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

Yeah, I caught that they had just released their 7th album, which is about 5 more than I thought they had released, lol.

G3StrokessongsontheiPod,IIRCG

my OG ipod's still going strong, thought you'd want to know.

Old technology was once formerly new.

I can only hope my iPod makes it to your zombiePod state, but I fear I'll eventually do something stupid like accidentally drop it on the cement garage floor.

GcluelesszombiePodnoobG

oodles of knowledge being dropped itt!

#thoughtsandprayers

Quarterback Flop

"OK, this one’s got two different shots,” Actor Pat tells us. He’s wearing a purple button-down, black-rimmed glasses, and his usual deadpan expression. A notebook page of scribblings rests beside him on the green felt.

Six of us are gathered around a small cardtable in Steve’s condo, shooting a commercial for Poker Gras. Wearing a black vest over a white button-down, I take my position in the dealer’s box. Steve and Will are decked out in Saints hats and jersey. Coach is doing his best Sean Payton impression with his visor, headset, and laminated coach's plays. Bill, an outsider, is dressed as a Dallas Cowboys fan.

The first shot, Pat explains, is a close-up of the dealer—me—spreading a Nine-Eight-Three flop. The second shot is of the Saints fans celebrating, Bill complaining, and Steve explaining that this is a Quarterback Flop: Drew Brees wore number 9, Archie Manning wore number eight, Bobby Hebert wore number three.” Pat turns to PJ. “And you say…”

“They have weird rules here,” PJ says, reciting his lines. “Anytime the flop has anything to do with the Saints, they just chop it up.”

"I didn't know Bobby Hebert wore number three," Steve says.

We spend a few minutes getting ready, asking questions, quibbling over details. Then Pat says, "Quiet, please." He waits a few seconds, readies the camera, and says, "Action.”

I fan out a Nine-Eight-Three all hearts flop.

“Yeah!” Steve, Will, and Coach exchange high-fives, and I announce a chopped pot.

“Wait a minute—I have the nuts,” Bill says, showing Ace-Three of hearts.

“Who cares, brah! It’s a quarterback flop!” Steve excitedly points to each numbered card. “We’ve got Drew Brees, Archie Manning, and…and—****!”

We burst into laughter.

“Bobby Hebert,” Pat says with a smile. “Let’s try again.”

I'll take some more of mawg sings eminem!

Arm-Wrestling for Comps

“Can I smile?” Katie asks.

“No,” Actor Pat says. “You are deadly serious. You are determined.” Pat turns to Bad Beat Bruce, his Popeye-arms bulging out of a snug short-sleeved shirt. “He can smile. Because he’s all smirky. He knows how easy this is going to be.”

We’re shooting a short film to spread the word about Wild Bill’s first GCP event in Pearl River. A microphone rests on the edge of a red cardtable, with a few stacks of cheap chips. Bill’s standing a few feet away with a handheld camera, with Pat directing. Katie and Bruce are arm-wrestling for something even more important than pride: casino comps.

“He’s making me laugh with his eyebrows,” Katie says, and she shares a laugh with Bruce.

Pat spritzes water on Bruce’s face—beads of sweat, to foreshadow his ass-kicking at the hands of a determined woman—and gives me a look. I lean in front behind, wearing a white dress shirt, clasping both of their hands. In the most authoritative referee-voice I can muster, I yell, “Ready. Set. Go!”

“Cut,” Pat says. “Don’t look at the camera, Bob. Look at the hands.”

I try again. “Ready. Set. Go!”

Haha, I thought those were current videos. Didn't realize we time traveled back to 2019.

timeless art

Why I Read

Came across the substack Out of Position: Bad Reader that's worth passing along itt, in part because the author, Chris Murray, is also a pokerer. In particular, I was struck by this observation (from his review of Sally Rooney's Normal People)
[quote=CM]I’m already wanting to end this Book Club series; am I really doing myself or anyone any favors? However, then I remember why we are reading, why this is important. First, we need to live other lives. We humans, even removed from the old comfort of god and church, have a special place in the universe. So much depends on us, so much that we do matters. Reading doesn’t just show us other lives for curiosity’s sake, reading allows us to slip into situations we need sympathy and empathy for. To not live other lives is dangerous. I am more human for having read these authors.[/quote]

I've been toying with the idea of starting a substack myself, with the goal of becoming a better reader. But that'll be a summer project, if it ends up happening.

