Poker: luck or skill?
I am baffled by poker. I don't even know the rules. Yet, over the past few
years I keep meeting and interviewing people who call themselves professional
poker players. So, with the World Series of Poker progressing now at the Rio, I am once
again forced to deal with my poker confusion. It all boils down to what should be a simple question: is poker a game of luck or
skill? I notice reading about the WSOP that even at this early stage many of the
ex-champions have been eliminated and yet a handful of Hollywood stars are still
in there playing. I know this would not likely be the case if the
tournament was for chess or tennis. Anyone think Jennifer Tilly is going to best Serena Williams after some serious practice? How about a chess match where Ben Affleck checkmates the living remains of Bobby Fischer? Yet, in poker this sort of thing happens every year. Frequently unknowns come out winners like last year with winner Jamie Gold. This year Gold was swiftly eliminated. See what I mean?
So, I asked Las Vegas Advisor editor and publisher Anthony Curtis, who is one of the premiere experts on gambling in Las Vegas, for his opinion. Though Curtis shows nuance in his answer, he clearly falls on the side of skill for poker:
So, I asked Las Vegas Advisor editor and publisher Anthony Curtis, who is one of the premiere experts on gambling in Las Vegas, for his opinion. Though Curtis shows nuance in his answer, he clearly falls on the side of skill for poker:
"Poker combines skill and luck, perhaps better than any other game, which
helps explain its popularity. In a field of 6,500, where less than 10% of the
participants are at the highest skill level, it figures that many unknowns will
advance far. But you are likely to see the pros over-represented when you get
down to the last several-hundred. In poker, luck can dominate in the short term,
but overall, skill is the dominant factor. Poker is, without question, a game of
skill."
I don't know if I am convinced. What do you think?
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Mark Lindquist: brat to prosecutor
Author Mark Lindquist is in Vegas and would I like to interview him? Yeah, for starters, to find out what he is doing in Vegas?
Lindquist had the fortune or misfortune to be associated with the literary
brat pack of the 80s, and, over the years, his books have enjoyed blurbs of
endorsement from all the big players in that gang: Tama Janowitz, Bret Easton
Ellis and Jay McInerney. When the 80s became the 90s, Lindquist once again found
himself with a view of the zeitgeist. He was living in Seattle watching the
grunge scene develop, out of which came his book Never Mind Nirvana. Lindquist,
who was once named by People magazine as one of the most eligible bachelors in
America, released his latest novel last month: King of Methlehem. Though
continuing Lindquist's fascination with pop culture, this novel is about speed
freaks called tweekers, and draws more than any of his other work on
Lindquist's day job working as a prosecutor in Pierce County and his life in
Tacoma, Washington.
None of this, of course, explains why he was in Vegas. Lindquist says: "I
asked my publicist to send the book tour through Vegas and she laughed at me.
So, I asked her if she could end it in Vegas and I would take care of it from
there."
When the confused publicist spoke to me she described Lindquist's time in
Vegas as some sort of personal trip. She had no idea why he was here, she
admitted. There was obviously no reading for him in Vegas. But by the
time Lindquist and I met on Friday, in a coffee shop at the Rio, I knew
exactly why he was here, though we had yet to discuss it at all. In fact, I knew
the moment I pulled up to the Valet. There is only one reason someone stays at
the Rio this time of year: The World Series of Poker. Still, I asked:
Richard Abowitz: So, what brings you to Vegas, if not promoting your
book?
Mark Lindquist: I came here to relax and play poker.
Q: Have you been a poker player for awhile?
A: I have been a poker player my whole life. In fact, I missed my regular
poker game last night in Los Angeles because I was giving a reading at Book
Soup. I gave the reading and then Vegas. But if I wasn't doing the reading, I
would have been at my home game.
Q: Do you read all of the poker books?
A: Not all of them. But I read Phil Gordon's books.
Q: You don't seem like a brat at all. So, which brat pack do you fall
into. There is the literary brat pack and then you also wrote movies. According,
to the Wikipedia you even dated Molly Ringwald?
A: They put that on there? Obviously, I have my own site where I have more
control of content. They slap that label on you: the literary brat pack. I guess
there were a couple reasons. I had the same editor on my first novel as Bright
Lights Big City. That was just a couple years before my book. I was also hanging
out with Jay and Bret a lot. And, I guess, that will do it.
Q: Do you feel you have affinities with them as a writer?
A: We are really much different writers. The common denominator is a
fascination with popular culture. I'm a pop culture junkie and Bret is a pop
culture junkie. Jay is really a bit more stodgy and a student of classic
literature. But his book Bright Lights Big City became this pop culture
sensation.
Q: So, what made you go to law school in the midst of being a hot
writer?
A: I always planned to go to law school after college. But I thought I
would take a couple years off first to enjoy life. Then I started writing. I
became successful very quickly. Much more quickly than I thought. I was liking
it. I felt like I was in the right place at the right time. So, I just kept
putting law school off. But I never made my living from my books and
freelancing. I made my money as a screenwriter. Eventually, I just burned out
on screen writing. I remember debating if I should go to Europe for a couple
years or law school. Law school won out. I wasn't sure I wanted to practice law.
