2013 WSOP, Day 25: Is That Who I Think It Is?

Was on Day 1 of Event No. 41 yesterday, the $5,000 PLO 6-max. that drew exactly 400 runners. That’s adds up to exactly 6 million chips in play, of which Sorel Mizzi ended the night with the most so far with 146,400.

A ton of familiar, top-level pros played this one, although to be honest my colleagues and I have been doing this long enough that sometimes it feels like everyone is familiar on some level. Just looking through the list of 117 players who survived to make it to today’s Day 2, I found myself thinking of how I’ve probably at least reported one hand on nearly every single one of them before (no shinola), thus ensuring their names are at least familiar to me, and for a lot of them their faces are, too.

Speaking of recognizing players, the theme of the day emerged early on yesterday after I’d made several rounds to gather names and start reporting. It was more than an hour into the event, perhaps even longer, when suddenly I realized I’d passed by a nearby table a dozen times without recognizing Sammy Farha sitting at it, playing his first event of the summer.

Every year a common question gets asked a few weeks into the WSOP: “Has anyone seen Farha?” He generally doesn’t play many preliminary events, although he always plays the Main. Last year he played just two prelims, and the year before four. Among the few he does play are always the bigger buy-in PLO events, though, and so it wasn’t a surprise at all to see him making his 2013 debut in Event No. 41.

What startled me, though, was how I didn’t trust myself initially that it was in fact Farha. That is him above, of course, as photographed by Joe Giron for PokerNews and the WSOP yesterday.

He was wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans and early in the day had sunglasses on. Later he’d remove those and occasionally wear dark-framed eyeglasses, and after being quiet for the first few hours he became more animated, eventually emerging as that Cheshire-cat-grinning, life-of-the-party character with whom many of us are familiar from his TV appearances. The fact that he began accumulating chips later on might have helped him suddenly seem more like himself, too (if that makes sense).

I realized later that while Farha looks great, he is like the rest of us a decade older than he was when he made that first, most lasting impression upon us all during ESPN’s coverage of the 2003 Main Event. We all look a little different than we did then, perhaps markedly so. I thought it was interesting, though, that I’d struggled initially to trust my recognition of him.

Soon after that I found myself doing a similar double-take with Andy Bloch. It’s been a couple of summers now since Bloch has donned his once signature big black cowboy hat and sported Full Tilt Poker logos, so like with Farha, Bloch’s current appearance doesn’t necessarily match the image with which most of us first got to know him.

After that it was Brock Parker who stymied us for a short while after having shaved his beard this week. Is that him, we asked? I covered one of his bracelet wins back in 2009, the year he won two, and like everyone else have grown accustomed to spotting his bald head and full beard in tourney fields. Took a moment or two extra, but again came recognition.

I think I might be feeling a kind of long-range effect of repeating the sequence year after year, with the Rio and specifically the Amazon Room being the only place in the world where I keep seeing a certain group of people over and over and over again. In any case, today I’ll get to see Farha, Bloch, and Parker again, along with many others for Day 2. Click over and follow along today, and see how many of the players are familiar to you.

Entrants Lists and the WSOP

Unlike the last couple of years, this summer the World Series of Poker is not making available complete entrants lists for all events. Thus the website wsopdb.com -- not affiliated with the WSOP -- has not been adding any new information to its database that makes available individual players’ histories of participation at the Series (from 2011-2012) via simple name searches. (That to the left is a pic of the first part of one of last year’s entrants lists. Always wondered why those lists were missing a few letters, as though they came from a typewriter with a busted key or two.)

I’ve mentioned that wsopdb.com site here a couple of times before, most recently after last year’s Series in a post titled “ROI at the WSOP.” I’ve also written posts here before about the whole idea of tracking tournament participation and making it public along with results.

For example, in a post titled “For the Record (Thoughts on Tracking Tournament Winnings),” I made the (obvious) observation that sites like Hendon Mob only report cashes and not entries, thus perhaps giving the superficial impression that “everyone is winning and no one is losing.” But there I also pointed out how I understood some of the reasons why most players wouldn’t be very enthused by the idea of their full tournament participation being publicized for all to see.

I’d noticed the WSOP wasn’t providing the entrants lists this year, but was reminded of this fact yesterday while following a Twitter conversation about it begun by players who were seeking information about players’ participation in the 2013 WSOP on wsopdb.com and failing to find it.

