Who Are the World's Coolest Women?

I may be the only person who still listens to AM radio, but if you do, you may have heard some of Tom Brokaw’s “An American Story” interstitials. Not to disparage Brokaw's classic status as a trusted newsman, but he is clearly of a different age.

Case in point. In a recent episode, Tom decides he’s going to talk about who the coolest people in the world are, and he’s going to start with women. Sounds OK so far, right? But who does Tom name? Jackie Robinson’s wife. John F. Kennedy’s wife. His own wife. In addition to his stand by your man picks, he throws in a few popular actresses like Meryl Streep and calls it a day, proud of his “cool” selections. Do you imagine when he picks his “coolest men,” he’s going to go with Margaret Thatcher’s husband, Florence Griffith Joyner’s husband, and George Clooney?

Anyway, I think I can do better. Here are some of my picks for the world’s coolest women:

Jeanne d’Arc

At the age of SIXTEEN, Joan of Arc, a previously insignificant peasant girl, convinced the KING OF FRANCE to give her an ARMY TO LEAD. Not like, a pretend army, a real army full of French soldiers who would gladly fight and die for a sixteen-year-old girl. Their faith was not unwarranted. Joan’s army pushed the English back across the Loire river and all the way to Reims, where King Charles VII was able to receive his official coronation. Sadly, during a battle at Compiegne, she was thrown from her horse and abandoned to be captured by the English, where she was tried as a witch and ultimately burned at the stake. In 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized her into Sainthood. Listen, I’m sure Rachel Robinson is a lovely woman, but come on.

Alessandra Mussolini

Alessandra Mussolini is the granddaughter of infamous fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Wealthy and beautiful, she could have lived life like a Hilton sister. Instead, she got degrees in medicine and surgery and then proceeded to embark on a career as an actress, singer, and model. In 1990, when a producer asked her to change her last name to continue as an actress, she quit and began a career in politics. There, she became an outspoken defender of women’s rights and civil rights in general. She fought for the legal right of children to take their mother’s last name if they choose, and founded the social action party, which has fought doggedly for such issues as gay rights, civil unions, and abortion rights. She currently serves on the European Parliament representing the Forza Italia party.

Dalia Mogahed

Dalia Mogahed, a former marketing products researcher, is the Director of Research at the Institute for Social Policy Understanding. She is the first veiled Muslim to be selected to a Presidential cabinet, as she serves as Advisor to Barack Obama on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.  Many of her policy recommendations on U.S. Muslim relations have been adopted by President Obama. Mogahed is consistently recognized as one of the world’s most influential Arab women.

Corazon Aquino

Corazon Aquino started life on a path to be a housewife, raising children and supporting her husband Benigno Aquino, a politician who opposed residing dictator Ferdinand Marcos. When her husband, after being imprisoned and exiled, was ultimately assassinated in 1983, Corazon took up the fight. She led the opposition to Marcos and ran for President, refusing to be intimidated by Marcos or his sexist remarks towards her, simply responding “May the best woman win.” When Marcos emerged the winner of a likely rigged election, Aquino enacted civil disobedience tactics, including strikes, boycotts, and non-violent protests, an effort that was known as the People Power Revolution. Marcos withered under the pressure and fled the country, leaving Corazon Aquino as the first President of the Philippines, where she enacted radical reforms in the areas of civil liberties and human rights, while restoring the nation’s economy and mobilizing female leaders the world over.

Claudette Colvin

Claudette Colvin is the unsung heroine of the American Civil Rights movement. It was she, not Rosa Parks, who was the first to protest bus segregation in Alabama. Nine months before the Rosa Parks incident, Colvin, a high school student with aspirations to be President, was ordered, along with three others, to vacate her bus seat and move to the back so white passengers could sit. Colvin insisted she was not going anywhere, and she had to be forcibly removed from the bus by police, who made inappropriate sexual comments towards her as they took her to the station. While Colvin, and not Parks was one of the plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle, the case that struck down bus segregation in Montgomery, she was not chosen to be the poster girl for the movement. Colvin was an outspoken, pregnant, teenage girl, while Rosa Parks was considered to be a calmer, more clean cut, “safer” representative of the movement. Colvin, while disappointed, was content to accept her role for the good of the movement, but it doesn’t change the fact that she was the driving force behind this pivotal event in American Civil Rights history.

Maybe you want to take another shot, Brokaw?

P.S. I realize that since it's an "American Story," Brokaw may have been only choosing from American women, but still, in addition to Colvin, how about, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, Sally Ride... There are plenty of American women who are "cool" without being primarily defined by their husband or "leading lady" status.

