Show #122: Tampa Bay poker trips

MAIN TOPIC

You asked, so we answered: Is the Tampa Bay area a viable poker destination? The short answer: yes. If you're coming solely to play poker, then you'll likely be better off catching the red-eye to Vegas, but there's enough good card-playing here to satisfy most players, especially when you add in the region's other amenities. Listen to the show by clicking here.

The rooms

Derby Lane, St. Petersburg: Greyhound track's room open noon-midnight

Tampa Bay Downs, Oldsmar: Throroughbred track's room open noon-midnight

Tampa Greyhound Track, Tampa: Former greyhound track's room open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Sarasota Kennel Club, Sarasota: Greyhound track's room open 1 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Seminole Hard Rock, east of Tampa: Casino open 24/7.

Treasure Island CasinoCruz, Treasure Island: Cruise-to-nowhere has one poker table and two sailings a day.

The games/stakes

The new laws allow for $100 buy-in no-limit hold'em, and $5 limits on limit games, including hold'em, Omaha 8, stud and stud 8. Other games can be found every once in a while.

Most rooms have two multitable NL hold'em tournaments a day, with buy-ins from $40 on up, and SNGs from open to close.

The accommodations

Seminole Hard Rock is a bona fide Vegas-style resort, but it's often sold out and expensive. If the kiddies want to splash around in the Gulf of Mexico, the Don CeSar is a pricey, yet historic, option just a card's throw from Fasso's pad on St. Pete Beach. Mom-and-pop motels line the beaches, but your best central location might be in the areas surrounding the airports: Ulmerton/Roosevelt roads in Clearwater and Rocky Point and Westshore in Tampa.

The airports

Tampa International Airport (TPA) is one of the best in the world, and many airlines offer nonstop flights from dozens of cities. Plus, free Wi-Fi so you can play on FullTilt before your return flight. St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport (PIE) is a smaller airport, but has some carriers that serve alternate cities and Canada.

The other stuff

We have a great theme park (Busch Gardens) and beaches, as well as lot of other stuff that make the region a tourist destination. And, it's a short drive on Interstate 4 to the mouse in Orlando.

OTHER TOPICS

The bard returns: Yes, Mike Fasso returns to the show ... and doesn't disappoint you literature nuts.

Home game hysterics: Take a quick trip inside the madness that is the Ante Up! Home Game.

If you need a flush: Straight Flush Septic Services can help you out. Tell 'em the boys from Ante Up! sent ya (just don't tell them we want to start Royal Flush Septic Services and put them out of business).

WSOP: We are all friends for life, though Chris rails on the coverage, so maybe we're not friends with Norman Chad now.

Who was that guy? Chris was sure Scott was up against a pro in his World Series of Poker SHOE event, and he finally figured out who he was: The MIT Blackjack Team's Mr. M, J.P. Massar.

Pokerati poll champs: Take a look at the hardware to the right. Who's your podcast? Yeah, we thought so.

AIPS/CHIMPS: The final AIPS events are slated, and CHIMPS keeps rolling on.

Survivor: Here's a surprise - Jean-Robert is hungry. And he knows Mandarin.

Tampa Bay Poker Replay: Scott gave up his Thursday night to take a highlighter to the 19 pages of proposed clarifications to Florida poker laws and the 53 pages of proposed enforcement regs for the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Yeah, he has no life.

What's the Next Level of Thinking? Welcome a new feature from Columbo (don't worry, the retooled One Minute Mystery returns in a couple of weeks). See the previous post for all the details.

HAND OF THE WEEK

A fairly routine hand that Kevin in Atlanta played in CHIMPS sparks a fairly spirited debate over whether you should check-raise in razz. Kevin starts with 4-3-2, though a couple of Aces, a 5 and a 6 are out. We hit a 6 on 4th, and make our hand with a 5 on 5th. On 6th, Kevin gets a little cute, checking his 9 when his two opponents catch 7s. It works, as his check-raise gets both callers. But the river sinks his ship when an opponent draws out, and they get into a raising war. How would you have played it?

NEXT WEEK'S SHOW

Alternative Online Poker Sites (show was taped in advance).

- SCOTT

Comments

[Short-Stacked Shamus]

Welcome back, Fasso! Loved the Anatole France quote -- great stuff.

