Andy Morton, Sketches and Testimonials, Part I
Andy Morton, Sketches and Testimonials, Part II

Includes Morton's Theorem", a mathematical demonstration of the consequences of a counterintuitive multi-handed poker scenario

Back to Andy Morton memorial web page

Subj: Andy Morton, Sketches and Testimonials, Part I
Date: 98-07-26 00:24:23 EDT
From: massar@mindspring.com (James P. Massar)
To: smorton@pobox.com (Sanford Morton)  [Andy's Father]

Contributions from:

JP Massar massar@mindspring.com
James (Jazbo) Burns jazbo@jazbo.com
Michael Hall abdulj@posev.com
Mike Caro caro@caro.com
Lou Krieger loukrieger@aol.com
Gary Ilson groberti@worldnet.att.net
Robert Copps Robert_Copps@mindlink.bc.ca
Ron Oberman MR45AND33@aol.com
Lee Jones leej@diver.asd.sgi.com
Linda Swart Kaw95@aol.com
Greg Means mean_man@msn.com
Jo Leichte JPLeichte@aol.com
Dan Goldman SmltalkDan@aol.com
David Marshall dmarshal@netcom.com
Michael Feese MFeese@aol.com  or  mic@kirin.co.jp
Chuck Weinstock weinstock@conjelco.com
Jessica Vecchione JessicaVecchione@twoplustwo.com

Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Vail, Colorado paper

Kathy Davis kdbaby@montrose.net

Andy Morton died early morning Friday, July 17th, 1998 in a head-on motorcycle crash with an automobile in Colorado. He was on an extended ride from Los Angeles with his motorcycle buddies.

Andy was a well known RGP and 2+2 Forum contributor, and many of us reading this knew him personally.

Of all Andy's interests, his two great loves were talking and playing poker, and motorcycle riding.

Many a time in the last year you might have found Andy and I walking on the pedestrian/bike path along Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beaches in LA, engrossed in discussions about the intricacies of game theory, check-raises, bankrolls, bluffs and Xena, Warrior Princess.

Andy graduated with a PhD in biochemistry, but becoming disenchanted with academic life, left to become an itinerant poker player. In his beat up car he toured the country, living off his bankroll, gaining experience and working his way up the Hold 'em stakes ladder.

When he arrived in Los Angeles in January 1997 he decided to stay in one place for a while, and settled in for a time as a professional poker player, playing the higher limit games mainly at Hollywood Park and the Normandie, where he was well known.

Andy may perhaps be remembered into the future as the author of "Morton's Theorem", a mathematical demonstration of the consequences of a counterintuitive multi-handed poker scenario, which he developed with Abdul Jalib. Perhaps Abdul could repost it in his memory.

Andy was the quintessential scientist: Always questioning, never willing to accept without reason accepted theories and advice; always exploring new and interesting avenues of poker theory and life.

Andy was a very good friend, and I will miss him muchly.

I had many enjoyable conversations with Andy, originally over the Net and then several times in person beginning at BARGE two (or was it three?) years ago.

When Andy had a trip planned to Atlanta, he asked for advice on places to visit. We discovered that he would be leaving Atlanta the same day that I was arriving (this was a few weeks ago in June). He managed to spot me in the concourse, and we spent an enjoyable half-hour together talking about poker and other things.

He will be missed.

I'm sitting here stunned. All of a sudden, poker doesn't seem very important.

I had really just met Andy at TARGET a few months ago, and recently learned that he was a Duke graduate like I.

I was enjoying getting to know him, and was looking forward to hanging with him on my next trip to southern California.

My prayers go out to his family and friends. This really sucks.

Andy was a skilled card player and one of the nicest guys anyone could meet. He was a terrific young man with his entire life ahead of him. Life, like poker, sometimes deals out incredibly bad beats, and there's not a damn thing any of us can do about them.

I played poker with Andy on a regular basis in the 20/40 hold'em games at Hollywood Park, and would be honored to say a few words at BARGE about him. The world, and the poker table, was a much better place with Andy in it. It's a sadder one without him.

