What The Hell Were They Thinking?

WARNING:  This is not a poker post.  It is completely off-topic from my usual content.  It is a movie review of the most popular movie on the planet right now.  Actually, to be more accurate, it is really a rant about what I didn't like about the film.

WARNING:  There is no way I can talk about what I didn't like without spoiling the movie.  So, consider this a major, serious, no-shit-I-mean-it SPOILER WARNING for the hit movie, AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR. I mean it folks, if you haven't seen AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR well, first of all, I kind of envy you but more importantly, do not read this post unless you are sure you won't be seeing it or don't mind being spoiled.  If you are planning on seeing it, bookmark this and come back when you do and then you can compare your thoughts to mine.  I personally hate spoilers so I trust you have all been properly warned. 

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NO SERIOUSLY, THERE ARE MAJOR SPOILER AHEAD.

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REALLY, I MEAN IT!!!!

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Ok, that should be enough notice.  I don't want to hear any complaints that I "ruined the movie" for you.  Actually, the writers and the producers of the movie did that.  Well, I dunno about you, but they sure ruined it for me.

I just saw the Avengers movie Sunday and I really can't put into words my reaction when the movie was over.  Oh actually I can, but I vowed not to use those type of words on this blog.

My reaction alternated between "What the hell was that?" and "What the hell were they thinking?"

Now for the first approximately five and a half hours of the film, it was fine.  Not great by any means, but certainly a fun, enjoyable Marvel comics movie.  It was more than OK.  It certainly wasn't as good as the best Marvel movie (the original Avengers, which I actually reviewed on this very blog when it was released, see here). Not as good as the sequel or as the better films in the series, (the first Iron Man, the new Spider-Man and the second and third Captain America films come to mind).  But maybe right after those.  It was pretty much what I expected.

Until the very end.  What happened in the end?  Well…AGAIN, SPOILER WARNING.

The Avengers lost and everyone died.

Well night quite.  The Avengers did lose, but not quite everyone died.  Although we can't be sure.  Because the way they died—they just disintegrated after the big bad guy snapped his fingers—implies that more could die after the film ends.  Who died?  Well, if you're a "TLDR" type of person (and you likely are if you read this blog), then it would be easier to Google who didn't die than who did die, that's how much of a blood bath it was.

Now before you rip into me, yes, I know that this is really just part 1 of a two part Avengers story (or is it really like part 19?). I did know that going in. I know that next year we will be treated to the conclusion, and that somehow, through the magic of Stan Lee, movies, comics, super-heroes and bad writing, all the dead will someone return to life and save the world. And it will be thrilling.  And they'll all make jokes about not being dead anymore.  Ha ha.

After all, most of the dead characters already have additional Marvel movies announced (which I suppose could take place before they all died, but probably won't).

But for now, for a whole year, this is where we stand.  A shitload of dead Avengers. 

I'm sorry, this is just not what I expect from a Marvel movie, from a comic book movie.  I was just stunned.  It was so dark.  So (seemingly) final.  So depressing.  So somber. So dismal. 

I sat there thinking, "that's it?" while the credits rolled.  I sat glued to my seat hoping that the inevitable mid or post credits tag would give me some hope for future.  Like Tony Stark popping up on the screen saying, "Joke time's over, sucker!"  But no. The post credits scene just double downs on what we saw and is even more depressing. 

Seriously, Marvel?  Seriously?  I go to a Super Hero movie to be entertained.  It's supposed to be a fun experience.  I should leave the theater with a smile on my face knowing I had a good time for two plus hours.  All the good will in that regard the movie had earned with me for the first 95% went out the window after the last 10 minutes.  That was anything but fun.  I felt cheated.  I felt that all the time I had spent with the previous movies in the series had been wasted. 

I just sat there thinking, "what the hell was that?"  A cliff hanger where everyone is in imminent danger is one thing.  But this is past the point of danger.  If they're dead they no longer in danger.  I suppose that's the "glass is half full" way to look at it. 

Honestly, I see the ending as just a giant F.U. to all the fans who have supported the films all these years. "We know you came here for a good time, but we don't give a shit.  We're going to send you home with a really dark, disturbing ending to ruin your day.  Thanks for your support, and be sure to come back next year when we'll come up with some really hokey way to bring all the characters you love back to life."

