Hard-Boiled Poker

2009 WSOP, A Reporter’s Notebook

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:35:00 +0000

Home again, home again. Slept 13 straight hours last night/this morning. Probably could’ve slept 4-5 more. Flights yesterday were relatively smooth and it was more than nice to reunite with Vera Valmore once I’d finally touched down.

A lot of new stuff to write about regarding the newest installment of the November Nine, including Darvin Moon’s big chip lead, Jeff Shulman’s gripes with the World Series of Poker, and, of course, Ivey the Incredible.

And there’s my own poker playing, too, to which I’m anxious to return (and to write about). Feel somehow reinspired to learn, improve, progress, not least because of the fact that I had so many friends playing (and succeeding) in events at this year’s WSOP. Kind of thing makes it seem less out of reach.

Will save all of that for next week, though, and instead today go ahead and compile links to all this scribblin’ I’ve done this summer. Here are all of the posts I wrote here, followed by links to the live blogs for the WSOP events I helped cover for PokerNews:

Hard-Boiled Poker

2009 WSOP, Day 1: It Gets Real
Here I’m mostly speculating about the size of the field for the about-to-start Event No. 2 , that much anticipated “Special 40th Annual No-Limit Hold’em” event everyone had been talking about for the previous few months.

2009 WSOP, Day 2: The World Series of Poker, Where Fantasies Come True
I started the summer entering one of those WSOP fantasy thingies, something I quickly forgot all about a few days in.

2009 WSOP, Day 2: Back in the Saddle
And away we go! Here I discuss helping cover the first day of Event No. 2 along with Change100 and tbostic.

2009 WSOP, Day 3: Sleepers
A few different reflections on some of the stories from Event No. 2, focusing on Doshi Suresh, Ted Forrest, and Chris Moneymaker.

2009 WSOP, Day 4: Wave Upon Wave of Demented Avengers March Cheerfully Out of Obscurity Into the Dream
Was listening to Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals a lot during the first part of the summer, and kept hearing allusions to poker as I did.

2009 WSOP, Day 5: Taking Off
On helping Change100 cover the final table of Event No. 2.

2009 WSOP, Day 6: Shamus Swindles Poker Lesson for Price of Cheeseburger
I had the chance to have dinner with Tommy Angelo, author of the terrific Elements of Poker, and write about our meeting here.

2009 WSOP, Day 7: Arm Yourself, Bomb
A week into the WSOP, and I’d only helped cover one event. But the crush was coming, with six and seven events playing simultaneously over the next couple of weeks. That’s a reference to the 1974 cult film Dark Star in the post title, to which I allude in the post a few times as well.

2009 WSOP, Day 8: Isolation
Some scattered thoughts here about covering the first day of Event No. 10, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha.

2009 WSOP, Day 9: Count On It
This post contains one of my favorite pictures from the summer (taken by FerricRamsium), one of Mickey, crack field reporter for PokerNews, counting the chips in a picture of him counting chips.

2009 WSOP, Day 10: Life Passing You By
You can already see yr humble gumshoe starting to wonder about the meaning of all this not a week-and-a-half into helping cover his second WSOP.

2009 WSOP, Day 11: A Hand Worth Remembering
In which I share what might have been one of the funniest hands I saw all summer, one that came up during the second day of Event No. 13, $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event in which a player tried to check-raise Carter “ckingusc” King’s button continuation bet without any cards.

2009 WSOP, Day 12: Chips Go Flying at the Speed of Sound
In this post I speculate a bit about why it is players seem to shove their chips so readily in the middle and latter stages of no-limit hold’em tournaments. This is an issue that I think ended up having particular relevance later on in the Main Event, wherein we saw a lot of wild moves that didn’t seem warranted given the deep stacks in play.

2009 WSOP, Day 13: The Dollar Ain’t What It Used to Be
I begin to look at how the numbers of player registrations for 2009 WSOP events are comparing to last year’s figures, a subject I would later revisit once we got to the end of the summer (in a post titled “By the Numbers”).

2009 WSOP, Day 14: Insert Clever Post Title Here (Wordplay Optional)
Here I kind of preview a subject covered in greater detail a couple of posts down (“Does Humor Belong in Poker Tournament Reporting?”). I also link out to some other cool places to read about the WSOP.

2009 WSOP, Day 15: Live from the Rio
A short preview of a longer post detailing my helping cover the final table of Event No. 19, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event.

2009 WSOP, Day 15: Live from the Rio, Part II (The Event No. 19 Final Table)
A detailed look at covering that final table, where Brock Parker won his second WSOP bracelet of the summer.

2009 WSOP, Day 16: Does Humor Belong in Poker Tournament Reporting?
The question in the title refers to the relative degree of sobriety expected of the poker tourney reporter. I conclude that humor does belong -- it is a game, after all -- though shouldn’t obscure the primary goals of being accurate, clear, and interesting in one’s reports. Warning: Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson references.

2009 WSOP, Day 17: It Was Fun
I discuss covering the first day of Event No. 26, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em event. I remark on how more women seemed to have entered the event (percentage-wise) than other events, and also how that factor -- and perhaps others -- helped create a less tense atmosphere. I ended up sitting near Shannon Elizabeth’s table for much of the day, where everyone (men and women) seemed to be having a very good time.

2009 WSOP, Day 18: Poker Is a Skill Game
Multiple bracelet winners tend to reinforce the argument. People get lucky, sure. But skill is what gets players to the end of these tourneys more often than not.

2009 WSOP, Day 19: The Meisner Technique
Here I briefly compare an influential technique from the world of acting to what poker players do. Change100 helps me sort out what the “Meisner technique” is -- a method than primarily involves actors reacting to others -- and I try to apply that method to the strategies poker players employ.

2009 WSOP, Day 20: Stranger in a Strange Land
Relating some of the bizarre plays one tends to encounter when playing low limit hold’em.

2009 WSOP, Day 21: Land of 1000 Reporters
Talking about the Twitter phenomenon, wherein it seems like every player is constantly broadcasting his or her progress to the world.

2009 WSOP, Day 22: The Name Game
On the challenge of trying to report on a player who refuses to give us his name.

2009 WSOP, Day 23: The WSOP Odyssey
I finish my coverage of Event No. 34, one of the seven $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events, and talk a little bit about the grind that is the WSOP, where one tournament ends, another begins, and sometimes its hard not to feel like Odysseus wandering about the sea, every now and then stopping at “one more island in the boundless main.”

2009 WSOP, Day 24: Seeing Is Believing
Here I talk a little bit about the challenge of reporting those “strange but true” hands that involve what appear to be unorthodox -- or simply bad -- play. You want to try to explain what the player might have been thinking, but that, of course, is both impossible and inappropriate.

2009 WSOP, Day 25: Multiple Multiples
Jeff Lisandro had just one his second WSOP bracelet, becoming the third player this summer to do so. Of course, Lisandro would go on to win a third, and Greg Mueller would pick up a second one as well. Here I speculate a little about the significance of winning multiple bracelets in 2009, comparing the feat to the accomplishments of those who did so in earlier years, most specifically 2003 (when six players did it).

2009 WSOP, Day 26: Mixing It Up
I begin covering Event No. 42, the $2,500 Mixed Game event. This post includes a couple of funny moments from Day 1 of the event, as well as more pictures of Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler than you’ll ever need.

2009 WSOP, Day 27: Eight Arms to Hold You
Continuing to cover Event No. 42, that mixed game tourney in which eight different games are played. Here I talk about a couple of wild hands, my anticipating the arrival of Vera for a week-long visit, and Gobboboy.

2009 WSOP, Day 28: Intense
I recap an unusually intense day at the Rio. Over in the Amazon Room, I helped cover the final table of Event No. 42, won by Jerrod Ankenman, while elsewhere Miami John Cernuto had collapsed while playing in a different event over in the Brasilia Room.

2009 WSOP, Day 29: Mystère
Vera was in town, and we caught the Cirque du Soleil show. Another spectacle, with a couple of aspects in common with the WSOP.

2009 WSOP, Day 30: The Dealers
When one covers the World Series of Poker, one gets to witness and interact with the dealers on a fairly regular basis. Here I make a few brief observations about their contribution to the WSOP -- not necessarily the same sort of observations a player would make.

2009 WSOP, Day 31: Decline
I cover the first day of Event No. 50, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout, an event for which the turnout was much below 2008.

2009 WSOP, Day 32: A Long Flight
“It’s like flying to Australia every day. Only when you get there you’re at the Rio. Again.” That’s how Tom Schneider described the long grind that is the World Series of Poker to me. In this post I talk a bit about covering Tom’s efforts versus Greg Mueller in the second round of Event No. 50.

2009 WSOP, Day 33: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
Talking about covering the final table of Event No. 50, won by Greg “FBT” Mueller. Also about how I wake up at night dreaming of reporting hands.

2009 WSOP, Day 34: Shamus, the Movie
People often say to me “Shamus, you live such an interesting life, being an undercover poker reporter and all. Someone should make a movie of it.” Well, one has already been made, starring Burt Reynolds. Check out the post to see posters and the trailer.

2009 WSOP, Day 35: Being There
Covering Event No. 56, $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, and reporting on some wild play by Dario Minieri and Daniel Negreanu. Also tripping over to see Julie Schneider going deep in Event No. 55, the $2,500 2-7 Limit Triple Draw event.

2009 WSOP, Day 36: Then Again, With the Name “Short-Stacked,” This Was Bound to Happen Sooner or Later
I play in a charity tournament and none other than Dan Harrington comes to my table. No shinola. Oh, and my “M” is an embarrassing 2.

2009 WSOP, Day 37: Did You Here? The Last Bracelet of the Summer Was Won
On the conclusion of Event No. 56, won by Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko. Hawrilenko actually took home over $1 million for this one, yet the final table -- played out in the far corner of the Amazon Room -- was mostly ignored in favor of the Ante Up for Africa Celebrity-Charity Poker Tournament.

2009 WSOP, Day 38: The Big One
The Main Event begins, and I am here speculating some about possible numbers and the day-by-day scheduling. Here I also chronicle my visit to “Poker Palooza” with the Poker Grump.

2009 WSOP, Day 39: Fever
I finally catch some of the “casino crud” to which everyone else seemed to fall victim at some point this summer. I also whimper here a little about how relatively uneventful of Day 1b of the Main Event turned out to be, a day when only 873 players showed.

2009 WSOP, Day 40: By the Numbers
A post that compares turnouts for all of the preliminary events with what we saw in 2008, as well as how the actual player registrations compared to Harrah’s projections for each event.

2009 WSOP, Day 41: Whirlwind
On that wild Day 1d of the Main Event, when 2,809 players were seated, and something like 800-1,000 more were turned away.

2009 WSOP, Day 42: Interlude, Live Poker
I played more live poker this summer than ever before in my life, and so here make a couple of observations about differences between live and online play. Points here perhaps a little better informed than some similar attempts at drawing contrasts in the past.

2009 WSOP, Day 43: Anatomy of a Hand Report
I go into a lot of detail regarding my reporting of a single hand from Day 2b of the WSOP Main Event. Was a particularly ideal situation for reporting the hand, and I rattle off a lot of the reasons why.

2009 WSOP, Day 44: LOL Freerollaments
A day off from the WSOP for everybody, and I get to play in a couple of freerolls, the Media Charity Poker Tournament and the PokerNews freeroll.

2009 WSOP, Day 45: Theme (In Search Of)
Talking about Day 3 of the Main Event, when all players were finally consolidated into one group, and when the field began to shrink to the point where tables were being removed from the Amazon Room. Being too far “inside,” I find it hard to step back and settle on any “big picture”-type claims about what it all means.

2009 WSOP, Day 46: Go With the Flow
On Day 4 of the Main Event, the day the cash bubble burst. Some talk here about the super deep stacks players were building. Also, click picture to watch groovy Queens of the Stone Age vid.

2009 WSOP, Day 47: Deep Thoughts
On Day 5, including more discussion of the deep stacks. Includes what I think is a prescient quote from Joe Sebok -- who would nurse his short stack all of the way to a 56th place finish -- about how a lot of players seemed “focused on the average and not their stack in relation to the blinds.”

2009 WSOP, Day 48: The 64 Player Question
Talking about Day 6, and how heading into Day 7 a lot of us were pulling for people like Joe Sebok, Tom Schneider, and Dennis Phillips.

2009 WSOP, Day 49: The Long and the Short of It
On Day 7, with thoughts about the possibility of Phil Ivey actually making it to the November Nine.

2009 WSOP, Day 50: Boom, Boom, Boom
On Day 8, the last day of the Main Event played this summer, and the sheer excitement of those adrenaline-fueled final three bustouts of the night.

PokerNews

I helped cover ten different events for PN this summer. Here are the live blogs for each:

Event No. 2, $40,000 No-Limit Hold’em
Event No. 10, $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha
Event No. 13, $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em
Event No. 19, $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed
Event No. 26, $1,500 Limit Hold’em
Event No. 34, $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em
Event No. 42, $2,500 Mixed Event
Event No. 50, $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout
Event No. 56, $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed
Event No. 57, $10,000 World Championship No-Limit Hold’em

Much thanks to everyone for following along this summer! Was a wild ride, for sure. Will go back to the usual weekday posting starting Monday. For now, I’m thinking a nap might be in order.

2009 WSOP, Day 50: Boom, Boom, Boom

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:32:00 +0000

Quite the scene last night at the final day of the summer for the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event. We’ll all be remembering it for a while, I think.

Once again, play went much faster than any of us seemed to have anticipated. Players were readily shipping their below average but deep stacks left and right, and with just three levels done we were down from 27 to 14.

Dinner break followed, and about a half-hour after we’d returned, Ben Lamb had gone out in 14th and James Calderaro in 13th, and suddenly we were looking at a couple of six-handed tables. But with a dozen players left, the average stack was 16.235 million -- over 67 big blinds. We still weren’t convinced the night was going to end any time soon.

Then boom, boom, and boom. Probably three of the most exciting moments I can recall ever witnessing at a poker tournament. Two happened within minutes of one another, then about an hour later, the third -- the last three eliminations of the night.

The first was a genuine what-the-hell-just-happened moment on the secondary table where F-Train and I were watching. It began as what seemed to be a not-so-extraordinary hand between Billy Kopp and Darvin Moon. There’d been some preflop action, the flop was single-suited -- -- after which it had gone check-bet-call. The turn came the and before we knew it there was something like 42 million chips in the middle, the cards had been turned over, and both players were standing up -- one expressing a kind of reserved elation, the other a kind of mute horror as though he was just then realizing he’d accidentally downed the glass with the poison in it and not the one without.