In recent months, I had several long chats with Andy concerning poker strategy and the life of a player. The first one took place on the Fremont St. promenade in Vegas just before the first event at the World Series. Our conversations were sybiotic in the sense that I felt I needed to be updated on modern mathematical analyses of poker, and Andy wanted to know more about the subjective side of the game from a veteran of the gaming wars. Our last meeting was at the Normandie Club bar, a four hour session of back and forth, diagrams on beer soaked napkins, and constant enlightenment. I can still see him laughing and pounding on his motorcycle helmet after he tried to explain a formula that left me bug eyed. He was a pleasant young man who spoke and listened with equal skill and attention. During the time I knew him, we exchanged a number of e-mails about specific hands and philosophical positions. Though I didn't know him long, I feel a great sense of loss. For one thing, I believed he could help guide me into a higher level of play - but more importantly, a young life full of intelligence, curiosity, and decency has suddenly disappeared, and our planet has most assuredly been downgraded. I'll never delete those e-mails.

RIP Andy.

Andy was a close friend and I'll miss him dearly.

Before I knew Andy well, I let him start renting a room from me. I gave him what I felt was a significantly undermarket price, as I knew he was brilliant, and felt he would more than repay me in terms of poker knowledge. I considered him still a bit green in terms of experience, but his drive to discover more about poker strategy through logical and mathematical analyses was pure gold in my eyes.

It wasn't long before I was repaid with what has become known as Morton's Theorem. Andy, JP, a couple of others, and I had met to discuss poker strategy. Andy was trying to make the case that you should let all the fishy callers call along, rather than driving them out, since they are making mistakes by the fundamental theorem of poker.

Although I couldn't do much more than wave my hands frantically, I replied that the fundamental theorem of poker usually doesn't apply in multiway pots, that you usually want your opponents to fold correctly from their perspective when you hold something like top pair top kicker versus a multiway field. (It would be safer to say "often" rather than "usually".)

The next day, a table in my apartment sprouted papers with mathematical scribbles, with Andy working furiously in the midst of them. After a while, he came to me and gave me guidance to do his calculations from scratch, for a double check. We worked on this and discussed it for some hours, and then Andy generously typed it up for rec.gambling.poker. His article follows at the end of this article...

Of course, while profit was my initial motivation for letting Andy move in for cheap, we quickly became good friends. We discussed philosophy over beers. I turned him onto the TV show "Xena", which became an obsession to him. (Later, one of his exgirlfriends from college then appeared on Xena's sister show Hercules as a half woman half horse, much to his delight, and in real life she is Kevin "Hercules" Sorbo's girlfriend.) He brought home a shiny new motorcycle from poker winnings and proudly showed it to me; if only he hadn't been such a good poker player or the cards had fallen differently or almost anything had been different...

Andy had a PhD in Chemistry, but went from grad school to the cardrooms. After he had been playing professionally for a couple of years, he applied for a job at a chemical research firm, got offered the job, and then got cold feet about the 9 to 5 thing and refused the offer! The company then offered him a position as a consultant, which he accepted. The company obviously felt it would be more than repaid by Andy's brilliance.

"Morton's Theorem" follows... (BTW, Sklansky says he understood this when he wrote _Theory of Poker_, but had simplified things for the average Joe.)

Subj: Andy Morton, Sketches and Testimonials, Part II
Date: 98-07-26 00:27:22 EDT
From: massar@mindspring.com (James P. Massar)
To: smorton@pobox.com
 

Subject: Going Too Far & Implicit Collusion
Date: 03 Apr 1997 00:00:00 GMT
From: Andy Morton <andrewm@ix.netcom.com>
Organization: Netcom
Newsgroups: rec.gambling.poker
 

Implicit Collusion and Going too Far

I usually enjoy reading Mike Caro's Card Player column. One from last June made a big impression on me. In it he says:

_The real low-limit secret for today_. The most important thing i can teach you about playing the lower limits is that you usually should *not* raise from early positions, no matter what you have... because all of those theories of thinning the field and driving out opponents who might draw out on you don't hold true in these smaller games [where] you're usually surrounded by players who often call with nearly hopeless hands.... Which is better, playing against a few strong and semistrong players with possibly a small advantage for double stakes, or playing against a whole herd of players, mostly weak, for single stakes? Clearly, when you're not likely to win the pot outright by chasing everyone out, you want to play against weak opponents, and the more the merrier. So, why raise? There, I've just described one of the costliest mistakes in low-limit poker. The mistake is raising when many potential callers remain behind you, thus chasing away your profit. Don't do that.

