Global Poker League… You’re on the Clock

Had that Global Poker League Twitch channel on the teevee during the afternoon and early evening, watching some of those American Poker Conference panels and then the draft for the Global Poker League.

Watching Twitch through the Roku is much, much better than on the laptop, I’ve discovered. For me Twitch never works properly via Safari, and while it plays okay on Chrome my laptop tends to run hot whenever I leave it on for a while. Meanwhile watching on television is a breeze, and so I was able to let the sucker play on over in the corner of the room while I worked on other things.

While my attention was coming and going, the panels were interesting and kind of reminded me a little of academic conferences from long ago where I gave my own presentations, listened to others’, and did the same sort of discussing and networking afterwards. Meanwhile the GPL draft similarly did a decent job of imitating the familiar, lengthy draft shows ESPN puts together for the NBA and NFL drafts. Kara Scott was even there to tell teams “you’re on the clock” when it was their turn to pick.

I’ve never much liked those other draft shows, mainly because I’ll know of only a few of the players being drafted (usually at the very start), making the rest of it kind of tedious. Meanwhile with this GPL draft I knew practically every player, team manager, and even the folks running back and forth in the background and turning up in random crowd shots, in many cases personally.

That alone made watching a little more fun. The team identities and logos are kind of interesting as well, and there is something kind of cool about a “global” league with various big cities represented around the world (four in the U.S., and one each in Brazil, Canada, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, and Russia).

Like many I’m still more than a little unclear about how the teams work, how the games will go, and the whole playing-while-standing-in-a-cube thing. There’s also the larger question of how exactly the GPL might invigorate poker, generally speaking, although with that I’m willing to exercise some patience. Gets a little fatiguing to keep hearing “stay tuned and find out,” but my curiosity about it all is certainly piqued enough to keep paying attention.

I will say this -- the apparent contrast between the GPL and the last attempt to create some kind of professional poker “league,” the ill-fated Epic Poker League, couldn’t be more stark.

Besides being incredibly short-sighted and impractical in the way it was run, the EPL from the start was purportedly about creating a context in which only the best could compete against the best. In other words, it was mostly about finding a way to keep others out the game.

The league’s commissioner Annie Duke introduced the EPL as “incredibly pro-centric” back in early 2011, arguing (unconvincingly) that the league would somehow represent “the one piece that’s kind of missing from the poker landscape right now... something for the best players in the world to compete against the best players in the world.”

Such an approach -- along with steep $20,000 buy-ins for events and fairly severe restrictions on who could enter them -- was enough to keep a lot of players away, then eventually the whole thing collapsed in on itself with the company that created the league declaring bankruptcy before a single season could be completed.

Meanwhile it’s clear that the Global Poker League seems to have a much different ethos, trying instead to be more inclusive and bring poker to a wider audience, if possible. The whole idea of having a league spanning the Americas, Europe, and Asia is one indicator of such a mindset, and watching the draft yesterday there’s obviously a lot of focus on marketing and spreading positive messages about poker that go beyond just what the league itself and its teams will ultimately be doing.

Interestingly, the GPL used Global Poker Index rankings -- the lone piece of salvage remaining from the EPL wreckage -- to establish criteria for draft eligibility, having invited the top 1,000 ranked players to “opt in,” with a little over 200 doing so. The 48 players drafted yesterday came from that smaller group, and teams can now add two more players each as “wild cards” with no restrictions other than not being able to select any of the almost 800 who didn’t opt in for the draft. (That rule was implemented for the sake of fairness, not exclusion, as the GPL didn’t want top-ranked players to opt-out and then join teams later.)

We’ll see how it all goes and whether or not the GPL gathers any momentum in its own right, as well as whether it does produce these intended effects as described by entrepreneur and league founder Alex Dreyfus to help promote the game in positive ways. I’m intrigued about it, and as long as I can watch via my Roku I’ll probably do so once the season gets going.

Image: Global Poker League.

It’s Something

A quick post-post-post-postscript tonight to a long tale most have forgotten about.

Federated Sports & Gaming, the parent company of the ill-fated Epic Poker League, announced its intention to file for bankruptcy on February 29, 2012. By then the EPL had staged three tournaments open only to eligible tourney players ranked highly enough to enter them according to the newly-created “Global Poker Index” (which managed to survive under new guardians post-EPL).

It was an uncertain, poorly-conceived attempt to create a semblance of a “professional poker league,” a place “for the best players in the world to compete against the best players in the world,” as EPL Commissioner Annie Duke put it early on. One not insignificant incentive to players participating in the high buy-in ($20,000) events of the EPL was a $1 million freeroll to come after the completion of the fourth scheduled tournament.

Alas, during its short existence expenses outran revenue at such a rapid clip the bankruptcy announcement came even before that fourth tourney could be held, and the freeroll never materialized. In the end the FS&G owed something like $5 million to numerous creditors (more than a hundred, I think).

Those interested in a longer rehearsal of the FS&G/Epic story might read through a couple of older posts here -- “We Are Sorry, www.epicpoker.com Cannot Be Found” (August 2012) (which also contains some links to other folks’ reporting on the final days of the EPL) and “Epic Anniversary” (March 2013).

It’s a sorry story. Your humble scribbler ended up involved in a tangential way as one of a handful of folks recruited by the EPL to write occasional columns for their website (which, as noted, cannot be found today). Since I had one invoice covering a few columns in the system at the time of the bankruptcy, I got included as one of the creditors in the subsequent bankruptcy case.

I wasn’t owed much, a small enough amount that after the first few months’ worth of mailings regarding the case I became thoroughly ambivalent about the prospects of ever seeing any of it, although continued to feel misgivings about a few friends of mine owed a heckuva lot more.

I was surprised, then, to receive a letter today from the FS&G that wasn’t just another court summary, but note describing an enclosed check representing my share of the “Final Distribution” -- roughly 10% of the owed amount. Gotta cash this sucker soon, too, I’m advised, “preferably no later than 30 days after receipt.”

“This will be my final communication to you,” concluded the “Plan Administrator” who had delivered to me this small slice of cabbage.

I mean it’s a far cry from feeling my being turned with instinct and intellect balanced equally by the love that moves the sun and stars. But it’s an ending.

Remembering Rivers Duking It Out With Duke

I’m a big fan of old recorded comedy, having spent many years fishing LPs out of the used bins to build a big but not too embarrassingly large of a collection. And of course now that practically everything exists online to be hunted down if one desires, I’ve filled a lot of gaps when it comes to those old records and radio shows, in particular from the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s.

Both Robin Williams and Joan Rivers were significant figures during that era of comedy, and of course both became even more central in popular culture during the decades since. Both recorded a few LPs, though none of them found their way into my collection. Still, I appreciated how both contributed importantly to American comedy.

When news of Rivers having passed began circulating yesterday afternoon, many in poker immediately recalled her venomous tête-à-tête with Annie Duke on Celebrity Apprentice from five years ago. I found myself looking back at a post I’d written here the day after the finale of that quasi-competition.

For Rivers the show existed amid what became an extended final run of heightened fame marked by her appearance on several reality shows, “red carpet” hosting gigs, and the E! network show Fashion Police that helped keep her a household name.

For Duke being on Celebrity Apprentice was the most notable of several television-related ventures that included turning up on other game shows and a couple of failed attempts starting shows centered around her own then-growing celebrity such as Annie Duke Takes on the World (a game show in which she played poker against amateurs) and All In (a sitcom based on her life -- no shinola).

At the time Duke was still representing UltimateBet (or UB) well after the site’s massive insider cheating scandal had become public. Indeed, she’d been spending much of the previous year defending the site, repeatedly claiming the site had shown “grace and integrity” in its handling of the matter when even then it was clear that was hardly the case, and of course later on further corruption within UB became even more evident. (She’d part with the site at the very end of 2010, three-and-a-half months before Black Friday.)

