Let’s just preface this with a ::SPOILER ALERT:: for anyone who hasn’t seen “Bridesmaids”

For someone who got a degree in cinema, I have reached a point in my life where I genuinely have no desire to go to the movies anymore.  I would rather stay at home and watch “All About Eve” for the hundredth time than spend more money I am comfortable with on  movie I will likely not enjoy very much.

My movie going is incredibly sporadic, but with so many folks in town for the WSOP now, I wasn’t terribly surprised to find myself showing up at the theater for a flick I really wasn’t that motivated to see: Bridesmaids.

Based on the preview alone, I thought this movie looked like one of those gross out comedies I am not fond of, so, love for Melissa McCarthy aside, I said to myself, “No thanks.”

Then these good reviews from just about everyone started pouring in and I started to think that maybe, just maybe, the preview didn’t do the movie justice.  It turns out the trailer was indeed misleading.  This movie was part gross out comedy, but it was also part depressing drama.

The more I think about it, the more I think I didn’t hate the movie, I just hated that I was blindsided with a really sad story when I was told I would be laughing my ass off for two hours.

Nothing about this movie is funny to me though.  As a 27 year-old single gal with friends getting married left and right, watching the main character not only lose her best friend to impending nuptials, but have her life genuinely fall to pieces in the process was devastatingly sad to me.  I am a girl who often gets told I put too much effort into my career and to watch the protagonist Annie fail at what she cared about most was a little tough.

That was just the beginning though.  The audience is then forced to watch her lose her job, lose her apartment, get kicked off an airplane, get in a car wreck, screw up with a guy and, worst of all, alienate her life long friend by ruining her bridal shower.

If this were presented as a dramedy, I think I would be much more receptive to the story,  But all this talk of real chicks being funny and believable got my hopes too high that I would leave the theater feeling cheery.  I know the ending, where newlywed Lillian and Annie patch things up is supposed to be happy, but in my head I kept thinking, “Too much bad shit has gone done.  You’ll never be able to go back to the way it was.”

And then the dream guy shows up “Sixteen Candles” style.

I know these movies need love stories and, to be honest, I found the scenes with Annie and her police officer paramour to be hands-down the best parts of the movie, but the end just rang false to me.  She screwed up with this dude.  She proved to be more trouble than she is worth, and we as the audience are supposed to believe that while this seemingly intelligent and talented woman can’t get a job or pay her bills, she can magically make things work with this guy and that is going to be enough to make her happy?

In a time where my job status is uncertain and I am as unattached as ever, this was a movie about some of my worst fears and I can’t help but think there are other single 20-something gals out there who feel the same.  Yes, parts of the movie honestly captured the way the girls I know behave around each other, but that, not to mention the completely unfunny fart and vomit jokes, just didn’t add up to light and enjoyable summer movie fare.

It is no secret that I love ladies poker tournaments.  LOVE them.  I know people smirk and I know people judge, but I genuinely have a great time every time I take part in one of these and, for some reason, I find myself playing better poker in these tournaments than anywhere else.

I am normally not good at getting reads on people, but when I play ladies events, I find myself getting better and better at using body language to figure out where I am at.  I also find it easier to trust my reads and pull the trigger at the right time.

In other words, I just feel more comfortable there than anywhere else I play poker.

So, I jumped at the chance to play in the Hollywood Poker Open Ladies Event at Hollywood Casino in Indiana.  Ladies events in this area is where I first learned to play tournaments and I was excited to get back.  It was great to see people and I even ended up at a starting table with my friend Jamie and we got to catch up.  

I was amazed how many women I recognized from ladies events from 4-5 years ago.  I was even more amazed to see that with just one or two exceptions, they all play exactly the same.  No growth, no development.

At first I was irritated and I thought about people who hate ladies events and wondered if they were right.  Are these ladies events a safety net that has segregated these women fro pushing the bounds of their game and getting better?

The more I played, the more women I met, and the more stories I heard.  Eventually, it dawned on me that these women weren’t going to come to the casino at all if it weren’t for these ladies events.  Sure, they aren’t getting better, but they have a ball on the rare occasion they play.  And they don’t need to be good at poker.  They just need to enjoy themselves when they play.  If paying in women-only fields is the way to do that, then more power to them.

