Bizarre Clonie Gowan Story

Clonie Gowan, in case you aren't aware, is a professional poker player.  She was also -- up until about two months ago -- a member of "Team Full Tilt", a select group of about a dozen poker players affiliated with the poker website FullTiltPoker.net.

Something odd has happened.  I noticed recently that Clonie's image no longer is amoung the group of players that appear at the end of every "Full Tilt" television commercial.  A visit to the website shows that she has been airbrushed out of every photo and removed from every listing of players.  She's apparently been dispatched down the memory hole, with a degree of efficiency that would make a Bellagio chip-runner jealous.

Naturally, there's a lawsuit involved.  Clonie is suing Full Tilt's parent company (along with some of the owners individually) for $40 million.  She claims that when the website was founded, she was promised 2% ownership of the company.  Apparently there's nothing in writing to prove this.  But she says some weeks ago, Howard Lederer (the purported CEO) offered her $250,000 to walk away.  She thinks she deserves more; hence the lawsuit.

Now, I'm not a lawyer.  But I do know quite a bit about contract law, so I can make a couple of conclusions about this situation.

1. The fact that this alleged ownership interest lacked a written agreement isn't terribly relevant.  An oral contract is just as binding as a written one in most cases (there are plenty of exceptions.  Real estate transactions, for example.).  Having something in writing is helpful, of course, but not usually a requirement for an action to proceed.

2. On the other hand, in order for a contract to be binding, it must involve an activity that is legal.  In other words, if you hire Vinnie the Blade to knock off your ex-girlfriend, and he doesn't, you can't sue him in court for breach of contract, because the basis of the contract was not a legal activity.  Is running an online poker room legal in the United States?  It's not entirely clear whether it is or not.

Regardless, I'm sure that Full Tilt isn't eager to see this action make its way to a courtroom.  It would pretty much oblige them to open up their books and show a lot of details about where the money come from -- and goes -- that they'd just as soon keep private.

If Clonie is seeking $40 meg for 2% of the company, she's basically saying the firm as a whole is worth $2B.  That's difficult to accept, at least for me.  If you'd value the company at between one to one-and-a-half times annual revenue (pretty generous for these types of enterprises that are public), a back of the envelope guesstimate (by me) would give Full Tilt a value of maybe one-tenth or one-twentieth Clonie's number.

My prediction is that the two sides will settle for a low, seven-figure number that will remain secret; Clonie will fade away, and we'll never hear any more about the matter.

But the whole thing is bizarre.

I've always thought that Clonie Gowan was an odd fit for that organization.  Frankly, she's not that good of a poker player.  And her vocabulary includes the kind of words you'd only find at the dockyard ... or in the Illinois Governor's office.  She actually holds the record for the most bleeped player on the TV show "Poker After Dark".

Think about it:  Here are some of the other members of Team Full Tilt:

 * Former World champion Chris "Jesus" Ferguson

 * Eight-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel (8 bracelets!  Only three human beings have more.)

 * Jennifer Harman, perhaps the best female player in the world

 * Phil Ivey, widely considered poker's very best player overall

 * Erick Lindgren, who's been both WPT and WSOP "Player of the Year"

 * Widely respected cash game player Patrik Antonius

 * Etc. etc. etc.

And ... um ... Clonie Gowan?  I mean, how does she fit in with this group, after all?

Not to mention the fact that she basically confessed on an episode of "Poker After Dark" to having cheated in a game.  She said she noticed the deck they were playing with had too many Aces ... but she waited until the pot was pushed to her before she notified the floorman.

Believe it or not, there's a code of honor among poker players.  Handshake agreements fall under that code ... but so does respecting the integrity of the game that you're in.  Every player has the obligation to do what's best for poker at all times; Clonie didn't live up to that requirement.

That doesn't mean she doesn't deserve to be compensated for her work on behalf of Full Tilt.  But if she's that kind of player, it just might indicate why she's no longer part of their team.

Why I Hate Ace-Jack

I’ve posted before about Ace-Jack, and how it really is a pretty bad hand to come into a pot with. I frequently fold it pre-flop if there’s any action early on, and I always fold it from early position. But some folks don’t, and they end up having to deal with consequences that I’m able to avoid.