I believe Josh Brikis kicked off the conversation by asking WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel if he “could get the wsopdb.com up and running” and Effel responding to say that this year the WSOP was not releasing the entrants lists (not that the WSOP had anything to do with the site, anyway). From there a few others joined in to talk about uses for the information, including Jonathan Aguiar who mentioned how helpful it was for staking arrangements, specifically as an assurance to those doing the staking that their horses had actually participated in certain events.

Jessica Welman, Managing Editor of the WSOP website, chimed in to confirm again to Aguiar and others that indeed, the WSOP had changed its policy this year with regard to the release of entrants lists, noting that “Customer privacy is a priority” and that “there are many ppl who don’t want their ROI out there for public consumption.”

I found the discussion diverting, noting how it appeared the stakers -- a small but significant subset of WSOP players -- seemed to be the ones most interested in having the entrants lists made public, while others (I assumed) probably weren’t so curious.

I thought about how from a tourney reporter’s perspective such lists can occasionally be helpful, although in truth they aren’t so necessary. At some of the WSOP Circuit stops this year, I did get a look at some entrants lists and seating assignments during Day 1 flights, mainly just to help locate notable players and perhaps help identify a few during the afternoon and evening. But at the WSOP it usually isn’t such a challenge to find and identify players even in the large field events, and so I can’t think of much reason why I’d need to see an entrants list in order to report on a specific event.

Of course, if I were wanting to write some sort of feature or study about a particular player’s Series, one that would include a rundown of his or her entries, having such lists would make the task a little easier. I could probably think of other kinds of reporting for which the lists might be of use, but as I say, from the live reporting perspective, they aren’t so vital.

I thought a little bit, too, about how besides wanting to protect players’ privacy, the WSOP likewise has a practical interest in not making such information public. I wrote in that earlier “For the Record” post about how the WSOP and other tours “would have little to gain, I would think, from showing all of its players (and the rest of the world) exactly how much they’ve lost over the course of their respective series.”

Kind of interesting to think about this whole issue of personal privacy amid the huge furor currently raging over the recent revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) ordered Verizon to turn over all phone records of calls placed within the U.S. or originating in the U.S. to those abroad over a three-month period (starting in April and extending through July) -- a discovery which has led to increased speculation about the extent of other types of governmental surveillance and heated debates over privacy rights.

Obviously the WSOP can employ any policy it likes with regard to publicizing entrants lists. Somehow, though, it feels correct not to publish them, not so much from any particular policy standpoint, but as a practice that conforms somewhat with etiquette emanating from the game itself.

We can tell which players are winning by all of the chips sitting in front of them. Meanwhile, if we’re paying attention we also generally can identify who has been losing, but there’s often a tendency not to draw undue notice to such. That’s because everyone -- the winners and losers -- for various reasons understands there’s little (or no) benefit to be had from advertising the plight of the losing player.

Makes me think of a tweet sent out by Andy Bloch a few days back responding to one sent by WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky reporting that through the first 14 events “Players at the @WSOP have won $27,352,360 thus far, up from $19.99 million last year.”

While the comparison is a little off anyway thanks to the fact that the first 14 events from the two years aren’t really parallel to one another, Bloch came up with a different rejoinder:

“Players at the @WSOP have won $27M thus far, lost $30M, net -$3M.”

Full Tilters Talking

Late last week Diamond Flush published a very lengthy interview with Andy Bloch, one of those Team Full Tilters who had been closer than most to the many failures that led to Full Tilt Poker’s fall.

Bloch had been a significant shareholder in FTP’s parent company, Tiltware. He was also present and involved in discussions regarding a potential change in the management of the company post-Black Friday. Thus is Bloch one of several individuals definitely worth interviewing with regard to the FTP fiasco, someone who theoretically should know more than most about how the site came to mismanage funds so egregiously so as to be unable to allow players to cash out their balances once the site ceased U.S. operations (in April 2011) and eventually lost its licenses to operate elsewhere (in late June 2011).

Even though the interview is more than 7,000 words long, it has a fairly narrow scope, drilling deeper and deeper into what are really just a couple of issues -- (1) the logistics of decision-making and management at Full Tilt during the months before and after Black Friday; and (2) Bloch’s personal knowledge and/or understanding of what was happening.

