Archive for the ‘ Gene Bromberg’ Category
Top 20…or 25…or 50…
Bluff Magazine just released their yearly Power 20 ranking of the most influential people in poker. And as with any arbitrary list this one generated quite of bit of buzz and controversy…which of course is one of the main reasons why you’d publish such a list. It gets people talking and folks in the industry are certainly talking about the names on this list (and the names that aren’t on it).
First off, MY name isn’t on it, and while that’s understandable on just about every possible level it broke my heart. Then again, UB’s Annie Duke wasn’t on the list and quite of few people found that a serious omission. In light of Annie’s appearance on Celebrity Apprentice this year and her lobbying efforts in Washington over the years, I was surprised she wasn’t included. Joe Sebok, who joined Team UB last year and is also the President of PokerRoad, did make the list at #17. Matt Savage, the Tournament Director at the Commerce Casino (and at the last three Aruba Poker Classics) came in at #19…both Matt and Joe seem ranked a bit low to me, considering PokerRoad’s popularity and Matt’s level of respect within the poker community. World Champion Joe Cada was ranked tenth…which I don’t really understand. Does Cada really have that much influence in the poker world? Fame, yes, and he is the reigning champ. But how much pull Cada would have should he raise concerns about, say, the juice in WSOP events is open for debate. Bluff ranked Cada ahead of Phil Ivey…really? Don’t see it.
Another point of controversy is that the top two “people” on the list aren’t people at all–they’re online poker sites. Picking a single person to act as the voice for an entire company can be difficult, but if this indeed a ranking of influential people that’s a choice that should’ve been made (despite the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations have the same right to political free speech as individuals). Speaking of politics, Rep. Barney Frank made the list at #7, Frank of course having introduced a bill that would overturn the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). But if that’s the case, in my opinion the guy who was instrumental in getting the UIGEA passed should be on the list, should maybe even be #1. Republican Sen. Jon Kyl has been trying for more than a decade to keep Americans from spending their money online as they see fit, and he recently showed that he’s still willing to harm the nation at large over his irrational hatred of online gaming.
In January Kyl blocked President Obama’s appointment of six Treasury nominees. Why, you ask? Because the Obama Administration approved a six-month delay for the UIGEA regulations to be implemented. The UIGEA was passed in 2006; more than three years along it still hasn’t been put into practice because no one knows what the heck those regulations should be. And as the deadline approached there was broad support for holding off for six months to figure things out (and/or wait for Barney Frank’s bill to reverse the UIGEA altogether). Kyl’s voice was one of the few against the delay and when his voice was ignored he went into a snit. And got his revenge by blocking these six Treasury apppointees.
In case you haven’t heard, in 2008 the world economy went through the worst downturn since the Great Depression and the Treasury Department is one of the major players in trying to fix that. And Kyl, pouting over his pet law being put back on the shelf, is keeping the Treasury Department from being fully staffed. As Paul Volcker, the former Federal Reserve Chairman, said, ““Here we are…and there is no Under Secretary of the Treasury. That should be an important position. How can we run a government in the middle of a financial crisis without doing the ordinary, garden-variety administrative work of filling the relevant agencies?”
So while the other members of the Bluff Power 20 may have considerable clout within the poker industry, none of them have the casual ability to do very real harm to the United States government. It’s unfortunate that poker found itself subject to Kyl’s whims in 2006, and just as sad that such a man is able to exercise such power over the nation at large.
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Don’t Forget the Soap
The rules for the 2010 World Series of Poker were released this week and two rule changes/additions are getting a fair bit of attention and I think are worth bringing to your attention. The first change isn’t exactly a change at all, it’s more of an acceptance of the world as it is–cell phones, iPhones, Blackberries, Palms etc can be used at the table for texting/Twitter purposes. Last year there was a rule prohibiting players from using their communication devices at the table but with the explosion of Twittering that rule quickly went by the wayside.
You still can’t talk on the phone unless you’re one table-length from your seat but tweeting is now OK. Texting people at your table, however, is still strictly verboten. A lot of instant news came out of the WSOP via twitter and made social-media superstars out of Doyle Brunson, Erik Seidel and Joe Sebok (who has more (deleted) Twitter followers than you can count). And this year, as will last, you can follow the Absolute Poker twitter feed for news and pics and other info from the Amazon Room floor.
The other rule should make for some interesting times for the floorpeople. Rule 37 deals with Player Conduct, and one of those rules deals with something of a delicate subject–hygiene. As in, bad hygiene, and how it will no longer be tolerated. To quote directly:
All participants are entitled to expect civility and courtesy from one another at every Tournament table and throughout the Tournament area. Any individual who encounters behavior that is not civil or courteous — or is abusive in any way — is encouraged to immediately contact a Tournament official. This shall include, but is not limited to, any player whose personal hygiene has become disruptive to the other players seated at their table.