But when I stepped into a prosecutor's office as an intern it was like entering
a movie. It was so dramatic and energy charged. Criminal law is where the
stories are.
Q: Is this job as a prosecutor what is behind the new book, The King of
Methlehem?
A: What it has in common with my other books is the obsession with pop
culture remains. But the drug is new. I had never written about methamphetamine
before. We are swamped at my office, and I am often there on weekends reading
police reports. I used to think I would rather be home reading a novel. But then
as I started reading through the police reports, I realized, this was dramatic,
intense and engaging. Most of what I was reading about was crazy tweeker
stories. I could fill your tape with tweeker stories.
Q: I've met a few, thank you. But the thing about tweekers is that they are
sort of all the same to me. The drug becomes their personality. How did you find
enough individuality there to create a character?
A: I wrestled with that. What I came up with: what if I took a tweeker who
was smarter and more ambitious than the average tweeker? In other words, he
shared the addiction but there was something about him that was bigger and
smarter. I based the book very loosely on a tweeker I met in my work as a
prosecutor who stood out because he was smarter and more charismatic than the
other tweekers. You see these tweekers do these crazy things and it is easy to
see them as crude cartoon characters, because they act like crude cartoon
characters. I wanted to get in there and see what was human about them.
Q: So let's talk poker. Did you put up $10,000 or did you enter a satellite
game?
A: I put $1,500 up, and I am here until I am knocked out.
Q: Do you have any expectations of leaving here with a bracelet?
A: No. I look at poker as a lifelong game. I tally up at the end of the
year. But this is by far is the largest stakes, I've ever played. But I have
been to Vegas often enough to know that the $1,500 is gone.
Q: Do you have any good Vegas stories from your other trips?
A: None that I will tell on tape.
Q: You know, I get that answer a lot?
A: Well, they are typical Vegas stories. Just think about the things you've
done in Vegas. Vegas is a town for adrenaline junkies. And, prosecutors and
gamblers tend to be adrenaline junkies.
After the interview, I asked Lindquist to keep me in the loop on how he was doing in the tournament. I got a call from Lindquist to tell me he was eliminated over the weekend
from the World Series of Poker tournament. But he planned to stay in Vegas until this morning. We
made tentative plans for me to show him the town. I got distracted by CineVegas
and deadlines and forgot to call him. Then a Blackberry message arrived at 2:58 AM this morning: "Playing poker. Did I miss anything?" I wrote him back: "I
guess that depends if you are winning?"
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A Vegas Strategy in Iraq?
Today's LA Times talks about the military recommending a new strategy in Iraq. Julian E. Barnes writes:
As President Bush weighs new policy options for Iraq, strong support has coalesced in the Pentagon behind a military plan to 'double down' in the country with a substantial buildup in American troops, an increase in industrial aid and a major combat offensive against Muqtada Sadr, the radical Shiite leader impeding development of the Iraqi government.
A defense official quoted in the story amplifies:
I think it is worth trying...This is a double down.
So, I went to professional gambler and "Las Vegas Advisor" publisher Anthony Curtis to find out the strategy behind a 'double down' bet. Curtis notes:
A better term for them in this sense would be to 'redouble efforts.' In fact, I'm sure that's what they mean. Doubling down in blackjack means to wager more on a strong hand. It's a move that invites more risk, but garners an enhanced expected value (when done at the right time). Done at the wrong time, it can be quite harmful to your expected result.
Let's hope the military understands Iraq better than gambling; how scary to consider this: would you take that bet?
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Monthly Statements on Your Gambling Loss?
The Las Vegas Sun looks at a former gambler who is coming after the industry. The morality of gambling is not really an open topic in Las Vegas. If you are really uncomfortable being around it and are opposed to it, don't live here. You will hear the sound of slot machines in every grocery store and corner store. Going to the movies often means going to a casino. And the same is true for concerts or weddings and probably even your friend's kid's bar mitzvah. If nowhere else, casinos are totally respectable here: to work, to play, to celebrate and to hang out.
But the morally and legally sketchy history of the old gambling hall still has a tremendous psychological impact on the corporate world that invests billions in building and marketing and operating the Strip resorts. They fear change.
One result of the hall's shadowy legacy is that the resorts can be gaudy in their charity and ruthless in their politics. As Joni Mitchell is once said to have asked David Geffen: "Why is it so easy for you to be generous and so hard for you to be fair?"
You would have to live here to understand fully just how comfortable and hardcore casinos are when it comes to getting involved in county commission races, lobbying congress and tracking every tidbit of legislation anywhere that might impact them. And, this frequently means coming down hard on opponents. One casino company a few years ago got connected to creating an anonymous flyer attacking a politician who didn't do its bidding. No one gets in office here who has real and significant plans to raise taxes on resorts.
(Photo: Alexander Gallardo / LAT)
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