LAPT8 Peru, Arrival: Eat Some Good Food, Then Brood

I arrived in Lima in one piece during the early evening, and after long wait for luggage and a quick shuttle navigated by an especially deft driver I made it to my hotel room not too far away from the Atlantic City casino where I’ll be spending most of the next five days.

Despite landing about an hour late, my buddies Sergio and Reinaldo still hadn’t left for dinner, and so I was able to join them and a trio of Brazilian players -- Ale, Renata, and Felipe -- for a delicious dinner at Restaurant Punto Azul, a place where after we arrived I realized was the site of my last meal in Lima back in October.

I had octopus in olive sauce for an appetizer and a much too big fish dish in pepper sauce, which along with the fun conversation was a nice way to end a long travel day.

I only got in just a few minutes before we left for dinner, and so had only just caught brief glimpses of tweets mentioning the especially sad news about BLUFF shutting down. Read a little more afterwards and now today am seeing more references and tweets.

Have been brooding this morning over it all, feeling especially bummed for the guys who are currently with BLUFF and who besides being cool cats have played big roles in making the magazine/site an important, valuable contributor to the poker community. The suddenness of the news adds to the shock, actually, making it harder to believe it is actually true.

Will probably have to reflect on it all next week after I return home, but there’s work to do. Start checking over at the PokerStars blog today for reports from Lima on the Latin American Poker Tour Peru Main Event.

How Many Will Play the WSOP Online Event?

This Thursday the World Series of Poker will be staging its first ever online event, a $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tournament to be run on the WSOP.com site in Nevada (Event No. 64).

I believe it is supposed to be a two-day event, even though the structure sheet suggests it is a three-day affair. I think the plan on Thursday is to play down to a six-handed final table, then have those players come to the Rio on Saturday to finish things out in person.

The rules for the event provide more details regarding it, along with some other confusing things like one line stating “There is no buy-in or entry fee required to participate in the tournament” (Section I, Rule #7). I think that’s referring to the six players coming to the Rio on Saturday not having to buy in again, but it’s an odd line.

Before the WSOP I was asked to predict how many would play the event, and having little clue what to guess I said 1,116. The guesses of my colleagues at PokerNews ranged from as low as 500 to as high as 2,000.

Meanwhile the BLUFF guys also tried to predict this one, with Kevmath going with 725 as their low and Paul Oresteen saying 4,300 to be the one outlier guessing a big turnout.

If I had a chance to revise my guess today, I’d aim lower with my prediction. How many do you think will play?

Colossus Counting and Other Poker Predictions

The 2015 World Series of Poker is just two days away from starting. Just saw this afternoon both BLUFF and PokerNews post predictions for the upcoming series, and I imagine the other sites are going to be following suit with similar posts posthaste.

As part of the PN squad I have my guesses included in there over on PokerNews, if you’re curious. I’ll admit that after hearing the buzz building over the last week or so regarding the “Colossus” -- the $565 buy-in Event No. 5 that begins this Friday -- I revised upwards my guess what the field size will be for that one.

According to the “Colossus Important Details” handout the WSOP has created, capacity for the four “Day 1” flights (taking place over two days) totals 24,200 (I’m adding up what they’ve listed for each of the four). They warn those playing the event “We do not have unlimited capacity and expect some if not all flights to fill to our limits.”

Guesses among both the PN and BLUFF guys range from 12,500 to 27,000. I guessed 17,819. More than 8,773 will represent the largest live tourney ever in terms of field size, of course, meaning that record is certainly going to be dust by the weekend.

Lots of other guesses about field sizes and players in the two articles -- see the PokerNews one here, the BLUFF one here.

How many do you think will play the Colossus?

GPI, WSOP, POY, et al.

A little behind with other stuff this week. Saw one item over the past few days I might’ve written more extensively about in the past, but am only going to allude to briefly here today -- both because I don’t have time to sort through it fully, and I’m not sure how deeply I’d want to get into it even if I did.

It was announced last week that the Global Poker Index will be “powering” the World Series of Poker Player of the Year rankings this time around. (That’s a great, positive-sounding verb, by the way, to describe such a relationship, isn’t it?) In fact, the new name for the race/award will be the “GPI WSOP Player of the Year.”