Moon had checked, Kopp had bet 2 million, Moon had raised to 6 million, then Kopp had shoved his entire stack of 20 million in the middle and Moon had called. Kopp showed and Moon . It took us all an extra beat to realize Kopp was drawing absolutely dead.

We were still wondering aloud about the hand when we heard the noise from the main feature table, a response to another all in. Details of the hand actually weren’t clear from our vantage point, but we knew Ivey had someone (it turned out to be Jamie Robbins) all in and it was an A-10 versus K-Q situation. Ivey winning meant we were suddenly down to a single ten-handed table.

The crowd was absolutely nuts. And I’ll admit I found myself feeling a little starstruck there watching Ivey and the others get their chips situated on the main feature table. I mean, not only had a so-called “name” pro made it this far, but this was Phil Ivey! Seemed to good to be true, that Ivey could still be in the mix here like this.

The third electrifying moment came on the night’s final hand, when Jordan Smith got it all in on an 8-4-2 flop with pocket aces and was looking at Darvin Moon’s pocket eights.

Again, from our position some distance away, it was hard to tell initially that Moon had pocket eights and not, say, 8-7 and a flush draw or something. Eventually it became clear what was happening, and when the turn and river bricked out for Smith, it was again kind of a “did it really happen?” sort of moment.

Couldn’t believe the night was already over. Couldn’t believe the summer was over. Had been thinking all along this was going to be a much longer goodbye.

But boom, it was over. And the crowd went wild.

Robbie Thompson, the funny and engaging Tournament Director who was announcing the main feature table last night, began bellowing out the names of the new November Nine. Earlier in the evening, Nolan Dalla, the WSOP Media Director next to whom I sat for most of yesterday’s final day of play, had remarked to me how well Thompson handles the announcing, heightening the drama in a successful effort to get the audience involved. Thompson was perfect here, reading off one by one the names of the last nine players with chips, each followed by raucous, energetic cheers.

About an hour later I shuffled out of the Rio, saying goodbyes to all of the terrific people with whom I got to spend my summer once again. Somewhat oddly, I had my bags with me, having brought them to the Rio in anticipation of possibly having to go straight to the airport after a super long night. But since we’d ended early I was heading back for one more night at the home-away-from-home to sleep a few hours first.

Still, carrying the bags felt sort of symbolic, making my exit seem more momentous than just walking out of the Amazon Room with nothing but my laptop. As if it were most any other night from the previous seven weeks. Made it more final seeming, as if to emphasize the fact that I wouldn’t be coming back the next day.

Next stop home. Vera. I’m ready.

Thanks to everybody for reading these posts all summer and especially for all of the kind comments both on the blog and that have been delivered to me via other means.

Time now for me to move back to the other coast. To the other life.

Looking forward seeing you all on the other side.

2009 WSOP, Day 49: The Long and the Short of It

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Well, we lost some of those players whom many of us wanted to see carry on to today’s final day of play at the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, including Joe Sebok (out in 56th), Tom Schneider (52nd), and Dennis Phillips (45th). There are still some folks many are watching who made it, though.

Leo Margets, the last woman with chips, is still in there at 26th of 27 players left. Antonio Esfandiari survived an all-in double-up during the final level of play yesterday to return in 20th place. Ludovic Lacay had an up and down day but returns in 15th. James Akenhead, the last Brit standing, is in 11th chip position.

And, of course, there’s Phil Ivey coming back in fourth place. I don’t believe anybody -- other than the remaining 26 players, perhaps -- wants to see him fall short of making this year’s November Nine. Not only would that ensure added excitement over the long waiting period between now and the playing of the final table, but I think it’s safe to say everyone associated with poker, poker media, and other poker-related industries stand to benefit greatly should Ivey make it.

For the most part yesterday was a fast-paced day from the reporting side of things, with lots of bustouts coming in rapid order during the first three two-hour levels. I said yesterday I thought we might get to 27 at the end of three levels yesterday. We were at 29 at that point, as it turned out, and it would take most of the fourth level of play to get to 27. So, again, another short day, relatively speaking.

I got back from dinner break a few minutes early, and was sitting at my laptop when Ivey was chatting with some of the ESPN folks, including Lon McEachern, about the planned-for schedule. Ivey was asking whether or not they’d be playing two more levels or stopping at 27.

Definitely stopping at 27 was the reply. That was going to make for a long Day 8, was Ivey’s answer. “It’s gonna take eight or nine levels,” he said.

From where Change100 and I were stationed, we could overhear many conversations about the same subject among the ESPN crew and tourney officials. From ESPN’s perspective, there was no chance of negotiating the schedule yesterday, as they had their episodes planned already. There will be two one-hour “down to 27” episodes (to air on October 27th) and two more one-hour “down to 9” shows (to air on November 3), and to change things here at the end would monkey too much with their production schedule. There may also be some desire to preserve continuity in the shows, too, with their references to “Day 7” and “Day 8,” what the players are wearing (?), and so forth.

Of course, everyone there covering the event -- and the players, too, it seemed -- recognized that by stopping at 27 we were ensuring a very long day today. Dunno if it will take eight or nine levels, as Ivey said (perhaps with some hyperbole), but who knows? Once again, as I’ve been talking about here for the last couple of days, the stacks are mighty deep and so if players don’t want to gamble it up, many of them will not be forced to do so.

I don’t have much time to write about yesterday or today, although there is much to say about both. When we were done yesterday, I got to hang out some with a relaxed and relieved Tom Schneider and friends, even playing some poker, after which I dropped in on the Tao of Pokerati celebration of their Dream Team Poker victory over at the Gold Coast bowling alley. On my way out I actually had a brief, uncharacteristic gambling excursion -- witnessed by Sir AlCantHang (to whom I didn’t get the chance to explain that no, I’m not actually a degenerate!) -- in which for the first time in my life I played roulette, using money given to me for the specific purpose to gamble with it.

Like I say, I want to write more about all of these things, but haven’t a lot of time this morning to write, so I’ll save these stories for a post-WSOP post. Right now I have to take care of some business in preparation for this potentially long day-night-morning of reporting from Day 8. In fact, I have a flight home scheduled to depart at 8:15 a.m. tomorrow morning, and so am planning for the possibility of going straight from the Rio to McCarran International airport, if it does turn out they play into the wee hours.

Should be an exciting next 24 hours, though, until I am on the plane. A lot of it will be about Ivey, imagine. He’s come this far before in the Main Event. He finished 23rd in 2002. We all remember how he bubbled that final table in 2003 (finishing 10th) in a hard luck hand versus Chris Moneymaker. And he finished 20th in 2005, as well.

Will Ivey make it to the final table this time? And who else will? Come stay up all night with the rest of us over at PokerNews’ live reporting page to find out.

2009 WSOP, Day 48: The 64 Player Question

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Another highly interesting day at the Rio yesterday. It was Day 6 of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, when 185 players took five two-hour levels to play down to 64.

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, J.C. Tran, Joe Hachem, David Benyamine, Kenny Tran, and Peter Eastgate were all were eliminated. But at the end of the day several big names remained with chips, including Prahlad Friedman (60th), Joe Sebok (56th), Blair Rodman (44th), Dennis Phillips (43rd), Tom Schneider (34th), Eugene Katchalov (24th), Jeff Shulman (12th), Antonio Esfandiari (6th), and Phil Ivey (3rd).

Darvin Moon is the chip leader with 9.745 million, but really anybody with at least a couple of million is still firmly in the hunt. Even a guy like Friedman, who begins the day with 860,000, is still (theoretically) going to be able to see plenty of hands before pushing the issue, as the blinds start at 25,000/50,000 today, with a 5,000 ante (Level 26).

In other words, this sucker is still just about anybody’s game.

The plan today will be to play down to 27 players, meaning 37 eliminations will need to occur before they call it quits. We lost 20 players during the penultimate two-hour level last night, then 17 more during the final two-hour level, so this morning I find myself trying to gauge just how long it will take to get to 27.

Average stacks right now are just over 3 million -- that’ll be 60 big blinds when we begin. When we started the previous level (with 81 players left), the average stack was 2.4 million -- also right at 60 big blinds at Level 25. That would suggest we’d lose around 17 again the first level of play today. That would leave us with 47 players to begin Level 27, at which point there’d be an average stack of nearly 70 big blinds. Let’s say we then lose a dozen players in Level 27 -- that would leave 35 to start Level 28 (40,000/80,000/10,000), again making the average stack about 70 big blinds.

To try to predict, then, I’m going to guess we get to 27 players by the end of three levels today -- although the truth is play could slow down much more dramatically and thus stretch out the day. Also, as we know, tourney officials have demonstrated a willingness all week to change the schedule on the fly. (Truth be told, no one really knew until we began the last level last night what exactly the plan was yesterday.) So once again, we’ll all be ready for anything.

From the reporting side of things, the day was both especially fun and satisfying, and incredibly frustrating. Most who read this blog probably checked in on our coverage on PokerNews at some point yesterday, and if you did you might have called up the site during that hour-and-a-half late afternoon that the site had gone down. Too many visitors, apparently, which one would think could’ve been anticipated somehow. In any event, the site just couldn’t handle the overload, and down we went.

We reporters continued to write posts all through that period, then when the site finally came back up we published ’em all as quickly as we could with the appropriate timestamps, all the while still writing up more items. As was the case a couple of days before when we experienced a similar outage (for about 45 minutes, I think it was), everyone remained cool and calm -- nothing we could do, really, and so we just kept on scribblin’.

Certain stories are starting to become especially compelling at this point. Having Phil Ivey way up there with chips, as well as Antonio Esfandiari, is pretty damned intriguing in and of itself. Ivey making the November Nine would be incredibly beneficial to many, many folks in the poker industry, and Esfandiari making it would also be a coup (besides turning him into a top tier poker star). Dennis Phillips’ presence at this late juncture is also starting to emerge as another impressive story. There’s one woman left -- Leo Margets -- and she has a lot of chips at this point with 3.65 million. And there are certain players like Ludovic Lacay and Antoine Saout who are mixing it up a lot and thus adding some intrigue by helping ensure big chip movements.

Many of the poker media and others are pulling especially for Tom Schneider, who has an average stack right now of just below 3 million, and Joe Sebok, who has exactly one million to start today. Schneider started well yesterday, then got moved to a table where the wild and aggressive Lacay was on his left. Schneider lost some chips there, but got ’em back at his next table after a big A-K versus A-Q double up. Sebok, meanwhile, did a fantastic job nursing his very short stack yesterday -- really he’s been doing that for three days of play now -- and will have 20 big blinds with which to work when we begin at noon today.

There are a few reasons why many are pulling for Schneider and Sebok. Not only are both especially friendly toward the media, but they have both been part of poker media, too, over the last few years -- Sebok most especially as the driving force behind Poker Road, but Schneider, too, via his involvement at Pokerati, his participation in the old (and terrific) Beyond the Table podcast, his book (Oops! I Won Too Much Money), and in other ways. Both are well liked by many fellow players, too, and along with many others left among the 64 are pretty obviously among the group of “good guys” most everyone wants to see succeed.

So lots of reasons to be interested in what happens today. Hopefully the server issues or whatever they were that affected the PokerNews site yesterday have been resolved and thus the site will be working well enough today, so head on over to the live reporting page and check it out.

2009 WSOP, Day 47: Deep Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:50:00 +0000

I was off yesterday -- my last day off this summer -- and so spent the day resting and following the coverage of Day 5 of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event over on PokerNews.

Actually went and ran a couple of miles on the treadmill yesterday, too, despite being tired from having gone Saturday for a late night poker session with a friend in town, likely my last such of the summer. Didn’t go so well for yr humble gumshoe, so I end on a sour note as far as live play goes. But then on Sunday I actually played online for a decent stretch, and killed. (Maybe I’m transitioning back to being an online-only player again?)

Was fairly compelling following the PN blog and seeing who was building the big stacks, who was hanging in there, and who was dropping out as they whittled the field down to 185 yesterday. I realized at one point that there was almost 195 million chips in play, meaning that now that if yr sitting there with a million chips yr below average.

You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’? These stacks are friggin’ deep.

In addition to PokerNews’ coverage, I was following the PokerRoad Nation tweets, too. Early in the day, Joe Sebok -- who survived to return for tomorrow’s Day 6 -- tossed out what I thought was an interesting observation via his very popular Twitter feed @joesebok:

“No hands. 230k. 265 players. People are dropping like flies...they're focused on the average and not their stack in relation to the blinds.”

If you followed the coverage on PokerNews you saw reports of several hands which exemplified what Sebok is talking about -- hands with crazily big pots in which players were inexplicably racing for their tournament life at the price of over 100 big blinds (or more).

Just to give one example, Donnie reported a hand between Tom Lutz and Warren Zackey from the latter part of the day and titled the post “Flipping for Four Million.” In that one, Lutz and Zackey bet, raised, and reraised each other on a flop to the point where Lutz was all in for 1.85 million, and Zackey had only 300,000 behind. Lutz had for a flush draw, and Zackey had . The tens held up, and Lutz was eliminated in 214th place.

As Donnie pointed out in his post, each player had more that 150 big blinds in his stack at the time! (Blinds were 6,000/12,000.)

I remember witnessing a lot of this last year with 100-200 left -- that is, players merrily getting it all in with over 100 big blinds preflop in what were obviously race situations at best -- and wondering why this sort of thing tended to happen. And of course this year, since players started with “triple stacks” of 30,000, the stacks are even deeper, making it seem even less necessary to be gambling so recklessly.

Easy for me to say, I know, standing on the sidelines like I am. There’s definitely a kind of nervous energy that pushes some players towards the Degree All in Moment a little more quickly than might be recommended. Maybe it’s the cameras, or the money, or just the fact that it is the biggest poker tournament on the planet.

Whatever the cause, it sure makes this stretch of the tournament that much more exciting to watch.

When play resumes today, it will be Level 21, with blinds 8,000/16,000 and 2,000 antes. The average stack is a little over 1.05 million. But Sebok’s point still holds -- the average stack will be 65 big blinds. He returns today with a slightly below average stack just shy of a million. That picture to the left there is of Sebok’s chip stack from late in the day yesterday. He snapped that and sent out the pic via Twitter.

How does his stack look? Indeed, it’s all a matter of perspective.

