2013 WSOP, Day 38: Number One and Number Two

Kind of a fun one last night, helping report on the last day of Event No. 59, the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw in which Eli Elezra won his second bracelet after outlasting a bunch of other bracelet holders for the win including Daniel Negreanu who finished runner-up. Negreanu actually had the chip lead to begin heads-up play, but Elezra soon closed the gap and began catching hands to win in fairly short order.

From the start of the day yesterday Negreanu was asking about the WSOP Player of the Year race and how his finish in Event No. 59 might affect it. I haven’t done the math myself, but I believe if Negreanu had won last night he’d have retaken the lead in the POY race by a tiny margin, but by finishing second he remains in second behind $50K Poker Players Championship winner Matthew Ashton at the moment.

I helped cover this one from start to finish with my blogging colleague Kevin. After it was over I thought about one of the first posts I’d written for the event I which I reported about Negreanu chatting with Bill Chen at a neighboring table, using the post as an excuse to list the top hands in 2-7.

Before any of the 282 players who entered the event had busted, Chen was telling Negreanu about “number two” hands (i.e., 7-6-4-3-2 or the second-best hand in deuce-to-seven) sometimes being costly for him. Negreanu joked with Chen that he overplayed his number two hands, and to “stop being a victim” and to start “taking responsibility,” then uttered the phrase that I made the title of the post: “Number Two is Not Number One.”

Funny how Negreanu would eventually end up taking number two in the event and thus remained at number two in the WSOP POY race. And in fact on one of the key hands during heads-up play Elezra made a “number one” -- i.e., the nuts or a wheel (e.g., 7-5-4-3-2) -- to win what was a fairly big, decisive pot. Negreanu mucked, so we didn’t know if he had made a number two on that one or not.

After Elezra won I also thought about something that happened with about 40 players left on Day 2. I’d been standing near the rail at one of the outer tables when Elezra looked up and called me over. Reading my name off the credential hanging from the lanyard, Elezra grinned and said “You stay around here... you are lucky for me.” (Future players in tournaments I cover may wish to take note.)

Both Negreanu and Elezra are fan favorites, of course, and thus there was a nice-sized crowd on hand for the finish. I tweeted when it was done how it was hard not to pull for both of them at the end, and I meant it. While there were a lot of great players who made deep runs in this one -- and likable players, too -- I think if the rail had been asked which two were at the top of their list of those they wanted to see make it to heads-up play, for most Elezra and Negreanu would have rated number one and number two.

Both engaged the crowd repeatedly both during the pre-dinner break portion of play when they were on the secondary feature table and again afterwards when at three-handed they were moved over to “the mothership” for the finish.

A couple of times Negreanu asked people on the rail if they even knew what they were watching, 2-7 being a game foreign to many. He humorously delivered a rapid explanation to them how the game worked -- “the best hand is actually the worst hand and the worst hand is actually the best hand... get it?” -- and it was easy to see how his doing so added a lot to their enjoyment while watching, even if it didn’t necessarily increase their understanding of the game.

It was a good example of how personalities like Negreanu and Elezra help considerably when it comes to poker being a “spectator sport,” since in truth the actual game play was not something the majority of spectators -- even those with a knowledge of 2-7 -- could really follow that well from afar.

Speaking of poker being a spectator sport, the Main Event begins today, which means even larger crowds on the rail going forward. The ESPN production crew will be making their first appearance as well soon, as they haven’t been shooting any of the prelims. Again, their packaged coverage is going to start with Day 3 of the Main Event with the weekly shows beginning on August 6.

I’m also going to be joining the Main Event a little late, as I’ll be helping with the very last preliminary event for the next couple of days, the big $10K PLO that enters its second day today (Event No. 61). Looks like 169 are left from a big starting field of 386, among them NBA star Paul Pierce -- formerly of the Boston Celtics, now a Brooklyn Net -- who has about twice the average stack heading into today (no shinola).

Click on over to PokerNews for the next couple of days to follow along with Event No. 61 in between checking those Main Event updates to see who ends up number one in this one to win the last bracelet of the summer.

2013 WSOP, Day 37: Look Away

Kind of up against it once again as I have little time to scribble here, being mostly preoccupied with getting back over to the Rio to help cover the third and final day of Event No. 59, the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw event. Just 10 players are left, including six bracelet holders -- David “ODB” Baker, David Chiu, Scott Seiver, Michael Mizrachi, Daniel Negreanu, and Eli Elezra -- so it should make for an interesting final day with lots of different storylines in play.

