The Poker Project (playing and writing about poker in the U.S.)

It reminds me a lot in the Yukon/AKA the Land of the North, where peeps are stuck in time and do not change easily nor willingly their habits... So anyhow, because most are used to playing a 1-2 nlhe game (but with an uncapped buy-in), even when the game essentially becomes a 10-25 shove fest with certain players buying in for 5-20k a clip, the blinds remain at 1-2 😮:shocked:🙄

by bob_124 k

Not sure if I mentioned this itt, but I've been co-hosting a poker podcast, and one of the episodes is with

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/19-eric-vogel/id1674014548?i=1000648362718

Apple Podcasts

#19: Eric Vogel

, an accomplished bassist + grinder. You might enjoy our convo—I remember talking a good bit about the Nola music scene.

Hope your own grind is going well! Still waiting on a new PGC

That podcast on Eric Vogel hit the spot; impressed by how he makes the trading/music/poker schedule work, although I'd like a tad more sleep than him. His response to the criticism of Frenchman St (i.e., supposed Disneyfication) was measured. I'd hate to think it's become too much like Bourbon St, but the high density of musicians in Nola probably means it won't in the long term (I'm sure this issue gets the blood going in the local music community, though). We have different issues in Melbourne (licencing of music venues, gentrification, the cost of insurance and security, etc., all of which results in musicians only getting crumbs for playing, a classic zero-sum scenario).

on a similar note, some recent table talk concerned the dearth of good beat stories. Pretty much anything better than bad-beat tales of woe!

gamblers gonna gamble

glad to hear it Dr.! I think if you came back to Nola now, you'd recognize a lot of the same dynamics as when you were last here in 2015/16, but things are gradually getting worse. Frenchmen is no Bourbon, but it's definitely Disneyfied. Just another nail in the city's coffin, but you bedda believe we'll be

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/articles/how-to-plan-for-inevitable-disaster

WNYC Studios

How to Plan for Inevitable Disaster | On the Media | WNYC Studios

Red Chip Hell

I’m at the Horseshoe Las Vegas in a true $1/3 game, not the uberdeepstackstravanganza that you find across Texas and the Gulf South, no, not even close, this is $300 max. A new guy takes the 1 Seat and bumps it to $10 from the button, a talkative nitty guy in a gray cap limp-calls from utg. Flop Q99, check, the button bets 10, call. Turn brick, check, another $10 bet. For a few moments the 3 Seat tanks; he has $69 bucks left. “Slow and painful,” the button says, “little by little.”

This is the sort of game that, if I was permanently restricted to it, I would quit poker. Little by little, I would lose heart.

For a little while I sip afternoon coffee and settle into the flow of the cards. A few hours earlier, I’d been sitting in the Nola airport at 4:30 am, flipping through Tom McEvoy’s new autobiography. If anything, the book is too honest: whether he’s talking about poker legends or ex-girlfriends, no punches are pulled. I found it a worthwhile skim.

Thirty minutes into my first Vegas sesh—I’ll be here for five days—I table-change to play with a friend and, despite getting scolded by the dealer for leaving a shorthanded game, I regret nothing. The vibe’s better here, and the stacks are a tad deeper. Sitting in the 8 Seat is a guy who looks and sounds like John Malkovich—or actually, like Teddy KGB with his ridiculous Russian accent. He’s near-bald with some gray chin-stubble and thick brown nerd glasses. A pair of black Chums droops down his neck, mingling with a white headphone cord that falls from his left ear.

And yes, he’s wearing a manbag.

Between conversation he taps on two phones that rest on the rail. I can’t see very well from the other side of the table, but apparently one is for grinding and the other is for grinding. Someone asks how many games he’s playing. “Four,” he answers, and then, nodding at the second phone: “It’s not the games that are the problem. It’s when I have to answer urgent responses." He pauses and adds dryly: "If I don’t respond, portions of my body will be chopped off.”

Our pink-haired dealer gets up to leave, not long after she quizzes the table.

Do you know what they call slots?

Reverse ATMS.

“Thank you my darling,” Teddy says as she leaves. “always good to see you.”

Spoiler

Show

praying for a 2p2 luminary to pop in and answer this question!

Jack the Rat

Tuesday afternoon and I’m in a ballroom at the Wynn, “covering” the $10,000 WPT Main Event. I’m not doing much more than snapping pics of a few Gulf Coasters and availing myself of free coffee and wifi. And yet, despite my irrelevance, I feel a heightened sense of purpose. Just a few minutes earlier, as I was walking down the plush hallway festooned with WPT swag, a beautiful woman in a sparkling gold dress asked me if I wanted to sign up for some prize or raffle drawing. “This is your last day to get lucky!” she crooned, for probably the gazillionth time. I politely shook my head, and as I turned the corner put my media badge around my neck. It had been so long that I’d forgotten the great benefit of a badge: people treat don’t treat you like a customer.

It's the beginning of Day 2. The plan is for the field to play until the bubble bursts around 10 pm. I carefully walk between table after table of chip-shuffling cardplayers—fifty tables? Eighty? I don’t bother to count—and set up my laptop at an empty ballroom table lining the wall. Everywhere you look, cardplayers are doing what cardplayers do. Directly in front of me, Landon Tice is scrolling his phone and chip-shuffling with a pro’s lazy arrogance. One table away, a masseuse is gently kneading a man’s lower back, his blue jeans sagging to reveal ample butt crack. She’s attractive with long brown hair falling down the back of a shirt that reads ♦♠♥♣ MASSAGE; he’s chubby, wearing shades and a black ball cap and shirt. She presses both palms into his lower back, pressing, sliding, caressing, planting both feet.

Spoiler

Show

NSFW

Spoiler

Show

Among the two dozen tables in my quadrant I count five masseuses, all women, tending to a room filled with men. My mind wanders. I remember a YouTube video rec that I only watched 30 seconds of, a Ted Talk in which a former sex worker talks about men’s need for intimacy, for touch, and it seems to me that massages are a socially acceptable way to to purchase intimacy.