In other words, some of the poker community was already uncertain about Duke’s status as a “spokesperson” of poker even then in the spring of 2009, although on Celebrity Apprentice she was absolutely regarded that way by others on the show and by the mainstream audience. Indeed, when it came to the Rivers-vs.-Duke rivalry on the show, it was Duke’s poker player identity that earned the most remembered bit of vitriol from the comedian, at least among those of us in poker -- even more remembered than Rivers calling Duke a “Nazi” and comparing her to Hitler.

From that 2009 post:

“Even if you haven’t been watching the show, you’d probably heard about Rivers’ shots at poker and Vegas. How she referred to the money contributed by poker players to Duke’s cause as ‘money with blood on it.’ How she referred to her many years performing in LV by saying ‘I’ve met your people in Vegas for forty years -- none of them have last names,’ suggesting the nefarious and/or criminal backgrounds of the inhabitants of Sin City...”

“You’re a poker player... a poker player,” Rivers continues in the clip we all passed around at the time. “That’s beyond white trash.” “Poker players are the most awesome people in the world,” Duke responds, not necessarily her finest moment as a debater. “Poker players are trash, darling... trash,” reiterates Rivers.

Duke’s subsequent move from UB to the doomed Epic Poker League didn’t do much to prove Rivers wrong, either, when it came to her judgment of Duke. Speaking of, Jeffrey Pollack -- whose reputation in the poker world would sink in the EPL ship along with Duke’s -- was still the WSOP Commissioner at the time of Duke’s appearance on Celebrity Apprentice, and in the WSOP conference call that year would maintain that Duke’s appearance on the show represented a “leap forward for the mainstreaming of poker into our pop culture” and that the “net effect was going to be very good for poker.”

I’m wondering otherwise in that post, given how badly the game was portrayed on the show. And of course, years later, even poker players are today unhesitatingly siding in retrospect with Rivers against Duke.

For Rivers, Annie Duke was just one of several with whom she battled heads-up in a long career, her unrestrained comedic style (and personality) often being much more savage than subtle (or more Juvenal than Horace). And while poker and its image might have suffered some collateral damage from their exchange years ago, the game would persevere nonetheless -- despite both of them.

Duke on Decisions

Yesterday a reporter named Sonja Sherwood who writes for the Philadelphia Business Journal published a piece describing her experience attending a 40-minute talk given by Annie Duke at World Cafe Live sometime last week. Sherwood’s report is titled “What Annie Duke can teach you about decisions.”

I know... the sort of headline that is practically impossible for anyone involved in poker over the last several years to read without an exaggerated eyeroll, followed thereafter by a quick click to move on without reading further.

Hooked me, though, and so I kept going.

It’s an earnest report from Sherwood, aside from her occasionally tipping her hand regarding what seems like gushing fandom of Duke. She explains early on how the theme of Duke’s PowerPoint presentation was to explore the reasons “why most people -- gamblers, brand marketers, business owners and employees -- fail to learn from bad decisions, and how companies can counteract that.”

We learn in the article that over the last year Duke has “put poker on the back burner” in favor of such speaking engagements. The audience for this one was about 65 professionals, most of whom Sherwood pegs as venture capitalists or techies.

It’s a curiously pitched piece, actually. Sherwood shows she has knowledge of Duke’s educational background and career as a player, at least up through 2004 when she won a WSOP bracelet while also earning that $2 million score in the invitation-only, 10-player WSOP Tournament of Champions. But if she has any awareness of UltimateBet/UB or the Epic Poker League -- the contexts for some truly poor decision-making by her subject over the last decade -- she doesn’t let on.

Sherwood shares some of the persuasive analogies between business and poker included in Duke’s talk, such as the way people often believe their successes come primarily from skill and failures the result of luck. Duke also passes along the very practical advice that “you have to be willing to admit the possibility that you’re a bad decision maker, but that’s very painful.”

It’s impossible to read such ideas and not think about the myriad bad decisions made in association with the EPL debacle, or about Duke’s involvement with UltimateBet/UB all of the way through its scandals and up until the very end of 2011 -- i.e., the very precipice of the site’s final, Black Friday-hastened implosion.

Duke mentions some companies encouraging employees to address publicly the process of decision-making by having actually “created a prize for the stupidest idea or biggest failure of the month.” An interesting idea, although again one wonders if Federated Sports + Gaming (the EPL’s parent company) had such a contest -- and to think that if they did, how incredibly competitive it must have been!

To Duke’s credit, following the talk she did share with Sherwood a little bit about her own missteps with regard to Epic. “I had a business go into chapter 11 last year,” she tells Sherwood. “I think I made pretty good decisions along the way, but when I look back I realize, oh, I should have seen this and I should have seen that and I was overconfident here, and I really believed in my own idea too much in this place....”

Is Duke following her own advice? Is she admitting the possibility that she was a bad decision maker? Perhaps, in the most delicate way possible. I can’t help but think of the interviewee who upon being asked to name a greatest weakness can only answer “I work too hard.”

Sherwood says “that seemed like a good place to end our conversation,” articulating exactly the opposite thought that most of us from the poker world would have when reading the article. Indeed, for a good number of us that seemed like a good place to start the conversation.

It’s sort of interesting to step back and think of Duke’s new career as a public speaker and how it perhaps can be understood as an extension of a career in poker.

In 2005 Duke published an autobiography titled How I Raised, Folded, Bluffed, Flirted, Cursed, and Won Millions at the World Series of Poker. (In fact, reading Sherwood’s piece again, it almost feels like consulting that book represents the extent of the author’s research into her subject.) Duke is no longer raising and folding, but I suppose one might say she is bluffing her way to more modest sums at the moment. Maybe flirting, too, some, I guess.

Like I say, ironies abound here. I’m tempted to end with a snarky one-liner about people attending a talk about learning from one’s mistakes coming away having decided not to attend such talks again. But to do so would ignore another irony.

After all, I just read an article titled “What Annie Duke can teach you about decisions.”

A Heads-Up on the NBC Heads-Up

Most readers of this blog probably have been hearing about the rebooting of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship happening this week. After running from 2005-2011, Black Friday came along to turn the lights out on poker for a while, and the NHUPC went dark during 2012. But poker’s prospects are brightening here in 2013, and the event is returning.

As before, 64 players will compete in a “March Madness”-style series of heads-up matches. The names of the competing players were announced last Friday (save the one WSOP.com qualifier), and a draw party will be happening tomorrow at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas to determine the brackets.

The event will play out this Thursday through Saturday, Jan. 24-26. A $25,000 entry fee is being put up for each participant (either by the player or his or her sponsor). In the past, the entry fee was $20,000, with the prize pool then topped off further to total $1.5 million. Those who won two matches to make the final 16 were guaranteed $25,000, those losing in the quarters got $75,000, the semifinalist losers each earned $125,000, the runner-up took $250,000, and the winner made $500,000.*

Here is a list of who’ll be competing:



As was the case in previous years, the announcement of the list of invitees inspired a lot of conversation about who was chosen and who was left out. Donnie Peters posted a comprehensive breakdown on PokerNews over the weekend addressing all of the “snubs” and further commenting on the selections.

Like happens with the NCAA men’s basketball tournament every spring, such debates regarding the NHUPC are inevitable. And of course with poker there’s always that additional layer of discussion focusing on marketing the game and players being more or less “good for television.” As if ranking players isn’t hard enough, that additional issue regarding entertaining audiences and representing poker in the mainstream gets evoked as well to complicate further the conversation.

It’s all fairly diverting, though, and I think most agree that getting poker back on a major network represents a positive development for all. (The matches will begin airing in March.)

When I heard about the selections, I thought back to the criteria that had been previously employed for choosing players. If you recall, it was a pretty involved list that changed from year to year but usually included the previous five champions, the previous two runners-up, anyone who had cashed four consecutive years in the NHUPC, the previous three WSOP Main Event champions, and so on. The WPT Player of the Year, the EPT Grand Final winner, the BLUFF magazine POY, and others who’d achieved recent, significant poker successes were usually invited, too.