I believe the idea today will be to play down to 100 (or thereabouts), then down to 27 on Tuesday, then down to nine on Wednesday. Hard to tell just how quickly it will go, although we might be looking at a short day today, a standard length (i.e., five level) day tomorrow, and a long one on Wednesday.

I say Wednesday might be long because when they get down to 10 players left, the average stack will be close to 20 million. Let's say we're at Level 31 when that happens, where the blinds are 80,000/160,000 and the antes 20,000. (We may be further along than that -- it’s hard to predict.) That would make the average chip stack 125 big blinds deep. Which I would think would mean deep into the night we will go.

There’s gotta be some point between now and early Thursday morning where the rate of bustouts is going to slow down considerably. Not sure where that’s going to happen, but you’d think it’s going to be inevitable.

Unless, of course, everybody keeps flipping for four million. Then eight million. Then twenty million. Which could happen, too, I guess.

Come see how it all plays out over at PokerNews’ live reporting page.

2009 WSOP, Day 46: Go With the Flow

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:12:00 +0000

“Let the game come to you” is a phrase you often hear in sports. And poker. Opportunities will arise. Be patient. Don’t force it. Pick your spots. Be able to adjust and react.

Those playing in a tournament as huge and unwieldy as the World Series of Poker Main Event have to be able to go with the flow. Not only are you going to be faced with countless opponents, decisions, and dilemmas at the tables, but as we’ve already seen many times, the actual staging of the tournament is also probably going to present new variables, curveballs, and unpredictable situations with which to deal.

So go with the flow. Same goes for those covering the sucker. Let the game come to you.

Where to begin?

Day 4 of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event -- the day the cash bubble burst -- was full of drama and excitement, as you’d imagine. A good bit of chaos, too.

At that press conference I attended a couple of days ago, WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack had said he did not anticipate there would be any more diverging from the five-levels-a-day schedule for the remainder of the tournament. So it was a little surprising when before the start of play yesterday Tournament Director Jack Effel announced that they would be playing four levels or until 400 players were eliminated, whichever came first. Then Effel added that the dinner break would come after the third level, after which he said something about coming back from dinner for the last two levels -- which would make five. Which didn’t exactly add up, but there we were.

As it happened, we’d only play three levels. And we’d stop before 400 players were eliminated. And there never was a dinner break.

Tables broke at a rapid clip during the first two-hour level as we approached the magic number of 648 players remaining -- those would be the ones making the cash. We’d just tripped over into the second level of the day when the tournament clock was stopped and the tourney started to be played hand for hand. That was with 653 players left, meaning there were something like 73 tables in play.

As you can imagine, with so many tables, it took quite a while for one hand to be completed at every table -- something like eight or nine minutes, on average. We’d lose a couple of players on the first hand or two, then two more on a single hand (Hand No. 4 or 5, I think). Then it would take several more hands for that fifth one to go, as there ended up being 13 hands played during hand for hand, which took about an hour and 50 minutes, all told.

Just before hand for hand began, the PokerNews site began to become increasingly slow to load pages, then finally went down altogether. Too many readers trying to load the site at once, I believe. We were down for about a half-hour or more in there, but actually the timing wasn’t all that bad since the action had slowed for hand for hand.

Another wrinkle that came up during that stretch involved ESPN limiting or forbidding PokerNews access to tables during hand for hand. ESPN really runs the show when it comes to the Main Event, something all of the other media understands fairly well, I think. In any case, it was more than a little strange to be there reporting on something we could not access for a site that was not currently accessible.

You’d think all of these factors -- the schedule being constantly revised on the fly, tables breaking and players being reseated all over the room (and since we were trying to track every last one of them, we were noting where each one went), the site slowing down and then going out altogether, having limited access to the tournament itself -- would’ve made for a day of high stress and anxiety.

But really it wasn’t. Not for me, anyway. And from what I could tell, most everyone on the reporting side of things just went with it. There are things you can control, and things you cannot. No sense fretting over the latter too much.

We again produced a massive amount of content over on the live blog regarding Day 4 -- somewhere in the neighborhood of 240 posts in just three two-hour levels, despite that period in the middle where the site was down. Of course, the day itself got stretched out a bit because of hand for hand, with extra time added to the tourney clock. Still, a damn lot of scribblin’, that.

I happened to report Phil Hellmuth’s elimination hand at the end of the day. A short while before, F-Train had posted a hand of Hellmuth’s in which he’d lost a big chunk. I thought I’d heard something about Hellmuth having had pocket aces in that hand -- in any event, he clearly appeared to have had an overpair. And he played him slow, trying to trap, and got burned.

Then came Hellmuth’s last hand, when he definitely had pocket aces. And again he tried to slowplay before the flop, and again it didn’t work out too well for him. A player made a standard preflop raise, and Hellmuth chose just to call behind with his A-A. Then three more players called. Not good for aces.

As we all know, Hellmuth arrived at the Main Event this year dressed as Julius Caesar, so I titled the post “The Fall of Caesar -- Hellmuth Out,” and made a crack in there about whether or not Hellmuth might have thought “et tu” when all those players called before the flop. As it happened, Hellmuth ended up getting it all in drawing very thin on the flop, and two community cards later his day was done.

Hellmuth’s bustout was a fitting enough way to end the day, I suppose. We go forward now sans the Poker Brat, in search of new, different characters and stories. Because the sucker is changing constantly before us.

Nothing to do but see where it goes. And let the game come to you.

2009 WSOP, Day 45: Theme (In Search Of)

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:37:00 +0000

During the dinner break yesterday I spent some time chatting with our friend Dr. Pauly up in the press box. The good doctor was thinking out loud about what sort of “theme” or central idea would be guiding his daily report for Day 3 of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event.

He’d eventually focus on the two fellows at the top of the leaderboard at day’s end -- Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and Ludovic Lacay -- both of whom are French, and both of whom are aggressive, strong players who are capable of shredding weaker, timid opponents into confetti faster than you can say “Mon Dieu.”

I realized while talking to Dr. P. that what I was doing -- helping live blog the sucker for PokerNews by choosing hands here and there and reporting on a relative handful of players while my colleagues were all doing the same -- meant that I was really not capable of seeing any “theme” or “big picture.” Not yet, anyway. I was too much in it to be able to see it from the outside. Thus I knew I couldn’t really hope to end the day with anything other than a subjective impression of what my localized experience of the day was like.

What was my experience? Well, it felt like being in the middle of something very big and unwieldy -- not quite chaotic or out of control, but something well beyond what one mere mortal could reasonably grasp and comprehend. Luckily I wasn’t alone, but had the full force alongside me -- all of the other bloggers, field reporters, photographers, video producers, and other important people helping manage it all -- and together we continued our collective work on that novel we’re writing over on the PokerNews’ live reporting page about the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event.

It’s a long, winding tale full of digressions, surprise plot twists, unique characters, and without resolution. There are themes present, though all have thus far only been tentatively introduced and have yet to be developed fully.

Oh, and the hero of the story has yet to be determined, too.

Day 3 started with 2,044 players. About 850 of them were filling every available seat in the Brasilia Room, while a little less than 1,200 were packing the Amazon. It took three hours of play to lose about 500 players. By the dinner break, after another three hours of play, almost 1,000 had been knocked out. With an hour-and-a-half to go, less than 1,000 players remained, at which point Grospellier had moved into the chip lead.

By day’s end just 789 survived. The Brasilia Room was shut down once all of the players who had survived and were still playing there had been moved into empty chairs in the Amazon, and as the night concluded we watched as first the Red section’s tables of tournament players had all emptied (to be replaced once more by cash games), then some of the Orange section’s tables started to go as well.

When tables in the Amazon started to empty, I started to recall that weird, uncanny feeling from the end of last summer when the Main Event field shrunk down to less than the capacity of the Amazon Room, then further and further until only nine remained. When players are eliminated and seats open up, tables are “broken” in order to keep the tournament playing nine-handed as much as possible. That means players at the next table assigned to be broken are given seat cards matching empty seats elsewhere in the tourney, to which they promptly travel.

At this point of the WSOP Main Event, once a table is “broken” it is then literally broken down, too; that is, the tables are actually disassembled and then moved off the main floor to create more room for fans and media. (That picture is from last summer’s coverage on PokerNews.) The removal of tables and the reduction of the number of people in the room helps create this strange vibe -- it’s a much different environment in which to play (and report). And since the stakes get higher and higher once the money is reached and players continue to be eliminated, the mood becomes all the more stark and exposed. There’s less going on. Relatively speaking, every action is of greater and greater importance.

Last year only 474 made it through Day 3, and there were 189 still around at the end of Day 4. The starting field was smaller this year, but the starting stacks were deeper, which helps explain the comparatively lower rate of attrition. Today what will happen -- I imagine -- is that tables in the Orange section will gradually be broken down, meaning eventually we’ll have everyone playing in the Blue and Green sections (and the feature tables) in the back half of the Amazon. We’ll reach the cash early on (before Orange is done), then probably end up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 players left at day’s end. That’s where I’ll go ahead and set the over/under line, anyway. And if I were betting, I’d take the under.

Last summer I worked the first part of the day the bubble burst, but left early as I happened to have drawn a section where the tables all broke prior to the tournament reaching the cash. So I wasn’t there in the Amazon room when the moment occurred. When suddenly, for hundreds of players, their Main Event experience had taken on an utterly new and wonderful significance.

Not sure where I’ll be today, but I’m thinking whatever my draw ends up being, I’m going to be there in the Amazon when the bubble bursting moment occurs.

Because it seems like that might be what this is all about, what gives it meaning and purpose. Maybe then I’ll start to see it all more clearly and some theme will emerge.

2009 WSOP, Day 44: LOL Freerollaments

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:01:00 +0000

Was a day of fun and goofing off yesterday, as I got to play in not one but two freerolls -- the Media Charity Poker Tournament and the PokerNews freeroll.

Both tourneys had superfast structures (one with 15-minute levels, the other just 12), and thus catching cards was fairly vital. Unfortunately, I simply couldn’t do so in either event, and thus both ended up going somewhat similarly with me lasting five or six levels, then getting short to the point of having to push and pray.

My elimination hands in both tourneys were uncannily similar -- in fact, in both cases I held pocket sixes on my last hands, and both times I suffered the misfortune of getting to the last community card as a big (85-90%) favorite only to have the river snatch it away. Kind of stung a little more in the PokerNews event, as we were relatively close to the final table (and the money), but so it goes. (I’m going to avoid being any more specific about my bad beats, as I know no one wants to hear about ’em, anyway.) Even though I’d liked for them to have gone longer for me, both events were tons of fun and I thank the Dream Team Poker folks and PokerNews for making it possible for me to play in ’em.

The day began about 11 a.m. or so. I got to the Rio early in time for the press conference given by WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack at Cafe Martorano’s. The main bit of news there was the announcement of the 10 people whom the public nominated this summer for induction into the Poker Hall of Fame: Tom Dwan, Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Tom McEvoy, Men Nyugen, Scotty Nyugen, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, and Mike Sexton. Now the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council looks at this list and will either remove names, add names, or both before sending the real nominees to the real voters -- a 15-person media panel and all living Hall of Famers (Full story here.)

Pollack also made a few announcements regarding the Series, including reporting that the 2009 WSOP had broken last year’s record for most total player registrations with 60,875. He also noted that the total prize money in the forty years of the WSOP has now exceeded $1 billion, with most of that total (of course) having come in the last few years. This year there were 39 events for which the prize pool exceeded $1 million.

Pollack did address the problems that arose on Day 1d with regard to players getting shut out of the Main Event, although said nothing he hadn’t already offered elsewhere over the last few days. He said that all options to allow the extra players into the tournament -- a number I’ve seen some, including Daniel Negreanu in USA Today, say exceeded 800 players -- were entertained, but that in the end it was decided there was “no option to seat additional players that wouldn’t have compromised the integrity of the event.” He also listed a number of ideas that are already being considered for helping avoid the problem in the future. I trust this will be a top priority moving forward, and that 2009 will ultimately be remembered as the only year in the history of the WSOP Main Event that players were turned away.

After taking a few questions, we then had a nice buffet meal there at Cafe Martorano’s, then we walked back down to the Brasilia Room for the Media Charity Poker Tournament.

In that one, I got to play at a table with WSOP bracelet winner and “First Lady of Poker” Linda Johnson as well as 2008 WSOP Main Event third-place finisher Dennis Phillips. The “Dream Team” format also made the whole thing a lot of fun. I was the first of my team -- Le Grand Fromage -- to go out, and so got to sweat Benjo and then Katkin until they were eliminated. “Le Grand Fromage est mort,” I twittered.

After that I left for a while to hang out with F-Train and Katkin while they played video poker at the hooker bar. Stopped back by the tourney just before the PokerNews freeroll began and saw Dr. Pauly still in it (he’d finish third). The PokerNews tourney was eventually won by Melissa Castello, with F-Train finishing second.

After the PokerNews tourney ended, I skipped the PokerStars party over at the Palms, opting instead to relax at the home-away-from-home for a bit. Then I eventually ended up playing a little more poker later in the evening at the MGM where I ran into Fredrik Paulsson.

Some of you might read Fredrik’s blog (he used to write for CardsChat). Fredrik won himself a seat in the Main Event this year via Party Poker, and in fact was one of those guys who -- through no fault of his own -- was for a time in danger of getting shut out on Day 1d but fortunately was able to get his seat. Fredrik came over to say hi to me on Day 1d -- click here to read the story of his Main Event experience, including his finding me in the corner of the Amazon Room behind my laptop during the break that day -- and he also happened to be at the MGM and we got to see each other again. Have a safe trip home, Fredrik!

Today it is Day 3, when all 2,000-plus players who have survived the first two days of play finally will be playing at once. The plan is to play five levels today, and according to what Pollack was saying yesterday, they do not expect to reach the money (the top 648) until tomorrow. We’ll have the full team out to report today’s action, and so by the end of the day the PokerNews’ live reporting page for Day 3 should be many, many pages long. See you over there.

2009 WSOP, Day 43: Anatomy of a Hand Report

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:37:00 +0000

An especially enjoyable and interesting day yesterday helping cover the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event for PokerNews. As I texted to Vera Valmore at the end of the night, it might have been one of the more fun days I’ve ever hand doing this silly stuff.

It was announced as the largest-ever restart of a WSOP tournament, with a whopping 2,924 players coming back from Days 1c and 1d. A few minutes before play began, I asked one of the tournament officials where exactly all of the players would be seated. “Every table in the building,” was the answer. That meant all of the Amazon room, the Brasilia, the Miranda, the regular “poker room,” as well as tables set up in the hallway in front of Buzio’s restaurant. Something like 325 tables altogether.

