2009 WSOP, Day 40: By the Numbers

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

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

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



Comparing 2008 and 2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Projections

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

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

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

2009 WSOP, Day 39: Fever

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009 WSOP, Day 38: The Big One

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you over at the PokerNews’ live reporting page.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dan Harrington. No shinola.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009 WSOP, Day 35: Being There

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It had been a good day.

2009 WSOP, Day 34: Shamus, the Movie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What woke me up? Hands. One after another.

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

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

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

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

Nice to have Vera next to me.

2009 WSOP, Day 32: A Long Flight

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009 WSOP, Day 31: Decline

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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