[Mike F.]

Thanks! I have officially become a bore on the subject of A. France. Friends now know to steer clear. That passage, by the way, was from one of his best-loved novels, "At the Sign of the Queen Pedauque." I forgot to mention the title.

[FrodoNL]

Nothing boring about Anatole France! I just wish my French was good enough to read the original versions of his works.

You were right, btw, Mike - his work is in the public domain these days (at least in the USA, Canada and most of Europe - one never knows what other countries think up).

Because of that, if people want to read back the quote you read they can easily find it on gutenberg.org - where the book is listed as "The Queen Pedauque".

[Rant2112]

On a miss-deal the reason they skip the guy and deal the 'correct' cards to everyone else is because of superstitious people like Chris. Seriously. There's no point in the casino freaking out the superstitious people.

Chris - Do you seriously believe that it matters who they give which cards to? If so I hope you have some good reason. You are starting to sound awful superstitious.

Scott - You think the poker sites might be rigging for action? I'm confused by your position now. If the deals are truly random then they aren't rigged for action.

FYI - There is some info on Poker Stars' site about their card generator. Search for 'SHUFFLE':
http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/features/security/

I don't expect this will help Chris but someone else may be interested.

I have a confession - my Stars account has gotten low twice (it is low right now). Both times it has gotten low I've felt very, very cold-decked. It is hard, even for me, to stop thinking that Stars is trying to bust me so I'll re-deposit. 8)

The Sixth Sense, Fasso style: I read dead people.
And not only in literature, at the Stud table it´s a skill you need as well (ok, they´re not dead but by their age most are really pushing it).

And Fasso, I still read Shakespeare and it´s still your fault. Also, I found my Keats poetry bundle I bought 20 years ago. Give us some Keats next time you´re one, will you, La Belle Seventh Street Sans Mercy should work nicely.

For bragging rights, at school I learned the version of La Belle Dame Sans Mercy that starts:
"Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms"
There is another version that starts:
"Ah, what can ail thee, wretched wight".

Where did the difference come about?

[Erwin Blonk]

Typepad shucks, it keeps posting without my name while I was logged in. The previous comment was me.

[Jonas 'Chiberta']

Welcome back Fasso! We've missed you!

Great to hear Scott taking the role as the 'voice of reason' on the show!!!

And Rant2112, I think it was pretty clear that Scott was not on the 'rigged for action' side in the discussion. (nor did he seem to believe in the tooth fairy, although he didnt say so directly...)

- Jonas, Copenhagen, Denmark

[Scott Long]

Rant, so sorry if you took from any of my comments that I think online poker is rigged. Nothing is further from the truth, in my opinion, on legitimate sites like FullTilt and PokerStars. Where I think you might have gotten confused is when Chris inexplicably changed his position from "I don't like continuous shuffling period" to "I don't like continuous shuffling if the sites are using it to rig action." My point was that if sites were indeed rigging it for action (which I firmly believe they aren't) then, yeah, I'd be against continuous shuffling. It's kinda like saying "Do you like Santa Claus?" and I say yes. And then someone says "Would you like Santa Claus if he he hit on Kate Winslet?" And I'd so, well, no. And then that person says, "Well, then you don't like Santa Claus." :)

And, for the record, I don't believe in the tooth fairy. When I was six, I lost a huge molar. It was easily a $5 one. I got a quarter. I haven't been right with that woman since.

[Rant2112]

Thank goodness we have one sane host left.

[Aquaman]

Hmm, which was worse, talking about pot-odds or talking about RCG's? Mathmatical congkulations are defiantely NOT the Ante-Up hosts strengths.

Glad Scott liked the beer, the only hosts who drinks and the only host who had any grasp on statistics, a connection?

[Aquaman]

Obviously spelling isn't mine :)

[Gambit]

Scott -

Thank you for saving me from chucking my pda out the window on Dale Mabry after the Bucs game yesterday while listening to the show. ;) BTW, who's that breathing down the Buckeye's neck?

[Scott Long]

Glad I could help, Gambit. It ain't easy, I tell ya. And I jumped on the Bulls bandwagon last year, so this is turning out to be an interesting season ...