On the WPT live updates page I copy and paste details of players I’m keeping tabs on:

241-6 Daniel Jones - 545,000
323-2 Walker Miskelly - 175,000
335-7 Matthew Higgins - 414,000
354-7 Corey Harrison - 189,000
424-5 Preston McEwen - 579,000
445-4 Mo Nuwwarah - 432,000
513-5 Stephen Bierman - 635,000

I leave my workstation, stroll through the playing area, and snap a few pics of the main reason I’m in Vegas, a good Nola buddy who’d won a seat to the WPT Freeroll and then, after mincashing it, pulled an envelope that awarded him an entry in this very tournament. He’s recently re-caught the poker bug and, thanks to Marc Goone’s content and boot camp, has turned himself into quite the Hungry Stallion. He texts me and another buddy:

12 minutes and have already 3bet twice 😆
Won them both yeaaahhhhh

Yesssssssssss, I reply. After snapping a few pics—he’s wearing long brown hair and a green cargo shirt—I fire off a text to Hungry’s wife on his progress. He’s doing great! We got a nice breakfast this morning and he seems comfortable now. Tournaments are a long slow grind—this will go on for days, and the longer you last the more you win.

In another quadrant, I spot Steve. He’s got heaps. I circle slowly around the tables, trying to stay out of Steve’s view so that he's less conscious of a scrutinizing audience, trying to avoid being the reason that he breaks concentration. He’s wearing an LSU hat and a Pels hoodie. He leaves his seat, tells me about his table, asks me if I’m enjoying myself. And I am, it’s fun to briefly hop back into the saddle.

On the break Steve and I prepare to do a lap. I ask him if he minds waiting a minute for Hungry. “As long as he walks fast,” Steve says. “I gotta get my heart rate up.”

The three of us speedwalk through the Wynn’s swanky hallways, talking about hands and players. After the break, I return to my workstation. The same guy is getting a massage. The masseuse is kneading his neck now, applying some lotion to her right hand, using both hands to squeeze his neck muscles. His asscrack is still exposed, but only slightly.

A player walks past, carefully carrying two racks of chips and a coffee cup to his new seat, two to the massage-getter’s left. I can feel myself getting tired, bored. Waiting for one more level before I allow myself a second cup of coffee.

Time passes. Hungry’s sweatshirt’s off, he means business now. Steve has been moved to a new table in Seat 6, two to the right of the only other guy I recognize, an endboss’s endboss with roughly six billion in cashes, the one and only Mikita Badziakouski. Unsurprisingly, he’s got heaps. He gets into a pot with the 7 Seat who bets the river on a low board. Mikita’s shades are on. He’s wearing a caramel sweatsuit and caramel sneakers. In another context he looks like he could be in the Russian Mafia, although I believe he’s Ukrainian.

After a few moments Mikita slides out three greens and one blue. “Raise,” the dealer says. The seven seat calls quickly and Mikita shows Kings, which are good. He slides his shades atop his head, collects the pot, checks his phone, and begins restacking his chips in a row four deep, two across, the high-denomination greens resting atop the base.

A waitress glides over and almost spills a half-eaten plastic Caesars salad at her feet. She carefully nudges the plastic container out of the walkway, behind the dealer's chair (which could be a problem later) and moves on.

Level 13, 534 remaining of 2,392. Faces in various states of concentration, boredom, and, occasionally, amusement. I watch a guy's spidery fingers shuffle a stack of yellows. I’ve seen him many times, maybe dozens of times, although I don't know him or anything about him. I assume he's some sort of accomplished player, perhaps a pro, although I can't be sure. His dark spiky hair is flecked with gray. At another table, Johnny Bax’s hair is all silver now, receding a bit in the front and the back. His sturdy forearms are covered with dark hair.

In another quadrant, a fresh tournament is underway. Ten dealers are sitting at empty tables, the chips arranged by color in one tall starting stack, the cards fanned out faceup across the blue baize, waiting for new players to fill the seats. A young reporter is filming herself self-style on her phone. It sounds like she’s recording a hype vid for the Main—Three MILLION dollars to the winner!—which she flubs and says, laughing, “Son of a bitch!”

“Almost there,” one of the dealers says, laughing. The reporter banters with them, poking fun at herself, and then, after stroking and straightening her hair in the manner of an Instagram model, shoots another take.

At Landon Tice’s old table, a floorman breaks the table. “Racks are not required but they are encouraged,” he says, doling them out along with new seat assignments. “If you draw Table 244, then you’re on the stage.” The players disperse, a few wishing each other luck, and march away. The dealer tidies up the table. He sifts through one deck, separating the cards by suit into four piles, then organizes each pile by rank, Deuce to Ace. He stacks the four piles atop each other, puts the deck into its case, and does the same thing with the second deck. He straightens the chairs, tosses a half-empty Fiji into the garbage, and walks away.

It’s almost 4pm. After another lap with Steve and Hungry, I pack up my stuff and walk through the Wynn and get a seat in a $1/$3 cash game.

“Are you a chopper?” the sb asks, after action folds around to us. He's an old white guy with frizzy white hair and a very pink polo shirt.

“Are you?” I ask.

“Always.”

“Me too.” We chop. “Well, not always,” I say as the next hand is underway, and I explain the Bad Beat Kackpot situation back where I play. Yall know that little song and dance—covertly checking to see if you have a Bad Beat-qualifying hand, and and playing out the hand if both players do.

“Nawlins,” Mr. Pink says. “Been a long time since I’ve been there.”

“I almost made it there,” the dealer, a youngish white guy, says. “Made it to Biloxi.”

“Did you deal the Circuit?” I ask.

“No. I was there for some”—there’s a pregnant pause—“business. Some gambling-related stuff. Apparently I don’t know how to play poker down there. I couldn’t win.”

“You forgot to run well,” I said.

“Good cards can help any player,” Mr. Pink says. And then, turning to me: "Years ago I was at the Court of Two Sisters."

“It’s still there,” I say.

“We were sitting outside, and there was a critter that looked like a dog, perched on a rail no farther from that one”—he points to the cardroom’s rail a few feet away—“and the waiter said, ‘that’s Jack. We said, ‘Jack?’ ‘Yeah, Jack the Rat.’ We asked what we should do if he came over and the waiter said, ‘just bang this tray against the table.’”

Around six I head back to the ballroom for a third walk. Hungry’s table broke and I fear the worst. I frantically scan the tables. Still dozens left, and I can’t find him. Finally, at the start of the break, with Steve’s help, we spot him. Hungry’s short, but he’s still alive.

We take our walk and I head back to my cash game seat and go on a miniheater. Mr. Pink, on the other hand, is spiralling. After bumping it up preflop and getting three callers, he bets and then jams all-in over a checkraise on a T82 flop. The BB shows king ten, and Mr. Pink's King-Queen is no good. “Well, my wife’s waiting on me for dinner. That’s what that was,” he says. He looks behind him, sees a woman waiting behind him on his red scooter, and says, “oh there she is.” Then he says calmly to her as he gets up, “I lost the farm.”

A youngish Mexican guy with slick black hair takes his place. No one acknowledges him.

“How’s it going?” I say. He nods, jaw clenched. Ready for battle.

