Party Poker Blog

Howdy all. Couple of links for you today.

There's a new Bill Fillmaff video up entitled Chapter 4: Expected Value (+EV).

But the fun continues over at 2+2. These two threads are most certainly worth reading through. Here's a post about it with the links. Enjoy.

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Mason Malmuth--Just Say No

Daniel Negreanu recently challenged Mason Malmuth and David Sklansky
to a heads up poker match. The stakes? Anywhere from 100K 500K. In
fact, he offered to refund 10% of the money if they lost! What
happened next is absolutely fascinating. Instead of just saying no
thank you we don't wish to play, both of the two plus two
excusemeisters then engaged in one of the most bizarre and ridiculous
series of posts I have ever read.

I've put up links to the two most interesting threads at the end of
this post, and I'm paraphrasing here and there so those of you who
don't wish to give two plus two anymore traffic than they deserve can
just read my summarization.

David started it off by counter offering and recounter offering, and
basically demanding a 20% rebate while saying his edge wasn't big
enough. He also said he didn't want to play for more than 50K. You
know, he did all kinds of hocus pocus math calculations to obfuscate
the issue (he likes to do that), but it took him about 20 posts to do
it. Pathetic.

But Mason was even worse. All he had to do was say no, and no one
would have cared. Everyone knew what his answer would be, but could
he do that? Not on your life. Instead he just invented one
ridiculous excuse after another. "It's silly." "I'm too busy."
"It's a dumb bet, and we at two plus two don't make dumb bets." And
then, he said, "It's not a matter of the money." Oh no, of course
not, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

In the meantime David was making noises about not wanting to play at
the new Wynn casino. It had something to do with a deal he has with
the Bellagio--whatever that's all about. So Daniel offered to play at
David's house! "Let's just play, Daveyboy" he said. "I don't care
where." In other words, he was taking the Wynn restriction off of the
table. David responded by saying he thought Daniel was implying he
would get cheated at the Wynn, and it just gets more and more bizarre.

But here is where it really gets interesting. After Daniel says he'll
play David anywhere anytime--trying of course to eliminate yet another
excuse. Mason really gets his knickers in a twist. First he's
extremely upset that Daniel has called David Daveyboy. LOL! And next
he denigrates the new Wynn casino by saying they don't have any good
games or any of the games he wants to play in. "It's really
disappointing." And finally he insults Daniel by calling him their,
"so called host." [He's probably going end up being one of the best
poker hosts any casino has ever had.] He then goes on to accuse
Daniel of all sorts of nefarious bad sportsmanship, finally saying
that the reason they won't play him is because he once complained
about Annie Dukes smelly feet! LOL! I mean this is freakin
hilarious!

I really love the posts where they superimposed David into a giant
chicken costume. Pretty damn funny.

David and Mason really blew it big time on this one. Instead of just
saying no thank you we don't wish to play, thereby ending the thread.
They had to make cowardly asses of themselves by dragging it out over
hundreds of posts. David you can understand and you just kind of
chalk it up to his eccentric nature and the way he likes to play games
with people. David is David. But Mason on the other hand took it
very personally, and he's obviously insanely jealous of Daniel's
success and embarrassed to death that there is no way in hell he will
ever be in Daniel's league or even come close to having the balls to
play with him.

I'm telling you it was just one excuse after excuse after excuse. It
is absolutely hilarious. If you've got a couple of free hours, you'll
be endlessly entertained.

A special one time offer thread by Daniel: over 18,000 views

I actually like Sklansky thread by Daniel: over 6000 views

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Per Star Wars:

Given all the hoopla surrounding "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith," is it really too much to ask, after five previous films, nearly 30 years and untold billions of dollars, that George Lucas find someone -- anyone -- to help him write dialogue at more than an eighth-grade level?