Regarding the former, Bloch doesn’t offer too much that is new regarding how things were run prior to Black Friday, his comments essentially confirming what we’ve read elsewhere suggesting that CEO Ray Bitar was largely responsible for major decisions. We learn a bit more, however, about what happened from the summer of 2011 onward, when an attempt was made to unseat Bitar and/or bring in a new Board of Directors (on which Bloch would potentially serve). Neither change happened.

Bloch also tells of his own discovery in April 2011 of just how cash-poor FTP really was. It sounds like he had been vaguely aware of those governmental seizures of funds although hadn’t really focused on the situation until after the shinola had already hit the fan. Indeed, in the interview Diamond Flush seems a little surprised that Bloch is expressing a lack of awareness regarding certain seizures and amounts that had been reported by mainstream outlets.

That section of the interview almost led me to affix some cheeky title to this post, something about “Bloch-ing It Out” or the like, although I resisted. Bloch’s lack of awareness about what was going on didn’t seem as though it deserved highlighting in that way. (Of course, Bloch wasn’t the only one in a position of potential influence at FTP who apparently chose not to look more closely at what was happening.)

There’s some interesting almost-dirt being tossed around in there, with Bloch expressing suspicion and/or uncertainty about fellow Team Full Tilt members’ motives during those contentious what-the-hell-are-we-gonna-do-now meetings in Dublin last summer. Bloch looks askance at both of “the Phils” -- Gordon and Ivey -- sounding as though he believes both were more interested in preserving themselves than the company, especially Ivey with his lawsuit that Bloch judged “ma[de] no sense” and “had no valid legal basis.”

Bitar predictably receives criticism from Bloch. The CFO (Gil Coronado, whom Bloch doesn’t name) is also censured here by Bloch, although only in passing. However, when it comes to the other three “FTP Insiders” named in the DOJ civil complaint -- Howard Lederer, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, and Rafe Furst -- Bloch says relatively little.

He doesn’t mention Furst at all. Ferguson comes up but once, during a discussion of a possible post-Black Friday “cash call” which would involve the inner circle putting up their own cabbage to try to save the company.

“A lot of people had their money tied up in real estate for example and had lost a lot in real estate as well,” explains Bloch. (We learned something of this kind of spending-slash-investing in the second amendment to the civil complaint that appeared last week just after Bloch’s interview.) “Unfortunately, not everyone is like Chris Ferguson who doesn’t spend a lot of money.”

In other words, unlike most (says Bloch), “Jesus” saves. Ultimately, though, the idea of the “FTP Insiders” supplying the needed money to cover cashouts wasn’t feasible. So the only reference to Ferguson here is positive. So, too, are the few references by Bloch to Howard Lederer.

Bloch notes how Lederer contacted him shortly after Black Friday, instructing Bloch to remain available for votes (as a shareholder). There’s reference to Lederer actually going ahead and pledging money amid that “cash call” discussion, the only person Bloch is aware of having done so. Finally, there’s one last reference to Lederer by Bloch when he’s asked about whether or not he would have done things differently.

“I would have been more involved,” Bloch begins, “and made sure there is somebody that was making sure that Ray was doing his job and not making ridiculous risky decisions that put everything in jeopardy. I think Howard would probably say the same thing.”

Speaking of Lederer, he, too, has finally spoken -- and again, at great length -- having agreed to an interview with PokerNews’ Matthew Parvis that apparently lasted seven hours or thereabouts. In a teaser, Parvis reported yesterday that the interview will be posted on the PN site in multiple installments starting today under the austere heading “The Lederer Files.” Sounds like there will be a follow-up of some kind as well over on Two Plus Two where Lederer will be answering further questions.

Like Bloch, Lederer will no doubt characterize his own involvement similarly, noting how the situation at FTP largely unraveled between 2008 (when he stepped away from the day-to-day operations) and early 2011. Will be curious to see, though, if the interview goes beyond Lederer just attempting to absolve himself over and again.

Diamond Flush introduced the Bloch interview as the first of several with FTPers, so it sounds like now that the PokerStars-DOJ-FTP agreement has been finalized, that trickle of anonymous postings by FTP employees that began almost a year ago is about to become a tidal wave of talk.

Meanwhile the rest of us will have to get out our detectors and start mining. Here’s hoping something of use washes ashore.

2012 WSOP, Day 28: The Future Is Now

Yesterday at the Rio I saw Event No. 40 ($2,500 short-handed limit hold’em) play out in exciting fashion.