A giant F.U.

The thing is, after this experience, I'm not too keen on giving these guys any more of money.  I have zero enthusiasm for seeing the resolution.  Not after this.  I'd sooner write to Marvel and demand my money back for all their movies I've paid for up to now. I sure don't want to give them any more money.

I want to make it clear I don't expect every movie I see to leave me smiling.  I've seen some great movies that do not have happy endings.  Schlinder's List wasn't exactly a laugh riot (although it did have an uplifting aspect to it). But as I said, comic book movies are supposed to be fun.  If you leave a comic book movie in stunned silence (and as far as I could tell at the theater I saw, everyone was very quiet), I think you're doing it wrong.

And by killing so many people, I think it's going to make it really hokey when they bring them all back.  I mean the odd return to the living of some not-quite-dead character here or there is always a bit of a stretch, but if you don't abuse it, it can be forgivable (especially for a really great character).  But a mass resurrection?  That's not respecting your audience. I guess we will see Dr. Strange reverse time, or reveal that the last 10 minutes of this flick is all an elaborate illusion that is part of some great master plan.  That won't make me forget the bad feeling I had as I walked out of the theater yesterday.

The thing that shocks me even more than the ending is the fact that I haven't seen even one other person complaining about this.  Not one.  True that until now I have been avoiding reading much about the film to avoid spoilers, but still, all I've seen is praise (mild and/or strong).  Maybe that's because you can't really rant about this without spoiling the film. Nevertheless, I seem to be alone on this, at least so far.  Just as I was writing this I saw a few people I respect on Twitter all talking about how much they liked the movie, no one said anything about the ending.

Maybe I'm just out there all alone.  Maybe I'm crazy?  And I know the movie is setting all sorts of box office records.  Maybe that will convince Marvel to end all their future movies with 3/4's of the cast dead—not to mention half the population of the world, I guess I left that detail out, that half of all the normal people on the planet also die!  Maybe that makes the ending more upbeat, somehow?

I dunno….I just don't get it.  Instead of driving home rehashing all the fun bits in the film that I liked, all I could think of was how dark and depressing the ending was.

Just ruined the whole experience for me.  (Edited to add:  My long time pal "Norm", with whom I have seen a ton of super hero movies over the years--but not this one--just emailed me his response to this post:  "My two-word comment on the movie:  Avengers Disassembled.")

Is it a Skill Game--or Weird Science?

"It's a movie about a woman having sex with a fish!"  The older gentleman at the table said that about five times within a short period.  And that's, as best as I can recall, how I knew we were discussing movies at this table.  I knew he was talking about the film, The Shape of Water.  I haven't seen it.  But it won the best picture Oscar, so of course I knew what it was about.  It was, as the guy said, about a woman having sex with a fish.

I finally said, "Well, I'm a fish.  Where is this woman who likes having sex with fish?"  No, really, I didn't say that.  It wasn't until I was driving home that I realized the situation was ripe for someone to make a joke about a woman having sex with a poker fish.

The poker at this session in Ventura, which took place last Saturday, was, umm, interesting.  It was a bad news/good news/bad news session for me.  I'll get to that.  But first I want to talk about the chatter at the table.  Which was mostly about movies.

The table was a bunch of "mature" players.  That's a nice way to say that more than half the players at this 1/2 game were older than me.  It was a friendly group and it was the standard mix.  There was a guy who never saw a hand he didn't like, and a couple of major nits.  As you would expect from a game where the min/max buy-in is $50-$100, there was no one at that table who could possibly make a living playing this game.

But a dealer pushed in who was much younger than the players, and for some reason he started talking about movies.  I'm thinking he knew most of the players and that one of them got him started on this by mentioning some current movie, perhaps it was the movie that was about a woman having sex with a fish.  But he started mentioning a whole bunch of recent movies he had or hadn't seen, and players were giving their one-line reviews of them.  The dealer started talking about older movies….you know like five years old.  It seems he is trying to "catch up" on most of the notable movies he's missed in that five year period.

Of course, Molly's Game came up.  How could you discuss a plethora of movies at a poker table and not discuss that movie?  Everyone who had seen it agreed it was a good movie, although we all did have to allow from some inaccuracies about poker. 

