That’s the Way We Do It!

Last night I dialed up ESPN on the crystal receiver to watch the ongoing coverage of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event. Got there an hour early (the show is starting at 9 p.m. Eastern time now rather than 8 p.m.) and therefore happened to catch that terrific one-hour documentary about Baltimore Colts football fans, “The Band That Wouldn’t Die.”

Directed by Baltimore-guy Barry Levinson (Diner, The Natural), the focus was on the Colts marching band that persistently stayed together even after the team left for Indianapolis following the 1983 season. Great stuff -- even moving, at times -- that said a lot about how sports can genuinely bring people together and help build community (in my opinion). I highly recommend the special, if you happen to see it being repeated here anytime soon. (Here is the trailer, if yr curious.)

I suppose poker can have a similar effect on us, bringing us together via a common interest and thus enabling the further forging of relationships and meaningful interactions. Watching the coverage of the end of Day 6 of the WSOP Main Event last night was great fun, and reminded me, in fact, of what it was like to have been there as the field shrunk down to just 64 players. This was the day when the media and others there in the Amazon Room now most certainly were outnumbering the players, and the sense of being part of a small “community” of sorts became ever more evident.

We’d arrived at a point where we had enough reporters and bloggers to cover just about all of the big hands and bustouts, and so most of what was shown on ESPN last night I recalled fairly clearly, whether or not I happened to have been the one reporting a given hand.

Glancing back through the PokerNews live blog for Day 6, I’m seeing that I did happen to write up that hand in which Ludovic Lacay was all in with pocket kings versus Hamid Nourafchan’s pocket aces, and ended up spiking a king on the river to survive and win a whopping five million-chip pot. Don’t think they mentioned it on air, but I see in the post that Adam Bilzerian had said he’d folded a king, so that was the last one in the deck that saved Lacay. Had another post later on in which Lacay again saw a fortunate river card come, “Ludovic Lacay Lucky and Lovin’ It.”

My buddy FerricRamsium was reporting on the TV table that day, and he has a post in there describing that hand between Dennis Phillips and Darvin Moon in which Moon had A-K and Phillips pocket queens. An ace flopped for the Maryland logger, and Phillips managed to escape without too much harm. The ever-prescient FerricRamsium titled his post “A TV Hand.” Nice call, sir.

Tom Schneider was in that hand, too, although had fortunately dropped out preflop with his A-J. Got a big kick out of the segment late in the second hour focusing on Tom and his wife, Julie, who has been frequently shown on the rail cheering on Tom over the last couple of weeks. Julie’s own poker-playing was mentioned last night, and I believe last week the announcers did point out her third-place finish in an earlier bracelet event (Event No. 55, $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw). I’m remembering watching some of her fantastic finish play out in that event, and how Tom was on the rail then -- less vocal than Julie but no less supportive, utterly unable to stop smiling as he watched. Cool stuff.

Here’s my write up from July of that day of play in which I talk some about Schneider, Joe Sebok, and Dennis Phillips, and how cool it was to be going back to the Rio on Day 7 with those guys still in contention. Toward the very end of the ESPN coverage last night, a big hand for Phillips was shown, one that pushed him back up over 2.3 million. Seeing that hand caused me to remember how I had spoken to Phillips while walking out of the Rio that night. I’d last seen him with a shorter stack, so it was news to me when he told me about having hit a big hand near the end to get back into a healthier range heading into Day 7.

Was an exciting time, with lots of interesting possibilities still in play. And our little community of poker people would be back the next day to see what would happen.

Have to say, after several weeks of being less than enthused by this marathon coverage of the Main Event, I really dug the programming on ESPN last night. Some good poker, a few examples of genuinely clever storytelling, and fairly riveting throughout. As Julie sometimes says from the rail after Tom wins a hand, “that’s the way we do it!”

2008 WSOP Main Event Final Table Resumes Tomorrow

In just a little over 24 hours they will be gathering over at the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio to resume the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event final table. Almost forgot all about it, didn’t you?

As one who regularly follows podcasts, reads forums and blogs, and keeps up with other varieties of poker media, I suppose I’ve become somewhat familiar with the nine players’ personalities over the last 100-plus days. Can’t really claim to have that much knowledge of playing styles beyond the few hands we saw on the ESPN shows. While I was there covering the action up through Day 5 this summer -- and I watched the feature table for a few hours on both Day 6 and Day 7 -- I can’t really claim to have picked up all that much extra information that yr average ESPN viewer wouldn’t already have.