Was sorry to see Terrence Chan come up short to finish in seventh yesterday (his eighth cash of the summer). Chan is an amazing player, great writer and thinker, and all-around good guy. But it was fun to see another good guy, Ronnie Bardah, somehow manage to comeback from 10th out of 10 to start the day to win the bracelet.

His heads-up opponent, Marco “Crazy Marco” Johnson also made a wild comeback yesterday, starting in ninth. The two of them had about 5-6 big bets each to start the day, and went off at 18-to-1 (Johnson) and 20-to-1 (Bardah) over in the Rio Sports Book.

The final table took place in the Pavilion Room, up on a stage positioned at one end. It was the first time I’d worked there so far this summer, and so got to experience the weird, almost uncanny feeling of sitting in such a large space (see above). They’ve removed a wall this year, I believe, thus and have fit a whopping 257 tables in the massive room.

Announcements of seats opening for players in the cash games echo back and forth above the players’ heads, sounding something like what you might hear in an airport terminal. Looking down on the scene from the stage, the set-up resembles some sort of huge disaster relief shelter or something. A very odd vibe (to evoke something I discussed earlier this week). Post-apocalyptic-like. The kind of scene you cannot help but survey and think of what the WSOP once was, and how different it has all become.

We actually began the day over in the Amazon Room, crammed next to a couple of other tournaments. We had several reporters sitting elbow-to-elbow at a single small table along the wall, with one of the tables for Event No. 42 ($2,500 Omaha/8-Stud/8) mere inches away from us.

Among those seated at the table were Andy Bloch, Alan Boston, and Cyndy Violette. Boston had us all cracking up with his various quips, including comments about the tableau we reporters formed sitting around the table. Someone else said it looked like the Last Supper.

“It’s only the last supper for him,” said Boston, pointing at me, the only one among us with gray hair on top and eyeglasses (both of which definitely tend to give away the fact I have a few years on my colleagues). I laughed, and he said he was jealous of my having hair at all. He then continued forward with one of those hilarious self-loathing monologues such as you might’ve heard him deliver in interviews on the Two Plus Two Pokercast and elsewhere.

“This is how f*cking pathetic my life is,” he explained, noting how coming to play in the event represented a special day out for him. He also had little optimism about his prospects in the tournament. “Hey,” he added with mock glee, “I’m going to the Rio tonight to get f*cked!”

The fun continued as Andy Bloch noted how close we were sitting behind him. Bloch was wearing a black t-shirt with one of those evolution-of-man sequences on the front showing white silhouettes of crawling cavemen becoming upright-walking humans becoming a robot.

“You guys comfy back there?” he asked. “You want to help me play my hands?” he then added with a grin.

You get the sense that guys like Bloch and Boston have experienced all sorts of craziness at the WSOP, and thus can take the perhaps-not-so-ideal conditions in stride. However, before my event moved away from that location and to the Pavilion, I did notice one example of players being less than happy with one particular element of how their tourney was being run.

That Event No. 42 utilized this new “ChipTic” tracking system that involves dealers using Blackberry Playbook tablets to note bustouts and report chip counts at breaks. I hadn’t seen the system in use before, and so got a dealer to show me her tablet during the first break.

In theory the idea seems like it could be a nifty addition that might help a lot with keeping track of who is left in events as well as keeping tabs on their counts. I did notice a problem, though, when I saw that during the breaks there were ChipTic folks counting players’ chips not by eyeballing them -- as we reporters always do -- but actually handling them to count them out.

A few players hung around during that break to complain, with Greg Raymer in particular pointing out how it was a very bad idea to allow anyone to handle players’ chips when they were away. In fact, he refused to leave during the break as he did not want to be gone while others touched his chips.

Raymer’s absolutely right, and as someone who has been counting chips for years without ever touching a single one, I know there is no reason whatsoever why the ChipTic guys need to be handling chips as they are. I have to imagine the WSOP will put a stop to it quickly and instruct everyone to start counting chips by sight.

There were also large screens displaying a scrolling list of bustouts for the event, all having been entered by the dealers as they occurred. Up-to-the-minute stuff, as you see the exact time the player was recorded as having been eliminated. I snapped a pic of one such screen just as Mickey Appleman had wandered over to take a look.

Seemed like a funny juxtaposition to see Appleman -- who has played at the WSOP for more than three decades -- standing there in front of the display checking out who has busted, like some sort of meeting between the past and the future. Kind of reminded me of Bloch’s t-shirt, actually.