If I had more time, I’d write a longer post addressing a particular challenge faced by tourney reporters, something that this particular event has reminded me of repeatedly. I’m referring to the importance of not looking at players’ hands while reporting, something that can be especially tricky at times when doing an event like the 2-7 Triple Draw.

I remember when I began reporting on tourneys and found myself standing by a table for the first time with a notepad and pen in hand. I was startled, I think, at how often players failed to conceal their hole cards, even in hold’em where there are just the two cards to keep hidden from view.

Most of us have experienced this phenomenon as players, probably, where we occasionally find ourselves sitting next to those who aren’t so careful about covering their cards. But the reporter standing nearby a table has what is often an even better angle for viewing such, especially in a game like Triple Draw in which players have five cards to consider, and in which they keep drawing more which requires them to consult their hands over and again.

Early on I trained myself to anticipate players’ squeezing of their cards and to look away, often turning to the side and/or peering upwards to study the ceiling. I obviously don’t need to know what anyone is holding when reporting a hand, nor would I want any player ever to think twice about those circling the tables as they play.

I’m remembering a moment during the 10-game event that I helped cover last week when I was standing near a table counting stacks after a hand had completed. I can’t remember which game was being dealt -- it might have been 2-7 triple draw, actually -- but I had lingered just a moment longer than usual to get a look at one player’s chips when he took a quick peek over his shoulder after noticing me in his peripheral vision.

At that, another player sitting across the table offered a wide grin and said “You better look out... that’s my guy!” The table laughed as he was obviously kidding. I smiled, too, but I also immediately walked away from the table, not wanting even to joke about such a thing.

Triple draw is an interesting game, though, in which players sometimes aren’t shy about even letting opponents know what they are holding as hands proceed. Hands are frequently held aloft as players inspect them and consider their options, meaning it requires an extra effort for those of us reporting not to look at the cards while still keeping an eye on the table in order to keep track of the betting and draws.

Like I say, if I had more time I might discuss this whole issue in greater depth, but I’ve got to go get ready. Gotta prepare a little more before I go watch more hands of poker being played. And not watch them, too.

2013 WSOP, Day 36: Breaking a Hand

I suppose like just about everyone who learned how to play poker from the early 19th century up through around 2003, I was first introduced to it as draw poker. That is, as a game in which you were dealt five cards, you gave some back and got more, and you tried to build a poker hand right there in your hand. Etymologically speaking, that is of course where that term came from -- a poker hand, with five cards (like five fingers).

Meanwhile those who first learned the game over the past decade -- i.e., after ESPN showed Chris Moneymaker winning $2.5 million at the World Series of Poker -- likely began with Texas hold’em, with one’s hand being built from the two cards one held face down and the five sitting face up in the middle.

It was five-card draw, of course, that I was playing as a kid, in which one tries to make high hands. I didn’t really get introduced to lowball games until much later. So I didn’t play deuce-to-seven triple draw -- the game I was watching people play last night as I helped cover Event No. 59 ($2,500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball) -- until much later, and even then only occasionally.

As a tourney reporter, I’ve only encountered non-hold’em games at the World Series of Poker. That’s the only place where I’ve reported on Omaha, stud games, draw, and so on. Before going in last night I was remembering having covered the 2-7 Triple Draw event way back in 2008, my first year at the WSOP. I also covered David “Bakes” Baker’s first bracelet win in 2010 in the 2-7 NL Draw event, and have reported on a few different mixed-game events which have included either 2-7 TD or 2-7 NL (with a single draw), and occasionally both such as in the 10-game event last week.

Last night saw a starting field of 282 whittled down to just 88, with most of the eliminations coming during the second half of the day. One who busted was Bill Chen, and it was his elimination hand that got me thinking about (1) a hand of triple draw I’d reported on back in 2009 and (2) that unique occurrence in triple draw of a player “breaking” his or her hand.

With the hand last night I’d missed the first draw, but as I passed by I saw it was a three-way hand and Chen was nearly all in, and so I stopped to take note of what happened next. Chen ended up nearly out of chips after standing pat on the second draw while both of his opponents -- Mike Leah and David “Bakes” Baker -- drew one card. Then came the third draw, and when Chen saw Leah stand pat (while Baker drew one again), he decided to break his hand and draw one card in the hopes of improving.