BLUFF had previously been the one powering the WSOP POY, and their method seemed reasonably powerful enough although like any ranking system it was the subject of plenty of debate. I think over recent years more have objected to the WSOP Europe and/or the WSOP APAC events being included in the tabulations than have had any problems with the way the rankings were done.

Now the WSOP Player of the Year will be determined according to points players earned as determined by the current GPI model, which differs in a number of ways from what BLUFF had done. Like I say, I might’ve written at length about this before, but instead today I’ll point first to Jess Welman’s recent post over on her blog that highlights some of these differences, titled “POY Problems.”

Amid the Twitter discussion of the topic I was led to read another interesting post written a few months ago that like Jess’s takes issue with the GPI rankings while also comparing them to BLUFF’s method. That one is by poker player Michael Wang and is titled “A Critique of the GPI Ranking System.”

The WSOP POY race -- or should I say, the GPI WSOP POY race (which is hard to rattle off if you need to ASAP or PDQ) -- serves a few different purposes, including heightening interest in the events for fans of poker and in some cases providing encouragement to players to play more events. The winner gets a trophy, is pictured on a banner to be hung in the Rio hallways each summer (like Allen Cunningham’s above), and is honored in a special ceremony, but there aren’t any other tangible benefits (as far as I know).

Stepping back from the whole issue, it feels a lot like a different, more detailed version of the debate over WSOP bracelets and their relative worth. It also resembles other debates from major sports, too, having to do with the numbers games can create and how we interpret them.

I’ll just leave it all right there for now, though, and let you, reader, do your own interpreting.

Players Sponsoring Themselves on Twitch

Was reading about Twitch this week. Hadn’t realized it had begun as a spinoff from the old Justin.tv, which I recall having tuned into occasionally in the past, including during those early marathon-streaming days of the old Quadjacks who I believe moved there at some point not long after Black Friday.

Justin.tv began back in 2007, then in 2011 created Twitch as a kind of separate network just for video gaming and “e-sports” competitions. The latter grew in popularity, then last summer Justin.tv was shut down so the parent company (Twitch Interactive) could focus just on Twitch.

Back in February PokerNews did an article suggesting 10 poker-related Twitch accounts to follow. Last month Eric Raskin wrote an interesting piece for All In looking at Twitch from a more theoretical point of view and relating it to other forms of “life streaming” whereby people turn their lives into shows for others to watch. (Twitter functions like that for some, I think, as I was writing about yesterday.)

BLUFF just ran a long profile of Scott Ball, a.k.a. “The Man Behind Twitch’s Poker Explosion,” which includes an overview of the site’s brief history and increasing involvement with poker.

Even The Wall Street Journal has written about Twitch becoming a destination for online poker players and those who enjoy watching others play (and/or learning about poker, too). The WSJ article cited a statistic that “In January, Twitch streamed 56 million minutes of poker, less than 1% of the total 16 billion minutes of streamed video on the site.” There were only 44,640 minutes in January, so I suppose that means an average of about 1,250 poker-related streams were live every minute of every day that month -- more than I’d have guessed.

Those who are able to get 500 or more viewers to watch their streams consistently are eligible to have a subscriber button put on their channels, which in turn becomes a way for viewers to subscribe for $4.99 a month (half of which goes to Twitch). Subscribers can then be offered extras such as special programming, access to archives, and so on.

Those who have Twitch channels can also derive income by selling advertising (with the revenue also shared 50/50 with Twitch). Twitchers can additionally get sponsorships or collect donations as a way to “monetize” what they’re doing, and in the case of poker players who are also coaches, they can use their Twitch channels to direct folks to purchase other content, hire them as coaches, and so on.

It struck me that with the paucity of online poker sponsorships post-Black Friday, Twitch has become a form of “self-sponsorship” for a not insignificant number of players, kind of analogous to self-publishing or other kinds of independently-produced content (e.g., music, video/film).

For me it remains a kind of idle, only occasionally-sought-after entertainment, although I continue to be impressed with how some -- with Jason Somerville the pioneer and current Twitch “chip leader” (by far) -- have found ways to make it work both for them and their viewers/followers/subscribers. And I continue to be curious about what will come of it, too.