It appears that with the one-year hiatus these criteria for selecting players were probably jettisoned or at least modified considerably. For example, of the last five NHUPC champions -- Paul Wasicka (2007), Chris Ferguson (2008), Huck Seed (2009), Annie Duke (2010), and Erik Seidel (2011) -- only Seed and Seidel will be among the 64 this time.

We don’t necessarily know if Ferguson and Duke were invited or not, but I would think given both players’ current status in the poker community, it’s quite likely they were not. In fact, other than noticing a few of the more conspicuous omissions Donnie discusses in his article, the non-appearance of these two names in the list probably stood out the most for me as I first perused it.

While I know some would like the NHUPC to aspire to be more like the NCAA tourney and feature poker’s elite players and ultimately a worthy “champion,” the event obviously cannot ever realize such a goal. Even with ultra-rigorous vetting and/or selection criteria in place, the process will necessarily be imperfect. And to be honest I think it is better that there be no pretense to following some sort of quasi-objective criteria for selecting players.

(*EDIT [added 1/25/13]: Payouts for this year’s NHUPC are following a different schedule, with a total prize pool of $1.65 million: 1st, $750,000; 2nd, $300,000; 3rd-4th, $100,000; 5th-8th, $50,000; 9th-16th, $25,000. In other words, winning three matches only wins one his or her money back, and just $50,000 has been added to the entry fees.)

Selbst in the Lead

My first experience watching Vanessa Selbst play in person was at the 2008 World Series of Poker when I happened to help report on her bracelet win in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event. It remains a memorable tournament for me, punctuated by a crazy finale that saw her heads-up opponent, Jamie Pickering, raising pot blind hand after hand in an effort to gamble his way to victory.

That actually marked Selbst’s fourth WSOP final table in three years, and she’d go on to add a semifinal (or third-place) finish in that year’s $10,000 World Championship Heads-Up No-Limit tournament. In other words, out of seven WSOP cashes she’d had up to that point, five of them were eighth-place finishes or higher.

As Shawnee Barton wrote about late last week in her terrific (and timely) article about Selbst for The Atlantic, Selbst usually employs a “relentlessly attacking, boom-and-bust style” that finds her often either accumulating chips early then making a deep run or falling shy of the cash altogether. Barton evokes Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi as a suitable comparison.

Such was the case in that PLO tourney back in 2008 where Selbst essentially led wire-to-wire. The first long day saw the field shrink from 759 all of the way down to 46, with posts about “Selbst Soaring” already starting to appear by late afternoon. I remember her having the chip lead for certain with about 100 left, maintaining it overnight and throughout Day 2. In fact she’d start the final table with more than 1 million chips while the nearest challenger (Pickering) had but 329,000. She’d then lead for most of the final table, too, before ultimately winning.

Since then Selbst has enjoyed numerous other victories and final-table finishes, among them a $1.8 million-plus score at the 2010 Partouche Poker Tour Main Event, back-to-back Main Event victories at NAPT Mohegan Sun in 2010 and 2011, and a second WSOP bracelet last summer in the $2,500 10-game event.

And yesterday Selbst added another huge line to her poker resume by winning the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25K High Roller event (photo above courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars). Thanks to a larger than expected field plus numerous re-entries, the prize pool ballooned up close to $5 million in that one, thereby meaning Selbst’s victory earned her an eye-popping $1,424,420 first prize.

Selbst outlasted a final table that included Micah Raskin (who also final tabled the Sands Bethlehem last month), Tobias Reinkemeier, Bryn Kenney, Shaun Deeb, online star Ole “wizowizo” Schemion, Mike “SirWatts” Watson, and finally the Russian Vladimir Troyanovskiy who also final tabled the PCA $100K Super High Roller last week where he finished seventh.

Now Selbst’s career earnings have inched over the $7 million mark, more than $6 million of which has been won since the start of 2010. A quick scan of the top earners over the same period shows only a handful of players earning more than that, and most of those finished first or second in either the WSOP Main Event, the “Big One for One Drop,” or that $2 million HKD High Roller event in Macau last August.

Excluding those guys, it looks like only Erik Seidel ($7,338,543), Michael Mizrachi ($7,130,635), and Phil Hellmuth ($6,508,181) have earned more than Selbst in tourney winnings since 2010 (unless I’ve missed someone), and of course Hellmuth got a big boost by earning more than $2.6 million for taking fourth in the “One Drop.” Meanwhile, on the overall “All-Time Money List,” Selbst is now listed in 40th place, just ahead of Scott Seiver who jumped up when he won the $100K Super High Roller at the PCA last week.

And of course, as many have been reporting, with her finish yesterday Selbst catapults past Kathy Liebert and into the top spot on Hendon Mob’s “Women’s All-Time Money List.”

I was saying yesterday how I was finding it hard to get too excited over Viktor Blom’s big online swings, but such is not the case here. While bigger payouts and more high-roller events have obviously skewed these all-time lists considerably, Selbst becoming the all-time leader in tourney winnings among female players nonetheless seems like a moment worth noting.

Liebert first grabbed the lead in that race way back in 2002, lost it to Annie Duke in 2004 after Duke won $2 million in that invite-only, single-table Tournament of Champions freeroll, then reclaimed the lead in early 2006 and had held it for nearly seven years before Selbst pushed in front. (Chart via Hendon Mob.)

Selbst now has a big lead in that race, more than $1 million ahead of Liebert (2nd, $5,855,655), with Duke (3rd, $4,270,549), Annette Obrestad ($3,780,520), and Vanessa Rousso (5th, $3,471,293) following.

In other words -- just like happened in that 2008 WSOP event -- now that she’s pushed into the lead on that list, chances are good Selbst will be remaining in front for a good while.

Annie Duke on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson”

Was up late last night following the WCOOP on PokerStars (discussed yesterday). Yes, we Americans can at least follow it, although I’ve heard some have had trouble even downloading the client to do so.

Since I was up anyway, I found myself watching some late night television as well. Looked in on the U.S. Open some, surprised to see that Roger Federer match start just before midnight. I also did a little channel surfing and ended up catching Annie Duke’s guest spot over on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.”

I don’t watch Ferguson’s show regularly, but have enjoyed it well enough whenever I do. He seems to have that love of absurdity and non sequitur that works well sometimes in the absurd, non-sequential format of late night talk shows. I did take note a few months back when Ferguson devoted much of his opening monologue to discussing poker and Black Friday, something I wrote about a little in one of my “Community Cards” columns over on the Epic Poker site.

Duke appeared near the show’s conclusion, her visit only lasting 5-6 minutes or so. They began by asking each other “How are you?” and when Ferguson said he was was “very well” he then asked Duke if she knew whether he were telling the truth or not. That led to some initial small talk about reading people’s faces at the poker table.

Later they’d revisit the topic of tells, with Duke mentioning how licking or pursing one’s lips is supposed to be an indication that one was lying.

“Or coming onto you!” answered Ferguson.

They discussed how players often wear sunglasses or hoodies to help hide their expressions. When Duke mentioned how players wearing hoodies resemble the Unabomber, the crowd laughed, indicating how most people don’t think about Phil Laak as much as some of us might.

They only talked briefly about the Epic Poker League. Was interesting how when the league was brought up Ferguson noted “I thought poker became illegal or something.” “Only online,” Duke explained. Seemed to me that Ferguson was making the comment with tongue partly in cheek, knowing full well that poker isn't (utterly) illegal. I think it was also pretty clear that Ferguson was referring primarily to Black Friday -- which he talked about at length in that monologue last spring -- and that in her response Duke was simply clarifying that what happened in April did not concern live poker or the EPL.

They then spoke a little about Decide to Play Great Poker, the book she has co-authored with John Vorhaus.

