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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-272383952016-06-24T11:17:40.398-04:00Hard-Boiled PokerExistentialist musings from Short-Stacked Shamus,
 an online poker player of (primarily) micro and low limits.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-64250779152279182362016-06-22T18:32:00.001-04:002016-06-22T19:34:17.119-04:00Hurdle Removed

In case you haven't heard, it looks as though WSOP.com has removed from the site a requirement for users to login via Facebook or Google+ in order to view live updates, chip counts, and results from 2016 World Series of Poker bracelet events.
 The login "gateway" only worked on some browsers and there were several easy ways to go around the hurdle rather than jump over it by signing in, but now anyone can access the updates right away without having to share any personal information (or made-up info associated with a dummy account).
 I'm pleased the decision was made to remove the login requirement. I won't rehearse the many reasons why I disliked it (a few of which are alluded to here), but will just say instead I'm pleased the requirement is no longer there. Hopefully those who visited the site before and were disinclined to login will get the news and return.
 So far Jason Mercier's incredible streak last week to win a $10K event, take runner-up in another $10K, then win the next $10K he played has easily been the most intriguing WSOP story to follow, made even more intriguing by all of the bracelet bets including the much-discussed one with Vanessa Selbst that go so much coverage last week.
 I had tossed out a prediction at the start of the series over on PokerNews that there would be three multiple-bracelet winners this year, and in fact there have been three already. Over the weekend Ian Johns joined Mercier in the two-timers club, then Benny Glaser won his second of the summer last night.
 So now everyone is less hamstrung to follow updates. I will say the live streams (which didn't require the login) have been fun so far, and I'm a little wowed by the graphics on the non-hold'em games -- probably as good as I've seen before for those.
 Check out those streams here, and if you're curious, follow them updates, too -- they're just a click away.
 Photo: courtesy PokerNews. Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-75970686270242417022016-06-21T21:08:00.000-04:002016-06-22T13:17:46.187-04:00An American Nightmare

I have now made it through the five parts of ESPN's O.J.: Made in America, all seven hours and 44 minutes of it. I suppose watching and playing in poker tournaments -- or maybe it's all those transatlantic flights I've taken -- has made sitting through nearly eight hours of anything seem a lot less remarkable than it was before.
 The reviews of the film, directed and produced by Ezra Edelman, have been consistently glowing, and I, too, thought it very good and compelling throughout. Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line, The Fog of War) is an obvious influence (narrative pace, music, editing, interview format), and as I greatly enjoy Morris's films and storytelling style that ensured I was hooked from early in the first hour.
 I knew a lot about Simpson's background, though the film presents numerous details that were new to me (and to most viewers, I'd imagine). Much of what was presented concerning the murders and trial was very familiar, while some of the participants' reflections were interesting to hear articulated for the first time.
 The civil case (in which Simpson was found responsible for the murders) was mostly familiar ground as well for those who followed it when it happened. Meanwhile the entire post-trials sequence detailing Simpson's downward spiral into decadence and his eventual arrest, conviction, and imprisonment in Nevada for a different crime was mostly new to me.
 The film clarifies in a comprehensive way how studying the complicated legacy of race relations both in southern California and Los Angeles in particular and in the nation as a whole adds considerably to our understanding of why the trial played out as it did. It also sheds light on Simpson's own strange, frighteningly-destructive psychological makeup, which helps explain -- as much as is possible, anyway -- how exactly he had become a person able to perpetrate such horrors.
 "There was nothing ever, ever in the past that would indicate would be capable of doing what he's doing right now" says Al Michaels on air during the Bronco chase, articulating the position of the great majority of the public at the time who thought they knew Simpson but really did not. The film helps make it clear that not only was Simpson capable, but predisposed to commit such acts.
 Probably the most affecting part of the entire documentary (for me) was the creeping, mounting, chest-tightening dread that builds toward the end of the second part when all of the many, many instances of abuse and other loud forewarnings build upon each other -- both saddening and maddening. I also was affected during the discussion of the Rodney King beating, trial, and the L.A. riots, as they triggered some anxiety-filled memories of that time. (As well as some trepidation about how such a situation might play out today, nearly a quarter-century later.)
 In the end, I appreciated the lengthy exposition (i.e., the first two parts) a bit more than the narrative of the trial and its aftermath, probably because the latter was on the whole both more familiar to me and tended to be overwhelmed at several points by the incredibly sensational aspects of the murders and trial.
 As I say, the argument that race relations was a key component to America's "making" a figure like O.J. was persuasive and thorough. But when it was over I was thinking also about other influences upon attitudes and values -- namely, sports, celebrity, and money/class -- all suggested as well by the film, but not explored as fully. Of course, that might've carried the film another couple of hours further, as it didn't appear there was much included that didn't seem to belong.
 I'll finish with one last observation about the documentary. Early on it is established how Simpson not only avoided drawing attention to race and the many injustices marking race relations as his personal fame and cultural stature grew, but overtly defended his right to pursue self-interest. The position is uniformly opposed by others in the film, and indeed Simpson's lack of interest in any larger community is made to appear monstrous -- another piece of evidence presented to explain Simpson's narcissism and lack of regard for anyone but himself.
 As that case was being made, though, I found myself thinking -- how unusual is that position, really? Especially today. We're surrounded by others adopting the exact same approach to society at large and their place within it, not feeling any responsibility at all to the "community" and appearing exclusively and unembarrassedly motivated by self-improvement.
 It's a not uncommon type, and also -- to an extent -- "made in America."
 Image: ESPN. Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-53270253683690235882016-06-20T09:08:00.004-04:002016-06-20T10:01:36.046-04:00Goals and Outcomes

Cleveland finally did it. Was a highly entertaining finale to the NBA season last night.
 LeBron James gets the hero title, of course, even if Kyrie Irving was the one hitting the game-winner. Meanwhile the Warriors couldn't find a hero of their own despite a valiant effort from Draymond Green to play that role. I want to say relying on three-pointer necessarily invites the sort of variance shown last night (GS hot in first half, cold in second), although the way the Dubs shot from the arc this year they seemed to challenge that oft-cited claim to the point of making us all doubt it actually applied to them.
 James's streak of going to six straight finals (four with Miami, two with Cleveland) and winning three is remarkable. The whole going-back-home narrative is intriguing, too, no matter where you happen to stand on "King James."
 Speaking of going home, looks like the Cavs hit Vegas last night on their way back to Ohio. That's where I was the last two times the NBA Finals featured a Game 7 -- in 2010 and 2013 -- so it was fun to be able to sit down and actually watch such an event this time around.
 Incidentally, Jason Mercier's last seven days in Vegas have been something else, too, with the two bracelet wins a runner-up, and his securing added bounties of all those many side bets. It feels like this summer the side action is in some cases overwhelming the main prize pools, creating some added storylines.
 Looking back at my post from Friday, I made a few predictions for Game 7, although most were non-specific enough to have a better than average shot of being accurate.
 There's no doubt the Warriors suffered a most ignominious conclusion to their record-setting season, becoming the first team to lose a 3-1 lead in the finals.
 I also said the Cavs wouldn't be as consistently brilliant as they'd been in the previous two games (they weren't) and the Warriors wouldn't be as consistently bad (they weren't either). Suggested there would be evidence of some nerves, too, especially at the start and the finish, and that's exactly what happened as the game started very slowly, then both teams had trouble scoring during the endgame (with GS incredibly going the last four-and-a-half minutes without scoring a point).
 In a way all of these predictions were a little like "side action," not unlike prop bets or inventing other in-game contests to up the interest level.
 My "hot take" on Friday was to suggest there'd be a controversial call (or non-call) that many would highlight after the game as having affected the outcome, but I can't really say that happened. There were a few missed calls and questionable fouls during the course of the game, but on the whole the refs did an admirable job, I thought, and I noticed nothing especially egregious down the stretch when it really was a situation when a single whistle could've changed everything.
 In fact, the only example I can think of was Andre Iguodala's block of LeBron James's layup with exactly three minutes to go in which Iguodala got mostly hand and little ball.
 As it turned out, it was over at the U.S. Open where it looked as though a ruling really would inordinately affect the outcome. I won't go into the whole story of the delayed one-stroke penalty assessed to eventual winner Dustin Johnson -- you can read about it here -- but will say it seemed a terrible example of the rules and the mechanism of enforcing the rules potentially overwhelming the players' control over the competition.
 Can't say I had much of a rooting interest in that one, although like most I was glad to see Johnson overcome what seemed an unfair circumstance to succeed. Didn't really have a rooting interest in Cavs-Dubs, either, which I realized I was glad about as the fourth quarter was winding down.
 I was flashing back both to this year's Super Bowl (where my Panthers fell) and the NCAA final (where my Heels lost a heartbreaker). It's much less stressful watching without such intense feelings about how the sucker is going to turn out.
 Makes it easier, too, to be less critical of the refs. Without a focus on perspective-altering goals, outcomes can be more clearly assessed.
 Image: "Basketball Net" (adapted), Akash Kataruka. CC BY-ND 2.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-35393732791421953632016-06-17T21:39:00.002-04:002016-06-17T21:41:49.575-04:00A Game Seven Hot Take