Berger's Bet: A Response To Pascal's Wager

A long-standing salvo in the war between believers and atheists is the famous Pascal’s Wager. Pascal’s wager, first proposed by scientist/philosopher Blaise Pascal in the 17^th century, essentially says something like this:

Either there is a God, or there isn’t. If you choose to behave as if there is (betting on God), and you turn out to be right, you will receive untold rewards in the next life. If you’re wrong, there is no penalty. On the other hand, if you choose to behave as if there is no God, and there turns out to be one, your suffering could be infinite (that is, you may up in Hell).

From this, Pascal concludes that if there is even the remotest iota of a possibility that God is real, one should believe, purely from a pragmatic, cost-benefit perspective.

Before moving forward let me state up front that I personally subscribe to the “weak” atheistic position known as theological noncognitivism. This means that I do not believe that the term “God” has any meaning at all, or to put it, perhaps crudely, another way, I believe that when people refer to “God,” they literally don’t know what it is they are talking about. For the purposes of this discussion however, you should take “God” to mean the Judeo-Christian God, a higher being of some conceivable form who created the universe, rules Heaven, and has some stake in how we humans behave.

Now, the problems with Pascal’s Wager are myriad. First, it’s an entirely Eurocentric proposition. Which God do you worship? If you choose to follow the tenets of the Judeo-Christian God, and it turns out the Greek Gods are running the show, your punishment and torment might be worse than if you remained neutral. For another thing, even if you pick the correct God, how do you know that you are following his desires correctly? There are probably as many interpretations of the Bible and the Christian faith as there are world religions. For another thing, can “hedging your bets” this way truly be classified as belief? Obviously an omnipotent God will know what you’re up to. 

Pascal says if you act as if you believe it long enough, eventually you will come to believe it, but I’m not sure that God is going to buy that argument.

But let’s ignore these problems and take the wager at its face. I would argue that Pascal’s proposition, that the “God side” is pragmatically the best, is wrong. I would offer a counter wager, which I’ll call, Berger’s Bet. It goes like this:

    If there is no God, and this life is discrete and finite, any actions you take based on a belief in  God where you would otherwise take a different action diminishes that life.

              

               If there is a God, and you live your life believing that there is not one, and acting accordingly, God can hardly fault you, since this is how He made you, and assuming your lack of belief didn’t make you a completely irredeemable person, you should have an eternity to make up for your mistake.

      Therefore if there is even the slightest chance that God DOESN’T exist, you should take an atheistic position, living your life as if each moment is impermanent and precious, and your actions can only be judged by you, in this world, for their own sake. If you do the right thing, it will be the right thing whether there is a God or not.

This last idea, that your best bet is to always do the right thing regardless, has already been put forth by Michael Martin in his “Atheist’s Wager,” but I am taking it a step further. I am not arguing you should always behave well, although that would be nice. I’m saying you should always be true to yourself, and to do that, you should “bet” against God. If you’re wrong, and God exists, it’s gravy. If you’re right, you won’t be around to celebrate, but at least you will have lived the most honest life you possibly could have lived.

Rewriting the Male Gaze: How Widespread Is This Problem And Can It Be Fixed?

 

Hollywood producer Ross Putman is generating some buzz by putting intros of female characters in scripts he is reading on twitter @femscriptintros. The point, it seems, is to highlight another aspect of the “male gaze” in film and television, in effect, men writing for other men about women. Some of the tweets Putman has already put up include (he changes all the character names to Jane to protect the writers’ anonymity):

JANE (30s) -- Beautiful, but pissed.

JANE, late 40’s, naturally attractive, is having a glass of wine on the island of her spectacular kitchen.

As we get closer we see that JANE is an attractive girl, but a little worn out looking at the moment.

Across from him, his wife, JANE. Also 40, still a knockout. The soft candlelight makes her beauty glow.

JANE pours her gorgeous figure into a tight dress, slips into her stiletto-heeled fuck-me shoes, and checks herself in the dresser mirror.

JANE (late 20s) sits hunched over a microscope. She’s attractive, but too much of a professional to care about her appearance.

His wife JANE is making dinner and watching CNN on a small TV. She was model pretty once, but living an actual life has taken its toll.

A gorgeous woman, JANE, 23, is a little tipsy, dancing naked on her big bed, as adorable as she is sexy. *BONUS PTS FOR BEING THE 1ST LINE

I think the issue may be nuanced than it appears. I could see many writers worrying that if they don’t describe their female characters as attractive, a producer will assume she’s not supposed to be, won’t think of a pretty leading actress for the role and it’s the trash bin.