The day was a good one for reporting for several reasons. For one, even though it was such a huge field, since it was a Day 2 we did have a seating chart and at least knew where folks were starting the day. The chart became less reliable as the day wore on, since tables would break and players would be moved. But having that kind of head start helps immensely, as there’s a chance to locate the “notables,” the big stacks, and others early on in order to track them. And there’s also a better opportunity to discover new folks, too.

Also, the day was only four levels long, which seemed way too short for a Day 1 (see my sort-of-whiny post about covering Day 1b), but which was not so bad for a Day 2 (Levels 6-9), when the antes were already in play and folks were willing and/or required to do a bit more gambling than they had to back when they had 300 big blinds with which to work. So a lot of action happening all around to help keep us engaged.

Additionally, I had a pretty cool draw as far as tables went, although I think any assignment would’ve been good yesterday in terms of getting a lot of interesting players and personalities to cover. One field reporter (Drew) and I were watching about 35 tables or so, including the two feature tables being shot by ESPN. Some of our guys were trying to keep an eye on a larger number of tables -- especially early on, before we lost approximately half the players who started the day -- but really when there are just two of you and it gets above a half-dozen tables you’ve already got more than enough to handle.

Covering the feature tables is a bit of a logistical hassle. Because of the necessities required to capture the video and audio for the later ESPN broadcast, they can’t really allow other media to get too close to the tables (as we might be able to do otherwise). So basically I’m jostling with all of the other fans on the rail trying to catch glimpses of hands and chip stacks. I managed to keep track of both tables in a general way throughout the day.

Dennis Phillips was at the secondary feature table, and while I didn’t get any of his hands I saw his stack stay around 120,000 most of the day. I chatted with him at the end of the day and discovered he’d picked up a couple of pots at day’s end to chip up to 190,000. I interviewed Phillips over the phone for HBP last fall, and have gotten the chance to meet him in person this summer -- indeed, as you've already heard elsewhere, a helluva friendly guy.

I was able to report on a few hands from the main feature table where Phil Hellmuth was seated. Hellmuth had a good day yesterday, starting with 27,000 or so and ending with somewhere in the neighborhood of 135,000. (Again, I had to estimate his stack from approximately 40 feet away, so I could never be that precise.) From the hands I saw, players appeared mostly unwilling to tangle with the Poker Brat, often folding to his raises. Say what you will about him, but he is an intimidating player, most especially to the relative novices. And being on TV doesn’t lessen his opponents’ anxiety much either, I imagine.

Had some very interesting hands to report otherwise, too, some of which were supplied to me by Drew and others I was able to see for myself. Toward the end of the night I reported a hand with Terrence “Not Johnny” Chan -- it was the post I wrote on Day 2b -- and realized afterwards that the post came from what was kind of an ideal situation for reporting a relatively early level tournament hand. Click here to read the post.

I’m a fan of Chan’s blog, and at the end of the day he cut and pasted the post over there. I’m also a fan of Chan, and so when I say I liked the post I should point out that I didn’t necessarily like how the hand turned out, as he lost some chips after suffering a fairly unfortunate beat on the hand. But I did want to say a few words about why the conditions surrounding the hand and its report were so agreeable.

Why do I say it was an “ideal situation” for reporting a hand? Well, there are a number of reasons. First, I had adequate context for the hand. I’d been keeping an eye on Chan’s stack the entire day, and so was roughly aware how the day had been going for him. I wasn’t necessarily aware of the relative toughness of his table (as Chan talks about in his post), but I had some idea at least of what the day had been like for Chan before getting to this end-of-night hand.

Secondly, I’d actually watched the previous two hands played, and so also was aware of the immediate context for the hand. Not that I would include all of that info in the hand report, but it helped me understand better some of the significance of what I was seeing when the actual hand played out.

Thirdly, I was there for the whole hand -- the preflop betting, all of the subsequent action, the showdown, etc. A lot of times we reach a table after the flop and while it can still be interesting to read how a big hand plays out postflop, not knowing what happened with the preflop betting necessarily lends a (sometimes very significant) incompleteness to the report.

We might also throw in that a “notable” player was involved. We even had a picture of Chan to include with the post, another bonus.

There are a few more reasons why the conditions were good for that particular hand report. I got Chan’s opponent’s name afterwards -- Dean Bobel -- and so didn’t have to refer to him as “the button” or the like (as sometimes cannot be avoided). It was one of the last hands of the night, and so the scene surrounding the table was of interest, too. I included a detail about the announcement to spectators to clear the room having come across while Chan was tanking.

Finally, the hand itself had a kind of intrinsic interest to it. Bobel had made a gutsy raise all-in on the turn with what he likely knew was the worst hand, and Chan made a gutsy call which required a good read by him of the situation. The river took the hand away from Chan, and thus the outcome, too, had a little twist to it, adding a bit of drama to the whole story.

One last, important factor that made the conditions for reporting the hand especially favorable -- I saw the hand myself. While our field reporters are typically very good at what they do, there’s always going to be something lost when one person conveys to another what he or she witnessed, and the second person then tries to convey that to an audience. Not only does the possibility of inaccuracy become greater, but there is something about being there watching something go down that just can’t be passed along.

I thought I’d mention all of this because, to be honest, such an “ideal situation” comes up very, very rarely on the tournament floor. Really it isn’t until the final table that we can ever hope to have such unfettered access to all of the details of a given hand and thus be able to produce such a report.

According to WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack’s Twitter feed, 2,044 players will be coming back for Day 3 on Friday, and so it will likely be a similar day from the reporting side of things. Not sure if they’ll be able to play all of the way down to the money (the top 648) or not tomorrow, but I think that could happen.

Meanwhile, as I mentioned yesterday, today is going to be a fun day off as I get to participate in a couple of tournaments. First will be what is called the “Media Charity Poker Tournament” in which Benjo, Katkin, and myself will be competing as a team, Le Grand Fromage. Then later in the day will come the PokerNews freeroll in which we’ll all be playing for ourselves. There’ll be some bounties in the latter, I think, to make things more interesting. Then in the evening comes the PokerStars party over at the Palms, which I may or may not attend. I went last year, but since I am still sort of fighting off the “casino crud” I referred to a couple of posts back I may opt to conserve my energy tonight -- we’ll see.

In any event, I’ll do my best to report on it all here tomorrow. Whether or not conditions are ideal for doing so.

2009 WSOP, Day 42: Interlude, Live Poker

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:56:00 +0000

Another day away from the Rio yesterday. Just as well, as it is destined to be an utter madhouse today, what with something close to 3,000 players returning for Day 2b. Thankfully they’ll only be playing four levels. Unless there’s a change of plans -- which, as we know, happens sometimes at the WSOP. In any case, I’m anticipating eight more-intense-than-usual hours of poker reporting.

Yesterday I was able to play some live poker yet again. Indeed, I have had the opportunity this summer to play more live poker than ever before. Being one of those who lives in a state with no poker rooms, I’ve long been primarily an online player, and so am greatly enjoying this chance to play live on a regular basis.

I continue to stick to the low LHE games, where I’m both enjoying myself and getting more and more comfortable with live play. Have been kind of looking at it as an extended tutelage, and since I’ve been winning some I also have been considering it a way to pick up a little extra pocket money with which to buy the occasional Italian sub or candy bar over at the Poker Kitchen.

I was talking the other day to the Poker Grump about a couple of the lessons I’ve learned -- the sort of things with which experienced players are likely very familiar, but which novices usually have to bumble through themselves.

For example, I had one instance a couple of sessions ago where the dealer mistakenly skipped me with the button. My neighbor sitting to my left insisted she’d just paid the small blind and thus it was her button (when I knew that wasn’t the case), but I didn’t push it. I realized afterwards I probably should’ve been more insistent about it, but for a moment was confused myself about whether I was right.

Had another occasion where the player to my right had just won a pot, and he was still scooping his chips when I posted my small blind. The dealer began the deal, and then asked me to post. I explained I already had, but the dealer said she hadn’t seen it nor did she take it. I shrugged and posted again, thinking for a moment that I’d somehow forgotten what I’d done. It was only afterwards I realized my neighbor surely scooped my small blind along with the pot he’d won. “Never post until the player on your right who has just won a pot is finished gathering the chips,” the Grump noted when I told him about it.

A couple of small lessons there to carry forward, for sure. I’ve had other slips, too, such as a hand in which I’d rivered a nut flush against four or five opponents, raised and got some callers, then in my rush not to slowroll opened my hand before the last player had decided whether or not to call my raise. I only lost one big bet there (he was going to call -- the pot was too big for him to let go whatever he’d had), but again I learned something about paying attention and staying in tune with the rhythm of the game and the action around me.

That said, I’m having fun. And learning, I think.

I actually played about a half-hour of online poker a couple of days ago -- the first time in two solid weeks, easily the longest consecutive stretch I’ve gone without playing online since I began the blog.

I hopped onto two LHE tables, and -- no shinola -- within a dozen hands total I’d been called a “moron” on one table (the very first hand!) and an “idiot maniac” on the other. Indeed, on the second table two players got into a big discussion about how bad I was, and this was after just five or six hands! Needless to say, I’d won pots on those tables, and from the perspective of the name-callers it had been nothing but dumb luck. And so they felt the urgent need to share with me and everyone else their breathtakingly quick analyses of my horrific game.

Ah, yes. The sometimes socially-stunted world of online poker. I’d almost forgotten.

Goes without saying I haven’t experienced such abuse at the live tables this summer. I realize it’s not always hunky dory with everyone getting along swimmingly at live games. Still, people generally are civil and even friendly for the most part. Have seen an inordinate amount of bad play, natch, but haven’t once run into players calling each other names at the table. (Further proof of my limited live experience, I know.)

I’ll just mention one other interesting difference between live and online play that I’ve been noticing, this one having more to do with my own attitude toward the respective pursuits. For some reason, when I play live I almost always come away feeling good afterwards (save times when the session goes especially badly -- which has happened, well, just once all summer). And if I happened to have made a few bucks, I feel kind of giddy, both because I’ve won some cabbage, but also because I sense I’m somehow benefiting in other ways, too.

It’s hard to explain, but what I’m experiencing is a kind of satisfaction that resembles what one feels after having done something worthwhile -- like having read a book or gone for a run or somehow “improved oneself” in some fashion or another. Whereas when I play online, I almost never feel that sense of satisfaction, win or lose. In fact, I often feel something very different, something more akin to self-loathing over having “wasted” my hours in a non-creative, unproductive, empty pursuit.

I’m making no grand claims here about online poker or live poker; rather, I’m just reflecting on my own psychological reactions to each, which are admittedly very subjective and not necessarily representative of anyone else’s experience. In fact, it might just boil down to the difference between engaging in genuine human interaction (as in a live game) and sitting at home alone playing online.

We frail humans, we get something out of being around each other. Something vital, I think.

Anyhow, it’s back to work today. Then tomorrow -- a day when the Main Event rests before Day 3 -- I’ll be playing some more live poker as I get to participate in not one but two different freerolls: the “Media Charity Poker Tournament,” then the PokerNews freeroll after that.

The former is going to be set up according to the Dream Team Poker format, with three-person teams competing to see which trio fares the best overall. (Actually, I believe it is which trio produces the two best finishes.) Joining me on my team are Benjo and Katkin. Together we are Le Grand Fromage. “That’s no ‘e’ and one ‘em’” said Benjo. (Hopefully they get it right on the jerseys.) More on all the fun stuff later in the week.

Meanwhile, head over to PokerNews’ live reporting page to follow the Main Event circus as it barrels through Day 2b.

2009 WSOP, Day 41: Whirlwind

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:46:00 +0000

At about 1:30 a.m. last night I was walking through the parking lot of the Rio, the hot wind blowing wildly between the seemingly endless line of cabs that inched along beside me.

About fourteen hours earlier I had been moving in the opposite direction, heading in to help cover Day 1d of the 2009 World Series of Poker. The intervening period was mostly a blur, passing so quickly as to give an uncanny quality to the walk back to my rental car. As if the hot wind had been carrying me, and I had just then landed back on my feet.

You’ve no doubt heard by now about how the fourth and final Day One of this year’s Main Event attracted an all-time record number of players for any single day of ME play ever. A total of 2,809 were seated around tables in the Amazon, Brasilia, and Miranda ballrooms, as well as in the hallway outside of Buzio’s restaurant. And there were hundreds more who wanted in, yet weren’t able to play.

Just plain wild. A far cry from the modest group of 873 who came out on Saturday, when I’d last been in to help cover the sucker. This was something else. This was the Main Event!

On the 2009 WSOP Schedule that appears on the WSOP website, there appears a parenthetical note that reads “3,000 players” next to each of the first four Day Ones -- Day 1a, 1b, 1c, and 1d -- suggesting that would be the maximum allowed number of players to be admitted on each day. When I walked into the Rio about 11:30 a.m. yesterday, I had already heard in the hallways before I made it to the Amazon that they had sold out for Day 1d. I assumed that would be mean 3,000 players would be playing yesterday, although for some reason the actual total ended up being 2,809.

During the first couple of hours of play -- i.e., the first level -- all sorts of rumors were flying around the Amazon room, where I was stationed. Like leaves in the wind, as it were.

The first was that there would be a Day 1e played today (Tuesday), with Days 2a and 2b being moved forward a day. Such a plan could work in theory, since Thursday is a scheduled day off. Seemed like that could possibly have happened, but most of the people I talked to were doubting that would actually come to pass.

Next came the idea that they’d somehow figure out a way to allow the hundreds of players who’d gotten squeezed out to start playing at 3 p.m. yesterday, after some of the original players had busted and tables had freed up. They’d play just four levels -- which would take them until 2 a.m. or something -- then the survivors of that second shift would get a few hours’ sleep then join the group for Day 2a.

That one had enough plausibility to cause many of us to entertain (for a while, anyway) the idea that we might be there a long, long time -- if we were going to try to cover the second shift, that is. Just the thought of that weird audible kind of added a extra layer of excitement to the workday. How long are we going to be here, we wondered? And what’s it going to be like?

