On “‪#FlippingCoins #$250kaPop”

Another short writing window for your humble scribbler today after another long day of other duties to tend to, including some here on the now super-slushy farm. Thought I’d sign off the week with reference to a debate that arose a few days ago regarding these “high roller” events.

The conversation was occasioned by the two big buy-in tourneys that happend at the Aussie Millions last week and which I was writing about a week ago -- the A$100,000 Challenge won by Yevgeniy Timoshenko who earned A$2 million for topping a field of 76 entries, and that LK Boutique A$250,000 Challenge in which Phil Ivey won A$4 million after prevailing in a field that drew 46 entries.

Both were re-entry events, allowing players to buy back in as many times as they wished up until the start of the second day of play. That led to some eyebrow-raising examples of players spending a lot in Melbourne to play in the tourneys. Daniel Negreanu, for example, bought in five times to the $100K event and another three times to the $250K one. He managed to cash in both and in fact turned a profit overall.

The debate to which I am referring regarding the high roller events arose over Twitter and primarily involved Negreanu and Dan Shak. In his “Five Thoughts” column this week, Rich Ryan touches on one aspect of that dialogue, namely the one over whether or not these huge buy-in events have an effect on all players. (Do they or don’t they?) But in fact I was intrigued by another issue that arose between Shak and Negreanu during their Twitter exchange.

During the frenzy of re-entering the $250K, Negreanu at one point tweeted “Doubled up! K9 vs A8 I hit a 9 weee! This is so fun! ‪#FlippingCoins #$250kaPop.” Not long after Shak wrote a number of tweets about the $250K and high rollers, generally speaking.

Shak actually likes the high roller events (and has a record of doing well in them), but wasn’t crazy about the unlimited re-entry option being available so deep into them as was the case at the Aussie Millions. “Never thought I would say this but what is going on right now is a complete embarrassment to the game and what it means to the value of $,” Shak tweeted amid other comments.

A couple of days later he and Negreanu got into a conversation and Shak noted to Negreanu “the tweeting and referencing 250k flips is what I had issues with,” adding “you are a role model whether you like it or not and it's my opinion that [it is] not necessary to glorify it to the young.”

Negreanu of course defended his tweets about “flipping” for a quarter milly while arguing that delivering such messages wasn’t harmful in the way Shak suggested. You can search through the timelines of both for more, including going up and down the conversations emanating from the tweets linked to above.

Like Shak, I’m somewhat weary of the unlimited re-entry format, generally speaking. I’ll admit to being a bit awe-struck by players dropping so much into these high roller events such as happened in Melbourne. Meanwhile, I’m not sure what sort of effect a player like Negreanu tweeting excitedly about “‪#FlippingCoins #$250kaPop” has on younger, aspiring players, nor how such spectacles might affect broader perceptions about poker’s skill component. But I do get that there is something kind of out-of-whack about it all.

What do you think? What sort of effect do these six-figure tourneys really have on the larger poker community?

Huge Leap at Aussie Millions A$100,000 Challenge

The Aussie Millions A$100,000 Challenge, a quick-structured, two-day event with unlimited re-entries through the start of Day 2, had a remarkable 66 total entries yesterday, pushing the total prize pool up close to $6 milly USD. The second and final day kicks off in about two hours, and there’s a good chance a few more might jump in at this point to push the total up over 70 entries.

Donnie Peters summarizes yesterday’s action over on PokerNews, noting how both Daniel Negreanu and Isaac Haxton entered five times on Day 1, with Negreanu surviving on his fifth try while Haxton busted yet again. Mike “Tîmex” McDonald leads the 29 players still in the hunt, who along with the extra entrants will play down to a winner tonight.

The event was first introduced at the Aussie Millions in 2006. Look at the number of entries for the first eight times the A$100,000 took place (with winners in parentheses):

2006 - 10 (John Juanda)

2007 - 17 (Erick Lindgren)

2008 - 25 (Howard Lederer)

2009 - 23 (David Steicke)

2010 - 24 (Dan Shak)

2011 - 38 (Sam Trickett)

2012 - 22 (Dan Smith)

2013 - 22 (Andrew Robl)

The A$250,000 Super High Roller was added in 2011, which was perhaps a reason for the drop off in the A$100,000 over the last couple of years. That event, incidentally, drew 20 entries in 2011 (Erik Seidel won), 16 entries in 2012 (Phil Ivey won), and 18 in 2013 (with Sam Trickett winning). This year’s version of that event starts this Sunday.

Of course, the unlimited re-entry format is the biggest factor pumping up the total, something that hasn’t always been part of the tourney. In addition to Negreanu and Haxton firing five times each, Dan Shak and Paul Newey each entered three times yesterday, and Tom Dwan twice. (By the way, 100,000 Australian dollars currently equals about $90,000 USD.)