The dealer motions to guy on my right, a Euro immersed in his phone, to move the button, but he doesn't hear her. I move the button and briefly make eye contact with her and she nods in gratitude. I smile back and say, "We’re looking out for you.” No one else responds. Everyone’s on their phones, silently tapping away.

I table change to a friend’s table, and the game is much better. The dealer's telling a story about playing at the Orleans. “It was around 3am,” he says as he pitches us cards, "and I didn't want to go in the parking garage. So I played til the morning."

"That's one way to do it," someone says.

“It's not that bad,” the 8 seat says. He's an old white guy wearing a hat with an aircraft carrier that says, USS JOHN F. KENNEDY CV-67. “You just can't go on Tropicana.”

“Unless you want to find one-dollar hookers,” the dealer says.

The 8 Seat replies, “I tell my friends and family one rule about coming here: Nothing good ever happens on Tropicana. North, South, East, West, it doesn’t matter. At a minimum, you’ll lose your wallet.”

I check my phone. It’s getting late in the day, and the players in the Main are poised to hit the bubble. A mincash is worth almost twenty gees. Steve and Hungry are still in.

Sayonara, Mata Itsuka

It’s noon on Wednesday, and I’m back in a Wynn cash game. A few unfortunate things have happened. One of my friends just stacked me and now he’s gone, off to the airport, so I’m already missing $500 and the pleasure of his company. Late last night my other friend, Hungry, busted the WPT Main 30ish players from the bubble. KK < AA, KK < AK etc etc, you know the story.

For the second day in a row I’m playing with a Japanese linguistics grad student, a young guy with a bowl cut and round glasses and a black hoodie dotted with tiny, wonderfully colored designs. He’s one of the few cardplayers I’ve met who can be described, I think, as a sweetheart. He’s here for a month between semesters, part of a poker-playing group of friends, and you can tell he loves the game. He’s very observant. After he sees a hand that he deems interesting, he taps away on his phone and, I assume, jots down the details for further examination. His hoodie, he tells me, was designed by Kenshi Yonezu, a Japanese artist I’d never heard of.

Later, when I rack up to head to the ballroom—Steve is still in the WPT Main, grinding a short stack—I tell the sweetheart that I might be back tomorrow. He smiles and says, “I’ll look for you.”

Free as A Bird

The brisk December air feels good. I leave Steve’s apartment complex, where I’ve been staying for the last two nights, and head past the Westgate and the convention center towards the Strip. Outside Taco El Gordo, a guy dressed in rags is rummaging through a garbage can.

Six games are running at the Wynn. Looks like two $1/$3s, a $2$5, $5/$10, and, in the back, a $10/$20. I instantly get seated in a $1/$3 around 9. The guy on my right in the 8 Seat, with slick black hair and an arm sleeve tat to his wrist, is watching pool on his smartphone. His black Clogs are decorated with Marvin the Martian, the Ace of Spades, a piece of bacon, a headphone, and other tiny trinkets I can’t decipher. Milling around by the registration desk is a midforties guy in a gray tee-shirt that says, ADULT-ISH.

An hour passes. I’m beginning to think I can't win at the Wynn, but then I bump it up with Queens and win a decent sized pot. “My friend,” says a grayhaired guy in a DKNY sweatsuit, “do you play basketball?”

“Used to,” I say.

“Does anyone ever tell you you look like...that guy? The MVP?” I wait a moment before helping him out and he says, remembering, “Dirk!”

"People do say that," I say.

I play an orbit or two, losing a few small pots, making a probable bad river call. I fold King-Ten off, there’s a bunch of limps, Marvin raises to $40 from the BB. “Saw that coming,” a Dutch guy in the 7 Seat says. He’s in his fifties or so, wearing a blue mesh KNVB Nederland t-shirt. “Yep, saw him playing with his chips,” a Floridian in the 6 says agreeably. Unlike my first game yesterday, the mood here is jovial. Marvin wins with Ace-King and the three of them are yukking it up.

A new player arrives, a tatted-up Asian younghead wearing lots of rings and bracelets and a black cap with a panther on it; on his left arm is a big tat of another panther, or maybe a mountain lion. He limps in EP, I bump it up with red King-Jack, and on a Jc Tc 2c board he donks out small. I call. The turn is a brick, he bets again and I call. On the Qc river, when he donks out small again for $65 , I decide to turn my second pear into a bluff and raise to $175. He tanks for five full minutes, counting and recounting his chips, huffing and puffing and asking me questions. “Ace-King?” he asks. “Straight flush?” I don't say anything. Every minute or so I take a sip of coffee. Eventually I wonder if I should call the clock, but I don't.

Finally he doesn't call—he reraises all-in, for another $300 or so. Pure Hollywood, it turns out. After I instamuck he shows the 9c and tells me that he had a straight flush. It quickly becomes clear that he a verbal processor who loves chatting during the interval between the end of one hand and the beginning of the next, or, as Tommy Angelo calls it, sixth street. “What were you thinking?” he asks.

“I was thinking, ‘Please fold!’” I tell him, and the table laughs.

Marvin, Dutchy, and the Floridian are talking about how this is a nice room. “New chairs, too,” Marvin says, nodding at one of the cream-colored recliners.

“Supposedly they’re 500 dollars,” the dealer says.

The Floridian, a thirties white guy in a black Patagonia fleece, is that uber-rare breed of player who has no raising or 3! range, so he’s weirdly uncapped in every post-flop spot.

I walk to the WPT ballroom for like the 20th time and arrive five minutes before noon. The dealers are in their seats, presiding over all the chip-baggies, counting and arranging cards, chatting with each other. For the players, arriving five minutes before shuffle-up-and-deal is to arrive very early indeed, and of the 61 remaining players, only a handful are in their seats. One takes out his wallet and shows the dealer his ID; she nods and he dumps his chips onto the table and begins stacking them.

“You have a good draw,” one player says to a redhead with glasses and a bushy beard.

“Yeah, looks good,” the redhead says, glancing at his phone. Two minutes til noon, and the tables are filling up now. Two WPT cameramen are filming the beginning-of-day action. A besuited floorman scurries around with an Ipad in his hand, collecting empty baggies and talking to other suits. A waitress comes around collecting drinks orders, her tray full of tall Wynn alkaline waters with flowers adorning the bottles.

Only a few Gulf Coasters are left. Steve busted late yesterday and earned thirty gees. I snap a few pics, including one of the eventual champ, Scott Stewart.