Until recently, this made a lot of sense to me. After all, the Fundamental Theorem of Poker states (roughly) that when your opponents make mistakes, you gain, and when they play correctly, you lose. In holdem, if all of those calling stations in the low-limit games want to chase me with their 5 out draws to make trips or 2 pair when I flop top pair best kicker, and they don't have the pot odds to correctly do so, that sounds like a good situation for me.

Yet, it seems like these players are drawing out so often that something must be wrong. Hang around the mid-limits, holdem or stud, for any length of time and you're sure to hear players complain that the lower limit games can't be beat. You can't fight the huge number of callers, they say. You can't protect your hand once the pot has grown so big, they say.

At first, I thought these players were wrong. They just don't understand the increased variance of playing in such situations, I told myself. In one sense, these players are right, of course. The large number of calling stations combined with a raise or two early in a hand make the pots in these games very large relative to the bet size. This has the effect of reducing the magnitude of the errors made by each individual caller at each individual decision. Heck, the pot might get so big from all that calling that the callers _ought_ to chase. For lack of a better term, I call this behavior on the fishes' part _schooling_. Still, tight-aggressive players are on average wading into these pots with better than average hands, and in holdem when they flop top pair best kicker, for example, they should be taking the best of it against each of these long-shot draws (like second pair random kicker). In holdem, the schooling phenomenon increases the variance of the player who flops top pair holding AK, but probably also _increases_ his expectation in the long run, I thought, relative to a game where these players are correctly folding their weak draws.

Thinking this way, I was delighted to follow Caro's advice, and not try to run players with weak draws out of the pots where I thought I held the best hand on the flop or turn. This is contrary to a lot of advice from other poker strategists, as Caro points out, and I found myself (successfully, I think) trying to convince some of my poker playing buddies of Caro's point of view in a discussion last week.

Well, some more thinking, rereading some old r.g.p. posts (thank you, dejanews), a long discussion with Abdul Jalib, and a little algebra have changed my mind: I think Caro's advice is dead wrong (at least in many situations) and I think I can convince you of this, if you'll follow me for a bit longer.

What I'm going to tell you is that if you bet the best hand with more cards to come against two or more opponents, you will often make more money if some of them fold, *even if they are folding correctly, and would be making a mistake to call your bet.* Put another way, *you want your opponents to fold correctly, because their mistaken chasing you will cost you money in the long run.* I found this result very surprising to say the least. I've never seen it described correctly in any book or article, although at least a few posts to this newsgroup have concerned closely related topics.

I'm no poker authority but I think this concept has got to lead to changes in strategy in situations where players are chasing too much (and yes, Virginia, this happens not only in the 3-6 games, but also in the higher limits from time to time. Curiously, I have several friends who play very well who often complain that they can't beat 20-40 games when they get loose like this, or at least don't do as well in these games as they do in tighter games. hmmm....).

Let's look at a specific example.

Suppose in holdem you hold AdKc and the flop is Ks9h3h, giving you top pair best kicker. When the betting on the flop is complete you have two opponents remaining, one of whom you know has the nut flush draw (say AhTh, giving him 9 outs) and one of whom you believe holds second pair random kicker (say Qc9c, 4 outs), leaving you with all the remaining cards in the deck as your outs. The turn card is an apparent blank (say the 6d) and we1ll say the pot size at that point is P, expressed in big bets.

When you bet the turn player A, holding the flush draw, is sure to call and is almost certainly getting the correct pot odds to call your bet. Once player A calls, player B must decide whether to call or fold. To figure out which action player B should choose, calculate his expectation in each case. This depends on the number of cards among the remaining 46 that will give him the best hand, and the size of the pot when he is deciding:

E(player B|folding) = 0

E(player B|calling) = 4/46 * (P+2) - 42/46 * (1)

Player B doesn't win or lose anything by folding. When calling, he wins the pot 4/46 of the time, and loses one big bet the remainder of the time. Setting these two expectations equal to each other and solving for P lets us determine the potsize at which he is indifferent to calling or folding:
 

E(player B|folding) = E(player B|calling) => P'_B = 8.5 Big bets

When the pot is larger than this, player B should chase you; otherwise, it's in B's best interest to fold. This calculation is familiar to many rec.gamblers, of course.