That having been said, as a writer, I want both my male and female characters to read as realistically as possible, so I asked myself, “how guilty am I of Putman’s complaint?” I like to think of myself as pretty even-handed when it comes to gender. My scripts are about 60-40 male protagonists to female protagonists, and my script “Jen-16” which just won the Other Worlds AustinScreenplay Contest, features a female protagonist (although to be fair, it may have been judged exclusively by men, I don’t know). That being said, some introspection is definitely called for.

From reading his account, I infer that Putman’s issue falls broadly into three categories:

1) Always describing women as “pretty” or “attractive” as their first or most important attribute. 

2) Descriptions that purely sexualize the female character (like tipsy bouncing on the bed lady) 

3) The dreaded “attractive, but,” an apparently clichéd way of giving a woman dimension while still making it all about her looks. Pretty, but life has taken its toll, attractive, but not too concerned about her appearance.

I decided to go through my scripts comparing a random sample of both male and female descriptions to see how guilty I am of this particular form of chauvinism. Mostly what I found is that my descriptions of characters tend to be pretty sparse, as I prefer to leave that kind of thing to the casting director. But I also made some other observations. Here are some descriptions from some of my scripts and my notes regarding this issue:

From A Christmas Survival Guide to the Modern Vampire

Into this picture steps VICKI HARDING, late 20s, attractive,

slim, and right now, disheveled, as she stomps into the

bedroom in her pajamas holding a large bowl of cereal.

I’ll give myself a C+ on this one. I lead with “attractive” and it’s sort of an “attractive but” but not really. Also, I don’t think I could be accused of oversexualizing with stomping into the bedroom in PJs with cereal.

Vicki’s sister NICOLE, late 30s, similar in appearance to

Vicki but more put together.

Not the most evocative description but nothing offensive, I think.

Nicole’s husband RICHARD, early 40s, attractive, fit.

For the record, here’s a male character that I describe entirely based on his physical features and I lead with attractive, so some evidence here that I’m an equal opportunity offender.

In front of the store window stands BRENDA, mid 20s,

approachably pretty.

I think “approachably pretty” is well-known shorthand for “she’s not going to overshadow the main character, but she won’t be hard for audiences to look at either.” It probably shouldn’t be.

Vicki looks past Bob to see STEFAN standing the corner.

Stefan is tall, dark and handsome. He lights up a cigarette.

He shoots Vicki a glance and smiles, cool as can be.

I use handsome instead of attractive, but this is a somewhat "sexy" male character intro, I think.

From “TRAP”

On one side of a steel table sits KARL DUNCAN, 55, but in

killer shape, like he could take out someone half his age

if he needed to.

Male character, described in terms of physical fitness, although I frame it as a clear self-serving attribute rather than something that would, for example, help him attract a woman.

LISA BRYANT, 21, lies on the couch, her head propped up

with one arm, reading an Art History textbook.

Points! Not only do I not mention Lisa’s physical attractiveness level, when we meet her she is engaged in a completely non-sexual activity.

From “Jen-16”

Within another glass-walled unit stands ALEX-17, 20, handsome,

fit, he does appear as if he could be a perfect specimen of

humanity. He stares coldly at the men.

Inside the unit is JEN-15. 18, beautiful, fit, she really is

just about the perfect specimen of humanity.

I put these two together intentionally. If viewed on its own, the depiction of Jen could definitely be flagged as being all about how hot she is. But I describe Alex in almost exactly the same way. It’s actually central to the plot that these people be almost perfect. While many of Putman’s tweeted intros may be legitimately sexist, it’s hard to know out of context which ones are gratuitous and which ones aren’t.

BLAKE TRUDEAU, 20s, fit, American, sits in a prison cell.

Think this one would have been flagged if Blake were a woman.

Inside it crouches KATYA-9, 16 years old, slim and feline. She has cat eyes and a perpetual snarl.

Nothing objectionable here, I don’t think, unless you believe that the trope of comparing feline and feminine is in and of itself objectionable.

From “Coldwater”

PIGGY’s name is well earned, as his round face and protruding

belly seem more suited for a farm animal than an SS Sergeant.

BLOOMFIELD, late 20s, has a physique that is the opposite of

Piggy’s. A U.S. Air Force Captain with a confidence that won’t easily be beaten out of him.

Here are two male characters basically introduced according to their physical appearance, although Bloomfield’s intro does give him credit for supreme confidence.

ELSA DANZIG, 30s, quite attractive, powerfully self-confident.

I did the same thing here that I did with Bloomfield! If taken by itself, would Elsa’s description be okay or sexist?

From “Hereditary”

Hereditary, a TV script that I am actually rather proud of, is the most problematic when it comes to Putman’s complaint. I know this, because some of his Twitter intros match some of these intros almost exactly. It’s disheartening, but in the interest of open, honest, conversation, let’s have a look.

