Hard-Boiled Poker

Looking Back: 2009 WSOP November Nine on ESPN

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:45:00 +0000

Thoroughly enjoyed ESPN’s rapidly-produced, two-and-a-half hour repackaging of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event final table last night. Liked the features and rhythm of the thing. Thought Norman Chad had a few genuine zingers in there, adding to the fun. My favorite was probably when Steve Begleiter put in the first reraise in that infamous Hand No. 90 versus Darvin Moon, and Chad quipped “That’s a big bet, particularly in this economy.” That was some good funny.

Did appreciate the extra half-hour, mostly taken up with the heads-up battle in which Joe Cada outlasted Darvin Moon. Actually by the very end of the show I was starting to feel like it didn’t really need to be much longer than it was. Perhaps having followed the action so closely as it happened made me less eager to see every hand again, but I think two-and-a-half hours of this sort of thing is probably plenty.

Liked the sportsmanship at the very end quite a bit. Also thought Phil Ivey came off as the coolest cat ever.

Was also thinking quite a bit during the show of the whole “luck-vs.-skill” contest once again, wondering now and then how it all might have appeared to those less familiar with what happened during the 364 hands and/or those who are less versed in poker, generally speaking. Did the selection of hands make it look like poker was a game of skill? Or did it come off as a drama-filled series of coin-flips in which chance ruled?

One of the most interesting aspects of poker, actually, is how difficult it is to say definitively whether in any given hand “luck” or “skill” prevailed. Outcomes are driven both by players’ actions and the cards dealt. In fact, two people watching (or playing) the same hand may likely come away with differing opinions about whether a hand was skillfully played or “played itself.” And it goes without saying that a person’s judgment is also highly influenced by his or her own poker-playing experience and knowledge.

I made a note last night of which hands were being shown. Of the 364 total hands, we got to see 32 on the telecast. Not going to rehearse all of the details of each hand here (you can read about them further on the PokerNews live blog), but here is a list with hand numbers and brief reminders of the action. You decide whether in each hand “luck” or “skill” seemed more important:

Hand No. 11 -- Moon limp-reraises with from late position, forcing Schaffel to fold pocket nines in the big blind
Hand No. 14 -- Ivey’s all-in shove with pocket kings forces folds from Cada (pocket tens) and Shulman (pocket fives)
Hand No. 44 -- Akenhead survives going all in with K-Q versus Buchman’s A-K by spiking a queen on the river
Hand No. 45 -- Moon’s crazy play with A-4 versus Saout’s sorta crazy play with J-2 in which the latter fortunately flopped two pair; “I messed up big time,” said Moon afterwards
Hand No. 53 -- Cada’s loses a lot with versus Moon after flopping a flush draw, then not getting there
Hand No. 54 -- Schaffel doubles up with pocket aces versus Akenhead’s pocket kings
Hand No. 59 -- Akenhead eliminated when his 3-3 can’t catch up to Schaffel’s 9-9
Hand No. 68 -- Schaffel eliminated with pocket aces versus Buchman’s pocket kings when a king flops, then Buchman makes quads on the turn
Hand No. 90 -- Moon’s crazy flop fold getting 8-to-1 or something versus Begleiter (see discussion here); Moon did have , it turned out, and Begleiter (overs, straight outs, and nut flush draw); and did Moon tell his wife he had queens afterwards???
Hand No. 92 -- Shulman folds pocket nines to Ivey’s all-in reraise with K-Q offsuit
Hand No. 106 -- With ace-high, Ivey pushes Begleiter off his pocket sevens on the river after a scary group of community cards had arrived
Hand No. 112 -- Ivey raises UTG with pocket jacks, Saout reraises from the button with pocket sevens, and Ivey folds (I believe this was the very last hand before the dinner break)
Hand No. 122 -- Shulman takes a big chunk from Cada when his A-K outlasts Cada’s A-J
Hand No. 131 -- Cada survives with pocket fours against Ivey’s
Hand No. 153 -- Saout and Begleiter get all of the Frenchman’s chips in on an flop; Saout has the flush draw, and Begleiter a pair of eights; the flush comes
Hand No. 175 -- Moon’s A-Q eliminates Ivey who had A-K after a queen flops; loved Ivey’s line when the turn brought a trey: “Close.”
Hand No. 187 -- Moon again uses A-Q to eliminate Begleiter, whose pocket queens turned to mush after an ace came on the river
Hand No. 195 -- Cada survives, spiking a set with pocket treys versus Shulman’s J-J
Hand No. 199 -- Cada’s pocket rockets survive versus Moon’s K-9 offsuit
Hand No. 236 --Shulman eliminated when his pocket sevens lose race to Saout’s A-9
Hand No. 259 --Buchman wins a big chunk of Saout’s stack after heavy betting on a ten-high flop; Saout had a ten, but Buchman had the better hand with A-A
Hand No. 264 -- Buchman loses a bunch back to Saout with A-Q versus the Frenchman’s A-K
Hand No. 271 -- Moon () eliminates Buchman (), turning a king
Hand No. 272 -- Cada survives, spiking a set with pocket deuces versus Cada’s Q-Q
Hand No. 276 -- Saout eliminated with pocket eights versus Cada’s A-K after Cada rivers a king
Hand No. 277 -- Moon slowplays pocket queens in first hand of heads up; ends up winning a decently-sized pot versus Cada’s 9-9
Hand No. 288 -- Moon check-raises with air on flop, then turns a queen to make top pair, ends up getting Cada to call a big value bet on end
Hand No. 293 -- Cada turns top two pair with and forces Moon to fold his fourth-best pair on the river
Hand No. 323 -- Moon pushes Cada off of his A-Q with a preflop four-bet; Moon says “I had a monster,” but it was A-J
Hand No. 347 -- Moon and Cada both have J-9 offsuit, but Moon’s aggressive betting gets him the pot on the turn
Hand No. 356 -- With the board , Cada makes the big call with all of his chips with ; Moon has , and Cada’s hand holds up
Hand No. 364 -- Cada wins the bracelet when his pocket nines outlast Moon’s

So what was your impression? Or your impression of how other viewers might have seen the show? Does poker look like roulette, or chess?

(Photos courtesy the great FlipChip, natch.)

Comeback Kid Cada 2009 WSOP Main Event Champ

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:37:00 +0000

Sat up into the wee hours following online that there heads-up clash last night. Went much longer than most observers -- including yr humble gumshoe -- had guessed it would. Over three hours, I believe, with Joe Cada finally outlasting Darvin Moon in a genuinely compelling, hard fought battle for the bracelet.
(Photos in this post by the great FlipChip, natch.)

Had great fun following the coverage on PokerNews, reading all the tweets, and listening to the Bluff Magazine audio. Usually I’d first read insta-reports of each action on Twitter, then hear David Chicotsky, Phil Hellmuth, Joe Sebok, and a rotating group of others comment on the Bluff feed, then read the short hand narratives by FerricRamsium and Donnie Peters. I’d also occasionally skip over to Dr. Pauly’s live blog, the ESPN blog kept by Andrew Feldman, the PokerStars blog, and a few other sites, too, to help fill out the scene. (Oh, and while yr poking around those links, check out F-Train's “November Nine Errata” for a few more items of interest.)

Altogether gave a pretty good sense of what was happening, although I’ll certainly be intrigued to watch what ESPN puts together for tonight’s show, too.

As I say, the action last night was fairly gripping, I thought. Some high-drama hands in there, as well as enough back-and-forthing for some thought-provoking patterns to emerge.

It appeared on the very first hand that Moon had missed a great opportunity -- and perhaps displayed yet another example of awkward (or flat-out bad) play. Moon chose to limp in from the small blind/button, and we’d soon learn he held pocket queens. Cada then raised to 3.5 million from the big blind, and Moon called. The pair managed to put another 20 million each in the middle on the next two streets, but both checked the river, at which point Cada showed pocket nines. The two kings and one ace among the community cards surely kept all of Moon’s chips from going into the middle in that one, and it seemed clear that had he gone ahead and committed them preflop, Cada probably would’ve come along.

In other words, it looked like from the first hand that Moon should have doubled up and taken the chip lead away from Cada, but instead he’d only closed the gap to about 110 million to 85 million. It also looked like the night was going to be over quickly.

But that didn’t happen. For the next ten hands Moon chipped away, then took the lead in Hand No. 12 of heads up. Cada raised his button to 2.5 million for the sixth straight time, and Moon called. The flop came , Moon checked, Cada continued for 3.5 million, and Moon check-raised to 8.5 million. Cada called. Both checked the turn, then when the river came , Moon bet 7.25 million and Cada called him. Moon showed -- the flop check-raise had been with air, and he’d paired up on the turn -- and Cada mucked.

Was partly happenstance, but somehow Moon had gotten the lead without going all in. Not once had Moon been all in with his tourney life at risk for the entire WSOP Main Event. That streak was still alive! And would remain so until the very last hand of the tournament, in fact.

After those first dozen hands it had become clear that Moon (a) was not going to play a passive, easily exploitable game, and (b) was not appearing to be playing an orthodox or “standard” game, either. Won’t presume to judge how well either player played without seeing hole cards, but it certainly seemed that despite Moon’s own protestations that he’d had practically zero experience at heads up, he was providing Cada -- who plays mostly heads-up online -- a genuine challenge.

Cada would soon take the lead back, though. And by the time they took their first break of the night (after 52 hands played) they were essentially dead even. Over the next dozen hands Moon took several sizable pots, and suddenly he was sitting with a nearly 3-to-1 chip advantage with 145 million to Cada’s almost 50 million. Cada pushed all in before the flop on Hand No. 70 of heads up, but Moon declined. Then in Hand No. 80 came what was really the pivotal moment of the match.

The blinds at that point were 600,000/1.2 million (with a 200,000 ante). Cada raised to 3 million from the button, and Moon called. The flop came , and both checked. The turn brought the , and after Moon checked Cada bet 3 million. Moon check-raised all in, and after a long think Cada made the call with . Moon showed -- an open-ended straight draw. The river was the , and Cada had rebounded to take the lead once more.

An interesting play by Moon, and it sounded like Cada nearly let go of his hand, but he ultimately made the big call. There was a little break right after that hand, and one could hear the two players talking in the background of the Bluff Magazine audio broadcast. Cada could be heard sincerely complimenting Moon’s play, making reference to the fact that he plays a lot of heads up and that Moon compared favorably to his usual competition. Struck me as a pretty mature-sounding thing to say for the kid from Michigan who doesn’t turn 22 until later this month. Also humble, providing a stark contrast to the commentary by Hellmuth in the foreground.

Speaking of the Poker Brat, he was just 24 when he won the 1989 WSOP, holding pocket nines for the winning hand. And as it would turn out, Cada would also have pocket nines -- -- in Hand No. 88 of heads up, what would turn out to be the last hand of the night.

Again Cada raised to 3 million from the button, Moon reraised to 8 million, Cada pushed, and Moon called with . The board ran out , and Cada became the youngest Main Event champ ever.

After a wild Saturday night/Sunday morning full of surprising suckouts and some pretty obvious missteps, it seems that Monday’s denouement helped improve the reputations of both players as skillful competitors. While each surely benefited from good fortune, sometimes in highly dramatic fashion, both showed they can play Texas hold’em, and so in that battle between luck and skill I was alluding to yesterday, skill did (in a sense) perhaps “win out.”

I’m not alone, I don’t think, in liking both of these guys. Probably somewhat better for poker that the one who seems primed to join the professional circuit -- and not the fellow content to go back into the woods with his chainsaw (as amiable as he is) -- ended up on top.

Am thinking more and more that next year I might just have to angle a way to get back out to Vegas in November to witness this spectacle go down. As I mentioned already, in 2008 I didn’t really have much of a pull to be there once they finally resumed the sucker. But this year I did, and I don’t think it was just because of the prospect of being there to see a Phil Ivey victory.

Yeah, as fun as the online coverage was to follow, I think it would be fun to see the November Nine with my own peepers. And my peeps.

2009 WSOP Main Event Heads Up: Moon v. Cada and/or Luck v. Skill

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:10:00 +0000

One more day of play at the Rio, and the 40th World Series of Poker will at long last be completed. (Had to share that cool FlipChip pic from Saturday night there to the left.) What a lo-o-o-o-ong, strange trip it’s been.

Joe Cada and Darvin Moon are scheduled to begin their heads-up battle at 10 p.m. Vegas time, although if things go the way they usually do cards won’t be in the air until some time after that.

For those of us here on the east coast, then, that’s after 1 a.m. Would mean a late, late night, but I’m thinking I’ll probably follow along anyhow. Could be wrong, but I am encouraged to stay up by the belief that the match might well be a short one. Gotta couple of reasons for thinking that.

When play resumes, Cada will have 135,950,000 chips and Moon 58,850,000. (Interestingly, Moon has almost exactly the same stack as he had when the final table began, when his 58,930,000 gave him a huge lead over his eight opponents.) They are in the middle of Level 39, with blinds of 500,000/1,000,000 and 150,000 antes. Not sure exactly, but it looks as though they have about a half-hour or so left at this level, after which the price to play Level 40 will be 600,000/1.2 million blinds and 200,000 antes.