My limited knowledge ain’t gonna stop me, though, from offering a few thoughts about the remaining players here on the eve of the final table.

1. Dennis Phillips (26,295,000) -- The 53-year-old account manager for Broadway Truck Centers in St. Louis will most definitely be easy to root for tomorrow. His humble nature and dedication to charity work has won him a lot of fans during the long lead-up to tomorrow’s final table. He definitely caught some cards during those last two days of play in July -- we all saw him flop a couple of flushes there in the ESPN telecasts. But we also saw him get paid on those hands, and show a willingness to bluff (and catch others’ bluffs), too. I definitely like Phillips’ chances, though a lot depends on the table draw (not to mention how the cards go). In any event, he’s certainly one of about five players who will be seriously gunning for the bracelet and not merely to finish in the top five or six. (Check out my interview with Phillips here.)

2. Ivan Demidov (24,400,000) -- His big chip stack and third-place finish in the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event most certainly affords Demidov some extra credibility as a contender tomorrow. Some have mentioned how good it would be for poker should the 27-year-old from Moscow -- or one of the other three non-Americans still alve -- manage to take the bracelet. The fact that he played 242 hands at that WSOPE final table might mean his opponents tomorrow have gained a bit of extra knowledge about how he approaches the endgame, although without knowing hole cards it is hard to estimate the significance of such information. I’d expect Demidov to maintain his healthy chip stack early on, although he has expressed in at least one interview a willingness to flip with a shorter-stack, especially if it is with a more formidable opponent like Rheem.

3. Scott Montgomery (19,690,000) -- We all saw Montgomery luck out a couple of times on ESPN to survive, but so did most of the other nine at some point in their respective journeys. The 26-year-old Canadian finished fifth in the WPT L.A. Poker Classic early in the year. He has a mathematics degree and has done some teaching (in Japan, actually), so has a bit of smarts about him. Also has a winning, self-effacing personality, too, as evidenced on ESPN and on the 10/30/08 episode of the Pocket Fives podcast. Seems willing to take some chances and gamble it up, and so might be a target for the short stacks early on.

4. Peter Eastgate (18,375,000) -- The youngest (aged 22) of the nine, and looks it. Eastgate is the only one of the group I don’t believe I’ve actually listened to being interviewed. On the few hands shown on ESPN telecasts, he appeared to have the sort of bold, aggressive style you’d expect of a young internet-trained player. Being from Denmark, expect a lot more comparisons with Gus Hansen to be thrown around tomorrow, especially if Eastgate goes deep (which I think is very likely). Has an effective, non-expressive poker face, too, which helped him in the hand in which he knocked out Tiffany Michelle. Would not be surprised at all to see Eastgate playing on Monday when they return for heads up.

5. Ylon Schwartz (12,525,000) -- The 38-year-old chess master from Brooklyn was probably the most idiosyncratic-seeming of the nine in interviews, tossing off strange, off-the-wall comments that suggested he either wasn’t affected by the whole delayed-final-table spectacle or was pretending such. When Phil Gordon asked him what his future plans were on The Poker Edge, Schwartz responded with something about jumping off the Rio roof if he didn’t win. (As I wrote about yesterday, Schwartz also has some interesting things to say about how chess compares to poker.) From what I saw on Day 7 when watching from the stands, Schwartz was playing uber-tight in an effort to make the final table -- probably only Kelly Kim was tighter there at the end. While many think he’ll continue in that vein tomorrow and be content to finish in the top five, I’m thinking he could surprise people and play more aggressively early on. Not in a wild Jerry Yang-fashion, but be active enough that he could well accumulate chips and be around to contend at the end.

6. Darus Suharto (12,520,000) -- I heard Suharto interviewed on The Poker Edge about a month back. The 39-year-old Canadian was back at his accounting job and in fact sounded as though his job had a much more prominent place in his life than did poker or even the WSOP. The impression might be misleading, however. Even though Suharto is an amateur who only plays part-time, he has gathered some experience here lately at the EPT London and the North American Poker Championship. Even so, of all the final nine, he seems to me the most likely to sit tight from the beginning tomorrow and just try to survive the first couple of eliminations.