If you’re personal hygiene can be accurately described as “disruptive” I think it’s fair to say that this should be addressed. Quickly. It is something of a cliche that poker players are a malodorous lot and one I think is somewhat overstated. Most players, the vast majority even, are Irish Spring fresh. Or, close enough that you wouldn’t worry about getting in an elevator with them. Still, when you get 3,000 people in one room, and they’re in that room for 12 hours or more, under high-pressure situations, you’re gonna get the odd person who smells a bit funky. And, on occasion, you’ll get the guy who shows up at noon looking like he slept under a bridge and smells like he crawled out of a landfill. These are the people this rule will address and, having sat next to a couple of stinkers in my day, I think this is a wise move.
Whether Tournament Director Jack Effel and his staff will be equipped with Wet-Naps (or fire hoses) remains to be seen, but it’s good to see Harrah’s once again gently tweaking the rules to deal with situations that rule-abiding players just shouldn’t have to deal with.
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The Year in Review
With 2009–and the decade–winding down it might be nice to peer in the rear-view mirror and look at some of the more interesting photos I took during the year. Unfortunately I can’t show the MOST interesting pics in my archives, many of them taken during the parties at the Aruba Poker Classic, but various morality clauses and extortion laws prevent me from doing so. Alas. Still, hope you’ll find some of these enjoyable:
Just a quick glimpse of the photos I took during the year. If you’d like to see more of the shots I took during the World Series of Poker or the Aruba Poker Classic just click the links and enjoy.
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What You Don’t Want This Christmas–Bad Advice
One nice thing about poker is this–it keeps you humble. Just when you think you’ve got the game figured out, when you think that, hey, you’re getting pretty doggone good, that’s when the decks grow cold and the bad beats flurry and you set up permanent residence in Tiltville. If you’re the reflective sort these reversals can actually have a positive impact–the unexamined life is not worth living, as they say, and the harsh lessons learned at the poker table can perhaps make you a more patient, determined and, yes, a more humble person.
Then again you come across a lot of blinkered, cocksure folks in poker as well, and I came across one the other day while reading an article in the San Francisco Chronicle. The piece, written by Matt Villano, is titled “In Poker, Go With Your Gut”–hmm, a bit provocative. Good. The article begins thusly:
Just about every poker book ever written will tell you that you should only play the very best hands and that you should always fold when it’s clear your opponents have you beat.
What the books don’t tell you is that sometimes, you also just need to go with your gut.
Ehh, OK.. Yes, sometimes when you play poker you have to break out of established patterns and apply other skills, like bluffing. And what Villano calls “gut” could be that ineffable poker quality called heart, where you must summon the courage to make difficult choices in the face of adversity. Anyway, Villano discusses a hand where there were six limpers (not uncommon in a live game) and he raised with Ace-King. Two players called and the flop came Jd-Qs-3h, a rainbow flop, as Villano says. Now, this ain’t a good flop for Ace-King. You still only have Ace-high, and it’s quite possible that your opponents called with paint or, perhaps, a pocket pair. Then again your opponents limped and so your Ace-high might actually be the best hand. This is a situation that requires some dexterity, some finesse. Instead, here’s how Villano assessed the situation:
I was first to act. Sensing I was one measly card from a straight, I bet out with $25, a wager designed to test the waters and see what my opponents might do.
Uh, what? “One measly card from a straight”? Sure, you have a gutshot draw but there’s only four cards in the deck that give you that straight. It’s something to take into account but you don’t see many people getting giddy about flopping a gutterball draw. Villano makes a $25 continuation bet, which seems small considering the size of the pot, and gets a call and then a $75 raise. Blech. Oh well, Big Slick can be a frustrating hand, but when you miss the flop it isn’t that hard to toss aside in the face of determined opposition.
But Villano, loving that inside straight draw, makes the call. Then the dude who flat-called the first bet, described by Villano as “some guy in a ratty University of Arizona sweatshirt”, shoves for $350. The raiser calls for about $300. So you have a bet, call, raise, call, all-in, all-in call. And Villano is sitting there with no pair. Here’s how he analyzed the hand:
With two all-ins ahead of me, I was pretty much convinced these two guys had flopped three-of-a-kind. This meant I was behind in the hand with only four “outs,” or four cards that would win me the pot (in this case, the four 10s in the deck).
The pot odds weren’t bad (essentially 3-to-1), but statistically, I was a prohibitive underdog. And yet something inside of me didn’t care; I just had a feeling this was going to be a magical hand.
Let me ask you a question–do you believe in magic? Mr. Villano does. The Lovin’ Spoonful did. Unfortunately, I don’t. If I’m dead to a four-outer, if my pot-odds are 3-1, if I’m about 6-1 to win the hand, I fold. Because while I don’t believe in magic, I believe in math. I believe in statistics. I don’t understand them very well, mind you (and I have the report cards to prove it) but I don’t think that I have some sort of ESP or instant karma or pixie dust that allows me to overcome the inexorable march of the Numbers. What Villano is describing isn’t “guts” or “heart”. It’s “crazy”. He’s not making a sick call with fourth pair or putting in the fourth raise with ten-high. He’s calling off his stack drawing to four outs!! I say again–not guts, not heart, KRAY-ZEE.