Last year Peter Eastgate and Ivan Demidov came back on Monday night to Level 37 (300,000/600,000/75,000), so they are a little farther along in the schedule this time around. Last year players in the Main Event began with 20,000 chips, as opposed to 30,000 in 2009. There were 6,844 entrants in 2008, meaning the final two players had a little over 137 million between them. A total of 6,494 came out in 2009, and so Cada and Moon have just under 195 million on the table.

Was fussing over this some last year -- this business of calculating the “M” of each player here at the start of heads-up play. Remember, a player’s “M” (from Dan Harrington’s Harrington on Hold’em books) is the total “cost” to play one orbit, i.e., the blinds and antes. So here we’re talking about the small blind + the big blind + two antes. Harrington’s “M” figure doesn’t really have the same significance for heads up as it does in full-ring play, of course, although it does provide a way to talk about relative stack sizes between tourneys.

Last year Eastgate had an “M” of approximately 76 and Demidov about 55 when they began, and those two went for 105 more hands. Over at the WSOPE Main Event in 2008, John Juanda had an “M” of around 63 and Stanislav Alekhin of close to 41 when they began heads up, and those two went on for an epic 242 hands (like seven hours or something). That difference proves that “M” doesn’t necessarily help us predict how long heads up will go, since when the “M” is above a certain point how long they play mostly depends on players’ styles and their approach to the endgame.

For comparison’s sake, when they return tonight Cada will have an “M” of just over 75 and Moon just under 33. So theoretically, these guys could go on for a hundred or even two hundred hands, but I ain’t seeing that happening.

One difference from the 2008 WSOP and WSOPE Main Events is the fact that Cada has a more than two-to-one chip advantage here. That alone decreases the likelihood that we’ll see the sort of patience demonstrated in the other examples, although again -- theoretically -- it doesn’t mean they can’t be patient.

However, here I think it is clear that the amateur Moon is not interested in trying to outplay Cada after the flop very much, and so will be encouraged both by his chip disadvantage and skill disadvantage to start shoving right away. In fact, I’d be very surprised if Moon did not begin moving all in from the very first hands tonight. (That said, we’ve been surprised by Moon before!)

Cada certainly improves his chances if he shows some patience and waits for a decent hand with which to accept that first invitation to an all-in challenge, although if Moon does force the issue this way and try to negate (or at least mute) Cada’s skill advantage, the kid is still going to have to have a hand hold up to win the sucker.

We might well see some post-flop poker tonight, but it appears more likely it’s gonna be flipping coins. Moon’ll have to win that first one in order to have a second go. If he does, then Cada will have to win the next one in order to survive. Both made it this far via a combination of skill and luck, but it sure seems that luck will prevail tonight.

Or not. Which is why I’ll be staying up to see what happens. Will be truckin’ over to PokerNews’ live reporting page as usual, where FerricRamsium and Donnie Peters will chronicle the hands, and Gloria Balding will interview the players.

See you there!

2009 WSOP Main Event: Cada Can Do, But Moon Has Shot

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:00:00 +0000

Wild finish this morning at the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, with the Michigan youngster Joe Cada hitting hands at the right time and the Maryland logger Darvin Moon likewise running good and surviving some sketchy plays to make it to heads up.

Looked for a while like Antoine Saout and Eric Buchman -- who finished third and fourth, respectively -- were both poised to be there for the tourney’s conclusion on Monday night. But both suffered some misfortune, thereby paving the way for Cada and Moon.

Much will be made of how Cada, whose whopping stack of almost 136 million means he presently has over two-thirds of the chips, survived not one but two all-in confrontations in which he had the worst pocket pair and flopped a set. The first came in Hand No. 195 versus Jeff Shulman. Cada, the table’s short stack at the time with less than 11 million, open-shoved from the small blind with pocket treys only to get instacalled by Shulman who had pocket jacks in the BB. A trey flopped, and Cada stuck around.

Then, once they were down to three-handed, Cada survived in similar fashion in one of the last hands of the night-slash-morning. After Moon folded his button, Cada opened with a raise to 2.55 million from the SB (blinds 500,000/1,000,000). Saout reraised to 7.3 million, Cada thought for a while then announced he was all in, committing his entire 39 million or so. Saout quickly called, showing pocket queens to Cada’s lowly pair of deuces. But a third deuce flopped, Cada’s hand held up, and a little later he’d finish Saout off when his A-K outraced the Frenchman’s pocket eights.

Sometime earlier in the night Cada had survived yet another all in with pocket fours against Phil Ivey’s A-8. So them baby pairs served the baby-faced Cada quite well.

Meanwhile, the not-so-baby faced Moon made several strange plays during the course of the 276 hands played -- already a new record for the longest WSOP Main Event final table in history. (Photo via Katkin for Pokerati.) The forums have already seized upon some of those early hands, such as the early one in which he stumbled into doubling Saout up while holding A-4, or the bizarre one versus Steven Begleiter when he check-raised the former Bear Stearns exec for almost all his chips, then amazingly folded after Begleiter pushed.

(Incidentally, check out this silly article over on Bloomberg about Begleiter’s sixth-place finish. As Change100 noted on Twitter, the author seems to believe the dollar-value of the chips are equivalent to cash!)

As play wound down, there was an eight-hand sequence in which Moon shoved all in three times (Hands No. 249-256), appearing perhaps to be ready to gamble it up once and for all. He wasn’t called on any of those occasions, however. He’d then sit back and watch as Buchman lost most of his stack to Saout in an A-Q vs. A-K hand. Moon would then double Buchman up once, but knocked him out in the next hand (Hand No. 271). That would be the last big one Moon would play, as Cada and Saout’s two big hands shortly followed, and Moon had survived to play Monday with just under 59 million.

If I’m not mistaken, then, Darvin Moon was the only player at the final table never to have had all of his chips at risk -- i.e., not once did he find himself all in and called by an opponent who had him covered. And, in fact, in that interview from July with The Poker Edge, he noted that he’d never once faced that situation during the eight days of play this summer, either.

So out of 6,494 players who entered this sucker, just one can (still) say he’s never been all in with his tourney life on the line.

Have to doubt Moon will be able to continue that streak, though, once he and Cada begin play on Monday. It is possible he could chip up and take the lead without going all in, but it doesn’t seem like that is going to happen. Cada has the edge in both skill and chips, and Moon seems as though he is ready to make it a gambling game, if he can, in order to increase his chances.

Last year heads up lasted over 100 hands, and there were many complaints that ESPN only ultimately showed two of them. This year, there may be only two hands to show. Or just one!

How ever many it is, I know I’ll be watching.

Wakey Wakey... 2009 WSOP Main Event Final Table Continues

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:33:00 +0000

Vera’s mother visited this weekend, and she brought us some snacks and this big ol’ bag of coffee. Good thing, too, ’cos they are still goin’ over at the Rio. Time to drink up.

Spoilers here, y’all. But I imagine anyone landing here should know that.

At the moment, four players remain -- Antoine Saout, Eric Buchman, Darvin Moon, and Joe Cada -- all of whom are just above or below the 50-million chip mark. (Average with four players left is a little under 49 mil.) Has been 16 hours or so since the first hand of the final table was dealt, and with the blinds currently 400,000/800,000 (with a 100,000 ante), it might be a while longer before they get down to the final two.

Some time ago, Ivey got short and in Hand No. 175 pushed his last 6.5 million or so with A-K and was called by Darvin Moon who held A-Q. A queen flopped, no king came for Ivey, and the player with seven WSOP bracelets was out in seventh. A dozen hands later, Steve Begleiter hit the rail in sixth, again victimized by Moon. “Begs” was all in with pocket queens, Moon again had A-Q, and they made it to the river before the ace popped out. Then in Hand No. 236, a short-stacked Jeff Shulman lost a race with pocket sevens against Saout’s A-Q to go out in fifth.

F-Train and FerricRamsium still continue to trade off the reporting of hands over at PokerNews, and they’re killin’ it. As B.J. Nemeth once noted with regard to poker tourney reporting, these guys are writing the “first draft of history,” and they’re doing a helluva a job.

Oh, and Phil Hellmuth is still talking about how great of a player he is over on the Bluff Magazine audio broadcast. Actually I like Hellmuth’s commentary for the most part, and have enjoyed what I’ve heard over there when I’ve been tuning in.

Sounds like what they are experiencing at the Penn & Teller Theater is a lot like what we thought would happen back in July on Day 8 -- when the last 27 players returned to those deep, deep stacks and everyone said it’d be the morning before play was concluded. Chips went a-flyin’, though, and the final nine were determined before 11 p.m.

So these nine returned to even deeper stacks. And day moved into night. And now night into day.

Okay, got a fresh cup here. Let’s all head back over to PokerNews’ live reporting page to see which two from these four make it through to Monday night. And we should remember also to trip over to Dr. Pauly’s live blog of the proceedings, too.

Moon Begs the Question... WTF?

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 03:49:00 +0000

They are on dinner break at the 2009 November Nine. James Akenhead is out in ninth, followed by Kevin Schaffel in eighth. Of the seven who remain, Eric Buchman is on top, Phil Ivey is starting to gather chips, and Jeff Shulman the short stack. An interesting first 112 hands to follow thus far, with a couple of pocket aces-vs.-pocket kings situations and some other drama here and there.

Not much doubt, though, what hand most of the poker world is talking about over dinner. That would be Hand No. 90, designated by our buddy FerricRamsium on the PokerNews live blog as “Begleiter Shoots the Moon.”

With seven players left, the blinds were 200,000/400,000 and antes 50,000. That means there was 950,000 in the middle when then chip leader Darvin Moon (with a little over 61 million when the hand began) opened with a raise to 1.3 million from UTG. Ivey folded, then Steven Begleiter (who had 24.3 million at the start of the hand) reraised to 3.9 million from the hijack seat. It folded back around to Moon who called. Pot a little over 7.5 million at this point.

The flop came . Moon checked quickly, then “Begs” bet 5.35 million. Was listening to the audio play-by-play over at Bluff Magazine at the time. Joe Sebok, David Chicotsky, and (I believe) Mark Kroon were at the microphones, and they started getting excited as it appeared Moon was carving out chips to make a check-raise. That he did, to a whopping 15 million.

Then after a bit of a think Begleiter said he was all in. The pot was now over 44 million, and if my math is correct Moon was only looking at something like 5.4 million to make the call. On the broadcast, Sebok and company began to become increasingly incredulous as Moon somehow did not snap-call. Then, amazingly, it began to look like he was even contemplating folding!

And then he did! Andrew Feldman reported a little later via Twitter that Moon held K-Q offsuit -- not sure where he got that, but apparently Moon was doing a lot of talking afterwards, attempting to explain why he gave up on the hand despite facing something like 8-to-1 pot odds to make the call. When the hand was over, “Begs” had a little over 44 million, Moon had slipped to 42 million, and Eric Buchman had become the new chip leader with 51 million.

The hand most obviously recalls the big one between Dennis Phillips and Ivan Demidov from last year’s final table (Hand No. 18) -- you can read details of that one here. You recall that hand, in which some preflop back-and-forthing between Phillips and Demidov created a bloated pot preflop, then after leading with a smallish flop bet Phillips folded to Demidov’s shove, thereby losing half of his stack.

In that hand, Phillips had gotten himself into a tricky spot from out of position, and so ultimately found it necessary to abandon ship. Additionally, since Demidov had a slight chip lead over Phillips when the hand began, Phillips was in danger of being the first elimination from the final table after beginning the night with the chip lead. So he folded, staying alive in the tourney, and while he’d lose some more chips soon after that he’d rebound well enough to finish third.

Phillips most certainly made mistakes in that one, but even so, there was nothing especially bizarre about the hand. Even if he’d misplayed the hand, it wasn’t that difficult to see how he’d gotten himself into an uncomfortable spot by making what could be called “poker decisions” -- in other words, there was a way to follow his thinking that fit within the normal parameters of how hands tend to be played.

But Moon’s fold tonight. That was... well, like out of this world, man.

As Joe Sebok said on the broadcast, Moon could have a Tarot card and a Snickers wrapper and he should still be calling in that spot.

We’ll see on Tuesday whether or not Moon indeed had K-Q offsuit there, but really, it doesn’t matter. Of course the Maryland logger had so many chips prior to that blunder he still is in great shape with 41 million (second behind Buchman’s 51 million). Will be most intriguing to see what Moon is holding the next time he gets involved in a big hand.

Indeed, my main rooting interest at this juncture is to hope both Moon and Ivey stay alive as long as possible, as the tournament will necessarily remain especially interesting as long as one or both are there. ’Cos really, while Moon and Ivey may have almost nothing in common as players, there is one characteristic both share -- you never know what either might do.

Whatever happens, be assured that FerricRamsium and F-Train will be reporting it over at PokerNews.

2009 WSOP Main Event Final Table: Welcome Back, November Nine

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:57:00 +0000

The final table of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event is set to begin about six hours from now. Have other, life stuff going on, and so I will be coming and going throughout the afternoon and evening (and maybe early morning) as far as following the coverage goes.