I almost (*almost*) feel somewhat guilty that I don't read, like, pretty much at all. I keep telling myself I'll start picking it up more as we start to enter what my wife calls our "travel era", or maybe when I eventually fully retire and have more idle time on my hands. Maybe.

GbutmaybenotthoG

Yeah, think pieces about the decline of reading (like this one) are coming out all the time. Not sure where I fall on the doomerist spectrum—like, I think the decline is bad, but I'm not sure how or for whom. Seems obvious that some lolnonreaders will be perfectly fine and perhaps happier consuming their films and podcasts and tiktoks. (maybe the worst reason to read is to get rid of that nagging feeling that you "should.") Also seems obvious that we're all suffering from fractured attention spans and empathy deficits, for which reading can be an excellent (the best?) antidote.

if substack doesn't work out you should try medium, quora, or onlyfans

I'm skeptical of the idea of becoming a "better" reader even though I'm heavily dependent on reading, with it being nearly as important as sleeping and eating to me. I like the idea of communicating what you've read, though, particularly when a novel takes hold of and potentially changes your inner world. I feel lucky to be able to start each day by reading a chapter of fiction: the mere idea of reading in the morning gets me out of bed more than anything else.

thanks for the tips. It just so happens that last night I was told I have nice hands. So onlyfans?

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lemme tee you up and beseech you to say more.

To me, on the most basic level, being a "better reader" involves a commitment to the act of reading, full stop. To give myself an excuse to poast one of my favorite "better reader" quotes, maybe it's a commitment to the act of reading + attention.
[Quote=Fred N]At present it is not only my habit, but even my taste — a perverted taste, maybe — to write nothing but what will drive to despair every one who is ‘in a hurry.’ For philology is that venerable art which exacts from its followers one thing above all — to step to one side, to leave themselves spare moments, to grow silent, to become slow — the leisurely art of the goldsmith applied to language: an art which must carry out slow, fine work, and attains nothing if not lento. Thus philology is now more desirable than ever before; thus it is the highest attraction and incitement in an age of ‘work’: that is, of haste, of unseemly and immoderate hurry-skurry, which is so eager to ‘get things done’ at once, even every book, whether old or new. Philology itself, perhaps, will not so hurriedly ‘get things done.’ It teaches how to read well, that is, slowly, profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner thoughts, with the mental doors ajar, with delicate fingers and eyes. My patient friends, this book appeals only to perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!”[/quote]

If we imagine a spectrum of Reading Enthusiasm, with Dr. and GG near both poles, I'm definitely on the enthusiasts side, but not a Read-or-Dier

<Read or Die----

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/youve-done-it-again-michael/

n+1

You’ve Done It Again, Michael | Jynne Dilling

all of which is to say that reading "projects" or "challenges," much like writing or running or pokering "challenges," help to spur me onward, so I can become a better reader by simply reading.

I fired 13k on SA > Minnesota series (-310, booked it when series was tied 1-1) ; San Antonio is up 2-1 in the series, but that Wemby ejection right now in game 4 has got me sweating... 😊

Nice sweat 😀 I like your chances regardless. Writing this in the third quarter of game 4, where the spurs seem to be reminding people that they have plenty of experience winning without wembee

bob if you were able to build a following on substack or medium, you could mke some scheckels

quora i wouldn't bother with - it's pretty fickle and low paying and all content is ephemeral and gets buried by the algo after a few days

everyone gets served up answers in the infinite scroll feed so it's all recency based - i only post there cause autism