JASON CLAY, 27, attractive, confident, stands in the wings as

a nervous NOAH TIBER, late 50s, gray, distinguished, clad in

a five thousand dollar suit, gives him instructions.

On Jason’s other side is MARTIN LOPEZ, 40, shorter and more

rugged than Jason.

I do describe these male characters based on their appearance, leading with the male protagonist being attractive, but there’s nothing sexual here, so it’s not quite the same thing.

Sitting next to each other at a kitchen island, enjoying a

bottle of wine, are STACY MILLS, 27, conservatively

attractive, and her friend DEBBIE FLYNN, 26, blonde, a bit

more relaxed in appearance and demeanor.

Ouch. One of Putman’s tweets looks just like this one. However, while two women drinking a bottle of wine at a kitchen island might not be the best choice because it’s cliché, I don’t know if it’s necessarily sexist. Women do drink wine in kitchens, I think, and there’s nothing wrong with it. Is it okay that I made one conservatively attractive and the other more relaxed as their introductory descriptions? Was it wrong for me to make the more “relaxed” one blonde? It seemed innocent at the time but not as much anymore. Unfortunately, it gets “worse.”

Martin opens the door to his home, a typical suburban duplex,

nowhere near as upscale or roomy as Jason’s home, and seeming

even less so due to the four children racing around the

kitchen as Martin’s wife, VERONICA, 37, pretty but tired,

attempts to cook dinner.

The computer belongs to one SPECIAL AGENT ALYSSA BRATTON, 30,

attractive, but clearly not too concerned about her looks,

with hair unkempt and a bare minimum of makeup.

Aaah! Two clear examples of “attractive, but!” I have an instinctive sense that this is wrong, but I’m not sure exactly why. Is it the implication that women should make every effort to make themselves pretty even if they’re tired, or job-focused, or whatever? Is it that I mentioned pulchritude at all when the point is that she’s an overworked mom or a hard working FBI Agent? It's probably both. It it more than this?

Walking behind Drew in a string bikini is MARY TOWER, 30, but

looks 40. Still pretty enough to get away with having breasts

that aren’t quite as big as they should be for this job.

I hit the trifecta on this one. I lead with her physical appearance, she’s sexualized, and there’s an “attractive, but.” I’m sure this one could easily make Putman’s list. However, it’s my only stripper, and her being one is not gratuitous, it’s a part of the plot. Also, I kind of feel like I can get away with some of these descriptions because I know these characters get fleshed out as complete human beings later in the script (or the series), but maybe that's a cop-out.

The point I’m trying to make is that while I know I can do better, I don’t think this kind of thing boils down purely to male chauvinism or a desire to objectify women. Like women, male screenwriters have the expectations of society (and Hollywood) to deal with. Also, as hard as good male writers try to view things as women would, or, more accurately, as anyone should regardless of gender, we are still men, and while hopefully we have women helping us out, a mistake from time to time is inevitable. I’m afraid Putman may paint male writers with too broad a brush, and I’m hoping that his observations, and others like them, are engineered to educate, rather than to shame.

The Force Re-Re Awakens

My buddy Jeremy Johnson, a renaissance man who is as at home on the gridiron as he is on a film set, referenced this blog, specifically my Star Wars rant, on the latest episode of Filibuster Freestyle. There's a bunch of other good content there too, so check it out!

Out of This World!

I won the inaugural Other Worlds Austin Science Fiction Screenplay Contest for my TV Pilot, "Jen-16"! Yay!

You can read more about it here:

http://www.otherworldsaustin.com/news/2016/1/1/2015-screenplay-contest-finalists-and-winners

Now when I blog to you about science fiction, you can be confident I know what I'm talking about!

Five Things I Didn’t Get About The Force Awakens

This is a post about the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, and you care about knowing things about it, skip this post and wait for the next one until that changes. In other words:

Okay, now that that bit of business is out of the way:

I want to preface this by saying that Star Wars: The Force Awakens exceeded my expectations. I remember when the prequels came out, and while I liked The Phantom Menace more than anyone in the galaxy (that is to say: at all,) I think we can all agree that the Star Wars Universe would be no worse, and quite possibly better, without them. Also, I was not pleased with J.J. Abrams’ take on that OTHER sci-fi franchise (I hate time travel stories in general, but using time travel to effectively wipe out decades of beloved canon to pave the way for a fairly standard sci fi action flick? Brrrrr), so I was pretty cool going in.

However, Abrams made the wise move of bringing “Empire” screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan back into the fold, and the film totally worked, in my opinion. That being said, there are at least five things I did not understand about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. To wit:

Why Does Jakku Exist?