I will definitely be checking in on the coverage over on PokerNews, where I expect we’ll be seeing every hand reported in the live blog. I’ll also be tuning in over at Bluff Magazine to their audio play-by-play, which depending on who is doing the commentating can add a lot to one’s enjoyment when following tourneys from afar.

Am not going to try to make any predictions, but did decide to share a few thoughts regarding each of the nine players. (All them pics courtesy the great Flipchip.)

1. Darvin Moon (Seat 1) -- 58,930,000

In interviews Moon insists he’s the worst player of the final nine. He also suggests he’s intending to sit tight rather than be the big stack bully early on, waiting for good cards/spots and not giving courtesy double-ups. Many have expressed doubts about both claims. I’m going to guess that Moon does, for the most part, sit tight early on, though I expect he’ll still open pots from late position and/or when picking up big hands. Sure, he can fold his way to third or fourth, but I don’t really see that happening. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him in a relatively early confrontation or two versus a short-stacked opponent, whether or not he desires such. How those go will likely dictate how Moon’s endgame goes -- if he were to slip back to the middle of the pack, I wouldn’t be at all surprised for him to turtle up big time.

2. Eric Buchman (Seat 6) -- 34,800,000

A ten-year pro, Buchman really only became a big stack near the very end of the eight days in July. As an experienced tourney player who already had about $1 million in tourney winnings prior to making this deep run, Buchman is a favored pick among many. The fact that he’ll get to act directly after Begleiter on most hands early on is probably a big plus as well. Many expect Begleiter to be a somewhat unpredictable element, given his amateur status and big stack, so Buchman is in good shape to choose when and where he wants to try to outplay the amateur. Of course, the short stacks on his right (Cada and Saout) may force him to abandon some hands, too. Gotta believe he’s in a good spot here and so can’t really disagree with those picking him.

3. Steven Begleiter (Seat 5) -- 29,885,000

The former bank executive is considered by most to be the one player with an above-average stack who is most likely to get himself into trouble in the early going. His amateur status, coupled with the memory of certain hands aired on ESPN in which he appeared more fortunate than skillful, has led most to view Begleiter as a target, especially for the short stacks seeking double-ups in favorable circumstances. That said, I think Begleiter -- who apparently hired Jonathan Little as a coach -- is probably aware of how he is perceived, and may well use his image to an advantage. Can’t really imagine “Begs” making it to heads-up, though stranger things have happened.

4. Jeff Shulman (Seat 9) -- 19,580,000

You’re hearing a lot of references to this being Shulman’s second WSOP Main Event final table, although technically his seventh-place finish at the 2000 WSOP ME landed him just shy of the then six-handed FT. Even so, he and Ivey obviously are the only players among this year’s November Nine who have ever gotten anywhere near capturing the ME event bracelet before. Yesterday I mentioned that interview with Phil Hellmuth on ESPN’s podcast, The Poker Edge (11/5/09). Hellmuth, whom Shulman hired to coach him for this final table, spoke of their extensive study of the other players’ styles and tendencies. With or without any guidance from others, Shulman is a crafty player who is capable of a variety of moves and who gives off little in the way of tells. He’s also smart enough to avoid unnecessary risks, as shown more than once in the ESPN coverage. Don’t know if Shulman can actually win here, but I would be very surprised not to see him part of the final five.

5. Joe Cada (Seat 7) -- 13,215,000

According to the media guide, the 21-year-old from Michigan accumulated some nice online scores prior to making his live tourney debut, earning over half a million clams, buying a house at 19, and (understandably) quitting community college. The hands shown on ESPN involving Cada mostly cast him in a favorable light, and some are quite high on his chances to break Eastgate’s record as youngest-ever ME winner. It will be interesting to see how he appears to view his 13 million-plus chip stack -- technically, he’s below average, and after just a few minutes of play when they move into Level 34, he’ll be sitting there with an “M” of less than 20. Will he feel urgency at that point or will he be sitting back while those with even fewer chips push the action?

6. Kevin Schaffel (Seat 4) -- 12,390,000

Interestingly -- though perhaps not surprisingly -- the three players at the final table whom everyone agrees should be designated “amateurs” are the three oldest players at the table: Moon (46), Begleiter (47), and Schaffel, who at 52 is the November Nine’s elder statesman. Schaffel does appear to have a lot more experience to draw from than the other two amateurs, though, having earned more than half a million in tourney winnings even before this event. He’s also made a couple of impressive runs in the Main Event before, finishing 42nd in 2004 and 324th in 2008. Of the nine, Schaffel was probably the least covered player by ESPN, and I also don’t remember reporting many (if any) hands of his when I was there this summer. So, like many -- perhaps including, most importantly, the other eight players -- I haven’t a lot to go on when assessing his chances.

7. Phil Ivey (Seat 3) -- 9,765,000

As was the case at the end of the summer, all eyes will be on poker’s “Tiger Woods.” Was listening to the Casino City Gang’s podcast from this week -- a new one I’ve started following and regularly enjoy -- and they noted with fascination how according to some sites Ivey had actually become the favorite to win it all thanks to the bets placed thus far. Obviously with Ivey -- as with Saout and Akenhead -- there’s little chance he gets anywhere today without successfully finding an early double-up. Then, who knows. Ivey becomes a true terror if he has the chips to make others abandon their hands, which -- as we saw over and over again this summer -- they will do. I’d love to see Ivey last as long as possible, but have to believe it is going to be a difficult afternoon for him.

8. Antoine Saout (Seat 8) -- 9,500,000

The Frenchman only received a bit more coverage than Schaffel on ESPN. He folded the better hand versus Ivey once. On another occasion he boldly bluffed Begleiter out of a pot with the worse hand and no draw. And he did make the WSOPE final table, too, where he finished seventh. Saout did a lot of folding near the end to survive to November, although I think now it is most likely we’ll see him (like Ivey and Akenhead) trying to make an early move to get back into contention. Remember with these short stacks that the differences in payouts among these bottom spots aren’t terribly huge: e.g., it is just a $40,000 jump from ninth to eighth, and just $104,000 from eighth to seventh. So unlike last year, when getting to eighth meant Kelly Kim won $1.28 million rather than $900K, there won’t be much incentive for the shorties to wait around in the early going.

9. James Akenhead (Seat 2) -- 6,800,000

The British pro is probably the second-most respected player at the table besides Ivey, having a number of significant cashes over the last two years, including that runner-up in a 2008 WSOP $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event (in which 3,929 entered) and a ninth-place finish at the 2009 WSOPE Main Event. Will be very dangerous should he get that double-up, and could well upset all sorts of imagined scenarios if he manages to accumulate a stack that allows him to play poker.

(EDIT [added 11/9/09]: Incidentally, if you happened to come to this post via that YouTube video with “Hard-Boiled Poker” in the title, I have no idea what the vid is or why it references “Hard-Boiled Poker.” Looks like some sort of content-grabbing thing?)

2009 November Nine Just Hours Away... Time for Special Tactics!

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:43:00 +0000

Today was listening back to some of these interviews with November Nine-alists on The Poker Edge from the past few weeks. Great stuff, and Andrew Feldman and the crew is continuing to produce shows right up until tomorrow’s final table. Don’t forget Feldman’s also got a blog goin’ over there on the ESPN Poker Club with polls and other whatnot, so check that out as well.

One of the eps I was listening to today was that one with chip leader Darvin Moon (the 9/25/09 episode). Just as we read earlier this week in Matt Waldron’s interview with Moon (from a while back), Moon insists on The Poker Edge that in that huge hand with Billy Kopp that his impression was the board had not paired on the turn. No shinola!

You’ll recall that when the flop came both he and Kopp had flopped diamond flushes, with Moon holding , and Kopp . The turn brought the , Moon checked, Kopp bet 2 million, Moon check-raised to 6 million, Kopp shoved, and Moon called. Kopp was drawing dead.

“The flop come ,” says Moon to Feldman and co-host Phil Gordon, getting that third card wrong. “I checked and he checked.” Actually, Moon checked, Kopp bet 750,000 (a little under half the pot), and Moon called.

“Turn card come ,” Moon continues. (Photo courtesy the great Flipchip.) “I checked, he bet 2 million, so I went all in, and when he said ‘all in’ my heart ’bout jumped on the table.”

I don’t believe Moon was misremembering the final sequence of bets -- he didn’t go all in first. Rather, he was just stumbling a little in the retelling, as made clear by his subsequent words. “When that happened, I mean I just leaned back in my chair, leaned back forward, and I said ‘I call.’”

Moon goes on to say how Kopp turned over . “Didn’t the board pair on the turn?” asks Feldman. “No,” says Moon. Gordon reiterates that the board paired on the turn, but Moon insists “No, the board didn’t pair. It might’ve paired on the river. But it didn’t pair on the turn. The turn come the . I’m very confident of that.”

“Interesting,” says Gordon.

After the interview was over Gordon and Feldman revisit the issue, and both seem ready to believe Moon, though as we all saw back in July -- and as was confirmed by the ESPN telecast earlier this week -- the original reports of the hand were correct.

In other words, Kopp, for whom the board pairing on the turn absolutely dictated his play on that street (see his explanation here), was playing against a guy who hadn’t noticed the board had paired! Doomed, he was.

Gotta love Moon, though. “Are you paying much attention to the telecasts?” Gordon asks him. There’s a pause.

“On the teevee?” Moon responds.

Moon has absolutely no desire to change his lifestyle one iota, regardless of how this sucker turns out. “I’ve got everything I want,” he says. “I don’t need anything. I mean, I’m 45 years old. I’ve live my first 45 years like this. Why change?”

That attitude similarly applies to his decision not to seek any sort of coaching for the final table.

“See, I’m not hiring no coach. I don’t understand all that. I’ve been called and asked if I would like to have coaching, and... naw. I mean, I’m going in there the same way I went in the last time. Just with a game plan of my own and if it works, it works, and if it don’t, it don’t.”

Speaking of coaches, the interview with Phil Hellmuth -- who is coaching Jeff Shulman -- from yesterday (the 11/5/09 episode) is pretty fascinating as well. Do note the Poker Brat has supplied Shulman with a “special tactic” that will “shock the world” when used. Awesome!

(Of course, one wonders how well them special tactics will work if the opponent ain’t clear on the community cards!)

Can’t wait.

Shamus the Scribbler Betfair Bound

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:30:00 +0000

With the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event restart just a day away, most all of our thoughts are focused toward the Nevada desert. I’ll likely be posting some here later today and over the weekend, as I can’t imagine being able to resist commenting on the proceedings in some fashion. Might as well warn anyone who doesn’t want to know how things are going to avoid Hard-Boiled Poker (and just about every other poker-related site, too) until the show finally airs on ESPN Tuesday night.

I’ve yet to join any of the “pick’em” pools that have sprung up all around us during the last few days. I might still do so, but am kind of reluctant, partly because I don’t really want to follow the final table with any particular rooting interest regarding who finishes seventh, sixth, fifth, etc.

Like anyone else, I’m highly intrigued by the prospect of a Phil Ivey win, and I’ve also given some thought to the various consequences for each of the others coming out on top -- the whole “is it good for poker?” thing. A question which, by the way, the always cogent Nicole Gordon has addressed very well regarding each of the November Nine over at PokerNews.

But really, I’m just excited to see how all nine of these guys handle the situation. And to see what cards come their way.

Of course, while I am certainly thinking about what’s happening at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino over the next few days, my thoughts are turned in the opposite direction as well -- across the Atlantic toward the U.K. Why? That’s because today marks the debut of a new column of mine over on Betfair!

Some of you recognize Betfair as the sponsoring site for the recent World Series of Poker Europe. It’s the largest online betting company in the U.K., and includes a fairly popular online poker site under its tent. The recently-turned-21 Annette Obrestad is probably the site’s best known sponsored pro.

Included on its site is a nifty poker blog to which Betfair has invited me to begin contributing. Am starting out today with a book review of James McManus’s Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, a book I have written about here a bit. I also interviewed McManus last week, and for my next Betfair piece will be sharing that interview. The plan at present is for me to be posting over there once per week, and it looks like Fridays will be my day.

If you don’t have the Betfair blog already listed there in your favorite reader, here is the RSS feed. And if you happen to check out the review, do let me know what you think!

I’ll be posting more book reviews over there, I expect, as well as other pieces covering different poker-related subjects. I’ve already used two exclamation points in this post, so you can probably tell I’m fairly psyched about starting the new column. Much thanks to Dave Allan and the folks at Betfair for bringing me aboard.

Meanwhile, I’ll be talking to you again over here soon.

2009 WSOP November Nine Tidbits... plus Tender Cuts, Nuggets, and Snack Sticks

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:23:00 +0000

Our buddy Kevmath over on Pokerati has linked us up to the official media guide for the 2009 World Series of Poker November Nine, a 26-page document which I assume was primarily pulled together by our other friend, the indefatigable Media Director of the WSOP, Nolan Dalla. Thought I’d pass along a few interesting trivia bits from the guide regarding this weekend’s festivities.