7. David Rheem (10,230,000) -- The Los Angeles pro was easily the most prominent of the nine both on the ESPN shows and elsewhere, thanks both to his earlier poker successes (including one televised final table at this year’s WSOP) and that bit of news about his having had an outstanding arrest warrant. Until Demidov’s deep WSOPE run, the 28-year-old seemed to be a favorite pick among many to win, but with the relatively-shorter starting stack his fate depends heavily on his being fortunate whenever he decides to make that first big gamble tomorrow. I don’t see Rheem being content to sit on his below-average stack very long tomorrow. Indeed, Rheem seems to me the most likely of the remaining players to make a Philip Hilm-like early exit.

8. Craig Marquis (10,210,000) -- The 24-year-old from Arlington, Texas was most conspicuous at the ten-handed table in July, showing an obvious willingness to go busto in his effort to exploit what had been hyped as the biggest bubble in poker tourney history. Seems like a smart, funny guy. Is a prominent contributor over on Two Plus Two where he started a Q&A thread about a month ago titled “Ask a member of the November Nine.” He didn’t answer all of the questions posed there, but did respond to many (perhaps too many, actually). A complete wild card, really, who could flame out early or gather chips and go deep.

9. Kelly Kim (2,620,000) -- The 31-year-old Californian endured a lot of ups and downs during the seven days of play, nearly busting right at the money bubble (and on a few other occasions), then limping to the finish at the very end. Sounds like a savvy tourney player who may well endure into the top six or seven spots, should he manage to double up during the first orbit or two (and then hang on after that).

I’ve established already that I’m pulling for Phillips to take it down, although as I say above I think the table draw has a lot to do with how things will go for him. Thought a little about making predictions, but taking a page from Phillips’ book of humility, I’m gonna refrain other than to say I think the non-Americans are all gonna do well tomorrow.

Unless you plan to keep yr head in the sand until the ESPN “plausibly live” show on Tuesday night, be sure to head over to PokerNews’ live reporting tomorrow to follow all of the action.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Interview: Dennis Phillips

I’d heard Dennis Phillips interviewed before on at least a couple of different podcasts, perhaps more. I know I heard him on Phil Gordon’s The Poker Edge as well as Gary Wise’s Wise Hand Poker. Those of you who also have heard him interviewed -- or perhaps seen him on these last few episodes of ESPN’s coverage of the Main Event -- already know he’s a pretty likable sort, whose self-effacing humility and good-naturedness perhaps distinguishes him a bit from your typical poker player.

When I recently was given an opportunity to interview the current chip leader of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, I thought it would be fun and interesting to get to know him a little better. We chatted yesterday afternoon for about twenty minutes via telephone.

I started out introducing myself, explaining that like him, this summer also marked my first ever trip to the WSOP. I told him how I’d helped out with the live blogging for PokerNews, and had written up at least a couple of his hands. I mentioned one in particular, a hand he had played against Lisa Parsons shortly after he had shared some Altoids with the table. She’d won the hand, and I’d cheekily titled the post “And I Just Gave You Candy.”

“I remember that one!” said Phillips, pointing out how he had been following the coverage. “Lisa Parsons is a very good player,” he added, noting that her game was “very respected” by many of the other players. He said he’d been surprised to hear that she’d gotten knocked out when she did (in 76th place).

Knowing Phillips is a baseball fan, I asked him if he happened to be following that other World Series. “As much as I can, but I have been tied up with things and haven’t been able to watch,” he said. We chatted a little further about the rain-suspended game 5, then I got on with the poker questions.

Running Hot and Staying Cool

I liked the questions cheer_dad had suggested on yesterday’s post, so I started with those.

I read the first question verbatim: “Dennis Phillips seems to be a very likeable guy, who is truly in awe of the people with whom he got to play against in the WSOP. How does it make him feel to have others now looking up to him and what he has accomplished thus far?”

“That’s a difficult one to answer,” said Phillips. “I’m still shocked I get recognized by people around the casino, and people wanting to have their picture taken with me. I’m just not used to it at all. Hey, I’m a 53-year-old truck driver just having some fun and playing some poker! I mean it’s great but . . . it’s kind of wild.”