I was in early position at a $2/$5 no-limit game with Ace/King offsuit. The first player folded; I raised to $15, and got two callers – a loose, middle-position player, and the guy on the button. The flop came Ace-Ace-Three rainbow. I checked, hoping for the chance at a check-raise … but unfortunately the other two guys also checked behind me. The turn brought a deuce. Although this meant a straight was in the offing, I thought that was extremely unlikely. After all, who is going to call a raise pre-flop with a five-four?

I bet $20; the button called and the other player folded. The river was a nine (no flush draws), so I put in a $60 bet. My opponent called and proudly showed the Ace-Jack. I turned over my Ace-King and dragged the pot.

How I Play Kings

I nearly titled this "How To Play Kings" ... but that would be a little presumptive I think.

But it is true that the way I play pocket Kings (or Queens or Jacks, or even to some extent Aces) is different from how a lot of people play them.  To begin with, with any of these hands I'm quite content to take in a small pot.  Someone (Stu Ungar?) once said pocket Aces will either win you a small pot or lose you a big one, and I've played enough to realize that's true.  So, given that choice, I'd rather win the small pot.

So with any of these hands, I will raise from any position, or re-raise if it's already been raised.  Ideally, I want to be down to a single opponent pre-flop.  None of these hands play particularly well with multiple opponents.

On the flop, if an overcard comes (i.e. an Ace when I'm holding Kings, or Ace or King when I have Queens, etc.) then I am pretty much through with the hand.  Just about the only hands worth calling a pre-flop raise with contain an Ace, so now I am beat.  Fortunately I most likely have only put in a comparatively small amount, so it's not too painful.  Frustrating, but not painful.

With Kings or Queens, I will reraise a preflop raiser, trying to get heads-up like I said.  If my opponent re-reraises me, I'll just call.  That way, if I'm taking my Kings against Aces, I won't lose as much as I would if I continued to make it a shove contest.  Then just check and call it down, and hope the Kings hold.  I'll almost never raise all-in with Kings, but I will call somebody else's all-in.  If they have the Aces at that point, well I guess too bad for the home team.

Here are a couple of hands from a recent poker session to show you what I mean.  Both of them occurred at the $2/$5 no-limit table.

In the first hand, I was the big blind.  A player in early position limped (oh how I hate early position limpers, such a bad play).  Everybody else folded to the small blind, who called.  I looked at my hand -- pocket Kings -- and raised to $20, hoping one of my two opponents would fold.  The first limper called ... and then the small blind re-raised me, to $100!  Usually, I would have just called ... but I really did want the other player out, so I re-re-reraised again, to $300.  The early limper folded; then the small blind went all-in, which was a total bet of $500.  Well of course I was committed, I had him covered, I called.  A river King gave me trips, which I didn't need against his pocket Queens.  The $1000 pot was mine.

In the second hand, I was in early position with Ten/Four of clubs and folded, so I was just a member of the audience for what went down.  It was folded to the button, who raised to $20.  The small blind folded; the big blind re-raised to $50.  The button then raised to $160; the big blind went all in (about $400) -- he had the button covered -- and the button called.  The big blind showed his Kings and the button showed his Aces.  The dealer placed five bricks on the board, and the big blind had successfully donked off almost his entire stack pre-flop.

I don't even like the big blind's first re-raise.  At this point, he is already heads-up; I would have just called the button and taken the flop.  But after the button re-raised, his all-in shove was a horrible decision.  Think about it:  Not many hands are worth putting $160 into the pot pre-flop; and fewer of those can be beaten by pocket Kings.

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Here's a shout-out to my co-worker Steve, who came in second in a recent PokerStars tourney for a $7000+ payday.  Many more of those Steve and you probably won't be my co-worker for long!  Big congrats.

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The Seattle area has a new casino which opened recently, the Snoqualmie Casino.  I went and checked it out over the T'giving weekend.  I guess I will be charitable and say that since it just opened, they haven't grown to their capacity yet.  When I was there, only one table of the 12 in their poker room was playing, and it was a $4/$8 limit table.  There was list for $2/$5 spread limit.  I played the limit table for a few hours, and the other players there were just ghastly.  I've already written how I don't like the lower limit tables, because the rake alone makes it almost impossible to beat.  Anyhow, they promise that they will have a larger poker room opening in a few weeks; let's at least hope they have more players too to populate it with.