Here’s how the hand played out–you may want to hold off if you’ve recently eaten:
You can pretty much guess the rest of the story. I called. The turn was a blank, and the river was a 10 of diamonds, enabling me to beat U of A’s set of queens and Bobby’s set of jacks for a fat $911 pot.
Though improbable, the victory actually didn’t surprise me too much. Most of the time, it pays to play by the book. But sometimes, just sometimes, we poker fanatics need to trust our guts.
Methinks Mr. Villano left out some details.
Like, when he rolled over his Ace-King and his opponents revealed sets, the other players said, in effect, “WTF???” How, when the turn came a blank, the player holding the Queens looked sick and put his hands on his head, mumbling “Please, no ten. No, no, no NO!!!! Come on NO TEN!!!!” How the player with Jacks sat there bemoaning his set-under-set fate. And how, when the dealer burned and turned over the ten of diamonds, how the players at the table exploded in paroxysms of disgust, how the player who saw his top set cracked by a gutterball, by a player who called his shove with only a gutterball, slammed his fists on the rail and hurled verbal invective Mr. Villano’s way. Because, heck, that’s how I would reacted. Especially with the smugness he must’ve shown as the pot was pushed his way–after all, Villano said winning the hand “didn’t surprise him much”, when, in fact, it should’ve come as an embarassing shock.
The last line of his story says “But sometimes, just sometimes, we poker fanatics need to trust our guts”. Because I love you people, let me say this–DON’T TRUST YOUR GUTS! TRUST YOUR BRAIN! YOUR BRAIN IS WHERE THE SMART STUFF COMES FROM! YOUR GUTS IS WHERE THE ICKY STUFF COMES OUT OF! Please, please, don’t think that calling off your stack as a 6-1 underdog is something to emulate. Because for every happy hand that Mr. Villano describes, there are five hands where you’re calling for a rebuy–or slinking out of the casino, catcalls chasing you to the door. I’m not saying you have to play strictly by the book–and anyway, there are scores of poker books out there, all with different approaches and advice. Mr. Villano says, “What the books don’t tell you is that sometimes, you also need to go with your gut”. They don’t tell you that BECAUSE YOU SHOULDN’T DO THAT!!!
Don’t place your trust in magic, or your guts. Remember that spongy gray wet thing inside your head, and pay attention to what it has to say.
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Top Ten
There’s no better way to start an argument than by listing the Top Ten of anything. And I do mean ANYTHING–whether you’re talking about the top ten NFL quarterbacks, top ten astrophysicists, top ten pizza joints, top ten yoga positions, there’s gonna be a fight. Everyone has an opinion and people tend to hold their opinions rather dear, and if someone disparages your choices then hackles will rise. The worst fistfight I ever witnessed happened between two best friends who were arguing whether Dr. J or Kevin McHale was one of the top ten players in the NBA. Neither guy was even from Boston or Philly, yet a brawl of apocalyptic violence broke out. And this kinda thing happens all the time, though maybe with less blood spattered on the walls.
Last week ESPN did a survey of various poker media types and ranked the Top Ten Poker Players. Shortly thereafter a 2+2 thread started debating the merits of said list, and the comments ran the gamut, with some posters calling the list “solid” and others debating whether the ESPN voters were suffering from brain damage. No one really disputed that the top two on the list–Phil Ivey and Patrik Antonius–belonged there, but the hacking and slashing started with the player ranked #3 (Daniel Negreanu) and went from there. Many folks brought up names of great online cash players who belonged on the list–Brian Townsend, Phil Galfond, Andrew Robl, Cole South. Then a player who actually IS on the list, Barry Greenstein, posted that while the forum crowd knows the great heads-up multi-tablers, some of the best players in the world are those who play high-stakes mixed-games in Bobby’s Room. Two players he said are extremely tough there are David Oppenheim and John Hennigan. And then Daniel Negreanu, a confirmed stats geek, chimed in with a post that tried to devise a way to define what exactly a “poker player” is. The ambiguity of that sentence should give you an idea of how complex this somewhat silly issue is–people can’t even agree about what the question even asks.
Here’s one way to determine who the best poker player is–follow the money. He (or she) who ends up with the most cash is the best. That’s how poker players keep score, right? But this isn’t an especially satisfying method, because whomever luckboxes the Main Event would always end up atop the list–Jerry Yang, with all due respect, was not the best player in the world circa 2007. Plus there are vast sums sloshing around the high-stakes games both online and live, and it’s not like you can pull Phil Ivey aside and ask how much he fleeced that billionaire for at his suite in the Bellagio.
So if accounting won’t lead us to the best players, what else will? You can ask “experts” to give their opinions, but from the ESPN list we see how well that works. Gary Wise of ESPN, one of the voters, said that he submitted a list, changed his mind, submitted another, and wasn’t happy with either of them. And I’d wager that just about any serious poker fan would be hard-pressed to come up with a list of ten players and not have qualms. Consider all the names I’ve already listed in this post and all the names I HAVEN’T listed, how many fantastic poker players aren’t even in the discussion, if only because we’ve only been talking about it for a short while. I mean, look at this picture:
I took that picture at the WSOP this year. The players in the pic are, from the bottom left, James Van Alstyne, Phil Hellmuth, John Hennigan, Alex Kravchenko, Barry Greenstein, and Daniel Negreanu. That’s a tough table, man. Scary. And only two of those players are in ESPN’s top ten. That’s how deep the talent pool is in poker right now.
