Hearthstoned

I’ve become vaguely aware of the way some in the poker world -- especially those in the hardcore online crowd -- are now taking up another game called Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft.

Saw something last month about Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier getting signed as a “Hearthstone Pro” for something called Team Liquid. Then yesterday an item came over the transom that Full Tilt had partnered up with G2 eSports’ Hearthstone team, further suggesting a kind of link between poker and this relatively new card-based game. (Or perhaps furthering the disassociation of Full Tilt from poker, the site having dropped the third word of its original name some time ago.)

Still in the dark about it, I went to Wikipedia to find out a little about the history behind Hearthstone and an introduction to how it is played. Got quickly bogged down, I’ll confess, by the second paragraph of the section on game play, which begins as follows:

“Hearthstone is supported by micropayments for booster packs, Arena Mode entries, Adventure Mode wing access and alternate hero skins. Unlike other card games, Hearthstone does not use a trading card system and instead allows players to ‘disenchant’ unwanted cards into ‘arcane dust’ resource, which can then be used to ‘craft’ new cards of the player’s choice.”

One reason why I couldn’t get much further along in my introduction to the game was the fact that I found these sentences so intrinsically humorous to read, with the scare quotes around those key words adding greatly to my amusement. And my disorientation, the effort needed to imagine the “Hearthstone universe” almost verging on the hallucinatory.

I believe there are a total of eight items in these two sentences for which I have almost zero idea what they signify, although for each I know I could speculate down a path that would surely lead me to an erroneous conclusion about each -- a conclusion that would likely seem just as humorous to the knowlegeable Hearthstone player.

I suspect an acquaintance with Magic: The Gathering or other similar games would likely make Hearthstone seem less opaque to the novice. Would also help to have both an intellectual capacity for such games and an inclination to learn them. As you might guess, I’m limited in both respects, so I have to confess that I’m still pretty clueless about all of the different game modes, how matches work, and the game’s 698 different collectible cards (!).

That passage above made me think about how just about every game has its own set of lingo, rules, scoring, etiquette, and other elements that seem like utterly alien bits of arcana -- or “arcane dust” -- to the uninitiated. Poker is certainly like that. Even games like tennis or baseball can be hard to explain to those without any prior acquaintance either as an observer or player.

Anyhow, looking forward to my next game of 2-7 triple draw when I plan to disenchant unwanted cards into the arcane dust before crafting new ones to add to my hand.

Understanding Standing

Dipped into the always entertaining EPTLive stream today to watch some of the action from Day 3 of the EPT Deauville Main Event. I was there the last couple of years, but after the PCA trip last month I’m not minding getting to spend the days here watching the action from the farm this time around.

The field had shrunk down to under 90 players from the 592 who started, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier was among those at the feature table. Not long after I tuned in, a hand arose in which a shorter-stacked opponent found himself all in and at risk against ElkY -- Joseph El Khoury, sitting to Grospellier’s left.

The hand was mildly interesting with Grospellier starting out behind with K-J versus El Khoury’s K-Q, then flopping a jack to grab the lead. The turn was a second jack, but a nine on board also gave El Khoury a gutshot, and when a 10 dropped on the river, he survived with a king-high straight.

As the board was dealt, commentators Matt Broughton and Joe Stapleton discussed how El Khoury rose from his seat to stand behind his chair as the community cards were being delivered.

“We were just talking about this move,” said Stapleton of El Khoury’s standing up. “We don’t like this move when you’re ahead.”

Broughton picked up on possible superstitions involved with standing while a mathematical favorite. “The thing is you’re asking for trouble, because now if you do get sucked out on [others are] going to go ‘Well, you did stand up.’” But Stapleton suggested there could be a slight etiquette problem involved, too.

“I don’t know, it’s almost kind of poor sportsmanship, I think,” speculated Stapes. “You’re ahead... [it’s] a needle, you know what I mean?”

Broughton noted how El Khoury’s being at risk probably was enough to absolve him from such a charge. “I guess his [El Khoury’s] tournament is the one that’s on the line, so there’s a bit of anxiety and you can go ‘Okay, okay’” and forgive standing while ahead.

