OK, so with no online poker I've been putting all of my effort into #girahgate. Given that there haven't been any developments for a little while and we're anxiously awaiting a statement from Jungleman (and likely subsequent statements by people that can fact check what he's saying), I'm going to hold off doing an official blog on that. I will certainly share my thoughts about the entire scandal if I can figure out the timeline when we get more facts.

In the meantime, I've been grinding quite a bit of PLO3FLOP (note: this game is subject to being renamed, and is right now just a compilation of facts about the game [it's PLO, there are 3 flops]; if you think of a name, feel free to suggest it below). We were playing Chinese, but that got a bit old and it's always fun trying to figure out 'optimal' strategy to a new game.

The rules of P3F are simple. You get dealt 12 cards and have to make them into 3 different PLO hands. 3 flops are dealt (without burning, you can play 3 handed). You choose one hand for each flop or one hand for all three flops. It's like in Euchre (for those familiar) if you go alone-- the punishment is severe if you get beaten. We score it like Chinese (we've been doing 2-4 scoring HU and 1-5 scoring 3 handed, no idea why). Without listing exact scoring because zzZz (and we basically change the scoop bonus scoring daily), you win a lot if you go alone and scoop, you get punished if you go alone and get scooped, and if you're playing 3 handed and you scoop both players, you win a bunch of money. Anyways, the game is great because I have no idea what I'm doing! I don't know if I should split up pairs or keep them together, I don't know how to weigh pairedness vs suitedness vs connectedness. I think I do okay and I have some ground rules, but overall I just use my best poker common sense (which often isn't very good when it comes to PLO).

In other news, I'm trying to figure out what I want to do for my next video. I was thinking of doing some kind of random Q & A or something a little less formal. I've always thought that poker is best learned when people don't know they're teaching it. That's a stretch and I can't really simulate that, but some of the best strategy is just informal discussion among good players. You hear things that you might not hear in a more formal format when someone is trying to think of what to say or is reading from a script. You also hear a lot of unique things from the tone of someone's voice-- it's one of the rare times when it's beneficial to hear uncertainty. I'm not set up in Toronto yet, so if someone could let me know what they want to hear from my next few videos before I am, I'll take everything except naked pole dancing into account (those secrets are going to my grave with me).

Finally, I'd like to include a photo for my blog viewers. In another episode of poker-players-are-absurd-human-beings, King left a bag of money (literally) for me to take care of in Vegas. The bag is full of money (American currency and other currencies throughout at least 3 other continents-- Europe, Asia, and Australia), chips (Bellagio, Rio, ...the Orleans? and probably others), and condoms (unused, of course). GirlChewy was nice enough to bandage money of like amounts together and give it a rough count. The estimated amount (lying around Dan's room, the living room, and crumpled up in his drawers) is >$2000.



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