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure started having its $100,000 Super High Roller Event in 2011, and this year it reached a peak in entries with 46. Again, at the PCA the tourney is also now an unlimited re-entry format. Here are the totals and winners for the PCA $100,000 events:

2011 - 38 (Eugene Katchalov)

2012 - 30 (Viktor Blom)

2013 - 43 (Scott Seiver)

2014 - 46 (Fabian Quoss)

There have been three World Poker Tour Alpha8 events thus far, another $100,000 tourney with re-entries. Those have drawn 21 entries (Florida), 20 (London), and 28 (St. Kitts). The next one happens in a week in Johannesburg, South Africa.

So while this year’s Aussie Millions A$100,000 Challenge won’t come close to the prize pool of last summer’s $111,111 buy-in “One Drop High Rollers” event at the WSOP (not a re-entry) which drew 166 players total -- obviously a unique event -- it still represents a remarkable leap up from what’s been generally happening generally with these six-figure tourneys.

I mean, come on... 70 entries?!? That’s Bob Beamon-esque.

(EDIT [added 2/9/14]: The A$100,000 Challenge ultimately drew 76 entries; meanwhile the LK Boutique A$250,000 Challenge drew an incredible 46 entries.)

Hachem on the State of the Game

2005 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Joe Hachem delivered an interesting interview at the Aussie Millions to BLUFF’s Thomas Keeling (SrslySirius) this week that is getting a decent amount of attention.

Actually Keeling’s style is usually only to show his subjects talking -- i.e., not to interject himself asking the questions -- which works pretty well, especially when the interviewee has something interesting to say. Here Hachem is shown commenting for more than five minutes about the state of poker today, in particular addressing the role WSOP Main Event champions have as ambassadors of the game and how in his opinion those who came after him haven’t done as much in that effort as he would have liked.

Hachem starts out saying he’s “very saddened,” then states fairly bluntly that “personally, if I'm going to be honest, I think that between Jamie Gold and Jerry Yang, they destroyed the legacy of the world champion.”

He doesn’t go on to specify exactly how the 2006 and 2007 WSOP Main Event champions failed in his estimation. Instead he moves on to talk about the last half-dozen champs (from 2008-2013) all being under 25 and thus perhaps exempt for a couple of reasons from being targeted by his censure.

One reason that Peter Eastgate, Joe Cada, Jonathan Duhamel, Pius Heinz, Greg Merson, and Ryan Riess are to be given some slack for not being as active when it comes to the ambassador role is their age and relative lack of experience outside of poker. “They haven't established themselves a family and maybe aren’t ready to be that ambassador that me, Greg Raymer, and Chris Moneymaker were,” says Hachem.

The other reason -- not explicitly stated by Hachem, but understood from his opening -- that the latter group gets a pass is because after Gold and Yang failed in his view to continue the pattern established by the 2003-2005 champs, the responsibility to be that ambassador for the game wasn’t as apparent for those that came after. At least that seems to be an implied point Hachem is making.

He goes on from there to talk about how honored he was -- and still is -- to have won in 2005 and subsequently to be in a position “to spread the word and reputation of the game [he] love[s].” He then circles back to the idea of being “saddened” and how in his view too many in poker are too focused on making money and not participating in (and thus helping to nurture) a larger community.

“I think poker is dying, and the reason that it is dying is that it is no longer fun for people to play,” says Hachem.

There is more, and rather than summarize it all I’d suggest you check out the clip yourself to hear the rest of Hachem’s argument. But the theme running through all of his comments -- at least as I hear them -- is the way poker has in his view been overrun by players whose self-interest too greatly outweighs any other concerns for the community as a whole.

Hachem’s not all bleak, noting at the end how there are some players who are starting to exhibit what he thinks are appropriate attitudes towards the game and those who play it -- i.e., being more sociable and inviting and thus helping in small ways promote poker as an enjoyable and fun activity. (I know for some the occasionally ornery Hachem’s comments about civility read ironically, but I’m setting aside that aspect of his observations to respond to the points he makes in their own right.)

There’s some extra drama in the clip, what with all the sadness and destroying and dying and all, but judging from some of the responses there’s probably some truth in what Hachem’s saying, too.

As I’ve written about here before -- in fact, as far back as 2006 -- I’ve never thought the WSOP Main Event champ should be thought to owe anything to the community, although I understand the idea that the champ does have some influence, and thus probably can matter somewhat when it comes to shaping how the game comes to be perceived by the larger culture.

The larger point about how everyone involved in poker bears some responsibility to help make the game fun and thus inviting to others is more persuasive to me -- that the community as a whole is necessarily going to thrive or suffer depending on how individuals within it treat one another. And thus while anyone who says “the money isn’t everything” in poker automatically sounds ingenuous, I get the point and don’t disagree with it.

What do you think of the former champ’s speech on the state of the game?