As for me?  I ended up taking second despite having an absolutely massive chip lead with five players left.  Where did I go wrong, you ask?  Nowhere in particular, honestly. Here is what happened:

With five players left, I had a pretty big lead.  I was sitting on around 530,000 while my next closest competitor had 175,000.  Everyone else was at 120,000 or less and blinds were at 5,000/10,000 ante 1,500.

In other words, everyone was getting in desperation mode and I was fine.  Despite that fact, I wasn’t being super abusive with my stack, only opening maybe once an orbit.  Every hand I showed down was a premium one and, from what I could tell, my image was right where it needed to be.  The woman with 175,000 seemed to be a bit clueless, but she did have one thing figured out–how to three-bet.  She would reraise with any hand she liked and rarely just call raises.

I had gotten to the point where, barring a steal or two, I really wasn’t opening anything I wasn’t willing to call an all-in with since everyone was just so short.  I made it 25,000 to play with 55 and it folded to the 3-bet machine in the big blind.  and she 3-bet, making it 60,000.

I was a little perplexed, as this woman didn’t seem advanced enough to know about clicking it back and trying to induce a shove.  After a minute of deliberation, I decided she didn’t have a great hand and she was just trying to take the pot down.  I also thought she would ignore how much of her stack was in, because she would still be 2nd or 3rd in chips if she folded and there were two players with less than five big blinds.

I moved all-in and she snapped it off instantly.  Thinking I had run into aces or kings, I begrudgingly turned over my hand.  Much to my surprise, she had A10o.  I spent a long time thinking about this hand and I truly can’t fathom why she played it this way.  With my limited play and track record at the table, she has to think she is lucky to be flipping with A10.  Maybe I am giving her too much credit.  Maybe she was just one of those players who didn’t want to learn.

She hit a ten and, thanks to my understanding of stack sizes, I was able to chip back up without a showdown.  By three-handed play, two of us were down to ten big blinds though, as Lil Miss 3-bet literally picked up aces once an orbit..  I doubled up when I had kings against the 3rd place finisher’s jacks.  Heads-up I lost the 40/60 I needed to win to keep in the game.

So I got second and banked $3,800.  it was the largest score I’ve ever had and, more importantly, it was a moral victory.  After the vicious yet playful drubbing by my friends about an eight-way chop at the NAPT LA Ladies Event, I managed to persevere through my least favorite part of ladies events–chop talk.  I shut people down politely, yet firmly.  I played it out to a winner, and, most importantly, I had enough faith in my ability to trust that I could win the whole thing.

As you may notice from my latest link, plenty of people have already tackled this subject and done so quite well, most notably my friend Dave AKA F-Train. Despite the fact that I generally share the same sentiments as Dave, I still feel compelled to say something here, both because I am wont for content these days and because I have more than once been critical of the TwoPlusTwo Forums and think now is as good a time as any to clarify my frustrations with them.

I’m not an idiot.  I know TwoPlusTwo has done a lot for the poker world.  I admit that I traffic not just NVG, but other sections of their forum because as someone paid to keep tabs on the poker world, I would be failing at my job if I didn’t.  Of all the people who disagreed with Mason Malmuth’s statement that “TwoPlusTwo is the poker community,” I don’t think anyone referred to the site and the people who frequent it as irrelevant.

On the contrary, I am in agreement with Jon Aguiar that some of the best and brightest minds in poker contribute to 2p2.  A relatively high percentage of my poker friends post there.  But when you are evaluating a community, you can’t just point to one or two upstanding citizens.  You look at every single person.  You look at what the community tolerates, what it refuses to stand for, and the ideologies it espouses.

When I look at the parts of 2p2, there are plenty of things I appreciate.  I think the strategy discussion is well over my head.  I think it is a useful place to seek out information about smaller buy-in tournaments that aren’t covered by the major outlets.  It produces some funny photoshop threads.  And we can all agree it played an integral role in uncovering what we have uncovered regarding the UB scandal.

