for next-to-nothing to Steve Begleiter in “Moon Begs the Question… WTF?” Wrote about the heads-up match a bit in “Comeback Kid Cada 2009 WSOP Main Event Champ,” then a few days later offered “Kudos to Cada: WSOP Champ on Letterman.” A final November Nine post, “Looking Back: 2009 WSOP November Nine on ESPN,” includes a list of the 32 (of 364) final table hands that made it into the two-and-a-half hour long ESPN broadcast.

You’ll recall it was just a few days later we learned “Pollack Moves On, WSOP Commish Seat Open.” Harrah’s still hasn’t filled that seat, and toward the end of the month I asked “Does the WSOP Need a Commish?”

Let’s see… the weird-ass juxtaposition of the month award goes to the post “The Sklansky Minute and John Cage’s Indeterminacy.” (See that one for yourself, if yr curious.) And “$1,356,946.50” relates how I happened to have been railing Isidur1 and Patrik Antonius when I saw them play the biggest pot in online poker history.

As the month concluded, we American online poker players were all fretting about the upcoming December 1 deadline for enforcement of the UIGEA. I wrote “The Door is Closing: Hoping for UIGEA Delay,” then the next day (Thanksgiving) got to say “Thankful, I Am” as we’d heard that indeed there’d be a six-month postponement of the deadline.

December

Month began with that House hearing on online gambling, discussed in “Talking Online Poker: House Hearing Today.” Then everybody put the subject on hold. ’Cos, you know, there was shopping to do. Oh, and that health care thing.

Read a couple more poker books near year’s end, both autobiographies. I’d review Doyle Brunson’s The Godfather of Poker over at Betfair, but also wrote a piece here — “Doyle Brunson’s Confessions” — in which I talked about how the book reminded me more than once of St. Augustine’s autobiography. (Not saying Doyle’s a saint, haha!) I also wrote here a “Poker Book Review: Victoria Coren’s For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker” — a funny, even “literary” book I’d think should appeal to any poker player who likes good storytelling.

Opined a bit on Scott Huff and Joe Sebok’s new Fox Sports show in “Poker2Nite Brings Poker to the World.” The post “Speaking of Poker: What You Can and Cannot Say, Part II” is also about their show, revisiting an old topic regarding the conflict between online poker sponsorships and television.

Mid-month saw the “2010 WSOP Schedule Announced,” inspiring a bit of photshopping (see below). In much less significant news, I finally got response to my repeated requests to UltimateBet which I related in “The Rest of the Story (UB Hand Histories).”

Of course, the big poker story in December was the ongoing Isildur1 saga, and I wrote about it a few times here.

“Out of This World: The Isildur1 Saga Continues” discusses Patrik Antonius’s interview with Phil Gordon about the mystery man while also pointing to some other stories then swirling about. In “Loving Life, Defying Death” I talked about railing Isildur1 a bit while also referring back to Doyle Brunson’s book (and the weird, repeated joke of some railbirds prematurely announcing Texas Dolly’s death). “Digging for Gold (Mining Isildur1)” took up the new controversy regarding the CardRunners guys’ collecting info about the sneaky Swede. Then came PokerNews’ interview with Isildur1 in which revealed he planned to pursue a “formal complaint.” I suggested “Grab Your Popcorn (Isildur1 v. Full Tilt).”

So that’s what’s been happenin’ here. No telling at the moment what 2010 will be like for yr humble gumshoe, but I imagine continuing to scribble away here will most definitely be part of the plan.

Big thanks again to everyone for coming around here and for all of the nice feedback. Be sure and make contact again in 2010. Have a safe and happy new year, all!

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Our buds Special K and Falstaff have a new podcast, peoples. It’s called the Gambling Tales Podcast and Episode No. 1 is now available. I’ve been up to my eyeballs with work, but am going to be listening to this sucker (finally) in the car this morning.

I’m reading that there is some November Nine talk in there — some pre-final table predictions, I believe, so we can listen and admire their accuracy, or goof on their folly. There’s a tale about the origins of gambling. And there’s a conversation with Bad Blood. Check it out!

Speaking of podcasts, one of my favorites is still the Two Plus Two Pokercast, which remains one of the most consistently good ones for news, interviews, and the occasional strategy stuff. Of course, I’ve been a fan of Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz (the hosts) since their earlier show — called Rounders, the Poker Show — which they began way back in the spring of 2005. That one followed a similar format at the TwoPlusTwo show, other than usually running about an hour or so (if I recall) rather than the two-plus hours they normally go with this one.

The TwoPlusTwo show began in January 2008, and is now approaching its 100th episode. A regular feature of the show is something called the “Sklansky Minute” in which the highly regarded poker author, David Sklansky, offers strategy advice, theoretical broodings on human behavior, or perhaps a Zen koan.

I’m joking about the Zen koans, of course. Or maybe not. Here’s the beginning of a Sklansky Minute, this one from Episode 88 (the one with Tommy Angelo):

“Major tournaments have gone to great lengths nowadays to — for lack of a better word — prevent ‘hanky-panky.’ [Pause.] But there is one thing that they allow to this day that is an invitation to cheat. [Pause.] I speak of making change with your neighbor, a transaction that is rarely watched closely….”

And so forth. Those of you who have heard the segments are familiar with the Sklansky’s very deliberate, almost cautious-sounding style of speech. Not sure if he reads from a script or not, but the effect is the same regardless.