Play begins at the Penn & Teller Theater in the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino on Saturday at noon Vegas time, with the remaining nine playing down to the final two. Those two players will then return on Monday night at 10 p.m. Vegas time to play it out. Once again, here are those chippies and seat assignments:

Seat 1: Darvin Moon (1st, 58,930,000)
Seat 2: James Akenhead (9th, 6,800,000)
Seat 3: Phil Ivey (7th, 9,765,000)
Seat 4: Kevin Schaffel (6th, 12,390,000)
Seat 5: Steven Begleiter (3rd, 29,885,000)
Seat 6: Eric Buchman (2nd, 34,800,000)
Seat 7: Joe Cada (5th, 13,215,000)
Seat 8: Antoine Saout (8th, 9,500,000)
Seat 9: Jeff Shulman (4th, 19,580,000)

They are almost finished with Level 33 (just seven-plus minutes left), where the blinds are 120,000/240,000, and antes 30,000. That means after just a few hands they’ll be posting blinds of 150,000/300,000 and antes of 40,000.

Leafing through the guide, we learn a few new things about the players (in “thumbnail bios”). More interesting is a breakdown of the scheduled payouts:

1st -- $8,547,042
2nd -- $5,182,928
3rd -- $3,479,670
4th -- $2,502,890
5th -- $1,953,452
6th -- $1,587,160
7th -- $1,404,014
8th -- $1,300,231
9th -- $1,263,602

All nine players have already received ninth-place prize money ($1,263,602). The guide tells us that the remaining $15 million-plus was placed “in a risk-free Goldman Sachs Treasury-Only Money Market interest-bearing account,” and over the course of three-and-a-half months accrued $1,321 interest.

Yeah, that’s what it says. $1,321. As Mean Gene says in a comment over on Pokerati, that piddling total of “$1,321 wouldn’t cover the Jack’s Links Beef Jerky tab for Media Row for one week during the WSOP.”

Something highly weird going on with that figure, as last year a similar process was followed and the yet-to-be-awarded prize money had earned nearly $100,000 in interest during the 100-plus day wait for the final table. In any event, the interest was only added to the top eight spots, so the first guy to go on Saturday will not be taking home anything more than what he’s already received. That first-place prize easily eclipses the largest cash prizes earned in any other individual sport, the closest being the $3,048,055 Hélio Castroneves earned for winning the Indianapolis 500 in May of this year.

There is also a section explaining that a pro hasn’t won since 2001 (Carlos Mortensen). According to the guide, four of the nine players at this year’s final table are recognized as professionals -- Akenhead, Buchman, Cada, and Ivey -- with two more (Shulman and Saout) described as “semi-pros.” It’s a fuzzy distinction, really, but I’d think if Ivey, Shulman, Buchman, or Akenhead won, there wouldn’t be too much disputing the claim that the seven-year streak of amateurs winning the Main Event had been snapped. I guess Cada, too, although the dude had only been old enough to play live poker legally in the U.S. for six months or so prior to the start of this year’s WSOP.

Also of note, in 2009 there were a total of 60,875 player registrations for the 57 bracelet events, breaking last year’s record of 58,720.

There’s some other stuff about the planned Hall of Fame ceremony during which Mike Sexton will be officially enshrined. And way, way more info about Jack Link’s Beef Jerky than one could ever hope for, including a comprehensive rundown of the company’s various offerings. Most distressing: something called the “Sasquatch Big Stick,” which comes in “Angry” and “Happy” flavors.

Uh, no thanks. Not messin’ with that.

Kopp Busted!

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:11:00 +0000

Last night ESPN aired the final hours of its coverage from this summer’s World Series of Poker, culminating a lengthy run of 24 hours of programming devoted to the Main Event. As I have been noting here, I was coming and going a lot during the coverage of the first few days of the ME, but by the end I was pretty much riveted.

The two hours last night -- in which the final 18 players played down to nine -- were particularly intriguing, with lots of non-bustout hands shown. This was the first time all tourney that ESPN had all of the remaining players sitting in front of hole card cameras, as both the main feature table and the secondary table were equipped. So they had a lot of flexibility to pick and choose hands beyond the nine in which players were eliminated, and I think they made some good choices.

One of the more surprising hands to see was a bustout hand, actually. I’m talking about the one in which Ian Tavelli opened to 450,000 from under the gun (not quite a 3x raise, as the big blind was 160,000), then was reraised to 1.35 million by Steve Begleiter sitting to his left. Thanks to the hole card cameras, we see that Tavelli had pocket nines and Begleiter pocket kings. When the hand began, Tavelli had about 7.7 million and Begleiter about 20 million.

Then we watch James Akenhead, who I believe had around 8 million or so, look down at in middle position, and after a short think decide to toss his suited Big Slick. Next in line comes Eric Buchman in the hijack seat, who had something like 16 million, and we see him folding pocket tens. Joe Cada then looks down at pocket jacks (!). Cada takes a gander around the table, and he also chooses not to commit any of his 14 million chips or so.

A lot of big hands, and it seemed surprising to see that trio all choose to step aside. I have no idea what sort of image Tavelli had there, as he hadn’t been at any of my tables, so perhaps that UTG raise meant something. I had been watching Begleiter quite a bit just prior to his having been moved over to the main feature table, and while he had shown a willingness to gamble now and then, his amateur status might’ve made his reraise with the entire table left to act especially menacing. And perhaps Phil Ivey sitting in the big blind had some effect on how things went in that hand as well.

Ivey folded, however, Tavelli pushed, and “Begs” called. His kings held, and Tavelli was gone in 17th.

I’ve said before how I was at the secondary table that night (along with F-Train). Interestingly, once they had gotten to 18 and gone to two tables, the next four eliminations all took place at the main feature table. Then we went to dinner, and after coming back the next three -- Ben Lamb (14th), James Calderaro (13th), and Billy Kopp (12th) -- all happened at our table. Lamb and Calderaro’s eliminations were fairly anticlimactic, as both had gotten very short-stacked just prior to their bustouts.

But Kopp’s... well, as discussed here before, that was something different.

When watching it live, everything happened so quickly there really was no time to react or feel any sort of anticipation. It was essentially “hmm... the two big stacks at the table are mixing it up,” then suddenly Kopp was standing up and wincing, then walking away.

I’m assuming you watched the hand -- in which Kopp lost 80-plus big blinds -- and so I won’t rehearse the details. You can read F-Train’s write-up of the hand here. Also of interest is Ryan Nelson’s interview with Kopp from September over on PokerNews, in which Kopp explains what he was thinking at each stage of the hand. (Incidentally, contrast Kopp’s approach here with that of the folders over at the main feature table.)

Watching the hand again last night was a little disorienting, that massive doom cloud hanging over Kopp’s head kind of affecting my focus. (Don’t, don’t, don’t!) One thing I was able to notice was that ESPN’s editing didn’t seem to alter the timing of the hand all that much.

That is to say, if my memory serves, the amount of time each player appeared to take to make each decision was pretty much what you saw last night. In other words, I believe Kopp really took about a half-minute there before announcing he was all in, and Moon about 15 seconds or so to make the call.

Kevmath was noting on Twitter last night how eerily quiet the crowd seemed after the hands were revealed. That I remember as well. WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla was working alongside F-Train and myself that night. When the hands were revealed, it took us all a couple of beats to realize what was happening.

“He’s drawing dead?” asked Dalla quizzically. “He is,” we answered unsteadily. It didn’t seem possible.

Kopp had a small, vocal cheering section there, but Moon’s wife (shown on ESPN a few times) kept as reserved as her husband. So no big roars at Moon’s win, and really, Kopp (and his supporters) took less time storming out of there than it took the rest of us to piece together what we’d just seen.

Good stuff, for sure. And now I’m totally hooked to see how it plays out this weekend. As was the case last year, Bluff Magazine will be doing some sort of live audio commentary with graphical updates of chip counts. And, of course, PokerNews will be there as well, finishing out the live blog for Event 57.

Best wishes to all my buds heading out to Vegas and the Rio this weekend to cover the sucker. You know I’ll be following.

(EDIT [added 11/5/09]: As Sean G points out in his comment, a highly interesting twist to the big Moon-Kopp hand was the fact that Moon apparently did not realize the board had paired with that deuce on the turn. See the follow-up piece over at PokerNews for further details.)

2009 WSOP Main Event Still Incomplete (But Not for Long)

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:58:00 +0000

Back in college, I was never one of those students who was much inclined to take an “Incomplete” for a course. Always preferred to get the sucker done and move on to the next round of classes without having a last assignment hanging over my head.

I do recall one occasion when I had to take an “I” after I’d screwed up a final paper (doing it on the wrong topic), and thus was given an “Incomplete” by the professor so as to give me a chance for a redo. Being the relatively conscientious student I was, I submitted the new paper early the next semester, but the procrastinating prof. ended up taking a year-and-a-half to take care of the grade. (No shinola.)

Wasn’t that big of a deal, but I recall sometimes thinking it wasn’t too cool to have that “I” following me like that. That “I” wasn’t me!

The idea of having to take an “Incomplete” came back to me again this weekend as I noted we’re now less than a week away from the final table of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event. Finally, finally, finally we'll get to see who will be this year’s champ.

I continue to dislike the delay in principle, but will admit to having gotten caught up in the hype a bit more this time around. Indeed, I am starting to realize how much I’ll miss being at the Rio this weekend to see the thing through, something I didn’t feel much at all last year.

I’ve had the tremendous opportunity the last two summers to live in Las Vegas and help cover the World Series of Poker. Have written at length here about my experiences (here’s a compilation of the 2008 reports, and here’s one from 2009). This past summer I was able to stick around right up to the end of play there on Day 8, a wild, adrenaline-fueled day and night punctuated by jaw-dropping hands that sent the huge, boisterous crowd of onlookers in the Amazon into hysterics time and again.

We all thought that last day was going to go deep into the next morning. If you recall, players began this year’s Main Event with triple stacks of 30,000 chips, meaning that by the time we reached this latter stage of the tourney, most all the players had mountains of chips sitting before them. The average stack for the 27 players returning on Day 8 was more than 7.2 million. A stack of that size amounted to more than 70 big blinds when play resumed early that Wednesday afternoon.

I had a flight scheduled for Thursday morning at 8:15 a.m., and thus had even brought my bags to the Amazon Room, anticipating the possibility of having to go straight from the Rio to McCarran should play stretch into the early morning. As it happened, the players were moving chips much, much faster than anyone had expected they would. By the dinner break they were already down to 14, and soon after we returned a couple more bustouts happened, meaning there was still daylight outside when just a dozen remained. Then -- as I assume most of us will watch tonight on ESPN -- it was “boom, boom, boom” and the final nine were set.

Seat 1: Darvin Moon (1st, 58,930,000)
Seat 2: James Akenhead (9th, 6,800,000)
Seat 3: Phil Ivey (7th, 9,765,000)
Seat 4: Kevin Schaffel (6th, 12,390,000)
Seat 5: Steven Begleiter (3rd, 29,885,000)
Seat 6: Eric Buchman (2nd, 34,800,000)
Seat 7: Joe Cada (5th, 13,215,000)
Seat 8: Antoine Saout (8th, 9,500,000)
Seat 9: Jeff Shulman (4th, 19,580,000)

Amid the roar of hundreds, Robbie Thompson bellowed out the names of the nine who’d made it, his self-aware, step-right-up baritone neatly heightening the drama as we all came to the realization that the summer’s last hand of poker had been played. A genuinely climactic moment, it was.

I got to sleep in the hotel one last time that night. Then a cab to the airport. Then home. Like everyone else who’d spent the last seven-plus weeks in Vegas, I was more than ready.

Like I say, last year once November rolled around I really didn’t experience much of a pull Vegas-ward once the sucker finally got going again. From the standpoint of a fan, I didn’t have much of an emotional investment in any of the final nine. And from a reporter’s P.O.V., I guess my relative newness to the business of covering the WSOP prevented me from feeling presumptuous enough to think that I had any special insight to provide regarding the tourney’s completion.

This year is different, though. I know these guys much, much better than was the case last year, both from having been there covering them right to the end and from having sought out the stories and interviews with them during these intervening months. No, I’m not talking about those nonsensical, space-filler type articles out there that purport to profile the players but in truth offer very little. Rather, I’m referring to the more studied coverage in which reporters smartly tell the stories of the final nine and handicap their chances.

Just to point you to a few good examples, Card Player has a couple of “Meet the November Nine” articles that do a nice, comprehensive job of introducing the players -- Part I and Part II. And Stephen Murphy has further added to CP’s coverage with quality profiles of each player. A little tricky to negotiate the CP archives, but I’m seeing seven of those profiles posted thus far -- Akenhead, Begleiter, Buchman, Cada, Ivey, Saout, Schaffel. (I think the other two are coming to the website soon, if they haven’t already -- will add links to those when I see ’em.)

I’m also digging what ESPN is doing both on their new, web-based show “Inside Deal,” and on the Poker Edge podcast. Several of the nine players have appeared as guests on the Inside Deal thus far, including Begleiter, Buchman, Cada, Ivey, Moon, and Schaffel. (Click the names to get to their respective episodes.) And those six plus Shulman have all appeared on the Poker Edge podcast as well.

Finally, I’ve recommended before the analyses of all nine players’ chances by Spaceman and Riggstad over on AlCantHang’s “Poker from the Rail” blog. Those commentaries can be found in three separate posts -- Part 1 (Moon, Buchman, Begleiter), Part 2 (Shulman, Cada, Schaffel), and Part 3 (Ivey, Saout, Akenhead).