So the NBA Finals has turned into some kind of weird, twisty-turney soap opera with six fairly non-competitive games resulting in a 3-3 tie between Golden State and Cleveland. Even if Game 7 results in yet another blowout, it will nonetheless provide an intriguing climax to an unexpectedly gripping series to punctuate the season.
 One sure-fire prediction -- whoever loses the game will be forced to endure an incredible letdown. For the Warriors, it would mean failing to cap a record-breaking regular season with a title. The Cavs would similarly suffer greatly with a loss, coming one step shy of completing a never-before-accomplished comeback from 3-1 down in the finals to lose in the finals a second straight time.
 I'll add a few other predictions I'm less sure of, but in which I'm still reasonably confident. The Cavs probably won't be as consistently brilliant as they were in Games 5 and 6. Neither will the Warriors be as consistently bad. Both will likely show some evidence of nerves, too, especially early in the game and perhaps again near the end (depending on the closeness of the score).
 But here's a less obvious prediction I'll throw on top of the bonfire of "hot takes" that's already starting to build, will grow higher by Sunday night, then disappear like so much ash in the wind once a result is determined. This one is probably contingent on the game being close at some point beyond the start -- i.e., in the second half, either early or late.
 Here's the "hot take"...
 From the referees there will be a judgment call (or non-call) that will be agreed upon afterwards by most viewers to have affected the game's outcome.
 Every sport adjudicated by human beings involves some degree of error. Happens in poker, too, when rulings based on partial or even incorrect evidence sometimes occur, or even incorrect rulings based on clear and complete (and misunderstood or misinterpreted) evidence occasionally arise.
 Over the course of an NBA basketball game, refs collectively make hundreds of decisions. They never make it through an entire game getting every decision correct, although generally do hit the mark on most of them. I'm not predicting (necessarily) that there will be an incorrect decision that will affect the outcome of Sunday night's game; rather, I'm suggesting that some judgment call (which may or may not involve bad judgment and thus an incorrect decision) will be considered by most watching as having inordinately affected the outcome.
 I guess my prediction itself involves a kind of judgment, although I'm saying most of those watching will come to the same conclusion that a key call (or non-call) more or less decided the game. It's a prediction partly about the game and partly about how it will be discussed Monday morning, and it's based both on the way the NBA games currently are officiated and tend to play out and the way games are scrutinized and discussed today.
 Within a minute or two, the call (or non-call) will be a Vine, delivered instantly like an outlet pass starting a fast break all over the web. And many will be hot, hot, hot about what they are sharing.
 Image: Emojipedia. Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-49403190921321332082016-06-16T20:45:00.000-04:002016-06-16T20:48:50.538-04:00Someone Is Writing About You on the Internet

Visitors of the blog may have noticed I haven't been writing here about the big tournament series happening in Las Vegas like I did for the 10 previous summers. Or not. In any case, there are plenty of other places to read about what's happening out there just now, so I trust I'm not creating any sort of void here.
 That doesn't mean I'm not supporting the efforts of the many who are reporting all summer from Las Vegas, including the official live updates team. I have a number of friends playing various roles in that group, and have been chatting with several over the last couple of weeks as they've started down the long, winding road that doesn't end until mid-July.
 Haven't been on the road myself for about a month. But I was reminded again of the travails of the tourney reporter today, including the occasional marathon days-slash-nights-slash-early-mornings they end up having to endure. A couple of times, actually.
 The first was early this morning, when I realized Mo Nuwwarah was still reporting from the iNinja World Championship at Planet Hollywood for PokerNews. And in fact he would be another six hours or so, making for what I think might have been around a 20-hour final day in that event.
 Then in the afternoon I read a blog post from my friend Darrel Plant (a.k.a. "Mutant Poker"), one of those reporting from the Rio this summer. I had to read it. After all, it had a tremendous title: "Damn you, Martin Harris!"
 Sure, that's some very specific click bait. But it worked!
 As I have done here many times before, Darrel's both reporting on tournaments and chronicling his adventures doing so on his blog. Click on that above link and find out why he's out there cursing me while he does.
 Image: PanicPosters.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-26256294026915541832016-06-15T15:23:00.000-04:002016-06-15T15:26:11.077-04:00Running Into Cactus Jack

For a few different reasons -- including this new "Poker & Pop Culture" series of articles I'm writing for PokerNews -- I'm finding myself burrowing deep in digressive, distracting paths after uncovering this or that historical nugget about people in the past playing poker.
 Recently there came one such distraction as I called up a copy of the September 1, 1934 Reading Eagle, the daily newspaper of Reading, Pennsylvania. In that issue appears a review of a new poker strategy book called the Stud Poker Blue Book by George Henry Fisher that had first been published three years before.
 I was scouting about for information about Fisher's book for yesterday's column, the focus of which has to do with the introduction of stud in the nineteenth century and the relative dominance of draw poker among cultural representations of the game thereafter (even while stud gained in popularity). Here's that one, if you're curious:

Poker & Pop Culture: Following Draw, "Stud-Horse Poker" Gallops In
The review of Fisher's book -- written by Westbrook Pegler as an installment of his regular column, titled "Fair Enough" -- is a positive one, ending with a few almost tongue-in-cheek complaints about bridge having come to rival poker in popularity.
 "For some reason bridge has claimed rating as the gentleman's game and is considered to be desirable nowadays as a part of the social equipment of young officers of the army, along with dancing, tennis and the etiquette of the seven-fork formal dinner," writes a derisive-sounding Pegler.
 "There is yet time to reestablish stud poker as the old army game," he continues hopefully. "Possibly Vice President Garner, who is one of the great American experts in stud would help to install Mr. Fisher's Stud Poker Blue Book as one of the official studies at West Point."
 Amid the kidding, I had to follow-up the reference to Franklin D. Roosevelt's then-VP, John Nance Garner. FDR was of course an avid poker player, but I'd never thought much about Garner or his playing, so it was intriguing to see a casual reference to his stud expertise dropped here at the end of Pegler's review.
 Hailing from Texas, "Cactus Jack" (as he was sometimes called) served in the Congress for three decades including as Speaker of the House for a couple of years, then was FDR's VP for his first two four-year terms from 1933 to 1941. Though very active in Congress, he wasn't so much as VP, and is famously quoted afterwards as having referred to the office of Vice-Presidency as "not worth a bucket of warm piss." (The source for that quote isn't clear, actually.)
 Like most politicians he had both proponents and enemies, and among the latter group belonged the famous labor leader John L. Lewis. Once while testifying to Congress in 1939, Lewis referred to Garner as "a labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, evil old man" because "the majority of people will feel that anyone Lewis can't control is all right." (So reported Time magazine.)
 From what James McManus says about Garner in Cowboys Full, he actually "had grown up playing high-stakes draw" before becoming the stud expert (as Pegler calls him). McManus also points out how Garner wasn't invited to FDR's poker games, with their relationship deteriorating to the point that Roosevelt instead chose Henry Wallace to run with him as he won a third term.
 There's more to Cactus Jack's poker story, I'm sure, though I've yet to dig further. Perhaps he was just too good of a player for FDR to want hanging around. In any case, that nickname suggests he was probably considered a bit prickly by others, too.
 Image: John Nance Garner, public domain.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-63680731441388046162016-06-14T23:12:00.000-04:002016-06-15T15:12:15.725-04:00Inflection Points

I am recalling at least three occasions when acts of violence so horrific and massive have occurred in this country, I've found myself unable not to write about them here on HBP.
 This is a poker blog, after all, and while I'll often write about sports, politics, entertainment, business, music, and other non-poker topics including what it's like living on a horse farm, I still try to keep things oriented in the direction of poker, which necessarily leaves certain topics out of the mix.
 One was the shooting at Virginia Tech in April 2007, prompting in part a meditation on college classrooms (where I've spent so much of my adult life, including then when I was teaching full-time). Another was the one at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012, also taking place at a school, with many children among the victims.
 The third was the bombing at the Boston Marathon in April 2013. As had been the case during the Sandy Hook shooting, I was reporting on a tournament at the time, and wrote then how "it felt odd to be locked in that poker tourney cocoon while such terrible things were happening outside of it."
 The shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando early Sunday morning has again forced all of us out of our respective cocoons. Or has it? Beyond the horror of the scene and the extent of pain inflicted, there's that unsettling sense already that even the "deadliest mass shooting in American history" -- as some (not all) have described it -- hasn't necessarily moved the collective to a point of acting in response.
 Remember the Harrington on Hold'em books, and that explanation of "inflection points" that comes up in the second volume? That's the concept associated with the famous "M" ratio signaling how many orbits you have left according to your stack size, and the corresponding "zones" (green, yellow, orange, red, and "dead") meant to identify what sort of maneuverability you have left according to your remaining chips.
 Regarding inflection points, authors Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie introduce the concept by way of a football analogy, referring to a team that is behind having to jettison certain plays from their playbook in order to preserve time and score fast. As the clock winds down, multiple "inflection points" are crossed -- i.e., first short runs are out, then all running plays, then even short passes aren't viable as the seconds tick away. Finally a team's options are whittled down to just one -- a long Hail Mary pass into the endzone.
 Similarly in tournaments, they explain, when your stack gets too short your reduced to just a few moves, then eventually only the one of going all in. Each time you reach an inflection point, you must actively recognize certain options are no longer available to you.
 I feel like each of these shootings first appear as though they could represent "inflection points" insofar as they seem initially to encourage both dialogue and even action designed to reduce the chances of another occurring. But we never seem to reach the inflection point beyond which the option just to keep on sitting tight is no longer available to us.
 Perhaps as a collective we're overwhelmed by the seeming impotence of the majority in the face of those in power (or, in this election year, those seeking power) -- that is to say, those whose all-encompassing motive is to preserve their comparatively elite status. Such a goal is usually best achieved by continuing to encourage all to keep on sitting tight -- that is to say, to prevent us from thinking we've crossed an inflection point beyond which some sort of drastic, culture-changing, life-altering action emerges as the only option left.
 (Incidentally, the screamingly hurtful, nonsensical noise emanating from the demagogue who has now secured the Republican party's presidential nomination is meaningfully confusing to many. If regarded with any scrutiny whatsoever, the several "options" he proposes are in truth uniformly self-destructive, and if we step back to take a broader view of the nation's history, we quickly realize his proposals were shown to be untenable long ago, after we crossed earlier inflection points.)
 There's a point somewhere, I'm sure of it, which if reached will finally force our hand in some constructive way to make such acts of violence less likely. What's most chilling is to try to imagine what must happen in order for us to get there.
 Image: "The Point of No Return," Pat Hawks. CC BY 2.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-18942281324514742142016-06-13T17:03:00.002-04:002016-06-13T17:03:46.285-04:00Generous to a Fault? "All In" the Way You Look at It