Recent Reads

Thought I’d take a post today to pass along some interesting poker-related reads from the last few days.

Last week over on BLUFF there appeared a lengthy, entertaining feature by Will O’Connor describing “The Last Hours of the Taj Mahal Poker Room” that’s worth a look.

Late last year it appeared as though the Trump Taj Mahal would become the fifth Atlantic City casino to close in 2014, though it managed to remain open after declaring bankruptcy in September, then settling a major dispute with employees over the paying of benefits, then getting a $20 million loan from a creditor in late December to help keep the doors open.

The poker room -- the one Mike and Worm take a trip to in Rounders and a one-time focal point of east coast poker -- closed down just before midnight on February 15th, and the feature describes in detail the scene during those final hours. Word is there are intentions to reopen the room this summer, although that plan (like the future of the Trump Taj Mahal) is uncertain.

Late last week another longish -- not entirely unrelated -- piece went up over on Rob’s Vegas and Poker Blog titled “Dominick Muzio and the State of Poker Today.”

Readers of this blog have likely found Rob’s blog over the last three-plus years since he started it to share interesting stories of his own low-limit adventures among many other items of poker-related interest. In this post he speaks at length with Muzio, a dealer in LV since 2009 who also works as a floor/shift supervisor at Treasure Island.

The theme of the conversation concerns why live poker has become less fun (and less popular) of late, and Muzio shares a number of thoughts to help explain that trend while also proposing ideas for reversing it. Some topics covered include math-versus-feel players, the dominance of no-limit hold’em, payout schedules for tournaments, the (relative) lack of online poker, and the social aspect of the game.

Check it out, and for an addendum adding other thoughts on the same issue see Grange95’s post “Making Poker Fun Again.”

Finally, you probably heard about the Bitcoin-based Seals With Clubs site going down a couple of weeks ago, and now apparently for good. You might also have heard how Bryan Micon, the best-known face of the site, had his Las Vegas home raided by gun-toting agents serving a warrant from the Nevada Gaming Commission.

Giovanni Angioni spoke with Micon for PokerNews and the interview appears amid a feature explaining what happened with the site and the raid titled “Seals With Clubs Chairman Bryan Micon: ‘The Police Raid Was Completely Unnecessary.’”

Micon talks about the history and final demise of Seals With Clubs, his hasty move to Antigua, and plans for the impending launch of SwC 2.0. Kind of a wild, confusing story, and thus another intriguing read.

Catching Up with Kevmath

Spent the afternoon in the cold and wet, driving posts around the perimeter of the “back forty” as part of the new fence we are building back there.

The conditions are actually ideal, as the ground is soft and thus easier to breach with the tall, green metal T-posts I’m hammering down into them. Got about halfway around the sucker before the skies opened up for real, chasing me from the pasture and under cover.

Progress was made, however slowly, one post at a time. Kind of like this blog, I suppose, where I have been planting post after post after post for a good while now.

Listened to tunes for much of the time I was working, although early on I finished listening to the latest installment of the Thinking Poker podcast hosted by Andrew Brokos and Nate Meyvis. They’re up over 100 eps now, and this week after talking strategy for a while (as usual) they had Kevin “Kevmath” Mathers on as a guest.

On the show Kevin tells the story of how he first got involved in poker in the early 2000s, as well as the interesting path that led him to become known as the “answer guy” on Two Plus Two where he posted frequently and eventually became a moderator. It was a post-after-post-after-post life for Kevin, too, for several years before he finally found his way into poker media, eventually becoming the Manager of Poker Information for BLUFF.

Along the way Kevin tells about being interviewed by Tatjana Pasalic back in the fall of 2010, the first time a lot of us finally got to see him after years of interacting with him online. He also describes the experience of covering the 2011 WSOP for BLUFF. I remember getting to meet Kevin in the person for the first time that summer, although I knew him well before that. In fact, when listening to him talk about that interview with Tattytats I remembered having interviewed Kevin some months before for Betfair Poker.

I went searching for that interview today, but discovered it doesn’t appear to be on the Betfair Poker site anymore. So as a supplement to this week’s Thinking Poker podcast (and as a quick trip down memory lane), I thought I’d repost that interview here.

