Positively Crap Street: McManus Speaks

READ MORE: James McManus, Positively Crap Street

Sometimes the words wound. Or, at least, patently annoy. Such is the case of NY Times poker columnist James McManus who took some time out from his busy schedule to inform us that our posts about his poker column were not very…mmm, what’s that word…NICE. Well, Mr. McManus agreed to send along the message to the thatch of poker bloggers that strung him up for a whoopin’:

If there’s gonna be a meaningful exchange of ideas about poker (or anything), don’t we have to avoid wild overstatements and personal attacks?

Jim McManus

Wild overstatements? Personal attacks? That’s crazy talk. Eloquent crazy talk, no less, but crazy.

Previously: Positively Crap Street: Fat, Drunk and Irish is No Way to Go Through Life, Jim [Oddjack]; James McMysoginist vs. Al Can’t Hang [Oddjack]; Positively Crap Street: Bloggers Sound Off on Latest McManus Column [Oddjack]

Positively Crap Street: Fat, Drunk And Irish Is No Way To Go Through Life, Jim

READ MORE: Dan Harrington, James McManus, Poker, The Origin Of Species

Okay, so maybe James “McMisogynist” McManus wasn’t drunk when he hammered out his latest piece for The New York Times, but he may as well have been. He deigns to give eminent scientist Charles Darwin a nickname like “Galapagos Chaz” in his opener (we’d have went with something hipper, like “The Origin” or “The Missing Link,” or maybe swerved towards the esoteric and just dubbed him, “The Cambrian Explosion”), and channels ancient Incan warriors in the very next paragraph.

We’ll ease up on Jimmy Mac just a bit - after the jump…

LOOKS LIKE WE GOT OURSELVES A READER

Thankfully, McManus doesn’t stray long before landing squarely on target - reviewing Harrington on Hold ‘Em

Writing in the tradition of Mr. Sklansky’s definitive “Theory of Poker,” Mr. Harrington deftly unpacks the math and logic of no-limit tournament strategy. It helps that Bill Robertie, a chess and backgammon expert who wrote the book with Mr. Harrington, has also written several first-rate gaming primers. Together they have found clear language, equations and diagrams to explain highly complex and sometimes counterintuitive concepts - folding before the flop with pocket aces, for example, or the subtle relationship between bluffing (betting with a weak hand) and slow-playing (not betting with a strong hand).

Harrington on Hold ‘Em is actually going to be remembered as the first great instructional text of the new poker boom, and it’s nice to see McManus put down the Bushmills long enough to give it a good read.

The Conquistador Defense [New York Times]
Previously: Positively Crap Street: James McMisogynist vs. Al Can’t Hang [Oddjack]
Previously: Positively Crap Street: Bloggers Sound Off On Latest McManus Column [Oddjack]
Previously: Positively Crap Street Part 2: Blogger Flames McManus [Oddjack]

Positively Crap Street: James McMisogynist vs. Al Can’t Hang

READ MORE: 2005 WSOP, James McManus, Poker, poker bloggers

James McManus is back in the New York Times with another divisive look at the game of poker. This time, he takes the ladies for a long walk on the beach, clubs them over the head with some driftwood (sorry, Marcus Allen) and throws them to the rabid walruses (walrus? walruseses?) for good measure.

James McManus loves the ladies. After the jump, we’ll let one of our poker blogging friends take him out behind the woodshed.

LADIES LOVE COOL JAMES

McManus’ article articulates one solid point - that men are more competitive than women, because that’s how we spread our seed. Women who act like men aren’t seen as desireable, so by nature, women are less aggressive than men. Quoting McManus, “This anticompetitive bias might be even stronger in no-limit tournaments, because money not only flows to the top of a pyramid of risk-takers but is also the game’s very language.”

Internet barfly Al Can’t Hang offers his assessment:

James “Neanderthal” McManus pulled himself away from his cave painting long enough to insult an entire gender. His premise is that women have a biological disadvantage when it comes to suceeding at No Limit Hold’em. Our favorite Cro-Magnon man uses fuzzy science like “Women don’t get as big a reproductive payoff by reaching the top,” and “women seem to shy away from competition.” Knuckle-dragging McManus fails to mention the one fact that seems to skip everyone’s mind: until the last decade or so, women were shunned from poker rooms and had to deal with open hostility. This gave women a gap in experience that has to play a huge role in the lack of entries and results from female players. McManus even ignores two points in his own article which seem to contradict his theory. Female players possess two characteristics that seem to balance out their “biological” lack of aggression - patience and a better ability to read their opponents. He also passes right over his own statement that the number of female players online is increasing at a faster rate than males.

Big Stick McManus should just go back to boring us with horribly written hand histories and tales from his single moment of luck glory.

The Biology of No-Limit Hold ‘Em [New York Times]
Dead Money: A Poker Blog [Al Can’t Hang]
Previously: Positively Crap Street: Bloggers Sound Off On Latest McManus Column [Oddjack]

Positively Crap Street: Bloggers Sound Off On Latest McManus Column

READ MORE: Bloggers, James McManus

New York Times poker columnist and overall lucky sumbitch, James McManus, is not making too many fans in the pokerati sect when it comes to his self-aggrandizing poker columns. Yes, everybody who loves the sport enjoys the fact that poker’s popularity is hovering somewhere high above the stratosphere. However, some feel McManus’ column may be the ultimate price of poker’s fame. Mo’ money, mo’ problems, indeed. This treads right on the turf of poker bloggers everywhere. This week’s offending column proves that hand histories don’t give him street cred. McManus may have the paid gig, but most bloggers have been perfecting the art of writing hand histories for a couple years on an everyday basis. After the jump, a couple of poker bloggers roll up their sleeves, clench their fists and give McManus a well-executed verbal black eye exclusively for Oddjack.