Check out all those links and you’ll be about as well-informed as you can be regarding the 2009 November Nine, I’d imagine.

Of course, there is no way to know everything -- in other words, our knowledge of these guys is necessarily going to be incomplete, no matter how much we read, hear, and watch. But our knowledge of how the November Nine made out at the 2009 WSOP Main Event will be completed soon enough.

Yep, one last assignment for these guys. Then we’ll see what kind of grade they earned.

Post-Production is 20/20

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:47:00 +0000

Heard an interesting follow-up to that hand shown on ESPN’s coverage of the 2009 World Series of Poker last week, the one in which Phil Ivey mistakenly mucked what would have been the winning hand at showdown.

You’ve probably either watched the hand or heard all about it by now. With 24 players left, Ivey opened with a preflop raise from under the gun with , and the table folded around to Jordan Smith who reraised from the big blind with . Both players ended up cautiously checking down the flop, turn, and river, with the river having put four spades on the board.

After Ivey checked behind on the end, Smith announced that he’d paired his ace. Ivey waited for Smith to show his hand, then surprisingly Ivey dropped his cards in front of the dealer, obviously not realizing he’d made a flush and thus held the better hand. The two million-plus chip pot went to Smith.

Barry Greenstein sporadically keeps an “audio blog” over on PokerRoad, and at the end of last week he spoke a bit about having talked to his friend Ivey about the hand.

Greenstein asked Ivey whether he knew about having mucked the winner prior to the hand being shown on ESPN, and Ivey said he did not. Ivey also said he was surprised no one called him before Greenstein did to tease him, but Greenstein explained that was because Ivey’s cell phone doesn’t work in Cabo, Mexico where he’s relaxing in preparation for the final table. (For those interested in Ivey’s “self-imposed exile” in Cabo, a recent “The Life of Ivey” video sheds some light.)

“I think this hand is never going to leave me,” Ivey told Greenstein, revealing that he does, in fact, at least have some awareness of how he’s perceived.

What I found most interesting in Greenstein’s audio blog, though, was the Bear’s report that Ivey’s first response after having seen the hand was to ask “Is there a way they [i.e., ESPN] could doctor the hands?” He told Greenstein he didn’t remember there having been four spades on the board, and wondered if perhaps there could have been some funny business post-production. Greenstein said he guessed it was possible to doctor the footage, but he doubted that it had been done.

As I mentioned last week, Change100 was reporting from the feature table that day. Indeed, in her report of that hand, all of those board cards just as they appeared on ESPN. So yeah, not that we really would have suspected it anyway, but I think it is safe to say there was no post-prod doctoring here.

Ivey’s question reminded me of something I’ve witnessed from time to time while covering televised final tables at the WSOP. We all know how the productions are highly edited, well-crafted programs designed to be watched as a seamless narrative. Thus you can assume there are numerous examples of inserted reaction shots and the like that aren’t perhaps representative of the strict chronology of how events actually occurred -- and indeed, I’ve been able to pick up on a few of those now and then when watching the shows of tables I’ve covered. But I’m with Greenstein in the belief that there are never any outright doctoring of hands.

However, it does happen that there will occasionally be some on-the-fly “restaging” during the course of a televised final table. I’ve seen it happen several times that during a brief pause in the action, a dealer might be asked to repeat the dealing of a flop, turn, or river in order for ESPN to get a better looking shot. Perhaps the cards didn’t come out neatly enough the first time around, or the dealer’s hand was obscuring one of the cards from the overhead camera, and so a second take is ordered up. I recall one time watching this happen and the crowd reacting, obviously confused about what was going on. Then everyone had a laugh afterwards as it became clear they were watching a recreation of a hand that had just occurred.

In his audio blog, Greenstein speculates that by the river Ivey had become convinced Smith was holding an ace in his hand, and so when the ace appeared on the river he’d completely overlooked the suits. Ivey said as much to Greenstein, noting how when it came to showdown, he was surprised to see Smith show A-9 offsuit, since Smith had reraised him from out of position. When he saw Smith’s hand, Ivey was, to employ one of Norman Chad’s favorite terms, “bamboozled.” So surprising it was to see his opponent’s hand, Ivey forgot his own.

Greenstein goes on to say how common it is to misread one’s hand, even among the pros, and expressed doubts that anyone who claims never to have misread his or her hand is telling the truth.

As I mentioned last week, Ivey’s misstep was hardly the biggest one that happened on that Day 8. Will certainly be watching tomorrow night. Indeed, there’s one hand in particular -- one which back in July I said “sort of emblematize[d] the entire frenzied last day” -- I know I want to see. Even if I know already how it turned out, and even remember all of the reactions of the individuals involved.

’Cos, well, those editors... they can do some neat stuff.

Talking WSOP Main Event Final Table: ESPN Conference Call

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:44:00 +0000

Had a very enjoyable conversation with Jim McManus yesterday, whose new book, Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, has finally come out this week. I wrote a little something about the book here last week. I’ve also been invited to review it for a couple of other places, and my interview of McManus will additionally be appearing on a website near you -- not this one -- in the not-too-distant future. (More on that to come!)

We talked a lot about the new book, as well poker writing in general. I had a list of questions and got through just about all of them, although I noticed afterwards one question had gone unasked. Since McManus is not only a person who has studied World Series of Poker history, but has helped write it and, in fact, is part of that history himself (having made the WSOP Main Event final table back in 2000), I had meant to ask him his thoughts regarding the current state of the WSOP Main Event, in particular his opinion on the delayed final table. But we’d gotten onto other things and that one fell through the cracks.

As it happened, around the time I was chatting with McManus, ESPN was having a conference call with the media to talk about the upcoming final table, which finally will be getting started in just a little over a week. George McNeilly, Senior Director of Corporate and Consumer Communications for ESPN, moderated the call, with Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, the WSOP show commentators, and Doug White, the Senior Director of Programming and Acquisitions for ESPN, offering their thoughts and fielding the questions. I had a chance to listen to that call later on, thanks to our buds over at Pokerati.

Things began with McNeilly noting that there will be a live blog over on ESPN.com (kept by Andrew Feldman, I’m assuming), as well as a “poker pick’em” game with trivia questions about the final table. Chad noted early on that he was particularly focused on the storylines of Phil Ivey, Joe Cada (trying to become the youngest ME winner ever), and “the logger coming out of the woods,” Darvin Moon. Later on Chad would say the presence of these three players and their stories made this year’s FT the “most fascinating” for him “since we started doing it in 2003.” Later a reporter from The Washington Post tried to characterize these nine players as “one of the least charismatic groups you’ll ever see,” but both Chad and McEachern begged to differ.

The first questions concerned coaching -- it appears Jeff Shulman is the only one of the players thus far to have publicly acknowledged having hired a coach (Phil Hellmuth) -- and the effect of the delay. Then Stephen Murphy of Card Player asked an interesting question about that Phil Ivey hand aired earlier this week, the one in which Ivey mucked the winner at showdown.

“My first reaction was somehow something was wrong with the tape,” said Chad, who called it “a stunning thing to see.” McEachern added that Ivey’s gaffe proved “this [kind of mistake] does happen even to the best, because the grind tests every fiber of a player’s mind and spirit.” They added that as far as they knew, Ivey may not have known he had made the mistake until the show aired this week. Would they ask him about it? Of course, said Chad, who guessed that Ivey would probably say “‘Thank goodness it didn’t happen in the Big Game.’”

Midway through the call they took a break to give summaries of all nine players. One interesting point made by Chad was the fact that of these nine, there are three players in their 20s, three in their 30s, and three in their 40s and 50s. McEachern said he favors Eric Buchman to win it all, and Chad said he thought Moon would not bully the table with his big stack but instead play it conservatively so as to guarantee himself a finish in the top four or five.

Dan Cypra of Poker News Daily asked about the pros and cons of a Moon victory, as well as that of an Ivey win. McEachern said there was “a huge upside for both players winning,” speaking particularly of a Moneymaker-like effect should Moon take it down. “The stuff of storybooks,” said Chad of a possible Moon victory, sort of echoing himself from earlier ESPN broadcasts. Near the end of the call, they talked a bit more about Moon and the fact that he has yet to accept any sponsorship deals. Chad suspects he will ultimately take a one-day deal and be wearing a logo of some sort at the FT, though thinks it would be cool if he didn’t.

Gary Trask of Casino City Media asked about the production of the final table and whether ESPN had learned anything from last year. “We heard our fans loud and clear,” said Doug White, adding that they were “hoping to show a little bit more of heads-up play” this time around. Along those lines, we also heard reports yesterday -- not in the conference call, but elsewhere -- that ESPN Senior Producer Jamie Horowitz is saying that ESPN is reserving the possibility of extending its programming on Tuesday night (November 10) beyond the scheduled two hours so as to show more of heads-up play.

Answering another question, White said he did think the ratings for this year’s final table would exceed last year’s, and he also intimated that the plan for 2010 will likely be to follow a similar schedule as we saw this year, with a lot of shows devoted to the Main Event (and not so many to the prelims).

There will be no preview show this year, but as McEachern pointed out “we’ve already introduced all of the players to America already” and so ESPN won’t be taking away from showing hands in order to bother too much with that during the final table show. There will be a feature on Phil Ivey next Tuesday night on ESPN’s “E:60” show (at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time).

Those were the highlights. Not too much in the way of news, really, and in fact, the only real news of the day didn’t come from the conference call, but in that report in which Horowitz said they might show more than two hours of coverage on November 10.

I may well follow up with McManus to ask him his thoughts regarding the Main Event final table. I’m remembering that the year he made the ME final table -- 2000 -- where he finished fifth, Jeff Shulman also went deep, being eliminated in 7th. (The televised final table was six-handed that year, the last year before the switch to a nine-handed FT.)

In any event, I’m sure that like the rest of us, he, too, will be curious to see how this next chapter of “the story of poker” plays out.

Have a good weekend, all.

Watch and Wondurrrr: The Challenge Crosses Halfway Point

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:23:00 +0000

Like everyone else, I’d largely taken my eyes off of that “Durrrr Challenge” between Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius that has been going on (and off and on) over at Full Tilt Poker for the last nine months. Found myself checking back in on it recently, though.

You might recall how Dwan issued his challenge in late 2008, inviting anyone (other than Phil Galfond) to play against him heads up, four tables of either pot-limit Omaha or no-limit hold’em, at a minimum of $200/$400 blinds. Whoever was ahead -- even by just a single buck -- after 50,000 hands would be the winner. If Dwan won, the loser would have to pay up an additional half million clams. If Dwan’s opponent won, he’d pay that person $1.5 million.

A few names surfaced as possible opponents for Dwan (including David Benyamine and Phil Ivey), but it was Antonius who was first in line. The game chosen was PLO ($200/$400). The pair began their match in February of this year amid much hype, but interest died down after several long gaps between sessions. Following the WSOP this summer, they finally began playing again in earnest, and earlier this month crossed the halfway point of 25,000 hands played.

A couple of days ago Dwan and Antonius had a lengthy session in which they played over 2,000 hands versus one another. Dwan had the upper hand for much of the session, and at one point apparently was up around $400,000-$500,000 for the night, but Antonius pulled back closer and when they logged off Dwan had increased his overall lead by $81,716.

There was a moment in there somewhere when they took a dinner break, during which time Dwan chatted with the fellas over at the high-stakes 7-game table about how the night was going. Nicole Gordon, in her latest report on the challenge for PokerNews, shares a funny moment from that conversation:

Ziigmund: durrrrr
durrrr: wtsup?
Ziigmund: who won in challenge?
durrrr: i won small
durrrr: 150 mayb
John Juanda: yeah u won small ferrari

Gotta watch that Juanda. Sits there all quiet like, then -- zing!

According to Full Tilt Poker’s official stats page, the pair have played a total of 27,185 hands to this point (in 42 sessions). Back at the 14,000-hand mark or so, Antonius was up over $500,000, but Dwan stormed back and currently is up $779,248 and Antonius down $785,355.

As the volatility of that session from earlier in the week shows, Dwan’s lead is by no means insurmountable, and indeed could potentially be halved in a single hand. The pair have played at least 10 hands with pots of more than a quarter million dollars, with a couple nearing the half-million mark. Dwan has had the advantage in those so far, having won most (eight) of those “monsterpotten” hands (as Gordon calls them). If you’re curious, you can view replays of those biggies over on the Full Tilt page. (Clicking on the pic will get you there.)

According to the Full Tilt page, the pair have played for a total of 3 days, 14 hours, and 50 minutes. That means the average session has been a little over two hours. That also means they are playing about 5.2 hands per minute when they sit down at their four tables. All of that adds up to nearly a solid week (160-plus hours) of play in order to get the challenge done.

I guess many thought that once the challenge began, it would continue uninterrupted until the 50,000th hand was played, but obviously neither player saw that sort of insane stamina test as preferable. Even playing sporadically as they are, there have been several moments when each player has reported falling asleep at the computer, accumulated fatigue from all of the other high stakes games they are also regularly playing having caught up with them.