"It's kind of complicated," Ferguson said after about a half-minute of strategy talk. "I kind of like playing cards, but I don't have patience to learn," he added, putting the book down as he did.

There was a little about Duke’s four children, with Ferguson asking if they played poker (no). Then Ferguson ended things by having Duke play a game I’ve seen him do with other guests, although I think the latter choice is a new option: “Awkward Pause, Mouth Organ, or Touch My Glittery Ball.”

Duke chose “Mouth Organ” -- an easy opening for various innuendo (“Which end do I blow?”) -- and the pair played harmonica together before saying good night.

A brief glimpse of poker in the cultural “mainstream,” then -- if we want to identify Ferguson’s show (airing at 12:35 a.m. Eastern time) as such. I suppose we could spend some time reading into it, talking about how poker was presented -- as vaguely illicit, as “complicated,” as a training ground for better reading others’ sincerity -- although doing so would probably be making more of it than was really there.

Still, it’s always interesting to see how poker gets discussed and presented in such contexts. Today many in the poker world will be looking to see how goes that second EPL main event which starts a little under a half-hour from now. There’s a much larger world, though, in which poker signifies all sorts of things of which we often make little note.

The Limpede

I’ve begun reading Annie Duke and John Vorhaus’ new strategy text, Decide to Play Great Poker. Have completed the first of the book’s three parts, the one dealing with “Pre-Game and Pre-Flop Play.” Next up (“Play on the Flop”) is a lengthy part full of chapters concerning how to proceed following various flops/scenarios. Then comes the final part (“The Rest of It”) which looks like it focuses on some river situations and “Other Matters” including reviewing some additional concepts plus a last chapter on bankroll management.

There’s a term used in the first part, one I believe Vorhaus employed in his earlier Killer Poker books though I don’t know who deserves credit for coining it. Kind of sounds like a Tommy Angelo-type neologism, in fact, although like I say I’m not sure where it originated.

The term is “limpede” and refers to that scenario that sometimes occurs in no-limit hold’em in which a player limps in from early or middle position, thereby encouraging others to limp behind as well, thus creating a stampede of limpers or a “limpede.”

It’s a funny-sounding word. The sound of the word -- as well as the behavior to which it refers -- kind of makes me think of “lemmings,” too. And the scenario to which it refers is common enough that it probably represents a concept worth knowing about.

It does happen. Limping up front will sometimes encourage limpers all around. And I suppose you might say that whenever you have a bunch of limpers seeing a flop, any hand is likely to be “run over” by the herd. (Thus is limping with a premium hand up front generally not recommended.) Of course, sometimes amid all the limping it will happen that a player -- having been dealt a real hand and/or correctly sensing weakness all around -- will instead raise and (often) scatter the lot.

Been thinking further about this idea of the “limpede” and how it applies outside of poker. Kind of recalls those terrible stories from introductory psychology about the so-called “bystander effect.” You remember those? A violent crime is committed with numerous witnesses, yet no one intervenes or calls the police, the presence of others (also passively resisting any action) weirdly keeping everyone from acting.

Joining the “limpede” could be said to satisfy many desires -- to “play along” or participate in a non-conspicuous way, to avoid upsetting the status quo, to belong. Can be a powerful, highly influential force, as readily evidenced in politics and government, the business world, and elsewhere.

In other words, it’s hard sometimes for us to resist the urge just to follow along. But we must. Or rather, I must. You can do whatever.

2011 WSOP, Day 44: Unwind

The schedule for the World Series of Poker Main Event possesses a certain aesthetic appeal. Six days of poker, then take the seventh day off. Then six more. They’ve followed the same pattern the last couple of years, and I think it works fairly well.

Kind of resembles Wimbledon, with the early rounds taken care of during the first week, a day off for all, then the good stuff leading up to the final at fortnight’s end. Of course, with the WSOP ME we then have to wait another four months for the final, the climax here being the determining of the November Nine.

Was chatting with Jennifer Shahade a little last night about the schedule. She’s playing in the Main Event, and has made it through to Day 3. “You’ve been in the Main Event for a week,” I said. When I told her I kind of liked the format she noted how it wasn’t the best for players. Indeed, make it through the first two days and you’ve had to pay for a week’s worth of Vegas.

And on top of that, you’ve won nothing at all yet.

The day off was fun and relatively restful. After I spent the morning writing, the Poker Grump and I hit the Palms buffet mid-afternoon where I enjoyed an improbable mix of entrees and desserts while we talked about his Main Event experience and other topics.

Later came the WSOP Media tournament, which also provided a lot of entertainment. Like last year, about 130 participated, and it was fun to meet and talk to a number of folks I’ve mostly seen while criss-crossing between tables over the last three weeks.

AlCantHang was trying to sell his action on Twitter prior to the event -- which was inspired, given this was a freeroll. Al was actually the first to be eliminated, for which he won a small golden statue of a toilet. Had his pocket aces cracked by the mighty K-3. I wasn’t able to better my third-place finish of a year ago, finishing up around 40th or so after a couple of hours of play.

Annie Duke played, too, giving everyone copies of her book Decide to Play Great Poker. After covering her in numerous tourneys in the past, I finally met Annie a few days before, and so it wasn’t a first meeting when early on she was moved to my table to sit on my immediate left.

We joked around a bit, but didn’t get involved in any big hands. Once I opened from the cutoff as a sort-of-steal (had K-10), she reraised from the button, then a player pushed all in from the blinds and I got out.

Once the blinds and antes had risen to a certain point, we were all relatively short, essentially in push-or-fold territory. Somewhere in there Annie was all in with pocket jacks once against the player to my right who had A-4 or something and survived. As it happened, I’d later be all in with J-J against the same guy -- this time with A-9-suited -- and he’d river the flush to send me out.

I stuck around some after getting busted, but left prior to the tourney’s conclusion, finding out later that Annie actually won the sucker, defeating Zimba (a.k.a. @PokerCurious) heads up. F-Train final tabled, finishing seventh.

Next came some more pub trivia at McFadden’s. We had a big group there, and so formed two teams. I played with Absinthe, Katkin, Ebhizzle, Poker Grump, F-Train, and Timtern. Meanwhile, at the next table the squad was comprised of Andrew Feldman, Oskar Garcia, Lance Bradley, B.J. Nemeth, and Gary Wise (who arrived yesterday). Our team won, they took second, and a group including Vanessa Selbst, Liv Boeree, and Jeff Madsen took third.

I ended the night hanging out for a while at the Gold Coast bowling alley where the WSOP staff and all the interns were having a great time, as were a number of other media types. Al had a neat come-from-behind bookend to his day there, picking up a cool hundy off of WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla after nailing an improbable spare by clearing nine pins on the second ball.

The bowling alley is where I spoke with Jennifer. I spotted a few other ME players there as well, trying to relax as they readied for the mental challenge that awaits them today.

It’ll be a grind. It always is. Some of the days may be relatively short. Indeed, I’m hearing today’s Day 3 may only go four levels. However it goes, they’ll try to manage it so as to get to 27 next Monday (Day 7) and nine on Tuesday (Day 8). Most of the players will only be at it another day or two; a select few will be there to the end. Meanwhile, pretty much all of the media -- including your humble scribbler -- have six more days of work ahead.

So it was good to rest. Play some cards. Be challenged to remember Oscar Wilde plays and the name of Spongebob’s starfish friend. To unwind. ’Cos everyone is gonna get wound up good and tight here over the next six days.

A League of Their Own

Last night Vera and I watched a little of the Australian Open. We caught the end of a women’s singles first-round match between fifth-seeded Samantha Stosur of Australia and the 17-year-old American Lauren Davis. Stosur easily defeated Davis (6-1, 6-1), for whom this was her first-ever Grand Slam event. Davis had won her way into the tournament after winning a junior tourney in December in order to earn a wildcard entry. A little like winning a satellite tourney in poker, I suppose.