As it turned out, Chen made the right decision to break his hand, although he was all but doomed, anyway, as Leah had already made a “number one” or the nuts -- 7-5-4-3-2. Chen said afterwards he “had an 8-7,” and in fact managed to draw to a better hand -- a “number three” (7-6-5-3-2) -- but it wasn’t good enough and he was eliminated.

The 2009 hand I recalled came from that year’s $2,500 “Mixed Event” (which is what they called the 8-game tourney then). It was the final day, and they were down to the last couple of tables. The game was 2-7 TD, and the hand involved Layne Flack, Eric Crain, and Jimmy Fricke. All three had drawn cards on the first round, then only Flack stood pat on the second. After that second draw Flack bet, Crain raised, Fricke folded, and Flack called. Then Flack watched as Crain stood pat on the third draw.

That sent Flack into the tank for a spell, and after much thought he finally decided to break his hand and draw one. As we discovered afterwards, he’d had 9-5-4-3-2 and had tossed the nine only to receive a jack and worsen his hand. Meanwhile, Crain also had 9-5-4-3-2, and Flack was obviously unhappy to see that his decision had cost him half the pot. Here’s that hand report, and here also is a HBP post titled “Intense” which discusses the hand.

I call breaking one’s hand unique both because it doesn’t come up that often in 2-7 triple draw -- it’s rare that a player will stand pat, then draw on a subsequent round -- and because such obvious change-of-course-type decisions don’t really come up in other poker variants, or at least not as conspicuously. Sure, a seven-card stud hand with five rounds of betting might well cause players to alter some larger plan for the hand at some point along the way. The same can happen in hold’em or Omaha games, too. But from an observer’s standpoint, there’s usually no obvious action to witness that unambiguously announces a player has suddenly been forced to adopt Plan B.

I’ve been talking to various people out here this summer about the detour I experienced career-wise where I began going down one path, then took this interesting turn to write about poker. For example, when meeting Reading Poker Tells Zach Elwood yesterday, at one point I kind of ran through an abbreviated version of the story to give some context to our discussion of my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class.

I left what was a fairly secure full-time position to embark on this other, less certain career, primarily because I’d reached a point where I wasn’t comfortable staying with the original plan and I had an option available to me to make a change. In other words, it felt a bit like I was holding what might turn out to be a losing hand, and I decided to break it with the hopes of drawing to something better.

Making that sort of “break” is easier said than done. Perhaps that’s why I find it a little bit fascinating to see a player make that decision in triple draw -- to admit things aren’t going quite right and risk trying a new path. Such a sudden, meaningful revision to the story one has been telling about oneself. Interesting to think something so explicit and plain to see can come up in a game in which you can’t see anyone’s cards.

I’m back on “the deuce” today for Day 2. Click over the PokerNews to see if anyone else decides to break a hand.

2008 WSOP, Day 25: More Clichés Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Vera is here. Slept very well last night. And late into the morning. Combination of the body recovering some lost hours (got up early yesterday to be at the airport) and Vera being here, I think.

Work continues, though I’ll have at least one and maybe two days off later in the week. Enjoyed covering with F-Train the first day of the $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Lowball (Limit) event yesterday (Event No. 40). Started with 238 runners who amazingly played down to just 30 by the end of the night. The plan today -- as is usually the case on Day Twos -- is to play down to the final table, so we aren’t too far from that already.

Toward the end of the evening, the eliminations were coming so quickly that F-Train and I started to notice how all of our posts were reporting yet another bustout. And as we were nine-plus hours into the proceedings, neither of us had the creative energy we had at the day’s start. Enter the clichés. He titled one “Close But No Cigar,” then I followed it with “Another One Bites the Dust.” In the waning moments of our shift, we somehow resisted the urge to continue in that direction and describe players buying the farm, throwing in towels, kicking buckets, and/or bring out fat ladies to sing for them.

I was also trying to figure out why exactly people were busting at such a high clip. I hadn’t really examined the schedule of play that closely before the day began. Looking back, I can see that when there were 85 players left, the average chip stack was 14,000. That was at the beginning of Level 7, when the blinds were 300/500, and the limits 500/1,000. There are four betting rounds in triple draw, and the size of the bets (in limit) works like in other limit games. So here, for example, we had bets of 500 before and after the first draw, and bets of 1,000 after the second and third draws.