It was actually a fun discussion, and a good distraction from the fact that I was absolutely card dead and just bleeding chips.  But then someone mentioned Star Wars and it seemed like the dealer and I were the only ones who liked it!  Seriously? What kind of freaks were these folks?  Where do you find people like this?

Finally the movie-buff dealer was finished was pushed out.  I asked him, "So, you gonna watch a movie tonite?"  A few people laughed and the dealer did too, and responded, "Yes…well probably, it's date night."

The next dealer that came to our table had a rather remarkable resemblance to a famous movie actor—Anthony Michael Hall.  Or at least he looks a lot like Hall looked back when he was in Weird Science. Oh this dealer is older than Hall was then, and looks it, but you can't deny the resemblance.  So sort of an older version Hall from Weird Science.  Except that he's younger than Hall is now (I guess he's always been younger than Hall is).  One of us (actually it was me), looked it up on that Interweb thing and discovered that Hall is now 50 and the dealer is younger than that.  But the dealer confessed he gets that all the time, he is constantly being told he looks like Hall.  The players were saying that he could/should try to make some money as a Anthony Michael Hall impersonator.  Or be in the sequel to Weird Science.

Yeah, it was Weird Science that they kept remembering Hall from.  Now I did see that flick when it came out, and I have a vague memory of liking it.  But when I think of Anthony Michael Hall, the movie I think of is Sixteen Candles.  That's because in it, he has one of the all-time great movie lines: "I'm kinda like king of the dipshits."

I was pretty card dead and just trying to hit something with the few playable hands I was dealt. I ran low on chips.  I had to add chips a couple of times, so I was in for $200 and I was down to about $70-$80.  I wasn't going to add any more chips, $200 is enough to invest in this particular game.  The only pot I'd won was when I flopped a set of 3's and didn't get any action on the turn…a very small pot.

So on the button with 9-7 of hearts. I called a raise to $8.  It was three-way.  The preflop raiser had me covered and the other caller was the guy who never saw a hand he didn't like.  He was short-stacked.  The flop was favorable: 9-7-3, two diamonds.  The preflop raiser led out for $28.  I looked at my stack and didn't really have enough to make a normal raise, so I just shoved.  The short stack called of course.  The preflop raiser tanked a bit but ultimately called, although he was clearly not happy about it.  The board bricked out (no diamonds).  I showed my two pair.  The preflop raiser showed two Jacks and said, "I couldn't fold."  The shortie stared at the board for awhile and then mucked face down and said he missed his flush.  While it certainly made sense that he had the flush draw, I can honestly say that based on his play, he could have easily had a much worse hand than that.  Like overcards.  Or one overcard.  Anyway, I was more than happy to take a nice pot.

The guy with the Jacks reiterated that he "just couldn't fold," even though he said he "knew" I had two pair.  Ok then.  Then he said, "I should have bet more preflop.  Maybe you wouldn't have called with 9-7 if I bet more."  Now ordinarily in that situation I just sort of smile and say nothing.  But it was a real friendly table and I decided to have a little fun.  So I said, "I dunno, I'm a pretty bad player, I might have called anyway. A good player you could have gotten to fold there, but maybe not me."  Everyone laughed, even the guy who had the Jacks.  But he didn't laugh as much as everyone else.  Then after a few seconds, the guy on my immediate right, who hadn't been in the hand (and hadn't been at the table very long) said, "You hear that?  Silence.  Notice that no one is arguing with you."  Ahem.  Now of course I had invited that kind of comment with my joke.  Still, a few years ago I probably would have been pissed at that.  Not this time.  I just laughed and agreed with him.  I don't mind if anyone thinks I'm a bad player.

The guy with Jacks said something about taking good care of his chips. Like he expected to get them back.  Again, I just laughed.  It was all in good fun.

About two or three hands later, guess who got Jacks?  Yours truly. In early position I opened to $10.  This time the guy with Jacks three-bet to $25.  It was his first three-bet of the day.  It folded back to me. Hmm….Unless he was on tilt from the previous hand, or specifically targeting me, I saw nothing from his game that would indicate he didn't have my Jacks beat, or at the very least, he had Ace-King.  Well….I suppose that, having seen me call his raise with 9-7,  he now might think I was raising light and he could steal the pot from me.  But my call with 9-7 was on the button and my open this time was in early position and surely he would have noticed the difference.