An interesting "what would you do?"-type poker discussion to share with you, if you haven't seen it already.
 It starts over on the PokerStars blog where Lee Jones, Head of Poker Communications, recently published a post called "Letting one off the hook."
 There Jones describes playing in a $1/$2 cash game and having the good fortune of flopping an ace-high flush versus a lone opponent. His leading bet was called, then after Jones still had the nuts following the turn card, he bet again and this time was raised. At that Jones reraised back, his opponent announced "all in," and Jones quickly called, showing his cards.
 That's when the story becomes interesting enough to write a post about. Upon seeing Jones's hand, his opponent then claims not to have said "all in." Meanwhile the dealer had heard him say it, and after the floor was called another player said he heard it, too.
 Skipping ahead a bit, in the face of all the growing hubbub Jones ultimately decides to let his opponent "off the hook" and not be forced to go all in, with Jones just taking what was in the middle as if the player had folded and not shoved. Jones explains he honestly didn't think the player was trying to angle shoot, but he doesn't spell out all the reasons why he thinks that way.
 It's a nice story, and like most I tend to like these hearing such tales of good sportsmanship in poker and in other contexts. But yesterday Rob of Rob's Vegas and Poker Blog posted a response to Jones's post in which he respectfully suggests Jones should not have been so generous.
 In "He Let This One Off the Hook -- But Should He Have?" Rob points out how letting his opponent wiggle his free negatively affects the integrity of the game. "If we allow someone to say 'all-in' and not really mean it, the game falls apart," says Rob. It's a persuasive point.
 As I read both posts, I thought about how in a tournament setting such a situation could never be condoned -- there letting someone call "all in" and then take it back not only affects the players in the hand, but everyone else, too. In a cash game one might argue differently, but as Rob notes it's still important that everyone abide by the rules, and that the players not be allowed to let each other not follow them when occasions such as this one arises.
 When looked at in a vacuum -- i.e., without the session-specific info about the player and situation Jones possessed when making his decision -- I'd lean toward Rob's way of thinking here when it comes to not letting players "off the hook" like this. Indeed, even imagining extenuating circumstances, I think it'd be hard for me to imagine justifying allowing someone not to have to commit chips after verbally agreeing to do so.
 Anyhow, check out both posts and decide for yourself.
 Image: "IMG_4600" (adapted), Stewardship - Transforming Generosity. CC BY 2.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-50891384977091516102016-06-10T15:57:00.000-04:002016-06-12T22:31:47.226-04:00Surrender, But Don't Give Yourself Away

Am following those NBA finals, natch, and intrigued by this phenomenon that's been occurring here and there throughout the playoffs -- teams falling behind by double-digits, then essentially getting "knocked out" early in games that subsequently become lopsided, ending with margins of 15 or more.
 That's what happened to the Golden State Warriors in Game 3 in their game in Cleveland versus the Cavaliers. Happened a couple of times to the Dubs during the Oklahoma City series, too, causing them to fall to a dangerous 3-1 deficit before they stormed back to clinch that one.
 Other teams have shown that tendency as well. Just went back counted and out of 82 playoff games so far 33 of them have been decided by 15 or more (just over 40%) -- including all three so far in the finals -- with well over half having ended with wins by at least double-digits.
 I don't know if this is typical or not for the NBA playoffs, but it's sure seemed like there have been more blowouts than normal this year. Feels as though a lot of it has to do with fatigue -- that teams get down, then reach a "tipping point" of sorts where the energy needed to mount a comeback either isn't available or needs to be conserved in order to remain competitive in the next game.
 "On to the next one," teams seem to be saying, although in a few cases the "next one" has meant next season, as the blowouts have happened in series clinchers. More often than not, that's what has happened to all this season's losers of the year.
 It reminds me a little of "taking a hand off" (so to speak) in poker after having gotten involved in several in a row, or even just one important one that required an extra dose of attention and focus.
 It's the sort of thing that makes the more conspiracy-minded fans (and sports bettors) wonder about things being "rigged" somehow, since technically speaking teams are more or less conceding games (without giving it away that's what is happening).
 But like I say I think it's probably just the product of the natural rhythm of energy and attention available to non-perfect humans, perhaps exaggerated somewhat given the challenge of such a long season.
 In other words, the Dubs are all right, the Cavs are all right, they just seem a little weird.
 Image: "A white flag," Viktorvoigt. CC BY-SA 3.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-84914954284550503092016-06-09T23:12:00.000-04:002016-06-11T10:39:55.431-04:00You Know Uno, Don't You?

Last weekend I enjoyed a family holiday in Charleston, South Carolina, kind of a three-day weekend. In between visits to the pool, walks on the beach, and a couple of fun meals dining out, I played games with my now seven-year-old nephew, about whom I've written here before.
 He got himself a big, thick deck of Uno cards at some point in the last year, and on a couple of occasions now we've played, including on this trip. It might be the first card game I've played with him in which he doesn't make up new rules along the way, but sticks to the actual rules of the game. That said, he has invented some sort of postscript-type game involving three cards and picking one which he breaks out at the end of every Uno game, so he's still adding to the standard game with this one, too.
 If you know Uno, you know the goal of the game is to discard all of your cards before your opponent does, with "Uno" being the word called out when a player is down to just a single card. The deck is comprised of four colors (red, green, blue, yellow) with the cards numbered, and there are a few special cards thrown in as well that reverse the order of play, skip a player, force an opponent to draw extra cards, and function as wild cards enabling the player to change the current color.
 This video spoofing Anime actually does a good job capturing what a game with my nephew is like:

 I believe players are supposed to start with seven cards, but my nephew likes to start with many, many more. We began with 26, actually, and that picture up top shows how difficult it was to hold that many at once (and that's with adult-sized hands). I joked on Twitter that he likes "deep-stacked" Uno, and it's true that starting with more cards does mean the game will go on a bit longer (ensuring there will be "more play").
 In a game last weekend, I managed to get down to "Uno" twice but each time was thwarted by my nephew playing a card requiring me to draw. Then eventually he got down to one card while I only had 4 or 5. The upcard was a blue four, and I had both a blue card and a red four, meaning I could either keep it the same color or change it.
 I managed to talk myself into keeping it blue, and sure enough he had another blue card and won the game. When I showed him my red four he insisted I should have played it and changed the color, although I think he was just being results-oriented, knowing that had I done that he wouldn't have won (not then, anyway).
 Thinking afterwards, I decided it probably was a better play to change the color, as it often happens in Uno you play several cards of the same color in a sequence until you run out, then work on the next color -- meaning the chances were probably slightly better that he had another blue card in his little hand than not.
 I think he's probably about ready to learn about the rankings of poker hands. We've played War before, but no poker games. Simple five-card draw would have to be the best place to start, I'd think.
 That's the game that has been on my mind lately, and is the first poker game I learned, I remember... probably when I was about his age.
Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-4629289243372277312016-06-08T14:34:00.000-04:002016-06-09T11:04:00.819-04:00The Draw and Stud Kingdoms in the Poker Domain

I've been thinking about draw poker and stud poker lately, and the idea that, in a sense, all variants can be categorized as having been derived from one or the other category of poker games.
 That is to say, if we created a taxonomy of card games with poker being the "domain" up at the top, draw and stud would be the top two "kingdoms" just underneath, with all the other games belonging to one or the other.
 In modern poker parlance, it's common to see three categories of games identified -- flop games, draw games, and stud games. That's a helpful system, say, if you're choosing variants for a mixed game and want to ensure you've got a balance between different game types.
 You could, for example, have a nine-game rotation with three flop games (no-limit hold'em, pot-limit Omaha, Omaha hi/lo), three stud games (seven-card stud, seven-card stud hi/lo, and razz), and three draw games (2-7 triple draw, 2-7 no-limit draw, Badugi), which would also provide a good mix of a few "big bet" games among the fixed-limit ones.
 Then if you added further variants, you could try to keep the three categories balanced so as not to favor one over the others, since many players often come at a mixed game with more experience and/or knowledge in one of the three.
 However, if you go back in history and think about how poker was initially introduced and developed in the 19th century, it actually makes sense to slide the later-introduced flop games over and think of them as a subcategory of stud (its own "phylum," you might say). In other words, while the hundreds of different poker variants introduce all sorts of distinctions making each unique, the most significant one determines whether or not a game can be said to derive from draw or stud -- namely, whether or not players can see any of the cards making up their opponents' hands.
 Games derived from draw typically involve players showing none of their cards as they proceed through whatever rules govern the order of play, betting, hand ranking, and so on. Meanwhile games derived from stud typically involve players revealing some portion of their hand to each other, e.g., as "up cards" or shared "community cards."
 Even with these two seemingly unblendable characteristics -- i.e., either all your cards are hidden, or they are not -- there exist some hybrids (we might call them) that try to combine draw and stud in some fashion. I'm thinking of draw games that involve sharing cards, of which Spit in the Ocean might have been the first step down that road (a draw game that has one card dealt face up in the middle to indicate what is wild). There are other draw games incorporating something like "community cards," too, that seem to combine the categories.
 But you could argue as soon as any portion of a player's hand is no longer hidden, the game no longer belongs to the draw "kingdom" and should be forced to emigrate over into stud.
 This point -- that all poker variants essentially come from either draw or stud -- is one made by Al Alvarez in his Poker: Bets, Bluffs and Bad Beats (2001). There he points out that all poker games, "even the craziest, are variations on two basic themes: closed or draw poker, in which all the cards are dealt facedown, and stud, in which four of the player's five or seven cards are dealt faceup."
 Alvarez is speaking of earlier pre-hold'em variants when making that point, but the taxonomy being suggested could still be said to include the flop games, which obviously were derived from stud.
 Could be fun, working out an entire taxonomy of poker variants. How would we classify Badeucy, for example? Put the Badeucy species in the poker domain, then the draw kingdom, then the fixed-limit phylum, then the multiple-draw class, then the lowball order, then the Badugi family, and finally the deuce-to-seven genus?