Thanks again, Kevin, for the interview! And thanks as well for everything else you do to for the poker community.

* * * * * “Kevmath Adds It Up: A Chat with the Poker Forum Moderator”
[Originally published at Betfair Poker, 19 February 2010]

The internet provides endless opportunities for people with common interests -- like those of us who enjoy poker -- to find each other and swap stories, share information and strategy, and engage in other types of socializing. Just as the online game has affected how live poker is played, the internet as a whole has changed the way poker can function as an occasion for social interaction, too.

Online poker forums are one such example of a place where poker people can virtually mix and mingle, with those over at Two Plus Two being far and away the most popular choice for many.

I occasionally participate in the discussions over on 2+2, though when visiting I’m more likely to read than post. I tend to follow forums such as News, Views, and Gossip (or NVG), Beats, Brags, and Variance (BBV), Tournament Circuit, Internet Poker, Poker Legislation, Televised Poker, and Books and Publications. I’ll also occasionally stop in over in the Limit Hold’em section and Small Stakes PLO forum to eavesdrop on strategy talk, or goof around in the Other Topics section where one can easily waste a lot of time.

Like just about everyone who visits the 2+2 forums, I often run across contributions by the poster “Kevmath,” a.k.a. Kevin Mathers, a frequent poster and moderator at 2+2. Mathers can also be found posting from time to time over at the especially-informative Pokerati blog, and has additionally written articles for PokerNews. Last summer I had the chance to work a few times with Kevmath during the WSOP when he did some behind-the-scenes stuff to help out those of us who were reporting on the Series.

It only takes reading a few posts from “Kevmath” to recognize him as a highly reliable “answer man” when it comes to all things poker. As such, I thought he’d be a good person to field a few questions, both about 2+2 and the poker world in general.

Short-Stacked Shamus: What forums do you moderate over at 2+2?

Kevin Mathers: I moderate the TV poker forum, the Tournament Circuit/WSOP forums, and with others moderate News, Views, and Gossip (NVG).

SSS: NVG is the most popular, yes?

Kevmath: Yes, News, Views, and Gossip is considered “the forums” by most people, as that’s where most of the discussion of events going on in the poker world takes place. It’s a mish-mash of information from the poker media, public opinions, and other hilarity all rolled up into one central location.

SSS: What exactly is a moderator’s responsibility at 2+2?

Kevmath: Posters who make valued contributions to a particular forum are often considered for elevation to moderator status if they are interested. My role as one of the moderators is to help enforce the rules in the forum, and attempt to keep things in control without being too overbearing. NVG in particular generates a lot of traffic, and sometimes two or more people come up with the same idea for a thread, or someone decides to spam or post something really inappropriate. So it’s the moderator’s job to merge threads, delete threads that are just really stupid or inappropriate, or move them to a more appropriate forum.

SSS: Kind of like herding cats at times, I’ll bet.

Kevmath: Yeah, it’s often difficult to moderate effectively, as you’re trying to keep things as civil as possible without being too overbearing to those who are likely to be negative about a certain topic.

SSS: Poker forums -- and 2+2 in particular -- obviously play an important role in poker today. How would you characterize 2+2 forums’ contribution to poker?

Kevmath: 2+2 is great for just about everyone who has an involvement in poker. If you’re looking for strategy, there are plenty of forums dedicated to all forms of poker, and broken down even further by the stakes you’re playing. There are forums dedicated to major tournaments, as well as finding information on tournaments that are focused more towards players at a casino near them. Another large part of 2+2 are the many forums about topics unrelated to poker (sports, politics, business and investing, health and fitness, travel, Vegas, etc.).

SSS: What sort of topics tend to get the most attention? That is, which threads end up attracting the most posts and views?

Kevmath: Probably the monthly High Stakes threads, especially if someone who is unknown makes an appearance (Martonas, Isildur1, etc.). The latest antics of FullFlush, Hellmuth, Negreanu or any major poker professional also usually get a lot of looks.

SSS: What is the most memorable or significant thread since you joined 2+2?

Kevmath: Definitely the ones detailing the scandals at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker (summarized in the UB sticky in NVG).

SSS: How about the funniest or most outrageous thread?