To figure out which action on player B's part _you_ would prefer, calculate your expectation the same way:

    E(you|B folds) = 37/46 * (P+2)

    E(you|B calls) = 33/46 * (P+3)

Your expectation depends in each case on the size of the pot (ie, the pot odds B is getting when considering his call Setting these two equal lets us calculate the potsize P where you are indifferent whether B calls or folds:

    E(you|B calls) = E(you|B folds) => P'_you = 6.25 Big bets.

When the pot is smaller than this, you profit when player B is chasing, but when the pot is larger than this, your expectation is higher when B folds instead of chasing.

This is very surprising. There's a range of pot sizes (in this case between 8.5 and 6.25 big bets when the turn card falls) where it's correct for B to fold, and you make more money when he does so than when he incorrectly chases. You can see this graphically below
 

                                  |
                    B SHOULD FOLD | B SHOULD CALL
                                  |
                                  v
                         |
       YOU WANT B TO CALL| YOU WANT B TO FOLD
                         |
                         v
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---> POT SIZE, P, in big bets
0   1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9
                         XXXXXXXXXX
                           ^
                   PARADOXICAL REGION
 

The range of pot sizes marked with the X's is where you want your opponent to fold correctly, because you lose expectation when he calls incorrectly.

This is an apparent violation of the Fundamental Theorem of Poker, which results from the fact that the pot is not heads up but multiway. (While Sklansky states in Theory of Poker that the FToP does not apply in certain multiway situations, it would probably be better to say that it in general does not apply to multiway situations.) In essence what is happening is that by calling when P is in this middle region, player B is paying too high a price for his weak draw (he will win the pot too infrequently to pay for all his calls trying to suck out), but you are no longer the sole benefactor of that high price -- player A is now taking B's money those times that A makes his flush draw. Compared to the case where you are heads up with player B, you still stand the risk of losing the whole pot, but are no longer getting 100% of the compensation from B's loose calls.

These sorts of situations come up all the time in Hold'em, both on the flop and on the turn. It1s the existence of this middle region of pot sizes, where you want at least some of your opponents to fold correctly, that explains the standard poker strategy of thinning the field as much as possible when you think you hold the best hand. Even players with incorrect draws cost you money when they call your bets, because part of their calls end up in the stacks of other players drawing against you. This is why Caro's advice now seems wrong to me, in general. Those weak calling stations are costing you money when they make the mistake of calling too much. In practice, when you flop a best but vulnerable hand, the pot size is rarely smaller than this middle region, where you actually want your opponents to call. Normally, the pot size is such that you want them to fold even if they would be wise to do so. In loose games, the pot size will often be at the high side of the scale, where you would love for them to fold, but they have odds to call and their fishy calls become correct.

This brings up another interesting point. In our three-handed example, both you and player B are losing money when B chases you incorrectly (both your and his expectations would be higher if he folded). This implies that player A is benefitting from his call, since poker is a zero-sum game (neglecting rake, etc). In fact, player A is benefitting _more_ from B's call than the magnitude of B's mistake in calling (since you are also losing expectation due to B's call).

Because you are losing expectation from B's call, it follows that the _aggregate_ of all other players (ie, A and B) must be gaining from B's call. In other words, if A and B were to meet in the parking lot after the game and split their profits, they would have been colluding against you.

I don't really know Roy Hashimoto or Lee Jones, but I suspect that this situation might be what Roy had in mind when he first described what he calls "implicit collusion" in games where there are many calling stations: one fish makes a play which reduces his overall expectation and all fish benefit by more than the magnitude of the first fish's mistake. That's collusion, just as if a player reraises with the worst hand to trap a third player for more bets when the first player's buddy has the nuts. Of course no one realizes there's collusion going on in these situations, so the collusion is implicit. (I'd sure like to hear from Roy or Lee on this point, because I think there's a significant difference between what I've called 'schooling' and what I've called 'implicit collusion', and that the two concepts are often confused with each other, but I'd hate to further confuse the issue by misappropriating someone else's label for this phenomenon.)