Much of the first act of the movie centers around Jakku, where our heroes meet. From what we can see, it’s an impoverished desert planet populated by all measure of strange and unscrupulous creature, where scavenging is a way of life and oily, large-bellied aliens hold the populace, including humans, under their thumb. It’s also a great place to hide a droid with secret plans that could help rebel forces overthrow the evil empire. Does this sound familiar? Of course, I am describing Tatooine. So why not just make this planet Tatooine? It would certainly make sense that Luke’s daughter would end up here (and if Rey is NOT Luke’s daughter, they put a hell of a lot of work into this red herring), and Jakku resembles Tatooine in every other way that we’ve seen. What’s the deal? Was Tatooine not included in the 4 billion dollar sale of the franchise to Disney?

Why Does Captain Phasma Give It Up So Easily?

The big plot point at the end of the movie is that our heroes have to get the shields down so that the rebels can destroy the exhaust port oscillator protecting The Death Planet Starkiller Base. They do this by pointing a gun at the premier Stormtrooper officer, Captain Phasma, and making her do it. But Phasma is a hardcore First Order Officer who’s risen through the ranks in a power structure where both disloyalty and failure are typically rewarded with a quick and painful end (she also happens to be Brienne of Tarth, FYI for you Game of Thrones fans). Why would she just turn around and undermine her Empire in the most treasonous fashion possible, even if she did believe her life was at stake, which, she probably wouldn’t, because she knows the ex-trooper who’s holding the gun is a wuss. I would have found it more convincing if Han Solo had learned a Jedi Mind Trick over the years to get her to fall in line.

How Much Did Mark Hamill Get Paid?

Hamill appears in literally 15 seconds of the movie. Did they just throw him 10 or 20 grand essentially to grow a beard, or did he get paid as part of some two movie structure, where he gets one lump sum for the next movie where he presumably has a much bigger role, and that little cameo gets tossed in in the deal?

Why Is Luke Holed up in an Island Paradise?

When Yoda goes into exile, he ends up on a swamp planet. Ben Kenobi disappears into unending miles of desert. Luke seems to be on some vacation world:


. Does he have a better Agent?

What’s with the No Romantic Entanglements for Jedi Rule?

Although from what we see in the movies this seems to be thought of as more of a guideline than a rule, isn’t it kind of counterproductive? It’s been made quite clear that the ability to manipulate the Force is genetic. Why would you try to select out possibly the most adaptive evolutionary mutation of all time? I mean, I get the whole, Paladin/Knights’ Templar/Knight’s Watch, religious warrior unsullied by concerns of the flesh thing, but here it just doesn’t make sense.We're just hoping kids with high Midichlorian counts will keep popping up? WHY?

Greatly looking forward to having none of these questions answered in Episode VIII!

Spotlight on: Victor Dandridge

While at the Austin Film Festival last week, I had a chance to stop in at the Wizard World Comic Con, which was a blast. At Comic Con, I had the opportunity to meet a remarkable guy named Victor Dandridge.

Victor creates, writes, and publishes his own comic books under his Vantage In House Productions Imprint. He’s also famous for his 8-bit character designs.

I met Victor at “Drink and Draw,” a Wizard Con party that takes place at a bar where invitees are given a prompt to write a short story or draw a certain character or scene. The writers and artists are then judged and a winner is chosen, but mostly it’s about the camaraderie and doing more at a bar than just drink, flirt, and make small talk.

Victor was the emcee of the event, and kept things moving by throwing comic book themed trivia at everyone. I was immediately impressed at his encyclopedic (Wikipedic?) knowledge of mainstream comic book history. I mean, I like to think I know a lot about this subject but this guy blows me away. Victor was funny, smart, and full of energy, and could probably have his own talk show.

The next time I saw Victor was at his “U Cre8 Comics” panel at Wizard Con. This panel, aimed at kids, teaches young people how to create their own comics and more importantly, their own stories, by breaking down just how a superhero is created, complete with a take home character card. Kids (and adults), really got into this event, and it reminded me a lot of my days at Chess-in-the-Schools, getting kids interested in learning through playing games.

What really stood out for me is how quickly Victor shifts between worlds. His material for more mature readers, such as The Samaritan and The Trouble with Love, fearlessly attack adult themes such as inner city violence, depression, and infidelity with skill and thoughtfulness, while his Wonder Care Presents line and U-Cre8 Comics make it clear how passionate he is about using comics to reach the next generation.

As a fledgling comic book creator myself (Team Echo #1 still available for digital download at Gumroad.com!) I was extremely impressed with Victor’s versatility and the passion with which he’s created his mini comics empire, and I hope I can match it myself someday.

The Cash or the Crown?

Which is more important in poker tournaments, the trophy or the prize money?