Back in my cash game, the Floridian has been replaced by an older guy with a wrinkled, regal face, an Ian McKellen in a light green jacket. “I try to tell my wife and my boss that time doesn’t matter in Vegas,” he tells us. “Doesn’t work too well.”

"I guess they don’t play poker," Dutchy replies.

Almost five p.m., eight hours in, and the struggle is starting to become real. I return from the bathroom in time for my big blind, posting three whites and sliding forward the missed BB button. The dealer, who sort of looks like Pee Wee Herman, uses his cut card to effortlessly fling the button from the blue baize into his left hand. “Nice,” an Italian guy from New Jersey exclaims. He’s sitting on my right, where Marvin used to be. “How long did it take you to perfect that one?”

The dealer pauses, half-smiles, says, “We do things." A little while later he pulls the same move, this time with the big round dealer button that has enough heft to be a hockey puck.

The Italian guy leans over, says, “it’s been one of those days. When I have Ace-Queen, the five-six-sevens come out. When I have the baby suited connectors, the Kings and Queens. Whatever I do, it’s the opposite." He's chatty and personable, but I’m unmotivated to write down the banter.

The game is better now. At first it was decent and then it was quite good, then it got reggy and nitty, and now it’s rec heavy. Not super juicy, but a fine game to be in. The 4 Seat and the 9 pile their money in: set of Fives vs set of Nines, river pairs the King. “Boat over boat,” the 5 Seat says, as if he's recalling something. He’s wearing a gold LA Dodgers cap and a jacket that says, on the right breast pocket, FREE AS A BIRD. He asks if anyone played the $800 tournament. “I did,” the Italian says.

“I had Kings vs Sevens,” Free as a Bird says. “River Seven. “I was so mad. I was playing so well.”

“I got it in with Aces, guy made two pair,” the Italian says.

The 1 Seat is a total boss babe. Asian lady, fifty or so. Designer gold rimmed shades. Frilly black Yankees hat with a pompom on top, her black bun poking through the cap’s back. Hoodie with a smiling brown teddy bear on the front and on both shoulders, glittering Fitter Fashion red pants. She’s the only player who’s been here longer than me and Dutchy.

6:30, and now it’s just me and Dutchy left as the table’s OGs. Immediately after I note this, Dutchy opens utg to $11, gets 3! by mp, the button cold calls, Dutchy 4! $150, fold, and the button tank shoves for $350. He’s a middle eastern looking guy with a black biker jacket and a tan cap pulled low on his forehead. Dutchy tank calls, and the board runs out Ten hi.

“Nothing,” the button says, and Dutchy gestures for him to show. He shows 66.

Dutchy mumbles something and flashes me and the 8 seat, a huge Romanian guy, Ace-King before mucking it.

“That’s nothing?” the Romanian asks the button. Dutchy picks up his last $150, shakes my hand, and heads out.

8pm, and I’m running on fumes. I get one-outed for the first time in a long while, but at least it’s to a guy wearing Elvis glasses and an amazing multicolored anime shirt. My session has been a slow roller coaster—a Ferris wheel?—at first I couldn’t win a hand, then an hour or two of running hot, and now I’m downticking again, flirting with even. I flop a set and fold to the Romanian guy after he leads big on a straight-completing river. A young guy in the 5 seat with a black hipster mustache and a smiley-face hat is drinking an espresso martini, and I ask him if it’s good. “It’s great,” he says. “You should order one.”

Suddenly I want an espresso martini, which I’ve never had before, very much.

I often wonder about the ins out outs of this kind of statement: "I assume he's some sort of accomplished player, perhaps a pro, although I can't be sure." Even poker-reporter sleuths sometimes need a showdown to confirm their reads.

Loving the 1/3 cash-game banter. Trivial and relevant all at once. It's probably more enjoyable when you're reading about it --- or winning chips.

Nice to hear, Dr. It's definitely made this end-of-year push much more tolerable.

King-High Ken

The Golden Nugget's cardroom is all brown and beige and mahogany. The carpet is decorated in interlocking brown-red-yellow shapes that look like Tetris squares. Brown reclinable chairs arranged around thirteen brown-and-green cardtables. The dealers are wearing long-sleeved brown buttondowns, with a gold strip by the buttons. On one of the brown pillars the Poker Rules are displayed:

WELCOME
WE ARE CURRENTLY OFFERING

1-2 No limit
3-6 Hold Em

$100 BILLS PLAY

It’s Friday morning, my last day in Vegas, and I open the first $1/$2 by 10:30. The lineup is what you’d expect: six or seven nitty oldster recs sitting on a few stacks of reds. “Chop?” I ask when action folds to me in the small.

“No chopping,” the dealer interjects, and he explains what recently went down. Apparently the $3/$6 limit regs were somehow colluding to hit the jackpot, so chopping got banned.

Around eleven, a hustler arrives. He’s a chatty, affable Black guy wearing a cream-colored hoodie who reminds me of Draymond Green: beneath that wide-eyed smile is a guy who’s out for blood. The dealers and floormen know him, it’s clear he’s played a lot of poker, he’s supremely comfortable in the casino cardroom setting despite being from out of town (lives in Florida but here for six weeks, bopping around a few hotels, at the Orleans now, “mooching off my friends’ comps,” he says with a laugh), when he enters a pot you can see anger in his eyes, and then his eyes lighten and the banter resumes. At first I consider table changing to a second $1/$2, worried he might destroy the vibe, but it turns out that his banter, annoying at first, is endearing. The mark of a good hustler, in other words.

“Eighteen,” Draymond says, raising from the SB over a limper. “Eighteen dollars. Eighteen doll-hairs.”

The caller is an old white guy wearing a Vietnam Veteran hat. “This guy’s a battler," Draymond says. He checks folds a Seven-hi flop, and the veteran shows a Seven.

Old guy takes the 5. He looks like an old, kind Ross Perot, big ears, gray hair, small and slight and eager to say hello. Once he gets settled he leans over and asks the veteran when he was in Nam. He mentions a bunch of places I’ve never heard of and says, “Then they pulled the 9th infantry division and the first Air-Cav, so up north.”

“Rough situation.”

“I survived. I don’t know how. I was only eighteen.”

“How many grandkids you got?” the dealer asks.

“Two beautiful granddaughters.”

“Nice! I like to hear that.”

I look down Ace-Ten off utg. Exactly the kind of hand I shouldn't play at a table of passive nits, and my only other justification—skill edge, outplay post flop, yadda yadda—is probably delusional. I make the unpleasant fold.

Next hand I turn a boat on a Queen-hi board. The veteran on my left calls turn and folds AQ on a board-pairing river. “I’m getting smarter in my old age,” he says after the hand, when I tell him that he made a good fold. “I’ve been playing for 50 years. Ever since the army.”

