Rumors

Daniel and I are playing at our weekly no limit game in Atlanta, and the fish are biting. I won my first hand on a bluff, and Daniel racked up a bunch of chips with a set of Queens, pocket K and AK vs. two all-in short stacks. We're both sitting pretty.

Then this guy I call the Unabomber says he wants to play Ace-Three-Five for $100. Ace-Three-Five is a funny prop bet where one person bets that an Ace, Three or Five will come on the flop. It's a sucker's bet because the odds are in favor of at least one of those cards falling. I need to do the math, but I think it's somewhere over 60 percent in favor of the person who bets on the Ace-Three-Five.

"I'll take that bet, if I can take the Ace, Three and Five," I said. The bet is on, and a beautiful three comes on the flop. I collect my $100.

Daniel and I are talking about the changes in the online poker world. Eurobet was about to switch from the Party Poker network to the Poker Room network. They've offered a 100 percent up to $600 sign-up bonus, which I don't think I'll be able to pass up even though I hate the Poker Room software. I also mention that I heard Party Poker would be releasing a new platform sometime after the new year.

This dude to my right pipes up and says he had heard about that, and that the reason for the new platform is that too many people had hacked into Party Poker's card generating engine. Umm ... I don't think so. Sure, it's possible. But I haven't heard of Party being hacked like that, and if there were even a rumor of something like that happening, I would have heard about the controversy. It's much more likely that Party Poker, the largest online site, is finally getting around to making some much-needed upgrades (although I absolutely love the current format, in all its year 2001-esque simplicity).

I kept my mouth shut. Let the fish believe that online poker is rigged if they want.

Then the dealer, who's nice but always tells questionable tidbits about the poker world, mentions that $10/$20 limit is the main game of her friends in Vegas. She said they make $5,000 a week by sitting 40 hours in the casinos.

This time I had to say something. "I don't think they make $5,000 a week at $10/$20," I said. Let's see: that's $125 an hour, or about six big bets per hour. In other words, it's completely impossible for anyone to win at that clip. Either the dealer's friends are lying to her, or she's lying to me.

Whatever. I think she was sincere, and if she can't figure out that she's passing on a falsehood, then that's her loss. It's also the loss of everyone else at the table who believes her. What can I do but disagree and then smile when she reiterates the validity of her point?

There's a lot of bad information out there, and perhaps the ability to separate the truth from rumor is what contributes to the making of a solid poker player.