Kevmath: The funniest threads I’ve read have been the various photoshop threads that turn up in NVG, such as “If They Never Played Poker...“ or “French businessman in Bobby’s Room“ (a.k.a., the “Cyril” thread). Since I’m not as familiar with the strategy side of 2+2, I’d suggest readers to take a look at “The Best of Two Plus Two“ forum, which features several classic threads from across 2+2.

SSS: In what other ways do you follow the latest poker news?

Kevmath: I’m usually following the larger poker blogs, poker news sites, and stuff that turns up on my Twitter feed.

SSS: What are your thoughts about the current state of “poker media”?

Kevmath: Too often, the poker media appears to be more focused towards the sites that fund the magazine through their advertising, and avoid being too critical. Another part of poker media I’m not a fan of is the need to be the “exclusive” provider of live updates. While it helps draw traffic to the site, the updates often focus on a select group of players (e.g., people they know, etc.). When those players are gone, they’re struggling.

SSS: Okay, one last question... speaking of the media, what poker stories and/or issues do you foresee being the most written about and discussed in 2010?

Kevmath: The regulating of online poker worldwide, especially the U.S., will be a big one. It will be interesting also to see how the World Series of Poker will do without Jeffrey Pollack as Commissioner. Other stories to watch should include watching how PartyPoker does with the World Poker Tour, seeing whether PokerStars can continue their world domination of tournament poker with the new North American Poker Tour, and Annette Obrestad’s WSOP debut this summer. And whatever major scandal (real or perceived) may come to light.

Much thanks to Kevin Mathers for taking the time.

Hachem on the State of the Game

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Online Poker in the New Year

Been perusing some of the “Top Stories of 2013” lists on the various poker sites, including PokerNews where the reintroduction of online poker in the U.S. claimed the top spot on the list. The only other online poker-related story to make that list was the one concerning the process finally getting started for Americans who played on Full Tilt Poker to petition for the return of their funds (#4).

Of the 10 “most read poker articles” on Pocket Fives during 2013 (presented in two parts: 6-10 and 1-5), none really had to do with online poker.

PokerListings did a list of “The 20 Best Moments in Poker in 2013” (20-16, 15-11, 10-6, 5-1), five of which concerned online poker: “Isildur1 Wins SCOOP $10k Main Event” (#20), “Online Poker Becomes Inclusive to Rec Players” (#13), “Moorman Hits $10m in Career Online Earnings” (#7), “US Full Tilt Poker Player Claims Processed” (#3), and “Online Poker Returns to US” (#1). They also threw in the release of the BET RAISE FOLD documentary (#15), which chronicles online poker’s glory days.

Meanwhile on PL’s list of “The 20 Worst Moments in Poker in 2013” (20-16, 15-11, 10-6, 5-1) six had to do with online poker: “WSOP Fails to Get Online Poker Running by Main Event” (#12), “Delays Continue in Never-Ending durrrr Challenge” (#11), “Full Tilt Poker Remission Process Drags On” (#8), “PokerStars Does Not Get NJ Approval” (#6), “Sheldon Adelson Takes Aim at Poker” (#2), and “Gus Hansen Posts Epic $8.4 Million Loss” (#1).

And of BLUFF’s Top 10 videos of the year (by the great SrslySirius) just one concerned online poker -- a funny satire about the “rogue” U.S. sites presented as a “Shamelessly Honest Online Poker Ad” -- not that the format really lends itself to reports focusing on the online game. Though it does lend itself readily to lots of grins (check all of ‘em out).

(Have to say I’ve yet to listen to the TwoPlusTwo Pokercast’s episode recounting their Top 10 list of poker stories from 2013 -- I’m looking forward to seeing how Mike and Adam constructed their list.)

Glancing at PokerScout’s rankings of online poker traffic here at the start of 2014, PokerStars predictably continues to reign supreme with about eight times the traffic of the nearest competitors with the iPoker network -- which includes sites like William Hill Poker and others -- currently leading the chase pack.

Searching the rankings for U.S.-facing sites, Bodog/Bovada continues to find a place in the upper half of the list (according to PokerScout’s best estimates). But all of the others are unsurprisingly way, way down the page, with traffic in the hundreds (or tens).

