Over a Barrel in Niagara

Last year around this time I was in cold, snowy Niagara Falls (NIAGARA FALLS! Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch...) to help cover the World Poker Tour Fallsview Classic. It was a fun trip -- coinciding with Canada winning that gold medal in Sochi -- and as I’d never been before those majestic, ice-filled falls were certainly something to see.

I didn’t make it back this year (the $5K WPT Main Event gets going in a couple of days). Like most of you I have heard this story about the $1,100 preliminary event and the ticket scalping that went on -- something pretty unusual to hear about in tournament poker, though apparently not unique at Fallsview.

If you haven’t heard that story, you can read about it here. The combination of a tournament for which entries were capped, transferable entry tickets, and no alternates added up to entries being sold for more than the buy-in by enterprising “scalpers” -- with some apparently going for as much as $1,800.

I enjoyed reporting on the WPT there last February, and was unaware of the scalping that had occurred at a prelim then, too, but which didn’t affect the Main Event. I was quite aware, however, of all of the restrictions in place on both players and media thanks to local gaming regulations. No pictures or videos can be taken in the tournament area, nor are players allowed to use their smart phones at all at the tables.

We obviously could report on the tournament without providing photos or videos. And players could play without tweeting, texting, or Facebooking, too. But it did create a very different, archaic-seeming vibe, and makes the apparent abuses associated with the “scalping” of tourney entries seem all the more incongruous amid such a restrictive setting.

Stepping back from the story, it’s curious to consider even the possibility of securing tournament entries and finding buyers willing to pay more than face value to participate. I read stories of some who had traveled there to play the event, though, and who were thus in a difficult spot when it turned out the only way to play was to pay more than they’d expected.

Sort of creates a situation in which some players are (in a way) firing more than one time (e.g., like 1.5x) without the event being a re-entry. And, importantly, without the added amount being paid going into the prize pool.

Skews the whole risk-reward ratio, that. Then again, still better than actually going over the falls in a barrel, I imagine.

A Four-Way Stop in the Canada Cup

See the final hand of that Canada Cup event at the Playground Poker Club? Hear about it?

I know we’re all locked in on the World Series of Poker getting underway this week, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of you missed this one. But check it out... it’s worth it.

This was a PokerStars event, a $3,000 buy-in tourney that drew 578 entries which meant a bit of an overlay as it had a $2 million guarantee. They’d played down to a final table yesterday, and with four players left a player from Toronto named Robert Notkin had the chip lead.

I believe Notkin is just a part-time player. He hasn’t many results, and from what I remember hearing on the PokerStars.tv live stream he seemed to be playing the amateur’s role when at the feature tables.

I remember James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton talking at length on one of the latter days about how many of Notkin’s relatives were heading to Montreal to watch the tourney once the elder player got a big stack and appeared headed for the final table, with Stapes noting the irony of his last name and the number of kin coming to see him.

Anyhow, I wasn’t watching the final table yesterday, but woke up today to see the tweets and some reference to what had happened. Here the video of the entire final table -- jump ahead to the 8 hour, 46 minute-mark or so for the start of the final hand:

For those not wanting to watch a video, you can read Lane Anderson’s write-up of the tourney and final hand over on PokerNews.

But really, you should watch. Impossible to do so without a big, dumb grin. Four started the hand, and just one survived. Nuts!

Why Why Zed

Flew to Montreal today, transferring through Toronto Pearson International Airport to get here. I will be here for the next week helping to cover the World Poker Tour National: Canadian Spring Championship.

These flights of less than two hours seem trifling to me now after all of the trips to other continents. Heck, the flight from Santiago to Atlanta earlier this week was about nine-and-a-half hours -- longer than the entire trip up here took, including driving to the airport.

I’ve been both to Toronto and Montreal before. The trip to Toronto was more memorable for me as it was more recent, though both were quite some time ago.

One aspect of the Toronto trip I’ve always remembered was how when Vera and I came the city was in the midst of a huge strike related to education cuts. I don’t remember the details, but all of the teachers had walked out and I think others were striking, too, with then Premier of Ontario Mike Harris the target of everyone’s anger over the cuts.

We were hanging around the University of Toronto mostly for a conference, and whenever we’d walk about we’d see lots of protestors marching and chanting. They carried signs, too, including many mentioning Harris specifically.