There was an interesting thread on this group last year started by Mason Malmuth called 'Going Too Far,' about the appropriate strategy changes in a game where many players are calling too loosely not only before the flop but also on the later streets. I suspect that the phenomenon described here (where both the leader and the chasers are giving up expectation to the player who is drawing to a very strong hand) lies behind the correct response to his discussion in that thread. One strategy change he mentions is that you'd like your starting hand to be suited in games like these. In light of what I've presented here I can not only understand this strategy change, but can see others as well. If this has made sense to anyone who can think of other strategy changes resulting from these ideas, let's hear them.

Finally, having criticized something by one of the famous poker authors, Abdul is encouraging me to go for broke <g>: It seems pretty clear that Sklansky also missed this idea, at least when he was writing Winning Poker, the precursor to Theory of Poker. First, he mentions that the Fundamental Theorem applies to all two-way and nearly all multiway pots. While I haven't proven it, it seems likely that nearly all multiway pots will contain some sort of region of implied collusion where the leader would prefer that players fold correctly, ie where the Fundamental Theorem breaks down. Later, in the chapter "Win the Big Pots Right Away," Sklansky makes his ignorance of this concept explicit. Discussing a multiway seven stud hand in which your hand is almost certainly best on fourth street he writes:

You must ask yourself whether an opponent would be correct to take [the odds you are giving him] knowing what you had. If so, you would rather have that opponent fold. If not -- that is if the odds against your opponent1s making a winning hand are greater than the pot odds he1s getting -- then you would rather have him call. In this case, instead of winning the pot right away, you1re willing to take the tiny risk that your opponent will outdraw you and try to win at least one more bet. ...you would not want to put in a raise to drive people out. (p. 62)

Slowplaying is certainly correct in some cases, but your 'druthers' in a multiway pot can never be decided so simply as by asking whether each of your individual opponents has the right pot odds to chase you.

[End quoted article from Andy Morton. Goodbye Andy.]

From Mike Caro, poker author and RGP contributor, responding to Michael's post in an RGP post:

I, too, am saddened by his death, and the passages you quoted show much brilliance that -- if expanded over the years -- would have been welcome by the ever-evolving family of poker analysts.It is simply one

of the most interesting and unexpectedly thoughtful pieces of poker thinking I've read recently.

Thank you for sharing it.

I only knew Andy from rgp and email but that was enough to envy those who knew him personally. Morton's Theorem will memorialize him, but we will always wonder: what would he have come up with next?

I am in absolute shock. And am feeling overwhelming sadness.

Although I did not know Andy for very long and did not socialize with him, I considered him to be a "friend." When I think about him now, I realize he made a profound impact on me.

I do not wish ill on anyone. But when I think of all the jerks I come into contact with everyday at Hollywood Park, and here is a good, decent, moral person, why is it that it is he who is gone?

The last time I had contact with Andy was about 10 days ago. I was playing 10/20 and he came over to where I was sitting and asked if he could have a word with me. Nearly always when anyone comes over to me and wants "a word" it usually means they want to borrow money. But I knew that that was not what Andy wanted. Indeed, it was something much more positive. He said, "I know you've been thinking about moving up to some bigger games, particularly the 20/40. I think you should take a look at both 20 games going now. They're both particularly good."

JP, I can't imagine how you are feeling. I know he was a great friend of yours.

Both Amber and I send our sincerest thoughts.
 

I'm having a very difficult time dealing with Andy's death, but I'll give you the details so you'll know what happened. Strangely, knowing the details and talking about it seems to help me deal with it, so please forgive me if I ramble. I think I'm just now really coming to terms with it.

Andy and I had become very close friends in the past year since we met, and have covered many, many miles together on our motorcycles. I had a set of Chatterboxes, a 2-way communication system, and we would yak away all the time while riding down the road together. He was a blast to travel with. I was the last one who spoke with him before he died. I was too emotionally distraught to go to the scene of the accident, so all information regarding the accident was relayed to me through my other friends who had gone to the scene and had spoken directly with the State Troopers. They are slowly giving me more details, as they feel I am ready to deal with it.