I called.  We were heads up.  The flop was Queen-Queen-X.  I checked, he bet $35.  I tanked a bit and then folded. Now the two Queens on the flop pretty much eliminated one overpair that beat me, but I still was pretty sure I was beat.  When I folded, he said, "Did you have Jacks?"  I laughed and said no.  "I wouldn't fold Jacks."  He laughed and said, "I had better."  I'm sure he did. I know it's possible I folded the best hand but I doubt it.  So I said, "I thought you had quads there."  He laughed and said, "No, if I had quads I would have bet less."  And I said, "If you had quads there you wouldn't have bet."  He sort of agreed.

Sometime later I had King-Queen off in the big blind.  There was a small raise so I called.  Seven of us saw a flop of King-Queen-3.  Once again, a favorable flop.  I decided to take a chance and check, hoping for a check-raise.  Sure enough, someone bet $8 and at least two players called.  When it got back to me, I made it $40.  The guy who led out for $8 shoved for about $100.  He was new to the table.  I had him covered.  A lady with a short stack put all her chips in.  Everyone else was gone. Of course I called. The board bricked out and the guy who shoved didn't show when he saw my hand.  The lady somehow showed pocket 9's, unimproved. 

Another female player, sitting directly across from me, saw me stacking all those chips and said, "What did you say about being a bad player?  You've got all the chips."  I just laughed.  This woman is a regular and I've played with her many times.

Now I had a nice profit.  I was up almost $70, not bad for this game.  I played a few more orbits and decided I was now on my last round.  The guy with the Jacks was still commenting every so often about me having his chips.  It was funny.  I guess it could have gotten obnoxious but he never took it that far.

So it was to be my second to last hand. I was UTG +1.  And I looked down at pocket deuces. I limped in and then the big blind made it $8.  It was multi-way.  The flop was Jack-10-2.  Quite favorable!  The preflop raiser bet $20.  I made it $40.  It folded back to him and he tanked.  Finally he called, reluctantly.  The turn was a brick and he checked.  I bet $40 again.  I was expecting a fold. He tanked again and then finally called.  Damn.  My Spidey sense started going off.  Maybe his reluctance was not whether to call but whether to raise?  Did he have a bigger set?  Or Jack-10?  That's very likely.  People love Jack-10.

What concerned me was this guy had been at the table almost as long as I had and hadn't played very many hands. There was no way this guy was still here with just a pair.  I had him covered but not by all that much.  I was beginning to smell a rat.

When the river was another brick, I saw him seriously thinking about betting.  I decided to play it safe and check behind.  He flipped over pocket 10's.  Ugh. Not so favorable.  He said he thought I had a set of Jacks.

That was it, I picked up and left.  I was up nearly $70 and ended up with a $20 loss.  Of course, I could have lost a lot more on that last hand, set-over-set is a good way to get felted if you're on the wrong end of it. My story of a near $200 loss becoming a $70 win was now a story of a $70 win becoming a $20 loss.  Still, a decent recovery.

The guy with Jacks had missed that hand and just got back at the table in time to see me leave.  He was sorry to see me go.  "I didn't get my chips back."  I pointed to the fellow with the set of 10's.  "Get it from him." 

Poker Season is Almost Here!

That's right boys and girls, poker season is just around the corner.  Soon it will be time for every poker player in the universe to descend on Las Vegas as that game of skill known as poker takes over Sin City.

I know this because I am currently working my fingers to the bone entering all the special summer series tournaments into the PokerAtlas database. And also because the last two columns I wrote for Ante Up consisted almost entirely of previews of all the summer series. Note: Forget about what you learned in school.  Every poker player knows that summer is from end of May to early July.

So since my days are consumed with all the poker series about to commence in Vegas shortly, I thought I'd take some time during my free time to share some thoughts with you.  Hopefully you've already seen part 1 of my summer preview (here).  The second part should be appearing in a couple of weeks, covering Planet Hollywood, Wynn, Binion's and Orleans.