So we’re stuck. The poker community is a fractured one, you have your live vs. online schism, the cash vs. tournament divide, the ring vs. short-handed rift. And that sets up a criss-crossy matrix of even more balkanized true-believers, those who think that the best of the best are those who multi-table nosebleed No-Limit games, while others think the best sit at the high-stakes, mixed-game tables. The most famous, perhaps, are the tournament superstars, who are looked down upon by the online MTT grinders.
What we need, perhaps, is some outside influence to decide who the best really are. Mike Caro once said that he always believed that, should we be invaded by aliens who demanded the human race justify it’s survival by winning a single heads-up poker game, that HE should be the one to defend our species. It takes a special sort of self-confidence to think that but what would happen if a hundred motherships took up position over our largest cities and the aliens said, “Howdy there! We’re gonna vaporize your planet unless your best can beat our best in the Intergalactic Series of Poker. Y’all pick your ten best and we’ll beam them to Alpha Centauri for some real high-stakes action!”
“Wait a second,” President Obama would say (I think Obama would be a pretty good spokesperson and, anyway, he’s a poker player). “What games make up the ISOP? Is it one vast No-Limit tournament? H.O.R.S.E.? What’s the blind structure like?”
“We’re gonna play tournaments, cash games, live and online. Every poker game you can think of, even badugi.”
“Badugi,” Obama would say. “You monsters!”
“We’ll give you a day. Ten players, you pick ‘em, we play ‘em. Good luck!”
NOW who do you pick? Other than Ivey and Antonius, who for all we know ARE space aliens, who do you pick? What poker prejudices one might have would quickly fall away in the face of planetary annihilation. Hey, Jeff Lisandro is the best Stud-tournament player in the world right now, but how is he at four-tabling PLO online? How good is Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies at grinding Limit Hold-Em tournaments? Or would those prejudices harden in the face of giant Death Lasers? I’m not sure, but I do know that if you’re ever locked in argument with an intractable adversary, introducing a few Death Lasers into the conversation sometimes loosens things up.
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Good Laws, Bad Laws
It was Aristotle who said, “Law is order, and good law is good order.” And there’s a reason why we’re still quoting Aristotle 2,300 years after the fact–the guy’s ideas were sound. If a society writes laws to define and delineate the power of the state and the rights of individuals, it’s better for all concerned if those laws, like, make sense.
One law on the books that DOESN’T make sense is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, known of course by it’s unwieldy acronym UIGEA. The UIGEA was passed in 2006–last week, more than three years later, the Treasury Department announced that they would postpone the enactment of the law’s guideline for six months. That it took more than three years for the federal government to get around to writing those guidelines shows that no one in government thought it the problem was urgent enough to get those guidelines written. Remember, the UIGEA wasn’t passed on it’s own–Bill Frist, the Senate Majority Leader at the time, tacked it onto the Safe Port Act at the very last second. Frist wanted to curry favor with anti-gambling legislators because he was contemplating a Presidential run at the time and he certainly wasn’t going to let the rights of American citizens stand in his way.
Frist is no longer a Senator and after the 2008 election the clout of the religious right was somewhat curtailed. Protecting the pea-brained proletariat from itself was no longer such a priority for right-wing legislators and there really wasn’t anyone within the federal government gung-ho about getting the UIGEA implemented. The law was window-dressing from the start and now, three years later, we see what happens when Congress passes a poorly-conceived law on the fly. Because until the guidelines were written no one knew exactly how the law, which was supposed to choke off financial transactions between consumers and online gaming sites, was supposed to work. And once those financial institutions got wind of those guidelines they wanted no part of it.
Because the banking industry was right there with the Poker Players Alliance lobbying for a delay in the UIGEA implementation. The banks would’ve been responsible for policing these transactions and the UIGEA doesn’t spell out exactly what’s an illegal transfer and what’s OK. Banks have enough on their hands right now dealing with the global financial crisis–sifting through billions of their customers’ transactions to find those the government doesn’t like is not a task banks are anxious to take on. As an article in the Wall Street Journal said the other day, “this law turns bankers into policemen and forces them to enforce a non-law”.
So the UIGEA regs were delayed for six months, and a few days later Congressman Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, held a hearing on the issue of online gaming. Frank has of course introduced legislation to legalize and regulate online gambling and this hearing was to discuss matters surrounding that proposed law. I could probably write a book refuting the nonsense spouted by Representative Spencer Bachus (R-AL) but perhaps the most compelling testimony came from Ms. Parry Aftab, the executive director of an organization called WiredSafety, which bills itself as the “world’s largest Internet safety, help and education resource”. Ms. Aftab has written books about how to protect your child from the dangers lurking on the internet and during her testimony said that she’s worked with Rep. Bachus in the past. Not someone you’d think would be on our side, yet here’s how she began her testimony.