I wrote about the first references to draw poker in this week's "Poker & Pop Culture" column, noting how the introduction of the draw was the first meaningful variation from what might be called the "original" form of poker sometimes called "Old Poker" in which five cards were dealt, a round of betting followed, and then there was a showdown.
 In the column I make a few gestures toward the idea that being able to discard and draw evokes (in a way) various "American" ideas of being free to try to improve your status if desired. Check it out and see if you buy that argument or not:

Poker & Pop Culture: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of a Better Hand
I'll be talking about the introduction of stud next week, and will be suggesting this point as well that all poker variants might be thought of as belonging to one of these two "kingdoms" of games. Let me know if you have any thoughts about any of this as I pull together my own.
 Image: "Taxonomic ranks" (adapted), Annina Breen. CC BY-SA 4.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-46180738322016068192016-06-07T19:25:00.000-04:002016-06-07T20:44:14.298-04:00The Cube Debut

Tuned in to some of that first "Summer Series" heads-up match of the Global Poker League featuring the debut of the much-advertised "cube." Not really eager to do a big, comprehensive review of every little detail of the sucker, but I did want to share just one initial impression.
 After eight weeks' worth of online matches -- all of it streamed live and archived on the GPL twitch channel (whatzit, 200 hours? more?) -- the league took a week off, then cranked back up yesterday with live heads-up matches taking place inside the large glass box. Celebrity player Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame was pitted against Fabrice Soulier for the first best-of-three match, in prime time no less.
 Was curious to see some of the comments both on Twitch and Twitter as the sucker played out. On Twitch came a lot of head-scratching, with viewers who'd wandered over from other channels rightly wondering if they were watching some kind of new game show. Which they were, I guess, with the sparse set, fluorescent glow, and ambient music evoking that sort of vibe. (More so than a sporting one, which had been the talk back when the cube was first announced.)
 On Twitter the comments were less frequent and more informed, with the occasional snark ("Not sure what to think about 2 guys standing in an aquarium clicking buttons," said LivePokerPro) tending to stand out.
 Laughed at Change100's comment estimating the lighting as being "somewhere between spin class and tanning bed." Dr. Pauly's questions "When do they flood the cube? Or release the snakes?" earned a grin. And Haley Hintze's idea that "the walls should slooowly move in to crusssssshh the players" was rightly inspired by the evil-villain's-lair look of it all.
 It looked different, that's for sure. But then I realized -- it looked familiar, too. It was live poker, made to resemble an online game.
 The players' hands are shown on tablets, with a screen in the middle displaying hole cards and chips, timers, blinds/antes, and everything else also recorded on screens. In other words, there are no chips, no cards, and no dealer. The players stand as well, which produces some novel-seeming types of non-verbal communication, and probably affects the talk, too.
 But it all adds up to a strange approximation of "live-ish" online poker -- like the players were standing and walking and talking inside a big computer monitor. That's what inspired my one cheeky contribution to last night's banter: "The player-sims are incredibly lifelike."
 They've got six weeks' worth of "Summer Series" heats lined up. Guess we'll see how things are standing after that (pun intended).
 Image: Global Poker LeagueShort-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-49289577228991032992016-06-06T10:18:00.002-04:002016-06-16T20:48:26.039-04:00On Not Giving It Away

Some time back -- oh, five or six years ago -- a fellow poker scribbler pointed out to me something about this blog, something I had been aware of but hadn't necessarily thought about too closely before.
 His point was an obvious one, really. By writing a lot about the big poker tournaments and series -- posts which I often tag as "High Society," even when the buy-ins aren't so big -- I essentially give free promotion to those events. "They should pay you for it," he said half-jokingly, noting how at the time I'd been writing every single day about a certain lengthy poker festival for several weeks.
 Now even if I hadn't specifically thought about that particular festival and series of posts to which he was referring, I had previously given some thought to the idea that I was essentially "giving it away" here on the blog. By that point I had also been writing about poker for other sites frequently, too, and getting paid to do so. That necessarily had gotten me thinking about the relationship between time and money and how whatever time I spent writing posts on HBP wasn't translating into a tangible monetary reward as happened when I wrote for other sites.
 But I decided early on there was a different kind of reward that came from writing here "for free" (so to speak). I liked engaging with the poker community this way -- and still do, even if poker blogs have moved over to the periphery as many have gravitated toward other ways of engaging with each other. I never worried too much about "monetizing" the blog, and grew to covet having this personal space to write and share ideas without any restrictions other than the ones I chose to impose upon myself.
 To be honest, the fact that the blog did indirectly serve as a kind of online "portfolio" that helped get me some notice and eventually some actual paid writing gigs made it easier to think that way. Sure, I wasn't being paid directly over here, but the time spent was "worth it" in the mundane, literal sense, while also providing all those non-monetary benefits, too.
 Recently in poker a popular site made a decision to stop "giving it away" without getting something in return. No, the site didn't put up a paywall or anything, but figured out a way to prevent most users from freely accessing what they were producing. (I say "most users" because work-arounds are pretty easy to come by, for those who look into it.)
 The idea is to get contact information from site visitors in order to be able to market other products to them before allowing them to proceed. It's a small hassle, this request to get something first before the site gives anything up. However, what it says about the way the site views its relationship with those who visit it isn't small at all.
 Most won't mind the hurdle, though some may not wish to try to jump over it, thereby making the content somewhat exclusive rather than freely given. The justification -- as reported by those who looked into the matter a bit further and asked questions about it -- was precisely what I'm describing, namely, a decision to stop "giving it away" and instead trying to realize some sort of payback for the content that is being provided (and for which there is some cost to produce).
 There was some immediate criticism here and there, including some good arguments for why in this particular instance the decision to restrict access is especially lamentable given the centrality of the site to the community. I decided to stay out of the debates (mostly), although I have complained in private to several folks as I, too, see the decision as unfortunate for a variety of reasons.
 I enjoy poker. I enjoy writing about it and giving others who like the game something that might add further to their enjoyment. I also like the way nearly all of the poker community -- especially those who run tournaments and series -- tend to think similarly about the overall positive that comes from freely-distributed promotion and reporting that excites players and fans alike and (importantly) nurtures the game in a broader sense.
 It's my blog and I'll write about what I want to, and I'll never ask anyone to give me something first before "giving it away" here. But remembering what my friend said to me five or six years ago, I'm not so enthused right now to use this space to promote those who don't believe there's any benefit to be had from being part of a community unless you get something tangible back for everything you give.
 I get it -- business is business. But the poker community isn't a poker game -- i.e., a "zero sum" situation in which no one can win unless someone else loses. We both can give and receive and still come out ahead.
 I mean, I'll write about other things. Not getting paid anyway... right?
 Photo: "Please Pay Here 3-14-09 19" (adapted), Steven Depolo. CC BY 2.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-2316918514339095362016-06-03T20:33:00.000-04:002016-06-05T20:59:27.198-04:00Little Stories (Using Poker as a Metaphor)

Early in The Making of the President 1972, the fourth and final (formal) installment of Theodore H. White's series on presidential elections, White discusses the monumental decision of Richard Nixon's administration to end the free conversion of U.S. dollars to gold at a fixed value -- i.e., the removal of the gold standard.
 This event happened quite abruptly, going into effect on August 15, 1971. It was announced that night by the president in a televised speech that also listed several other significant economic measures, including another huge one to impose wage and price controls (a 90-day freeze).
 Together these measures are sometimes referred to as the "Nixon shock," which politically speaking helped Nixon immensely in the way it produced immediate effects (helping the economy avoid a downturn during the following election year) while also giving the impression that Nixon had done something meaningful -- had acted, not sat by passively -- in response to a coming economic crisis. (That latter point is one White fleshes out in the section). Meanwhile the longer-term effects are still being debated (and are beyond the scope of this post).
 There's one moment early in the discussion where White is rapidly explaining how much the world had changed in the quarter-century following WWII. Following the war, the U.S. was by default in the position of providing economic and trading stability to the rest of the world. "Other nations' money might fluctuate in value with the tides of world trade," explains White, "but they would fluctuate only in relation to each other, while at the center stood the U.S. dollar, rigid, its strength firmly socketed in gold."
 By the early 1970s, though, the economic supremacy of the U.S. was no longer quite so unamiguous. Other countries' economies had built back up to the point of being competitive, in part (explains White) because of the U.S. having been generous with aid over those years. "So strong was America in those days that its overpowering investment in science and fundamental research was thrown open to the entire world," writes White, who also notes other forms of civilian aid to foreign countries.
 That's when White uses a poker metaphor to describe the situation, and in fact it's a familiar one to those of us who know our Nixon.
 "Uncle Sam sat like a winning poker player at the head of the table, giving away chips to the losers, even tipping his hand when necessary just to keep the game going," writes White.
 I say this is a familiar comparison, because Nixon himself used this exact analogy in a speech he subsequently gave on September 9, 1971 to the House Chamber at the Capitol in which he addressed the country's economy and its relationship to other countries.
 Like White, Nixon in the speech points out the "nearly $150 billion in foreign aid, economic and military, over the past 25 years" the U.S. had doled out, then turns to talk of how the U.S. "will remain a good and generous nation -- but the time has come to give a new attention to America's own interests here at home."
 "Fifteen years ago a prominent world statesman put this problem that we confronted then in a very effective way," says Nixon. "He commented to me that world trade was like a poker game in which the United States then had all the chips, and that we had to spread them around so that others could play. What he said was true in the 1940's. It was partially true in the fifties and, also, even partially true in the early sixties. It is no longer true today. We have generously passed out the chips. Now others can play on an equal basis -- and we must play the game as we expect and want them to do. We must play, that means, the best we know how. The time has passed for the United States to compete with one hand tied behind her back."
 I'm not completely sure, but I believe the statesman to whom Nixon refers might be Winston Churchill, who did play poker occasionally (including once famously with Harry Truman). (The reference to 15 years before suggests one of RN's meetings with Churchill when Ike's VP.) In any event, it's essentially the same point White makes, although White doesn't quote or allude to the speech to Congress when he makes the analogy (making it seem perhaps as though he'd come up with it on his own).
 Incidentally, Nixon and his aides can be heard on the White House tapes discussing this passage a lot both before and after the speech.
 A couple of days before, Raymond K. Price (a Nixon speechwriter) isn't so sure about it, saying "it's a good image... uh... the poker game," but adding "there would be some people who would think it inappropriate to talk in terms of a poker game." But Nixon responds "it would be inappropriate if Harry Truman did it, but it's not for me. See, most people don't think I play poker."
 This was true. Nixon's poker-playing background wasn't a secret -- in fact, it had been described at length in a Life magazine cover story about "The Young Nixon" in November 1970 -- but it wasn't nearly as well known among most of the public as was Truman's penchant for poker.
 Then after the speech the tapes reveal Charles Colson and Bob Haldeman congratulating him for the speech as a whole and the poker passage in particular. It's a "catch line," as Colson calls it -- that is, a memorable image or metaphor that sticks with the listener and thus conveys the message more effectively. "Even kids understand that," says Haldeman of the reference to having "generously passed out the chips."
 "Kids play games, you know?" says Haldeman. "That's the thing my family was talking about, the chips," adds Colson. "It's vivid and it's illustrative and they understand it... and that hit a hell of a [nerve]."
 "I can't emphasize too strongly about this," Nixon interrupts. "Every damn speech I've made, that what people remember... [you say] 'What the hell do they remember about that speech?' They remember the little stories. They remember the story about the chips, right...? It's the little stories, the illustrations, that people... uh, people love."
 The line does convey the idea, no doubt. It's memorable, too, which is why when reading White I immediately recognized it.
 Image: Richard Nixon Foundation. Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-10871879539939921842016-06-02T18:20:00.001-04:002016-06-02T18:23:16.951-04:00Presidential Candidates Playing Poker