I suppose that average stack was on short side, as someone should probably expect to put in five big bets or so (on average) to reach the end of a hand. I think another factor here might be that in draw games it seems much less likely for someone to fold a hand after deciding initially to play it. (At least it looked that way to me watching the action.) So, if you had an average stack there at the start of Level 7 and decided to play a couple of hands and neither worked out for you, you were pretty much toast. Or dead as a doornail.

The reporting presented a couple of other challenges as well. Unlike in flop games, where observers can see community cards, or stud games where players have upcards, in draw games everything is hidden until the end. I think it was tricky, sometimes, for our reporters to pick up on whether or not a hand was worth reporting until after it was over.

Also a little cumbersome simply to narrate a draw hand in a way that is interesting or compelling to read. You share what players drew and whether they bet or raised, but you can’t really say much more.

Much more interesting yesterday were the extracurricular shenanigans that seemed to run rampant. Players were both showing discards (regularly) and rabbit-hunting (occasionally), neither of which is technically allowed. And there was a lot of table talk, it seemed -- some friendly, some less so -- perhaps more than in any other tourney I’ve covered thus far. All of these things are somehow related to how draw games usually go, I think.

Then there was the “absurdist” (as we dubbed him), who appeared to think he was playing five card draw or some other poker variant. He once stood pat with queens and tens -- no shinola -- betting all of the way down. He ended up going out with a pair of aces, which he’d hung onto after discarding his other three cards. You don’t want aces in this game (they are always high), nor do you want pairs. Didn’t faze him, though. Upon being eliminated, he took another swig of his Guinness and announced “Rebuy!” (Not an option in this tourney, either.)

We’ll see how quickly things go today. With just 30 players left, the average stacks are now just under 40,000. The blinds will be 600/1,200 and limits 1,200/2,400 when we begin today, meaning again, we’re not too far from where we were at the start of Level 7. At that point players with average stacks had about 14 big bets; right now they have about 16 or 17.

And not to beat a dead horse, but do head over to PokerNews to follow all the action. I’m not just whistling Dixie. It’s the cat’s pajamas, I tell ya. The greatest thing since sliced bread.

2008 WSOP, Day 24: Lowball

Just about noon here. Event No. 40, the Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) event is about to get underway. F-Train and I are covering this one.

Went over to McCarran this morning and picked up the lovely Vera Valmore. Very nice to have her here. She’s currently wandering the Rio until we’ll reunite during the dinner break.

Did manage to get back over to the Gold Coast last night for some more bowling fun with California Jen, Karridy, SitNGo Steve, Ryan, Pokerati Dan, and Mean Gene. Karridy bowled the night’s best game, which started with strikes on four of the first five frames. I managed to squeeze out a spare in the tenth frame of the last game to establish a new personal high of 101 in the Pokerati Bowling Series.

I mentioned how I’d talked a bit with Tom Schneider about terminology for Deuce-to-Seven. The best hand in Deuce-to-Seven Lowball (also known as Kansas City lowball), is 7-5-4-3-2. That hand can, says Tom, be called a “wheel.” I know some reserve that term for A-2-3-4-5 (and use it in a variety of games), but that’s what a wheel is in 2-7 Lowball. Of course, A-2-3-4-5 is simply ace-high in 2-7 lowball, as aces are always high in this game. (Straights and flushes count against you, too.)

Also, like in Razz and other low games, you can refer to hand being “smooth” or “rough” hand, e.g., an 8-7-5-4-2 is a “rough eight” whereas an 8-5-4-3-2 is a “smooth eight.”

Tom also said the best hands are sometimes referred to more simply among the players, i.e., the best hand, the 7-5-4-3-2, is a “number one,” the second best, 7-6-4-3-2, a “two,” and the third best, 7-6-5-3-2, a “three.” Kind of reminds me of that story about the guys in prison passing around a joke book and after several years they’ve all memorized all of the numbered jokes. So every now and then a guy would just say “Seventy-Six” and everyone would laugh.

Doubt I’ll bother with the “one,” “two,” and “three” stuff, as that could simply confuse readers, I’d think. (Or me.) I have a feeling that with three draws and four rounds of fixed limit betting, this may well become a bit tedious to report in the usual fashion. But the event ought to draw a lot of name pros and interesting personalities, so I imagine there will still be a lot to write about.

As always, you can go follow along over at PokerNews.