The Infinitesimal Uptick of Online Poker

The World Series of Poker is up and running, and it has been diverting over the last day following the various discussions of how things have started. Overall the amount of WSOP talk seems a bit lower than in years past, but that’ll likely change soon once the Colossus comes along tomorrow.

Noticed a few “mainstream” articles about the WSOP starting this week -- e.g., it turned up as a top story in the Associated Press app. Saw another one on ESPN yesterday titled “Rise of online poker at the WSOP” filed by Dave Tuley that struck me as a little bit odd, actually.

ESPN, of course, has covered poker and especially the WSOP more than any other “non-poker” outlet over the last decade-plus, although as far as the website goes they’ve kind of curbed back the poker a bit this year. There’s no longer a separate “Poker” section on the site (formerly to be found along with other less popular sports). Now the poker is folded into a larger section about gambling, sports betting, and I guess some fantasy stuff called “Chalk.”

Anyhow, to get to what is a little strange about this article, we could start with the title, which makes it sound as though online poker is something that hasn’t already been around for more than 15 years. I mean the rise of online poker (at the WSOP and elsewhere) happened long ago. Even the fall of online poker (in the U.S.) is old news.

The piece is about WSOP.com’s Nevada site, focusing on how there will be an online bracelet event and also on the invitation to players to fire up the site and play on it on their phones, iPads, and laptops at the tables. You’ve probably heard a little about this and how dealers and staff are supposed to be accommodating to players wanting to multi-task like this.

Tuley talked with Bill Rini (WSOP.com’s Head of Online Poker) and 2012 WSOP Main Event champion Greg Merson (who is helping promote the site), both of whom are predictably energetic about it all. Indeed, much of the article is made from quotes from those two.

But while the author starts out acknowledging Chris Moneymaker’s online entry into the 2003 WSOP ME and vaguely refers to how “online poker has forever altered the gaming landscape,” he seems less aware of the fact that online poker has been heavily influencing the live game ever since.

“The convergence of the real and online worlds will never be more apparent than at the this year’s WSOP,” writes Tuley. I suppose he’s speaking literally -- as in he’s picturing that scene of players playing online poker on devices at the tables -- but even that has been a pretty commonplace sight around the world for many years.

He can’t be speaking figuratively, because anyone who’s paid any attention at all to poker over the last 15 years well knows how the “real and online worlds” (1) converged long ago, and (2) have converged in ways that have been way more apparent than will be the case at the WSOP this year.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how the online and live poker worlds work together,” he concludes, “but it’s clear they are intertwined and will continue to grow.” Again, the only way this empty observation even makes sense is on a literal level (e.g., will there be any hassle when players are waiting for the laptop player to act when it’s his turn?).

But even there just how “interesting” is that going to be? After all, even the author of “Rise of online poker at the WSOP” seems to be dozing a little with a sign-off like that.

The Return of the Champ

Joe Cada’s victory last night in Event No. 32, the $10,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship, marked the first time one of the last 12 WSOP Main Event winners -- dating back to 2002 champ Robert Varkonyi -- has been able to follow his ME title with another WSOP bracelet win.

Carlos Mortensen was the most recent champion to follow his ME title with a win in another bracelet event, having won his second (and so far only other) WSOP bracelet in 2003 in a $5K limit hold’em event.

That was a big year for former Main Event champs, actually, with no less than six different ME winners collecting bracelets in 2003. In addition to Mortensen, Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, and Johnny Chan each won two events apiece, while Doyle Brunson and Huck Seed won events as well. (Ferguson finished runner-up in another event that year, too.)

There hasn’t been as good a year for former ME winners at the WSOP since, not by a long shot. Chan and Brunson would each win bracelets in 2005 -- the last for both. Scotty Nguyen would win the $50K H.O.R.S.E. in 2008. And Phil Hellmuth won WSOP events in 2006, 2007, and 2012, while also winning the 2012 WSOP Europe Main Event.

The period since 2003 has seen fields expand dramatically, although the number of bracelet events has essentially doubled, too, since 2003. And while there have been a lot of ME winners playing a lot of events, getting all of the way back to the winner’s circle has proven difficult for nearly all of them.

Cada was a likely candidate to break through to get that second bracelet, having come close several times recently with two fourth-place finishes last year and a runner-up in 2012.

Greg Merson has cashed three times already this WSOP and seems capable of being the next WSOP ME winner to win a bracelet. I’d say Jonathan Duhamel probably would be a good choice, too, to win one, even though he’s off to a rough start at this summer’s Series.

Then again, Hellmuth is 11th of 38 in another event to start today (Event No. 36, $1,500 NL 2-7 Draw), and so perhaps he’ll be the next ME winner to grab more gold. Again.