On our trips together, it was quite common for Andy to get up early and go for a short morning ride before meeting up with us for breakfast before starting our ride together. Friday morning, July 17th, Andy left our campsite for his short morning ride at about 6:45 a.m. My last words to him were "Watch out for deer, Andy", to which his last words to me were "Yes, mommy", and that cute smile of his that he gives me when I'm being a pain in the butt. My recollection of times, etc., is not very good after that, but the first thing we heard was a siren coming up the road, which turned out to be a State Trooper, going the same direction Andy had gone. Shortly thereafter an ambulance went by. I had a gut feeling in my stomach that I tried to ignore.

But I knew there was a very good possibility that Andy had met up with a deer. A couple minutes later a second ambulance went by. When I saw the second ambulance, my heart sank, knowing that there had to have been more than one person involved, meaning probably more than one vehicle. I couldn't bring myself to go see if it was Andy. Two of my other friends offered to go check for me to see if Andy was involved. When they hadn't returned after 45 minutes, I knew the answer.

Andy was riding up the road when a woman in a Toyota pickup truck whipped out from behind another car to pass. The center line was broken and it was legal to pass there, but there was a slight curve before the straight stretch. It is believed that she whipped out to pass before she could see the entire distance to make sure there were no vehicles coming the other way. She hit Andy head on, killing him instantly. I thank God he felt nothing. The State Troopers spent most of the day investigating and talking to witnesses. One witness told them that the woman had been driving recklessly and whipping in and out passing cars prior to the accident. So there's a good possibility that she will be charged with felony reckless driving, as well as manslaughter. I have no idea how old the woman is. She was taken to the hospital, but her condition was not considered critical. My friends saw Andy after the accident, and they said that his helmet had protected his head from external injury, and his body was not mangled. He died from massive internal injuries. This somehow made me feel a little better.

Aside from being totally distraught, I had such a feeling of total helplessness. The State Troopers were turning to me for information on Andy, i.e., who were his next of kin, did I have any names, phone numbers, etc., so they could contact his family. I had nothing that was of help to them. I knew he had a brother, but had no idea where he lived, or where Andy's parents lived. I somehow felt like I was letting Andy down - that I should have known these things, as his friend. Then, a couple of hours later, I remembered something that could help, and called the State Trooper to see if they had been able to locate a family member yet. They said they had, so I was relieved.

I don't know if Andy explained the ride we were doing or not, but it entailed covering every paved mountain pass in the entire state of Colorado that crosses the Great Divide. Andy was enjoying the scenery so much before he died, and was experiencing that natural high that a motorcyclist experiences when riding through such incredibly beautiful areas. Although my first desire after his death was to turn around and go home, after my head had cleared a little bit, I believed that Andy would have wanted me to finish the ride - for him. I felt the need to find a symbolic way of honoring him- taking him with me on the ride, so I went to one of the well-known restaurants in a town called Breckenridge, CO where we had planned to stop for lunch, and in their souvenier shop I bought a deck of poker cards. I organized the cards with a Royal Flush on the top of the deck, placing the Ace of Spades on the very top showing through the window. Then I placed the deck up on the dash area of my motorcycle, and I rode the Great Divide, for my friend. I had this overwhelming feeling that Andy was there with me.

The group of riders that Andy and I belong to is called COG, which stands for Concours Owner's Group. We all ride a Kawasaki Concours, just different years of bikes. Our group will be putting on a memorial ride for Andy, and we've decided that it would be appropriate to make it a poker run. What better way to celebrate Andy's life, right? I think he'll be chuckling over this one, and he'll appreciate it. I'm not sure yet exactly when we'll be doing it, but I wanted to extend the invitation to you, as well as any other of his friends you know, to join us if you would like to participate. Anyone who would like to ride 2-up on a motorcycle with one of us is welcome, or they can participate in their cars. Any of our members will be happy to carry a passenger if anyone wants to ride along in honor of Andy's love for motorcycles. I felt the poker run would be appropriate for us, as fellow motorcyclists, to celebrate Andy's life, as well as you, his poker friends, by combining the two interests that were the real center of Andy's life. If any of you are interested, please let me know and I'll contact you when we set a date.