It is particularly interesting, and I call it ironic, that I am sitting here today saying that the only way to protect consuimer from online gambling risks is by legalizing it. And I never thought I’d say such a thing. But if you don’t legalize it, you can’t regulate it. And what I’m finding now is that we’re acting a bit like, “Here no evil, see no evil”
You can watch a video of her complete testimony right here…
…and the other speakers at the PPA’s site. There’s still a long way to go before online poker is rightfully legalized in the United States, but what this hearing showed is that the institutional knee-jerk opposition we saw when the UIGEA was passed has been reversed. Bankers are saying the UIGEA is both unclear and onerous, online safety experts argue that regulation is the only way to truly protect consumers, and the millions of law-abiding Americans who play poker are standing up en masse to demand their rights be respected. The only voices still in opposition are the usual suspects who do what they can to stand athwart the path of progress. Is it too much to ask that common sense reign once again in America?
Give Thanks and Roll Free
So today is Thanksgiving, when Americans gather with friends and family to consume mass quantities and watch some really bad football. All across our great land turkeys are slowly roasting in ovens, many pumpkin pies lie in state waiting to be devoured, and a good time shall be had by one and all. Let me wish you and yours a most enjoyable Thanksgiving…right before I tell my bad beat story in graphic detail.
Because last night I played in the CEREUS Twitter Freeroll, helping to make up the grand total of 281 tweeters who got the password thanks to their following Absolute Poker on Twitter. We revealed the password an hour before play began and with a $1,000 prize pool and the top 50 players cashing I thought that THIS was an opportunity to rebuild my shattered bankroll! If I could just outlast 3/4 of the field I’d cash, and as we call know once you cash in a tournament, like, making the final table is a breeze. Sure! Right!
Now, while today I’m feeling very thankful for all the wonderful things in my life, last night I wasn’t in such an expansive mood. Because I couldn’t get anything going. Twice I was dealt pocket Queens–no action. Four times I was dealt medium pocket pairs, saw some truly ugly flops, and had to lay it down in the face of some serious betting. I lost a third of my stack when I whiffed the flop with Ace-King, made a strong continuation bet that got me TWO callers, then had to fold when some vicious thug shoved the turn. And so, when I was dealt the Ace-Eight of spades and saw the flop come A-K-8, I was committed to the hand. Nothing short of the Apocalypse would make me surrender this pot, and as I checked and watched one player toss in a small bet that was quickly raised by a player named EVERSHAZZY, I took but a second to move all-in. EVERSHAZZY took something less than a second to make the call and rolled over…Ace-King, for a higher two pair than myself. “Coolered on Thanksgiving Eve?” I mumbled as the final two cards came the 5s and 3s…two useless spades that might’ve helped my hand if there’d been ANOTHER spade on the board, and while five and three equal eight that didn’t help me in this instance. Nice hand, EVERSHAZZY, hope your turkey today is so dry it’s like sand in your mouth.
As I checked to see where I’d finished (154th place, yay) I saw that Absolute’s Lacey Jones was playing as well and playing, uh, well. She was in the top ten in chips and there she stayed through much of the event, chatting away with the players at her table and the rail before a series of late setbacks sent her out in 28th place. So at least ONE member of the family cashed, though once again it wasn’t me. One of these days I’m gonna cash in one of these freerolls, one of these days I’m gonna make the final table.
Of course sometimes cashing but not making the final table can be even more painful than finishing 154th. Ask WTREVER about that–near the chip lead with 10 players left he had PINGPONGSHOW at his mercy when, after a K-K-4 flop, they got all the money in with WTREVER’s K-10 crushing PINGPONGSHOW’s K-2. I was ready to record the bubble hand when a deuce spiked on the turn. That little duck not only saved PPS from elimination, it catapulted her into the chip lead. And for poor WTREVER the heartbreak had only begun–after he opened the pot DISSIDENT11 shoved holding Ac-Qh, not the best move because WTREVER held pocket Kings. The flop brought a Queen but it was the As on the river that cracked WTREVER’s cowboys and so, instead of him holding a sizable chip lead, he was out in 10th place. But let’s hope he was thankful for his deep run, just as we would hope the nine players who made last night’s final table are thankful as well:
Now I know what you’re thinking–”Hey, this is the AP blog, you had to follow Absolute on Twitter to get the password, the freeroll was hosted by Absolute. Why are the screenshots of UB tables?” Well, on this family holiday let us not forget that UB and Absolute are both part of the CEREUS family. Also, our previous freerolls were hosted by UB and, because I’m a total idiot, I logged into the tournament through UB instead of AP. So as you read on keep two thoughts in mind–Thanksgiving is about family, and I’m a jackass.
MR_BUTTON83 was probably feeling a bit like a turkey on Thanksgiving when he went out in 9th place–with around 14K left he called a shove by DISSIDENT11 holding 8s-10s. His cards were live against DISSIDENT11’s Ac-2h and took the lead with a ten on the turn. But an Ace on the river (do I need to send Barry Greenstein five bucks for using that phrase?) reversed the suckout and sent MR_BUTTON83 to the rail with a $20 payday. TYCOU was next out, thanks to GETS2U75’s flopped set of deuces. Thanksgiving is often called Turkey Day but those three ducks were enough to bring an abrupt end to TYCOU’s day, though he was in a good enough mood to tweet about his success (which was good for $30).