During the final table of the WPT Deepstacks LA, commentators Owais Ahmed and Tristan Wade got into a brief debate over which is more valuable, winning a first place trophy or winning the most money possible, with Owais speculating that some people might be willing to take a little less money if it meant getting the crown, and Tristan insisting that money rules the day, and he could always go buy a trophy if he really wanted one.

This is a debate that has been knocked back and forth at least since the poker boom, with conventional wisdom being that any “real” poker player is only in it for the money, and should have as a goal to make as much as possible, with no consideration to accolades (one might argue that any “real” poker player who’s only after cash wouldn’t play tournaments at all, but that’s another debate). 

On the other side of the debate are more skeptical types who suggest that when push comes to shove, many of these “real” poker players deeply covet the prestige that comes with bracelets and trophies, and value them much higher than the monetary reward.

The Trophy vs. The $$$$

I think that in the real world, the two concepts are completely inseparable. The first place trophy only has significance because of the financial win it represents. If I win a WSOP bracelet, that has meaning because people know that hundreds of opponents invested their own (or sometimes, someone else’s) hard earned cash to get that title, and were highly motivated to stop me from winning it. I highly doubt that anyone would display their World Series of Online Play Money Poker championship bracelet with any particular level of pride. Conversely, if I tell someone that I won a poker trophy but someone else got more money because we made a deal before hand, that person would probably get the sense that despite my owning the hardware, I didn’t really win the tournament at all, and just kind of bought a meaningless title that I didn’t actually earn.

The Experiment

Fortunately, as a philosopher, I can design a thought experiment that truly brings this question to light. The experiment goes as follows:

You are a fairly strong professional poker player. Strong enough that you have made a decent living for yourself although your bankroll fluctuates considerably, and you have the respect of your peers. You receive an invitation to play in a poker tournament that purports to feature the nine best players in the world (including yourself). There is no entry fee and no prize money, but the winner will be declared World Poker Champion, and the event will be televised on broadcast TV in prime time, so that if you win, even casual fans of the game will know you as the poker champion of the world.

Later that day, you receive an invitation to a private home poker game. It will be a sit n go with only one prize, a million dollars for first place. Since the other players in the game are wealthy hobbyists who want to test their mettle against a pro, there is no entry fee for this game either. However, this game takes place on the same day as the World Championship and you cannot play both. Which would you choose?

I submit that many tournament pros would probably go for the World Championship trophy, even though no money is up for grabs. I believe this for two reasons. 1) A successful tournament pro can always make more money, and while the overlay is infinite, winning the million dollars in the money game is not guaranteed. 2) The opportunity value of being World Champion is probably worth more than a million dollars in sponsorships, invitations to profitable games and tournaments, and other general perks.

I also think that the money vs. fame debate is not absolute. If you are a mid stakes grinder who has never made more than $50,000 a year playing poker (but has never lost money in a year of poker), the money game is a no brainer. Not only could it potentially change your life, but at your level, it’s probably more profitable if people don’t know your name, style of play, or amount of skill. On the other hand, if you’re Daniel Negreanu or Antonio Esfandiari, you’d probably be at that World Championship table before your wealthy friend could get out the worlds “million dollar freeroll.” 

You can also see how your perspective on this issue can change not only from player-to-player, but can also fluctuate for an individual player depending on where they are in their poker career.

Fortunately, most of us will probably never have to make this choice. We’ll keep playing for first place because that’s where all the money is, and happily take the trophy/bracelet/ring that goes with it, and whatever other perks of poker fame that hardware brings.

Have a different take? Let me know in the comments.

WPT Deepstacks Los Angeles Main Event

On Tuesday, I finished 2nd in the WPT Deepstacks Los Angeles Main Event. The event took place at my "home casino," the Bicycle Casino ("The Bike") in Bell Gardens. Starting with a short stack of 300,000 in chips (effective M less than 3, fewer than 8BB), I managed to get heads up with a 4 to 1 chip lead. But heads up matches can be fickle, and four coolers in fairly rapid succession later (KJ vs AJ, KJ vs KQ, rivered Broadway straight vs. rivered backdoor flush, and A7 vs. A8), I was shaking the hand of the champion James Gorham. While he got lucky in the end, James is a great player, who manhandled me when I was the chip leader on Day 2, and who had entered the Final Table with the chip lead himself. Here’s my analysis of the event.

The Game

While I entered the event with by far the shortest stack, I was fairly confident. (Don’t believe me? Check out my pre-game interview) I actually think that short stack play is the strongest part of my tournament game (owing to my having had so many over the years, I imagine), and I knew that if I could find a few cards early and steal a couple of pots or win that first double up before getting low in chips, I’d have as good a chance as anybody.

