DAILY BUZZ: Bracelets For Sale, Bloch on Siler, Annette Down Under

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DAILY BUZZ: Bracelets For Sale, Bloch on Siler, Annette Down Under

Jason Kirk | January 20, 2010

Welcome to the BLUFF Daily Buzz, where we scour the entire internet for all the latest news in and around the world of poker. If it involves chips and cards, or people known to associate with chips and cards, we’re there.

Plano Pawn Shop is selling two of T.J. Cloutier's championship bracelets for less than Cloutier's buy-ins for the tournaments he won to earn them

Why try to win a bracelet when you can buy one - or two?

Poker fans browsing on eBay today might just stumble onto a unique auction of interest: T.J. Cloutier’s bracelet from the 2005 $5,000 No Limit Hold’em event, one of six he has won during his professional poker career, is up for grabs with a starting bid of $2,999.

It appears the bracelet isn’t being sold by Cloutier himself. Rather, the seller is the Plano Pawn Shop in Plano, Tex., which says it acquired the bracelet “directly” from the two-time WSOP Main Event runner-up. A little digging turns up another Cloutier bracelet for sale on eBay by the Plano proprietors, this time from the $5,000 Championship Event at the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge IV at Cherokee Casino in Oklahoma, available for a starting bid of just $2,499. The descriptions for both bracelets list off Cloutier’s numerous accomplishments in the poker world, including his WSOP exploits and his Player of the Year awards, but neglects to mention one very important piece of information: dropping a few grand on a bracelet won by somebody else won’t actually make you a better poker player.

If you’ve ever watched Pawn Stars on the History Channel you’re probably thinking to yourself, “If they’re selling the bracelet for $3K, there’s no way T.J. got more than $1,000 for it.” And if you’re a poker aficionado with any sense of the game at all, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “The starting bid for the WSOP bracelet is only $500 more than the Scotty Nguyen Challenge bracelet, WTF?”

A tip of the Buzz’s hat goes to our friends at Wicked Chops Poker, who first alerted us to the auction.

The always "maximally exploitative" Andy Bloch

Andy Bloch comments on the Siler study

Full Tilt Poker pro Andy Bloch dropped by the comments section at Hard-Boiled Poker a few days back to talk about the mainstream press’ favorite new poker news item, the study by Cornell University doctoral student Kyle Siler which concludes that losing poker players win the most pots.

Bloch took exception to Siler’s reasoning for why players who win more pots lose more money. Where the Ivy League doctoral student said that this happened because they lose more big pots than better players, Bloch says that the main reason is that bad players play hands that a better player would have mucked immediately.

“That people who win more hands lose money is only paradoxical to a beginning or amateur player,” wrote the Full Tilt Pro. “There’s a maximally exploitative strategy against any particular set of opponents, which will result in a particular percentage of hands won. If you win a higher percentage of hands, then you’re making mistakes and not winning as much money as a perfect player. The same thing is true if you’re winning too few hands, although you may still be a winning player if you’re playing against players who are too loose.”

Bloch also objected to Time Magazine’s application of Siler’s conclusion to the world of investing in an article that helped spawn the Hard-Boiled Poker post in the first place. But hey, what does Andy Bloch know? It’s not like he went to M.I.T. or anything…

(An Academic Approach to Poker Gets Dumbed Down - Hard-Boiled Poker)

It’s an Aussie win for Annette

The annual Aussie Millions festival is well underway in Melbourne and just four events in we’ve got our first big-name pro winner, online phenom and 2007 WSOP Europe Main Event champion Annette Obrestad.

Obrestad’s win came in the A$1,100 Pot Limit Omaha event, which drew 160 players. Though she came in to the final table in third place, Obrestad had claimed the chip lead by the time there were four players left and she never looked back from there. The A$40,000 (US$36,336) prize isn’t nearly as big a payday as she took down in London in 2007, but it’s unlikely she’ll be complaining about it anytime soon considering it marks her first live tournament win since the big one.

The Aussie Millions continues through the end of the month, with the A$100,000 Challenge starting this Saturday and the A$10,000 Main Event beginning this coming Sunday.

Around the Table

Don’t make a backing deal with another player and then walk away from the agreement unless you want him to spit in your face, especially if the other player’s name is Jeff Garza … Team UB’s Liv Boeree recently did a photo shoot and interview with Maxim UK … The Florida Legislature is considering a law regulating online poker but may wait to see what happens with Rep. Barney Frank’s bill in Washington first … Former EPT Prague champion Salvatore Bonavena became the latest champion of the PokerStars-sponsored Italian Poker Tour, claiming €155,000 for his win in Venice … Joe Cada has apparently traded his old girlfriend in for a new one … Cada’s fellow November Niner Darvin Moon will be a guest of the New Orleans Saints at this weekend’s NFC Championship Game against the Minnesota Vikings … The French state gambling monopoly, Francaise des Jeux, is creating its own online poker site with land-based casino group Barrière.