I asked cheer_dad’s follow-up: “Also, nothing seems to agitate him, and he appears to just ‘be happy to there’ but was there anything (or anyone) that really got on his last nerve during the Main Event, or at least what we've seen thus far?”

“No, not at all,” said Phillips without hesitation. “There were a couple of times when some young guns would come to the table and try to have some fun, shall we say, with their conversation. Like there was one who was calling me ‘Grandpa’ and was saying things like ‘Isn’t it time for me to go to sleep?’ Whatever. I took a pot from him later on and said ‘Don’t worry, son, I will come up and tuck you in’ [after you bust out]. I’m not going to let somebody throwing crap around at the poker table bother me.”

The Big Picture

From there Phillips began to talk about being a little older and having experienced the world a bit -- kind of anticipating a later question I had for him -- and thus being at a time in his life where a little table trash talk isn’t likely to faze him. There are more important things in the world to worry about, he was saying.

That point led him to share a few details of his recent trip to the Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. to visit some wounded soldiers who’d returned from Iraq and Afghanistan. As he spoke, I remembered reading something about this trip not too long ago in Card Player. Phillips mentioned how the visit was a “sobering and humbling experience,” and that it was the sort of thing that really helped put “poker in perspective.”

“Can I share two quick stories?” he asked. (Of course, I replied.) He told about meeting “one guy who’d lost a leg who was with his eight-year-old son, and they were talking about how when his new robotic leg was finally constructed he’d actually be three inches taller. They joked about how that meant the son was going to have more growing to catch up with him.” Phillips mentioned how he’d marvelled at their laughter and how it demonstrated such remarkable fortitude.

The other story involved an injured soldier who had been driving a truck when it had been bombed and who had instinctively pulled to the right so as to protect his passengers. “Sends a shiver down your spine,” said Phillips, remarking on the courage demonstrated by these men.

We’d get back to the whole issue of experience how it perhaps helps one deal with stress at the poker table. Phillips had made his point quite effectively, though, that there were more important things in the world than some needling at the table.

Speaking of, I then asked him a question that had been forwarded to me by friend Tim Peters: “What do you think of the kind of crap that Phil Hellmuth, et al., engage in?”

“Not a big fan of it,” answered Phillips. “That’s definitely not me. I realize people do things to get on television, but that’s not me. I’m just there to have fun and play poker. A lot of that stuff [such as Hellmuth’s antics] is just playing for the camera. That’s all it is.”

The Education of a Poker Player

I told him how I mostly play online (being stuck in a part of the country with no casinos), and asked him if he ever played online. “Some, but I prefer live play. For me poker is about having fun, relaxing, the camaraderie.... I mean people try to play seriously and take each other’s money, but we can go have a beer afterwards and talk about it and have fun. I do have a mathematics background and know the probabilities and everything, but [when we are playing] I want to see your face.”

I then asked him if he had any favorite poker books. “I never read a poker book,” he answered somewhat sheepishly. “I probably should have, but I just never have.” That made me think to ask about how things were going with Oracle Poker Consulting, the group he hired in early September to help coach him during these weeks leading up to the final table.

“I’m working more with Joe McGowan than Roy Winston right now,” he said, speaking of two of the three principle figures behind Oracle (the other being Michael Binger). “It’s nice to talk at a level of poker that is ‘above the normal’ shall we say. Do you know what I mean?” I agreed that it was helpful to touch base in this way with gifted peers or colleagues. “He’s not trying to change my game at all, but we’re looking at some of the intracacies, even small things like tells I might have or even the way I’m stacking my chips.” He paused, adding “McGowan is an extremely knowledgeable person in the world of poker.”

155 and Counting

I asked him about how much coverage he’d been getting back in St. Louis where he lives on the east side (Metro East). “In St. Louis I’ve been interviewed by channels 2, 4, 5, 9, and 11. Every news and radio station has interviewed me. The St. Louis Post is going to send out its Sports Editor to cover the final table. And tomorrow morning I’m doing a talk show, so the coverage has been extensive.”

Other folks have been interested in Phillips, too. He noted to me that he’s been keeping track since July, and our interview marked his 155th overall.

Ready to Party

I had just one last question for him, one that kind of harkened back to the earlier discussion of being a little older and thus perhaps seeing the world a little differently than do the younger players. Two of Phillips’ final table opponents -- Ylon Schwartz and Darus Suharto -- are in their late 30s, and the rest are all in their 20s. I wondered what the 53-year-old chip leader had to say about the significance of the age difference, both in terms of poker playing and just simply dealing with the entire spectacle of the WSOP Main Event, the “November Nine,” and everything that went along with it.

