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POCKET ACES

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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Jan. 27, 2007

Meeting the Numbers Man, His Peers, and the Ones Out to Get Him

God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically. -- Albert Einstein

Sunday is the only day that doesn't smack me between the eyes at sunrise. Though I do not arise too early for my morning walk, oddly, I awaken automatically with no more ease. It's still a chore because I am by some quirk of nature, a night person. I plan to start my Sunday with a visit to Einstein's Bagel Factory (not related to Albert, or at least I don't think so) followed by some shopping for my personal projects. It's the day I reserve for myself.

But here I was last Sunday inside Binion's (formerly the poker capitol of the world) on the rail watching some of the planet's top poker authors compete against the people who bought their books. No problem, however, first because the weather outside was horrid - a chilling 42 degrees with winds so voluminous they kept the air filled with pulverized desert dust and second, because if I can't be outside, then being around a poker atmosphere ranks in the top five places I'd rather be.

This author tournament challenge was set up by Sheree Bykofsky, a poker-playing literary agent with several titles under her own name, including Rules of Poker. Operating out of New York, she contacted the writers she knew personally and they in turn put the word out to the writers they knew. With just a two-month lead time, and operating without her personal computer (It crashed two weeks before the event.), Sheree managed to pull the whole thing off. The event saw about a dozen writers and 50 competitors (a number that might have been higher had the event not coincided with the NFL playoffs) plus a Gambler's Book Shop book-selling booth that also acted as a redemption point for special bounties.

I hadn't planned to enter the tournament because I've reached the point where my eyes can't distinguish between a spade and a club, a problem that requires surgery. But I wanted to meet the some of the authors I hadn't met before, and watch the action, both of which were afforded luxuries since I was supervising the book sales. The overall purpose of the event was to publicize poker books and help increase sales, always a numbers game in itself.

Sometimes as we spend more and more time in our private worlds, we forget that there is energy all around us. That's one of the lessons I relearned this particular Sunday as I touched base with these writers and soon forgot about the problems of the government versus Internet poker and other bad beats. One thing that really impressed me was the sincerity these folks exuded. They didn't crow about how many books they'd written or how many times they won a tournament, and they rarely introduced themselves as authors, preferring to discuss poker as one player to another. My most recent forays into live action had me facing some pretty sour faces, some awfully bad attitudes, and even some odorous players so this positive atmosphere was refreshing.

Now I did watch countless hands but I kept returning to the portable bookstore to pick up a copy of the latest arrival, Killer Poker by the Numbers. My first inclination was to dismiss the book because I am about as far from a math-head as you can find, but then I notice the author, Tony Guerrera, a youngish 20-something kid with a full smile and a bouncing-around personality, and I wondered if he could write with as much enthusiasm and knowledge as he spoke. I was not disappointed. Like his cohort and friend, John Vorhaus, who coined the phrase Killer Poker with his first book, this guy can write. He can string a sentence together without misplaced modifiers or dangling participles and he can explain a principle as well as a seasoned professor. I find it uncanny that someone who has this grasp of math can also claim some measure of expertise in the written word.

I won't review the book here because I'm still reading it between work and play but I will say that so far it is the best book covering the subject of poker mathematics that I've seen to date, and I've seen all there is. Before anybody argues, understand this statement is coming from someone who gave up on numbers in the fourth grade!

I think everyone at the tournament was impressed with Tony's personality. His was one of two titles that sold best at the GBC booth, and he made a decent showing in the tournament though he didn't make it to the final table.

No, the final-table honor was reserved for Charlie Shoten (No-Limit Life) and my forever favorite scribe Lou Krieger (way too many books to single out any). Lou managed to take the lead and never relinquish it, proving that the advice he so freely gives on his website (www.loukrieger.com) is legitimate, even though he prefers cash games. (I hear the plans for an Atlantic City challenge are on the table already and I'm sure Lou will be posting information as soon as it's available so you might bookmark his pages.)

Nope, I didn't need to understand math to enjoy this Sunday; it integrated empirically.

So congratulations Lou and Tony and Charlie and to all the players who received a bounty for knocking out the likes of George Epstein, Russ Fox, Susie Isaacs, Neil Myers, Alan Schoonmaker, Richard Sparks, John Vorhaus and Kathleen Watterson. And, of course, to Sheree.

Just watch out. I expect to knock all of you out next year.