Travel Report: LAPT8 Brazil, Day 1b -- Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic, Rast

Was another long one yesterday at the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final here in São Paulo, where Day 1b played out and we weren’t finished until about 4 a.m.

The day was a lot of fun, though, for a few reasons. One was the fact that Reinaldo had the NFL games streaming on his iPad all day. They began just after play started at 3 p.m. here, and ended just before they bagged and tagged. That and also getting to enjoy a delicious dinner of picanha with Rei helped simulate the Thanksgiving experience somewhat I was missing back home.

Had a couple of fun conversations yesterday, one with Brian Rast who is here playing his first ever LAPT event.

Rast has been spending a lot of time in Brazil over the last five-plus years, having first come down in 2010 and then meeting his eventual wife who is from Paraíba. He hasn’t played a lot of poker here, though, and so this is a somewhat new experience for him. Carlos our photographer snuck a photo of us talking -- that’s me above asking Rast what it feels like to win $7.5 million in a poker tournament as he did in early July. (Spoiler alert: pretty damn good.)

A little later I also had the opportunity to talk with a very friendly fellow named Cristiano Torezzan who teached applied mathematics at the University of Campinas, the huge state-run university system here in Brazil. He has a elective course he’s been offering there since 2013 called “Poker Basics” which uses poker to teach about decision-making, math-related concepts, and other interesting metagame matters.

We also talked about my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class, and shared a lot of notes on what it’s like “teaching poker” in a college class -- that is, using the game to explore other non-poker ideas as well as to teach non-poker “basics,” too. Only a little of our conversation made it into the post I wrote about him and his class. You can check it out, though, to learn more about his interesting course.

Gotta sign off quickly again here as we’re less than a couple of hours away from cranking back up again. There are 202 players left from what turned out to be a bigger than expected 426-entry field. Head to the PokerStars blog and peruse around to see what else happened the last two days and to follow what happens going forward.

Some Moments Are More Important Than Others

For those of us in the anti-Dook Blue Devil camp -- and there are a lot of us, with UNC-Chapel Hill alums like me just part of a subset -- last night’s championship game in which the Devils beat the Wisconsin Badgers 68-63 was a bit agonizing.

So, too, was it a painful one for the Wisconsin fans who saw their team sitting pretty up nine with 13 minutes to go and both of Duke’s big men, Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow, on the bench in foul trouble. That’s when Duke frosh Grayson Allen -- who averaged four points a game this year -- scored eight in a row while the Badgers only scored three, and suddenly all was in doubt again.

It was a game full of such surges, and in truth it felt all along like whichever team happened to be on the high end of the see-saw as they entered the endgame was likely to come away with the win. That’s how it turned out, albeit with a few key calls down the stretch that helped the Devils, all involving Winslow.

The first came with just over nine minutes left when Wisconsin was up 54-50. Duje Dukan (who seems like he should have been playing for the other team with that name) was called for a blocking foul after colliding with Winslow in the lane, one of those to-MAY-to/to-MAH-to judgment calls that always looks a certain way depending on the team for which you’re rooting. Okafor had just been benched again after collecting his fourth foul, and a charge would’ve meant four on Winslow, too. But it went Dook’s way and after Winslow sank two free throws the lead was down to two.

The second occurred after the Blue Devils had moved in front by a point, 59-58. With about three-and-a-half minutes to go, Winslow grabbed an offensive rebound and then appeared to step on the endline, but the refs missed it. Okafor would score on that possession to make the lead three. Bad break again for the Badgers.

The third one then came a little after that, not long after the Blue Devils had pushed out ahead to lead 63-58. This one involved an out-of-bounds play that occurred with just a little under two minutes to go, with the on-court call being Dook ball but with enough doubt for the refs to review the replay. We watched, too, and this time it was obvious -- Winslow was the last player to touch the ball (that’s a freeze-frame of the play above; click to embiggen). But somehow the refs didn’t see it that way, Dook retained possession, and seconds later hit a three-pointer to push the lead to eight.

Even so, the latter was one of those calls (or non-calls) that like the previous two can also be put in the category of “variance” -- i.e., like other manifestations of luck that occur in the game, the whims (and occasional failings) of the refs also have to be considered similarly. Still, since all three of these came at such potentially tide-turning moments, it’s hard not to assign them extra signficance.