2013 WSOP, Day 42: Running Good, Catching Hands

Much as players in a poker tournament will experience occasional stretches of “run good” or being “card dead,” so, too, will those live reporting a tournament undergo periods when “good hands” are dealt to them one after another and others when their timing is off and they keep witnessing non-newsworthy orbits’ worth of hands being folded.

Day 1s of large field tourneys -- or, in the case of the Main Event, Day 1 flights, Day 2 flights, and even Day 3 flights -- often present this challenge, since a reporter frequently finds him or herself wandering around a large group of tables, say 20 or 30 or even more, looking for hands or other stories to report.

The Main Event has such a deep structure there are many patient players who will go hours at a time during the first couple of days without getting involved in a big showdown with a significant pot at stake. Thus if you’re only passing by that player’s table once a half-hour or so, it can be easy to miss those moments when the player is actually doing something worth reporting.

For me there were a few dry stretches yesterday that came up while covering the “Day 2a/2b” flight of the 2013 WSOP Main Event, but for the most part my timing was pretty good and I had plenty to report as things went along. In fact, I had one short little “rush” (so to speak) lasting half an hour in which every time I went back out on the floor I’d find myself walking right up to another especially interesting and highly reportable hand.

One of the hands was a standard all-in situation involving PokerStars Team Pro Toni Judet in which he’d gotten A-A and an opponent a couple of seats over had K-K and the pair predictably got all of Judet’s below average stack in the middle before the flop. Alas for Judet, a king spiked on the river and he was eliminated.

Just minutes later I saw and reported on a more interesting hand involving Phil Galfond in which he’d opened from early position and got two callers behind, then the small blind three-bet and he and the other two all called. Galfond then flopped a set of eights, called the small blind’s flop bet (while the other two got out), then called his opponent’s turn shove with an overpair of queens and won a big pot while scoring an elimination.

Again, it was kind of a standard situation, although given how deep the players were one might have imagined Galfond’s opponent perhaps found a way to avoid getting felted in the hand. (Easy to say, hard to do.) But from the standpoint of a reporter looking for interesting hands involving known players, it stood out as a nice “find” among lots of less notable hands.

But the most interesting hand of that half-hour -- and as it turned out, of the entire day -- came between 2012 WSOP Main Event champ Greg Merson and Wilfried Harig, who was sitting to Merson’s right. I happened to be there to watch this one with Tim Fiorvanti of BLUFF who once again was compiling another of those start-to-finish pieces following Merson’s entire day.

During the hand we were trying to remember Harig, as he definitely seemed like someone we’d encountered before, and in fact it was shortly afterwards that we all remembered him as last year’s 15th-place finisher in the ME. As it would turn out, post-hand table talk helped ensure anyone standing nearby would know who Harig was.

Like the Galfond hand (which came a little later), this one saw a player raise and a couple call (including Harig), then Merson three-betting, only in this case Harig was the only player to stick around for the flop which came . That’s when the pair surprisingly bet back and forth enough to get Harig’s big stack all in and almost all of Merson’s, too.

Merson had top two pair with , but Harig had for a set. Then the turn stunningly brought the to give Merson the better full house and leave Harig drawing dead. Harig graciously shook Merson’s hand and left, and that’s when he reminded the table how he’d knocked out Harig last summer in the ME after the latter had committed his stack with pocket aces versus Merson’s king-jack, and Merson flopped a king then turned a jack.

As it happened, it was an uncanny reprise of poor Harig’s final hand in the 2012 ME, and that made for an interesting post punctuated by Merson’s own tweet regarding it.

Like I say, watching and reporting on that hand was part of a fun, brief sequence of “event highlight”-type hands that had more to do with having the good fortune of being out on the floor rather than behind the laptop at the moments they were occurring than anything else. As in poker, there’s certainly some skill involved in being able to anticipate when and where interesting clashes are more likely to occur. But luck is an obvious factor, too.

Today it’s back at it for Day 2c in which those surviving from the large field that played Day 1c will be returning. (All of the different flights will finally join together for tomorrow’s Day 3.) The larger field means more tables and players, and probably more hands of note will be happening, too. Here’s hoping I can “run good” -- both figuratively and literally -- and catch as many good hands as I can.

2012 WSOP Main Event Final Table (Day 2 of 2)

Managed to stay up until about 1:30 a.m. last night watching the “almost live” coverage of the 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event final table on ESPN2. That was the first five-and-a-half hours’ worth or so, meaning I saw the first three eliminations (Steve Gee in ninth, Robert Salaburu in eighth, and Michael Esposito in seventh) before hitting the hay. I mentioned yesterday how I was going on about two hours’ sleep, and so finally succumbing to fatigue I decided at that point to record the rest to watch this morning.