I suppose comparing these lists could be said to highlight the American-centric nature of the poker news sites (or at least the ones I tend to visit). In terms of people actually playing online poker, there aren’t too many Americans doing so. Thus stories about online poker have become predictably scarcer on the news sites on which Americans do a lot of the writing and reading. (Indeed, that the return of online poker in the U.S. has topped some lists indicates as much as well.)

That said, it’s interesting also to think about how online poker has moved away from the center of the poker world over the last several years, in particular since Black Friday. I haven’t gone back to see, but I’d wager most “top poker stories” from a few years ago were related to online poker in at least a tangential way, with the online game seemingly affecting just about every aspect of the game not that long ago.

But now online poker is over to the side, big picture-wise. Will be interesting to see if it ever returns to the center, and if so whether that happens sooner or later.

Ode to the Favorite Poker Blog

Am readying here for another trek across the country, this time back to Las Vegas to help the World Poker Tour crew out with covering the upcoming WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic at the Bellagio. Will be heading out tomorrow as the sucker gets going on Friday.

Very much looking forward to this one, both for the chance to work with B.J. Nemeth, Ryan Luchessi, and all of the other cool WPT cats, as well as to connect with many others in LV over the next week, including some of the blogger crowd who will be there for the World Poker Blogger Tour meet-up.

Speaking of the latter, I noticed yesterday how BLUFF Magazine opened up voting for its yearly “Readers Choice Awards,” and this time around the category of “Favorite Poker Blog” has at last been dropped, probably a year or two later than it might have been. (Click here if you’re curious to see the 14 categories that remain.)

A few people still do write poker blogs, although probably not enough to make a category out of it anymore. When it comes to playing a significant role in shaping the way people think and talk about poker these days, Twitter most definitely has the big stack now -- by a long shot -- with the blogs, books, forums, and even television shows having seen their chips dwindle to the point of only occasionally being able to influence the action. Magazines, too, for that matter.

I’ve written before about having lost a bit of steam when it comes to writing here everyday, my motivation affected in no small part by the lack of options for playing poker -- in particular online -- for someone not living in proximity to much in the way of live poker options. Of course, such “blog fatigue” is not at all unique to me or other poker bloggers or bloggers, generally speaking.

Might be an interesting topic to discuss with the other bloggers -- erstwhile and otherwise -- in Vegas this weekend. More likely we’ll find something else to talk about, I imagine. And report along with the hashtag #WPBT.

Hellmuth Wants To Draw a Line in the Sand

Been continuing to follow the coverage of the 2013 World Series of Poker Europe on various sites, in particular of the Main Event which today played down to 24 players. A little drama at the end of today as Daniel Negreanu was finally ousted in 25th place for a cash worth €21,750. His knockout today means Matthew Ashton stays in front in the 2013 WSOP Player of the Year race as Negreanu needed to finish seventh or better in the ME to pass him.

Negreanu immediately hopped into Event No. 8, the High Roller event for which the buy-in of €25,600 was just a bit higher than his take-away from the ME. He could still pass Ashton in the POY race with a high finish in that one, I believe, as long as Ashton doesn’t do better. And while Ashton has the edge there are some other scenarios still in play, too, as Tim Fiorvanti broke down over on BLUFF today.

Negreanu, of course, got a head start in the 2013 WSOP POY race by winning the WSOP Asia Pacific Main Event back in April where he also final tabled another preliminary event. All of the open-bracelet events in the WSOP APAC, the WSOP in Las Vegas, and WSOP Europe count toward the WSOP Player of the Year race.

Speaking of whether or not certain events “count” when it comes to the WSOP, Phil Hellmuth offered some thoughts a few days ago to Thomas Keeling (a.k.a. “SrslySirius”) about whether or not bracelets won at WSOP APAC should “count” or not. Hellmuth, of course, has an obvious interest in that particular tally given that he leads all with 13 total bracelets, including one in the 2012 WSOP Europe Main Event.

In a video made at WSOP Europe, Keeling put the question to Hellmuth directly about the relative value of the WSOP APAC or WSOP Europe bracelets, and the Poker Brat responds initially by saying “There’s two bracelets that no one can argue with, you know... Daniel’s -- he won the Main Event in Australia -- and mine -- I won the Main Event [in Europe in 2012]. So those should count for sure as bracelets.”