Anyhow, I had sort of a strange association come to me as I was listening to a recent Sklansky Minute, one which actually might help explain the “Zen koan”-like feel the segments sometimes have for me. While listening I was contemplating how there must be 60 or 70 of these little segments by now, and suddenly I found myself thinking of the avant-garde composer John Cage, in particular his work Indeterminacy, a Folkways recording of which was made (with David Tudor) in 1959.

The work has a long, interesting history which I’m not going to rehearse here. If you are curious, you can check out the website “About Indeterminacy” for more. The work is structured around a series of very short anecdotes or stories or musings or what have you that Cage wrote. On the recording, he reads 90 of them, while David Tudor provides random musical accompaniment on the piano (and various other noise-makers).

The pieces are of different lengths, yet all are read so as to fill one minute exactly. That means some are read quickly, while others contain lengthy pauses. To give you an idea of what a “Cage Minute” is like, here’s an example, the second one on the recording:

“You probably know the one about the two monks, but I’ll tell it anyway. They were walking one day when they came to a stream where a young lady was waiting, hoping that someone would help her across. Without hesitating, one of the monks picked her up and carried her across, putting her down safely on the other side. The two monks continued walking along, and after some time, the second one, unable to restrain himself, said to the first, ‘You know we’re not allowed to touch women. Why did you carry that woman across the stream?’ The first monk replied, ‘Put her down. I did two hours ago.’”

If you want to hear Cage reading them (and Tudor’s accompaniment), here is a YouTube clip featuring the first ten stories from Indeterminacy:

As I say, a few more weeks and Sklansky probably will have 90 of his “Minutes” to string together. Perhaps he should hire Tommy Angelo to provide musical accompaniment and make his own avant-garde recording?

Of course, maybe the prospect of listening to a long sequence of Sklansky Minutes doesn’t sound too thrilling. In which case, let me share another one of Cage’s stories from Indeterminacy:

“In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it’s not boring at all, but very interesting.”

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It’s May Day. It’s what? May day? Mayday, Mayday! Good Gawd. The World Series of Poker is less than four weeks away!

My plans are still somewhat up in the air, as they say, but I’m a-gonna be there. As they also say, details to come. And speaking of being up in the air, I ain’t even booked a flight to Vegas yet, but that’ll happen soon.

Thought I’d write a short note today about my own play. Been managing to squeeze in short sessions of limit hold’em here and there, generally not playing more than 100-200 hands at a stretch (usually an hour or so, as I’ll often play two tables). That actually is my usual schedule, really, and if I were to look back and study my stats carefully, I would likely discover that is my most profitable modus operandi. That is to say, I do best with the short sessions, ’cos the longer ones tend to be longer ’cos I’m in a hole and trying to get “back to quits.”

The art of quitting is, of course, one of the more important skills in poker. In Elements of Poker, Tommy Angelo writes a longish chapter on quitting. At the start he explains why the chapter is relatively long: “What happened was, I started writing about quitting, and well, you guessed it, I couldn’t quit.”

“In order to quit well,” Angelo continues, “you must be in control of yourself at the end of the session. It can be no other way. To achieve your highest possible score, you must be at your A-performance and your A-mindset all the way to the end.” We all are aware of this idea, I think, but as with most things in poker, easier said than done.

I had one session this week conclude in a particular way, and I realized that I’ve sometimes purposely forced myself to quit simply because I have been dealt one specific hand. Of course, if I’ve only played a short while and get dealt this hand, I won’t quit, because I know I want to play at least an hour or so. But if I’m getting somewhere close to that one hour-mark and pick it up, I know it has happened more than once that I’ll go ahead and put a tic in the “Sit out next hand” box, thereby readying myself to leave no matter how things turn out.

What’s the hand? American Airlines, of course. My ticket outta there.

Why quit on aces? Well, for one thing, while I like to think I don’t get too tilty that often, I do know getting aces cracked generally doesn’t have such a great effect on my overall mood, making it harder to be at my “A-performance” and have my “A-mindset.” Not that I’m expecting to lose the hand, mind you, but I am anticipating those potentially less-than-pleasant side effects should things not go my way.

On the other hand, if I win, well, that’s not a bad way to leave, either, yes? With the memory of having the best of it, and getting paid… in other words, happy poker thoughts to carry me to my next session.

I know it’s a fairly artificial way to make the quitting decision, and, of course, one can’t necessarily sit around and wait to be dealt aces so one can leave. So I ain’t necessarily recommending it as a genuine strategy, though, like I say, I’ve noticed myself doing it every now and then.

What happened earlier this week was I had been two-tabling for a little over an hour, and after having dug a decent-sized hole had gotten back close to even when I picked up under the gun (6-max., $0.50/$1.00). I think I might’ve already sat out on my other table and so was out the door anyway, but did indeed click “Sit out next hand” as I watched four of my five opponents call my raise.

The flop came . Top set, but with that board I knew when I led out that most if not all of my opponents would probably stick around. All but one did. Turn a safe , though now we’re looking at another flush draw out there. All four stayed for one more card. The river was the (Flippin’ sweet!), and I led out again. Others seemed to like that river card, too. Here’s how it played out (RSS readers might have to click through):

Easy as A-B-C, 1-2-3. I hit the runway thereafter. Even if I lose that one, I know I ain’t gonna be in the mood to continue.

Further evidence of how busy & distracted I’ve been lately: the third birthday of Hard-Boiled Poker happened earlier this week — the day I played that hand, actually — and I forgot to mark the occasion here.

In fact, I didn’t even think of it until this post took me back to one of the very first posts I ever wrote here, a mini-satire called “Folding AA: A 12-Step Program.” Perhaps good for a grin or two.

Here’s hopin’ everyone’s weekend ends up aces.