Reentry or No Reentry?

Yesterday the tournament director Matt Savage tweeted to his followers a fairly straightforward question, presented as having to do with a bet between himself and Allen Kessler.

“Do you prefer reentry or no reentry in your poker tournaments?” he asked.

I replied “no reentry.” Scrolling through others’ answers, it appeared responders were divided between preferring reentry, not liking reentry, or wanting to ignore the question and propose other options (e.g., single reentry or other qualifications).

I was answering as a player. I have always preferred freezeouts to tournaments that allow multiple entries. I think the main reason for me has to do with bankroll management and being on the nitty side. It’s not that I’m unwilling to fire more than once in a reentry, but I just feel more comfortable knowing at the start how much I am in for.

I think I also just prefer how the game is played when there is no possibility of coming back after busting -- both as a player and when following or reporting on events. In one unlimited reentry event a couple of years ago, I recall reporting “bustout” hands for the same player six times (no shinola). Talk about Groundhog Day. In such an environment, it’s like nothing that happens prior to the close of the reentry period has much meaning at all.

Reentry tournaments remind me of back yard wiffleball games as a kid and the “do over” play. You know, the old “I wasn’t ready” plea that seemed like it would come up at least once every game. They also remind me of all the challenge flags in the NFL, something I’ve complained about here before as making it necessary to withhold response to any play until after the opportunity to call it back has passed.

Of course, we could step back even further and talk about the culture as a whole as one constantly in the process of appealing every decision or judgment, never seeming to settle on anything in a satisfactory way. In this postmodern world, there’s always another perspective, another version of the “truth” to challenge the one that had been previously accepted.

That 72-event EPT Barcelona festival from which I’ve just returned featured a few reentry events scattered in the mix, but the great majority (including the Main Event) were freezeouts. In other words, in most cases if you wanted to buy back in and play more, you entered a different tournament.

I’m aware, of course, of how reentry events (in some cases) give players with bigger bankrolls an edge, and also how they can be especially advantageous for those staging the tournaments for potentially producing a lot more rake per player. I’m also aware of how in some cases making tournaments reentry genuinely adds to the fun, as in the case of the media event last week where having reentries meant no one had to leave within the first hour.

Forced to choose, though, I’m going with “no reentry.” And I’m sticking to that choice, too -- i.e., there will be no reasking or reanswering.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City, Main Event, Day 2

Was another super long one on Sunday as Day 2 of the WSOP Circuit Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City Main Event lasted from 12 noon all of the way to 2:30 a.m. And with another hour or so of post-game that meant bedtime didn’t come until about 4 o’clock.

It’ll be a long one again today for the final day of play, as we still have 26 players and will be playing down to a winner. In fact, we may well go up until just a few hours before I’ll be making my way back via train to Philadelphia and then eventually flying home.

That photo above is of one of several decorations here in the ballrooms on the third floor of the Harrah’s resort where the tourney is being played, a little display of a five-card poker hand. Notice anything weird about it?

You might have to look twice at it to notice, but there are two ’s in the hand. Just about all of the displays have this quirk in them, with duplicate cards (sometimes twice) among the five. Players have been puzzling over the signs repeatedly whenever they happen to look up to see the signs.

Speaking of noticing something being a little off, if you follow me on Twitter you might have seen me yesterday making some references to the prize pool here at the Main Event, responding a couple of times along the way to queries made by Allen Kessler (who is not here playing).

Kessler had noticed that the originally announced prize pool didn’t quite add up to the equivalent of $1,500 per entry (which has been the case at other WSOP-C Main Events), and was wondering why. As it happened, the ME structure sheet here had described the $1,675 buy-in as being “$1,565 prize pool + $110 entry fee,” with 5% of the prize pool reserved for the dealers.

That actually meant just $1,486.75 of every buy-in was going to the players, and once the discrepancy was noticed and the discussion began to filter around on Twitter and elsewhere, it got back to the folks here running the show and soon it was announced the prize pool would be amended to ensure there was $1,500 per entry going back to the players. (Additionally, the dealers are still getting the same 5% as before, too.)

To be honest, I’ve been too busy covering the event really to get involved in the details of this discussion. The players here didn’t seem too concerned when the announcement was made about the revised payouts, though I imagine all who are cashing will be glad to take home a little more for their efforts. And I’m glad as well that everything seemed to have turned out smoothly with regard to the issue.

Like I say, though, no time on my end to look into this much at all, as we’re about to kick things off once again. If you’re curious to follow along, click over to PokerNews’ live reporting page today. Also, check the @WSOP twitter feed for information about a live stream from tonight’s final table.

2009 WSOP, Day 26: Mixing It Up

“Hey, I’ve got more PokerNews stuff on than you do.”

Said Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler to me about a half-hour before play began for Event No. 42, the $2,500 Mixed Game event that started about 5:15 p.m. yesterday, the late start due to the longer-than-anticipated lines at the registration desk to enter. Kessler was the first player I saw show for the event.