Hellmuth is implying, of course, that it might be debatable whether to count bracelets won in preliminary events in Europe or Australia, so Keeling asks him if he thinks Phil Ivey’s ninth bracelet -- won in Event No. 2 at the 2013 WSOP APAC, a $2,200 buy-in (AUD) mixed event in which 81 players took part and Ivey won only a little over $50K -- doesn’t “count.”

In his response Hellmuth kind of talks himself into saying Ivey’s bracelet counts, although it’s pretty obvious he wants to say otherwise. “I mean it was in a field of 80 players, mixed game, small limit,” he begins, then realizing it "probably sounds like sour grapes because he chasing me for the bracelets," admits with some reluctance that Ivey’s bracelet does count.

But Hellmuth has some other thoughts, too.

“I don’t know if the ones in Australia next year should count or not,” he continues. From there he brings up the idea of a “players council” that would decide whether or not the WSOP APAC bracelets counted or not before 2014 rolls around.

“We have to draw a line in the sand somewhere... where bracelets count and don’t count,” insists Hellmuth, his finger extended as though he’s ready to be the one to do the drawing.

I like Keeling’s BLUFF videos, both these “straight” ones and the funny, “Srsly”-styled ones. In fact, I can’t help but view these more straighforward-seeming interview clips through the not-always-serious SrslySirius “lens” now and then, such as in this one when Keeling enthusiastically says “that’s a good idea” to Hellmuth as he gets him to elaborate about his idea for some sort of WSOP Bracelet-Line-Drawing Players Council.

Because, well, it’s a terrible idea, and for obvious reasons. Negreanu says as much in another Keeling video from today. And as for “drawing a line in the sand” about which tournaments award WSOP bracelets and which don’t, well, the WSOP already does that.

Sure, there might be some issues with how many bracelets are being awarded as well as when and where the WSOP is staging its events in which bracelets are the prize. But having the guy with the most be involved with deciding which ones “count” or not would be like letting the chip leader change the rules of the game.

2013 WSOP, Day 42: Running Good, Catching Hands

Much as players in a poker tournament will experience occasional stretches of “run good” or being “card dead,” so, too, will those live reporting a tournament undergo periods when “good hands” are dealt to them one after another and others when their timing is off and they keep witnessing non-newsworthy orbits’ worth of hands being folded.

Day 1s of large field tourneys -- or, in the case of the Main Event, Day 1 flights, Day 2 flights, and even Day 3 flights -- often present this challenge, since a reporter frequently finds him or herself wandering around a large group of tables, say 20 or 30 or even more, looking for hands or other stories to report.

The Main Event has such a deep structure there are many patient players who will go hours at a time during the first couple of days without getting involved in a big showdown with a significant pot at stake. Thus if you’re only passing by that player’s table once a half-hour or so, it can be easy to miss those moments when the player is actually doing something worth reporting.

For me there were a few dry stretches yesterday that came up while covering the “Day 2a/2b” flight of the 2013 WSOP Main Event, but for the most part my timing was pretty good and I had plenty to report as things went along. In fact, I had one short little “rush” (so to speak) lasting half an hour in which every time I went back out on the floor I’d find myself walking right up to another especially interesting and highly reportable hand.

One of the hands was a standard all-in situation involving PokerStars Team Pro Toni Judet in which he’d gotten A-A and an opponent a couple of seats over had K-K and the pair predictably got all of Judet’s below average stack in the middle before the flop. Alas for Judet, a king spiked on the river and he was eliminated.

Just minutes later I saw and reported on a more interesting hand involving Phil Galfond in which he’d opened from early position and got two callers behind, then the small blind three-bet and he and the other two all called. Galfond then flopped a set of eights, called the small blind’s flop bet (while the other two got out), then called his opponent’s turn shove with an overpair of queens and won a big pot while scoring an elimination.

Again, it was kind of a standard situation, although given how deep the players were one might have imagined Galfond’s opponent perhaps found a way to avoid getting felted in the hand. (Easy to say, hard to do.) But from the standpoint of a reporter looking for interesting hands involving known players, it stood out as a nice “find” among lots of less notable hands.