Still dealing with pre-Civil War poker during this week's installment of "Poker & Pop Culture" over on PokerNews. The columns are following a chronological narrative, especially early on, although I imagine once we get to the later 20th century I will open things up a little and not be as attentive to the history-of-the-game side of things.
 With this one I share some details from an entertaining early poker story told by the English actor Joe Cowell in his memoirs. The book was published in 1844, and the story he tells concerns his being introduced to poker aboard a steamboat back in 1829.
 The story is fairly diverting, though it's a digressive reference to Henry Clay by Cowell that I mostly focus on in the article. Cowell repeats the idea that the Kentucky politician actually invented poker. It's an entirely spurious claim although still interesting given the fact that Clay was running for president (the fourth of five tries by Clay, none successful) the very year Cowell published his memoirs.
 I follow the Clay thread a bit to talk about some other likely apocryphal tales of him and fellow politician (and failed presidential candidate) Daniel Webster playing poker against each other, something they certainly did although the stories of their games seem more than a little embellished.
 Reflecting the cultural significance of poker circa the mid-1840s (still a relatively new game), supporters of Clay's opponent, James K. Polk, publicized Clay's poker playing as reason not to vote for the candidate.
 I write more about that in the column, too -- if you're curious, check it out: "Poker & Pop Culture: Heads-Up for Pols -- Henry Clay v. Daniel Webster."
 Images: Daniel Webster (left), painting by Richard Francis Nagle (ca. 1849); Henry Clay (right), painting by Henry F. Darby (ca. 1858) (public domain)
Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-52240494807238982922016-06-01T19:17:00.000-04:002016-06-01T19:24:42.049-04:00Synchronicity

Was up late last night with work, and as I'll sometimes do when that happens I got into one of those YouTube loops of somewhat aimless clicking around.
 Was in the mood for music and so had happened on a few live clips of various bands, then somehow from that path strayed onto the one containing clips documenting the "Dark Side of the Rainbow" -- you know, that phenomenon that didn't really get much traction until the 1990s (if I remember correctly) having to do with the way Pink Floyd's 1973 album Dark Side of the Moon uncannily syncs up with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.
 I suppose that whole thing had to have started with LPs and VHS tapes, though now it's easy enough for anyone to reedit the soundtrack of a film and upload the sucker.
 Like practically everyone of my generation and before, I saw The Wizard of Oz many, many times growing up. It was one of those annual things, shown on the teevee frequently and thus committed to my memory just like it was to many others'. Doubt that's the case so much anymore, perhaps making it a much less conspicuous "text" than it had been before.
 (In fact, in Same Difference I incorporated some running references to Oz, something that likely would have little significance to those unfamiliar with the film or its characters.)
 As a preteen one of the very first LPs I ever got was The Wall, then Dark Side followed shortly thereafter, meaning that, too, is a cultural product I've experienced numerous times -- hundreds, I guess.
 But I'd never actually bothered to check out the whole "Dark Side of the Rainbow" thing, knowing it was essentially just happenstance and not intended by the band in any way. The human mind seizes on repetitions and parallels, sometimes imposing patterns when they aren't really there, if only because of the pleasure and/or comfort they bring. Poker players are perhaps more aware of the existence of this psychological quirk than most.
 Nick Mason, the drummer, had a great quote about it back when it became talked about enough for folks to start asking the band members about it. "It's absolute nonsense," said Mason, echoing what others in Pink Floyd said when asked about there being any intention for the Dark Side of the Moon to be listened to as accompaniment for the film.
 "It has nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz," he added. "It was all based on The Sound of Music."
 Anyhow, I didn't have patience to sit through an entire showing of the film with the LP playing (two-and-a-half times over, necessarily, given the differences in lengths). But I did enjoy a few of the more curious moments that come up, including the way Side 2 begins just as the film switches from black and white to color, the Tin Man's heartbeat, "home, home again" coming back around when Dorothy wakes up at the end, among other fun moments.
 Easily the most affecting stretch, though, is the whole of "The Great Gig in the Sky" which nearly matches the entire tornado sequence during which Dorothy (and Toto) hits her head and blacks out, then the farm house gets picked up and dizzyingly spins through the air in a surreal and scary way before landing just as the song concludes.
 It's an incredibly inspired piece of filmmaking. The song, too, is a marvel I somehow still find moving after all these years. Clare Torry's wordless vocal perfectly articulates the thematic mediation on mortality, or the cycle of life, or whatever else her singing and the tumbling chords underneath makes you think about.
 Meanwhile its aptness to the frightening, chaotic storm in Oz is so obvious, that, too, sends the mind wandering into some interesting places. Watch and see for yourself:

Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-25557456540964146992016-05-31T19:48:00.000-04:002016-05-31T19:55:58.772-04:00Reporting from the 1975 WSOP

Here's something interesting, worth a look here on the eve of another World Series of Poker -- a short video of a televised news item from 1975 filed during that year's WSOP Main Event.
 The clip got passed around a little on Twitter not too long ago, which is how I first saw it. It's from the Associated Press and was first posted on their YouTube channel last summer. The report is interesting in part because there isn't really any other footage from that year's WSOP floating around.
 For a deeper look into the WSOP circa that early era at Binion's, you can see a lot more from the 1973 WSOP in the televised special created that year for its CBS Sports Spectacular weekend show. That entire program is up on YouTube, if you're curious.
 There's a reference at the start of the clip from 1975 to "only 20 men" being able to come up with the $10,000 entry, although in truth there were 21 entered that year. Brian "Sailor" Roberts would be that year's champion, and I believe he can be spotted briefly early on in the video, as can a couple of other early WSOP Main Event winners, Amarillo "Slim" Preston and "Puggy" Pearson.
 The reporter notes the winner-take-all format, the stamina required to play for long periods, and the fact that many of the better players are from Texas.
 Johnny Moss appears briefly, introduced as "the Hank Aaron, Joe Namath, or Jack Nicklaus of World Series Poker." Moss talks about having won the year before (his third WSOP title), then answers a few questions about the tournament.
 "They should let us buy all the checks we want and play three days," opines Moss, suggesting he'd rather not stick with the freezeout tournament format. In fact, it sounds as though he and some of the other players were having a discussion that year about changing things going forward.
 "They gonna do it next year," he continues. "They gonna make this tournament three eight-hour shifts, and buy all the checks you want. Then you'll see millions of dollars."
 Of course, what Moss is describing isn't really so much a tournament at all, but what would be a high-stakes cash game (kind of like they played back at the first WSOP in 1970). As we know, that plan did not come to fruition, as they kept with the freezeout tournament format the following year and every year since.
 It would take a few more years -- not until 1982 -- before the prize pool would exceed $1 million in the WSOP Main Event. The first time the winner took away $1 million would be 1991. Then it wouldn't be too long after that before they could say there really were "millions of dollars" at stake in the event.
 Check it out:

 Photo: "A group of players outside of Binion's Horseshoe in 1974." CC BY 3.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-51099560603578248262016-05-30T14:04:00.001-04:002016-05-30T14:09:14.840-04:00Watching the Super High Roller Bowl