Being "seated" beside Michael Silverblatt (RIP) ... gee ... I'm in such a state of awe that I wouldn't even contemplate stealing his blinds. As for my take on being a "better reader" I guess my skepticism is more to do with the moral baggage that "better" carries; however, if "better" typically means seeking to keep the "mental doors ajar" I'm not going to quibble. The irony here is that I skim read the "Dawn of the Post-Literate Society" not because it seemed poorly written or conceived but because of its doomerist tone, which at times can shift to a moral argument about the betterment of the mind etc.; in my view, reading should be about freedom, much like music should be about freedom. So, while I've been learning scales on the piano at the age of 54, if I wound back time to a scenario where I was told to learn scales at the age of 12, I quite rightly, no matter how foolhardy it seems now, would've given the finger to "teacher" telling me to practice. There's no way I would've read Bleak House at that age either (although I did read it at age of 53 and loved the experience and then suggested my 86 year old mother read it too, which she did, diligently, irrespective of an ageing-mind). All this being said, I do believe in such a thing as building a reading muscle, so in the sense we get better at basketball by training and playing, then maybe there's an argument for using this comparative adjective. I'll always return to analogies with music, however, and say, well, it possible for me to enjoy a relatively untrained musician playing drums more than one who's technically proficient. Part of the issue with placing reading on a spectrum of worse to better is that we then raise the problem of assessment, which inevitably involves reading comprehension and/or the traditional essay response to a text and therefore a range of institutional constraints. I mean, nothing beats a conversation with someone, stranger or friend, about a book you've both read ... thinking about Mr Silverblatt, for instance. I have to admit, also, that reading pieces by other writers (like Henry James) about books they value is hard to beat, especially, as they're often subconsciously communicating what they learnt from another writer, in the act of speaking about their reading experience. When an author refers to what they've been reading in letters they didn't anticipate being published (e.g Philip Larkin's letters to Monica) there's more of an insight into reading habits, given the lack of concern for offending their peers. I'm trying also to think of some free-wheelin literary criticism that is independent/pre-dates the institutional demise of academia --- I can still recall a few lectures or seminars with professors who were the real deal and could impress with their sometimes off-the-cuff, sometimes semi-planned thoughts about a text (e.g Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick on Proust), but now I'm name-dropping ...

grinding content and stockpiling wealth—what's not to love?

Thanks for the breakdowns, rick. I've spent zero time on quora/onlyfans—maybe I'm internetting wrong?

Meanwhile, a rare image was found of the good Dr. before his thoughtful reply

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I've been meaning to eulogize SilverGOAT for a while, and still plan to do so. For now all I'll say is: all of us are unworthy, and +1 to not stealing his blinds.

totally agree. A related point on "better" reading that might be even worse than moralism: I once had a professor (who will remain nameless) for a class on Joyce; we spent most of the semester reading Ulysses. At one point the topic of *why* we were reading what we were reading came up (a question that I wish was asked more!) and she unironically replied: so that you can be ready if the subject of Joyce comes up at a cocktail party. Highbrow reading as statusmongering: the nut low?

Spoken like a freedom-addicted cardplayer! Cmon in, the water's fine...

I do love the reading-as-freedom perspective. I aspire to it myself, even as I find that I usually fail in reading "for" nothing at all: usually I'm reading "for" writing or "for" teaching, an end-oriented approach that essentially reproduces my students' own tendency to read "for" a test or a degree or whatever kind of assessment you want to smack them over the head with. Where can truly "free" reading be found? (not a rhetorical question—I have my thoughts on this, Book Clubs being one lovely context, and perhaps SilverGOAT is a model to be followed, as you allude to)

A shining example of this, for me, isn't a prof but one of my old grad school friends, a pleasant sphinxlike guy who was a stone-cold genius in the best possible way: curious, generous, and (seemingly) unaffected by the anxieties of getting a job or impressing his peers. All the dude wanted to do was read. He finished the program and published a book or two but never got an academic job, as far as I know; surely the academy doesn't deserve him. Imagine my delight when after not talking to him for years he popped up on my instagram. His content? "mostly a reading diary."