Finally came the late afternoon meeting with Jeffrey Pollack, Jack Effel, and the “suits” that you’ve read about elsewhere (such as on Pokerati, the source for that picture on the left). We PokerNews reporters who were inside reporting on the tourney didn’t attend that, but many of those players who’d been shut out surely did. The decision was made not to attempt any sort of last-minute makeshift plan to accommodate the players who hadn’t gotten seats, which all things considered was really the only option that would not potentially cause further problems as far as the functioning of the Main Event was concerned.

Of course, the resulting PR problem is as massive as yesterday’s field was. You see, this is truly historic -- no one has ever been turned away from the WSOP Main Event before. And this year not just a few players, but hundreds were. Gonna take a lot of work moving forward to repair the damage from this one, I’d think.

The day itself was full of interesting characters, several good hands and stories to report, and amazingly not too many headaches as far as trying to cover the massive field with our relatively modest crew was concerned. If I concentrated hard enough, I could probably rehearse a few of the highlights from the day, but I’m going to leave it all in the day’s blog for now and maybe look back later.

Because like I said, those fourteen hours were mostly a blur, as if I’d been whipped around and around by that hot wind blowing across the parking lot in the Vegas night.

Did I enjoy it? Most certainly. But I was glad to be standing upright and walking on my own when it was all over and done.

(EDIT [added 7/7/09, 12 noon]: Not that anyone reading this hasn’t already tripped over to Tao of Poker, but if somehow you haven’t then check out Dr. Pauly’s excellent summary of yesterday's fiasco for all the details about what happened and its significance.)

(EDIT [added 7/8/09]: Also, if you happen to know French -- or can at least muddle through it passably like me -- check out Benjo's excellent account of Day 1d, which also includes some links to other relevant posts/articles on the subject.)

2009 WSOP, Day 40: By the Numbers

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 08:43:00 +0000

Feeling much better today. Spent yesterday resting, writing, reading, and drinking tea (per doctor’s orders). And, of course, following some of the coverage over on PokerNews of the World Series of Poker Main Event.

Yesterday’s Day 1c saw 1,697 players register to play, a big boost from Days 1a (1,116) and 1b (873). And today should bring even more out for the final Day 1d. Everyone’s going to be eyeing that overall total of entrants to see where it ends up today.

Thought now would be as good a time as any to finish that business of comparing last year’s numbers with this year’s. It goes without saying all errors in math or transcribing here are my own. Here’s how the first 56 events stacked up, followed by a few comments:

Comparing 2008 and 2009

Of the first 56 bracelet events, only 40 perfectly match events from last year in terms of the game and buy-in being identical. There were a lot of “tweaks” whereby a buy-in was slightly changed, or perhaps the format altered (e.g., there were no rebuys this year). For those tourneys I didn’t bother to try to match the 2009 event with one that was close but not the same as last year.

Of those 40 events that were brought back, it looks like 23 attracted fewer entrants in 2009, 15 attracted more entrants than last year, and two brought in exactly the same, planned-for number of players -- the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout and the $10,000 World Championship Heads-Up No-Limit, both of which were capped and drew the maximum number of players allowed.

There were a couple of big dips, the most dramatic of which was probably the nearly 36% drop in participants in the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. (Event No. 49). I’d toss out that 1,000-plus player drop in the first of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events (Event No. 7) as being all that significant, since there we are comparing this year’s event to last year’s Event No. 2 -- the first $1,500 event of the summer last year. Besides, I think Event No. 4, the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em “Stimulus Special,” more than made up for that difference.

It is perhaps worth noting that the total number of player registrations for the seven $1,500 NLHE events (the so-called “donkaments”) was not that far off from last year, with 19,517 entering them last year and 18,347 this year (a decline of 1,170). But again, that’s with over 6,000 entering the “Stimulus Special,” so no worries about continuing to attract players to enter these relatively low buy-in no-limit hold’em events.

Also, of the 11 events with buy-ins of $3,000 or more that were brought back this year, most were down in terms of entrants, some markedly so. Seven had fewer entrants, three had more (though only one, Event No. 56, significantly more), and one was the same (the $10,000 World Championship Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em event capped at 256).

Taken together, these 40 events we’re comparing here drew a total of 1,486 fewer players than in 2008. Not that meaningful of a number, mainly because we’re talking about only a little over two-thirds of the total events here. Looks pretty likely that the overall number of player registrations is going to exceed last year’s total of 58,720. Through the first 56 events, there were a total of 54,387 player registrations, so whatever the 2009 Main Event total ends up being, it will carry that total beyond last year’s mark and set yet another WSOP record for total player registrations.

The Projections

Looking at the projected fields for the first 56 events, 22 events drew more entrants than were projected, 32 drew fewer than were projected, and two drew exactly what was projected (again, both were capped and met the max.). In all, there were a total of 1,707 fewer players playing the first 56 events than had been projected. (It looks fairly certain the 7,323 number projected for the Main Event ain’t gonna happen.)

Most of the projections were relatively close, as it turned out, although there were a few that were quite a bit off the mark from the actual numbers. The estimate for the “Stimulus Special” turned out to be somewhat low (the projection was 5,305, and 6,012 came). Meanwhile, figures for a few other events (e.g., Events Nos. 13, 34, 36, and 50) were much more optimistic than turned out to be the case.

Conclusion

I think it is safe to say that despite the economic downturn since last summer, the WSOP is doing just fine. It looks as though the overall total of entrants for Main Event will be coming up short of the 6,844 who came out last year, and some will take that dip as a significant indicator of the relative health of the WSOP and the poker industry, generally speaking.

But I think that figure, despite the symbolic significance that traditionally gets attached to it, often isn’t really all that significant in terms of the big picture (unless, say, one year’s total is less than half or significantly higher than that of the previous year).

Looking at these first 56 events, then, it appears the WSOP is holding steady, despite the various forces currently in play that might well have caused a more significant decline.

You can head over to PokerNews’ live reporting page today to find out what that final total for the 2009 Main Event happens to be, as well as to follow all the action from Day 1d.

2009 WSOP, Day 39: Fever

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:44:00 +0000

I’ve got the fever. And no, I’m not talking about poker. Or writing about poker. I’m talking about my body temperature. It’s high. And I’ve got the sore throat and the achiness and the rest of it, too.

Made it most of the summer working the insanely long shifts, failing to get regular exercise, and eating like a high schooler without suffering too greatly heath-wise. But I think it might have all caught up with me today.

The good news is I’m off today and so have time to recover. To recharge. Then back at it Monday.

Of course, even if I weren’t feeling under the weather, I might still have had a hard time adding extra vigor to this here report on yesterday’s doings. That’s because while the day went relatively well as far as the reporting went, it was most certainly anticlimactic in more than one way.

This is my second time around helping cover the World Series of Poker, and so it isn’t surprising that just about every aspect of the experience this summer has been marginally less enthralling due to its lack of novelty. Not to say it hasn’t been a blast and full of fun, gratifying moments. And, as was the case last summer, the people with whom I am working are a terrific, talented bunch, making it all the more rewarding to be here working alongside ’em.

But this time the surprises have been few, and the wonders far between. So there’s that.

That “only” 873 players showed up for Day 1b yesterday didn’t help either. Of course, that’s still more than the entire field in 2003, and I still think it is quite possible the total number for this year’s Main Event will probably push past 6,000, perhaps even well past that number. But the low turnout on Day 1b definitely helped reduce the adrenaline even further.

Then there’s the fact that aside from a few crazies pushing all in during the first half-hour with top pair, top kicker, there just wasn’t much happening poker-wise what with everyone starting the day with 300 big blinds, and the average stack at the end of the day still being well over 100 big blinds. Hell, when it comes down to it, even those who built up big stacks by day’s end hadn’t really distinguished themselves that greatly, chip-wise, from the rest of the pack.

So the play was for the most part less than dramatic. Couple that with the fact that 80% or more of the field were unfamiliar to all of us and it gets even harder to get interested, let alone try to make it interesting to others.

A final cause for the day being a relative comedown was its brevity. As was the case on Day 1a, just four levels were played instead of the originally scheduled five. That’s eight hours of play, sure, which is still a lot of poker. But with a more than 90-minute dinner break coming smack in the middle, it seemed difficult to get any momentum going whatsoever. And I’m talking about both the playing of the tournament and the reporting on it.

I’m sure today and Monday will go somewhat differently, as the fields will be much larger -- probably more than twice as big as today’s, particularly on Day 1d. And, of course, as the tournament moves along and especially once it gets to the money, it will be difficult not to become increasingly taken in as the various storylines and characters begin to define themselves.

So today I rest. And hopefully this fever will recede, and that other one will return. The poker one.

2009 WSOP, Day 38: The Big One

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:35:00 +0000

So the Main Event has begun. While the first 56 bracelet events will be remembered by some of us, for most they will quickly fade, mere trivia that will only be of occasional interest for mostly tangential reasons. The $40K event will be televised (later this month), so that one may form part of some folks’ memory of the 2009 WSOP. But for most, what happens over the next two weeks and in November is the World Series of Poker.

Yesterday 1,116 showed up for the first of the four Day Ones, down a hundred or so from last year’s Day 1a. Hard to say, still, what the overall total might be, but the early indication here is that 7,000 may be wishful thinking.

Of those 1,116, a large number -- 821 -- survived the day, though that number is bigger than one would have expected in large part because at the very last minute it was decided only to play four two-hour levels rather than five. Sounds like none of the players nor the media knew a thing about this switch until right about the time things got going yesterday. A little inconvenient for the media (though we should be able to roll with it), but especially unfair to the players, a lot of whom have been mentally preparing for this first day of Main Event play for months and months.

Is it a bad idea to play just four levels and not five on Day One? I guess it depends on what the plan is for Days Two and following, of which we now can’t be sure of anything, it seems. Seemed to me playing five levels per day -- as was done last year and was the plan for each of the first six days of play this year -- worked just fine.

However, I do think I see why the decision was made -- had to be because of the relatively low turnout. The schedule has them playing six five-level days, then down to 27 on the seventh day, then down to 9 on the eighth day. They certainly don’t want to get down to 27 too soon so as to mess up the latter part of the schedule too greatly. So, depending on the actual number of total entrants and perhaps the rate of bustouts, we might be looking at more shortened days here as we proceed. The structure sheet does say, actually, that “Adjustments may be made to the number of levels played each day.”

(EDIT [added 7/5/09]: Dr. Pauly made a good point to me yesterday that the shortened Day Ones may also be part of an effort to avoid reaching the money before Day Three, when all of the players will finally be combined and will play at once.)

I was off yesterday, and so spent some of the afternoon playing limit poker. I’ve been mostly just sticking with the 2/4 game, but have played some 3/6, too. Had a fun, winning session (at 2/4) yesterday. Saw people repeatedly limping with pocket aces again, as well as some other oddities. There were a couple who’d limp and then fold to preflop raises -- amazing, but true.

Sat to the left of a woman who was probably one of the better players at the table and we engaged in conversation a bit. She and her husband were taking a Vegas vacation, as they do a couple of times per year. Both like poker and play online a lot. She mentioned something about her husband playing a WSOP satellite. I thought she’d meant a live one at the Rio, but she clarified it was online (at Absolute Poker). She had actually made it through one of those “steps” deals to win a seat in a mega-satellite which awarded something like 50 WSOP Main Event seats, then gave the seat to her husband for Father’s Day. Certain elements of the story (i.e., playing on AP, his playing her account) were a little sketchy, but I told her it sounded like a terrific present, nonetheless. He almost won the seat, but didn’t quite get there.

Come dinner time I met up with the Poker Grump and we went over to the Rio to check out “Poker Palooza,” what they are calling the expo this year. I’d missed it last summer, having worked all four days it was going and never managing to get over there, not even on a break. So I was making a point this time to check it out.

Have to say, for the most part, the expo was kind of a letdown. There were a lot of booths set up with folks selling various clothing or other products with some vague connection to poker, none of which seemed even the least bit interesting. And as usually happens at these type of affairs, the folks manning the booths were all eager to stop you to describe their wares, so there was a lot of “No, thanks” happening as we wound our way through the large ballroom.

The Grump described the whole scene as like walking through advertisements in poker magazines, although it wasn’t even really that interesting. He took some pictures (including the one I stole and posted there to the left) -- check out his write-up for more pics. Best thing going in there was the completely-out-of-place reggae band (whom almost everyone was ignoring).

We ate at Rub BBQ where Grump told me the story of the amazing cab ride he and Cardgrrl took the other day. Read about it here -- hilarious stuff.

Afterwards we ducked into the Amazon Room briefly. The vibe was slightly edgier than on a typical day of preliminary events, with the added media and more spectators floating around. But mostly we were looking at just another day of poker. Still too early. Once we get to the money, then down to a couple hundred players, that’s when the adrenaline starts to rise.

I’ll be there in just a little while, helping cover Day 1b with my PokerNews colleagues. I recall being there on the Fourth of July last year. Little American flags were passed out to everybody, I believe, though they did have a few non-American flags, too, to give to people to wave. They put ’em all down quickly, though, so as better to handle the cards and chips.

See you over at the PokerNews’ live reporting page.

2009 WSOP, Day 37: Did You Hear? The Last Bracelet of the Summer Was Won

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:31:00 +0000

Yesterday I worked the final day of Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event won by Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko. That’ll be the very last WSOP bracelet given out this summer, as the Main Event won’t be decided until November.

I happened to cover this same event last summer when Joe Commisso won it. It also came late in the summer (it was Event No. 46), and the one thing I remember about it was the inordinately long heads-up portion of the final table.

Looking back at the live blog from last year, we did hand-for-hand coverage of that six-handed final table (as we did for most events last year). That was impossible yesterday since we weren’t on the main feature table, not that we necessarily would’ve done hand-for-hand anyway. MaconMarc and I had our laptops set up on a nearby table, a sort of makeshift arrangement necessitated by the unique location of yesterday’s final day. As far as I know, this ended up being the only final played out over in the Orange section of the Amazon room (the front left quadrant) rather than at a feature table or at least next to a feature table.

Anyhow, I see from last year’s blog that at the six-handed final table the first four players were eliminated in just 69 hands. Then it took a whopping 209 hands -- like six hours -- for Commisso finally to finish off Richard Lyndaker. My Hard-Boiled Poker post afterwards was titled “Kafkaesque, It Was.” “How did I get here?” I was asking myself as the night wore on and on and on. “What crime did I commit? Is this my punishment, or is something worse awaiting me? Just call me Shamus K.”

Anyhow, yesterday’s final day would go a little differently.