So with all those tournaments to look at as I enter them in the system, I thought I'd talk a bit what events I'm thinking about playing.  Yes, after a long hiatus, I am planning to return to Vegas in June.  But with less enthusiasm than in the past.  As I've explained in multiple posts, I really don't like what they've done to Vegas.  They are doing their best to drive people like me away with skyrocketing room rates, ever increasing resort fees and parking fees and the virtual disappearance of quality (or even decent) low-cost food options.  It's getting to be too damn expensive to go to Vegas, and that's not even considering the possibility of a few bad sessions.  Even the increasing cost of gas makes it pricier for me.  You see, the incompetent morons who run California recently increased our gas taxes 12¢ a gallon.  True, once I get to Vegas I can buy cheaper gas….but it's a bit impractical to drive to Vegas just for a fill up.

Still, I'm not quite ready to completely write off Vegas, and if you're a poker player and you're ever going to go to Vegas, the poker season is when to go.  Even if you didn't ever play a tournament, the cash game action is insane this time of year.

And it sure feels like the poker season this year is the biggest ever—or at least since I've been working in the poker biz.  The WSOP has more bracelet events than ever, and I believe more side events too.  And then there's the Venetian.  Oh, the Venetian.  I hope you read my column just for the section on the Venetian summer series.  Getting that listed on PokerAtlas almost killed me.  They actually have 150 tournaments between mid-May and end of July.  And I had to enter every single one of them into the database.  I just finished on Thursday.  I don't want to say how long it took me but when I started they still had free parking on the Vegas strip. 

Seriously, I'm really looking forward to seeing the set up they have over there.  For most of the series, the events will be held not in the Venetian poker room, but in the Sands Convention Center.  I hear it is going to be a really nice venue, very roomy, a separate food court and who knows what else.  I'd make a point to check it out just to see it even if I wasn’t planning on playing any events.  But I think they have a tournament that has caught my eye and I will take a shot at.  It's the Nightstack, a $400 tourney with a bunch of flights spread out over June on various evenings starting at 6pm. I wrote a bit about it in my column.  It has a $1MM guarantee and each flight is in the money.  The top 10% get paid and the top 5% advance to day 2.  It's actually similar to WSOP's Giant tournament that they debuted last year.  The Nightstack has 30 minute levels all the way through, the Giant has 20-minute levels on day 1.  But the starting stack is bigger for the Giant (25K vs 15k).  Even though it doesn't have a guarantee, the Giant figures to have a lot bigger prize pool (last year's was over $3MM).  And the buy-in is close but the Giant is a bit cheaper at $365.  Giant's payouts probably start sooner although it depends on how many players each flight gets. Giant has a Day 2 and a Day 3, the Nightstack finishes on Day 2.

When I was analyzing the Nightstack and realizing it was similar to the Giant, I checked the dates of each to see if they were competing directly.  Well, none of the Day 1 flights are head-to-head (but even if they were, since there are so many flights, it wouldn't be an issue).  But, it turns out that Nightstack's Day 2 (it's last day) and Giant's Day 3 (it's last day) are on the same day.

When I first saw that, I thought that was too bad that they were competing like that, players would have choose one or the other. But then I thought about it some more and realized it likely wouldn't prevent anyone from entering both events. The Giant starts it's Day 3 (which will very likely just be a final table) at 2pm on 7/1.  Nightstack's Day 2 starts the same day at 5pm.

But there will only be a conflict if you make it to Day 3 of the Giant and Day 2 of the Nightstack.  Otherwise you're fine.  And making it to the final day of both of these tournaments would be a pretty nice problem to have.  I might suggest if you're good enough to make it to the final days of both of these tournaments, you're probably wasting your time playing in events that cost $400 or less!

But think of it.  Players who are in Vegas for most of the summer will be able to play both.  A lot of the Nightstack's dates are the Thursday before a Giant flight (which are all on Friday).  So you play Venetian Thursday and if you don’t survive, you can try the Giant the next night.  A lot of players are probably planning on firing multiple bullets anyway. 

The question is, if you make it to Day 2 in either one of them, do you give up on the idea of playing the other or do you give it a shot anyway?  You are going to be among a very few players to make it to Day 3 of the Giant, and will have survived a huge field.  It will be easier to make it to Day 2 of the Nightstack of course.

What I'm saying is, even if you're Doug Polk (and I'm pretty sure you're not Doug Polk), and you fired every bullet possible in both tournaments, it's still extremely unlikely you'd have your dance card filled with both final days on July 1.