I actually had Day 1 of the 2016 Super High Roller Bowl on from start-to-finish yesterday.
 Took a little while for the live stream to work out the kinks during the first hour or so, but the PokerCentral channel finally got up to speed and I had it on the teevee via the Roku. Then starting at 7 p.m. ET I switched over to the CBS Sports Network (which I rarely watch but thankfully get) and left it running all night until 3 a.m.
 That's not to say I paid close attention every step of the way, and indeed I think that would have been hard to do even for dedicated televised poker watchers. But I watched a lot, generally enjoying the show and tolerating well enough all of those Dollar Shave Club commercials.
 We've been listening to Ali Nejad do poker play-by-play for a decade now, and he was solid as usual. Nick Schulman was doing commentary as well. I haven't heard him do a lot before, but he was an absolute natural (I thought), very funny and quick with Nejad while also giving good analysis, often smartly directed toward a wide audience.
 Interestingly, a $300K buy-in "super" high roller doesn't really provide all that much novelty anymore. Or excitement, even, given how common six-figure buy-in events have become since they first started cropping up in early 2011. But this free-to-play "MVMT Million Dollar Final Table Challenge" game being put on by PokerCentral and MVMT watches has added an extra incentive to follow this one, even if the challenge being presented by the contest is all but impossible to meet.
 You probably heard about it. Seven players will cash in this tournament, splitting a $15 million prize pool with $5 milly going to the winner. For those who entered the contest, guessing all seven cashers correctly -- in order -- wins a $1 million prize. (No shinola.) And if no one gets that, the closest to doing so wins $10,000, with the top 25 getting fancy watches.
 Sure, as Fedor Holz (one of the players who I've picked to make my final table) joked on Twitter yesterday, "Don't miss the 0,000006$ EV and bet the Final Table order in this 300k @PokerCentral #SuperHighRollerBowl #value." Even so, the game added a bit of fun to watching, and the ability to change your line-up at the end of Day 1 (and jettison those who had already busted) enables that to continue into today for most who are playing along.
 Just for fun, I pulled together an article on Friday for PokerNews titled "Finding a Million-Dollar Strategy for Picking the Super High Roller Bowl Winners." I didn't really pretend to present a sure-fire strategy for playing what is mostly a lottery-like contest, but rather went through and gave a history of sorts for all 49 players in events with buy-ins of $100K or more. That is to say, I shared how many times each had cashed in such events before (or not, as some never have), not being able to share also how many times the players had entered super high rollers.
 I then picked a final table comprised of dudes who'd gotten to the money in these things many times. Two of my original picks -- Scott Seiver and Isaac Haxton -- didn't make it to today's second day of play, and so before the window closed to change picks I swapped them out for Timofey Kuznetsov and Daniel Negreanu (both of whom finished Day 1 with big stacks).
 Looking at past super high rollers seems as good a way as any to play a game like this. I was just reading this afternoon an ESPN article by Bill Barnwell discussing tonight's Game 7 between the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder (which is going to interrupt my SHRB viewing for certain). He essentially did something similar, going back through history and looking for examples of teams who like OKC blew Game 6 leads in which they'd have clinched series (both in basketball and baseball), then seeing how they did in Game 7s.
 In truth I think the only people who can truly handicap something like this are the players themselves, as they know more than anyone the relative skill level and potential for success of those who are participating.
 Anyhow, that's my card up top. Wish me -- and those seven guys listed above -- luck.
Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-47435310980526959392016-05-27T16:44:00.000-04:002016-05-29T17:02:15.413-04:00Cutting to the Chase

I have a birthday coming up, although it is still just over two weeks away. Meanwhile last weekend Vera and I hosted a party here at the farm -- something I mentioned here a week ago we were about to do.
 While it wasn't really a birthday party, it sort of was treated as one given the proximity of the date. By which I mean there was cake and some singing, and my seven-year-old nephew hilariously yelling out with incredulity when he learned just how old his uncle is going to be. There was also a gift for your humble scribbler, a really nice one -- a big, commercial grade zero turn riding mower.
 We have 15 acres here, and while we mow the pastures with the tractor (attaching a mower), that still leaves more than half of that to take care of in other ways. I'd been using a John Deere riding mower, a fine machine but not really enough for so much mowing.
 I sometimes joke that I have to mow "the whole nine yards" because there are almost that many yard-sized areas that need taking caring of, and with the John Deere I basically was always having to start over again every time I got to the end of mowing everything.
 Anyhow, the new mower -- a Ferris -- was a complete surprise, set up by Vera with practically everyone except me knowing it was going to be delivered at the party last weekend. The timing (three weeks before my birthday) helped with the surprise, as I surely wasn't expecting anything.
 This week I've already mowed most of the property with it, with the increased speed, the wider cut, and the ability to make that turn-on-a-dime reducing the time at least in half, and in fact probably more than that.
 I realized after finishing up one of the large sections yesterday how the new mower made it so easy it also (almost) cut into that sense of satisfaction that would come after having cut the lawn before (something I wrote about here once a while back).
 Almost feels like looking up the answer to some problem -- say, a poker-related query -- rather than figuring it out on your own. Or watching just the highlights of a game rather than the whole thing, cutting to the chase (as it were).
 Then again, even with the big mower, it's still work. And frankly, it only frees me up time-wise to do more work on the farm, of which there really is no end. Which isn't such a bad thing -- more problems to solve, things to get done, satisfaction to be had.
Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-60752650278096103172016-05-26T22:48:00.000-04:002016-05-27T18:25:53.310-04:00Don't Egg Me On

More than 10 years ago, I picked the name of this blog along with a pseudonym -- "Short-Stacked Shamus" -- and at the time both the blog and the persona resided firmly within a poker-only world.
 As such, most who came across either "Hard-Boiled Poker" or that nom de scribble at least had some idea what they meant. "Short-stacked" was a clear enough adjective for poker players, and while not everyone knew what a "shamus" was, it wasn't difficult to bring up the genre of hard-boiled detective novels and films as a kind of thematic inspiration.
 Now both the blog and the "Shamus" name exist outside of poker, too, which means I find myself in spots where I'm explaining the name of the blog (or "SSS") to people who aren't familiar with either poker or detective stories. The fact that I (crazily) use "shortstackedshamus" as part of my primary email address doesn't help matters, either.
 It all can be a little humorous, sometimes, especially when the "hard-boiled" adjective is first understood as having something to do with eggs.
 It is a weird adjective, if you think about it, meant to convey the "hardness" or tough-natured quality of the characters populating those stories of crime and corruption. The protagonists -- guys like Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe or Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and the Continental Op -- are forced to deal with the worst examples of humans behavior while remaining somehow unmoved or impervious.
 Thinking of eggs, though, couldn't be further removed, in terms of what they suggest. Even hard-boiled eggs are pretty easy to smash, and when you get to the jelly-like whites and crumbly yolks they are kind of the opposite of hard.
 Eggs don't have a lot to do with poker, either. Unless, of course, we're talking about eggsposed cards. Or eggspected value.
 Okay, those were both pretty bad. Rotten, even. Really laid an egg there. Boy, do I have egg on my face. But hey, you can't make an omelet without....
Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-34179872675060035732016-05-25T17:28:00.000-04:002016-05-27T17:10:30.814-04:00Green's Anti-Gambling Crusade

This week's "Poker & Pop Culture" column over on PokerNews is mostly focused on a fellow named Jonathan Harrington Green, a 19th-century card player and gambler who is best known for having championed a lengthy anti-gambling effort during the middle decades of the 1800s.
 Green wrote a number of books warning readers against the horrors of gambling. In the column I primarily discuss the first one, published in 1843 with the title An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling; Designed Especially as a Warning to the Youthful and Inexperienced Against the Evils of That Odious and Destructive Vice.
 Prior to becoming a anti-gambling proponent, Green was himself a gambler and "card sharp" for a dozen years, and so brings a certain degree of first-hand experience to his warnings about the relatively new game of poker and the chance of encountering cheating (or worse) at the tables.
 He refers to himself as a "reformed gambler," and indeed his nominal purpose going forward is to reform his readers and society at large, dissuading us all from "that odious and destructive vice." A fairly conspicuous additional purpose is to sell books and make money, and in fact Green's titles sold quite well, with several going through multiple editions.
 Green also gave lecture tours to support his books, something I mention in passing in the column but don't delve into that deeply. James McManus shares the story of Green's lectures in Cowboys Full, including how Green used a bit of deceit in order to "demonstrate" to audiences that all decks of cards were marked, thus making the game fundamentally unfair to the unaware.
 Drawing on a story told by Henry Chafetz in his history of gambling, McManus tells how Green would send an audience member from his lecture to buy a deck of cards and bring it to him, and he'd then "read" the backs of the cards to show the audience how cheaters worked. Only Green actually used a "shiner" or small mirror in order to identify the cards -- i.e., he didn't have to rely on any markings.
 "In other words," writes McManus, "he was making himself rich and famously righteous by fixing the evidence that all card games were fixed."
 Like I say, I left that part of the story out of the discussion, while also omitting other stories by Green about early poker games (for the sake of brevity). But the point gets made well enough, I hope, about Green's crusade, as well as about how even in some of the earliest references to poker, the game was viewed as corrupt and a potential source of trouble for those who played it.
 If you're curious, check it out: "Poker & Pop Culture: A Game That Is Immensely Destructive."
 Image: An Exposure of the Arts and Miseries of Gambling (title page, second edition), Jonathan Harrington Green, public domain.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-34810022954631208032016-05-24T20:29:00.000-04:002016-05-25T20:43:40.013-04:00Summer's Coming

The World Series of Poker gets started in a little over a week, with the first of 69 bracelet events starting on June 1 (the $565 buy-in Casino Employees Event).
 I watched that "Twitch Town Hall" last week hosted by the WSOP "brass" (as my buddy Mo Nuwwarah likes to refer to them). To be honest, I had it on but ended up getting distracted by other things as the sound was muddy and it was occasionally hard to follow. Seems to be a common thing on Twitch when folks don't use microphones but rather just the internal mics in laptops. (It is often listenable enough with earbuds, but I don't always want to use those.)
 I did pick up on the fact that they were answering a lot of questions about this year's "Colossus" (or "Colossus II," as they're dubbing it), mostly to do with registration concerns. Sounds like they think it'll be even bigger than the 22,374-entry field from last year, which is nuts.
 There was other stuff having to do with the WSOPE and WSOP APAC (both up in the air, it sounds like), the WSOP POY and the GPI working on a better formula, the earlier start times, Uber, All-American Dave, and so on. But nothing huge to get excited or bothered about, from what I could tell.
 There will be some good stories again this summer, as there always are. The whole enterprise has definitely grown to the point now that it feels more like a big lumbering machine -- even more so than just five or seven years ago, I think. And with all of the other tours circling the globe to keep each week -- each day, even -- filled with tourney talk, the WSOP has definitely become less central, though still unique.
 Photo: "Temperature," Jan. CC BY 2.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-91842828960595810492016-05-23T21:21:00.000-04:002016-05-24T11:35:13.450-04:00WSOP-Related Reads on PokerNews