Was kind of intriguing to see Davis do what she could against Stosur, the not insignificant skill divide between the two accentuated somewhat by their contrasting appearances. There was the pixie-like Davis (only 5’1”, I believe), battling gamely against the taller, more muscular Stosur who made the French Open final last year and who many think is a strong contender perhaps to win her first Grand Slam this month.

While Davis did manage to pick up a few points here and there, the outcome was never in doubt. Unlike in poker, where a fortunate card (or several) really can help an outmatched newcomer defeat a seasoned pro, there was no chance here for Davis to go “all in” and gamble for the win.

The possibility in poker for amateurs to compete directly against top pros has always been one of the most fascinating elements of the tournament circuit. Aside from a handful of invitation-only, often made-for-TV events, every single major tournament on the poker calendar is -- like the Australian Open -- technically an “open” event in which anyone (theoretically) can play.

That said, when it comes to the Australian Open one must demonstrate at least some ability to participate. All 128 players in the women’s draw, for instance, either received an invite because of their current WTA singles rankings or won a wild card spot like Davis did. Meanwhile, in poker, anyone with enough to cover an entry fee can play.

Found myself thinking about this difference again this morning when the news broke of the creation of a yet-to-be-named professional poker league.

The story is only a couple of hours old, though by now you’ve probably at least heard about it. According to an article from the Associated Press -- picked up by a number of outlets, including ESPN (who listed the story among its front page headlines today) -- Annie Duke will serve as the new league’s commissioner, with former WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack acting as its chairman. Pollack is also described in the AP story as one of the league’s co-founders, with a private company, Federated Sports & Gaming, Inc., listed as having created the league.

Among the other details shared in the article is a plan to stage four televised “regular-season events” as well as a “$1 million championship freeroll” that will take place at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. As was the case with the short-lived Professional Poker Tour -- the last attempt at something like a professional poker league (begun in mid-2005 and defunct a little over a year later) -- those who participate in this new league will do so by invitation only.

“About 200 players will be invited into the league based on a mathematical formula measuring finishes in major events, money earned, and recent success,” says the article. Notably, only live tourneys will be considered, with cash games and online events not factoring into the calculations. Also not unlike what was the case with the PPT, players will be granted memberships of differing lengths, lasting either two, three, or five years, with a few “lifetime cards” being given to certain elite players.

Quotes from Duke and Pollack in the article directly evoke this issue I’ve brought up of non-pros competing with the established veterans of the game, sort of making it sound as though it’s a problem that the game’s best players sometimes (or often, even) have to play against less talented players. “This is incredibly pro-centric,” says Duke. “This is the one piece that’s kind of missing from the poker landscape right now... something for the best players in the world to compete against the best players in the world.”

Will be interesting, no doubt, to follow the process as it unfolds over the next few months. (I believe the first event will not happen until August.) Debates over invitations and the “formula” for determining who gets in will no doubt be fierce. Indeed, just a couple of posts ago I was referring to how the “all-time” list of tourney winnings is most certainly an imperfect indicator of who might be the “best players in the world.” I’ll also be curious to see how well the new league manages to avoid the many problems that led to the PPT’s demise, although I imagine that example will likely serve as a kind of object lesson for the new league as it forges ahead.

Am wondering a little about the money, the securing of which will obviously prove crucial to the league’s survival. Am also wondering about how the new league will be viewed, specifically whether or not it will find an audience and earn a spot on “the poker landscape” (to use Duke’s term) that is not way over on the periphery somewhere.

It certainly sounds like the league’s founders are envisioning more than a curious, large-scale “home game,” but rather something much more ambitious.

The AP story begins with a comparison with professional golf, saying how “the new league is hoping to become the PGA of poker.” There Pollack also speaks of how membership in the new league “will signify standing as a true professional in poker.” And in another press release from the Federated Sports & Gaming, Erik Seidel is quoted saying he hopes the new league will be “on par with other professional sports,” adding that he is “looking forward to true excellence in the game being rewarded.”

I do hope the new league turns into something fun and good for poker. But these are some lofty goals. Indeed, might it go against the nature of the game itself -- of which luck is necessarily a part -- to insist on finding a way to reward “true excellence”? I mean, even with links on the front page of ESPN, poker can’t really be tennis, can it? In poker, a Lauren Davis will beat a Samantha Stosur now and then.

Of course, in this new league, they’ll never play.

UB Keeping It Real... Real Weird, Anyway

I mentioned last week how I wasn’t all that engrossed in the comings and goings happening over at UltimateBet (or “UB”). Truth be told, I’m only marginally interested by such matters with regard to any of the sites, UB or otherwise.

As a small-time player, such sponsorships make little or no difference to me, not affecting one way or another my choice to play on a given site. There are probably at least a dozen other factors of greater relevance when I make such a decision, although I understand the influence sponsored players may have when it comes to attracting new players.

And as a poker writer, sponsorships are really only of interest insofar as they affect the tourneys I cover or other stories on which I might end up reporting. Which they do, now and then.

That said, I should probably clarify that while it doesn’t really matter that much to me who has left UB and who has joined them, I’m as intrigued as anyone by all of the hubbub the recent moves have created. And so, like most of you I imagine, I have been following a lot of the interviews and articles, too.

I listened to Annie Duke’s interview on this week’s episode of The Final Table podcast, the one co-hosted by Dennis Phillips. I read Phil Hellmuth’s interview for CardPlayer. I also read Prahlad Friedman’s very interesting interview with Bluff Magazine that appeared yesterday soon after his signing with the site was finally announced once and for all.

And I’ve followed a lot of the back-and-forthing on Twitter and in the forums, too. Fascinating to see some of the reactions to Friedman’s signing with same site that cheated him, as well as to the fact that his doing so comes after previously stating (several times) that he’d never sign with any site.

The whole situation with Friedman is truly peculiar. Talk about stranger than fiction. Just try explaining it to someone who isn’t as involved with the scene as we are. After the fifth or sixth twist and turn, you start to sound like a crazy person. Or at least an unreliable narrator.

Of course, the easiest explanation is to write off Friedman’s decision as a simple money grab, even if doing so means ignoring much of what he says in the Bluff piece. Even if that were the case, though, for the UB saga to take this unexpected turn is still quite remarkable.

The whole thing caused me to step back just a bit and opine on “Sponsorships in Online Poker” on Betfair poker today. I didn’t weigh in on Friedman in particular (though I do mention the news of his signing), but rather tried to make a few general observations about the value and significance of online sponsorships.

Late last week, UB pro and media and operations consultant Joe Sebok wrote a post on his blog following the departures of Duke and Hellmuth. “We’ll be announcing our newest Team UB member next week,” he wrote, telling his readers to “stay tuned” because it was “going to be a doozy.”

Whatever else Friedman’s signing might signify, it was most definitely that.

Negreanu and Duke’s War of Word

You’ve no doubt heard something over the last week about this brouhaha between two of professional poker’s highest profile players, Daniel Negreanu and Annie Duke. Right?

The one who sometimes goes by “Kid Poker” called the other one a bad word. Like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, I guess it’s time for someone to wash his mouth out with soap.

The conflict between Negreanu and Duke goes back quite a ways, perhaps more than a decade to the days when both were making their first cashes on the professional poker circuit in the 1990s. Duke arrived on the scene slightly ahead of Negreanu (in terms of starting to rack up WSOP and tourney scores, anyway), and the story goes when the pair first played with one another Duke was openly critical of Kid Poker’s play, which led to some return criticism in various contexts from Negreanu.

Back in the early 2000s, the old rec.gambling.poker forum (or “usenet newsgroup”) became the site where the Negreanu-Duke feud became more openly known by the general public. Probably the most notorious exchange concerned an incident from early 2003 in which Negreanu and Duke were playing against one another online (at PokerStars).