We’re not sure how McManus manages to parlay one half-assed book and a lucky final table appearance into gigs like this, but it’s astonishing how bad his stuff has been since they put him on the story. To paraphrase the moderator of the Knowledge Bee from “Billy Madison:”

“Mr. McManus, what you’ve just written is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever read. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having read it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Here is the latest unholy birth James McManus has squeezed out for the New York Times. Giving you a taste of what lay in wait behind the veil of subscription at the Times-dot-com:

Locking horns two hours later, Juanda and Darden moved all their chips in before the flop. Juanda held Q-Q, Darden A-K. With five cards to come in the classic Hold’em race, Juanda was a 57 percent favorite. But an ace on both the flop and the turn made Darden the overwhelming favorite. Only one of the two remaining queens could save Juanda - and that’s what washed up on the river. Suck and re-suck. Instead of being eliminated, Juanda became one of the chip leaders; Darden was out soon after.

Joe Speaker from The Obituarium expresses his frustration with McManus’ boobery below:

James McManus posts hand histories! There doesn’t really seem to be a point to them, unless it was to get “suck” into The Great Gray Lady. Five times, even. He reaches into his fancy bag of Big Shot Writer tricks—fake Latin, sports analogies—to describe Todd Brunson as a fat redneck. He presumably typed the phrase “less adventuresomely barbered” with a straight face and not-so-subtly reminds us of his final table finish. Which, for the record, was not this year. I won a 440 in the 7th grade. Gimme a track and field column.I suppose he’s going for a wrap-up of the entire Series. The excitement! The “panache!” (His word.) Look at these hand histories! It’s like you’re right in the room!I didn’t get that vibe. I got an August baseball game at Tropicana Field vibe.

Gracie from Sheverb:

These aren’t just ordinary hand histories they are tepid and dry hand histories that remind me a lot of text books I had to read in high school. In fact, I think McManus is onto something revolutionary - a sleep aid that is truly non-habit forming.

Previously: Positively Crap Street Part 2: Blogger Flames McManus [Oddjack]

Has Poker Hit Its Peak?

READ MORE: James McManus

Iggy, poker blogger extraordinaire at Guinness and Poker found a friend in the PR Biz who was willing to take a look at poker’s shelf-life in the mainstream consciousness.

And don’t you dare say “Jump The Shark,” poker is way cooler than Fonzie.

We know you only read blogs for the articles, but it bears mentioning that the post of which we’re speaking features a likely NSFW picture of Jennifer Tilly at the bottom. You’ve been warned.

Anyway, the death knell you hear ringing in your ears is being rung by the Old Gray Lady. Yep, it’s another “if the New York Times is finally getting around to acknowledging poker as a cultural phenomenon, then poker has nowhere to go but down” sort of post. To wit:

Giving McManus the benefit of the doubt, maybe he will go down in history for writing the greatest, most timely column in the history of journalism. Even so, there is no stronger certifiable signal that a fad has reached its zenith than when a national media organization — and there is no more prominent brand name in journalism than the Times — tries to exploit it…

The poker column gives the paper a terrific business opportunity, following its successes in establishing a brand from its niche-oriented features about bridge and chess. The Times has also claimed a virtual patent, or at least the industry’s most authoritative platform, when it comes to such newspaper staples as book reviews and crossword puzzles.

We also seem to remember the impenetrably dry bridge and chess columns the article mentions, and hope those egghead strategy columns The Times and other papers trot out stay focused on those dying games no one but old Russian dudes, housewives from the fifties, and fifth grade overachievers play anyway.

We maintain that the true death knell of poker will ring when a celebrity lucks her way into a World Series of Poker bracelet, and… What?!? Nevermind.

Guinness and Poker [Iggy]
Previously: Why My Column Can Kick Jim McManus’ Ass [Mean Gene]
Previously: Positively Crap Street: McManus To Pen New Poker Column [Oddjack]
Previously: Positively Crap Street Part 2: Blogger Flames McManus [Oddjack]

Positively Crap Street Part 2: Blogger Flames McManus

READ MORE: James McManus

The monster is out of its cage. Responding to last weekend’s introductory New York Times >”poker” column by Positively Fifth Street author James McManus, blogger and poker writer Mean Gene Bromberg gave a tepid review of the column on his blog, even though the title of his post suggests more scrutiny:”Why My Poker Column Can Kick Jim McManus’Column’s Ass”. Heh.

McManus showed his zebra stripes and Mean Gene was there to puma pounce:

[McManus]is writing a poker column for the New York Times called, well, “Poker”. His first effort, well, sucked. Blah blah, poker reflects the heart and mind of America, blah blah, riverboat gamblers, blah blah, Hold-Em is intrinsically beautiful…it’s more an introduction to a column than a column itself.

If McManus only knew of the flaming hoops of poker blogdom he will have to jump through. He’d be wizened to wear non-flammable pants from here on out.

Why My Column Can Kick Jim McManus’ Ass [Mean Gene]
Previously: Positively Crap Street:McManus To Pen New Poker Column [Oddjack]