That’s exactly what happened. Although I lost a round of blinds almost immediately, I managed to pass through with pocket sevens, and then doubled when my KT held up against 88. After that I was off to the races. While I was hitting some flops, I was fortunate enough to be up against players who didn’t really want to fight. James, because he was the chip leader, and was happy to let everyone else go to war while he picked his spots and picked up a few chips here and there, and everyone else because they were either ABC players who were only going to play real hands, or because they were waiting for the short stacks to bust so they could move up the ladder.

Of course, putting me at a table full of tight players is like dropping a piranha in a goldfish tank, and I went to town, opening, calling, and raising with a wide range of hands and rapidly building my stack. I think the commentators at first thought I was just a maniac (Tristan Wade at one point saying “Craig just cares what he has, he doesn’t care what anybody else might have, he’s got a good hand and he’s going with it,” which is patently ridiculous), but as the match proceeded I think they recognized there was some method to my style of play. As the players fell, my confidence grew, and although when we got 3 handed, Prash several times advocated for a deal, I wasn’t having it.

Heads Up

After James eliminated Prash and we were heads up, we did make a deal, taking 70K each from the prize pool and playing for the rest of the cash and the trophy. It seemed like a logical move, since we were almost dead even in chips at that point and James was the strongest player at the table, and it worked out after I hit that rash of coolers.

The bad luck at the end was disappointing, but I took solace in three points. A) I lost to the odds on favorite coming in, and I felt I had outplayed him, losing only because of some unfortunate situations that would have defeated almost any player B) I had to get lucky to get there, as does any player. I entered the tournament late, an idea I’ve been toying with for a while. When I arrived, one of my opponents jokingly admonished me for not saying hello to everyone when I joined the table. “I won’t be here long,” I joked. Although the reverse psychology on the poker gods worked, five hands in, it seemed like my words might be prophetic. I was all in and covered against two other players, holding Ac 5d, on a board reading Qc Jc 8c, up against Qh Jd and 9s Th. The beautiful 4c popped up on the river, and I tripled up and, much like with the final table, never looked back, running my stack up to a Day 1 Chip Lead of 417K. C) I had entered the final table with the short stack, and while I was confident, I knew all the confidence in the world wouldn’t have helped me if I didn’t get a little bit of luck early, and having to exit the final table after five minutes with all my friends and family watching on line would have really sucked.

The Commentary

I learned from social media that Tristan Wade had been a bit hard on me in the commentary, and I love that my boys had my back, firing back at Tristan on Twitter. I feel like he just didn’t understand my game at first, and came around at the end. After the game, he offered me some very gracious, positive, and congratulatory tweets on Twitter, so as far as I’m concerned, we’re good.

One of Tristan’s biggest issues with me was that I was playing a little too passively against James Gorham, entering pots against him with weak hands and checking them down, passing up opportunities to steal pots on the river when James appeared weak. What Tristan couldn’t have known was that I had played with James all day on Day 2, and he had tossed me around like a rag doll, whittling my stack down so much that at one point I thought I might not even cash, which would have been a disaster, although I know I’m far from the first chip leader to have this happen to. A large part of James’ success against me came from calling down river bluffs, and I only managed to get back into the game when I caught a nut flush against his jack high flush on a board where a fourth diamond hit the river and got him to pay off a big bet.

From this experience I felt strongly that James would call me fairly light on the river even when taking weak lines, which is why I challenged him on the river fewer times than I would one of the other players. I think this strategy bore fruit late in the match, when I got James to call off a large river bet with only a pair of threes on a K K 2 9 5 board with me holding K5. In general, I know Tristan was “calling it like he sees it,” and he didn’t know me as a player at all before this match. Still, thanks again to my brother and friends for having my back.

Jokes about my love of clubs (the suit, not the partying venue) aside, I thought Owais’ commentary and insight was quite good. A couple of times his analysis of what I was planning or thinking was right on. At one point, he accused me of Hollywooding (which, while I’m not against in principle, I generally don’t do) but after a couple of minutes, revised his analysis and suspected I was playing a leveling game in my head with Prash, which is exactly what was happening.

The Tell

Owais observed that he thought I had a tell, which was that when I merely announced a big river bet, I was strong, whereas when I put the chips out, I was bluffing. Although I could see it might look this way on T.V., I don’t think this is the case. Typically, if I just announce a bet, I will always put the chips out eventually. I’ll wait ten seconds or so to see if I get an instant response, and if my opponent tanks, I’ll bring out the chips. Most of my announced river value bets were either snap called or insta folded, so there was no need to bring out the chips. You’ll see there’s one hand, were I was bluffing, where Owais insisted I brought the chips out, proving his theory, and Tristan wasn’t so sure I had. This was one of those situations where I announced, James went into the tank, and when I saw he wasn’t going to act right away, I counted out the stack. Nevertheless, now that this “tell” is out there, I’ll probably play with it in case any of my future opponents watched the stream (or read this blog).