A few good reads over on PokerNews today, IMHO (as they say). All have something to do with the 2016 World Series of Poker, which starts in just about a week.
 For one there's the first part of PN's annual predictions for the upcoming World Series of Poker, where I'm chiming in along with several others. We give thoughts about 10 different questions in this part, with more to come.
 We guess who will win WSOP POY, who will win various marquee events, opine about how various pros will do, and weigh in as well on this question of whether or not Howard Lederer and/or Chris Ferguson will turn up at the Rio this summer.
 I'm more or less okay with my predictions in this part, though I'm less confident about some of the ones I ventured in the second part. In any case, check out "2016 World Series of Poker Predictions, Part 1: Will Ferguson or Lederer Return?" and compare your own ideas about what's going to happen this summer.
 Two good strategy articles additionally went up today, also both relevant to the upcoming WSOP.
 One is by Darrel Plant, who took a close look at the structures for the low buy-in events at this year's WSOP and saw the early levels go much faster this time versus last year. The $565 buy-in Colossus gets most of the focus, and what Darrel has to say should be pretty interesting (and useful) to those playing in that one.
 See "Playing the Colossus? Structure Changes to Early Levels Make Fast Start Crucial."
 Also, our friend Robert Woolley, a.k.a. the "Poker Grump," wrote what I think has to be the first strategy article I've seen that specifically focuses on seniors events such as the $1K one the WSOP has for players aged 50 and up.
 Check it out: "Thinking of a Seniors Event? Tips to Make it Fun and Profitable."
 Photo: courtesy PokerNews. Short-Stacked Shamushttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-20799499260305180662016-05-20T20:55:00.000-04:002016-05-22T19:03:36.484-04:00"Poker Twitter"

Spent the day taking care of the usual business while also readying the farm for a get-together tomorrow where we'll be hosting a lot of family and friends. It's kind of turned into an annual thing here every spring, a fun way to get everyone together, eat some barbecue, and just relax.
 Had too much to do to spend that much time following the Twitter stuff today, but I noticed enough to see the some of the griping back and forth in anticipation of the World Series of Poker (which gets started in a little over a week). A lot of personal beefs being played out before an audience again, with the WSOP also getting in there and bothering people with some of its tweets, too (as they've done before).
 You've probably heard our friend Kevmath has been hired by the WSOP to take over their Twitter account starting May 31, finally officially being awarded a job he's been handling on his own for years. I don't envy Kevmath the task he's taken on, although I've no doubt he's going to do it well.
 I was thinking today about one of the conversations I was having with my buds at LAPT Panama about social media -- Twitter, specifically -- and how often those who interact on there misinterpret others' meanings or intentions, fail to appreciate context (or irony/sarcasm), or otherwise misread each other, often leading to the spectacle-creating argument and vitriol we're so used to seeing scroll past.
 I made an observation -- perhaps insightful, perhaps not -- that since poker is a game full of misdirection and purposefully misleading plays, actions, and/or verbal exchanges, it's only natural for "poker Twitter" (as it were) to be full of the same sort of challenges to clear, direct communication.
 I've made that observation here on the blog before how some treat Twitter like a game, viewing others as like opponents with whom to battle over some unspecified prize. I guess this point is a slightly different one, as I don't think everyone engaging in "poker Twitter" looks at it as a contest. Rather (I'm suggesting) I think it might be more likely than not that poker people are going to be less than direct with their communications in public (such as over Twitter), busy as they often are with building images and looking for edges.
 Dunno if that point is clear or not, but I guess it can be summarized as a general recommendation to take pretty much everything you read over "poker Twitter" with a grain of salt, if you can, and not react too quickly without looking a little further into context and or intention. Also know you don't always have to call or raise, even if you're pretty sure someone's probably bluffing.
 I think Kevmath has good instincts in that regard, which'll help him once the barrage of questions (and criticisms, probably) come his way starting at the end of the month.
 Me? I'm just hoping it doesn't rain tomorrow. That's all. No, really... no hidden message or irony. Let's just have some sunshine!
 Image: "Twitter icon," Jurgen Appelo. CC BY 2.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-27238395.post-85674677935460870742016-05-19T22:46:00.000-04:002016-05-20T10:49:08.129-04:00Lederer's Mea Culpa

So Howard Lederer today -- today (!) -- issued an "apology" for the whole Full Tilt Poker 1.0 fiasco shared via Daniel Negreanu's blog over on Full Contact Poker.
 As it happens, earlier this week the player pool at Full Tilt Poker 2.0 was at last combined with that of PokerStars, both sites being currently owned by Amaya Gaming. That's actually coincidental, though, as Lederer has no connection to the new Full Tilt other than having been among those who named the site long ago.
 No, the timing of the apology rather has to do with the World Series of Poker beginning in just a week-and-a-half, or at least that seems the most likely explanation for it. Lederer is now admitting both to having made mistakes pre-Black Friday and not owning up to his culpability afterwards in what appears to be an attempt to pave the way for his return to the WSOP, something Negreanu alludes to as well in his contextual commentary on the statement.
 You can read the statement yourself and decide how genuine the apology seems. You might also note how it mostly avoids any sort of particulars with regard to the mismanagement of player funds, Lederer's own prominant role with FTP right up until and after Black Friday, and the way he still weirdly seems to portray himself as a victim of sorts while nominally accepting blame.
 As far as Lederer's playing at the Rio this summer goes, the WSOP reserves the right to refuse anyone the ability to participate in their events, and so it is technically up to them. I don't necessarily see any legitimate argument for not allowing Lederer to play, but perhaps others might.
 That said, I can't imagine most are going to be all that enthusiastic about Lederer playing. He himself notes in his statement, "Players were not able to get their money back for a minimum of a year and a half, and, for many, it has been much longer. I've been a poker player my entire adult life. I know the importance of having access to one's bankroll."
 In other words, thanks to Lederer's own mismanagement and lack of oversight, he (and others) significantly damaged the careers of thousands of poker players -- indeed, in many cases, ended those careers altogether. Who could possibly be eager now to compete with such a person at the poker table -- i.e., to have such a person (again) do what he can to try to keep others from winning money at poker?
 That's what I think about here -- not just Lederer playing in WSOP events, but winning in them by cashing. Who could possibly be enthused by that prospect? (I even wonder how much Lederer himself would enjoy it.) Reminds me a little of what happens when men who choose to play in ladies events make the money, and the unpleasant feeling that results. What has been won, exactly?
 If Lederer is not angling for a WSOP return, then, well, the gesture perhaps has some, small meaning. If he is, though, that only makes the much-delayed apology seem more empty and without significance than it already is -- another mostly self-serving act, following a long, long sequence of them.
 Photo: "Sorry," Timothy Brown. CC BY 2.0.Short-Stacked Shamushttp://firstname.lastname@example.com