Some chatbox abuse from Negreanu caused Duke to write Stars support to complain, and apparently Negreanu was made aware of Duke’s grievance, prompting him to send a not-so-nice email to Duke. Duke’s brother, Howard Lederer, then shared the contents of both the complaint and Negreanu’s screed in a post over at rec.gambling.poker which remains archived here.

There are numerous other highlights (or lowlights) to point to which help document the pair’s dislike for one another, including occasional blog posts by each criticizing the other. The battle was revived somewhat again this summer when a few men played in the Ladies Event at the WSOP, and both took to their blogs to share their opposing views on the matter. Duke once more voiced her objection to ladies-only events, while Negreanu took the “let the ladies play!” side.

Last week the U.K.-based Poker Player website published an interview with Negreanu titled “The Evolution of Daniel Negreanu.” I believe the interview went live on Thursday, August 19th, as that’s when I first started seeing folks tweeting about it. That means more than a month had elapsed since the interview was conducted, as references in the piece indicate the WSOP hadn’t yet concluded. In fact, we’re probably talking six weeks, as it appears the interview probably happened around July 4th or so.

And, as most reading this blog probably already have heard, in the interview Negreanu uses an especially offensive word with reference to Duke -- the “c-word” (and no, he didn’t refer to her as a calling station).

“Hey Daniel, nice job representing poker and reinforcing that our attitude towards women is still Neanderthal,” posted Howard Lederer on Twitter shortly after the interview appeared, humorously referring to the article’s title.

Like I say, this has gotten many folks buzzing this week, despite the fact that in terms of poker news there’s a lot else going on. I’ve already mentioned one reason for all the fuss -- these are two of the most well-known poker players in the world, known even to non-poker people.

Last October Wicked Chops published its own “Poker Q Score Rankings” (from a Bluff article) in which the Entities assembled a panel of industry experts to help create a “Q score” for poker players -- that is, a measure of an individual’s familiarity and appeal or likability, the sort of thing that matters a lot to advertisers when looking for actors or athletes to endorse their products.

On the WCP list, Negreanu ranked number one. And Duke was ranked fifth -- the highest ranked woman on the list. In other words, when it comes to things like familiarity and even likability, Negreanu might well be the most known male poker player out there today, and Duke is most certainly the most famous female player. Their not getting along thus becomes an ongoing point of reference for those who follow poker, and perhaps even for some who don’t. Sort of a Woods-Mickelson or Shaq-Kobe type thing.

I had a couple of reactions to seeing Negreanu drop the “c-word” in the interview. Was obviously surprised and not too pleased by Negreanu’s language. But I soon found myself wondering also about the interviewer and his intentions.

I’ve already noted that the interview was posted several weeks after it was conducted (not necessarily recommended protocol). Negreanu’s shot at Duke comes in the context of his answering a question about the Ladies Event, and the name-calling seems almost like a weird, unprovoked postscript to his response -- the kind of thing that could easily have been excised from the interview.

(Negreanu did say this week he thought he was “off the record” there, which I tend to believe.)

But not only did Mark Stuart not omit it -- the outburst appears in bold! In other words, he consciously drew extra attention to it.

I’m not defending Negreanu at all here, but just wondering about the interviewer a little bit. We definitely might say “What was he thinking?” about Negreanu. But I’d also say something similar about the interviewer.

I’ve had the chance to interview a number of people in poker. Generally my method has been to record the conversation, transcribe everything, then go back and edit it down to make it more readable (i.e., remove repetitions, the “ums” and “you knows,” and other non-vital digressions).

I have also always tried either to let the subject read over the interview before publishing or, if online, to invite them to suggest after it goes up any needed edits if anything appears incorrect or just doesn’t sound right.

All of which is to say, my instinct here would have been either to omit Negreanu’s epithet or, if somehow I’d thought it needful to include it, to run it by him before publication. I realize, of course, that some may reasonably disagree with that instinct and say, hey, if an interviewee wants to put himself out there like that -- to play the part of a “Neanderthal” who somehow thinks it is permissible to use such language in such a context -- then that’s his choice. But that’s how I think I’d approach this one.

My other reaction was just to be disappointed at the negativity and immaturity of it all. And how poorly such silliness potentially reflects on poker. F-Train posted a tweet yesterday that may or may not have referred to this particular issue, but when I read it, it seemed readily to apply:

“Oh, poker. Will you ever graduate from high school and move on to, I don't know, college?”

(EDIT [added 8/28/10]: For more on the subject, see Nicole Gordon's PokerNews op-ed “The War of the C-Words”)

Oh, Right... the UIGEA

A few weeks before the WSOP began, I pulled together those “Bloggers Roundtable” columns over at Betfair Poker where I asked a dozen well-known poker bloggers to talk about the upcoming Series and also reflect on covering past WSOPs. Kind of fun to go back and see what they said now that we’ve reached the end of seven-and-a-half week WSOP marathon.

The first question I asked the bloggers was to tell me what stories they were most interested in following over the summer. At the time we were a few weeks away from June 1, the day when it would finally become mandatory for banks and financial institutions to comply with the finalized regulations of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. A couple of the bloggers (F-Train and Dr. Pauly) did say they were interested in seeing what, if any, effect the UIGEA finally being enforced might have on the WSOP, including possibly hurting attendance.

The UIGEA, you recall, was that law hastily passed way back at the end of September 2006, tacked on to the end of something called the Safe Port Act and rushed through both houses just as the 109th U.S. Congress was closing up shop to ready for the 2006 elections.

The bill was signed into law two weeks later by then President George W. Bush. Within days many sites -- including Party Poker, at the time a top site for U.S. players -- instantly became inaccessible to Americans. And not too long after that other depositing methods like Neteller were taken away from Americans as well, although there have always been other ways for Americans to get money onto the sites (even if they take a little bit of work to figure them out).

It then took three-and-a-half years for the regulations to be drafted and finalized, and then, on June 1, for compliance to be made mandatory. Those finalized regs prohibit banks from allowing their customers to deposit from their accounts into online gambling sites, even if they are located offshore (as they all are). The way the finalized regulations are written, U.S. citizens should be able to withdraw funds from online gambling sites back into their accounts, but no one is 100% sure about how banks are (or are not) following the UIGEA’s directives.

That’s because there remains a lot of fuzziness regarding the actual enforcement of the UIGEA, which representatives of the American Banking Association repeatedly characterized before Congress as an undue burden on banks. (I mentioned just one example of such testimony in a post from a couple of years ago titled “The Good, the Bad, and the UIGEA.”) One fairly significant problem for banks is that the UIGEA never does define “unlawful internet gambling,” thus making it difficult for banks to determine what exactly they are being asked to prohibit. As the ABA indicated early on, one way of dealing with that burden would be for banks to “overblock” all deposits that are suspected to be gambling deposits.

As far as the WSOP was concerned, the June 1 deadline did not appear to have much of an effect on attendance at all. Indeed, the numbers were up overall in terms of total registrations as well as the field for the Main Event. And while I found myself fairly well buried to the neck in each of the events I ended up covering, I didn’t really hear a lot of fretting about the UIGEA from players or the media during my time in the Rio this summer.

Now that the WSOP is over, our attention once again has become occupied by the UIGEA and other legal issues connected with online poker. This afternoon the entire House Financial Services Committee will meet to discuss the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act (H.R. 2267), a bill introduced over a year ago by the committee’s chairman Rep. Barney Frank (D-NH) which is designed to create a licensing and regulating mechanism for online gambling sites in the U.S.

Five witnesses are scheduled to testify this afternoon. Not all support Frank’s bill.

First scheduled is Ed Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Discovery Federal Credit Union. He will represent the Credit Union National Association’s view that the UIGEA creates too much of a burden for credit unions and banks, saying they really need a list of illegal sites before they hope to enforce the UIGEA as directed. The CUNA supports Frank’s bill, but again wants to ensure “safe harbors” for the credit unions and other financial institutions with regard to their having to police against customers’ transactions with unlicensed, unregulated gambling sites.