A couple of weeks ago a long, interesting profile of poker pro Brian Rast by Chad Holloway was posted over on PokerNews, and the article included the story of Rast’s victory in the $50K Poker Players Championship at the 2011 WSOP. Recall how that tournament ended with Rast battling Phil Hellmuth heads-up, a duel that involved not one but three huge “coin-flip” type events, all of which went Rast’s way.

Hellmuth had built a 4.5-to-1 chip lead when the first happened, one in which Rast was all in with A-K on a ten-high flop versus Hellmuth’s flush draw, and neither the turn nor the river brought the flush. Then came another hand in which Rast flopped top pair versus another Hellmuth flush draw, the chips went in again, and Rast’s hand held a second time.

The third time it happened, Hellmuth was the one all in on the flop -- again with a flush draw -- and this time Rast had flopped even more strongly with a straight. For a third time Hellmuth couldn’t complete the flush, and Rast won.

All three weren’t exactly coin flips -- Rast’s edges were about 52%, 60%, and 63% in those hands when the money went in -- but to win all three was certainly fortunate for him. Just as having all three of those moments go Dook’s way was fortunate for them.

In both last night’s game and the Rast-Hellmuth finale, those moments were only relatively small instances within the larger competitions, though their effect on the final outcomes was much larger than was the case for all of the other instances. The players weren’t in control of how those moments played out in either case, but that can’t be a complaint -- because that’s how the games are played.

Travel Report: Season XII WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Day 6 -- Keeping the Beat

For the final table of the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas, the action moved out of the poker room and into one of the ballrooms on the other side of the Bellagio. As usual, the WPT had a huge set constructed for the big finale, and unlike the previous WPT events I’ve worked this one was shot for TV broadcast (sometime in the spring, I think).

The playing down from six players to a winner in Dan Smith -- a.k.a. “King Dan” -- took around seven hours or so with only a few short breaks along the way. Smith, who I mentioned yesterday on Day 5 had enjoyed some good fortune to avoid going out with 16 players left, began the day with the chip lead. He kept the lead for the first part of Day 6, but at three-handed Eddy Sabat was in the top spot and appeared in good position to win.

Smith had some more run good, though, after doubling his short stack through Sabat with versus the latter’s , then winning another big pot two hands later against Sabat when he flopped a flush. That one saw Smith getting Sabat to call on all three post-flop streets including the last all-in push, and so Smith doubled again to take a commanding lead before winning the event a couple of dozen hands later.

The last day saw me tracking chip counts after every hand while the posts were handled by my blogging partners B.J. Nemeth (who did hand reports) and Ryan Luchessi (who posted lots of cool features along the way). Was a little like moving over from playing lead guitar to sitting behind the drums in this power trio, and while I’ll admit it took me a little while in the early going to get the beat right I got acclimated before too long and ended up enjoying the night’s work.

Was also fun to see the shooting of the WPT program, something I’d never actually witnessed before. I want to write a little more about what that was like and so am going to save discussing that until tomorrow, but I will say it’s an impressive, finely-tuned production they have in place -- not that surprising considering they’ve been at it for over a decade now.

Flights back from Las Vegas were relatively smooth though I was pretty beat once I finally got home. Will be taking a little bit of a break from the traveling at the moment, but there will be more globetrotting to come.

Getting some rest now. More tomorrow about the final day at the WPT Five Diamond.

Travel Report: Season XII WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Day 5 -- King Dan’s Two-Outer

Was a full day yesterday for Day 5 of the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic as they played down from 21 to the final six.

The tourney was relocated to the “high-limit” area of the Bellagio poker room, an elevated section in the far right corner, which took the players out of the center of the very active cash games happening at the mostly filled tables in the rest of the room.

Once the three tables played down to a final ten-handed table, the final table of that $100K high roller event the Bellagio was putting on was moved over into the same area as well, and in fact would play out long after we finished with Brian Rast winning more than $1 million for topping a small field.

Rast was one of the couple of players who had actually entered the $10K WPT event seven times (thanks to the unlimited re-entry format), and so despite finishing in 32nd and in the money, he’d lost more than $40K in that one as his cash was only for a little over $26K.

Not sure if Rast re-entered the $100K or not, but you can check out reports on the event by Eric of Poker Telegraph who was on hand to file updates on that one from start-to-finish.