“Harris Doesn’t Scare Us,” read one. “Harass Harris,” another. “Spare Us from Harris,” a third. And so on.

That my last name coincided with the Premier’s gave these signs a humorous meaning, especially when captured in photos of me with a “What kind of a welcome is this?!” look on my face.

I don’t know how that situation ultimately played out. I also somehow missed during my earlier visit that the Toronto Pearson International Airport has the International Airport Transport Code of “YYZ.” And that the Rush instrumental that carries that title -- a song I’ve listened to hundreds of times -- begins with the band banging out a rhythm built upon the Morse code transmission of the letters Y, Y, and Z.

Here’s a clip from the “VH1 Classic Albums” show about Moving Pictures, the 1981 LP on which the track appears, in which the band explains the song and title (with the song taking up the second half of the clip):

So now I know. Meanwhile I’m having trouble remembering anything about my visit to Montreal (which was during the early ’90s), so I’m curious to see a little of the city while once again reporting long days from a week-long tourney. Kind of interested to see the Playground Poker Club and actually visit Kahnawake, too, a place I wrote about so many times 5-6 years ago here I memorized how to spell it.

Gotta get some sleep first, though. And probably dream of dash-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dash-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot.

Travel Report: Season XII WPT Fallsview Poker Classic, Day 3 -- Kick Your Heels

Airport blogging once again, presently awaiting first flight out of Buffalo as I’ll be winding my way back home after the conclusion last night of the World Poker Tour Fallsview Poker Classic in Niagara Falls.

We finished up around 10 or so last night, although the day felt a little longer after my blogging partner Remko and I reported every hand from the ten-handed final table on down to a winner (over 250 of them). Matthew Lapossie ended up winning the sucker after carrying a big chip lead into heads-up versus Dylan Wilkerson and then finishing the deal after a little over 20 hands.

One hand early on saw Lapossie turn a straight flush against Peter Labib’s ace-high flush to knock out the latter, easily the most remarkable hand of the day. There were several come-from-behind turn or river saves for short stacks, though, which made things interesting while prolonging the final table.

Chris Tessaro noted at one point how the table was a “short-stack shamble,” the phrase sounding enough like your humble scribbler’s moniker to wonder if I were to blame. He also tweeted the best line of the day about players’ managing to double up over and again:

“Not saying this fallsview ‪#wpt final table is taking too long,” he wrote, “but I just gave coffee shop my last 1.60 and she gave 3.20 change ‪#doubleup.”

Great working alongside Remko who always keeps people smiling. Walking back from a short dinner break yesterday, he turned to me and asked earnestly “Wanna see my favorite move?” “Whaddya mean, dance move?” I replied, but rather than answering he jogged two steps then leaped in the air, kicking his heels before landing, momentarily becoming a literal flying Dutchman. Soon Remko was encouraging one of the friendly Fallsview staff to try the move as well.

Speaking of, all of the Fallsview staff were especially accommodating throughout. Indeed, as is often pointed out by those traveling north of the border, there were nothing but friendly folks at every turn during my brief Canada sojourn.

Gonna cut it short as they’ll be boarding us soon. Looking forward to reuniting with Vera and the horses and barn cats later today. Return tomorrow for the farm report.

Travel Report: Season XII WPT Fallsview Poker Classic, Day 2 -- Roll Up the Rim to Win

In a bit of a rush (as usual) this morning as I get my act together for one more long day of tourney reporting. Yesterday’s second day of play here in Niagara Falls at the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic went well as 114 survivors from a starting field of 383 played down to just 10. That group will reassemble at noon today at an unofficial ten-handed final table, then play down to a winner tonight.

There were a few better known players left as the night edged towards the finish -- e.g., Mike Leah, Mike Watson, Peter Jetten, Shawn Cunix -- but all fell shy of the final ten and so the winner here will be a relative newcomer, although a few have had some nice scores before.

Matthew Lapossie final tabled the EPT6 Barcelona event back in 2009. Josue Sauvageau finished fifth in this same event a year ago. Dylan Wilkerson has 15 WSOP cashes and over $340,000 in career tourney winnings. And Jason James, who has a big chip lead to start the day, also has a number of cashes at the WSOP and elsewhere, although this should mark his biggest to date.

The day began with an enjoyable breakfast meeting with a family friend who happens to be based here in Niagara. Always nice to be able to connect with folks on these trips, and we enjoyed a nice visit before I headed to the tourney room.

I’d already had a couple of cups of coffee before breakfast, drank more there, then during the late afternoon Chris Tessaro introduced me to Tim Hortons coffee, in particular the popular “Roll Up the Rim to Win” promotion which encourages people to buy still more cups of the popular brand.

Chris bought me a cup -- and a chance at cash prizes or even a new car -- while also filling me in on the history behind the franchise first co-founded by the late NHL star after who it is named. The coffee was good (even if I didn’t exactly need yet another shot of caffeine) and while I didn’t win any prizes I did feel connected for a moment with the many other Canadians rolling up the rims of their coffee cups every day.

Speaking of hockey, there was a positive vibe in the room for much of the day as people shared stories about Canada’s gold medal victory in the morning, with the match being replayed on CBC on television screens in the afternoon. Big deal, that.

Must sign off as I have much left to do before play kicks off at noon. Join Remko Rinkema and myself for the hand-for-hand coverage over on the WPT site today. As Remko would say, it should be a barnburner.

Travel Report: Season XII WPT Fallsview Poker Classic, Day 1 -- Good View

I write from chilly Niagara Falls where the temps will be going down further over the course of my short visit for the three-day World Poker Tour Fallsview Poker Classic.

Didn’t get to start the trip until relatively late on Friday, meaning it was pushing midnight before I rolled in. But the hotel room is comfortable -- affording this fairly spectacular view of the falls -- and all’s gone well thus far.

The tournament is being played out in the Grand Hall here at the Fallsview Resort Casino, a spacious room that impressed my colleague Remko and I as nicely laid out with great lighting and lots of room between tables for us to mill about. A total of 383 ended up coming out for the $5,000 buy-in event (Canadian dollars), and after a full day of play there were just 114 left to return today.

Was impressed as well by the music selections early on, kind of laughing to hear tracks like “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk” (Barrett’s Floyd), “Virginia Plain” (Roxy Music), and “Eight Miles High” (Byrds) playing overhead. However halfway through the day the mix gravitated away from psychedelia to nondescript contemporary dance stuff. Laughed a little, though, at Griffin Benger’s tweet early in the day that the music was “the devil’s anthem.”

Benger also didn’t care for the 10-handed play (which was the case for most of the early part of Day 1), which I know many tourney players aren’t crazy about. They eventually moved to nine-handed, though, once late registration closed.

Had fun working with Remko whose special fascination with barns I was able to satisfy with some pictures of the one Vera and I now own. Also was glad to meet Chris Tessaro of the Hardcore Poker Show. I remembered once doing a quick spot on there a long while back, and we had fun comparing our memories of that “Niagara Falls” bit I was writing about on Friday.

Chris pointed out that the Canadians remaining in the field are all going to be tired today after getting up early to watch the gold medal hockey match. I have it on (watching CBC) as I write this morning, with Canada trying to hold a 2-0 lead over Sweden as the third period begins. A lot of excitement about this match around here, as you might imagine.

Signing off to watch the finale and get some other business done before heading back to the tourney room. Check in over at the WPT site for our Day 2 live updates today.

WCOOP Back in Action

The 2013 World Championship of Online Poker is well underway over at PokerStars, having begun last Sunday. This week in fact marked 12 years of real money games on the site, and this year’s series marks the 12th year of the WCOOP, with a record 66 tourneys on the schedule this time (up one from last year’s 65).

The WCOOP remains the biggest online tourney series around, and the prestige associated with winning WCOOP bracelets has increased considerably as well.

Over the last couple of years whenever the big series crank up at PokerStars I’ve found myself looking back to those pre-Black Friday days when the U.S. could participate and comparing figures. In 2010, for instance, Americans comprised about a third of the 141,126 entrants in the 62 events of that year’s WCOOP. With no U.S. players the next year there came a dip to 119,832 (again, in 62 events), then in 2012 there were 126,041 entrants (in 65).

I’d expect this year’s total either to hold steady or nudge up further to rival the pre-BF number. Indeed, the total prize pools for in the Spring Championship of Online Poker have gradually increased to the point that they now exceed the pre-Black Friday amounts (with a few extra tourneys added over the years).

The U.S. being on the rail for SCOOPs and WCOOPs also gets me curious about how countries whose players are able to participate are faring in the series, relatively speaking. I’ll resist slipping back into complaint mode about my country’s convoluted, often hypocritical attitude toward gambling in general and poker in particular, and instead look at Canada -- where a number of U.S. players have fled to play on PokerStars -- and see how that country is doing with regard to continuing its recent success in the COOPs.

The 2012 WCOOP was fairly dominated by Canada with the country claiming top honors for bracelets won (14), final tables (80), total cashes (2,166), and total winnings ($9,567,359.96). This year’s SCOOP also saw Canada crushing, finishing that 132-tournament series first in cash won ($12,016,956.34), first in final tables (133), and second in titles with 18, which was just one behind the U.K.’s 19 wins. Those stats were fresh in mind this summer, actually, when Canada jumped out to a quick start at the WSOP, ultimately collecting 10 bracelets before the summer was done.

Just looking at the first 10 events of this year’s WCOOP, the U.K. has gotten a headstart on Canada and everyone else, winning no less than four events. Toby “810ofclubs” Lewis was one of the Brits to win a title, just a few days removed from having won a piece of Tom Middleton’s victory at EPT Barcelona as I was mentioning earlier this week and as Rick Dacey writes about over on the PokerStars blog. Jonathan “OMGjonyctt” Concepción, Dave “CrabMaki” Shallow, and “Aduobe4” also have all earned WCOOP wins as U.K. players so far (although I believe technically speaking Concepción is from the Canary Islands).

Through the first 10 events the U.K. also led other categories, too, including “Money Won By Country” ($1,497,970.05) and “Final Tables by Country” (10). But Canada finally broke through to grab it’s first WCOOP title of the year in Event #11 (won by “Tha Giggy”) and ranks highly thus far in most categories along with Russia and Germany. Indeed those four -- U.K., Canada, Russia, and Germany -- have the most participation by a wide margin currently in PS series, and thus unsurprisingly produce the most success.

Of course, when looking over these results one also has to note how besides the U.S. being missing, so, too, are Italy, Spain, and France not part of the equation as Stars has separate licenses for each of those countries with segregated sites (.it, .es, and .fr) for each. There are a number of other countries for which Stars has players register on separate domains (Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Sweden, Poland, Romania), plus a handful of countries go through the .eu domain (Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Slovenia). But I think in all of those cases the player pools are shared with the .com and thus players in those countries can participate in WCOOP.

So again, while it’s not quite the entire world playing in the World Championship of Online Poker, it’s a lot of it. I’d tend to think Canada will probably forge a comeback here to challenge the U.K. Meanwhile, unscientific, occasional monitoring of the other big tourneys on Stars over the last year or so suggests Russia has moved ahead of everyone when it comes to supplying players -- and winners -- on the site. (Russia currently leads w/the most entrants in the WCOOP and will probably continue to do so.)

Post-WSOP Number Crunching (Re: Canada, Women)

As the World Series of Poker Main Event drew to a close, the WSOP published some statistics regarding the 62 events of this year’s series, including various information regarding the demographics of those who participated. The report informs us that there were 79,471 total entries for the 62 events this year, then goes on to share further data regarding the age, nationality, and sex of the players.

The information about entries by country pretty much follows what has been the case for the last several years at the WSOP with the U.S. providing most of the entries (57,040 this time), Canada a distant second (4,118), and the U.K., Russia, and France rounding out the top five.

This year there was extra attention given to the performance of Canadian players thanks to the fact that 10 of the bracelet winners (out of the 61 preliminary events) were identified as being from Canada. That was a huge jump from the three bracelets Canada won in 2012. Indeed, since players from Canada managed to claim four bracelets during the first week of the Series, people were paying extra attention the results of Canadians throughout the Series. Some even made some seriously bad puns about the phenomenon.

Looking strictly at percentages, 71.8% of the entrants were from the U.S. while 5.2% were from Canada. Players from the U.S. won about 65.5% of the bracelets this summer, which comes close to matching the participation percentage. Meanwhile Canadians won 16.4% of the prelims, which is more than three times the participation percentage.

As Canadians kept collecting bracelets this summer, I remember hearing a few people speculate about whether or these winners were actually Canadian or if they just happened to be American players in Canada who had moved north of the border in order to be able to play online. Such has absolutely been the case with regard to recent WCOOP and SCOOP results at PokerStars, something I mentioned last fall when noticing how Canada was performing especially well in last year’s WCOOP.

Leafing through the 10 winners’ bios, though, shows that with these particular players none appears to fall into the category of the exiled American online player.

Event No. 3 winner Charles Sylvestre was born in Montreal and still lives there. Event No. 6 champ Benny Chen is from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island where he manages a restaurant. Michael Malm, winner of Event No. 8, is a marketing specialist from Coquilam, Ontario.

Levi Berger, who won Event No. 11, is originally from Ottawa although is a citizen of both the U.S. and Canada. It sounds like he definitely played a lot online (in the U.S.) prior to Black Friday, though I don’t believe the 22-year-old moved back to Canada afterwards in order to continue to play.

Mark Radoja, winner of Event No. 16, is from Guelph, Ontario, the site of a thriving poker scene and also where Gavin Smith grew up. Calen McNeil, who won Event No. 20, like Chen is a restaurant owner in Victoria (in fact he owns three there). Event No. 28 winner Jason Duval is a 23-year-old student who was born in Quebec where he currently goes to school at Laval University.

Justin Oliver won Event No. 38. He’s a 37-year-old jeweler who was born in Toronto and still lives there. Dan Idema, Event No. 39 winner and brother of Two Plus Two Pokercast co-host Adam Schwartz, is from Vancouver. And Kristen Bicknell, who won the Ladies event (Event No. 51), was born in St. Catharines, Ontario and still resides there.

Speaking of women who played at the WSOP, the report also notes stats regarding their participation this summer, sharing how of the total entries 75,447 (94.94%) were men and 4,024 (5.06%) were women. Of course it should be noted that 954 of those entries by women came in the Ladies event, so after doing a little additional subtracting and dividing, the participation of women in open events this summer was right at 3.9% (3,070 out of 78,517 entries).

There were 298 women in the Main Event this year, which represented 4.69% of the total field of 6,352. That’s a big jump from last year, when 211 of the 6,598 entries were women (almost 3.2%). Women notably won two open events this year, both large-field no-limit hold’em events with Dana Castaneda winning Event No. 54 ($1,000 NLHE) and Loni Harwood winning Event No. 60 ($1,500 NLHE).

The WSOP also reports how men earned 7,462 of the cashes at the 2013 WSOP while women earned 343 of them. I’m not completely sure about these figures since the “total cashers” being listed is 8,454, which is more than the total of men and women cashers. In any case, when comparing those two totals, women have almost 4.4% of the cashes, which would roughly jibe with the overall participation total, although again we should probably consider how women earned all 117 of the cashes in the Ladies event (which I assume is being included here).

All of which is to say, I think the percentage of women cashing in events when compared to the percentage of women who participated isn’t really all that out of whack. Even the percentage of women bracelet winners in all of the preliminary events except the Ladies event (two of 60, or 3.33%) is pretty much in line with the overall participation of women in those events.

On the other hand, the Canadians’ percentage of wins this summer is remarkable when compared to their participation. Dunno what the overall percentage of cashes by Canadians turned out to be, although that would be an interesting stat to see.

Tom Makes It Three

Was up late last night following various poker-related happenings, including that Event No. 15, the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. event in which my friend Tom Schneider, a.k.a. the “Donkey Bomber,” was leading as the final table played out.

From a starting field of 862, they’d gotten all of the way down to three-handed with Schneider ahead of Owais Ahmed and Viatcheslav Ortynskiy when I finally hit the hay. Got up to discover Schneider had won, and thus began the day with a grin much like was the case about a week-and-a-half ago when I woke to see Chad Holloway had managed to outlast the final few players to take down that Casino Employees Event No. 1.

Schneider joins Mike Matusow atop the weekend headlines from the WSOP, as “The Mouth” also managed to claim another bracelet -- his fourth -- after winning Event No. 13, the $5,000 Stud Hi/Lo. Meanwhile the Canadians keep grabbing gold, with Mark Radoja picking up a fifth bracelet for Canada in Event No. 16, the $10,000 NLHE Heads-Up event. (The U.S. has won the other 11 bracelets thus far.)

Schneider has been cashing at the WSOP for quite some time, his first in-the-money finishes coming in 2002 and including a 36th-place in that year’s Main Event. He became better known in the poker world in 2006 after a third-place finish in the televised WPT World Poker Challenge (during which Mike Sexton first dubbed him the “Donkey Bomber”).

Anyone who missed that show finally got to know Tom the following summer when he won his first two bracelets at the 2007 WSOP on his way to winning that year’s WSOP Player of the Year. He’s continued to post frequent cashes and deep runs both at the WSOP and elsewhere during the years since, including a 52nd-place finish in the 2009 Main Event.

Long time readers of this blog might remember I first met Tom way back in 2007, just a few months prior to his breakthrough at the WSOP that summer. I’d become a fan of the podcast he, Karridy Askenasy, and Dan Michalski (of Pokerati) were doing at the time, called Beyond the Table. After having interacted with those guys several times previously online, I happened to be in LV on a trip that spring at a time when Schneider was there, and so we had a chance to meet up in person. I wrote about that meeting here in a post titled “Shamus, Get Your Ass in Here!”

Kind of interesting to look back at that post, actually, written before I’d gotten involved in tourney reporting myself or really writing about poker anywhere except here at HBP. Later on I was thrilled to see Tom soon winning bracelets, then once I started in 2008 going out to the WSOP every summer, he and I would generally get together at least once each summer to catch up.

I have continued to report on those later meetings with Tom from time to time here. This morning I’m remembering in particular one post from 2010 titled “On the Schneid” in which I shared some of Tom’s comments to me over dinner regarding the emotionally-challenging grind the WSOP can be. I’m also recalling that deep run Tom made in the 2009 Main Event, as well as an unintentionally funny text message I sent to him then which I revealed here later that summer.

You can click above to read the whole story, but I’ll sum it up quickly here to say I’d accidentally sent Tom a memorable text message that I thought I was sending to Vera. It was a message in which I had referred to the recipient as “mama” and ended with “xxx.”

Waking up this morning to see Tom had claimed his third WSOP bracelet -- just a week after his wife, Julie, made her second career WSOP final table in Event No. 5, the $2,500 Omaha/Stud Hi/Lo event -- I couldn’t resist sending him a text in acknowledgement:

“Congratulations, mama!”

Canada Brings Eh-Game to 2013 WSOP

Taking a quick trip today for a weekender up in Washington, DC. A little vacation before I head to Las Vegas a little over a week from now to join the PokerNews crew at the 2013 World Series of Poker.

I’ve been following some of the events and noting results from the WSOP thus far. The story standing out up to now would have to be the four bracelets won by Canadians already, with U.S. players having claimed the other seven won through last night. That total is one more than Canada won during the entire 2012 WSOP.

The U.S. dominated the bracelet race last year (as it usually does), winning 46 of the 61 total bracelets awarded in Las Vegas, with Canada’s three a distant second. France pulled into a tie with Canada with three overall after picking up a couple at the WSOPE last year.

I suppose with the WSOP APAC this year, Canada can count one more 2013 bracelet won with Daniel Negreanu’s triumph in the Main Event in Australia. The U.S. picked up three there as well (won by Bryan Piccioli, Jim Collopy, and Phil Ivey), so I guess the overall bracelet race this year currently has the U.S. leading with 10 and Canada next with five.

I’d noticed during this year’s Spring Championship of Online Poker at PokerStars that Canada was being represented especially well among the results, too, with players from Canada winning 18 of the 132 events (second behind the U.K.’s 19), while ranking first in final tables and third in overall cashes.

Of course, for the SCOOP those totals are skewed more than a little thanks to the fact that a number of those players listed as being from Canada are in fact American ex-pats having scurried over the border in order to be able to play on Stars.

Will be one story to keep an eye on, particularly if Canadians pick up any more bracelets going forward. Meanwhile, I’m going to see if I can’t disconnect a little over the next couple of days in our nation’s capital.