I remain intrigued by the challenge and am glad others are keeping tabs on it for me. As I noted in February when it began, we’ve come a long way from that Nick “the Greek” Dandalos-Johnny Moss challenge back in 1949 or 1951 or whenever it was. (Read more about that here.) Full details of what precisely happened at Binion’s between those two -- another high stakes, heads-up battle in which millions were won and lost -- will remain shrouded in mystery, perhaps never to be revealed. But with the Dwan-Antonius challenge, every mouse-click and keystroke is being carefully chronicled.

Not Exactly Ivey League

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 11:05:00 +0000

Watched that 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event coverage again last night on ESPN. They’re giving four whole hours to Day 8 -- really one of the most exciting days of poker I’ve ever witnessed (as I wrote about here back in July) -- so next week will be devoted to this one as well. Last night they showed them playing down from 27 to 18, while next week they’ll get ’em down to the final nine.

Looking back at the PokerNews live blog of the day (kept by F-Train, Change100, and myself), I’m calculating that those two hours aired last night covered only about two-and-a-half hours of actual playing time, as the bustouts were happening at a rapid clip. It was still the middle of the afternoon when the final 18 players redrew for seats around the last two tables.

I was positioned near Table 2 that day/night, the one where Antonio Esfandiari busted in 24th, and Steven Begleiter was hitting all of those flops. F-Train was over at the other outer table where Eric Buchman was building a big stack, while Change100 was at the feature table with Nick Maimone, Andrew Lichtenberger, Joe Cada, and the player everyone in the Amazon Room was focused on most intently that day, Phil Ivey.

Watching Ivey is always a treat, if only to see the timidity he causes in other players, most of whom seem never to know for sure what two cards he is holding. Not surprising, then, that the most memorable hand from last night’s coverage involved Ivey. Very surprising, though, to see that it was a hand in which Ivey himself didn’t know what he held!

If you watched, you know the hand. There were 24 players left, I believe, so they were eight-handed. The blinds were 60,000/120,000, with a 15,000 ante. (ESPN doesn’t always mention the antes.) That means there was 300,000 in the middle when Ivey is shown opening with a raise to 320,000 from under the gun with .

The table folds around, including Jeff Shulman who tosses away his pocket deuces, and the action is on Jordan Smith in the big blind. Smith looks at his cards -- . He thinks a moment, then raises to 1,000,000. Ivey (in Seat 1) leans forward and asks Smith (in Seat 9) what he has left. Smith says “six-and-a-half or six [million], something like that.”

“I’d like to tell you what Phil Ivey is thinking,” says Norman Chad. “But he thinks at a much higher level than I do, so I don’t want to pull a brain muscle.” Ivey makes the call.

The flop comes , and both check. The turn is the , and again both check. The river brings the . I’ll freely admit that when I watched this for the first time, my initial instinct was to think Ivey had let Smith catch up, as I was focused on an ace or nine coming. Of course, with the hole cards displayed on the screen for me, it was easy enough to see that the river had in fact given Ivey the flush and so his hand was still the best.

The gum-chewing Smith takes a few seconds, then checks, and Ivey waves his hand with what appears to be some exasperation, indicating he is checking as well. “Ace,” says Smith, and Ivey waits to make his opponent turn over his hand. When he does, Ivey then unexpectedly drops his cards face down before the dealer, mucking the winning hand (see picture). In other words, Ivey gifted Smith more than 2 million chips, leaving himself with a bit more than 8 million. (If you haven’t seen it, you can watch the hand here -- skip to the five-minute mark.)

A pretty astonishing little lapse in attention, that. And of course all the more wild to see because it was Ivey. Like Tiger missing a three-footer, or Jordan missing a breakaway dunk or something. Made Chad’s little preflop speech about Ivey thinking at a higher level -- added afterwards, of course -- all the more ironic-sounding.

Some like to make the argument that poker must be a skill game because unlike in other entirely chance-driven games like roulette or slots, one can lose on purpose in poker. An interesting idea, I suppose, although to be honest my addled brain has never quite put together why that “proves” poker is a skill game. It does, however, most certainly prove that in poker one can make a mistake like Ivey did -- that the often-taken-for-granted “skill” of remembering your own hole cards is indeed part of the game.

Ivey survived his misstep, of course. And as it happens, Smith would be the last one out (in 10th) before the final table was set. Indeed, the real excitement of that day -- including some much, much bigger missteps than Ivey’s -- was still to come.

Call and Response

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:53:00 +0000

The blog. It’s been around for a good while now. I keep it. It keeps me. Whatever.

The way it works? Generally speaking, I get up early. Earlier than I would otherwise. And I write. I take care of the blog. And I guess it takes care of me. It’s a little like running, which I am still doing (though not as earnestly as I was earlier in the year). A kind of mental exercise that has become... routine? Obsession? Whatever.

Indeed, I’ve now reached a point where I can’t quite imagine what it would be like to make it through an entire weekday without having posted something to the blog.

I have written before (at length) about some of the reasons why people keep blogs, and most particularly what I perceive to be the purpose(s) for my own. Tended to do that quite a bit during the early days of Hard-Boiled Poker, in posts such as “An Existential Pause,” “Milestones,” and “Who Wants to Write About Poker?”

Haven’t gone for the navel-gazing thing quite as often here lately. A recent example was a post titled “Pokerback Writer” in which I talked some about the stories poker produces, and what to me seems like an inevitable relationship between playing poker and writing about it. However, I have been inspired to think again along these lines during the last few days, really for a couple of reasons.

One is my reading of Vicky Coren’s new memoir For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker, which the further along I get into it the more I’m realizing is an especially good entry into that little subcategory of “poker literature.” Coren identifies herself early on as more of a writer than a player, although like pretty much all of us who do either with any degree of seriousness, she has sufficient awareness and humility to recognize that she’s still learning in both realms.

Because really, if we had either completely figured out -- writing or playing -- why would we continue doing either?

The other inspiration for thinking again about the blog and its purposes was F-Train and his post from late last week “All Atwitter.” As the title suggests, F-Train is reflecting on the effect Twitter has had on blogging over the last few months, namely, that not-so-gradual shift among many in the poker writing crowd from blogging to Twittering. They “all” haven’t given over their blogs for Twitter, but it does seem quite a few have. While I still subscribe to a ton of poker blogs, really only a small percentage of the authors still post consistently, with many having opted instead to send out multiple “tweets” per day.

In his post, F-Train talks about that 140-character limit in Twitter and how such an abbreviated form necessarily affects the content. But he also suggests that both blogging and Twittering lack the sort of collaboration he believes is fundamental to good, quality writing. If I understand him correctly, we’re all kind of “broadcasting” -- either in 140-character-or-less chunks on Twitter or in longer stretches in blog posts -- without necessarily receiving (or even seeking) the kind of feedback that can make writing better (and more meaningful).

F-Train is absolutely correct when he says “polished, high-quality writing -- the type that is collaborative and takes more time, voice and skill to produce -- is receding in prominence.” Such is true not just in our little world of poker blogs and poker-related Twitter accounts, but everywhere. The fact is, here on the web, people do write hastily, hit ”publish” without reservation, and do not expect (let alone seek) feedback.

I do, however, think that a kind of collaboration is possible with blogs -- and even Twitter -- but it depends on how one approaches each medium. Soon after I started Hard-Boiled Poker, I quickly became aware of the “community” I had not-entirely-wittingly joined. As I wrote in an earlier post (“Community Watch”), “This here is a complicated, overlapping set of communities where (one might argue) we all eventually get around to hearing from each other. Unlike the world of print media, we ain’t so bound by time and space -- or even other factors that make it hard or even impossible for us otherwise to communicate with others. Here the interaction seems more alive (if that makes sense), and usually more meaningful.”

That’s how I have tended to think of the blog, anyway. Thus have I always felt myself interacting with others, not simply issuing monologues one after another with no expectation of being read and/or responded to. Sometimes in poker we make a bet and don’t want to be called. But when it comes to writing -- public writing, anyway -- we should always be seeking response.

Indeed, to write publicly without an awareness of (or respect for) audience is at best silly or pointless, at worst dangerous. Like Coren, I know I’ve a lot to learn. About poker, obviously. And about writing, too.

So please, keep writing everyone. Blogs, Twitter... whatever.

’Cos I’m reading. I’m responding.

Online Poker at Sixes and Sevens

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:56:00 +0000

I continue to play mostly on PokerStars, from which I’ve had zero trouble when it comes to cashing out a chunk every now and then (via eCheck). Currently have some cabbage on both Full Tilt Poker and Bodog as well. Did take out a small chunk Full Tilt several months back (via paper check), but haven’t cashed out from Bodog in over a year, I think.

Have started thinking more and more about December 1 -- the date the final regulations for the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 are required to be implemented by banks (or “designated payment systems”). Those finalized regs suggest cashing out will not be a problem even after that date, but that depositing will. I have seen reports here and there that a few banks have sent notices to their customers regarding their intention to start complying with the UIGEA come December and block transactions with online gambling sites. Haven’t received any such notice from my bank (yet).

Efforts have been made to delay the UIGEA’s implementation, including the introduction of legislation (Barney Frank’s bills in the House, Robert Menendez’s in the Senate) as well as an appeal to the feds to use their authority under something called the Administrative Procedure Act and simply put implementation off a year in order to give these other bills a chance to be heard. There’s really no way of predicting whether or not such a last-minute delay could happen -- but time is running out.

Meanwhile, I play on. Had a strange hand of pot-limit Omaha ($25 buy-in, 6-max.) last week I thought I’d share, not so much for the sake of talking strategy -- although there’s a little of that to consider -- but mainly because of the statistical improbability the hand ended up demonstrating.

The hand came up during a semi-rough stretch for yr humble gumshoe, which may partially explain the seeming impatience I showed. After having lost a bit elsewhere, I had arrived at this particular table about a half-hour before, and so had played around 25-30 hands with this same group. One of my opponents -- LtBradshaw -- I had played with before and considered to be an essentially solid player who tended to avoid nonstandard moves. He had been doing well at this particular table, and had $55.15 when the hand started. Another player -- RockyRococo -- I had never played with before. Rocky had lost one buy-in under questionable circumstances, was doing a lot of calling out of position and other not-so-great moves, and thus seemed from the small sample to be a much less tutored player. At the start of this hand he had $23.45. I had $23.35.

The hands I had played at this table had been entirely uneventful, aside from Rocky’s having lost that buy in somewhere along the way. (Incidentally, he didn’t lose it to LtBradshaw). The hand began with the UTG player limping in, then LtBradshaw (UTG+1) raising the pot to $1.10. It folded back to RockyRococo in the small blind who reraised to $3.25. The action was on me in the big blind, where I had been dealt . As I say, I was down a bit and wanted to play my double-suited rundown. Could’ve reraised, I suppose, but I figured my hand played well against multiple opponents and so I just called the extra three bucks.

The UTG player folded, then LtBradshaw repotted it to $13.25. (“Why, hello there, aces,” thought I.) RockyRococo quickly called, leaving himself just about ten bucks behind. Calling seemed silly here -- I, too, would be committing over half my stack -- and as I say, I was feeling a bit stubborn. Also, now I figured I was up against aces and kings (or even better, aces and aces), which made my hand seem even more playable. So I pushed my stack all in, and both my opponents quickly called, creating a total pot of just over 67 bucks.

Even though we were all in, the cards were not flipped over as I suppose one of my opponents had removed the check mark from the “Show Hole Cards When All-In” option in the lobby. So I had no idea what they held as the community cards were dealt.

The flop came , which delighted me -- two pair, and an open-ender. Not bad at all. The turn was the , which didn’t look so good, and when the river brought the I assumed I was cooked. The cards were flipped over. RockyRococo somewhat surprisingly turned over . He and I both ended the hand with two pair. And LtBradshaw? ! (Wrong about them aces, I was.) He’d backed into a straight and took the pot.

All three of us held sixes and sevens, and the case six and case seven had come on the flop. I imagine the other two liked the flop, too, although for Rocky it was terrible, leaving him just 7% to win the hand. And by the end, I’ll bet LtBradshaw didn’t care to see those three overcards like that, but they'd ensured him the pot.

By the way, that phrase “at sixes and sevens” refers to a confusing situation, a world out of whack. (Read more here.) The fact that we’d all three gotten it all in before the flop with those hands was a bit out of whack, for sure, although as I suggest, I think there was something in the dynamic of two reasonably sound players (me and LtBradshaw) and one apparently loose cannon (Rocky) that helped cause that to happen.

’Cos weird stuff can occur if you get the right (or wrong) combination of people interacting with each other. Like the passage of some bizarre, unfocused law against transferring money from online gambling sites. Or the delay of such a law’s implementation. One never knows.

Kentucky Still Hoping to Be Master of Your Domains

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:46:00 +0000

So you might have heard something yesterday about that Kentucky domain seizure case having popped up once again. With regard to the proverbial that, what, you might be wondering, is, as they say, up?

That purposefully murky-sounding lead is hopefully understood to be symbolic of the murkiness that surrounds this sorta-baffling-yet-undoubtedly-meaningful case. To review...