Next will come Tom Malkasian, Vice Chairman and Director of Strategic Planning of the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. Malkasian will speak in opposition to H.R. 2267. He has a few specific objections to Frank’s bill, but it is clear he views the creation of some sort of licensing/regulating scheme for online gambling to be potentially detrimental to the live gambling industry.

Then the Honorable Lynn Malerba, Tribal Chairwoman of the Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut will speak. She supports H.R. 2267, but believes it could be enhanced by including an unambiguous provision making it clear that tribal governments/gaming facilities are authorized to operate internet gaming sites.

Law Enforcement and Anti-Terrorism Consultant Michael K. Fagan comes next, and as you might guess he, too, is less than enthusiastic about H.R. 2267. Although he claims to be “agnostic” about gambling -- kind of an odd word choice, there -- Fagan believes any sort of legislation that would facilitate gambling would open up a host of potential problems for the U.S.

Finally Annie Duke will testify -- really the only one of the five witnesses who will speak unreservedly in favor of Frank’s bill. Duke’s testimony includes points about individual liberty and poker’s place in American history. She also attempts to characterize H.R. 2267 not as “a bill that expands Internet gambling in America," but one that "simply provides the appropriate government safeguards to an industry that currently exists and continues to grow.” By the way, Grange95 offers some insightful commentary about Duke’s current status as a spokesperson for online poker.

It looks like there may be a Q-and-A after the five witnesses speak, which could prove interesting. Frank’s bill currently has 69 co-sponsors, but I’m not too enthusiastic about it attracting many more following today’s hearing.

Nor am I really all that excited about H.R. 2267 generally speaking. Before the UIGEA was finalized and compliance made mandatory, I liked the way these hearings about other bills provided occasions to demonstrate how flawed the UIGEA was, hoping that perhaps that a consequence could be that the law would never be fully enforced.

But now that time has passed. And while the UIGEA remains somewhat impotent, that could change -- very quickly, I’d say.

So I’ll be watching this afternoon. Doesn’t seem like it’ll be as interesting as a WSOP final table, but it will be curious to see what sort of hands get played and in which direction the chips appear to go.

Something Noteworthy: Duke Wins NBC Heads-Up

Was following that NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship over the weekend in which Annie Duke ended up surviving six heads-up matches, including winning two of three against Erik Seidel in the finals, to capture the $500,000 first prize. I said on Friday that despite the relatively fast, made-for-TV structures for most of the matches -- as well as the inherent luck involved in any given heads-up match -- “anyone who manages to win... will have accomplished something noteworthy.”

That Duke won will probably further fuel debates over the relative significance of the event in terms of its measure of poker skill. Of course, anything involving Duke tends further to fuel debates in the poker world.

The fact is, besides now being known by many as a reality TV star, Duke is a highly accomplished poker player. Just looking at her WSOP record, it’s kind of amazing. She has 38 total cashes for over $1.12 million (I think the WSOP site is missing one, her cash in the 1995 Main Event), 15 final tables, three runner-ups, and one bracelet (the $2,000 Omaha/8 event in 2004). All in open events, incidentally, and in a wide variety of games (no-limit hold’em, limit hold’em, Omaha/8, stud, stud/8, and pot-limit Omaha).

Of course, Duke’s biggest win in terms of career earnings was that $2 million score for winning the 2004 Tournament of Champions event, which, like the NBC Heads-Up event, was a tourney she was invited to play. In fact, only ten players were invited, and while Duke outlasted a genuinely tough field (Hellmuth, Lederer, Chan, Raymer, Brunson, Negreanu, Ivey, Cloutier, and Reese), some have downplayed the significance of her having so significantly boosted her total career tourney winnings in this single-table freeroll.

So I think there is probably a bit of prejudice already in place to downgrade Duke’s triumph this weekend. Interestingly, two articles turned up on Sunday -- before Duke had won -- that differently addressed the significance of the event. One was a piece over on Casino City Times by Gary Trask with the headline “NBC Heads-Up event held in high regard by poker pros.” The other was a blog post by Daniel Negreanu in which he rated the “World’s Top Ten Toughest Tournaments.”

At first glance, the articles may appear to share a common focus -- namely, to highlight those tourneys the top players hold in “high regard” as genuine achievements if one wins. Indeed, Negreanu’s article does provide a somewhat thorough ranking of tourneys’ “toughness” according to three primary criteria: strength of field, structure, and field size. While his list certainly invites debate -- e.g., ranking the WSOP Main Event as the sixth-toughest tourney and putting a couple of yet-to-be-played events at the top of his list -- it is clear Negreanu is focusing mainly on how well the events test players’ tourney skills.

The Casino City Times article rather focuses on other factors affecting players’ “high regard” -- namely the enjoyment they get from participating, the fun of competing (and earning bragging rights with friends/colleagues), and the intangible benefits of succeeding in a high-profile, televised event.

Trask quotes Phil Gordon noting how “we all want to play in it” and how “the fact that it’s a heads-up, one-on-one match really brings the whole ego thing into the equation.” However, Gordon recognizes how the tourney may rate lower on a “toughness” scale such as the one Negreanu put together. “[W]e all realize that when it comes right down to it, this is a crapshoot,” says Gordon. “There’s just so much luck involved in a one-time heads-up match.”

Negreanu does mention at the end of his list how the NBC Heads-Up event’s fast structure necessarily eliminates it from consideration as one of the “toughest” tourneys. But the question remains of how to rate the achievement of someone who does win the event. As an NBC Heads-Up champ, Duke joins a list of other highly accomplished players -- Hellmuth, Forrest, Wasicka, Ferguson, and Seed. Each enjoyed some good fortune along the way to win their titles, but such is true for all tourney winners to some degree.

I’ll stick to the idea that winning it is “something noteworthy,” though doubt Duke’s win will necessarily up the NBC Heads-Up event’s status as an especially “tough” test for players.

Was It Good For You? (On the Celebrity Apprentice Finale)

I’m no culture snob. Sure, I might write something here about Dostoevsky from time to time. I’m even contemplating a soon-to-be-written post in which I’m going to reference Virginia Woolf. But I obviously enjoy (and appreciate) a good, pulpy page-turner, and consume other forms of popular culture (music, film, etc.) as readily as anyone.

Have never, ever been a big fan of the “reality” show thing, though. Like everyone else, I first became aware of the shows cropping up in the 1990s. I noticed when programs like The Real World starting to push music off of MTV, then Survivor (which premiered in 2000) kind of representing a tipping point after which similarly-styled programs began their decade-long TV tyranny. I remember watching some of that first Survivor that summer, the one in which the clothes-optional dude won the $1 million. Can’t say I paid much attention to that one after that first season, however, even in 2007 when poker pro Jean-Robert Bellande was on the China one.

Nor have I bothered much with the dozens and dozens of Survivor imitators (except for American Idol, which does entertain from time to time). Since these shows basically come and go without my ever noticing them, it wasn’t until last night that I bothered with Celebrity Apprentice, despite all of the hype in the poker community regarding Annie Duke’s deep run. Finally did break down and watch the finale last night in which Joan Rivers managed to “win” the hopelessly-contrived “competition” manufactured by the show.

Since there is that poker connection, and since a lot of people are buzzing about what happened last night, I thought I’d share here a bit of my own response to the show.

One of the questions most intriguing to poker players and folks in the poker media is the familiar “Is it good for poker?” question. Always comes up, that one. They ask it fairly often -- about various cultural phenomena -- on The Poker Beat, so much so that someone started a thread on their forum a few weeks ago titled “Sick of ‘is it good for poker’ topic?” The discussion on that thread went back and forth for a while, then some joker jumped in with his own non-constructive entry into the debate:

“Good points, all. But the question needs to be asked: is the ‘is it good for poker’ debate good for poker?”