[Mr. Grothe]

We're comin! We're comin!

[djm182]

Scott, the Buckeyes have exactly 12 days left as #1. :)

[Frink]

Regarding the fact that continuous shuffling changes the outcome of a particular hand, Chris said something like "we are rooted in a tangible world, so why can't it be that way online?". However, I believe sites using continuous shuffling ARE rooted in "the tangible world"; ie: math! And as long as the math is correct over time there is nothing wrong with continuous shuffling RCGs.

Chris (and Fasso), consider this game I just made up in attempt to prove the point: You have 7c, 2c I have Ah, Kd and we can see each other’s cards. The flop and turn have been dealt and the board is: Jc, Ac, 8s, 4d (catch a club and you win, no club and I win). No bets have been made yet, the game starts right here. I'll bet 10 units and you can bet 1 unit, but the catch is that I'll continuously shuffle the remaining 44 cards until you yell "RCGs are great!".... then I'll deal the river and the winner gets 11 units.

At that point I’ll pick up the river card and start shuffling the 44 remaining cards again; the board, the bet sizes, and both our hands never change. And we can play this game as many times as you want.

How many times would you play this game with 7c, 2c? Why?

[Actinolite]

Here is a way that websites can rig a a deck for action and even use the continuous deck to do it.

I'm going to explain this using the hosts of Ante Up in a live situation to demonstrate.

Chris and Scott are playing heads up, Chris has raised with A-T hearts and Scott has called with 2 black 9s. Behind a screen Fasso has the deck and he is randomly shuffling the deck in the following way... He has all the cards laid out in a line face up and he randomly points at a card every two seconds. When its time for him to deal he throws that card into the game.

The flop is 4d, 4h, 7h. So Chris is on the flush draw. As our heroes raise and call Fasso points at random cards behind the screen. Now, Chris and Scott can't see the card that Fasso is pointing to at any time but Fasso can, and he can also see what Chris and Scott have.

Its at this point that the secret algorithm, Mr X, taps Mike on the shoulder and tells him every other card he points to should be a heart.

After he deals the heart, Mr X tells him that every other card he points to for the river should be a 9.

And there you have it. Still random but with a greater chance of greater action.

This only needs to be added in 1% of hands to see a huge increase in rake. And its just enough for poker players to be suspicous but still put it down to swings.

Hope this was clear. Try it live in a home game, its hilarious.

[Gambit]

Of course it is possible to rig a site for action.

But is it possible to rig a site for action without the data being skewed to the point where it would become detectable through statistical analysis?

A LOT of people use Poker Tracker to consolidate hand history information into a database. If this type of "rigging" was going on, I believe that some evidence would have turned up to support it (See current Absolute Poker scandal). The (admittedly few) statistical analysis that I've seen and/or done indicate that events are occurring at the expected rate. If anyone had a shred of evidence to the contrary it would spread across the internet like wildfire.

To tilt the odds in favor of action and not get caught one would either have to have an incredibly (impossibly?) complex algorithm that would balance every action card with a non-action card at another table all the while keeping every statistical parameter within its expected norm, or have to do it for only a minuscule number of hands. And where is the profit for the site in either one of those cases? And considering the potentially devastating backlash that would occur if this were ever uncovered (statiscally, or through an insider leak), it makes no sense for a site to put its cash cow in that kind of jeopardy. JMHO

[Erwin Blonk]

"The (admittedly few) statistical analysis that I've seen and/or done indicate that events are occurring at the expected rate. If anyone had a shred of evidence to the contrary it would spread across the internet like wildfire."

While the evidence you mentioned is hardly looked at. Or dismissed within half an hour without any other reason than ´but I know it´s rigged´ (really, it took about half an hour for a like comment to pop up - 2 minutes of typing to dismiss hours of analysis).
That burns my toast.

[Joe-Unimpressed]

I would like Santa MORE if he hit on Kate Winslet. She's yummy.

Now: TAMPA AS A POKER DESTINATION.
-We know there are NL games and maybe I missed it in the discussion, but what about LIMITS? I don't recall hearing anything about high limit games? Are there games with betting higher than 5? And what's the highest tournament entry around, 500?

[Putt_Putt]

This "random card generator" thing reminds me too much of a slot machine to make me comfortable.