Andy and I met when we were both students at Duke, and got to be really close friends when we shared a house later in Chapel Hill. For the last several years I've lived in Charlotte; I teach sewing classes, and write/edit/illustrate sewing books. Andy and I kept up with each other over the years; I'd go months without hearing from him, and then suddenly get a huge letter or a phone call, telling me what he'd been up to. For the last several years he's included a visit to me each time he came east to see his family, and our friendship grew even deeper. We'd planned to see each other just after his cataract surgery, but that didn't work out, as you know. It'd been over 18 months since our last visit when I saw him in June; we drove all over NC/GA/TN visitng friends and relatives, and then I spent a weekend with him in California after a business trip to Tustin. I feel so blessed that we got to spend so much time together before he died. We talked a lot about our lives and the future during our travels...and we both agreed it might be a good idea to move closer together - either me to L. A., or him to NC. I was planning to take a trip back to California in October, and we were going to explore our options. I didn't realize how serious he was about this until I spoke with some of his friends over the last few days. Words like "committment" and "family" keep coming up - things that we'd been cautiously avoiding discussing...but that I wish he'd been able to tell me himself. But I'm glad his friends have shared them with me.

My name is Greg Means, and I was a close friend of your brother Andy. Words cannot describe how sorry I am at his loss. Andy was a good man, and I am a better man having known him.

When I lived in LA, we used to get together several times a week for sushi, and to talk about poker or some other intellectually stimulating topic. Andy was always tough as nails during these discussions. He would never take anything on authority. He always had to rederive everything himself.

Andy stayed with me in Vegas for two days on his way to Colorado and I was going to meet him in Salt Lake for a week of riding on his way back. While he was here we talked for hour after hour about all sorts of things. I've had the most stimulating discussions in my life with Andy. Looking back, I didn't realize how valuable those discussions were to me. I will miss him more than I can say, and I know there are many others who feel the same.

Andrew G. Morton
Biotech industry consultant, Mt. Lebanon native
by Caroline Abels

A 1982 graduate of Mt. Lebanon High School who loved motorcycles and guitar music and was working in the biotech industry was killed Friday in a motorcycle accident in Colorado.

Andrew G. Morton, 34, had been living in Manhattan Beach, Calif., his family said. He was touring Colorado as part of an organized Kawasaki motorcycle tour last week when he decided to break from the group's campsite between Leadville and Vail Friday morning to take pictures of the Colorado scenery, said his sister-in-law, Sue Morton of Austin, Texas.

Mr. Morton was riding his motorcycle in pursuit of mountain scenery when a car heading in the opposite direction hit him head on, she said. Mr. Morton's brother, Steve Morton of Austin, Texas, said fellow motorcyclists on the tour first noticed something was wrong when they saw ambulances climbing the winding road on which Mr. Morton was hit.

Mr. Morton was working as a consultant in the biotech industry having earned a doctorate in molecular biology from the University of Oregon in 1994, under a Howard Hughes Foundation scholarship.

Mr. Morton received a bachelor of science degree from Duke University in 1986.

Another brother, Sandy Morton of Seattle, said Mr. Morton's interest in science developed in college.

"He liked the idea of building things," Sandy Morton said, "Not simply discovering something new, but creating something new."

In addtion to motorcycles, Mr. Morton liked playing the guitar and playing poker. He was so good at poker, Sandy Morton said, that memorials to him have poured into an Internet poker discussion group he frequently contributed to.  "He was an active guy, an active guitar player," Sue Morton said. "He was a fun-loving guy, and very charming."

In addtion to his brothers, Mr. Morton is survived by his parents, Jane and Sanford Morton of Mt. Lebanon. Visitation will be from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9pm tomorrow at Laughlin Funeral Home, 222 Washington Road, Mt. Lebanon.

Services will be at 10am Thursday in Mt. Lebanon United Methodist Church.

Burial will be in Mt. Lebanon Cemetery.

I will post something on the newsgroup. There were a number of people at HP who asked about making contributions or sending flowers; I will contact the family and see what they would like us to do.