A few hands later the veteran bets an 832cc flop, Draymond check-jams huge, and the veteran tank-calls.

Turn 7c, the veteran shows A5cc.

"Nice catch," Draymond says, shaking his head. This is easily the biggest pot we've seen so far.

"That's the flop you're looking for with that hand," a young Indian kid tells the veteran from the 9 Seat. "He tried to make it expensive for you." And then, turning to Draymond: "What did you have? Jacks?"

“What do you think I have? Nothing?” Draymond scowls. “No, I had Deuce-Seven." He adds on a bunch of blacks.

A few minutes later, after the kid leaves and the veteran's off to the bathroom, Draymond seat changes into the 9, to the direct left of the veteran. “Be careful with that seat,” he tells a new guy who’s sliding into the 5. “It can’t defend against flush draws.” He points to the veteran’s $600 stack and says, “Sometimes you gotta fatten up the turkey before you eat it.”

It’s 2, and I still haven’t eaten. I head over to the Nugget's grill for a chicken salad or something reasonably healthy, but it’s closed, so I come back, rack up, and walk ten minutes to a health foods and smoothie shop that’s only a few blocks from one of my favorite bookstores, The Writer’s Block. I loop around downtown, briefly popping into Container Park and walking up Fremont Street.

I'm back in the cardroom around 4, at an extreme rec table. The player on my right in Seat 7, a jowly bulldog of a man from Arizona, has We the People tattooed above a tattered American flag on his right forearm. On a JJxxT board, he jams all-in against a woman in the 1 Seat with beautiful braided hair and a shirt that reads, this expensive T-shirt was made by a black designer. not gooochie. He lifts his cards up, allowing me to see that he had J10. Gooochie Girl tanks and tanks, and I find myself wanting to cry out, Don’t call!

“Show me if I fold?” she asks him.

He shrugs and shows her his hand. She shrugs and folds a Jack faceup. “Didn’t want to do it to you again,” he says. “What did you have?”

“King-Jack.”

“We’re not gonna to be rich here, right?” he says, dragging the small pot.

Sitting to Arizona’s right is a jovial Englishman nursing a nub. I instantly dubble him up, AJ < 66, and we first bump. He tells me about how last night he'd gone all-in blind four times in a row, and won all four—AQ, KT, KJ, pocket Fours. We agree that those are some good all-in blind hands.

I check my phone and see a text from Steve, who's in the WPT’s $1,600 Mystery Bounty. What’s this kid's name? The photo is of a towheaded kid in the classic grinder pose, shuffling chips in one hand, scrolling his phone in the other.

Don’t know him, I say. He a crusher?

Played with him a bunch. Euro kid. Figured u would know as u know everybody

Lol nope. My best live reporting days are behind me. How's yer stack??

grinding….avg is 62k….ss is 30k….we have 32k

Keep grinding, I reply, and add a muscle-flexing emoji.

Sure enough, the Englishman gets short and goes all in blind. His nub is called by the 2 seat, a quiet, pleasant Mexican Bud Light drinker. “Nothing,” he says, showing A7o after the board runs out Nine-hi.

The Englishman sweats his cards, first turning over a worthless Eight, then a worthless Five. “Cheers,” he says as he walks away.

Six pm. Threeish hours to go before I head to the airport, and the situation here seems grim. Four $1/3s, one $3/6, barely any money on the tables. I consider moving back to my original table, but but the game doesn’t look good at all. I wonder the Golden Nugget's golden era is long over.

Around 7 a youngish guy in a Vegas Knights polo takes the 6. Beside a stack of reds he plops down a rubberbanded wad of half-folded hundos, carelessly enough that it’s not clear if his wad is in play. First hand he makes it $15, I look down at Kings from the small and ask how much he’s playing “I have you covered,” he says. I make it $75, he calls, flop comes 543 and we get all the money in. “Aces?” he asks.

“Kings.”

The board runs out whatever, and my overpear is good.

The newcomer—whose name, I’ll learn shortly, is Ken—looks obnoxious, with his styled black hair and goatee and gold neck chain and gold wrist chain and gold pinky ring, but in fact he’s quite polite. He asks where I’m from, I tell him the Hudson Valley, it turns out he’s from Long Island. He continues raising to $15 every hand and losing, mucking his cards facedown, asking me politely for a stack of reds in exchange for a hundo, mostly tapping away on his phone. He’s lost seven or eight pots in a row when he finally 3! calls QJo and stacks before finally 3! calling qjo vs Gooochie Girl’s JJ. She taps the table, heads out, and Ken moves to Seat 1.

A woman wearing a pearl necklace arrives, her dark hair dyed with a touch of purple, and instantly starts chatting Ken up. She could easily be the star of The Real Housewives of Long Island, but it turns out that she's a therapist. “If you have anger issues, you see me. If you hate your parents, you see me. If you have trauma, you see me.” Ken tells her he’s a professional roulette player.

“What was your income?” she asks.

“Negative $40,000,” he says.

She keeps grilling him in a manner that's somehow invasive, respectful, and funny all at once. “Where in Long Island you from?”

He tells her and she says, smacking her lips and breaking into the theme song from The Apprentice, "Money-money-money-money...money!”

They start talking about different neighborhood and streets in Long Island, which is also where she grew up. “So you’re a trust fund baby,” she says.

Ken smiles coolly and doesn’t reply.

A little while later, Ken gets into a pot with the Bud Light drinker, removing the rubber band from his wad and tossing two hundos onto the felt. His opponent shoves all-in for a bit more, and Ken calls. The board runs out whatever and the guy sheepishly shows Ten-Eight for a busted draw. Ken purses his lips, nods, dubblechecks his cards. “No! Don’t tell me you can't beat ten hi!” Mrs. Queens says, cackling. “I’m disappointed in you.”

White guy in his fifties takes the 5 Seat and, on a 933 board, gets into a reraising war with Mrs. Queens and a woman in the 4 Seat who’s wearing a PokerGo hat. Somehow his A9 is good, and he ships a big pot. Next hand he limps, Ken bumps it to $25. “How much are you playing? he asks. “I have you covered,” Ken replies.

“I want to know how much.”

“$5200,” Ken says.

Ken wins this one and bumps it up again, gets a few calls, and a new guy on my right 3! To $60, everyone calls. Q72ss, the three-bettor continues for $200 into $250. “Only one bill behind?” Ken asks. He shrugs, unclasps the rubber band, tosses out four bills, gets called, the board runs out J8.

“I have a Jack,” Ken says. Seat 7 shows AQ.