I had gotten in a little earlier than I normally do and already had set up shop back in the corner of the Brasilia Room where the event was due to begin. I saw Kessler had patches for PokerRoad, Doyle’s Room, and PokerNews there on the front of his short-sleeved powder blue shirt.

Kessler is one of a few pros keeping a WSOP blog for PokerNews this summer. I know people have fun with the “Chainsaw” a lot over on Two Plus Two, where he’s known for starting numerous threads. Some also like to give him a hard time for his especially nitty playing style that often leaves him nursing a short stack for much of his tourney life, sometimes sneaking into the money though not going deep that often. (List those who gave him his ironic nickname among that latter group.)

Kessler’s a good sport, though, whose self-effacing sense of humor is endearing (imo, as they say). That sense of humor comes out a bit it in the “Calling the Clock” segment he did with PokerNews’ Melissa Castello a few days ago (see bottom of post).

I had several interactions with players yesterday during the Mixed Game event, which ended up attracting 412 total entrants, including just about every big name you can imagine. At one point, Jennifer Harman came over to my table to ask me if I knew how her husband, Marco Traniello, was faring over in Event No. 41, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout event. Harman had won her table already, and last she had heard Traniello was still alive at his.

A quick check enabled me to tell her that it looked as though Traniello had made it to heads up and was about even in chips with his opponent. “I’ll let you know,” I said. Alas, soon after I learned from MarcC that Traniello had been eliminated. I stood up, caught Harman’s eye, and gave her the thumbs down signal with a soundless “sorry.”

Layne Flack was also in not-so-rare form, bouncing around the room and making a lot of noise, especially near the end of the night. He was seated right near where I was set up, and at some point began digging into the reporters’ bags of Jack Link’s beef jerky. Then he began ordering beers a few at a time. I couldn’t resist writing one post about it.

Slow Cooked and Mesquite Smoked
Layne Flack has just now found a couple of bags of Jack Link's Beef Jerky (not hard to do -- they're everywhere) and has gone down the path many others have tread over the last few weeks here at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. That would be the path to the bottom of the bag, having discovered like many others it is especially difficult to eat just one piece of the stuff.

Not surprisingly, Flack now finds himself feeling a little parched. "Cocktails!" he just cried. "I've got a bigger order this time!"

Flack has about 20,000 at the moment.

Finally, just as the night was about to end, a no-limit hold’em hand came up involving Kessler and Jonathan “Fatal Error” Aguiar which my reporter happened to catch and relate to me just before he left for the night. I wrote it up, and not five minutes later Aguiar was there beside me retelling the story to Jonathan Fricke and others, pretty much exactly as we had reported it.

Kessler's Kings Kracked
No-Limit Hold'em

Allen "Chainsaw" Kessler just lost a big pot versus Jonathan "Fatal Error" Aguiar in one of the last hands of the night. Aguiar was all in preflop. Once Kessler called him, Aguiar said "Please have kings." He got his wish, as Kessler indeed had K-K.

When Aguiar showed his hand -- A-3 -- Kessler had a comment as well: "Oh no."

The flop changed nothing, but the turn brought a trey, and the river another trey, and Aguiar survived. Kessler gets knocked back to 7,000 right before night's end.

Poor Chainsaw. It actually looks like he has 25,000, though, as Day 2 begins, so he either picked some chips back up or we had that last estimate wrong there.

I’m glad to see, in any case, that he has a stack. Maybe his kings will hold up for him today and he’ll last a bit longer. Or his 7-6-4-3-2 will hold up in 2-7 Triple Draw. Or his king-high flush with the nut low won’t get quartered in Omaha/8. Or his rolled up jacks will hold up in Stud.

Follow along on PokerNews’ live reporting page and find out.

Time Is Money; or, the Return of the Waiting Game

I know many regular readers of this blog also frequently peruse the forums, including Two Plus Two. I also know some regular readers don’t ever read Two Plus Two, citing a too low signal-to-noise ratio over there to warrant spending too much of yr valuable clicking-around time. So I’m guessing only some of you might’ve seen a thread over there in the News, Views, and Gossip forum called “Negreanu goes after online stallers.” That thread was started back on April 18 by “doublejoker,” the handle used by poker pro and frequent tourney circuit player Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler.

Kessler’s post begins with a link back to a post I wrote back on April 6 called “The Waiting Game.” My post shared something I had witnessed while watching a SCOOP event on PokerStars. It was one of the H.O.R.S.E. events, and as play neared the bubble a player at Daniel Negreanu’s table began stalling in order to try to reach the money. The stalling prompted Negreanu to respond with criticism in the chat box, and my post passes along some of what was said. I offered a couple of opinions near the end, but overall I didn’t really take too strong of a stance on the issue, and instead mostly just invited others to share what they thought.