Back in October 2008 came a Franklin Circuit Court case between the Commonwealth of Kentucky (the plaintiff) -- represented in court by J. Michael Brown, Secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet and in the media by the state’s governor, Steve Beshear -- and “141 Internet Domain Names” (the defendants). In the case, Judge Thomas D. Wingate somewhat preposterously ruled in favor of the plaintiff, meaning those 141 sites needed to block access by Kentucky residents within 30 days or the domains would be forfeited to Kentucky, sort of like foreclosed homes or something. No shinola!

According to the ruling, if access wasn’t blocked, Kentucky got to take the domains on which the sites resided and do with them whatever they wanted. All of the domains were gambling related, and included several (but not all) online poker sites, including Absolute Poker, Bodog, Cake Poker, Doyle’s Room, Full Tilt Poker, PitBull Poker, PokerStars, Reefer Poker, UltimateBet, and others. In fact, both Cake and the Cereus network (Absolute and UB) immediately began blocking Kentucky residents’ access in response to the ruling.

That ruling was appealed, however, and after a few delays was heard in January 2009 at which time the Court of Appeals overturned the decision. Although that reversal cited multiple problems with the original case, the big one appeared to be the mistaken assumption that an internet website constituted a “gambling device” -- a technical requirement that is part of Kentucky’s anti-gambling law. The Commonwealth immediately responded by saying it planned to appeal the appeal -- this time taking the case to Kentucky’s Supreme Court. And that is what finally happened yesterday.

Incidentally, just before yesterday’s hearing, Full Tilt Poker went ahead and took their case to court in the U.K. -- where the domain registrar (Safenames) used by Full Tilt resides -- to settle the matter of whether or not Kentucky could seize its domain. The U.K. court ruled that since “Kentucky’s proceedings are not enforceable in English law,” Kentucky had no right to seize Full Tilt’s domain. The poker site hadn’t been sure whether or not Safenames would comply should Kentucky in fact win its case, and so went ahead with the preemptive measure.

Am assuming, then, that while fulltiltpoker.com continues to be included among the 141 domains at issue here, if it turns out there is some sort of reversal of the reversal by the Kentucky Supreme Court, Full Tilt Poker is already set to keep its domain from being seized even if it continues to allow Kentuckians’ access.

I watched yesterday’s hearing, which lasted an hour-and-a-half or so. You can watch it, too, if you are interested. You can find an embedded video of it over at Pokerati by clicking here. To the left there is a shot of one of the judges scratching his head while listening to the testimony. Indeed, the whole sucker is most certainly a head-scratcher.

The fun began with the hilarious Eric Lycan, the attorney representing the Commonwealth’s side, pointing out how none of the owners of the sites hosted on the domains were present in the courtroom, further speculating that they preferred to remain in hiding, operating from afar their “illegal gambling trade associations.” I kid, of course. The dude was as humorless as one would expect.

Lycan then offered various, also unfunny analogies between the situation being discussed and that posed by drug trafficking and pornography. (He’d eventually mention human trafficking later on while making a point as well!)

The judges didn’t really seem to buy any of those comparisons, noting that the Court of Appeals had said the domains were “intangible property” when denying they could be regarded as “gambling devices.” The judges also questioned why the seizure of the domains was needed here. Why not, instead of trying (vainly?) to make the domains inaccessible to the entire world, simply block access in Kentucky?

That was a strategy also suggested by those representing the 141 domains -- Bill Johnson (representing Sportsbook.com), Jon Fleischaker (iMEGA), and John Tate (VicsBingo.com, Interactive Gaming Council). The Commonwealth could have tried to make online gambling illegal if they wished, they argued, but have instead adopted this less direct, less sincere approach that tries to skirt the usual legislative process. The Commonwealth “had no subject matter jurisdiction,” they said, and so Judge Wingate should have immediately dismissed the case.

It should be noted that the good guys were just as humorless as Lycan. Indeed, they were appalled, and made that feeling clear throughout. Although I have to admit I did smile for a moment when Tate noted that he represented VicsBingo. Such a silly word -- “bingo” -- to be uttered so earnestly there in the Supreme Court.

Lycan got one last say before the hearing concluded, and he reiterated the Commonwealth’s view that the operators of the sites are the “real criminals,” adding that every bet in every poker game represents a “contractual obligation,” and, since these contractual obligations were involving Kentucky residents, the state’s law against operating gambling was being broken here.

Apparently there will be a lengthy wait before we discover what the judges ultimately thought of the respective arguments, as a decision is not expected to be handed down for 2-4 months. The Commonwealth’s case remains mighty sketchy, and it continues to appear as though if it weren’t for one curiously-oriented circuit judge (Wingate), this thing would’ve never gotten as far as it has.

But as long as the case remains alive, there remains still another layer of uncertainty with regard to the fate of online poker here in the “land of the free.”

A Good Read: McManus Tells the Story of Poker

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:07:00 +0000

I mentioned a couple of times recently having gotten myself a copy of Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, the new history of poker by James McManus. I’ve finished it and have in fact written a review of the book for another outlet, so I’m not that inclined to review it formally here as well. However, as the book is officially due out next week, I thought I would go ahead and share a few thoughts regarding it here.

We’ve been hearing about this one for a long time, actually. I first recall reading something about it several years ago, with a 2009 target date for publication being mentioned. McManus, of course, carved himself an important place in the poker publishing business with his Positively Fifth Street, which first appeared in 2003 (a great year for anything poker-related to appear). Wrote something about that one way back during the early days of Hard-Boiled Poker, if you’re interested.

Those of you who have read Positively Fifth Street know that it is certainly a page-turner for (most) poker players. The book probably has some appeal to non-poker players, too, although I recall Vera Valmore never could get into it, having been turned off somewhat by the salacious opening scene detailing the murder of Ted Binion.

Positively Fifth Street ultimately weaves together three primary storylines. There’s the murder of Binion and subsequent trial of Sandy Murphy (his girlfriend) and Rick Tabish (her lover). There’s the 2000 World Series of Poker, for which McManus had been hired by Harper’s Magazine to produce a feature on women in poker. Then there’s McManus’s own involvement in the WSOP that year, where he won a satellite into the Main Event and then proceeded to make the final table, finishing fifth.

The book also includes numerous other digressions regarding the history of poker, plus stories from McManus’s family tree. In fact, while the primary storylines were all compelling enough, those digressions were my favorite parts of Positively Fifth Street. They did, of course, make the book longer than it needed to be, and I think it is safe to say even though I found the book engaging from beginning to end, I sensed how it could have stood some editing and/or reorganizing. Thus I’d rate Positively Fifth Street a notch below other “classic” poker narratives like Al Alvarez’s The Biggest Game in Town or Anthony Holden’s Big Deal.

(Incidentally, it appears a film adaptation of Positively Fifth Street is in the works, although we’ve been hearing about that pretty much since the book first came out six years ago.)

Soon after Positively Fifth Street appeared, McManus began writing a regular poker column for The New York Times. If you remember, at the time we were in the midst of that “poker boom” and his landing that position was rightly viewed as further evidence of poker’s splash into the mainstream. Of course, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 came along to stem the tide and somewhere in there McManus stopped writing for the NYT. He did resurface, however, with columns in Card Player (starting in late 2006) which in fact were essentially chapters from his forthcoming history of poker.

If you’ve read any of those Card Player columns, you have a good idea what to expect in Cowboys Full. The book is comprised of 52 chapters (a nice, pokery number) which mostly follow a chronological progression from the ancient world and early gambling games on up through the invention of playing cards and eventually poker.

Most of the book focuses on poker in America, and thus pursues an early-stated thesis about how poker fits neatly within a peculiarly American ethos. Says McManus, poker provides a perfect context within which to highlight the “American DNA,” which “expresses itself -- in some environments, at least -- as energetic risk-taking, restless curiosity, and competitive self-promotion.” There’s more, but you get the idea: to us Yanks, poker ain’t just a game, and so it is worth our while to tell its story.

The book then carries that story all of the way through its having been the “cheating game” on 19th century riverboats and in Old West saloons to its growth during the 20th century to the birth of the WSOP and on up to the present, including discussions of the UIGEA, the cheating scandals on Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, and the most recent WSOP. Lots of gripping anecdotes throughout, and, like McManus’s earlier poker book, a definite page-turner.

I will say -- also like Positively Fifth Street -- that McManus’s new book is similarly lacking somewhat in terms of editing and organization. There are more than a few moments along the way when I found myself traveling down some digressive path away from the story of poker and through some other, tangential tale from the Civil War or presidential history or the like. (“What does this have to do with poker, again?” I’d wonder.)

In other words, one gets the feeling the author kept just about everything from that first draft, even if perhaps it might’ve been a good idea to trim things up a bit here and there. Kind of like a band who rather than craft a single disc every year or two churns out albums every month. Which is awesome if you really dig the band and love everything they do, but less dedicated followers might appreciate a little more selectivity.

Then again, at around 500 pages, Cowboys Full does present itself as a kind of definitive, all-encompassing reference work, and so it probably isn’t that fair to complain about it having included too much. (Although, like I say, some of the tangents might seem not-so-vital to “the story of poker.”)

All in all, the book should prove highly entertaining to those wanting to learn more about the history of the game, and useful to those interested in writing about poker’s storied past, too. Probably not a bad ideer for a Christmas gift, I’d think, for that poker player in yr life.

2009 November Nine Soon To Take Their Seats

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:45:00 +0000

The 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event final table is set to restart on Saturday, November 7th over in the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino. Three weeks from yesterday (on 11/10), ESPN will be airing its “plausibly live” broadcast of the final table.

Last summer there was a lot of uncertainty regarding the whole November Nine ideer -- not just over what effect the delay might have in terms of the marketing of the WSOP, but the way introducing a four-month delay at such a crucial moment in a poker tournament tended to monkey with the “integrity” of the competition. The natural momentum of the tourney would be damaged, argued many. Players will study each others’ styles, get coaching, etc. -- all manner of things that couldn’t happen in a tourney otherwise.

All of which turned out to be true. Of course, the WSOP Main Event has always been a unique event, and so perhaps it isn’t necessarily correct to judge it according to the same criteria we use to evaluate other tournaments.

One detail of last year’s delayed final table that proved somewhat perplexing was the matter of seat assignments. The usual procedure for WSOP bracelet events -- the full table (i.e., nine-handed) hold’em and Omaha events, anyway -- is that once the 11th place finisher is eliminated, there is a redraw and the remaining ten sit around a single table, from which point there are no more redraws and they play down to a winner. However, last summer the word was there would, in fact, be another redraw of the final nine just before play began on Sunday, November 9, 2008.

This was what we heard -- on a fairly consistent basis -- for the entire four months between the end of play in July and the restart in November. I listened to and read several interviews with players, and each one said he expected there to be a redraw. Indeed, I recall hearing Scott Montgomery interviewed just a couple of days before the final table, and when asked he said he had no idea who would be seated on either side of him.

Confusion about seating assignments continued right up until the day play resumed. Lon McEachern appeared on ESPN’s The Poker Edge that week and (somewhat surprisingly) said there would be no redraw. When asked again, McEachern said he might be “speaking out of turn,” which I took to mean either he wasn’t sure or perhaps he was revealing something he wasn’t supposed to be revealing. You may recall that while we didn’t get a pay-per-view live telecast of the final table last year, there was an audio broadcast by Bluff Magazine, and at the start of that host Nick Geber actually said they were redrawing for new seat assignments. But then it turned out they did not -- the nine came back to sit in the same seats they had occupied when play ended in mid-July.

This year I haven’t heard anyone say anything about redrawing for seats on November 7th. Rather, I think everyone is under the assumption that the players will come back to sit in the same seats they were in when Darvin Moon eliminated Jordan Smith in 10th place. Meaning this is what we’ll be looking at come November 7th:

Seat 1: Darvin Moon (1st, 58,930,000)
Seat 2: James Akenhead (9th, 6,800,000)
Seat 3: Phil Ivey (7th, 9,765,000)
Seat 4: Kevin Schaffel (6th, 12,390,000)
Seat 5: Steven Begleiter (3rd, 29,885,000)
Seat 6: Eric Buchman (2nd, 34,800,000)
Seat 7: Joe Cada (5th, 13,215,000)
Seat 8: Antoine Saout (8th, 9,500,000)
Seat 9: Jeff Shulman (4th, 19,580,000)

As we all know, position is about as important -- perhaps even more important -- than chip stacks or even the cards one gets. So it makes sense that those handicapping the November Nine take position into account. I’ve been enjoying the discussions over on Al Can’t Hang’s “Poker from the Rail” in which he’s invited some bloggers to weigh in on the nine players’ chances -- you can read those here, here, and here. And as one would expect, frequent references are made throughout to the players’ relative position to each other when assessing their prospects.

Position should be affecting the players’ preparation somewhat, too, which is what made last year’s confusion all the more strange. Jeff Shulman will return to find chip leader Darvin Moon on his left -- will that influence how Shulman and his new coach Phil Hellmuth plan their strategy? James Akenhead and Phil Ivey come back to short stacks, but they get to act after Moon on most hands early on. And I imagine Kevin Schaffel and Steven Begleiter are probably glad they get to act after Ivey, but they’ll have to contend with Eric Buchman acting after them. In any event, all nine have had plenty of time to prepare for how they are going to deal with their table-neighbors.