“Three Jacks,” Ken says, pausing theatrically, and then he mucks.

There aren’t many things I respect more than the fake slow roll.

Ken dubbles up the 2 Seat. Three more bills gone from the rubber-banded wad.

He’s still on his phone, chuckling as he taps away. “How you doing buddy?” Ken asks someone over voice chat, and then he says, “Not good. Running bad.”

Ken mentions, in conversation with Mrs. Queens, that he has a YouTube page

“I won this $25,000 hand on a stream with King-hi.”

“I’m sure that is spent already,” she says.

“Yep.”

I ask him for his YouTube, and he tells me. "I see you," I say. He comes over and stands behind me and Mr. Arizona, who's moved to Seat 9, as we're both pulling up his YouTube on our phones; I click Subscribe. Ken reaches down to Mr. Arizona’s phone, clicks Subscribe, and says, “I’ve got another sub now. My brother.”

“I wanna know how many pots he lost calling with King-High,” Mrs. Queens says.

“A lot,” Ken says.

Writers Corner

I arrive five minutes to four on Monday afternoon and check in at the Harrahdise podium. Three tables going, all $1/$3s. Only two names are ahead of me, but then a Seven Star and a Diamond sign up as well, and I plummet to fourth. My only salvation will be a fresh game which might take a while. There are about a thousand things I’d rather do than play poker (and, to be fair, thousands of things I’d rather not do), but leaving is out of the question. I’m in jail.

I stand pointlessly on the cardroom's fringes, watching Floorman Roy and Charles and Frank (again with his Santa hat) talk about who knows what. Check my texts. Frank, a friendly old guy who’s been around the Gulf Coast scene for decades, was also out in Vegas for the WPT. He cashed in one donkament and his buddy had a deep run in the Senior’s. Awesome! I text. Seems like a great trip for yall

It was how about you

Yep. Couldn’t win but was really nice catching up with friends

You need the home cooking at ceasars no 😃

Lol yep

Out on the casino floor, a guy sitting alone at a four-seater machine that reads CRAPS above each seat raises a fist in triumph. Then his eyes furrow as he keeps tapping. Three craps games are going, six or seven blackjack tables. The dealers are dressed in Saints gear—thanks to my supreme ignorance of all sports save the NBA, only now do I realize they’re playing the Packers on MNF.

George, a Greek superreg who always wears a bowler hat, paces outside the cardroom to nowhere. In ten years, we’ve never spoken apart from a few grunts.

At 4:18 the game opens on table 8, and George is first in his seat taking the 7, watching a video of chirping birds and galloping horses on his phone; he's drinking a bottle of Mountain Valley sparkling water. Immediately I have a decision: (1) take the seat on his right and have less room but a better view of the sportsbook; or (2) sit on his left and have more room but a crappier view. Figuring I’ll outlast him and eventually take his seat for the best of both worlds, I select the 8.

At 4:24, almost thirty minutes after I arrived, I click the play icon on my poker tracker. As much as I need hours, it feels like cheating to count time waiting for a seat as time at the table.

“Slot machines bring in all the revenue. ALLL the revenue,” Dealer Charles is telling the reg in Seat 2.

A few orbits in and our table is nitty, untalkative. I consider table changing, seeing Ibrahim’s red hoodie and blue medical mask, but I reserve that right for more extreme scenarios. This table doesn’t bother me. I feel calm and unbothered with the need to visit the casino six or seven more times. During previous, more intense volume challenges, it was typical to wake in the morning and instantly feel a dull pang dread, knowing that I’d have to spend 8 or 10 or 12 hours in jail, and then again the next day, and the next…

But not now.

Cheers and groans break out from one table away, and Ibrahim walks out of the room, shaking his head.

This lineup is one of those lineups where everyone is weak, but no one is giving it away. A fine game, in other words. White kid in the 4 wearing a Coast Guard hoodie and a buzz cut. Three old Black guys sitting in the 2, 3, and the 6, two of whom are masked up. Guy on my left in headphones, watching some WWII-era war movie on his phone. Around 5:30, I stack his QQ with AA. Skill game.

Taking his place in the one is a military vet, judging by his hat that reads Bronze Star Heroism. He has a candy-cane colored knee brace and gingerly eases into his seat.

George returns from a break. I can smell cigarette smoke on him.

The 5 seat’s wife zoom past our table with a scowl on her face. “I can’t take this anymore,” she mutters to him as she passes.

“Isn’t poker a great game?” I ask.

“Brings out the best in people,” Frank says.

In a limped pot, I river a concealed straight with Deuce-Four sooted and overbet donk jam when the front door flush draw misses. The bettor snaps me off and I show. As I’m dragging the pot the tryhard reg in the 3 reaches into the breast pocket of his red flannel and takes out enough greens to cover me.

6:30, and for the last thirty minutes or so I’ve been owning the 1 seat’s soul, the guy I stacked with my rivered straight. I successfully bluffcatch vs him with top pear, and then, after I button straddle, I semibluff with a draw, bink another straight, and he pays me. “So you’re a river man,” the veteran on my left says as gives the nice hand table tap.

“Turn man,” I say, explaining when I'd binked.

“Guess I was distracted by my wife,” he says.

After this third payoff I can tell the 1 Seat is getting frustrated. He’s a cleanshaven white guy a little older than me, midforties or so, wearing a gray waterproof hat that you see marathoners and extreme athletes wear. I’m glad that he's a stranger. It’s usually easier to take someone’s chips when you don’t know them. I’m reminded of a podcast I was recently listening to when the host, a pro, asked the guest, also a pro, what it takes to succeed in poker, and the guest said, half jokingly, that the most important quality was being a sociopath. “Actually, I take that back,” he said, backpedaling when the host asked him to elaborate, and gave another, more on-brand answer (hard work + ego control), but I wonder how much truth is in his first answer, how beneficial it is to be incapable of imagining someone else’s suffering.

The veteran leaves, and I notice that he uses blue crutches. Taking his place is a UNO creative writing prof I’ve played with a few times. He’s a bald white guy with thin mustard-colored glasses. We chat about our semesters and swap book recs. He’s into non-contemporary experimental stuff. The book to read, he reminds me, is William Gaddis’s The Recognitions; I tell him I’ve just read and enjoyed Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. Eventually we switch topics to film. Like everyone else I’ve talked to, he adored Anora. I mentioned loving The Substance, despite not being much into gore.

8pm, and I'm in writers corner with the UNO prof and Mike G. “Look at this,” Mike tells me, showing me a video of an old man in a hospital bed, with his golden retriever nuzzling him in his final moments. “My dog would do that to me,” Mike says.

