I recently received an e-mail from a Full Tilt player named Greg telling me that he and his wife had been watching me play on Full Tilt for several days. They said they enjoyed it, but were disappointed that they never got to see my cards “when you call on the river.” He wanted to know if that was “standard for the pros, so we will not know what you called with.” He was hoping to learn from my playing.

I emailed him back to explain that was not the case and how seeing cards at showdown worked, live and online. Our exchange brought up some useful points that I thought would be worth describing here.

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Steve Zolotow hosted a mini-FTOPS event several days ago. I monitored his Pro Chat and asked three questions early. I expected him to be smart, witty, and irreverent. I was not disappointed.

He answered questions for several hours, longer than I lasted in the tournament. What follows are my questions and Steve’s answers, along with a sampling of other subjects from the chat.

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PART I.A. – WHO LIVES HERE?

As enclaves to people with money, Scottsdale and Las Vegas have much in common. The first refugees from the East to civilize both places built homes that would not look out of place on the Main Line or Greenwich or Lincoln Park. For trees, grass and topiary, they made only modest compromises with the desert. The emphasis was on Big, Tall, and Lush. Everything had to be very Green, and there were some big palm trees tossed into the mix. Later transplants to both towns embraced the desert instead of trying to keep it at bay. The homes still had to be big, but red bricks and peaked roofs gradually disappeared. Saguaro and other native desert cacti and plants gradually overtook grass, both architecturally and environmentally.

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I would never want to say who has been my most valuable contact in poker. The book, articles, and blogs I’ve written, and the poker lessons I’ve learned, have come from my good fortune in making many wonderful friends inside poker. But the list of finalists would have to include Ted Forrest. His generous cooperation made SUICIDE KING a success. In the four years since, Ted has unselfishly shared numerous details of his private life (for your eventual entertainment).

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Sorry my blog entries have been so sporadic over the last few weeks. It seems everybody, including me, has been on summer vacation. It appears that, though I will be covering the November Nine, I am not in Cyprus for the WPT event and I am probably not going to London. I will be discussing the status and future plans for the blog – that include a number of new and exciting changes – with Uncle Tilty, as soon as later this week.

In the meantime, this limbo has given me the unexpected luxury of free time at home with my family. Instead of the international flights and intrigue of the last two years, I got to enjoy a cigar with my son Barry in the backyard last night.

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You MUST watch Lady GaGa’s live acoustic version on AOL of “Poker Face.” I rarely recommend things in this space – other than playing more poker on Full Tilt – so I have to be certain something is really great or really awful before I give it The Full Tilt Poker Blog Seal of Approval (TFTPBSoA).

But this is worth it.

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AFTERWARD

Those were my notes, essentially as I wrote them that night in July as I tried to remember the details of the dinner with Jon Turner. The Main Event became my focus starting the next day and I never got back to that account. I’m sure you can imagine my reluctance in publishing an interview that I can’t confirm actually happened. But I should be able to confirm this nearly two months later, right? Continue reading »

THE GREAT JON TURNER CAPER

It’s near midnight as I try to make sense of what happened two nights ago. I’m trying to write a profile of Full Tilt Pro and online tournament superstar Jon Turner. The material for the profile was supposed to come from the dinner meeting that night at a sushi restaurant called Naked Fish. But I am stuck. Utterly stuck.

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PROSPECTUS

A poker player is supposed to be difficult to read. But Jon Turner takes inscrutability to a new level. I spent an evening with Jon during the World Series of Poker and came to a pair of inconsistent conclusions:  (1) All my stereotypical notions of the 27 year old online tournament poker legend are wrong; and (2) the experience of trying to learn about Jon Turner was so difficult that I am sometimes doubting whether we actually met.

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I started playing poker in casinos in 1991. For the next few years, when I could get to Las Vegas or Los Angeles, I would make a side trip into the poker rooms. I didn’t play much between 1994 and 2003, but I started playing again that summer and – well, I’ve written about most of the things that have happened to me since so I don’t need to repeat them now. Because I write about poker, I always have a notebook and a pen at the table. These items have gotten a ridiculous amount of attention over the years.

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