Boston had some funny lines about ChipTic, too, suggesting they could start tracking players by their ethnicity, chosen faith, or other factors.

“You know they could enter the data and sort it... they could even have a column for the players’ IQs! You know... over on the right there have a little ‘null set’ sign!”

Will be back at the Rio today, helping out with the coverage of Day 3 of that Event No. 42. Neither Boston, Bloch, Violette, nor Appleman survived yesterday. But of the 22 who did make it to today there are a lot of interesting names at the top of the counts, including Jeff Lisandro, Norman Chad, Tom Schneider, and Bryan Devonshire (all in the top 10).

Should be a fun one. Skip over to PokerNews' live reporting today to see what the future brings.

WSOP Weekend: Beefs, Blunders, and Bloch

Had the chance over the weekend to start following the World Series of Poker in earnest and take in all of the various coverage. Just two weeks and I’ll be back in a plane -- not American Airlines, thankfully -- to join the crowd at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino to see it all first-hand.

So yeah, I followed the various drama from afar the last couple of days.

Almost a month ago I wrote a short post about the 2012 WSOP rules, noting how a “rule that will likely get some pushback from players is one requiring those at televised feature tables to announce their action verbally.”

Sure enough, there was a lot of that following the first non-glitchy example of a live streamed final table (Event No. 3), with Jon Aguiar in particular taking to Twitter to voice his displeasure. Then, as you might’ve heard, a misguided retweet from the @WSOP account added further fuel to the fire.

If you missed any of that and really want to explore it all, QuadJacks interviewed Aguiar and then later talked to WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky (the latter having lots of audio problems/technical difficulty).

Actually, the Palansky interview primarily focused on the other controversy of the weekend involving that Event No. 9 “re-entry” tournament in which a few players managed to register more than once on a single day. That was not part of the plan for that event, which was only to allow players busting on Day 1a (Saturday) to buy in a second time on 1b (Sunday).

Knew right away when folks started tweeting yesterday about Will Failla having entered a second time on Sunday that he had to have done so with the mistaken impression that he was allowed to -- after all, the folks at registration clearly weren’t up on things, either. Gonna guess the other instances of players buying back in when they weren’t supposed to were also the result of being unaware of the rules, but who knows, really? Click here to read a full rundown of that snafu over at Bluff.

Rather than delve into either of those controversies, though, I thought I’d write a little today about Andy Bloch breaking through to win his first bracelet in Event No. 7, the $1,500 seven-card stud event, outlasting Barry Greenstein heads-up to win. Found that finish interesting, as it made me think back to having some time ago interviewed both Bloch and Greenstein for PokerNews.

I spoke to Bloch about three years ago, and among the topics we discussed were his two near misses at the WSOP in which he finished runner-up to Chip Reese in the 2006 $50K H.O.R.S.E. and then took second again in the $10K PLH event in 2008 won by Nenad Medic.

I asked Bloch the not-so-original question about what it would mean to him to win one, and after we laughed about it meaning he would stop having to answer the question, he pointed out how he didn’t really feel a lot of pressure in that regard. He pointed out how a lot of his peers were surprised whenever they learned he didn’t have a bracelet already, which suggested to him he already had their respect (since they assumed he’d won one).

Bloch’s WSOP résumé is kind of remarkable, really, what with his having made final tables in seven different games (no-limit hold’em, limit hold’em, pot-limit hold’em, seven-card stud, razz, pot-limit Omaha, and H.O.R.S.E.), just missed final tables in a couple of others (2-7 triple draw and 2-7 NL draw), and now earned over $2.3 million in WSOP cashes.

Talking to CardPlayer after winning his bracelet, Bloch called it a “bittersweet win” given all that has happened post-Black Friday, in particular with the site which he once represented as a member of Team Full Tilt.

Bloch acknowledges “the pain of what a lot of people have gone through this past year,” noting how many have “gone through absolute hell” when it comes to the inaccessibility of funds on FTP. All appropriate to say, I thought, and much better than not commenting at all. Bloch added he hoped there would be “some kind of announcement during the Series” regarding Full Tilt’s future, though was unsure whether or not that would happen.

Like I say, I interviewed Greenstein for PN as well -- also about three years ago -- that one being conducted at the Bellagio in Bobby’s Room while Ivey, Elezra, Brunson, and others were playing at a nearby table. As was the case with Bloch, Greenstein was incredibly generous with his time and we ended up splitting the long interview into two parts: Part One & Part Two.