I take a one-orbit break. When I return the game has quieted down. Mike tells us about the menagerie in the back of his house, how he leaves out three bowls of food (lettuce, watermelon , cantaloupe, corn) for a raccoon, a possum, and Fluffy the Cat. “I can get within five feet of Fluffy, but no closer,” he says. As we’re talking, a superreg comes over and wishes us a merry Christmas. We shake hands and wish each other well.

"That guy's taller than you," Mike says, pointing to a guy on his way from the desk to a nearby table. He's huge, close to seven feet, with dreds and bracelets. Instantly I recognize him as one of the Collins brothers—Jarron, I think, and I've seen Jason, a Pels assistant coach, around the cardroom as well.

He takes the 2 seat at the table behind me. On a whim I ask for a table change. "Good decision," Mike says as I rack up. We wish each other Merry Christmas and I take the seat on Jarron's left, in perfect view of the sportbook's beeball games.

I wonder who'll receive more citations on the MLA database 50 years from now, Rooney or Gaddis?

I'd seen your interview with Mike G back in the day but forgot about it - sounds like a guy I'd love to have at the table.

In fact really sorry we don't have an equivalent to "writer's corner" here at Del Sol. Games still pretty dead unfortunately.

Ah, MLA citations: The ONLY true metric of literary merit!

I'm actually going to my first-ever MLA conference in Feb. Can you guess why?

Haven't read any Gaddis and doubt that I will anytime soon, since I've been more into contemporary stuff lately. Anything you'd recommend by him?

Yeah, Mike's a good one. Still going strong at 75.

you should start one 😀

I haven't read either Sally Rooney or William Gaddis, so my literary pretensions have been outed. Always wanted to read The Recognitions and JR but never got around to it (hey but 2025 could be the year). I'd bet on Rooney receiving more citations, given how much her fame stirs the debate on literary value, but then again there's likely a ton of Gaddis experts still around, looking for more PhDs to supervise.

Any chance you're speaking at the MLA conference?

I'm more of a John Lewis Gaddis man, myself, particularly his critiques of political scientists' obsession with "immaculate causation."

just yesterday I bumped into two! They were roaming the French Quarter like stray dogs, hungry for grad students.

My proposal, "'How Bad Do I Run?' A Harrahdiseian Postnarratological Analysis of Negative Variance" was, alas, rejected. I am however looking forward to attending a few panels:

Bad Novels

[URL="https://mla.confex.com/mla/2025/meetingapp.cgi/Session/19223"]New Cyborg Manifestos and Natureculture Stories: The Next Forty Years
[/URL]
Unaccountably Queer: Giving an Account ...

Presidential Plenary: Visibility, Place,...

The convention next to the casino. What are the odds that Judith Butler or Donna Haraway stack me in a $1/$3 game in between panels?

I think I heard of him during the early stages of the UK-Russia conflict.

Odds that I read William Gaddis: 25:1
Odds that I read JLG: 10000:1

Sunshine

“Table 9,” Server Terry says, swooping in to the rescue. We lock eyes, he says “coffee with cream,” I nod in gratitude from Seat 9. The 7 seat, a college football referee who gives off the jittery energy of a degen, orders a margarita. Her husband is sitting between us in the 8. “Whatever’s top shelf,” she tells Terry, lifting her sweatshirt to reveal a Yankees moneybelt, from which she removes and flashes her Diamond card.

The 5 Seat, a burly Black guy in a University of Colorado hoodie, orders a well drink, and Terry politely inquires if he’s Diamond. “I have to ask,” he says, “because not everything’s complimentary.”

“I ain’t cheap, but I love free,” Seat 6, a graybearded white guy in a Saints jersey says, commiserating with Colorado. He orders a hot chocolate.

Terry’s back in less than ten. He delivers our drinks, thanks us for tips, and scurries away.

A woman who looks like she’s dressed for church—red floral dress with matching scarf and glasses, black glittery earrings, black top hat—takes the 3 Seat and bumps it up to $65 off her $200 stack. No callers.

Dude with a road beer and an awesome shirt—yellow button-down dotted with black cat silhouettes—takes the 6. Dealer Brandon asks if he has a card and he says no, Brandon explains that he doesn’t qualify for the high hand promo, he shrugs that’s fine. Trying to keep the vibe positive, I tell him that he doesn’t need it for the Bad Beat Jackpot

“No you can’t," Brandon says, and we give each other a look. “You have to get one after you hit it.”

“And some people don’t?” I ask.

Of course some people don’t: they want to stay under the radar. “Unbelievable,” a younghead in the 2 Seat says. He’s the kid who looks like Server Terry, with an almost-mohawk and his NO ONE CARES, WORK HARDER bracelet.

“You wouldn’t believe the things that happen in here,” Brandon says, and then he keeps talking about the under-the-radar guys who would rather stay anonymous than be on the hook for taxes or whatever the ****. “Child support," Brandon says. "That’s the only thing they check. They’ll take all that money.” Colorado and a few others start laughing and shaking their heads.

I hear a voice behind me say softly: “Hello, welcome.” I lean back, give Dealer Tim a dap, concede the loss. It’s a push for today, as I got him earlier when I first arrived.

With his characteristic chipperness, Tim relieves Brandon in the box and wishes our table better luck. “Do you work at the Treasure Chest?” an old white guy asks him. He’s wearing a black shirt with white buttons and white cross on his breast pocket.

“No, we all look alike,” Tim says.

The table laughs.

“You just like saying you all look alike. I ain’t buying that ****,” the old man says with a grin. “You got a twin over there whose energy’s the same.”

Work Harder flops two pair and calls two barrels against the degen-ref, who’d raised preflop. She checks river, he bets. “Missed everything,” she mutters as she check-folds.

“I shoulda raised at some point,” Work Harder says, showing the nut straight. He’s got an easy, jovial way about him. Trying to win but keeping things light.

“Yeah, you shoulda,” she says derisively. “Stop playing like a nit.”

Hearing that dirty word, Work Harder gives the degen-ref a what-did-I-do-look. A little later, after he's finished stacking his chips, Tim tells him he’s got a dirty stack. “I lost four dollars,” Work Harder says with a smile, plucking out a white chip.

“Shoulda tipped him for telling you and lost five,” the degen-ref says.

“Hey, give him some slack,” the guy in a cat shirt says.

“Nah,” she says, aggressively shuffling chips and mean mugging. “He’s a kid. A kid in a man's world.”

Dealer Darrell’s here next. Some limps, I bump it to 20 with King-Ten, flop QJx, I bet and get it in against a short stack in Seat 1, bink the Ace. “He takes care of me,” I say, tossing Darrell a redbird. “Most of the time.”