The big news entering Day 5, of course, was the prospect of start-of-day chip leader Jean-Robert Bellande perhaps making the televised final table and thus adding a bit of entertainment to the proceedings later today. JRB was still leading at mid-afternoon yesterday, but had one calamitous level that took him from the top of the counts to the bottom, and it wasn’t long after they’d gone to the ten-handed final table that he busted in 10th.

It took a good while, but finally they reached the final six with Dan Smith the chip leader. Smith had narrowly avoided finishing 16th in the tournament when he’d been all in with 10-10 versus the K-K of Steven Silverman and no help had come on either the flop or turn. But a 10 fell on fifth street to save Smith, and he’d go on to carry the lead to today while Silverman would be the one to finish 16th.

“King Dan” will be joined by Eddy Sabat and Joe Serock at this final table, as well as a player named Shaun Suller whom I met a few times covering WSOP Circuit stops. Suller is a friendly guy and I overheard him telling the WPT TV crew in an interview how he planned to donate a percentage of his winnings to the Jimmy V Foundation, which gave me another reason to be glad he’d made the final table.

Meanwhile others coming up short along with Bellande and Silverman were Christian Harder, Dan O’Brien, and Will Failla.

Have a hectic day ahead and so am cutting things short again. Check over at the WPT site for updates later on from tonight’s final table. Should be interesting to see the staging and presentation for the TV show, as Mike Sexton, Vince Van Patten, Lynn Gilmartin will all be there to do their commentary as it goes.

2011 WSOP, Day 37: Exploding Floats and Missed Flush Draws

Yesterday was a day off for me, which was especially nice since it was Vera’s last full day visiting. We spent part of the day on the strip shopping and just generally goofing around. It was another hot day in Vegas, and so somewhere along the way stopped into one of those chain restaurants to order a couple of Coke floats.

Vera was disappointed, however, when we received them and discovered the glasses were needlessly filled with ice cubes in addition to the Coke and scoop of vanilla on top. We used the long spoons to dig the cubes out and discard them before enjoying our floats, but when the server returned and asked how they were, Vera felt obligated to tell him that we didn’t care for the inclusion of the ice cubes.

What followed was an unexpected -- and truly hilarious -- explanation by the server that the ice cubes were necessary to prevent the floats from “exploding.” We nodded politely at this bit of applesauce, and I think Vera might have said something about making floats herself and never encountering such difficulties. “I’ll remember that,” she added as we exchanged a look.

We still had grins on our faces when the server returned again to check on us, armed (incredibly) with further proof of his ice-cube theory. They’d tested the Coke float-making procedure several different ways, he explained, and there was something to do with the acidity of the Coke that made the inclusion of ice cubes crucial. “You see, Coke isn’t the same as root beer,” he went on, and I continued to feign interest as I dug the last of the cubes out of my glass and deposited them in my water glass.

After he left, it was all we could do not to burst out laughing. Vera said something about how silly his theories were, but I kept a straight face.

“They’ve tested it, honey,” I said. “You can’t fight science.”

We’d tentatively planned an excursion to Fremont Street, but hearing about how the final table of Event No. 55, the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship was going -- with Phil Hellmuth the chip leader with four left -- Vera was the one who wanted to go check things out, and so we headed over.

We found ourselves some good seats there in the “mothership” and stuck around for a couple of hours. Saw Lon McEachern and Norman Chad shooting segments for ESPN during play. Kara Scott, too.

Was definitely an exciting scene, the cheering crowd, the elaborate set, and Hellmuth’s custom-made hockey jersey making it all seem more like a sporting event than a group of guys playing cards.

I’m sure you know how things ended, with Hellmuth again coming up one spot shy of scoring that 12th WSOP bracelet, finishing runner-up to Brian Rast. Three missed flush draws in all-in situations punctuated the night for Hellmuth, who now moves into first place in this year’s WSOP Player of the Year race despite not winning a bracelet. Meanwhile, Rast becomes the first multi-bracelet winner this summer, and will very likely be the only one to pull off the feat in 2011.

The final page of the PokerNews’ live reporting blog for Event No. 55 details all three of those missed flush draws. Sort of like the dude who kept coming back with more explanations regarding the essential need for ice cubes in floats -- he kept trying, again and again, but it just wasn’t working for him.

Today the Main Event begins, and I’ll be there with everyone else helping with the reporting from Day 1a. I’ll be there nearly every day from here on out as well, with only a couple of days off along the way.

Was sad to see Vera off this morning, but I know these next two weeks are going to fly by faster than an exploding ice cream float.