Greenstein would do another interview with PN earlier this year in which he addressed that awkward situation of his having borrowed $400,000 from Full Tilt Poker as well as his disinclination to pay the money back amid the still-ongoing negotiations between FTP, Groupe Bernard Tapie, and the U.S. Department of Justice. (As we know, that deal -- seemingly doomed from the start -- ultimately fell through about six weeks ago.)

Looking back on those interviews, three years seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? So much has changed. Still appreciate both Bloch and Greenstein having given me the time, and certainly found it intriguing to see the pair heads-up at the end of Event No. 7.

So much drama, and only one week in. Wonder how the next two weeks will go before I finally get out there.

Uncertainty

For those who might have missed it, check out the comments to yesterday’s post in which I talked about that forthcoming article by Kyle Siler on the “Social and Psychological Challenges of Poker” in the Journal of Gambling Studies. In the comments you’ll see Kevmath pointing us to that Time magazine piece that also discusses the study. And Andy Bloch -- who I’m gonna go ahead and suggest is probably better equipped to judge these things than I am -- came by to offer some thoughts as well.

One of the ideas that comes up near the end of Siler’s piece has to do with the special psychological pressures that arise when a player moves up in stakes. All of us who have played the game know about these pressures. Any sort of change from one’s “normal” game -- be it a change in stakes or an attempt to try a different game -- usually brings with it some measure of uncertainty, and some of us are better equipped than others to handle those differences (e.g., in opponents’ skill levels, in opponents’ strategies, in the hands/odds/play of other games, etc.).

In fact, this phenomenon -- basically of finding it difficult to perform well when outside of one’s comfort zone -- occurred to me more than once yesterday.

Was thinking about it last night while watching my UNC Tarheels get blasted by the Clemson Tigers in a game at Clemson. The Heels looked miserable from the start, turning the ball over every other possession and falling behind by 20 within the first nine minutes. UNC finally got it together midway through the first half and managed to play the Tigers evenly for the rest of the night, which meant they ended the game on the losing side of a 83-64 final.

Carolina has a few seniors, but those guys don’t have a ton of experience, and much of the roster is filled out by freshmen and sophomores. While they are undefeated at home (11-0), they are now only 1-5 when not playing in the Dean Dome. Clearly having to leave Chapel Hill and get out of their comfort zone has negatively affected the young team thus far, as that poor start last night well showed.

Earlier in the day I’d been thinking about the same idea while reading Jay Greenspan’s book Hunting Fish (2006), loaned to me a little while ago by Special K. I’ve only just started the book, which, as the subtitle announces, is a chronicle of Greenspan’s “cross-country search for America’s worst poker players.” The book is organized into 18 chapters, each of which focuses on a particular stop on Greenspan’s journey through various casinos, underground clubs, and home games. So far so good.

Greenspan has to deal with a couple of different varieties of uncertainty as he travels from game to game. For one, his goal is to build his bankroll and move up in stakes, and already at the beginning of the book he’s starting to express self-doubt about whether or not he’ll eventually discover he cannot psychologically handle the pressure of moving up. “I understood that for me there would be a limit,” he writes, “a level at which I would say, I simply can’t play this high. The stakes are too much for me.”

Of course, Greenspan also has to deal with the uncertainty of playing in unfamiliar environs with unfamiliar opponents. Like UNC last night, he’s going to be the away team every single night, and so will have to get accustomed to dealing with unknowns and adapting accordingly.

There was one other instance yesterday when this phenomenon occurred to me -- when I sat down for a short online session of my usual pot-limit Omaha game. When away from the tables, I almost always think about playing a different game. And sometimes I think about playing at higher stakes than the usual $25 buy-in games where I am most comfortable. But somehow, after I’ve logged in and opened up the lobby to find a game, I always go back to what’s familiar.

I know playing other games or higher stakes will challenge me as a player, thereby helping me to improve. But I also know that by sticking with my usual game/stakes my familiarity there serves me well, too, as my experience tends to give me an edge -- sometimes modest, sometimes significant -- over my opponents. I don’t always win, but I usually know what the hell is going on. Thus do I minimize (somewhat) the “social and psychological challenges” game provides.

Challenges are necessary, though. And paradoxical. We desire them, but shun them, too. We fear uncertainty, and perhaps a lot of times even consciously avoid situations in which we are confronted by uncertainty. But we know that a life without uncertainty isn’t desirable either.