But the most interesting hand of that half-hour -- and as it turned out, of the entire day -- came between 2012 WSOP Main Event champ Greg Merson and Wilfried Harig, who was sitting to Merson’s right. I happened to be there to watch this one with Tim Fiorvanti of BLUFF who once again was compiling another of those start-to-finish pieces following Merson’s entire day.

During the hand we were trying to remember Harig, as he definitely seemed like someone we’d encountered before, and in fact it was shortly afterwards that we all remembered him as last year’s 15th-place finisher in the ME. As it would turn out, post-hand table talk helped ensure anyone standing nearby would know who Harig was.

Like the Galfond hand (which came a little later), this one saw a player raise and a couple call (including Harig), then Merson three-betting, only in this case Harig was the only player to stick around for the flop which came . That’s when the pair surprisingly bet back and forth enough to get Harig’s big stack all in and almost all of Merson’s, too.

Merson had top two pair with , but Harig had for a set. Then the turn stunningly brought the to give Merson the better full house and leave Harig drawing dead. Harig graciously shook Merson’s hand and left, and that’s when he reminded the table how he’d knocked out Harig last summer in the ME after the latter had committed his stack with pocket aces versus Merson’s king-jack, and Merson flopped a king then turned a jack.

As it happened, it was an uncanny reprise of poor Harig’s final hand in the 2012 ME, and that made for an interesting post punctuated by Merson’s own tweet regarding it.

Like I say, watching and reporting on that hand was part of a fun, brief sequence of “event highlight”-type hands that had more to do with having the good fortune of being out on the floor rather than behind the laptop at the moments they were occurring than anything else. As in poker, there’s certainly some skill involved in being able to anticipate when and where interesting clashes are more likely to occur. But luck is an obvious factor, too.

Today it’s back at it for Day 2c in which those surviving from the large field that played Day 1c will be returning. (All of the different flights will finally join together for tomorrow’s Day 3.) The larger field means more tables and players, and probably more hands of note will be happening, too. Here’s hoping I can “run good” -- both figuratively and literally -- and catch as many good hands as I can.

Linking Out

Dealing with an overstuffed inbox at the moment, so I thought I’d post something today linking out to a few items worth checking out elsewhere.

Brad Willis penned an interesting op-ed for the PokerStars blog today titled “Before the bubble” occasioned by the anniversary of his playing his first ever WSOP event back in 2005. Brad does a nice job recounting the wonder associated with that experience, then moves into some observations about the current status of both his own poker playing and the tourney scene, generally speaking.

It’s a thoughtful piece that gives poker players much to consider regarding some of the reasons why we got into this game in the first place, and why it’s important now and then to remember those reasons particularly when encountering others just coming into the game as we once did.

Also worth reading is James McManus’s review for The Wall Street Journal of Ben Mezrich’s new book, Straight Flush, which weirdly celebrates the fraudster founders of Absolute Poker.

Last August I wrote about having seen Mezrich pop up on CNBC for a brief segment in which he previewed his plans to write the book, noting then how worrisome it seemed that he apparently either misunderstood or was willfully diminishing the frankly villainous behavior of his story’s principals, people responsible for the first major online poker cheating scandal (and cover-up), who caused the loss of millions by investors, who committed bank and wire fraud, who violated the UIGEA, and who failed (along with UB) to return player funds post-Black Friday.

I’ve yet to read Straight Flush, but from McManus’s review it sounds as though Mezrich has followed through on his plans to champion the “brilliant kids” of AP. As McManus states in his review, it’s “a story of failure, tendered as almost its opposite.” The review is titled “Bluffers and Bandits” -- probably a more appropriate title for the sordid saga -- and ultimately calls out Mezrich for being motivated by an ethically compromised greed not unlike that of his subjects.

Haley Hintze is also working through in greater detail several problem areas presented by Mezrich’s book in a multi-part series over on Flushdraw that is doing a great job explaining both the AP story as it actually happened and Mezrich’s numerous deviations from it.

Finally, BLUFF Magazine this afternoon debuted a new video feature called “Stump the Kevmath” featuring our favorite poker Twitterer doing his best to take on some WSOP-related trivia challenges. Guaranteed to produce a few grins.

Okay, now I have filled your inbox... get to it.