If I wanted to Watch Amateurs, I'd Go to a Game...

[shipitfish]

I am sitting here slowly recovering from the “bad beat” W.D. put on me — not a poker one, but a plane-caught cold he brought back from Asia and shared with the office. The coughing is annoying, so to distract myself, I'm playing micro-limit online poker (so I don't abuse my bankroll while sick) and watching television.

Of course, nearly every hour of the day there's another poker show on televison. Most of them are pointless. Producers have not completely figured out yet: people don't want to watch amatuers play, as if poker were some sort of game show!

Perhaps the worst of these shows is YES Network and Party Poker's Boston vs. New York Poker Challenge. I suppose the worst part about this game to me is that I have played with at least half of the players. As someone who spent a lot of time playing poker in both Boston and NYC during the poker boom, I've run into just about everyone who has spent more than a few weeks at poker games in either city.

And, for about fifteen seconds, my reaction to the show was: “Wow, people I know on TV”. Then, I realized that I didn't really like hanging out with nearly any of them when I played regularly in the home games and clubs of Boston and NYC! Of the half I know, there is only one person on the whole show who has extremely strong poker skills (he's a Boston player previously mentioned in this journal years back, for those who want to hunt). And, while he's not a bad guy, he's not the friendliest of folks — he plays poker to take people's money, not to make friends. The rest, well, their company is not the most high quality out there.

Truth is, sitting here, coughing and watching this awful show like it's a train wreck I can't turn my head from, I am reminded that, in poker, I spend a lot of time with unlikeable people. There's a meme going around the NYC poker blogs that states if you want to be a winning poker player, you have to hang around with losers. It's a fact that is difficult to argue; good players choose good games with weak competition. Weak players are, by definition, losers.

On the other hand, it is not that simple. I was a fish in my River Street NL days. While I might have been a loser (per se) in the game, I was working hard to get better at the game and learn more. I was able to keep even by the final days, because I simply passed chips from the truely terrible players to the very good ones.

I wonder if I felt so strongly and positively about that game and the people in it because I was a little bit the fish. When I play now, and find tables with only two or three strong players out of ten, and the rest mostly jerks who I wouldn't think to spend time with otherwise, I wonder why I am playing. If it's for the money merely, I have to consider if I would stay in a job with a mix of co-workers identical to the nightly line up at your average NYC, Foxwoods, or AC poker game. And online? Heck, I can barely stand to have the chat boxes on at all. The level of homophobic remarks alone are enough to make any reasonable person ill.

Ironically, I had been thinking lately that I want to see if the New York clubs are still as bad in this respect as they were the last few times I went. Of course, I won't discover another River Street hiding under a subway station in downtown Manhattan. But, perhaps there is a community of players that has a good mix, where the losers aren't insufferable. Or, maybe the games will be so lucrative again that I won't care so much.

Whatever the NYC poker scene is now or becomes, I'm sure that I don't want to watch it on TV. If I am in a game myself, I have to watch the other players as I try to think as they do and learn as much as I can about their psychology. But, if they aren't the best players in the world, it's going to be downright boring to do that as a mere spectator. If it wasn't for the coughing fits drowning out weak players explaining how they are “in it to win it”, I am sure I'd have changed the channel by now. Oh, wait, I have a High Stakes Poker episode on TiVo.

Comments

Doug's a good guy

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're speaking about "don't tape on the glass" Carlos. I was surprised when I saw him on that Boston vs New York show. He was rumored to cheat at the weekly tourney he ran on the south shore. Bit of a shady character.

But Doug's a good guy. I played a ton of poker with him, and he always seemed on the level.

Re: Doug's a good guy

[shipitfish.livejournal.com]

Someone did the research. :) Yes, Doug is the fellow that I refer to as being the one with the extremely strong poker skills in the post. I don't think he's a bad guy at all, but it was always clear to me that he was there to take our money, and he could be a little cruel when he got in a mood to needle people. I learned a good amount playing against Doug, but he's a shark and comes to games to shark them. Nothing wrong in that per se, but he's also not someone I'm going to spend time with away from the table, and at the table, I don't really want him there because I know he can always outplay me.

As for Carlos, he's one of the many on the show that I've played with and would probably be happy not to play with again. On one of his few visits to River Street, he insisted on complaining about every last thing of the accommodations, the host's dog, and everything else in the room. And, this was the days when it was a self-dealt, non-raked game. You're a guest in someone's home in that situation, and you should act like it.

As for cheating at Carlos' game, I heard that rumor too. I seriously doubt that part was true. I think that rumor is an embellished version of another rumor that he made a ruling as would-be “floor person” when he was still in a tournament and the decision would impact him, too. Carlos isn't really a great guy, but I don't think he's a cheat.

BTW, lately, I rarely use real names of people on this journal, but I ultimately decided to let the above comment go through (and reply to it myself), since these two people have chosen to be on TV and put themselves in the public eye.

I failed to mention in the post that I actually, in a moment of stupidity, applied to be on New York vs. Boston Poker Challenge and but then didn't show up when I got a call back. Once I saw the show, I was very glad I came to my senses.