A number of thoughtful comments were made within a day or two of my post going up. Later that week (on April 9) I noticed that Kessler had started a thread about stalling in tourneys over on Two Plus Two -- entirely coincidental, I believe, as I don’t think he’d seen my post. He also started one in the PokerRoad forums on April 11. Both had polls, and both got a lot of response.

I think it might have been thanks to a comment B.J. Nemeth made in the PokerRoad thread that Kessler became aware of the post here on Hard-Boiled and the story of Negreanu’s not being happy with the staller, and thus subsequently started the new thread on 2+2.

On the day Kessler started the new thread with the link to that post, a lot of readers clicked through, more than doubling the most active day ever on HBP (in terms of total hits). The thread has continued to attract comments on 2+2, keeping it on the first page of NVG, and thus folks are continuing to click through to the blog to see what Negreanu said. Some are commenting as well, and I think that post might have now become the most-commented-on post on the blog.

The comments continue to be smart and thought-provoking. The 2+2 thread actually contains some interesting ideas as well. If you check out both places, you’ll see the issue being debated both as a matter of etiquette (or “angle-shooting”) and as a possible area where rules could be changed.

David Sklansky even chimed in over in the 2+2 thread with a somewhat abstract comment, momentarily causing the discussion to veer into a more theoretical direction, though it recovered. Another poster suggested that in online tourneys the time bank could be reset (to a reasonable length) with each level -- rather than last for the entire tourney -- thus preventing the several minutes of delaying that was happening in the SCOOP event. And there are a few other good ideers & arguments both in the thread and in the comments to my post as well.

The subject of stalling in tournaments -- online or live -- is clearly one that many people have strong opinions about. Of course, Negreanu’s high profile is also probably causing some of the curiosity. And Kessler, I think, tends to attract some of the 2+2ers’ attention, too. Negreanu himself has yet to jump in over on the 2+2 thread, though I would think if he was going to he would have done so by now. (Watching for that has been the new “waiting game” for me.)

Anyhow, for those who maybe skipped over it or weren’t following 2+2, I thought I’d share how that post had “blown up.” If that’s you, lemme invite you next time yr sitting there waiting out a staller near the bubble of an online tourney to click on over and check it all out.

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

Busy, busy, busy. I mentioned last week how I’m helping out with the live blogging of PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker. Worked the last four days straight, covering four different events.

Thus far I’ve partnered with fellow bloggers Drizz (Nickle and Dimes), April (This Is Not a Poker Blog), Tuscaloosa Johnny (Poker Nation), and Otis (Up for Poker). All cool cats with whom I’m very glad to be working.

Was kind of a late one last night, so I expect I’ll be dragging some today. Fact is, I’m essentially working two full-time jobs at the moment. I like ’em both, though, so I ain’t complainin’.

Speaking of living out multiple existences, I wanted to share one small observation today inspired by something I heard on Bart Hanson’s Cash Plays. In the car yesterday I happened to listen to Hanson’s interview with Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler from a couple of weeks back (the 8/27/08 episode). Not gonna get into Kessler’s character or anything really having to do with him -- although he is certainly an interesting case. Rather, I just wanted to share something he mentioned about Phil Ivey that caused me to brood briefly over the issue of self-identity and poker.

Kessler played with Ivey back in Atlantic City in the early 90s, mostly Stud/8 and Omaha/8. Hanson asked him some questions about those days, including asking Kessler what he thought of Ivey’s game back then. “He played great,” said Kessler without hesitation. “He always played great?” asked Hanson, a note of incredulity in his voice. “Or do you remember when he was bad?”

Kessler said no, he didn’t remember Ivey ever playing badly, at least when he played with him (when Ivey was in his early 20s). “No, I don’t remember…like I don’t remember him as that ‘Jerome’ or any of that stuff. He must have already been past that.”

The reference to “Jerome” there is, of course, to the pseudonym Ivey played under when he was legally too young to play in casinos. In order to play, Ivey used a fake ID with the name “Jerome Graham,” and he has talked in interviews about how everyone in Atlantic City knew him as Jerome until he turned 21. Hanson’s questions seem to imply that “Jerome” wasn’t the consistently stellar player Phil Ivey is, as does Kessler’s reference to those earlier days (before he played with him) as perhaps corresponding to what Hanson was alluding with his follow-up question.

It occurred to me hearing Kessler refer to how Ivey had “already been past that” earlier phase in his life and poker playing career in which he was known as “Jerome” that every poker player goes through similar phases in his or her development. In other words, we all have memories of earlier versions of ourselves as poker players, and in most cases those earlier versions are probably much different from the idea we have of ourselves today.

And, at some point, we probably all had to get “past that” earlier self in order to improve -- or at least endure -- as poker players.

What do you recall of that former self? Wouldn’t it be great to play him or her heads-up?