This is one of those things that wakes one up about the fragility of life. I was just talking to Andy less than two weeks ago about his trip; I think I mentioned to you that he left his car with my daughter (I can't remember what I wrote you; I sent a lot of emails about him last night and I am at the office right now). She was even more stunned than me; it was the first friend that has died.

This note started in my mind as just a story about a funny dinner that I shared with Andy, but it became a little bit more than that as I realize what a subtle effect knowing Andy has had on me.

First, the story:

At BARGE in 1995, I found myself sitting in the Mirage buffet with two people I'd never met before. One was a fellow named Conrad, and the other was Andy. The conversation roamed over a number of topics and then centered on the perceived susceptibility of high-stakes gamblers to robbery. At this point the conversation became an extemporaneous "planning session" on how three men might take down a particular fellow we all knew. I guess you had to be there to see the humor in that, but I can tell you that it was one of the funniest dinners I've ever had. I laughed so hard that my sides hurt.

I probably encountered Andy every now and then at the Mirage after that, but I don't recall any specific instance. I also probably spent some time chatting with him on irc, along with perhaps an email or two that he sent me in response to some sarcastic Usenet article I might have written. I just don't remember.

But what I'll remember most about Andy is that he was the first person I met who listened to the subtle voice that urged him to do something different, such as quitting his job for a while and go hang out in Las Vegas to learn something about poker. It's that quality about him that I admire the most. I know a few people from the r.g.p crowd who have also listened to that voice (including me). I don't know whether any of them were overtly following his lead, but I'd like to think that we've been influenced by the example he set and by his enthusiasm for pursuing the life he wanted to live.

There are lots of people who look back on their lives and say, "I wish I'd done that." I'm glad I knew Andy, who had the courage to be in the other group that went there and did that.

I met him last year at BARGE. He was pleasant, soft-spoken, and intelligent -- three qualities usually severely lacking in a poker player.

Friends forwarded me your messages about Andy's death and his life as a poker player. I knew Andy from my first days at the University of Oregon in 1990. In fact, he met me at the airport when I arrived--driving, I believe, the same battered car in which he began his travels as a poker player. In science also his sharp mind was much appreciated and sometimes feared -- he was known for occasionally informing one of his colleagues that he'd thought of better experiments to answer their research questions and was considering doing them himself. This is about the most aggressive thing you can do to a scientist. He never actually did the experiments, of course, it was just a way of stirring up lively discussion. However, his insights were often novel and startling. One in particular resulted in a rather wide disturbance in the field of hydroden exchange protein folding. Andy quickly became one of my favourite people, especially after I moved into the office adjoining his in my second year at UO. His drive to delve deeply into whatever subject he was discussing and abiltiy to effortlessly sweep away anything pedantic or superfluous made for many wonderful converstions. I did not find it surprising that he decided to leave academic science, but I thought is choice of traveling gambler odd. Not only did it seem a lonely and financially difficult life, but I felt he was selling his potential short. Your messages have satisfied me that I was wrong on both counts. I'm glad Andy kept is intellectual fires burning, and I'm very glad his travels brought him to new friends who cared about him. He was an extraordinary person and so his death is beyond ordinary tragedies. It's been raining here in Yokohama, and that seems appropriate.

mic@kirin.co.jp

I have just returned from visiting with Andy's family at the funeral home in Mt. Lebanon on behalf of his Internet poker buddies. Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the funeral itself tomorrow morning.

In addition the open casket they had twin bulletin boards full of family photographs of Andy. The Andy in the photographs was one I recognized, the Andy in the coffin was not (though there were no signs of trauma).

The family is doing as well as could be expected. Mostly they stayed away from the room with the casket.

I spent quite a lot of time talking with Sandy Morton, Andy's brother. He expressed again how much the family appreciated the outpouring of memorials from the Internet poker community. They appreciate the e-mail messages that you all have sent, but even more so the posts to r.g.p...because those aren't directed at helping the family grieve as much as at helping the community of his friends grieve.

Sandy and I discussed setting up a lasting (poker) memorial to Andy. If anyone in the community has ideas as to what form this memorial might take, please share it.

END OF TESTIMONIAL COMPILATION

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