Then the jack fell, and El Khoury was suddenly behind. In fact, by the time the second jack came on the turn, he had already started to put on his jacket when the saving 10 fell on the river.

While the etiquette question is certainly applicable in similar situations, I think most of us would file the standing up and even going for the jacket under the heading of “reverse jinx” behaviors, if we assign any meaning to them at all. That is to say, we’d look at the actions as those of a person who has accepted his fate (or is trying to appear as if he had). But his readying for that eventuality also serves to lessen expectations the reverse will occur, with the superstitious among us viewing the latter as somehow helping to elicit the hoped-for friendly card.

As poker players, our minds often instantly focus on negative outcomes such as when all in and at risk in a tournament. Even in non-poker situations, it can be hard (if you’re human) not to let our thoughts seize upon potential misfortunes. Whether we’ve “got it in good” or not, we focus on the bad cards that will hurt us rather than the others that will not. Standing and backing away in such situations would almost constitute a “tell,” if it weren’t already beyond the point of tells having strategic significance.

I myself tend not to stand from my chair in all-in situations, whether ahead or behind, at risk or not. But I think I can understand standing.

On the Run

Spent much of the day working then went for a run this afternoon and now the day has already mostly slipped by. After going weeks without running at all, I’ve been five times in the last eight days thanks primarily to Eugene Katchalov.

While in Deauville last week I had a chance to talk with Katchalov a few times, including after his near-miss winning the Main Event as he finished second out of a field of 671. Besides being a talented tourney player, the Ukrainian is also an especially friendly, outgoing guy with lots of interesting ideas -- both about poker and other things -- and a willingness to share them.

On the very first day of the tournament I’d interviewed Katchalov at the first break and we talked about his newfound commitment to fitness and eating well over the last couple of years that had produced many good outcomes for him both physically and mentally. I wrote up a post for the PokerStars blog titled “Before and after Eugene” sharing what he’d said.

During the week I was talking with Vera who was back home following the coverage online. She’d mentioned how the Katchalov post was inspiring, and looking back at it I realized it was.

One point he’d made with regard to sticking to some sort of workout regimen was to have a partner or someone to help keep you going when your inspiration to do so started to waver. For him it was his friend Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier who served that role, with their hired trainer also helping a great deal of course.

“It’s always nice when you have a partner or friend to go through it with you,” explained Katchalov, referring to having Grospellier likewise working on his fitness with him. “So with ElkY if I’m working out it pushes him to work out and vice-versa. Even if you don’t work out together, just having someone to compare your progress with is important.”

I used to run regularly but over the couple of years had fallen out of the habit. Looking back on the blog, I see myself in early 2009 writing about starting to run every day. (I was also playing poker every day then, too.) I actually kept on running right up until I went out to the World Series of Poker that summer, and even while in Vegas I remember hitting the treadmill several times at the hotel where I was staying.

The frequency of the runs finally lessened, though, and like I say it had been several weeks since I’d run at all when I finally hit the pavement again after returning from France. People sometimes ask me about posting on the blog every day, and often I will bring up running as a kind of analogy -- that like a regular runner, I find myself in the habit of wanting to post each day just to keep exercising these writer “muscles.” But the comparison hadn’t really been applicable to me of late as I had found it much easier to skip running than not to write.

I say Katchalov was the main inspiration, but so, too, was PokerStars blogger Rick Dacey who began 2014 with a goal of running 365 miles during the calendar year. He’d only made it to nine miles by early February -- including an early morning seaside run in Deauville near the end of our week there -- and so I proposed to him that I’d join him in that 365-mile quest and we could push each other, a la Eugene and ElkY.

I’m only up to 7.5 miles now -- still about nine miles back of Rick -- but each time out is getting easier. Missing a month-plus of running means picking up the pace to get back that mile-a-day goal. But with Rick up ahead of me and Eugene and ElkY in mind I’m plenty motivated to keep at it.

Post No. 1,500: When Will It End? Or, the Story of ElkY’s Uncle

Post No. 1,500 today. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier’s favorite Twitter hashtag “#whenwillitend” comes to mind.