In fact, last summer and fall we were hearing that one of the reasons why there would be a redraw would be to prevent the players from being able to prepare too much based on their position -- in other words, the suggestion was a redraw would somehow help protect the “integrity” of the competition, even though (paradoxically) a redraw would’ve meant introducing a late change in procedure that would have made the Main Event different from other bracelet events.

But then there was no redraw. And like I say, there doesn’t appear to be any plan to have one this year, either. Should there be?

(November Nine photo by FlipChip)

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 19: Ace of Spades

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:59:00 +0000

Finally managed to pull together another episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, which I uploaded yesterday. That’s 19 in all. Was thinking of doing one more following the same format, then possibly changing things up just a bit after that to include other things like book reviews, podcast reviews, and the like.

I’d also very much like to have more guest segments wherein others tell their poker and/or gambling stories. If that’s something that interests you, drop me a line at shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

For this episode, I included three segments, all of which have something to do with the ace of spades. First comes an excerpt from James McManus’s new history of poker, titled Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker, in which McManus talks a bit about the significance of the card during the Vietnam Conflict. The excerpt originally appeared in Card Player back in the summer of 2008, and reappears here in one of the later chapters of the book.

I have finished Cowboys Full and enjoyed it quite a bit. Will probably dedicate a post to the book here in the near future. Nearly all of what appears in the book first showed up in those Card Player columns that began in late 2006 and ran up until earlier this year.

Next I play the great Motörhead song, from the 1980 album of the same name. I mean, really, how could I not?

I also mention on the show how that album -- the band’s fourth -- actually concludes with a song called “The Hammer.” (The original LP did, anyway; the CD adds some bonus tracks, I believe.) And “The Hammer” has some great lines that are easily transferred over to a pokery context, e.g., “the hammer’s gonna smash your dream,” “the hammer’s gonna bring you down,” etc. Awesome disc, Ace of Spades, as is the band’s earlier Overkill, if yr into it.

Finally I play a short (15-minute) old time radio show called Nick Harris Detective, an episode titled “Fatal Ace of Spades.” The show is from 1938, and so the sound quality is understandably sketchy. Speaking of which, as I mentioned last post I have a new computer and set-up here, and am currently fussing a bit with improving the overall quality of the shows’ sound. Will probably get me a fancy pants microphone here soon in the effort to further the illusion that this ain’t amateur hour (which, as we all know, it most certainly is).

As far as Nick Harris Detective goes, you get used to the scratchiness, I think, and in the end it’s an okay little drama. Including it here did allow me to continue the streak of not repeating any radio shows. Since I started the podcast in the spring of 2008, I have shared entire episodes or excerpts from over 20 different old time radio shows.

Like I said, after doing one more show (to make an even 20) I think I might alter the format a bit. I’ll still include old time radio stuff, but might not keep that as the focus for every single episode. We’ll see.

Also, there’s a new internet streaming radio station starting up called the Poker Radio Network which is going to be syndicating the podcast. Probably will start out just playing the old shows, one per week, while I continue to create new ones. Eventually we’ll catch up and new shows will appear there as well as on iTunes as usual.

Measuring Up

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:01:00 +0000

Spent a good part of Saturday morning recording and mixing a new episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show. Then yesterday I put in another hour or two on it and uploaded the sucker. That’s when I found I’d skipped a step which resulted in an extra layer of fuzz, making the show not so listenable. So I’m gonna remix today and hopefully get Episode 19 out there tonight.

Part of the reason for the hiccup stemmed from the fact that I recorded the show using a new desktop computer, and so the usual routine for creating shows had been disrupted slightly. (That’s also my excuse for the long gap since the last show.)

A few weeks ago Vera and I decided to convert the mostly-unused guest bedroom into a second office. We took a trip to the Ikea to pick up a desk, chair, and bookshelves, then got myself a new computer as well. In the end, it didn’t really take much cabbage at all to furnish the new writing space. Well worth it, I’d say, making it much easier to be more productive.

Have also loaded PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Bodog on this here new computer, though as I was saying last week I’m almost exclusively playing on Stars these days. Likewise reinstalled PokerTracker Omaha on this one and have started the process of moving all of my hand histories over. At the moment, I have only put in the last few months’ worth to go along with the new hands I’ve played.

In the past, I mainly have used PokerTracker just to help keep track of my own play -- e.g., to review my overall stats, or occasionally to look back over a session. Every once in a while I’ll look up a particular, frequently-encountered opponent to try to get a better picture of his or her playing style and/or results. But really I haven’t utilized the program as much as I could.

One stat I have become a little intrigued by here lately is the “True Hourly Win Rate” which takes into account multitabling and produces an actual amount per hour of sitting there with mouse in hand. The program tells me that (over the last few months, at least) I generally average right at 1.5 tables at a time, which sounds right as sometimes I just play one table and sometimes two (and only now and then three). As you might imagine, my true hourly win rate while playing one or two tables of PLO25 is quite modest, although I’m happy enough with the figure being reported there.

Looking at a statistic like that, though -- an unambiguous dollar amount representing to the penny how one has spent one’s time -- has an interesting effect. One starts to think about one’s “true hourly win rate” in other areas of one’s life. What was my true hourly win rate when writing that article last week? What about my “real” job -- how much am I making per hour there? And what about the hours I put in creating that episode of the podcast? What was my true hourly win rate there?

I imagine this is how a lawyer tends to think, or anyone with a “billable hours”-type job whereby at any given moment one either is charging for one’s time or is not. Not unlike a professional poker player. You know, someone for whom time really is, well, money.

Like I say, I’m happy with my true hourly win rate while playing online poker. And I suppose I’m okay with it in other areas of my life, too, although I’ve become increasingly convinced I could probably earn as much or more doing something other than the “real” job.

Of course, there are many other ways to measure one’s “true hourly win rate” than by dollars and cents. Which is why we do what seem to be unproductive things like record podcasts. Or write blog posts. Or read them.

By the way, thanks again for spending another few minutes of your time here. I hope having done so helps increase your overall true hourly win rate, however you measure it.

Up, Up, and Away!

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:25:00 +0000

Like nearly everyone else, I found myself following the story of “balloon boy” yesterday. Have to admit, during the first couple of seconds of seeing that weird, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers-looking, silver bag hurtling through the Colorado sky and having the possibility of a six-year-old boy riding along inside suggested to me via the news outlet I was viewing, my first response was not to be horrified.

Rather, thought I, how cool! What a ride! To be six years old, and just fly away like that! Neat-o!

Then, of course, my more mature, sober, realistically-inclined adult mind took hold to correct such silliness, and from that point forward I felt nothing but anxiety and dread about what was happening. In the end, the fact that all was resolved via a sitcom-like revelation of a misunderstanding -- the kid was in the attic! -- made dealing with whatever stress or anxiety the incident and its reporting had caused a relatively simple matter.

Another story that I couldn’t help thinking about during the time I was watching the balloon and the hour or so afterwards when we were still awaiting news of the boy’s fate was that of Icarus and his father, Daedalus. Back in ancient Greece, the two were exiled on Crete -- Daedalus having been punished for having committed a transgression against King Minos -- and the father came up with an escape plan.

Daedalus built a couple of pairs of wings out of wax for himself and his son, but when Icarus tried them out he ignored his father’s warning and flew too close to the sun, causing the wings to melt. Icarus thus plummeted from the sky into the sea, and like Prometheus and the Tower of Babylon became a much referenced symbol for human presumption. Leave flight to the birds, the story suggests. Know your limits. Don’t climb too high, or risk a mighty fall.

That we were all led to believe the boy was apparently flying along in a contraption engineered by his father only further suggested the Daedalus-Icarus parallel. And perhaps ominously suggested the tragic dénouement that for a time seemed sure to come.

Most poker players are familiar with the experience of having ambitions rudely dashed in Icarus-like fashion, a frequent consequence of our repeated attempts to “take shots” at higher stakes. I know I am. My most recent such fall occurred in pot-limit Omaha, where some time back I’d moved from the $25 buy-in game to the $50 game, and had enough success there to start entertaining thoughts of yet another move.

That’s when my wings began to melt and after feebly flapping around for a week or two I decided it best to take a break from PLO altogether and settle down at the low limit hold’em tables. Have been back at PLO25 for a while now, where once again I’ve climbed upward enough to inspire thoughts of moving to a higher altitude.

Can’t help but think I’m held back a bit, though, by my lack of childlike wonder -- that is, my inability to enjoy flying higher (how cool!) because of adult-like worries about the consequences should I fall. ’Cos really, I’m closer to Daedalus than Icarus. That is to say, I’m more likely to issue warnings about such things than to try them out myself.

Have a good weekend, all. And fly safely.

The Poker Hall of Fame: Sexton Selected

noreply@blogger.com (Short-Stacked Shamus) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:24:00 +0000

So an article popped up last night over at the Las Vegas Review Journal leaking that Mike Sexton will be the lone inductee for this year’s Poker Hall of Fame, and that Harrah’s was expected to make an official announcement today.

Bingo, Bango, Bongo! Show tunes must be going off in his head.

Wasn’t really surprised to hear that Sexton had made it. The consensus among those voting -- at least the ones who’d made their preferences known -- seemed to indicate the “ambassador of poker” would very likely be chosen. Nor was I all that surprised that only one of the finalists got in, given the way the voting procedure was set up. (More on that below.)

I was surprised, however, that the announcement came this week rather than in November. I’d been under the impression that Harrah’s was saving that news for the weekend of the WSOP Main Event final table (which begins November 7). There will be a special ceremony at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino sometime that weekend to recognize Sexton. I suppose having the announcement come first, then the ceremony later, more closely resembles the sequence followed by most other sports hall of fames.

Coincidentally, yesterday was also the day that the newly-created NASCAR Hall of Fame announced its first class of inductees. After several years of negotiating to get that sucker established, a panel of 50 voters plus one “fan vote” chose five hall of famers from a list of 25 nominees. The 50 voters consisted of journalists, NASCAR execs, and former drivers. The “fan vote” came from an online poll on the NASCAR website. The panel spent the afternoon debating the nominees at a meeting in Charlotte, NC, then cast their ballots.

The NASCAR voters were allowed to pick five names from the 25 nominees, with the top five vote getters being selected. The process for the Poker Hall of Fame vote, newly revised this year, went a little differently.

In the Poker Hall of Fame vote, there were 30 people voting -- 15 current members of the Poker Hall of Fame and 15 representatives of the media. The names of the nine finalists were announced a little over a month ago, selected by the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council from the top ten online vote getters from over the summer. Only Tom “durrrr” Dwan was removed from that list, leaving Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Tom McEvoy, Men Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, and Sexton. Each voter could only select three names from the list of nine, and a nominee had to get 75% “yes” votes in order to be inducted. I believe the ballots were due on Friday, October 2.

As Sexton would say, we had ourselves a race situation, Vince. That’s because the way the voting procedure was set up it was only mathematically possible for three of the nominees to get the needed 75%, and it was entirely likely one or even none would. (Wrote about this a bit last month.)

Traditionally the Poker Hall of Fame has only enshrined one or two individuals each year, so having just a single entrant this year doesn’t alter that pattern. Also, with regard to that NASCAR example, it is often the case that hall of fames kick off by inducting larger classes at first, so as to get the institution established. (Though I believe NASCAR plans to keep adding five more at a time each year here.) Indeed, when the Poker Hall of Fame was first created by Benny Binion back in 1979, seven individuals were inducted in that initial class.

Sexton is certainly a worthy recipient of the honor, handily meeting the criteria for induction. (So, of course, do several of the other finalists.) Sexton was born in Indiana and went to Ohio State University (on a gymastics scholarship -- no shinola). He then joined the Army and was stationed in Fort Bragg. After leaving the service, Sexton stayed in North Carolina and really that is where his poker career began -- in home games up and down the same highways traveled by folks like Junior Johnson, who ran moonshine before becoming one of NASCAR’s first superstars and eventually a member of its initial class of hall of famers.

Sexton later moved to Las Vegas (in the mid-1980s) to become a full-time poker pro. He won a WSOP bracelet in 1989 (in a Stud/8 event), was a friend of the late Stu Ungar and figures somewhat prominently in Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson’s Ungar bio One of a Kind, and of course went on to write for Card Player, represent PartyPoker, and, perhaps most importantly, co-host the highly influential World Poker Tour television show.

Like I say, not a huge surprise to see Sexton make it, especially considering the way his career put him in close proximity to both groups of voters -- the current hall of famers and the media. And though I’m surprised, I don’t really mind Harrah’s decision to announce his selection early like this, even if it does remove a small bit of suspense from the ongoing narrative of the 2009 WSOP. If you think about it, it would have been even worse for those not selected to have perhaps made the trip to the Rio only to learn they hadn’t got in this time around.

Will be curious to see if the process gets tweaked moving forward. Meanwhile, we can now all forget about that other November Nine -- the nine Hall of Fame finalists -- and go back to thinking about the nine who still have chips in the Main Event.

(Photo of Sexton at the 2008 WSOP courtesy the great FlipChip.)