Conclusion

All in all, it was a great experience, and knowing all my friends and family were watching and cheering me on was the best part (after, you know, all that money). If you have any questions about the match, post them in the comments and I'll be happy to answer if I can. Looking forward to the next one!

Team Echo

A year ago, I had a dream. To tell the story of a team of superheroes who saved the world from a zombie apocalypse, and then couldn't be found when the world needed them to do it again. Now, with the help of gifted Australian artist Jonathan Munro, that dream has been realized.

Team Echo #1 is complete, and is available now in digital form: here: https://gumroad.com/l/teamecho1

I plan to sell the book digitally through other venues, and eventually, to make hard copies available. Without an established publisher, this may take some time though, and I wanted to make sure the story is available now. Whether or not an issue #2 will be published is heavily dependent upon the reception of this first issue. I have the entire story planned out, so there's no question that the series will be there if there is interest.

I'd love it if you would head on over to gumroad and buy a copy, and if you have any ideas on how we can make the publication available to a mass audience, I'd love to hear that too. Thanks!

Why Doesn’t 2015 Look As It Was Depicted in Back to the Future II?

This year marks the 30^th anniversary of the Back to the Future franchise. It’s a very important anniversary. Why? Because, as Doc Brown says “it seems like a nice, round number,” and it is the period of time that the protagonists leap over from their base time of 1985, either into the past, or the future (give or take 100 years for Back to the Future III).

Yes, fanboys and friends, we have arrived at the future, 2015, and have the benefit of being able to compare our current lives with what was predicted by Robert Zemeckis. Zemeckis claims, by the way, that he had no intention of trying to accurately predict what life would be like 30 years in the future, he was just trying to be funny. But Zemeckis doesn’t need to backpedal. Yes, we have no flying cars, hoverboards (well, just barely), mass produced sneakers that tie themselves, double-knotted neckties, popular clothing in holographic colors, or 18 Jaws sequels, but there is a good reason for this.

Marty McFly Changes the Future

As we see in Back to the Future II when Biff escapes into the past with the Sports Almanac, changing events in the past can massively affect the present (and the future). Biff goes from being a sap to kingpin and back again due to the characters’ various mucking about in past events. What we conveniently forget when Back to the Future II opens is that a massive change to the past has already happened.

George McFly: World Maker

If you’ll recall, in Back to the Future, Marty helps his dad learn to stand up to Biff, and as a result, George becomes a cool, successful guy rather than the milquetoast he was before. Given the McFly family’s psychotic reaction to being called “chicken,” one might have thought that Marty would have exploited this weakness to make a man out of George in 1955 and saved himself a lot of time and trouble, but perhaps this weakness skipped a generation, or Marty simply isn’t that bright and hadn’t thought of it.*

However, what we do not realize is that Marty’s changes extended far beyond making his family a success. As a result of Marty’s actions, George McFly becomes a (presumably successful) science fiction author. Now we all know that science fiction authors often provide the ideas and framework for what later becomes science fact. Star Trek gave us the model for cell phones. Isaac Asimov conceived of the e-Reader and much of the way we think about robots. I submit that the future technology that we see in Back to the Future II’s 2015 that we do not have today come as a direct result of ideas from George McFly’s novels.

 Why Fax machines instead of the internet? Perhaps one of McFly’s adventures glorified this now-archaic device, encouraging scientists to put their efforts into perfecting it rather than other, less reliable-seeming types of wireless technology. Why were there 18 Jaws sequels? (A better question, why weren’t there 18 Jaws sequels?) Did you catch that latest George McFly best seller about the man-eating shark from space? How did the Cubs win the World Series? Well, that one I can’t explain, but you get the idea.

Back to the Present

The conclusion is inescapable. Before Marty McFly went back to 1955 to escape the Libyan terrorists, his 2015 looked exactly as ours does today, with the internet, cars and skateboards that stay rooted firmly to the ground, and a hapless Cubs franchise that will never get it quite right. By going back in time and affecting the timeline, he created the awesome 2015 that we in this world will never get to enjoy.

*And sorry, fans, but Marty McFly is not particularly intelligent. Observe how many times in the first Back to the Future he makes comments that suggest he does not realize that he is in the past although it should be abundantly clear at this point that this is what has happened. Also, Marty acts surprised when Doc Brown suggests his mother is romantically interested in him despite the fact that she has already overtly hit on him. In addition, he’s not creative enough to think of any fake names for himself that don’t already belong to existing famous people, and even at middle age he is able to be manipulated psychologically with tactics typically used on children.