Of that I’m certain.

Whatcha Gonna Do With All Them Chips? (On Changes to the Structures at the 2009 WSOP), continued

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post referring to the new “triple stacks” that will be used for this summer’s World Series of Poker. If you haven’t heard, the WSOP has decided to give players more starting chips -- “deeper stacks,” as they say -- this time around, starting them three times the buy-in in chips. That means players entering a $1,500 buy-in event will start with 4,500 chips instead of 3,000 (as they did for the same buy-in events in 2007 and 2008) or 1,500 (as they did in 2006 and before).

When event organizers made the change to “double stacks” in 2007, it was initially lauded by some as inviting more “play” in the early levels, making it less necessary to gamble it up right away. However, once the tourneys began, it was discovered the increased starting stacks really didn’t help as much as some had thought they would.

What happened was that in preliminary events -- for example, the popular $1,500 no-limit hold’em events -- the first level (a 25/25 level) was eliminated, meaning players were essentially starting the tournament at the second level (25/50). (These are all 60-minute levels, by the way.) Also, several later levels were omitted as well. Check it out:



Those figures in red on the 2006 side represent omissions in 2007, and the green ones in ’07 represent additions/changes. You see how mostly levels were omitted, and in fact the only new one in 2007 (Level 11) replaced one that was taken out.

By removing that first level, one could argue the tournament was essentially starting with double blinds/antes, thus making the “double stacks” relatively less meaningful. The further removal of levels later on had an even greater effect on how the tournament was actually played. All in all, the “deeper stacks” didn’t really translate into more play. (Incidentally, in the 2007 Main Event the blinds/antes schedule was with a couple of exceptions doubled from beginning to end, making the change from 10,000 to 20,000 starting chips mostly meaningless.)

Moving from 2007 to 2008, some adjustments were made. Again, here’s how the structures for the $1,500 no-limit hold’em tournaments compared:



Easy to see how it was decided to put those later levels back in. There was some tweaking done for the 2008 Main Event schedule of blinds/antes as well, with some levels added in both at the beginning and later on. While there were still some complaints here and there, players seemed to come away largely satisfied with the changes. (I could be wrong, but that was my impression.)

In other words, unlike was most certainly the case in previous years, there didn’t seem to be a huge call at the end of 2008 for the WSOP to revise structures for the following year. Nonetheless, following the trend toward “deep-stacked” tournaments happening elsewhere on the strip -- and perhaps also a response of sorts to economic woes happening everywhere -- the WSOP decided to go with “triple stacks” this time around.

In that earlier post, I discussed the changes and suggested that they probably wouldn’t dramatically affect the way the tournaments go all that much other than to make it possible to be a little more patient in the early going. To complete our comparative journey, here’s how a $1,500 no-limit hold’em event in 2009 compares to last year:



As you can see, while the starting stacks will be different, the structure will be unchanged, save the addition of two extra levels -- one near the beginning of Day 1 (level 3), and the other midway through Day 2. So, as I was saying a few weeks ago, I do think there will be a chance for players to take their time a little more early on. (I haven’t really looked at the 2009 WSOP Main Event structure yet, so I can’t say anything about how the 30,000-chip stacks might affect things there.)

But will there be other consequences here? Andy Bloch raised a bit of a ruckus a few weeks back at the WPT Championship event at the Bellagio where it was decided to give everyone a whopping 100,000 chips -- 1,000 big blinds! -- to start. According to Bloch, the deeper stacks basically just translated into a wasted day of play, as it took considerably longer for the field to get trimmed down. Then, some crazy-big jumps in the blinds later on forced players to gamble more, causing even more ire.

While I’m not seeing in the WSOP events the inordinately big increases in later rounds as happened at the WPT last month, I do think the WSOP might run into a bit of trouble introducing these slower starts to the tournaments. As Bloch has observed, more players should be making it to the second days than was the case last year, which may well mean those Day Twos are going to be very long if they hope to play down to the Day Three final table. (Goes without saying that more players making the second day of events will also affect the turnout for events starting the next day, too.)

I’m remembering covering the WSOP last year for PokerNews and how everyone regarded Day Twos with trepidation. Unlike Day Ones, where there were a certain number of levels scheduled to be played (and one knew when one’s day was going to be done), we would begin Day Twos without knowing how long the shifts would be. I had some lucky draws in there, enjoying some relatively short Day Twos that ended around midnight or just after. But I had some insanely long ones, too, returning to my home-away-from-home well after the sun had risen, knowing I’d be back within a few hours to cover Day Three.