But if somehow you did make it through both?  Well again, a very nice problem to have.  And actually, you'd have three of hours of play at the Giant before the restart over at the Venetian.  I guess your strategy would be based on how deep stacked you were for each event, right?  If you're the short stack at the final table of the Giant (but were deep stacked at the Nightstack), you just keep shoving until you bust the Giant or you get on a roll and can legitimately compete for a bracelet.  Even if you busted the first minute of day 3, you'd be getting a very nice payout.

OTOH, if it was the reverse, and you were the chip leader at the Giant but a shortie at the Nightstack, you play the Giant for as long as you can, and if that short stack at the Nightstack gets blinded off, you can pick up whatever money is coming to you from there at your convenience if you don't make it over there in time to play at all.  Meanwhile, your payout at the Giant would be huge.

The dilemma would be if you were deep stacked at both (and again, a great problem to have).  I suppose at that point you would get out the ICM calculator to help you decide which of the two tournaments you should prioritize.

But of course, it's a real, real long shot that anyone would make it to the final days of both of these tournaments.

Bottom line:  I may just be crazy to fire a bullet in both, and see if I can be that guy with the final day dilemma.  I'm not counting on it, but cashing in both would sure be nice and not completely out of the realm of possibility.

Despite the added bracelet events at the WSOP, nothing new appeals to me, so if I do play the Giant it will be my only bracelet event.  And again, I will keep away from the Daily Deepstacks as I have for the past few years.  The 3pm Deepstack became the 2pm Deepstack a few years back, and now has become the 1pm Deepstack (at a new, slightly higher buy-in, $250).  A few years back they removed the dinner break, which made it quite unappealing to me.  This year they put the dinner break back….but it's not until 9:15pm, too late for me to take advantage of it.  I could work around it I suppose, but when there are other tournaments around town competing with it that are lot more friendly to eating/meds schedule, I see no reason to.

Just last time I wrote about last year's WPT 500 at the Aria (here), and yes, I hope to play it again this year, assuming I still have money left by the time it rolls around in late June.  The $5 increase in the buy-in (to $570) won't keep me away. 

Golden Nugget will once again be running those $150 NLH tourneys most days at 1PM, with a $20K guarantee.  That's the tourney that really appeals to me for a variety of reasons.  I expect to try my luck there a few times.  The Nugget also has a couple of weekends reserved for its $200 Ultimate Re-entry events, with a $250K guarantee. They have 9 starting flights and I can see myself playing in that. All players who make it to Day 2 are in the money.

Planet Hollywood is running some $100 NLH tourneys with $10K guarantees.  I have to consider giving one of those a try, no?  Then they have some $250 "Low Roller" tourneys….multiple starting flights, payouts begin on Day 1, $200K guarantee.  Can I pass that up?   Oh and Orleans has a bunch of $150 NLH tournies with $25K guarantees.  Have to consider those as definitely playable.

Wynn has great tournaments as well, but I think they are a little out of my wheelhouse, buy-in wise.  And Binion's is mostly non-hold'em stuff, as I indicated in my column.

One thing I will point out is that almost all of these venues are using the Big Blind Ante at least to some degree, as I predicted (see here). The exceptions, as far as I can tell, are the Orleans and sorta/kinda Binion's.  I say that about Binion's because for their NLH events, they are going with Button Ante instead of the BB Ante, as I posted on Twitter a few weeks back. Some folks prefer the button ante because then the burden of that inflated ante and the big blind doesn't fall on the same player, it spreads it out better. The issue with that though is that there are sometimes hands where there is no player on the button, whereas there is always a big blind.  Binion's will handle this by having no ante when there is a dead button.  Players interested in that version of the single ante format can try that out and see for themselves if they like it.

But everyone else has at least a few tournaments with the Big Blind Ante, and both Aria and Wynn are exclusively BB Ante for their NLH events.  I think Golden Nugget is only using it for their championship event.  The others are using it for some portion of their events.  Oh and yes, even the WSOP is using it for a few of the bracelet events and some of the daily deepstacks.  By next year I bet it will be close to the standard.

Well that's about it.  I probably won't have the bankroll to play all the events that appeal to me unless I get a few early cashes.  I can dream can't I?  So what events appeal to you?

Note:  My last post was missing my signature gratuitous cheesecake pic.  So to make up for it, I've enhanced this post with a multiple pics of young ladies enjoying the summer.  Happy poker season!