There were 16 players returning for the last day, so three tables’ worth. There were also many who’d come around wanting to watch -- not nearly as many who would be gawking at the Ante Up for Africa Celebrity-Charity Poker Tournament that was taking up most of the rest of the Amazon Room, but eventually well over a hundred or so, many of whom were friends of the players.

Because we were set up in the unusual location, it would take tourney officials and security an hour or more to realize that we had a lot of people milling about between the tables who didn’t belong there. Indeed, I had a nearly very frustrating moment when I was quickly jotting down the cards on a bustout hand, and this joker got in my ear saying “jack of hearts two of clubs ace of diamonds jack of spades” -- basically goofing around and trying to cause me to miss the cards. Hilarious, dude. I was able to get them down anyway, and soon after security got him out of there and eventually the ropes were put in place.

While my working conditions weren’t ideal, my various distractions were minor compared to those the players had to endure. I genuinely felt bad for them, playing for a first prize of more than $1 million in what were at times some friggin’ crummy conditions.

After about a half-hour of play, preliminaries for that Ante Up for Africa tourney started up on the other side of the room. Phil Hellmuth had the microphone, and he spent a long time introducing and kibitzing with the various celebs and poker players who’d come to play in that one. Hellmuth’s voice blared loudly over the PA system, and would continue for the next three hours or so as he “emceed” the event by calling out hands and so forth.

The noise was both loud and especially distracting, such as when Hellmuth would be calling out all-in hands and the board cards. The players immediately complained and asked if the tourney could be moved to another room. It actually looked like they were going to move them once it got to 12 players and two tables, but for some reason it didn’t happen and we stayed.

I made a couple of references to the noise in the live blog, bringing up in one post the popular Kurt Vonnegut story “Harrison Bergeron.” That’s the one set in an imagined future where the U.S. has made laws designed to ensure everyone is made equal by handicapping those with greater physical or mental gifts. So, for instance, people with higher intelligence are made to wear headphones through which painfully loud noises intermittently blast so as to make it more difficult to think clearly.

That’s basically what the players faced. In addition to the way Hellmuth’s booming voice might distract one’s concentration, players couldn’t hear each other, and so were constantly having to ask each other to repeat themselves when announcing their actions. And all this with more than $3 million worth of prize money up for grabs between those final 16!

After the dinner break -- when we were down to the actual final table -- the conditions had improved, although there were still occasional problems. The Ante Up for Africa tourney had moved over to the main stage, and so was less of an issue, but that was replaced by the noise of workers replacing the tables for the Main Event which begins today, as well as other oddities filtering over the PA system.

At one point, some pop song rang out over the speakers. Again, the players looked up and wondered what the hell was going on. “You gotta be kidding me,” said Hawrilenko of yet another sudden cacophony having arisen. “God, Hellmuth was better than this,” added Josh Brikis, who’d eventually finish second.

As a side note -- for those who might not know Hawrilenko, he is the high-stakes limit hold’em specialist and Full Tilt pro who had an interesting heads-up LHE session versus Phil Hellmuth on UltimateBet back in the spring. Hawrilenko apparently crushed the Poker Brat, and the latter lost his mind in the chatbox, going so far as to entertain suspicions that his opponent could see his hole cards. Hawrilenko subsequently posted the chat on his blog, and I wrote about it all in a post titled “I Am Irony Man.”

I have to admit I thought about that story a couple of times last night as I watched Hawrilenko there winning a bracelet while Hellmuth was yammering on incessantly on the other side of the room.

Anyhow, Hawrilenko and Brikis finally got to heads up, at which point they decided to take a 20-minute break. It was just after 11 p.m. Hawrilenko had 9 million chips, Brikis 5 million. At the time that meant Hawrilenko had over 110 big blinds and Brikis over 60.

I harbored no hopes of getting out of there soon. Indeed, looking back at last year’s $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, it was a pretty similar situation, where Joe Commisso had about 132 big blinds to start heads up and Richard Lyndaker had 67.

But this time the players returned from the break, and on just the fourth hand Brikis shipped it with versus Hawrilenko’s pocket jacks. Hoss_TBF’s hand held, and we were done before midnight.

I’m off today, as it appears the bloggers are going to be on an every-other-day schedule here for the four Day Ones and two Day Twos of the Main Event. I might run over to the Rio anyway today and check out the “Poker Palooza” expo which is set up through Sunday, I believe. I missed that last summer, having worked every day it was held.

I’m thinking that’ll be a nice distraction.

2009 WSOP, Day 36: Then Again, With the Name “Short-Stacked,” This Was Bound to Happen Sooner or Later

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:41:00 +0000

So I played in a poker tournament yesterday, and something sort of memorable happened. Kind of thing yr humble gumshoe never really would’ve thought he’d experience.

Was doing okay for a while, chipping up a little, then falling back below average. Something like 150 or more entered, and by the time we’d gotten near the end of the eighth level it appeared less than half that number remained.

By then we’d arrived at the late-middle stages of the fast-structured tourney, and the blinds and antes had suddenly gotten uncomfortably large for my shrinking stack. One thing had led to another and, well, I’d let the unforgivable happen and my “M” had slipped down to about 2.

You know, Dan Harrington’s “M” -- that number that comes from dividing your stack size by the total amount of blinds/antes one pays per orbit? As Harrington explains in his Harrington on Hold'em books, when your “M” falls below 5, you’re in what he calls the “Red Zone” -- not a good spot to be. In fact, I was getting close to being in the “Dead Zone” (an “M” of 1 or less).

As I vainly tried to riffle my few remaining chips, guess who gets moved to my table?

Dan Harrington. No shinola.

Got a terrific opportunity yesterday to run over during the afternoon/early evening and play in this very fun charity tournament hosted by Howard and Suzie Lederer. The event was held at the Golden Nugget, and all of the money raised went to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Las Vegas.

There were several Full Tilt folks there and playing -- I’m sure I didn’t see them all, but I did spot Andy Bloch, David Singer, Michael Craig, Lee Watkinson there in the Grand room where the tourney was held, as well as a few other pros like Annie Duke, Dennis Phillips, and Harrington. There was a big party afterwards -- the “World Series of Barbecue” -- held at the “Tank” (the big pool) where I saw a lot of other folks who may or may not have played in the event, including Gavin Smith, Erica Schoenberg, Jeff Madsen, Joe Sebok, and many others.

It was a rebuy event, and so the play early on was not surprisingly a bit loosey goosey. I had chipped up a little to about 2,300 (we started with 2,000), then had a wild hand where I picked up under the gun and raised to 450 (blinds were 75/150). The player to my left then pushed all in for 1,350, and the player to his left thought a while then called. It folded back to me and I shoved, and the third player, who had me covered, thought a bit more and called.

With my kings I was up against pocket jacks to my left and two seats over. Flop comes 6-7-8. Turn a nine. River a ten. Pocket jacks wins the main pot, and I get about 700 or so back splitting the side pot with ten-nine.

Chipped back up a bit and got to the end of the rebuy period with just under the starting stack, so I rebought, then did the add-on and so was up at about 5,500 or so when we started back. (Huge thanks to PokerNews for funding the adventure for me, and for helping out the Boys & Girls Clubs.) In one of the first hands back from the break after the rebuy period was over, I picked up A-K, raised, and all folded. Very next hand got pocket aces, raised again, and again all folded.

Soon the blinds and antes got big, I lost a little on a failed blind steal attempt, and I was slipping toward the Red Zone. With about five big blinds left I pushed all in with 10-9 and again all folded. A little later I was all in again with A-10 against a fellow who reraised to isolate me with A-4, but the board came 8-8-9-9-8 and we chopped. So I had something like 2,300 left with blinds of 400/800 and a 100 ante when Harrington got moved to our table.

Got to stick around for a couple of orbits with him there, though was not involved in any hands against him. Finally I open-pushed my miserable stack with , the same player who’d reraised before with A-4 did it again, then a third player pushed all in as well. They had pocket eights and pocket aces, respectively. An eight flopped, and an ace came on the turn. And I was toast.

Would’ve been very cool to go deep in the sucker, as there was a ton of swag waiting for those making the final table, plus a seat on “Poker After Dark” for the winner. But it was a blast nonetheless. I went out on the last hand before the second break, and so got a chance to talk to “Action Dan” afterwards.

I introduced myself, then joked how embarrassing it was -- me sitting there with an “M” of 2 and he comes to the table. Harrington laughed and said it happens to him now and then, too. “Sometimes ya look down and see deuce-seven and ya just cahn’t bring yourself to play it,” he said in that familiar Boston brogue.

I had actually begun yesterday blogging the second day of Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, then left to go play in the tourney and returned to finish out the sucker, blogging the last six hours. (Big thanks to tbostic for coming in and filling my seat during the interim.) The tourney got down to 16 players by the end. I’ll be back over there today to see the thing through.

Huge kudos, by the way, to Julie Schneider for finishing third (!) in Event No. 55, the $2,500 2-7 Limit Triple Draw event. Just plain awesome. Once that tournament and the other one (Event No. 54, the last of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events) had concluded, the Amazon Room turned pretty quiet last night as our final bracelet event played out.

Today there ought to be a little more noise. There will be the Ante Up for Africa thing happening, to which a lot of celebrities will come. ESPN is filming it, too, so that should probably attract even more to the event. I think we’re going to be tucked away in the same corner of the Amazon Room where we ended last night (the Orange section) to play out Event No. 56 -- in other words, far away from the feature tables where ESPN will be filming the celebs. A bit of an anticlimax for a tournament in which the winner gets over $1 million, really.

These six-max guys like the action, and I’m reasonably confident none of them will allow their “M” to slip down to 2. Not willingly, anyhow. Follow along over on PokerNews’ live reporting page.

2009 WSOP, Day 35: Being There

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:43:00 +0000

Day 35. Five weeks. Amazing how quickly they’ve seemed to pass. Two more to go.

Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, drew 928 runners. That was a decent bump up from last year’s total in this same event (805). Was also more than the 865 listed in that WSOP Staff Resource Guide as a projected total for Event No. 56.

Was talking a few days ago about how the previous event I covered, the Limit Hold’em Shootout (Event No. 50), had a smaller-than-anticipated field, but resisted using that event or the $50K H.O.R.S.E. (the number of entrants for which was also down significantly) as an indicator of what might happen with regard to the size of the field for the Main Event. The fact that Event No. 56 drew a large field is probably a good sign, I’d think, that no-limit hold’em in particular is still going strong. And that maybe, just maybe, the Main Event will attract 7,000 players after all.

The day went fairly well from the reporting side of things. Had some truly interesting hands come up. Dario Minieri busted on a kind of crazy hand in which he open-raised from the button, got reraised Roy Matthews in the blinds, Minieri four-bet, his opponent five-bet, then Minieri shoved with just enough chips to perhaps make a player not holding pocket kings or pocket aces fold. But Matthews had K-K and called, and Minieri was forced to show his 8-3.

There was also Daniel Negreanu’s crazy cameo in this event. He was busy playing Day 2 of another event, where he’d built a stack, and so wasn’t too interested (or able) to devote much time to Event No. 56. So he’d rush over, take his seat, and ship it hand after hand. I wrote one very long post titled “Diary of a Madman” describing a manic, up-and-down sequence of a half-dozen hands or so that Kid Poker played. He’d eventually bust, having once again gone all in after flopping a thin draw, but not getting there.

There was also a curious hand that came up involving Scotty Nguyen. Nguyen had open-raised from the cutoff, got reraised by the button, and it folded back to Nguyen who called. Then, before the flop was dealt, the button asked the dealer to deal him his second card -- he’d only gotten one. And he’d had the cojones to reraise Nguyen anyway. The dealer ended up delivering the second card, and the hand proceeded, with Nguyen betting the flop and his opponent folding. Weird stuff.

As anyone who has followed the coverage closely this year has noticed, PokerNews made a couple of changes with regard to how Day 1 gets reported. We’re not trying to do the impossible and track chip counts for even a small percentage of the field as we did last year. Even with just a couple of hundred players, it really isn’t feasible -- nor even that meaningful, when it comes down to it -- to try and give ongoing counts for even a significant percentage of the players. Never mind how doing that sort of accounting work often takes away from the time and energy available to write posts.

So we pick up the counts on Day 2, and really it isn’t until the end of that second day when we get to the money and the top 50 or so players do we try to provide that comprehensive view of everyone’s stacks and how they’re changing. As my tone probably indicates, I like this change and think it makes sense both on a practical level and in terms of what makes for the best coverage.

Another change this year is a consequence of the relatively smaller cast of characters we have working this time around, which has meant for many events we only have a single blogger working the first and second days, and even sometimes the last day, too. Last year I don’t believe I ever worked without a blogging partner, while this year I’d say two-thirds of my days have been me working solo with a field reporter or two.

I suppose I’m mostly ambivalent about this change. I don’t think it has affected the coverage that greatly, although obviously with two bloggers there’s going to be more quantity and a greater variety in a single live blog of an event than otherwise.

It has affected the experience of covering events somewhat, though. As I wrote about frequently last summer (and a little bit this summer), a lot of what made things fun and gratifying last year was getting to work closely with a number of smart, funny, interesting people who were all genuinely focused on helping each other in the pursuit of a commonly understood goal. That’s also been true this summer, it’s just we’ve had these long stretches of working separately, then getting back together only briefly, say, at a final table.

The big reunion happens Friday, though, as we’ll all be working together to cover the Main Event. Looking forward to it, to be sure.

Speaking of getting together with friends, when the night was over I ignored the $50K H.O.R.S.E. entirely -- where David Bach finally took it down at about ten o'clock this morning (sheesh!) -- and instead headed over to the Miranda Room where they were playing out the next-to-last day of Event No. 55, the $2,500 2-7 Limit Triple Draw event.

Why did I go over there? Because Julie Schneider, wife of 2007 WSOP Player of the Year and two-time bracelet winner Tom, is still in the hunt! I hung out with Tom, Karridy, and Pokerati Dan to watch the last levels of play, leaving just before they wrapped it up for the night. Julie is currently one of nine players left, sitting right in the middle of the pack (5th place) in a group that includes John Juanda, Blair Rodman, Nam Le, and some other formidable 2-7 players.

As you might imagine, Tom was as happy as could be. And I was happy for him and Julie both. Was a neat way to punctuate the day, hanging out with some buds, watching someone I know making good in one of these suckers. Just slowing down a bit and enjoying being there, in the company of others, taking it all in.