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Help Desk Analyst Jobs in England
Jobs 1 to 15 of 26
IT Helpdesk Analyst - London - £30,000 - 40,000
Montash has been retained by a recognised global organisation that is looking for an IT Helpdesk Analyst to work as part of their Helpdesk Support team. The focus of the role will be to provide 1st line support for the IT function of internal employees which will involve remediating incidents...
London -
Montash Associates
Salary: £30000 - £40000 per annum + benefitsPosted: 8 days ago
1st/2nd Line Helpdesk Analyst - Windows/Exchange - Staffs -£21K
Job Title: 1st / 2nd Line Helpdesk Analyst... Location: Staffordshire. Description: 1st/2nd Line Support/Windows/Exchange £19-21K. Job type: Permanent. Due to rapid expansion, an exciting opportunity has arisen in a Market Leading Company, based in East Staffordshire, easily commutable from Birmingham, Ashby-de-la-Zouch & Tamworth who urgently...
Staffordshire -
Salary: £19000 - £21000 per annum + BenefitsPosted: 21 days ago
2nd Line Helpdesk Analyst
Job Title: 2nd Line Helpdesk Analyst... Location: Staffordshire. Description: 1st/2nd Line Support/Windows/Exchange 21-25K. Job type: Permanent. Due to rapid expansion, an exciting opportunity has arisen in a Market Leading Company, based in East Staffordshire, easily commutable from Birmingham, Ashby-de-la-Zouch & Tamworth who urgently requires...
Staffordshire -
Salary: £21000 - £25000 per annum + BenefitsPosted: 21 days ago
Helpdesk Support Analyst (Windows, Server, Exchange) - £22,500
You will be working in a busy Help Desk environment with the aim of solving and escalating technical problems. Requirements: Helpdesk Support Analyst (Windows, Server, Exchange) Do you have perfect English communication skills? Have you got knowledge of Windows 7 onwards? Can you demonstrate knowledge of SharePoint and Exchange? Are...
Gatwick -
Ampersand Consulting
Salary: £22500 per annum + BenefitsPosted: 8 days ago
Helpdesk Call Analyst
This company is looking for Helpdesk Call Analysts to support their clients who are based throughout various countries. You will be part of their busy Helpdesk team based at their Head Office in Nottingham. What are they like to work for? They provide IT solutions for retailers who are looking...
Nottingham -
Recruitment Genius Ltd
Posted: 15 days ago
IT Helpdesk Analyst - Desktop Support - The Shard
Administer the IT Helpdesk system to ITIL best practice... - Administer and maintain the Active Directory and MS Exchange users and groups... - Administer and maintain Avaya IP phone system... Ideally 3-4 years - Good knowledge and troubleshooting skills in Windows XP and 7 - Active Directory - DNS and DHCP - Exchange Server 2007 -...
South East London -
Salary: plus excellent company benefitsPosted: 27 days ago
IT Helpdesk Analyst / 1st Line Support x2
Experience in first line support of Server and Workstation software, Client OS (Windows XP, 7), Server OS (Windows Server 2003, 2008, 2012), SQL Server (2000, 2005, 2008, 2012), Remote Access Software (Pc Anywhere, Dameware, WebEx and VNC), Diagnostic tools (eg Perfmon, Event Viewer) Good problem solving skills... DESIRABLE SKILLS: ITIL...
Hull, North Humberside -
Go IT Recruitment Ltd
Salary: From £18,000 to £21,000 per annum + 25 days holiday, BUPA, Life assuraPosted: Yesterday
1st / 2nd Line Helpdesk Analyst Tamworth, Staffordshire
Our client, a household name are based in East Staffordshire, easily commutable from Birmingham, Ashby-de-la-Zouch & Tamworth and urgently require an ambitious IT Support Analyst to join their IT Operations Team. You will be providing telephone and remote access support for their corporate clients on a range of...
Tamworth, Staffordshire -
Aria Select Ltd
Salary: From £19,000 to £21,000 per annumPosted: 6 days ago
ServiceDesk/ Helpdesk Analyst (Windows, Office, Exchange)
This ServiceDesk/ Helpdesk Support Analyst (Windows, Office, Exchange) will have exceptional communication skills and a background in Helpdesk and 1st line positions... Requirements: ServiceDesk/ Helpdesk Support Analyst (Windows, Office, Exchange) Do you have perfect English communication skills? Have you got knowledge of Windows 7 onwards?... Are you well-versed in...
Coventry, West Midlands (County) -
Ampersand Consulting
Salary: £17500 per annum + BenefitsPosted: 6 days ago
Telecom / Helpdesk Support Analyst -Mobile,Tablet & Telephony support
Marcus Donald are working alongside one of the largest property servicing companies in London, who are moving forward with changes in their telecoms infrastructure, moving to 4G smartphones, iPads, Bring your own device (BYOD) and VOIP... Everything from selecting the latest handsets, solving access problems, and working with vendors to...
South West London -
Marcus Donald People
Salary: £22000 - £26000 per annumPosted: 6 days ago
SharePoint Analyst (Service Desk/Helpdesk)
SharePoint, Helpdesk, Service Desk, Lotus Notes... * Provide helpdesk support for all SharePoint and Lotus Notes users via telephone and email... * Configure and administrate SharePoint and Lotus Notes as required... Technical Competencies & Behaviours (Values) Technical: * Excellent technical understanding of SharePoint 2010/2013... * Good Microsoft Excel skills... * Lotus Notes 6.5 experience...
Bromley, Kent -
Hays Finance Technology
Rate: £200.00 - £250.00 per dayPosted: 6 days ago
Helpdesk Analyst - 1st and 2nd Line Support - Kingston, Surrey
My client is looking for a personable and friendly Helpdesk Support Technician that has studied IT or Computer Science at university or college and that has gained some additional commercial user support experience... Exposure to ITIL best practices would be beneficial. Troubleshooting experience across Windows platforms; Windows 7, 8.1...
Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey -
Ashdown IT
Salary: £22000 - £25000 per annum + benefitsPosted: 6 days ago
2nd Line Helpdesk Analyst
To have experience in maintaining networking typologies and Windows XP/7 operating systems... - Deal with common network connectivity issues (2003/08/12 Server, Active Directory, CISCO environment)... - Provide support to Blackberry, iPhone and mobile phone users including using Blackberry Enterprise Server and handset configuration... - Candidate must have proven experience in...
East London -
Complete Tech Limited
Salary: Up to £27,000 per annum + benefitsPosted: 6 days ago
Graduate/Junior IT Support Analysts / Helpdesk Engineers x 2
Commutable from Bristol, Bath, Trowbridge, Weston-Super-Mare, Chippenham, Swindon. Keywords: Junior, Support, Helpdesk, A leading organisation in the Bristol/Bath area requires a number of Junior IT Support Analysts to join its growing team. Suitable candidates will ideally hold a relevant IT qualification and will be looking for a...
Bristol, Avon -
Redrock Consulting Ltd
Salary: £18000 - £24000 per annum + Excellent BenefitsPosted: 4 days ago
Help Desk Analyst 1st/2nd Line, AD/Exchange C30k
The Help Desk Analyst will be responsible for responding to 1st & 2nd line support issues such as user access to enterprise applications and/or server and network infrastructure, 2nd line analysis of support tickets in the queue and escalation of issues to desktop support teams, infrastructure teams and application support...
Crawley, West Sussex -
Salary: £26000 - £30000 Per Annum + Bonus + Excellent BenefitsPosted: 4 days ago
Help Desk Analyst Jobs in England


text:
200 Hyderabadi workers stranded in Saudi ArabiaHYDERABAD: Around 4,500 Indians, including 200 Hyderabadis, employed with Saudi Binladin Group (SBG), a construction conglomerate in Saudi Arabia, have been stranded in the country and their salaries have not been plaid for the last six months. With ... New Indian Express, 5 hours ago
Stranded in Saudi, 3 Malakpet girls yet to return home - New Indian Express, 2 weeks ago
37 images for hyderabadi
CM hosts well-attended Iftar at Nizam college grounds
Hyderabad, Jun 26 (UNI) Telangana Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao hosted Dawat-e-Iftar on the sprawling Nizam College grounds here this evening. Deputy Chief Minister Mahamood Ali, Union Minister of State for Labour Bandaru Dattatreya, several ...United News of India, 15 hours ago
Colourful Yemeni lungis fly off the shelves in pearl city
HYDERABAD: While the colourful lungi is fast disappearing giving way to the trendy Bermudas, the casual wear is making a comeback among certain communities in Pearl City. Sale of imported Yemeni lungis or Futah (also called Izaar in Saudi Arabia) ...New Indian Express, 1 day ago
DeathRap: Toast to the Deccani shaan
DeathRap band captures the spirit of the Deccani dialect through their music Deccani Hai Apni Shaan, Hyderabad Meri Jaan is a line from the one of the most popular numbers of DeathRap, a band comprising the rapper duo Abdul Moeed and Moiz ...The Hindu, 1 day ago
Monsoon travel tempts Hyderabadis
HYDERABAD: With the monsoon setting in, many young Hyderabadis are packing their bags and heading out of the city. While Mizoram, Sikkim and Meghalaya remain the most sought after destinations for scenic treks, Himachal Pradesh is also gaining ...Times of India, 2 days ago With choked drains, bad roads, Hyderabad braces for monsoon fury New Indian Express, 3 days ago Travel firm rapped for cancelling foreign tour, handing out bounced cheques New Indian Express, 1 week ago Friday's mayhem was a pre-monsoon occurrence, not cyclone: met New Indian Express, 1 month ago
More from: , New Indian Express...and 1 other sources
Ramadan shopping in Hyderabad
June 19, 2016 Hyderabad, Photos Leave a comment People throng near Historical Charminar which has special Bazaar for Ramazan that keeps open till 2-3 am to cater to the shopping frenzy of Hyderabadis in the night.Siasat Daily, 1 week ago Ramadan bazaar in Old City in Hyderabad Siasat Daily, 1 week ago Garment shopping in Old City of Hyderabad Siasat Daily, 1 week ago Taraveeh Siasat Daily, 2 weeks ago
Get to savour the goodies our royals ate
Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi recreates the culinary favourites of Kashmiri Dogras, Travancore kings, Hyderabad Nizams and Rajasthan's Mewars. Long forgotten delicacies that were once relished by the erstwhile kings, maharajas and nizams of India ...The Hindu, 3 days ago From Nawabi Murgh to Noori Hyderabadi Biryani: Discovering the lost recipes of the royals of India Indian Express, 1 week ago Recreating lost recipes from the royal kitchens Sunday Guardian Live, 1 week ago Find culinary extravaganza in 'lost recipes of the royals of India' Yahoo! India, 1 week ago
Food: Ramzan Special Dish: Haleem, the Slow Cooked Meaty Speciality
Image Credit: www.silverspoononline.com During the month of Ramzan , the biggest crowds are to be seen outside Hyderabad's Pista House, purveyor of all manner of baked goods and lavish Hyderabadi dishes. But what it is most famous for is its haleem ...NDTV, 3 days ago Demand for 'Hyderabadi Haleem' Shoots Up During Ramzan Season News18.com, 1 week ago Rana Daggubati to gorge on Ramzan delicacies at hometown Hyderabad Mid Day, 2 weeks ago Six things about Hyderabadi haleem that will make you drool Livemint.com, 2 weeks ago
More from: , DAWN Group...and 3 other sources
IT sector's growth propelling Hyderabad realty
HYDERABAD: How is the sentiment in Hyderabad real estate sector now? It is certainly positive. The sector, which witnessed a slump in the past few years has recovered. The positive mood is palpable among developers and home buyers. What are the ...New Indian Express, 1 week ago Hyderabad set for Snooker fest Deccan Chronicle, 1 week ago This Ramadan, break fast with the appetising haleem Malay Mail, 2 weeks ago Fun on the discovery walk-Hyderabad trails The Hindu, 2 weeks ago
Recipe: Mirchi ka Salan
Roxanne Bamboat shares the recipe of popular Hyderabadi curry served as a side dish with Hyderabadi Briyani. Ingredients 100 grams peanuts 50 grams sesame seeds 50 grams desiccated coconut ( grated coconut ) 1.5 to 2 tbsp. oil 1 onion ...Times of India, 3 days ago Haleem: How Hyderabad cafes made a Muharram dish synonymous with Ramadan Dhaka Tribune, 2 weeks ago How haleem conquered Hyderabadi hearts The Hindu, 2 weeks ago Restaurants dishing out new biz opportunities for Ramzan Hindu Business Line, 2 weeks ago
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