THEHIREDGUN was next out–he let himself be anted until he had less than a small blind to his name, and so even if his Kh-9h had held up against SUITED59’s 9d-3h (a three came on the river) he still would’ve been in dire straits. Instead he got three-outered to the rail, with $40 to tide him over until his next hit. ATLIEN09 went out sixth, though not without a delightful sweat. The money went in preflop with ATLIEN09 holding Kc-10c to SUITED59’s As-Qd. The 7c-Qh-3c gave SUITED top pair but ATLIEN a flush draw to go with his overcard, but the board came a-brickin’ and ATLIEN09 had to settle for a $50 return on his $0 investment. Kinda like Wall Street, when you think of it…
DISSIDENT11’s exit was a bit more routine; his Ks-9s was dominated by GETS2U75’s Kd-Qs and while both flopped a King, that didn’t help DISSIDENT11, nor did the turn and river and he was out in 5th ($75). A few hands later GIJOEVALD111 raised to 46,000 (leaving him with just 1,200 behind, perhaps a bet-slider error) and PINGPONGSHOW chose to call instead of nudging forward enough chips to set JOE all in. The flop came Qh-Ad-9d and when PINGPONGSHOW moved in for that final few chips GIJOEVALD111 probably thought it was the Ace that’d trumped his Kh-Qc. Ah, no–PINGPONGSHOW held pocket nines for the set and GIJOEVALD111 was dead as a dodo (trying to get away from all the turkey references here). GIJOEVALD111 was our first three-figure casher in the freeroll, as he collected $100. And as everyone in poker knows, it’s all about the Benjamin.
Down to three it was anybody’s game, though after a decisive hand between SUITED59 and PINGPONGSHOW a clear leader emerged. After PPS raised SUITED re-popped it and PINGPONG made the call. The flop came 5d-Ks-Qd and PINGPONGSHOW did the ‘ol stop-n-go and shoved. Unfortunately SUITED59 wasn’t stop-n-going anywhere, not with pocket Aces, and when PINGPONGSHOW revealed her pocket fours that was pretty much that. She went out in 3rd place, good for $125, though probably not thankful that she’d run into Aces when three handed. Certainly not as thankful as SUITED59 doubtless was.
We began the heads-up battle with SUITED59 holding about a 305K-89K lead over GETS2U75. It looked as though their battle might end quickly, as a few hands in they got the money in before the flop…and then they both turned over A-9. The flop did not allow either player a flush draw and we were back to the fight. GETS2U75 did indeed fight back, even taking the chip lead for a few hands, before SUITED59 reversed the reversal and again took the lead. When you’re playing heads-up any Ace makes for a good hand, but on the final hand the two players traded raises until GETS2U75 learned that his As-5s was dominated by SUITED59’s Ac-Kh. GETS2U75 picked up a wheel draw on the turn but it wasn’t to be, he whiffed the river and SUITED59 was the winner of the CEREUS Twitter Freeroll. He won $200 for his triumph (in a freeroll that had only 281 runners, remember that) while GETS2U75 picked up a bankroll-boosting $150.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, and if you’re traveling this weekend be safe.
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The Cooler
When you cover poker tournaments the one thing you don’t want is a reputation as a cooler. If you wander over to check the action or snap a few pics you don’t want the players scowling because they look at you as they would a black cat crossing their path. Now, I wouldn’t say that I have world-class cooling powers; not like my friend and fellow-blogger AlCantHang, who all-by-his-lonesome could’ve iced Jamie Gold’s epic hot streak during the 2006 Main Event. Seriously, no matter how thermonuclear you’re running, if Al saunters over be prepared for quads under quads or some other nightmare scenario.
But as a noted philosopher once said, “With great power comes great responsibility”. No, wait, that was Spider-Man. Heck, these days that counts as the same thing. Anyway, being a cooler isn’t entirely a bad thing. If an event is running a bit long and you’re waiting for just one player to bust before play ends for the night having a bona fide cooler on hand can be a positive boon. Oh, how many times did we tell Al to go check out a final table and, after waiting just a few minutes, hear a rousing ovation as some stricken soul was sent to the rail?
I don’t think my cooling powers are anywhere near Al’s level, but I am capable of destroying a promising tournament run just by showing my face. My first year in Aruba I wrote a post detailing the progress of a half-dozen players and, near the end of play, I made my rounds to see how they were doing. Within a few minutes five of them busted in turn–I walked over, saw a hand playing out, and seconds later my subject was morosely standing up and watching his chips ship across the table. I remember walking over to where player/author Matthew Hilger was sitting and I didn’t even reach his table before he was standing up and shaking hands. For a few minutes I had the Power, and I didn’t like it.