“When you’ve seen the world a few times, it’s easier to keep emotions in check and not let things bother you,” Phillips replied. “These guys are going to have a real, real hard time putting me on tilt out there,” he added. “They haven’t had the experience or the relationships those of us with a little gray on top have had.”

“As far as the negatives go, with the Main Event there was the drudgery, the day-after-day twelve-, fourteen-, sixteen-hour days that certainly give the younger guys the advantage. That’s eliminated now [with the final table delay]. Now we’re all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to party.”

Sounded like a terrific attitude to be carrying into the final table. I thanked Phillips for his time.

I didn’t end up asking him the old “ambassador of poker” question, as in, “If you were to win, how will you approach the responsibility of being the ambassador of poker for the next year?” Kind of a presumptuous question, really. And frankly, I don’t think these guys who manage to win the WSOP Main Event owe the rest of us any particular responsibility in that regard.

Even so, after chatting with Phillips and discovering him to be every bit as likable as he appears to be, I’m reasonably assured his winning the sucker wouldn’t be a bad thing at all for the rest of us.

Special thanks to Dennis Phillips for taking the time, and to PokerStars for making the interview possible.

World Series Interruptus

Had the World Series on last night -- the baseball one, not the poker one -- and watched the Phillies and Rays play through that hard driving rain for an hour or more before the umps (or whoever was in charge) finally decided enough was enough. Seemed a little sketchy, frankly, the way they waited until Tampa Bay had tied the score 2-2 before suspending play in the sixth inning.

Later this morning I plan to read what Phillies fan Hoyazo has to say about all of this. I cannot imagine he is pleased. If they had stopped things a half-hour earlier -- say, the bottom of the fifth when Philadelphia was ahead -- the Phillies would be world champs right now.

Of course, as I’m reading over on the ESPN website this morning, there has never been a rain-shortened game in the history of the World Series. Seems amazing, but I guess it is true. And this was apparently the first-ever suspended game. They’ll pick it back up tonight at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time.

Also picking back up tonight will be the last two hours of coverage of that other World Series. This will be Day 7 of the WSOP Main Event -- the last day of play this summer. ESPN will show them playing down from 27 to the final nine during these two hours of programming. Expect hour one to culminate with the ouster of Tiffany Michelle (third in chips when the day began) in 17th place, then the second hour to end with a couple of hands in which Craig Marquis takes all of Dean Hamrick’s chips to land Hamrick in 10th.

I was there that night, not reporting but sitting in the stands watching the feature table with my buddy who’d come to visit during the last days of the WSOP. We stuck around until they’d gotten down to 11 or 12 -- something like 11 p.m. or so -- as we both had an early flight outta Vegas to catch the next morning.

It had been a long, exhausting summer. Had been there from the very start, seeing the UNLV Marching Band play “Viva Las Vegas” and Doyle Brunson tell everyone back on Day 1 that “We’re in for six solid weeks of poker.” (I made a joke then that Brusnon -- perhaps pointedly -- did not say we were in for “six weeks of solid poker.”) For the couple of hundred or so who were huddled there in the far corner of the cavernous Amazon Room watching those last moments play out, the whole scene was an odd mixture of commotion and comedown. Or amusement and anticlimax.

The few players who’d survived the starting field of 6,844 to be there for those last moments we’re probably experiencing a whole host of other emotions as well. This afternoon I’ll be interviewing one of them, Dennis Phillips, the fellow who has been chip leader longer than anyone else in the history of the World Series of Poker. Hell, in the history of tournament poker in general, probably. When play ended that night, Phillips was in first place with more than 26 million chips. And there he remains today, some 100-plus days later.

As I say, barring any snafus, I’ll be talking with Phillips later today. My plan is to write up a post tomorrow describing our chat. It’ll be a brief conversation, so I’ll have a limited amount of time for questions, but if you have any suggestions about what to ask Phillips, feel free to pass ’em along.

Meanwhile, we’ll all sit and wait just a little while longer. At least the Phillies and Rays will be able to get back at it tonight and not have to wait ’til February to finish up.