Has anyone tried to do the math to determine if a deck is more random or less random the more you shuffle after removing cards? i.e. the smaller the sample, the less random the order.

At a 10-handed table, after 20 cards are removed, doesn't it seem likely that if 2 or more of a rank are left in the unused portion of the deck that they would have a better chance (for lack of a better term) to align themselves with each other after a re-shuffle?

[Scott Long]

Joe, yeah I think you missed the limit portion of the discussion. Limit games have a max of $5, so we said if you're a limit player, this probably isn't a "destination" for you. (Though the SunCruz boat does deal higher limits). And, well, of course, Kate Winslet is yummy. That's why I used her in that example. She's already married; I don't want ANOTHER guy competing with me.

[Joe-Unimpressed]

Scott,

I didn't just mean Limit poker, but what limits do they have in No limit poker? Do they have any NL, say 5-10, 10-20, etc? Not that it matters to me, I'm a 1-2 guy. I was just curious.

[Marcus]

Hi Folks,

I found this video on youtube´http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNz-Duyx3Lc

So I assume the real life tournament poker is rigged to... :-)

To all discussion about randomness I recommend the following article about random generators: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Random_generator

and this one about shuffling algorithms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuffling#Shuffling_algorithms

Since I assume the those sites use arithmetic RCGs they can't be random by definition.

On the other hand I do not care whether the desk is set after the shuffle or whether it's continously shuffled since my odds of hitting the cards I need or dodging the cards that hurt me is the same regardless of the shuffling...

I thinks what irritates most people is that the continuous shuffling is different from what we are used to in the life game. If it has been like this all the time we would be as much irritated if the online site would only shuffle once and then leave the desk as it is...

Just my 2 cents...

Cheers,

Marcus

> Since I assume the those sites use arithmetic RCGs <

This is an incorrect assumption.

[Marcus]

Maybe I have been using the wrong words (I am German :-))

I assume that those sites use algorythms to create the randon order of cards. Therefore they can't be truely random. If they - what I doubt - use physical phenomenoms to create the random order that would be truely randon.

As you can read here (from Wikipedia):

"There are two principal methods used to generate random numbers. One measures some physical phenomenon that is expected to be random and then compensates for possible biases in the measurement process. The other uses computational algorithms that produce long sequences of apparently random results, which are in fact completely determined by a shorter initial value, known as a seed or key. The latter type are often called pseudorandom number generators.

A "random number generator" based solely on deterministic computation cannot be regarded as a "true" random number generator, since its output is inherently predictable. John von Neumann famously said "Anyone who uses arithmetic methods to produce random numbers is in a state of sin." How to distinguish a "true" random number from the output of a pseudo-random number generator is a very difficult problem. However, carefully chosen pseudo-random number generators can be used instead of true random numbers in many applications. Rigorous statistical analysis of the output is often needed to have confidence in the algorithm."

Cheers,

Marcus

[Scott Long]

Ah, sorry Joe. All land-based no-limit here is $100 max buy-in, mostly with $1/$2 blinds. Some rooms allow a $60 min, and some rooms deal $2/$5 - but again, with a $100 max.

[st]

"doesn't it seem likely that if 2 or more of a rank are left in the unused portion of the deck that they would have a better chance to align themselves with each other after a re-shuffle?"

NO! IT DOESN'T! WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE???? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! [throws computer out window, shoots self]

[calms down]

Scott - I appreciate the info about Tampa poker; are there any card rooms in Orlando proper (I have a company retreat there sometime in the next six months)?

[Gambit]

Marcus -

FTP, and other reputable online sites, do use a TRNG based on "physical phenomenoms".

Details can be found by reading this link, and sublinks contained within: http://tinyurl.com/27zzdn

[Clever Moniker]

st - I feel your frustration, if that is any consolation.

[Marcus]

Gambit, thanks for the information... that sounds great...

As written before I even could live with a PRNG and the deck being shuffeled in whatever way.

To me online poker is about playing me cards, knowing my odds and my opponents...

Cheers,

Marcus

[Scott Long]

St, unless things have changed, no legal poker in Orlando. You'll have to drive east to Cape Canaveral for boats to nowhere, or west to Hard Rock in Tampa.