I had one memorable cooling episode during the most recent WSOP. I was following Day 2 of an event and happened to notice that in a Hold-Em tournament that had started the same day Adam “Roothlus” Levy and Brandon Cantu were among the early chipleaders. I walked over to the Brasilia Room and quickly found Brandon for a few pics. I couldn’t find Adam at first (something that’s normally easy to do) but after making a second orbit of the room I found him standing up as he and another player contested a huge pot. I squeezed off a shot or two before noticing the upturned cards on the table, and that’s when I saw that Adam was way behind in the hand. He saw me and said, “NOW you come to take my picture,” as he failed to catch up and the majority of his stack relocated across the felt.
It’s no fun to cooler someone when you don’t mean to, but in every big hand there must be a loser as well as a winner, and those moments of conflict is when compelling drama is made. I was again walking around Brasilia one day when I saw Lacey Jones playing in what I think was the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. event. She was involved in a hand with James Van Alstyne, who, during the 2009 WSOP, won one H.O.R.S.E event and came second in another. Lacey looked to be a bit short on chips and this Stud hand could be a decisive moment, one that deserved my attention. There was also the fact that most people know Lacey as an always-smiling and always-sunny spokesperson and on-air personality. This was Lacey the Poker Player, and she was in a tight spot.
That’s Van Alsyne’s hand setting out chips for a bet, a bet that Lacey called. Though not until after some agonized deliberation:
After Lacey called the dealer tossed her the four of clubs, and I thought, “Uh, OK, maybe that gives her a flush draw??” I don’t recall if Van Alstyne bet again but he and Lacey saw sixth street and this time Lacey was dealt the ten of spades, which didn’t seem much better. “Straight draw?” I wondered a bit optimistically. Van Alstyne bet out and Lacey looked at her cards with an understandable lack of enthusiasm:
This time Lacey folded, not looking happy about it, and I meekly moved along. That’s one of the more delicate parts of covering poker tournaments, you don’t want to linger over someone else’s misfortune. And it doesn’t pay to have Lacey Jones think you’re a bad luck charm. Now of course I know there’s no such thing as luck, there’s no such thing as a cooler, that’s all mindless superstition and nonsense. Mindless superstition and nonsense…that lots and lots of people believe in, at least at some level. Think I’m gonna start remembering all the times players WIN big hands when I wander by. Good information to have handy the next time I’m accused of being a cooler.
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Lucky You
If you asked your typical poker player “Do you think you’re a lucky, or unlucky” I’d bet that the vast majority would pick the latter. Poker players tend to remember their bad beats and not their brutal suckouts. Also, if you admit that from time to time you’ve been luckier than you deserved that is a de facto admission that you weren’t playing that well. And poker players tend to overestimate their skill about as often as they underestimate their good fortune.
I thought about poker players’ unusual relationship with luck as I watched Joe Cada win the World Series of Poker Main Event. Cada is obviously a good poker player, with years of solid results behind him (despite the fact that he’s just (expletive deleted) 21 years old). But there’s no denying that he got lucky at that final table. Very lucky. Like, freakin’ UNBELIEVABLY lucky. After losing a huge pot to Jeff Shulman with A-J to Shulman’s A-K Cada was down to a bit more than 2 million chips. That was about 1% of the chip in play, not even three big blinds, I think. He was toast. Done. Hit the bricks, pal.
But there’s that poker aphorism we’re so fond of repeating, “All it takes is a chip and a chair”. It’s odd to think of a 2-million stack being little more than table scraps; players started the Main Event with 30,000 chips and so that’s like combining the stacks of 67 long-dead donkeys. But Cada was down to the felt, dead in the water. To come all the way back would be a miracle.
Which is just what happened. Cada survived a race with Phil Ivey when his pocket fours held on against Ivey’s A-8. And then came the two hands that changed the course of poker history, as Cada doubled with pocket threes and pocket deuces against Shulman’s Jacks and Antoine Saout’s Queens, respectively. Twice Cada was all in and thoroughly crushed by his opponent’s overpair, and twice he flopped sets. A bit later, racing against Saout’s pocket eights with Ace-King, Cada rivered a King to sent the Frenchman out in third place to set up the heads-up battle with Darvin Moon. Which, of course, Cada won, along with the title, the bracelet, and $8.5 million dollars.
I’m not saying that Cada played these hands poorly, by the way. We could discuss the merits of pushing with small pairs all day and all night but it’s hard to make a pair in Hold-Em and, considering that these hands are drawn from a sample of 364 played at the final table I don’t know how much insight we can draw from them. But twice Cada found himself all-in and in jail, and twice the flop saved him. And as I watched his stack rise from the dead and these incredible reversals I wondered how that might’ve affected Cada’s psyche. Do you start to believe that you’re invincible, that the cards won’t let you lose no matter what? Do you start to believe in Destiny, that you have been touched by otherworldly powers in order for you to do great things in the future? Or, perhaps, do you worry that this is merely the setup for the soul-crushing fall that’s about to take place (and indeed that’s what I was thinking when Moon dominated heads-up play early on and seized a 3-1 chip lead). Or is Cada, even at his age, experienced enough to accept such good fortune in stride, even when it’s happening at the final table of the Main Event?