“Most of the time,” he says, smiling.

Rollypolly guy in a black winter cap and camo hoodie rolls into seat 1 with $200, the very first hand gets Kings in against the church lady’s Aces.

“Can’t fold that preflop,” Darrell says.

A few hands later the same guy runs top pair into a set, and it’s gg. New guy in a beanie takes his place limps in, faces a raise, reraise, and shove, and folds.

“You smarter than the last guy,” Darrell tells him.

6:12, we’re slightly shorthanded, a bald chatty reg in an Eagles sweatshirt comes over with three blacks, a fidget spinner, and a Flippy the Duck card protector. I ask if he wants a stack of reds. “Lemme see if I can go all in this hand,” he says from utg. He checks his cards. “C’mon, flat tire.”

I ask what’s a flat tire, and, looking pleased, Flippy says, “Jack Four. What’s a jack for?”

Flippys appears to knows everyone, and everyone knows him. A hirsute guy in glasses and a Warriors 2018 Champions hat sits down in the 5 and asks him. “PLO today?"

“Nah, just that limit ****,” Flippy says. “If you go over there, you lose your money to Bobby. That’s the rule.”

“Which one’s Bobby?” I ask.

“The guy with the mountain of chips!”

I scan the $15/$30 Limit Omaha hi game. Bobby’s in the 8 with a backwards cap, his head propped up by his right fist, looking bored. His chip-tower is arranged in a massive pyramid of reds—30 stacks, 80 high.

The Warriors fan and Flippy and Seat 1, a southern bro dressed nicely in a pink Brooks Brother and a thick trimmed beard, are talking about the prospect of getting a PLO game going. The list has seven players, but a bunch of them are in the $15/$30. “They won’t break that game,” Flippy says. “Unless Bobby snaps ‘em all off. Which could happen. Yeah, they want to keep playing that stupid ****.”

New guy takes the 8. Black Saints cap, black-and-white sweater vest, shoes in the design of a chessboard. He and Flippy fist-bump and start chatting about Metairie private games, Flippy offers him one of his extra Diamond cards in case he needs one to flash for a top-shelf drink, explains what else you can use the card for, free parking, jumping lists, yadda yadda, then he says, in case there’s any confusion that he might be complimenting the terrible institution in which we spend so much time, “Everything in this casino is the opposite of what it should be. Look at how much they rake. Look at the promotions. Look at how slow the jackpot builds.”

UTG straddle, bunch of limps, Ducky raises to $70 from the big, gets a call from the 2 Seat. “Flippy’s got a message for you," Flippy says, his rubber ducky sitting atop his hole cards. "All in!" He jams $300 into $140 on AQ6. Seat 1 folds, and Flippy triumphantly shows the flat tire. A little while later he bluffs off all but fifty bucks to the same guy. “All right, let me get the rest of these chips in so I can play some baccarat,” he says. Instead he folds and leaves his seat to chat with another reg.

“This seat sucks ass,” the guy on my right says, and he moves across the table into Seat 4. The guy on my left, the one wearing the chess shoes, gives me a look. “You believe in that ****?” I shake my head. “Me neither,” he says. He’s around fifty with graying hair and sad, gentle eyes; he reminds me of the medic in Saving Private Ryan. "I believe that if you wait long enough, the sun shines on you," he tells me.

I nod and say, “Better to wait for it than to chase it.”

“Or you accept that, on some days, it’s gonna be overcast.”

Brooks Brothers moves from the 1 Seat to the 4, to my direct right. In less than two hours he’s dusted off close to two gees in a reckless, nonchalant fashion—the familiar story of a PLO reg stuck in NL jail—and he’s down to about $500. The Warriors fan straddles the button, Brooks Brothers calls from the small blind, I’m in there with Five-Four of spades, a bunch of us see the KcTc6s flop. It’s something, I think, looking at the 6s. The flop checks through and Brooks Brothers pots it on the 7s, I call, the 5 Seat calls too. I’m rooting for the 3s but instead it comes the 8s.

Bink.

Brooks Brothers bets $65, I bump it to $425, and Seat 5 tanks. He's a youngish white guy in glasses, giving off a grinderish vibe, and I'm expecting a call or a fold, but then he jams for a little over $800. As Brooks Brothers is tanking, I'm wondering just how brightly the sun is shining down on me.

i found the mla suffering a cruel part of my education

every single teacher who cited "mla guidelines" did so as a crutch because it allowed them to pursue needless draconian punishment

mla is evil, it does not maintain culture, it castrates it - just think of the field day they would have had with shakespeare

but i like writing so clicked it out of curiosity, and i like the people talking it up now, so perhaps it's not souless evil organization and just one who's core tenets have been manipulated into tools of condemnation by the bad apples

maybe those teachers were perhaps doing it of their own evil volition and not just taking orders?

so i figured let's check it out and check out the first one and of course it's a bunch of whining that all popular novels are trash

and lo and behold but run by a bunch of post menopausal frumpies who have stuff like this in their bio

new cyborg manifestos, that sounds neat, i love sci-fi

nope, it's revisiting an article one of the members wrote for The Socialist Review that they decided to talk about - it's not about language or anything, it's just giving a platform to one of the members because what she wrotes resonates deeply with the same people who will stack the board like the one above

but alas these people always eat their own, of course a high falutin "in the future there will be no gender" essay will of course come under attack for not being open minded enough

so, is there a lot of cocaine and sex at the conference?

Yeah, John L. Gaddiss's Cold War stuff leaves me a bit flat, but I highly recommend The Landscape of History: How Historians Map the Past if you are interested in the historical method and arguments about whether historians should make moral judgements and/or advocate policy (he argues for, sometimes without a lot of rigor). His strongest arguments, imo, are those about the weakness of reductionism and the historical applications of chaos and complexity theories.

I'm a genuine fan of this sentence: "The 7 seat, a college football referee who gives off the jittery energy of a degen, orders a margarita."

The conditional probability calc would involve the likelihood:

• You turn up to either the Judith Butler or Donna Haraway MLA panels (5.0%)
  
• You successfully navigate 10 or so eager postgrads to speak to Judith or Donna after their panels (2.0%)
  
• You having the gumption to invite Judith or Donna to a 1/3 game at Harradise (50.0%)
  
• Judith or Donna accepting your invitation (0.1%)
  
• Judith or Donna stacking you in a 1/3 game (95.0%).
  

I can't do the math right now, but you're probably more likely to hit the bad-beat, so make sure you've got your Diamond card ready.