Vera left yesterday, and so the likelihood had been high that I might’ve hand one of those lonely-seeming-why-am-I-still-here kind of days. But that didn’t turn out to be the case. Indeed, as I left the Rio I had a big ol’ dumb grin on my face, thinking about Julie’s success and the sheer joy it was bringing others. And how cool it was to be there, at the World Series of Poker.

It had been a good day.

2009 WSOP, Day 34: Shamus, the Movie

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:38:00 +0000

Just got back from taking Vera Valmore to McCarran Airport. She returns home today after a week here with me in Vegas.

Vera had a good time, going to a show, eating out a lot, even coming to see that Event No. 50 final table on Sunday night where she was one of the 200 or so on the rail helping make that one more exciting than it might have been otherwise. Best part, of course, was just being able to spend time together. Two-and-a-half more weeks of this here crazy adventure and we’ll be able to do so again.

Today I’m back at the Rio to begin covering the last event prior to the Main Event, Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. Three days of that, then the big one starts on Friday. Will probably also wander over now and then today to see how that $50K H.O.R.S.E. event winds up. They are down to the final eight over there, with Erik Sagstrom and Vitaly Lunkin leading the way. (Wouldn’t it be something if Lunkin took both the $40K NLHE event and this one?) Huck Seed, Chau Giang, and Erik Seidel are still in the hunt there, too.

People often say to me “Shamus, you live such an interesting life, being an undercover poker reporter and all. Someone should make a movie of it.”

As a matter of fact, someone already has. Not many have seen it, but in 1973 a feature film about me hit the theaters, directed by Buzz Kulik and starring Burt Reynolds in the title role.

Sure, they took a few liberties here and there. The whole business about the stolen diamonds is completely made up out of thin air. Oh, and I never lived in New York City. Also, I can’t honestly say I recall crashing through quite so many windows, but I suppose they had to jazz it up somehow.

Dead on, though, otherwise. Here’s the trailer:

2009 WSOP, Day 33: The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:08:00 +0000

That post title sort of comes from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in which Prospero proclaims “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep.” But it also comes up -- with the altered preposition -- at the conclusion of a famous hard-boiled film. Any guesses?

Last night during the final table of Event No. 50, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shooutout, the six remaining players decided to take a ninety-minute dinner break after the fourth level. A little out of the ordinary, as most final tables have only had an hour-long break in there somewhere. Worked out well for yr humble gumshoe, as Vera Valmore has been here for the past week, and so we were able to go enjoy a leisurely dinner elsewhere in the Rio.

We were walking back to the Amazon Room when we realized I still had a half-hour or so before the tourney would restart. So we just parked it on a bench there in the hallway and were sitting there when F-Train happened by, his tourney (Event No. 52, the $3,000 Triple Chance No-Limit Hold’em) having just reached its break.

“What, you just spend your breaks sitting out in the halls?” asked F-Train. Sure, I joked. Only today I had Vera to keep me company. We chatted for a bit about various items, including the way covering the WSOP tends to wreck one’s sleep schedule.

Went back over and the rest of the night went fairly well, and in fact the tournament was all over before midnight. Tourney officials did not choose to stage the Limit Shootout final table on the main feature table, but rather played it out over on the secondary feature table. That meant no live streaming coverage on ESPN360 or Bluff. That also meant very limited seating for spectators, which ended up being a big deal since there were probably 200 or more people crushed on all sides trying to watch this one play out.

Would have made an interesting broadcast, I think. David Williams finished fourth. Millie Shiu finished third, which if I am not mistaken is the closest a woman has come to winning an open event this summer. Then the two players who made heads up, Marc Naalden and Greg Mueller, were both gunning for their second WSOP bracelets of the summer. Not only that, both had won their earlier bracelets in limit hold’em events -- Mueller in Event No. 33, the $10,000 World Championship LHE event, and Naalden in Event No. 38, the $2,000 LHE event.

Mueller ended up taking it down. I was mentioning yesterday my thoughts about his prowess at LHE, and it was definitely fun (and instructional) to watch how he played numerous hands last night. He caught some cards, for sure, especially during the middle levels of the final table. But he played an obviously smart game and well deserved the win.

Limit hold’em has that reputation as a relatively boring game to play, let alone watch. But the fact is, from the reporting side of things, LHE can actually be much more interesting to cover simply because there is never a lack for hands.

Unlike in no-limit, where you can go a couple of orbits without any hand getting past the turn, you have lots of showdowns in LHE, and most of those hands involve players having made three, four, or even more clear decisions. Not only that, but once those hands reach a showdown and you find out players’ cards, your report of all of those decisions becomes all the more meaningful. In other words, one often has a better shot of actually relating to the reader in a somewhat complete way players’ strategies and thought processes in LHE than in no-limit (if that makes sense).

Even though it ended up being a relatively early night, I was dead tired by the time Vera and I made it back to the home-away-from-home. Fell asleep quickly, but three hours later was awake again.

What woke me up? Hands. One after another.

It folded to player who raised from the button, player three-bet from the big blind, and player made the call. The flop came this of that, this of that, this of that. Player checked, player bet, and player check-raised. Player called. The turn brought the this of that. I turn over, readjust the pillow, and it folded to player who raised from the cutoff. The button three-bet, the blinds got out of the way, and the cutoff made it four to go. And so on.

Such is how my jingle brain seems to deal with all the mental mumbo-jumbo of the day, revisiting it upon me in vaguely-drawn, incomplete gestures while I try to rest. I remember fussing through this same phenomenon last summer (where that picture of the little boy dreaming of hands was first used).

One more tourney for me to cover this summer before the Main Event starts on Friday -- Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event which starts on Tuesday. Am off today, though, and so will get to spend the day with Vera, her last full day here before she heads back home.

Gonna be a quiet day today. A nice one for sitting here on this bench and watching other people rush back and forth. I’m a little tired. And in no hurry. Think I’ll just sit here a while and rest.

Nice to have Vera next to me.

2009 WSOP, Day 32: A Long Flight

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:00:00 +0000

“It’s like flying to Australia every day. Only when you get there you’re at the Rio. Again.”

Said Tom Schneider to me during one of the breaks at yesterday’s Day 2 of Event No. 50, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout. Schneider, like a lot of pros, has played in numerous events at this summer’s World Series of Poker, somewhere around 15 or more. Which means he’s spent just about every day sitting in a seat in either the Amazon, Brasilia, or Miranda rooms handling chips, cards, and the mental and physical challenges that come with trying to win a poker tournament that generally requires a person to survive three consecutive 12-14 hour days of play if he or she hopes to win the sucker.

There’s an upside, obviously. The chance to win a big bag of cabbage is nice, of course. As is the fact that, well, one is playing games all day.

But four-plus weeks of anything (to this degree) can make the line between “play” and “work” more than a little fuzzy.

Schneider’s analogy seemed to characterize my own experience helping cover the WSOP for PokerNews as well. The days are long, sometimes arduous. I’m sitting a lot, too, although unlike the players I’m often up and around, moving through the tables in search of hands, chip counts, or other material to pass along. Can’t sleep, of course. Can’t even mentally check out for a few minutes, really.

And when you get to the end, you’re at the Rio. Again.

Yesterday I reported on the eight eight-handed matches that constituted the second round of the Shootout, with the winners moving on to today’s final table. Schneider came close in his match, gamely battling back after the dinner break to make heads up against Greg Mueller.

Theirs was probably the toughest table of the second round, including Brock Parker and Juha Helppi as well. Schneider was WSOP Player of the Year in 2007, when he won two bracelets. Mueller won his first bracelet a few days ago in the $10,000 World Championship Limit Hold’em (Event No. 33). Parker has won two bracelets this summer, one in an LHE event. And Helppi has $2.4 million in tourney winnings, including a couple of near-misses at WSOP bracelets. The other four at their table weren’t slim pickings, either. Easily the highest concentration of tough players in the room, I’d estimate.

Too bad both Mueller and Schneider couldn’t have made today’s final. Their heads-up match went back and forth for awhile before Mueller won. Indeed, several of those who won their matches yesterday had been low in chips at some point during the day -- most often during heads up -- before coming back to win. Such is limit hold’em, where having even just a couple of big bets left means you still have a legitimate chance. If you can catch a hand, that is. Schneider appeared to have hit such a hand late during his match yesterday when he flopped a set of treys, only to have Mueller chase down a flush on the end. Most definitely one of those “so it goes hands” (S.I.G.H.).

I’ll be back over to help cover today’s final table. Hasn’t been too much turbulence covering this Limit Shootout event, though the days/nights have been long, for sure. Am hoping we’ll make it to the main stage, where covering final tables is marginally less strenuous than on the secondary feature table or on one of the outer tables. Not quite the difference between first class and coach, but enough to make the flight a little more pleasant. We may be over there. David Williams is at our final table, which improves our chances. As does the fact that we’re the only final table being played today (although that doesn’t always guarantee we’ll be on the main stage).

In any event, I know I’ll be somewhere in the Amazon (after two days in the Brasilia), and so might get a chance during a break to wander over and see what’s happening in the $50K H.O.R.S.E., where Gus Hansen is leading with 53 players left. Hop over to PokerNews’ live reporting page and I’ll see you there.

2009 WSOP, Day 31: Decline

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 17:52:00 +0000

Turned out to be my latest night so far all summer at the Rio, as my event, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout (Event No. 50), didn’t conclude until close to 4 a.m. Just 572 entrants came out for this one, meaning after a bit of awkwardness early on they settled on just 64 tables (rather than 100). The 64 winners come back today at 2 p.m. to play eight separate eight-handed tables, and those eight winners will come back for an eight-handed final table on Sunday.

Last year, this event -- the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout -- attracted 823 entrants. It was also one of the last events in 2008 (Event No. 53). So we’re looking at a precipitous drop here of 251 fewer runners, about 30% less than last year, and also well below the 905 that had been projected for this event (in that WSOP Staff Resource Media Guide back in early May).

Of course, the main buzz at the Rio yesterday -- aside from the surprise playing of the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” at Brit John Kabbaj’s bracelet ceremony (an attempt at a little cheekiness that sounds like it didn’t quite land) -- concerned a similar decline in entrants in the much more prestigious $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event (Event No. 49), which only drew 95 players. That’s also a huge drop from last year -- nearly 36% off of last year’s 148 -- and well below the projected 151.

Now folks are starting to wonder about the Main Event that starts this coming Friday (July 3), which drew 6,844 last year, and for which Harrah’s had projected 7,323. Will at least 7,000 players come out and plunk down $10,000 to chase that dream this time around? Some are saying that is starting to look increasingly less likely.

In some ways, neither the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout nor the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. has much at all to do with the Main Event. A small percentage of the LHE crowd will play the Main Event, too, though I’d bet well over half probably won’t. I don’t think the dip in registrants for this year really tells us too much about what’s going to happen with the Main Event.

On the other side of the coin, I’d venture to guess that all 95 of those who entered the $50K H.O.R.S.E. will be in the Main Event as well, and the main reason why that number fell so far was the lack of television coverage of that event from ESPN this year. Sure, that $40,000 “Special 40th Annual No-Limit Hold’em” event probably took a few names out of the $50K H.O.R.S.E. mix, but the fact that ESPN is not televising it meant many players who would’ve gotten help from sponsors to enter were not put into the event this time around.

When we were about one-third of the way through the WSOP, I took a brief, comparative look at the numbers and said at that point that it didn’t appear there had been much of a change from last year. I’ll do another comparison like that later next week before the Main Event kicks off and see whether this sudden decline we saw yesterday in the two new events might be part of a larger end-of-series trend.

Meanwhile, I will be back over to the Rio in just a couple hours to follow Round 2 of the Shootout. As you might imagine, it wasn’t the most exciting night for me last night, with much of my work being more clerical than creative as I tallied up the winners to report. And, of course, match-ending hands in limit events tend to be more than a little anti-climactic, since usually one player is down to his or her last couple of big bets and is forced to go all in with any two cards.

There are a few folks left to help make Event No. 50 interesting, though. Jean-Robert Bellande -- who finished second in this same event last year after having an enormous 8-to-1 chip advantage over Matt Graham when heads up at the final table -- won his table yesterday and so will be there for Round 2. David Williams, Humberto Brenes, David Plastik, and Dan Heimiller won as well. And Tom Schneider, Juha Helppi, Brock Parker, Greg “FBT” Mueller, and “Crazy Mike” Thorpe are all going to be seated at the same table today.

Still, I’m aware I'll probably be experiencing a decline of my own when it comes to the number of eyeballs following my reporting this weekend, since most everyone who ends up over at PokerNews’ live reporting page will probably be following that $50K H.O.R.S.E. event. (Most of the field -- 91 of 95 -- is still alive in that one.) Hell, I’ll probably be looking in over there as well today.

I will also likely be keeping an eye on the entrants in Event No. 51, the next-to-last of the so-called “donkaments” (i.e., the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events). That figure will probably be a more significant indicator of things to come if that number turns out to be one-third below the projected number (2,800 entrants).

Then that Sex Pistols’ song -- and its predictions of “no future” -- might start sounding uncomfortably prophetic to some.

2009 WSOP, Day 30: The Dealers

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 18:35:00 +0000

This afternoon I’m back over at the Rio for the first day of Event No. 50, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout. This will be the second LHE event for me, having earlier covered Event No. 26, the $1,500 LHE event won by Tomas Alenius.

I am recalling the first day of that earlier LHE event -- this would have been exactly two weeks ago, Friday, 6/12. We had reached what I guess must’ve been the second 20-minute break (it was around 4:45 p.m. or so) and I was sitting there in the Brasilia Room at my laptop, catching up on something or another.

As is customary, dealers remained at the tables during the break, making sure there was no funny business with the chip stacks sitting around them. Dealers follow the same schedules of “pushes” -- rotating from table to table or onto breaks themselves -- whether the tourney is in progress or not. As I did on that day, I will sometimes spend my break sitting in there with them, and as no one else is allowed within the ropes at that time, it is usually relatively quiet and I can overhear their conversations. And sometimes I’ll get into conversations with them, too.

On that day, Event No. 27, the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better event was about to get underway, and one of the tourney directors passed through asking the dealers if anyone wanted to go deal that event. No hands went up, and after the TD left there were a few chuckles. Dealing limit hold’em was obviously a much less arduous task than dealing PLO/8.

That’s not to say these guys aren’t working hard and especially conscientious about performing well. Although I know players will complain about dealer screw-ups -- and I’ve witnessed a few, to be sure -- they do a hell of a job, sometimes under fairly trying circumstances.