When I look at the whole of 2p2 is when I start having my issues.  I think plenty of people have adequately discussed the horrifyingly misogynistic attitude I’ve seen mostly in NVG but detected elsewhere.  Amazingly though, what I think bothers me more than the genuine hatred of women on that site, is the air of self-importance stinking up just about every thread.  Malmouth’s conceited comment is one example.  Here’s another:

The recent fight between Prahlad Friedman, Isaac Haxton, and Justin Bonomo resuted in Bonomo authoring a post that I found to be really quite well-written, save for one line towards the very end.  Here it is:

“Above I have issued a challenge. Prahlad must either accept this challenge, or give both of us a public apology.”

Um….okay?  Or what?  Same can be said of numerous other posts that demand apologies, demand changes, demand their opinion is the only one that counts.  In many cases, Bonomo included, his perfectly valid reasons to be upset are undercut by this sense of entitlement that I just don’t have any patience for.  It is unwelcoming, it is condescending, and it is the primary reason I have vowed to never, ever post there.  I see its value, I applaud some of its efforts, but, on the whole, it is just not a place I can get behind.

And that is why 2p2 is certainly a poker community, but in my opinion it is far from the poker community.  At least I hope not.  Because it is a place where n00bs, girls, and people who don’t always see eye to eye with the 2p2 way can’t go and expect respect or even common courtesy.  And if there is something about poker that appeals to me more than anything else is that it is a game for everyone.  It is high takes, it is penny games, it is playing around the kitchen table with your family.  And it is all poker.  And anyone who takes part in it is part of the poker community.  And you gotta respect that.

I’ll admit it.  When I ended up waling into the set of “The Big Game” yesterday, I was kind of hoping it would be the Jared Higgins episode.    For those who may not know, Higgins is a bit of an internet sensation—a down on his luck kid trying to get back on his feet after busting his roll.  It is a charming story, though I have not read the entire Higgins oeuvre.

The idea came up to get Higgins on PokerStars’ The Big Game.  Petitions circulated, he applied, and he even made it fairly deep into the process before getting cut by producers.  Cue TwoPlusTwo melee.  The forums lit up, claiming Stars had no idea what they were doing and had to be crazy for passing up on such a great story.

And this is the point where I came in and just heaved a big sigh.

Before we return to Higgins and The Big Game, here is a story from my past life in the world of Hollywood:

A friend of mine worked in production at a new show called “Deal Or No Deal.”  During the initial round of episodes, the casting directors found all sorts of compelling stories—couples in need, young kids trying to get their life together straight out of college.  I even bet there was a former homeless guy in the line-up.  It was a recipe for success.  And it turned out to be a disaster.

You see, these couples or young kids got a call from the banker offering them $20,000 and they snatched it up in no time.  Can’t blame them.  I would too.  You see, when you put people with genuine financial struggles on game shows, there isn’t a lot of gambling.  The producers dangle a carrot in front of them and they say “Thanks” before heading on their merry way.

With the Deal or No Deal debacle in mind, I was far from surprised to see Higgins rejected.  The producer side of me that refuses to die thought the likelihood he nits it up or plays conservatively has to be high.  Plus, I can’t imagine Standards and Practices loving the idea of giving a guy being depicted as homeless $100,000 and forcing him to gamble with it. 

There are other concerns with Higgins as a Loose Cannon.  How is the poker pro who potentially busts the guy going to look when he beats him in a pot?  What if he is not a very entertaining TV persona? 

Most importantly, how will a casual poker fan react to this scenario?  What TwoPlusTwo often forgets is that this show is not for them.  It is for soccer moms, dads with white collar jobs, and retirees with disposable income.  It is a show designed to appeal to people who are notionally intrigued by online poker and might be swayed to open an account once they see people like them having a ball on the show.

Call me crazy, but a guy who theoretically exhibited some less than stellar bankroll management to get into the predicament he finds himself in is not the ideal candidate to bring skeptics over to the online cause.

Then the unthinkable happened.  Stars changed their minds.  I have no idea whether the pressure of 2P2  was the sole reason they included Higgins on the show, but I can only hope that isn’t the case.  It is one thing to be upset that the horse you were rooting for didn’t make it.  I understand, I was devastated when Kevin didn’t win Top Chef: Las Vegas.  It sucks.

What I didn’t do was write a scathing review to Bravo TV informing them that I know more about television production than they do.  Because I don’t.  And neither do you TwoPlusTwo.