We got some insight into Cada’s thoughts when he posted a brief (and somewhat incoherent) note over at Two Plus Two. “Lets first by saying if anyone thinks I’m denying I got lucky at the final table then im not,” Cada wrote. A bit later he says, “Did I get extremely lucky during the final table of the main event? Yes I did, but as an extreme critic to my self play I was not mad about how I played any hand even though I got lucky.” And that is a salient point, both about the WSOP Final Table and about poker in general. You can make the reasonable play, the perfect play, even, and still lose. Ask Kevin Schaffel, who got all his chips in with pocket Aces to Eric Buchman’s pocket Kings and saw Buchman flop a set and turn quads. What can you do? Cada seems to make the same point here–the hands played out in a reasonable fashion and, most of the time, Cada would’ve found himself headed to the rail. Instead, against the odds, he’s the World Champion.
Every player who makes it to the final table benefits from good luck along the way. Whether it’s your table draw or you get action with your big hands or you simply suck-out in some egregious way, the massive Main Event field takes probability and psychology and twists them together in fascinating ways. Is getting incredibly lucky reason to feel ashamed, or superior to your vanquished foes? Poker players like to say that in the end the luck evens out, but how long does it take for that balancing to occur? I’ve heard quite a few professional players say that one lifetime isn’t enough for luck to find it’s equilibrium, that no one plays enough to give a true and final accounting of luck’s effect on the game. We understand the math, the statistics, and we know that in the long run luck doesn’t matter. But human beings live in the short-term, and it’s possible that the “short-term” covers everything from one hand to one’s career. How poker players deal with luck, how they even define it, will always be one of the most interesting aspects of the game,
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From the Cheap Seats
I just wrote a little post over at the UB Blog about the action at the WSOP Final Table yesterday/today and one thing I’ve found myself wondering about is how well poker works as a spectator sport. I’ve covered a fair few final tables and, sure, there’s lots of action and tons of money and/or prestige at stake. The Main Event is one of the largest sporting events in the world, with a player-generated prize pool that dwarfs even the biggest events in golf, tennis, auto racing, and the four major team sports.
But playing a final table to its conclusion can take a long time. A very long time. Yesterday the November Nine started playing at noon Vegas time and finished up at six…AM. That’s 18 hours and we haven’t even crowned the champion yet, as Joe Cada and Darvin Moon will go toe-to-toe for God knows how long before finally deciding things. And that’s a long time to for a fan, no matter how ardent, to watch anything. Think about it, is there ANYTHING you would voluntarily do for eighteen consecutive hours. No matter how much you love Family Guy, no matter how much you love drinking beer and watching football, no matter how much you love having unlimited credit in a strip club, after three-quarters of a day you’ve probably pretty much had it. At the very least you gotta sleep, sometime.
To be sure there was a lot of excitement outside the Penn & Teller theater yesterday, as each player brought his own rooting section along. And there were hundreds of rabid poker fans wanting to see history in the making. This video from Raw Vegas should give some idea what the scene was like before the doors were opened:
But as day turned to night, and then day again, the crowd thinned and the energy in the room dwindled. This was perfectly understandable, as many fans left when their favorite was eliminated and others left as sheer exhaustion took hold. As I followed along with the coverage and read the Tweets of my friends covering the final table it was obvious they were all on their second, third, and fourth wind. Endurance is an important quality for poker players and that’s also the case for poker fans.
So does poker have a future as a spectator sport? There were huge lines winding through the halls of the Rio yesterday, they could’ve packed more people in if they had the space. Greg Raymer was quoted before play started that he hoped someday you might see a poker tournament played out in a football stadium, the stands packed with tens of thousands of cheering fans. I think that’s a bit optimistic, even the most popular players don’t have fans as, well, fanatical as sports teams. But as I thought about it the sport that kinda resembles poker when it comes to a spectacle is…cricket. Like poker, cricket matches can go on and on an on…heck, they have test matches in cricket that last weeks. You have constant activity in cricket, but not always decisive action. The ball gets bowled, the batter decides not to swing, the ball is bowled again…and this goes on all day. Sometimes the batter takes his whack and there’s running and scrambling, but there are long stretches where nothing much goes on.
And there’s a more laid back attitude in the stands. People have tea. They bring a book along. I watched a match once and there was a young couple sitting off by themselves who were engaged in a a serious make-out session. I’m not saying that you wanna have THAT kind of diversion going on in the stands but fans need to be able to get up, walk around, get something to eat, and come back to find some available seats. For a huge event like the November Nine you might see people willing to sit there all day, but if poker is going to attract big live audiences for more than the biggest prize in poker it can’t be a sit-there-all-day thing.
There’s also the fact that I don’t exactly know the rules of cricket, and many casual fans don’t exactly know the rules of poker. A more laid-back atmosphere in the stands could allow for discussion and debate about the hands as the play out. I concede that poker fans are unlikely to take such a genteel attitude towards the game, but a more laid-back attitude in the stands might lead to them being filled to the rafters more often.
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