The 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event final table cranks up just a little over 24 hours from now. I may have to come back here tomorrow and post a bit while watching it all “almost live” on ESPN2. Then again, I can see being too distracted to do so. Besides, after this many posts I should probably think about taking a day off.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d use this milestone post to point back to what I wrote here on Hard-Boiled Poker while helping cover the Main Event for PokerNews back in July. Here are those posts:

Day 1a: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
The Main Event begins, and a player dressed as Snow White plays, as does the Poker Grump (not a dwarf).

Day 1b: KK vs. AA
Having a day off, I play a “deepstack” event at the Rio and run kings into aces relatively early, thereby allowing me to get away from poker for much of the day and evening.

Day 1c: The Utility Player
Back to work at the Main Event, I spend Day 1c running around to various sections of the Amazon, filling in wherever needed.

Day 1d: The Lottery
Reporting from the super busy Day 1d of the Main Event, my favorite story involves a player who won his seat via the North Carolina lottery, and played like it.

Day 2a: 6,865 & Other Numbers
Crunching a few of the numbers regarding Main Event entrants, the total way over most folks’ expectations.

Day 2b: A Glimpse
I’m back at the Main Event, helping cover Day 2b, and am moved to remark on how fast it is all going, and how hard -- or impossible -- it is to keep up with it all.

Off-day: Unwind
The WSOP takes a day off, I play in the media tournament, then join up with others to play some pub trivia.

Day 3: Places, Everyone!
Day 3 of the Main Event, and the ESPN cameras are all around us, shooting everything. Starting to feel a bit like we are all -- staff, media, players -- actors on a set, with the directors guiding our every move.

Day 4: A Short-Stacked Story
We’re already up to Day 4 of the Main Event and the money bubble bursts. Moments before, I find myself becoming most interested in the shortest stack in the room, wondering whether he’s gonna make it or not.

Day 5: Thinking Poker
Moving on to Day 5, highlighted by dinner with Andrew “Foucault” Brokos and Nate Meyvis, both of whom would crack the top 100 of the ME.

Day 6: Access
By the time we reach Day 6, the number of people covering the Main Event well exceeds the number playing it, and space becomes limited.

Day 7: In the Thick of It
Getting down to just three tables on Day 7 of the Main Event, and my friggin’ laptop won’t seem to fire up.

Day 8: Smile
The November Nine is set. And they are all smiles. And so is everyone else, it seems.

Speaking of Grospellier, there was one story from the WSOP Main Event I don’t believe I shared here during the summer.

It was near the end of the Main Event, somewhere around Day 6 or so, I believe. Most of the tables had been moved out, and the WSOP staff had reoriented the ropes to surround the remaining three or four outer tables there in the center of the Amazon room. I was stationed some distance away, but would frequently come over and duck inside the ropes to check on the action.

Sometimes, though, when I walked over I’d remain outside the ropes if we had plenty of reporters already by the tables. There were a number of spectators gathered about the outer tables -- not a huge number, but enough to make the scene a touch more festive. Most of those watching had wandered over from elsewhere in the Rio, many having carried various adult beverages with them from wherever they had come.

I had just walked over and was standing by the ropes when a dude with a beer in hand looked up at me and with a laugh asked me the following, wholly unexpected question:

“Are you ElkY’s uncle?”

I am not making this up. Otis (whom I mentioned yesterday) was nearby, and can confirm the story as true. The question inspired laughter from both the asker and his buddy, and an uncertain “Um... no?” from your humble scribbler.

Soon the inquisitive reveler wandered off and out of our lives, thus sparing me from having to make additional denials that I was related to the PokerStars pro. Who, by the way, wasn’t anywhere in sight at the time of this here applesauce, having busted on Day 1d. (That photo from the PokerStars blog, taken about 10 days prior to this little story takes place, shows Grospellier exiting the 2011 WSOP ME.)

Not that being ElkY’s uncle would be a bad thing. I’m sure he’s a great nephew to have, probably full of interesting stories at Christmas. And the gifts he gives are probably so seeek!

Do I look like Grospellier? Nah. Not that uncles necessarily resemble their nephews. I am an uncle, and I suppose look like I could be one to people who don’t know me. But all in all, just an absurd anecdote....

Did get me a cool nickname, tho’.

Thanks as always to everyone for reading all of my stories, including the absurd ones.