Now that I think about it, that might have been me. Although my question was about 98% class clown in its inspiration, it actually produced some interesting responses. (As it happens, it really is not so useless to assess once in a while the usefulness of self-assessment!)

Anyhow, I suppose we’re all wondering whether or not Annie Duke’s appearance on Celebrity Apprentice is good for poker. In that WSOP conference call a couple of weeks back, WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack indicated that he thought it was, pointing out how it represented a “leap forward for the mainstreaming of poker into our pop culture” and that the “net effect was going to be very good for poker.”

I gotta wonder, though. I mean, did you watch?

From what I could tell, Rivers “won” the thing not because she raised more money than Duke (she didn’t), nor even because she demonstrated in any obvious way better leadership skills or creativity or whatever it is the show is attempting to measure in its contestants. Rather, it seemed pretty clear that Trump picked Rivers in the end as the winner of a popularity contest, and her popularity rested largely on her characterization of herself as a person who wanted to “win with honor,” and her characterization of her opponent -- a “pokah playah” -- as someone who was willing to forgo all moral guidelines in her Machiavellian quest to succeed.

In other words, while Annie Duke’s profession as a poker player made her an intriguing figure on the show, it also clearly helped make her the villain. And I guess now we’re left to contemplate whether that’s good or bad for poker.

Even if you haven’t been watching the show, you’d probably heard about Rivers’ shots at poker and Vegas. How she referred to the money contributed by poker players to Duke’s cause as “money with blood on it.” How she referred to her many years performing in LV by saying “I’ve met your people in Vegas for forty years -- none of them have last names,” suggesting the nefarious and/or criminal backgrounds of the inhabitants of Sin City. How she called poker players “beyond white trash.”

And, oh yeah, there was that Hitler thing, too -- a crazily hyperbolic attempt to characterize Duke as a ruthless dictator. That offended some, but not as many as you might think. (Rivers later apologized on her Twitter page -- to Hitler.)

Rivers again sounded the poker-is-gambling-is-criminal theme last night. In the final fund-raising task, Duke raised three times as much as Rivers (about $450,000 to $150,000); however, Rivers was able to diminish Duke’s achievement by referring to the money raised as “mafia money.” Duke again fired back in defense of poker players, but her cause appeared lost.

Even though I haven’t been watching the show, I knew Rivers was going to “win” early on Sunday night and told Vera Valmore as much. The not-so-subtle way the show portrayed Rivers as “all heart” and Duke as “all business” made it obvious. Rivers’ final “America is a charitable nation” speech at the end was just overkill -- she was already destined to be anointed the show’s heroine.

What is a show like Celebrity Apprentice about? It’s about what just about every cultural product produced for mass consumption that achieves significant commercial success is about, namely, reaffirming the status quo. Which at the present time does not include a loving acceptance of poker as a pursuit accepted by the majority of American society. If you didn’t get that before, the show confirmed it fairly unambiguously, in my view.

The show also confirmed a few other elements of the status quo of American culture, none too flattering. I’m not going to explain all of these points here, but if you watched the show, you know what I’m talking about:

Men are in charge.

Women shouldn’t act like men.

Emotion trumps intellect.

Greed is good, but don’t be so obvious about it.

There are other things to say about how the show reflects other aspects of American culture -- including issues associated with class and race -- but we’ll keep it a poker blog today.

And as far as poker is concerned, I’ll conclude (for now) that Annie Duke’s appearance on Celebrity Apprentice is at best a push. Might have helped a little insofar as it invited people who hadn’t previously thought much about poker to consider the question of whether or not it represents a legitimate pursuit. But that would require looking past the way the show indirectly positioned poker as part of what defined the show’s “villain,” thereby underscoring cultural prejudices against poker.

UB Judging

Well, my timing was much better yesterday for my drive home, which was smooth sailing. Wasn’t any better at the tables, though. My March graph now looks like a modest mountain, with the peak on Tuesday. Nothing to do but try to climb that sucker again.

Had the iPod for my run yesterday and listened to the first part of this week’s Two Plus Two Pokercast (the 3/3/09 episode). Good as always, although the show is so long it would take me about 15 miles to listen to the entire thing. Since I am still only running two miles at a time, I only heard the beginning, and so have yet to get to the interviews.

One of the items discussed by the hosts, Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz, there in the first part of the show concerned the player Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers. Referring to the recently-concluded L.A. Poker Classic (a World Poker Tour event), Johnson noted that when they reached the Main Event’s final table, Sowers (who would finish third) “shows up with a UB patch on.”

That led Johnson to speculate whether or not the WPT “would be right or justified in making a decision where they say, ‘You know, for the good of poker, for our reputation, we will not allow UB advertising, patches, or logos at our final table because you [i.e., UltimateBet] have admitted to stealing millions of dollars from poker players over the years and we don’t want anything to do with you [UB].’”

Johnson went on to say that “there were certain things they would not allow at a final table.” Schwartz wondered if someone would be allowed to wear a Swank Poker label on one’s forehead. Swank Poker is that small online poker site that apparently had incorporated some “adult” content into its client software at some point, though looking at the site it appears they may have been forced by someone (not sure whom) to stop doing that. They also may be changing their name, too, to Red Cherry Poker.

In any event, Johnson said “probably not” in response to the question about Swank. Johnson then asked “Could you wear a swastika?” Not such a helpful analogy, really. But we get it. There are obviously certain kinds of patches the WPT just wouldn’t allow.

I was curious to hear what the hosts would conclude regarding the question. After a bit more discussion, they agreed that if it were not for the celebrity and influence of Phil Hellmuth and Annie Duke, the WPT would ban UB logos without hesitation. “If they weren’t sponsored by UB, I would bet that that would have happened already,” said Schwartz. “I think Phil has too much power in the industry now, where they are not ready to say that to him.”

Of course, up until quite recently, the WPT didn’t allow any logos at final tables. Starting with the Gold Strike World Poker Open (in January 2008), new rules for “pre-approved logos” were put in place. One can view those rules on the WPT site.

Reading through, it all seems pretty clear. Nothing on the forehead. Just one patch on the left breast pocket, no more than six square inches. Nothing advertising any illegal activity is allowed. Nor does the WPT allow any ad for “pornography [which would nix the Swank ad, I suppose], firearms, tobacco, personal hygiene, sexual aids, or hard liquor.” Finally, the WPT, the network airing the shows, and the hosting casino all “reserve the right to restrict logo wear for any reason whatsoever at their sole discretion.”

So clearly the WPT would certainly be “right or justified” to forbid UB logos if it wished to so, given that they reserve such a right for themselves in their player sponsorship rules. The WPT does not forbid UB logos, of course. Indeed, one sees Ultimatebet.net included on the list of “pre-approved sponsors” at the bottom of the page.

What do I think? Well, for one, I don’t really believe Hellmuth and Duke have much to do with the WPT’s decision on this matter one way or the other. If they wanted to forbid players from wearing a UB patch, they could easily do so. Hellmuth blacked out the “UB” on his hockey jersey for Day 6 of the WSOP Main Event last summer when he was requested to do so -- I think because the logo was too large. I’m sure he’d do so again, if he made a final table and the WPT told him he had to.

However, I don’t think it would make much sense for the WPT to single out UltimateBet in this way. Obviously I’m no fan of UB, and don’t care much to see the site continue to be promoted by players (and other entities). But the decision to promote this or that site is up to the individual player, and I don’t really think the sites players choose to represent reflect one way or the other on the WPT or whatever other venue they happen to appear in which they wear their logos.

An interesting question, I guess. Of course, we poker fans have other stuff on our minds today, as the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship gets underway. And it looks like Mike Sexton and Phil Hellmuth are squaring off in the first round.

Maybe they can talk about the logo thing between hands, if it is really an issue. Wouldn’t think it would come up, though. ’Bout as likely Hellmuth getting shipped a pot in which he held a worse hand, probably.

Here is that there bracket: