The Return of the American Online Grinder

Have to confess I hit the sack early last night, only following those hand-for-hand updates from the World Series of Poker Main Event until they’d gotten down to just under two tables. Looks like they managed to hit the nine-handed final table right at midnight (judging by the time stamps at WSOP.com), so it wasn’t a short final day but not too outrageously long either.

Eyeing the final nine players, I can say for sure I’ve covered four of them previously in tournaments -- Cliff Josephy, Kenny Hallaert, Vojtech Ruzicka, and Griffin Benger. I probably also reported on Jerry Wong at some point, though don’t remember him quite as well.

Probably the most interesting, obvious thread when looking at the final nine is the extensive and well known online background of Josephy (“JohnnyBax”), Hallaert (“SpaceyFCB”), Benger (“Flush_Entity”), Ruzicka (“Vojta_R”), Wong (“hummylun”), and Gordon Vayo (“holla@yoboy”).

There were other big online winners who nearly got there, too, like James Obst (“Andy McLEOD”) who ended in 13th, Tom Marchese (“Kingsofcards”) who took 14th, and Jared Bleznick (“Harrington10”) who finished 16th.

Of course for guys like Josephy, Vayo, Wong, and Marchese (Americans), online poker hasn’t been that much of an option for the past five-plus years. (Bleznick, of course, has been the focus of a lot of multi-accounting speculation in the past, including post-Black Friday.)

Sam “@SamSquid” Grafton -- Benger’s co-commentator on the Global Poker League -- tweeted today how he was looking back on the entire series as having signaled a next, belated chapter in the story of U.S. online pros.

“This year’s WSOP seems to confirm the reinvention of the last generation of US online regs into the dominant force in the post-BF live arena,” suggested Grafton. He went on to list Andrew Lichtenberger, Tony Dunst, Ryan D’Angelo, Paul Volpe, Kyle Julius, Shaun Deeb, Michael Gagliano, and Josephy as players who did well this summer in Vegas who formerly played prominent roles online -- all “top names on P5s and on training sites” when Grafton first started playing online.

“Real impressive the way these guys have survived and thrived after being stripped of their main source of income,” Grafton concluded.

It does seem like kind of a milestone of sorts being passed, perhaps given even more emphasis by Josephy being chip leader among the final nine. As he noted in his interview with the PokerNews Podcast a couple of days ago, Josephy “retired” the “JohnnyBax” nickname back in April 2011, having been made to step away from that version of himself.

Josephy’s extensive backing of other players also makes him the hub of a huge network of others, many of whom likewise transitioned from online to live. He made reference to his backing of others in this year’s Main Event in the PNPod interview, too, saying how they’d all busted and joking “I guess sometimes you gotta do the work yourself.”

These players represent a small subset of the most skilled and successful U.S. online pros, although they do (as Grafton suggests) represent a larger group who have managed to make the online-to-live transition. Of course, a much larger group made the online-to-something-else transition, but it’s still interesting and notable to consider the significance of the success of these few.

Image: Full Tilt Poker.

On the (So-Called) “Poker Mentality”

I saw the Poker King’s report yesterday that online whiz Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy has recently signed on as an “UltimateBet Pro,” joining a few other online pros as well as Annie Duke and Phil Hellmuth as representatives of the online poker site. Also noticed how the report instantly produced high-volume buzz over at Two Plus Two and elsewhere. At the moment a thread regarding the matter sits atop the “News, Views, and Gossip” forum at 2+2, having garnered hundreds of responses in just twenty-four hours.

Predictably, most of those posting are quite critical of Josephy for having joined with Ultimate Bet, particularly in light of the site’s continued delay in responding to what appears to have been an Absolute Poker-like cheating scandal on the site in which players possibly using “super-user” accounts managed to bilk opponents of at least $1.5 million.

On May 6th, Annie Duke posted on Pocket Fives what she described as “Good News Regarding the UB Investigation,” noting that she was pleased with how the UB “management team” had been looking into the matter, and expressed her hope “that all the details will be released very soon . . . perhaps within two to three weeks.” It has been just over three weeks since Duke’s post, so while some of us remain skeptical, it is nevertheless possible we may well be hearing something from Ultimate Bet in the near future.

Of course, if it is the case that a report from UB on the scandal is indeed imminent, why in the world wouldn’t the announcement of Josephy joining the UB team have been delayed until after that report had been made?

However one feels about UB or Josephy, it seems to me that it would’ve made much more sense from a public-relations standpoint to have waited until after the report to announce Josephy’s signing, when the news would’ve sounded more like the online pro and co-owner of PokerXFactor -- a person with quite a bit of influence in the online poker world -- was endorsing the site’s integrity by joining the team.

Too logical, probably. Two other brief points on the subject . . .

Earlier today, Mark over at Plan3tGong raised an interesting question regarding the issue when he asked “Has Anti-Absolute / UB Sentiment Gone Too Far?” In his post, Mark primarily questions “the militancy of those who believe that this group of poker sites is ‘evil’ and anyone associated with them has ‘lost all credibility.’”

Mark makes a worthwhile point, although he doesn’t directly touch upon what for me has always been the primary issue, namely, the lack of upfront communication from either site with their customers regarding the serious breaches of security that definitely occurred at AP and almost without a doubt occurred at UB. Doesn’t make ’em “evil,” necessarily, but most certainly does affect their credibility pretty severely, in my view.

Finally, I noticed someone in the 2+2 thread making this argument in response to the “militants” (as Mark characterizes those spewing vitriol in Ultimate Bet and/or Josephy’s direction):

would anyone of you care to elaborate what exactly should he [Josephy] be doing with his reputation? this is poker and the poker mentality is to get yourself in as many +ev situations as possible.

getting sponsored by a big online poker site >>> having a good reputation which by itself is worthless

take a deep breath and lay down your double standards (i know this won[’]t happen)... actually just keep on lying to yourselves and riding on your high morales [sic] while in reality you would make the same choice in a hearbeat [sic] if you were in his shoes.

Pretty bleak stuff, wouldn’t you say? I’ve written before about this notion of the “poker mentality” inviting a different system of ethics on human behavior, one based primarily on greed, selfishness, and a lack of respect or concern for others’ welfare. All applicable at the tables, of course (if winning is yr goal). But hardly transferable without adjustment to all other situations.

I’m obviously none too enthused by Josephy’s becoming an UltimateBet pro, primarily because for some it seems to endorse that anything-goes, screw-em-if-you-can-get-away-with-it, “poker mentality” the poster (and a lot of other online players) seem readily to champion.

As also happens when sites where cheating has occurred don’t respond in a serious and timely manner.

(EDIT [added 5/28/08]: After posting, I saw via California Jen that Josephy posted deep in the 2+2 thread that apparently his “signing with UB is contingent upon a satisfactory resolution of the ‘superuser’ issue.” Which makes the timing even stranger, to me -- if that’s case, why announce now and not later?)

In the Fishbowl

Was kicking around the PLO tables on Stars yesterday afternoon and decided to watch a couple of the Sunday tourneys while I played. Spotted a short-stacked Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad bust out of the $200+$15 Sunday Warm Up. Moved over to the $100+$9 w/rebuys tourney and noticed a few familiar names up and down the leaderboard, including Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Shane “Shaniac” Schleger, and Tim “Tmay420” West. Ended up spending a little bit of time railing a table featuring not one but two well-known online phenoms, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul. While there I witnessed a semi-interesting situation come up involving the two of them I thought I’d share.

This was not quite a couple of hours into the tourney – Level 8 (200/400 blinds with a 25-chip ante). Saul was actually the chip leader at the time with over 46,000 in chips. Meanwhile, Josephy had recently lost a chunk of his stack after missing a nut flush draw and found himself down to a lowly 4,145 in chips, putting him near the bottom of the 250 or so players remaining. Folded to Saul who from middle position put in a raise to 1,100. Another player folded, then Josephy raised all-in, pushing his remaining 4,120 into the middle.

It folded back around to Saul who took a few extra seconds deciding what to do. At the time, the pot was a little over 6,000, and it would take just about 3,000 for him to make the call -- about 2-to-1. As an untutored observer watching from afar, I couldn’t imagine Saul folding in this situation unless he had utter trash. And since he’d raised, it seemed as if he at least had something. But what do I know . . . .

Finally he made the call, and the cards were turned over. Josephy had a pair of kings, while Saul had . Both players sarcastically typed “RACE!” as the cards came out. A king flopped, and Josephy managed to survive. “NICE SUCKOUT BAD,” wryly typed Saul. (I think he meant either “Bax” or “bud.”) Josephy quickly responded with a “tyty.”

During the next hand, Saul typed “id love to fold there...” Then, “but everyone screams chipdump if i do.” He added a little frowny face.

He’s right, of course. That thought had crossed my mind as I watched. As Saul hesitated before making the call, I thought about how these guys all know one another, and might very well soft play in situations just like this one. (The fact that Saul and Josephy work together at PokerXFactor perhaps encourages such suspicions even further, for those who can’t help indulgin’ in them.) Completely unfair, of course, for me to think that way, although in today’s collusion-clouded climate, such thoughts are understandably hard to avoid.

While Saul certainly shouldn’t feel obligated to make an incorrect and/or marginal play in a spot like that just to stave off unfounded charges of complicity, I have to say I do appreciate seeing some of these guys showing an awareness of such matters. Would definitely be unfair should anything like that be happening, and I imagine a few of those who were sitting around the pair’s table probably appreciated Saul’s post-hand disclaimer.

Kind of makes missteps such as the one made by Jonathan Little last week even harder to comprehend. Once you experience some success -- online or live -- yr in the fishbowl, whether you like it or not. And people be watchin’.