Water is Your Friend

Scattered thunderstorms all morning, tempting to stay cozy with the fluffball, but when the storms die down to a drizzle I stick to the plan: gym and a minisesh, timed to see Bad Beat Bruce get knighted for shipping the Emperor’s Challenge.

In around 2, just in time to join a fourth $1/$3 game in the corner, I take Seat 2 to keep an eye on the Pistons-Cavs game. It quickly becomes clear that I’m at an extreme rec table, there's a beefy southerner snacking on a Mich Ultra tallboy, three Canadian bachelor bros with Mich Ultra bottles, a younghead in the 9 Seat who asks what a high hand promo is, and, on my right, a zennish Californian around sixty who buys in for a bill. The only reg is George the Greek, pleasantly stoic and nitty as always on my left.

Server Terry swoops in and I pounce. “Coffee cream?” he asks before I can get a word in, I nod in gratitude, the Californian orders a Hennessy, Terry politely tells him that without a player’s card a Hennessy costs five bucks. Now I'm thinking about all the ways that Caesar's squeezes its customers. I try to remember when they started charging for Fiji waters unless you were Diamond. Pre-pandemic, for sure. The regs used to complain a lot about that. Once you take a man's Fiji, what does he really have?

Bad news: the only TV in eyeshot, the one I strategically seat-selected for, isn’t tuned to the game. I wait for an opportune moment and leave my seat and lock eyes with Floorman Roy, holding up my hands as if in prayer. “Table change?” he asks.

“TV change.”

He nods knowingly and quickly makes the switch. It’s early in the first quarter, a close game, and I’ve got a little sweat: thanks to DraftKings' abundant generosity in the form of a 30% Profit Boost, I’ve got ten bucks on Donovan Mitchell scoring more points than Cade Cunningham. “There was a guy getting wheeled out of here on a stretcher around 2:30 last night,” the beefy southerner’s saying to one of the Canadian bros. “Was that you?”

This Canadian, the one in Seat 4, is thirtyish and blond and high or drunk or both, wearing a green rain jacket over a teeshirt that reads, Husband Material. He shakes his head. “Bourbon Street—man." He laughs and shakes his head again. “I went to puke in the street, and there were like twenty people puking right next to me. That **** is dark.”

“Water,” the Californian says. “Water is your friend.”

I spot Mike G. and Jenny at the podium, scurry over to say hi, there’s the usual handshaking and hugging, Mike asks if I’m just getting here, I tell him I’ve got a seat on Table 1.

"We played yesterday," Mike tells me, as Jenny goes off to secure their seats. "The games were terrible. The day before, I hit Quads twice in a half hour. That’s very unusual. Very unusual."

"Did you win the high hand?"

"Once. But I won huge pots with them because the other guys had a full house.”

“You been going to the Beau at all?”

“Yeah. I go on Sundays. Jenny’s staying with my wife and me ‘cause she had shoulder surgery, and her checkup's next week." Jenny comes back over and tells Mike that she's got Table 2, he's got Table 8." She's got something with Table 8,” Mike says. "It's illogical."

"Seat 8," Jenny says. “Stop telling people about that.”

“Why? You don’t want people taking it?”

Jenny smiles. “Exactly.”

Back at my table, the blond Canadian's getting life lessons from the Californian. Recently, the Canadian watched his father die. He’s getting married next month, apparently he is indeed Husband Material. “Good luck. I wish you the best,” says the Californian, who’s married with three daughters and four sons. “Take care of your wife. That's number 1. Take care of your family, if you have it."

“If you’re lucky enough, right?”

"No. You make it happen."

"It’s always your choice, right?"

"It’s our choice."

"Well said, well said, well said."

"It's God’s choice. God’ll give it to you."

"I actually believe that, bro. When you need it, or when you don’t need it."

“No. When you’re ready.” The Californian takes a sip of Hennessy. “You’ll see. You’ll understand.”