Hard to know for sure, but it’s looking like there might be quite a few long Day Twos this summer for players and reporters.

(To give credit where it is due, that photo above is from PokerNews’ coverage of the 2008 WSOP, and I'm pretty sure it is of Amnon Filippi’s stack -- he tended to create such eye-popping edifices whenever he built a stack, which was quite often.)

(EDIT [added 7:45 p.m.]: Still reading?!? Check out F-Train’s rejoinder to read further on the subject of these here triple stacks.)

2008 WSOP, Day 3: Who Will Wear the First Bracelet?

Stopped into the Amazon Room for a quick visit this afternoon. Didn’t linger long, as I anticipate being there at least ten hours (or more) tomorrow reporting Event No. 4.

The second “Day 1” of Event No. 2 was spread out around much of the room, though there were cash games going on as well. Final tally on that one ended up being 3,929 entrants, a new record for a non-Main Event WSOP tourney. Don’t think that record will be broken anytime soon, as they’ve capped registration at 2,760 players for all of the other preliminary events. (That could change, of course, if demand warranted.)

Was too late to see Phil Hellmuth. California Jen told me he had arrived in full racecar gear at some point during Level 3 and within a half-hour of arriving had busted. The reports on PokerNews say that he’d been blinded down to 1,900 by the time he arrived -- that’s over a third of his starting stack.

I’m not 100% certain, but I believe players are allowed to register up until the end of Level 2, and those who do come in with the full complement of chips. However, if you preregister and arrive late (as Hellmuth did), you start paying blinds from the first orbit. Have no idea if perhaps Hellmuth wasn’t aware he was losing that many chips by arriving late today or not. In any event, seems like a sketchy strategy to come in when the blinds are 100/200 and you are having to start the tourney with an “M” of 6 or 7, even if it is one of your trademarks.

I walked around the perimeter and to the far side of the room, chatted with some reporters and bloggers briefly, then moved over the small, “stadium” area where final tables will be held. They were about 15 hands into that star-studded final table for Event No. 1 when I arrived. Two players had already been eliminated, Phil Laak and Mike Sowers.

One of the neat things about poker -- I’ve written about this before -- is how accessible it all is for fans who want to follow their favorite pros battle for the big money. For those who have never been in Vegas during the WSOP before, if ever you did happen to be here when it was going on, know that you can always come over and get a look at the action, and even watch from relatively close proximity an entire final table play out, if you so desired.

The staging area is surrounded by stadium-style bleachers which can accommodate around 80 or so spectators. Then there is a platform over looking the table as well. It was crowded this afternoon with several dozen onlookers. The table itself is on a raised oval which sits on a larger, rectangular surface on which four ESPN cameras were circling in some sort of specially-designed motorized wheelchairs. There was also a fellow operating a large motorized crane with another camera for high angle shots. Then there’s the camera shooting the bird’s eye-shot of the felt, and that image is projected on four monitors directly above the table. All that, plus the hole card cameras, adds up to a hell of a lot of footage for ESPN to edit down to the two-hour presentation scheduled to be aired on July 22nd. (They’ll be filming Event No. 4 as well, so I’ll be seeing all of this again from a lot closer vantage point on Wednesday.)

Between two sets of bleachers sits another small, raised platform with the cabinet full of Corum bracelets on display. Then, on the furthermost side of the little arena sat Mean Gene, Change100, and Don Peters (the live bloggers) and WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla. An announcer paced back and forth before them, narrating all of the activity into a microphone for everyone to hear. Not difficult at all to follow the action, even if one’s view of the players isn’t ideal.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. The cash. Lordy, what a load of cash. Bricks and bricks of it on the table behind the players.

I watched a few low drama hands go by. I sensed the crowd favoring Mike Sexton, dressed in a pink, long-sleeved Party Poker shirt today (after yesterday’s lavender version). Made my way down and back through the room. I’ll have my chance to see all this again very soon.

Looked back at the reports a little while ago and saw they were now down to four -- Sexton, Liebert, Bloch, and Medic -- with Bloch holding a commanding lead with over two-thirds of the chips in play. But within a dozen hands both Medic and Sexton doubled through Bloch, so we may be in for a battle here.

More tomorrow. For now, go follow the rest of the action with me at PokerNews.