The last event I did, the $1,500 Mixed Game event (Event No. 42), obviously presented particular challenges to dealers, with the constantly changing games among which are included those tricky split pot games. “Have you ever run out of cards during triple draw?” asked one dealer of his neighbor during a break. No, was the reply. I asked him what he did in that situation, and he explained how they would be forced to reshuffle the discard pile in order to deal more cards.

During that event, all of the dealers had structure sheets out on the tables with them, and there was quite a bit of interaction between dealers and players regarding how the games were to be dealt, as well as about the different blinds, limits, antes, and bring-ins.

Most of these interactions were cordial and friendly, although I witnessed one particular player on Day 1 routinely giving the dealers an especially hard time. This older player is not at all like your typical WSOP player, and while he has something of a reputation for being irascible, I was taken aback at some of the epithets he used, many of which were inspired by the dealer’s racial or ethnic background. From what I saw, the dealers forced to endure such applesauce all remained professional, sitting and taking it, and not talking back.

The dealers at the final table for Event No. 42 were especially good, and I think they were probably chosen on the basis of their abilities. I remember overhearing one say something about how they were there for the duration -- i.e., there wouldn’t be another shift of dealers coming to replace them -- and how she was glad, because she especially enjoyed dealing that event. As that final table wound along, I picked up on the fact that those dealers and the players had begun referring to each other by their first names, having developed a kind of camaraderie after spending several hours together.

All of them -- players and dealers -- seemed to have a genuine desire to see everyone do as well as they could (if that makes sense). I remember Layne Flack, who caught some unfortunate cards at that final table, complaining in a humorous way after one hand about one of the dealers being “terrible,” referring simply to the fact that he kept getting dealt bricks. He and that dealer were later talking and joking during one of the breaks, and it was clear from where I was sitting that both respected each other.

It’s always nice to see such scenes, whether between players, between players and dealers, or among any of those involved in these tournaments. There’s a lot of pressure surrounding the staging and execution of the WSOP, and I think everyone benefits when those involved understand and appreciate the various challenges all of the participants face, including the dealers.

That said, I can’t say I mind going back to a relatively-easier-to-follow limit hold’em event after having gone through the challenge of covering the eight-game mixed event. And I’m guessing that some of the dealers probably feel the same.

Head over to PokerNews’ live reporting page to see how the first round of Event No. 50 goes. I would say to dial up that page around five o’clock Vegas time, but these late afternoon tourneys haven’t been starting until 5:15 or 5:30, usually. F-Train wrote an interesting piece yesterday about some of the problems that have arisen with these 5:00 p.m. tourneys, which have routinely started late and short-handed, thereby introducing some undesirable weirdness into the first couple of levels of play.

Of course, this event is a shootout, and it has also been capped at 1,000 entrants. Meaning I wouldn’t imagine many players would want to show up late for this one, so maybe we will start on time after all.

Whatever happens, I’ll be there. And I know the dealers will be, too.

(Trivia: From what cult film comes that picture at the top of the post?)

2009 WSOP, Day 29: Mystère

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 19:07:00 +0000

I signed off yesterday saying something about relaxing “poolside” with Vera Valmore (here visiting for the week). Was cloudy most of the day, and during the afternoon came a torrential downpour, meaning nobody was doing much of anything poolside yesterday. Much nicer today, though, so I think we’ll really, genuinely make it out there for some fun in the sun.

Last night, while Jeff Lisandro was winning his third WSOP bracelet of the summer (in Event No. 44, the $2,500 Razz), Vera and I trucked over to Treasure Island for dinner and to see another Cirque du Soleil show, this time Mystère. We’d seen both O and Love before, and this one followed the formula fairly closely, offering once again that surreal mix of dance, ballet, gymnastics, acrobatics, trapeze, and occasional slapstick. Fun stuff, to be sure. (This here two-minute trailer gives a good ideer what we’re talking about, if yr curious.)

Another part of the formula for these shows that was given a little more attention in Mystère than in the others we’ve seen has to do with audience involvement, whereby some of the characters of the production pull spectators out of the crowd and interact with them, with a couple even being brought onto the stage to become “characters” in their own right, playing roles in the nonsensical narrative.

I’ll admit that while watching the show last night I was thinking there was something incongruous about the more serious-minded dance/gymnastics numbers and these little comic interludes. Neither really immediately seem to “mean” much at all, and whatever they meant, I wasn’t really picking up on what they had to do with each other. I’m not saying that sensing such incongruity made the performance less entertaining -- just harder to respond to intellectually.

Vera made some good points to me afterwards, though, that kind of explained how all the parts indeed served a greater whole. She noted how those interactive elements forced the audience to engage a little differently, which kind of fits with Cirque du Soleil’s thematic emphasis on creativity and imagination. Indeed, on their website one reads that “Cirque du Soleil’s mission is to invoke the imagination, provoke the senses and evoke the emotions of people around the world.”

Those bits with audience -- in which one could literally be unexpectedly taken out of one’s seat at any moment -- made it impossible, really, to sit there passively and not respond to what was happening. “No one dared to take out their iPhones or Blackberries to check their messages or friends’ status updates,” explained Vera. She added that she appreciated the effort made to engage the audience in this way, because really, they could’ve gotten by without doing so -- the dancing and jaw-dropping-how-the-hell-did-they-do-that performances were plenty engaging on their own.

Vera’s explanation made me think a little about the WSOP and how it attempts to engage its audience -- both online and live at the Rio. There’s a lot of energy being directed toward that effort, too, I think, that shows Harrah’s understands you can’t just put on a poker tournament and expect throngs of fans and other interested folks to come follow along.

Of course, sitting in the bleachers watching a WSOP final table is probably never going to “provoke the senses” quite like a Cirque du Soleil show can. Although it can certainly “invoke the imagination” and even “evoke the emotions,” I think. And for anyone hopeful of finding and keeping an audience, it is important always to think about how best to keep ’em engaged.

I’ll be back over at the Rio tomorrow, trying to keep people engaged with Event No. 50, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout, which I’ll be covering Friday through Sunday. Looks like they’ve capped that one at 1,000 entrants, meaning the person who wins that bracelet will need to win just three one-table sit-n-go’s.

Meanwhile, my plan is to spend most of today relaxing au soleil with Vera by the pool. Very passively.

2009 WSOP, Day 28: Intense

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 18:50:00 +0000

Kind of a weirdly intense vibe yesterday at the Rio.

I worked the last day of Event No. 42, the $2,500 Mixed Game event won by Jerrod Ankenman. Ankenman is the somewhat lesser known co-author of The Mathematics of Poker with Bill Chen. Chen, of course, won two WSOP bracelets during 2006, shortly before the appearance of their book, and thus when the book came out many simply referred Chen as the book’s author, neglecting to mention Ankenman.

But Ankenman was already an accomplished player then, and in fact had finished runner-up in a $3,000 limit hold’em event that summer to Ian Johns. Ankenman had had Johns all in at one point during heads up, but ended up losing. He also took second in last year’s $10,000 World Championship limit hold’em event to Rob Hollink. So now he’s finally got his.

Was pretty cool afterwards as all of Ankenman’s buds, including Chen, Greg Raymer, Terrence Chan, Sabyl Cohen-Landrum, Gavin Griffin, and others were there to root Ankenman on and eventually congratulate him on his victory. I heard him giving some interviews afterwards, and he definitely is both a smart and funny guy who is easy to like. And he played especially well, I thought, showing a significant edge in the six limit games (2-7 triple draw, hold’em, O/8, razz, stud, stud/8), though being willing to gamble and take intelligent risks, too, in no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha.

Covering the tourney was interesting. Folks came over now and then during the three days to watch. Yesterday LJ stopped by to say hello and observe a few hands, after which she joked with me how the 8-game event didn’t seem as exciting to watch as one would think. (Speaking of mixed games, LJ finished an amazing 10th place in Event No. 31, the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.) I told her it kind of came in waves -- some very uneventful stretches followed by some seriously exciting hands/sequences.

Really the whole event was like that, including the last day when they played down from 14 to one. Lengthy periods where nothing seemed to be happening, then highly-charged moments full of action and big chip swings and/or eliminations. And the funny thing was, the intensity level didn’t seem to be connected necessarily to the games being played. Sure, we saw more big pots develop more quickly in the no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha rounds than in the limit games, but there were dry patches in NLHE and PLO, too -- and some seriously high-stress hands (resulting in big pots) in the other rounds as well.

Probably the most intense hand from my perspective was a 2-7 triple draw hand between Eric Crain and Layne Flack in which after a long session in the tank Flack ended up breaking a 9-5-4-3-2 on the last draw -- everyone saw what he’d had ’cos when he finally decided to give up the nine he showed it -- and unfortunately picked up a jack to replace his nine. He checked, then Crain (who’d raised him previously) surprisingly checked behind and turned over 9-5-4-3-2 -- in other words, the very same hand Flack had given up on. (Flack was no happy camper after that one, let me tell you.) That hand basically turned the tide for Flack, knocking him back down to a below average stack and helping ensure his departure in seventh place.

And from the reporting side of things, it occasionally got pretty intense as well, especially when it came to narrating those O/8 and Stud/8 hands where one has to keep track of a dozen or more cards. Was good working with Don Peters who was great help managing the occasional information overload with which we sometimes had to deal.

Of course, when I speak of the intensity and stress of playing a poker tournament or reporting on it, I speak in relative terms, as we all now there are more important things in life. We were reminded of that fact yesterday when word made it over to the Amazon Room that Miami John Cernuto had collapsed at a table over in the Brasilia while playing the $2,500 razz event (Event No. 44). At first it was thought he’d had a heart attack, although it isn’t clear now what exactly happened. He has been hospitalized and while suffering some internal bleeding is apparently stable for now.

The razz event was stopped for about an hour, and, as I say, hearing people asking each other about what was going on did help lend that strange vibe to yesterday’s proceedings. Luckily for all of us, Dr. Pauly has finally returned to the Rio after his extended musical interlude from the WSOP to help us sort through this stuff. Read Pauly’s take on “The Miami John incident” here.

What’s up next? Well, Vera is here. And I have two days off in a row, and so she and I will likely be enjoying them poolside. We’ll probably be catching a show of some sort tonight, then maybe even get outta Vegas tomorrow for a bit. Taking another cue from Dr. P, in a way, though my break from poker will just be two days, not two weeks. Gotta relax now and then. No way around it.

And while you’re taking your break from life’s many stressors, be sure to head over to PokerNews’ live reporting for all things WSOP.

2009 WSOP, Day 27: Eight Arms to Hold You

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:47:00 +0000

Was an especially long one yesterday blogging from Event No. 42, the $2,500 Mixed Game, the one in which players rotate between eight different poker games. Fun, though.

Things went relatively well as far as the reporting went, although I’ll confess the tournament became marginally more tedious as most of the “names” dropped out. All of them entered, it seemed, but few made it into the top forty (and the cash). Instead, it was folks like Bob Slezak, Zvi Groysman, Vojislav Petrov, Yuval Bronshtein, Mihail Stoykov, Hank Paloci, and Alex Dovzhenko making the money -- all good players, obviously, but not players for whom I necessarily have a lot of “back story” with which to contextualize what I’m watching.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler went out close to the cash bubble. Nursed his short stack all of the way, then Andy Black took the last of his chips with J-4 against Kessler’s A-10 in a no-limit hold’em hand after the board came 9-Q-6-K-10. Yep, Black rivered the straight, though by that point Kessler was down to about three big blinds, anyway (for the NLHE) round.

When I say the “names” didn’t make it I’m referring to all of those top tier “notables” like Doyle, Negreanu, Hellmuth, Ivey, and so forth. Have gone over this subject before here (more than once, actually) -- that issue of whether or not it is correct or fair for those reporting on these tourneys to favor certain “poker celebs” over others in their coverage -- and I don’t really want to review that topic again this morning. There is most certainly a bias in all reporting that favors these guys, particularly during the first day of an event. But I think when you look at, say, the forty hours or so that are given to an entire tournament, those who make it to the end always get the greater share of attention (which they’ve certainly earned).

That said, there are still some interesting stories among the 14 left. Jon “PearlJammer” Turner is the chip leader, gunning for his first WSOP bracelet. Jerrod Ankenman is right behind him, looking to get a bracelet and start catching up with his Mathematics of Poker co-author, Bill Chen (who has two). Layne Flack has a big stack, and has a great chance at landing his seventh WSOP bracelet. And Rami Boukai, who won an earlier event I covered this summer (Event No. 10, $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha), is trying to become the fourth two-time winner of 2009.

If I had to say I was pulling for any of the 14, it would have to be Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, who unfortunately took a hit right at the end of the night in a PLO hand and is the short stack going into the final day. Was so cool to see him cash last night, and also cool to meet and visit some with Gobbomom, who was there to watch for the last 5-6 hours of play.

The mixed game is a pretty curious event to observe and report on. The blinds/antes/limits are now getting big enough in the six limit games (2-7 triple draw, limit hold’em, Omaha/8, razz, stud, and stud/8) that some hands played during those rounds are resulting in some big chip moves, but really it seemed like particularly during the latter part of the night that it wasn’t until no-limit hold’em or pot-limit Omaha that people were getting crippled and/or knocked out.

Michael Binger lost most of his stack to a one-outer in PLO, flopping top set of queens versus a set of jacks and the case jack coming on fifth street. (He was eliminated soon thereafter.) There was another wild A-A-vs.K-K-vs.Q-Q hand in NLHE late last night that produced a 380,000-chip pot. (Ankenman won that one with queens when a third queen came on the river.)

Definitely an interesting test of mental agility to move back and forth between the games, and between the patience and discipline needed for the limit games and the willingness to identify and take appropriate, tournament-life-threatening risks in the pot-limit/no-limit games. And like I say, fun and interesting to observe play out. I’m glad I had the chance this summer to cover this mixed event, if only to mix things up for me as well.

Of course, what also made the day a little more arduous from my perspective was the fact that all day I was thinking about the arrival of Vera Valmore. She lands in just about an hour, actually, and will be here for the next week. Just in time, too. Have been over this topic before, as well -- especially toward the end of last summer -- but it’s not easy being away from her and other family and friends for such a long stretch like this. Probably the toughest part of the gig, all things considered.

But she’ll be here today, probably relaxing poolside from her trip while I’m covering the last day of Event No. 42. Will get to join her by the pool over the next couple of days, which I’ll have off. Before then, though, head over to PokerNews’ live reporting page to see if Fricke can maybe double up early and make things interesting. Gobboboy FTW!