Around four, Bad Beat Bruce gets knighted while Harrahdise employees, dressed as medieval enchantresses and damsels, awkwardly smile and clap. The whole thing, they'll say later, is corny as hell.

Third quarter, the Cavs are clinging to a slim lead, Donovan’s got twenty and Cade only has twelve. I think I might just be lucky enough to pull off a win.

Bob's Spring Minichallenge
[36/150]

I was fortunate (drum roll, non-proficient, as academe-name-drop approaches) to take a course on Finnegans Wake by a real-deal Joycean (Edward Epstein) who would break into song during seminars to help explain why we were reading this famously difficult text, the mentioning of which, at one of those status-mongering cocktail parties, that of course we all attend tri-weekly, would cause most to turn their backs. But, yes, it's fair to say some of us, indeed all of us according to Pierre Bourdieu, read to accumulate cultural capital or make some mostly abstract, possibly real, scheckels as Rick Roll has kindly tabulated.

I can't do book clubs but agree about the SilverGoat podcast (radio segment) model. My favourite being as Australian-based one with many USA/Euro writers featured:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-the-zero/id1578980767

Apple Podcasts

Beyond The Zero

Since Covid I've listed all the books I've read but only I look at this list. To me it's a personal canon which is a legible mark of an identity that only I can see (guardian angel/friendly ghost/alter-egoish CV). To what extent this list is an expression, and therefore a wielding of, cultural capital, I don't know for sure, but I have to acknowledge it's perhaps a soft-form of power. When you're a professor or published author this soft-power becomes more materially relevant, but when you're not, at best, I guess it's nothing more than a "bragging rights" kind of hustle (some great bluff I thought about in-game but never managed to execute), although part of me contests this sociological viewpoint. I definitely get a kick out of reading difficult and/or beautifully written and/or perfectly conceived texts --- much as an addict depends upon their fix (the water is always fine so long we're tuned into the right frequency).

Bookaholics Anonymous would be a thing except for the fact that "BA" just doesn't sound right. Readaholics perhaps? RA sounds a little better. Kind of like a book club without a set text, I guess, which is just another way of saying library, really, but one that permits non-curated conversation, although I can imagine most deciding to leave such a room, because they just want to read by themselves, of course, and maybe talk about it later, maybe not, much depending on who's listening and how engaged they're likely to be.

even I have limits, and that limit is Ulysses. Reading FW is a nightmare I hope I'll never have to endure. Status-mongering aside, was it worth the read?

by DrTJO m

I can't do book clubs but agree about the SilverGoat podcast (radio segment) model. My favourite being as Australian-based one with many USA/Euro writers featured:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-the-zero/id1578980767

Apple Podcasts

Beyond The Zero

Book clubs feel essential to me, because they're one way of answering the why-read question (or put differently: *who* do we read for?) Reading can be a solitary, even a selfish, activity, and reading for and with others feels really sweet to me, especially when it's outside a classroom (read: evaluative) context. Of course we're always evaluating, performing, and status-mongering to some extent, but if you're with the right group of people all of that feels secondary to the delight of reading and sharing.

Thanks for the podcast rec. I think I'd heard of that one but never listened.

one of my favorite examples of cultural capital acquisition is the trend, in competitive running culture, of the "Strava Mule":

[quote=]In a world where documenting your run for all to see can seem more important than actually doing the run, “mules” or “surrogates” have emerged to help runners secure Kudos and boost their stats without going out for the run themselves. Instead, a “mule” will be paid to go out and run in place of a paying Strava customer, while logged into their account. Yep, really.to pay people to complete a run your run[/quote]

doesn't sound so different from all the "competitive" readers whose lists, poasted for all the wide world to see, are way less about actually reading than about being perceived as smart or successful. Maybe we can both hire “booktok mules” who will read all the classics and list our reading achievements on the relevant social media platforms...

Maybe all of this can be contained under the umbrella of gamification, where everything these days, it seems, is about scoring points to "beat" your frenemies at whatever game you happen to be playing. ..

Hmm, come to think of it, maybe this line of thought sounds familiar…

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