Gee’s early exit didn’t surprise me too much. I was noting yesterday how I’d seen Gee make some fishy plays back in July. I was thinking of his “accidental call” on Day 6 (to knock out Nick DiVella) and a couple of hands on Day 7 when he’d done some overcalling and chasing at the secondary feature table.

Both Salaburu and Esposito were relatively tight during the eight or so orbits they lasted. Didn’t necessarily expect that of Salaburu, whom I’d seen appear aggressive on Day 7 (although as I pointed out on Monday, it turned out he’d been dealt a lot of big starting hands). Esposito I’d seen less of back in July, but it became obvious early on when he limp-reraised with pocket kings -- then limped a couple more times with his short stack -- that he was probably outmatched.

Esposito’s exit came in Hand #70. I watched about 15 more hands after that before popping in the tape and hitting the sack. (That’s right, we’re using the old school VCR here at chez Shamus.) As it turned out, then, none of the first three players eliminated last night necessarily distinguished himself as someone deserving better as far as his finish went.

By then it was pretty clear that Greg Merson was the most likely candidate to make tonight’s final three, with Jesse Sylvia (still leading) also appearing favored to join him. If I had to guess at that point who the third would be, I probably would’ve picked Russell Thomas who impressed with the big call with pocket queens against Gee’s 8-8 early on, although appeared to turtle up following that hand.

When I awoke this morning I avoided email, Twitter, and any other idle web surfing and watched the rest of last night’s action.

Andras Koroknai’s six-bet shove of 40 million-plus versus Merson with K-Q-offsuit (Hand #108), resulting in his elimination in sixth place, was surprising to say the least. The analysis by Antonio Esfandiari during the hand (and by Olivier Busquet during the break) pointed to an earlier hand (Hand #85) in which Koroknai had been five-bet out of a hand by Sylvia, a hand which had happened long enough before for the Hungarian to have learned that Sylvia had held but Q-J-offsuit.

In other words -- if indeed Koroknai was influenced by that earlier hand -- having the 15-minute delay with hole cards had a significant effect on one player’s decision-making, and thus (perhaps) the outcome of the table as a whole. In any case, the night would conclude with Gee and Koroknai being remembered for having made the biggest missteps.

Jeremy Ausmus played his short stack well early on to chip up and out of the danger zone before getting tripped up in fifth in a tricky hand versus Sylvia.

Jake Balsiger folded some winners early on, but as the night went on made several well-considered bets and raises to keep his stack reasonably healthy, too. Then came the last hand of the night (Hand #135) and that blind-vs.-blind confrontation when he benefited from some impatience from Thomas to knock the latter out in fourth.

I enjoyed the show, and look forward to more tonight. Recall that last summer ESPN started trying this “almost live”-type coverage at the WSOP, showing every hand and then revealing the hole cards for the last two players afterwards (for non-showdown hands). I believe it was earlier in 2011, at the pre-Black Friday PokerStars Caribbean Adventure -- where ESPN first tried the experiment. The WPT also began doing something similar with its streaming of final tables online.

Even so, watching unedited poker on the tube can be a grind. With the commercial breaks and overall slow pace, they were playing at a glacial clip of about 15 hands per hour. Tough stuff even for the most dedicated poker fan, I think. In fact, there was one stretch during the latter part of play (Hands #88-#103) where an entire hour went by without a single flop. I’m still a little amazed that ESPN devotes so much air time on one of its primary networks to the sucker.

As I watched last night and this morning, I thought about my “Keeping Score” post from last week. Unlike back in 1997, when Tom Sims (all on his own) kept track of and then reported every final table hand as he saw it, now we all can watch every hand -- repeatedly if we like -- and not only know all of the immediately observable action but hole cards as well.

It’s also possible to pull together an even more comprehensive “scorecard” of the ME final table, too, by looking both at PokerNews’ reporting and the ESPN video. Of course, even there a few small items fall through the cracks, such as the occasional bet amount and hole card. In fact, ESPN missed showing one quick raise-and-take hand altogether (Hand #86) while showing a little montage of knockouts.

Thus we can go back and say (for instance) that Merson picked up A-K exactly eight times in the 135 hands dealt last night (Hands #31, #35, #36, #70, #78, #99, #109, #118), including the two big knockout hands versus Esposito and Koroknai. He also was dealt A-Q three times (Hands #92, 95, 96). And he won all 11 of those hands.

Incidentally, K-K was dealt three times last night -- to Esposito (Hand #5), Salaburu (Hand #22), and Balsiger twice (Hands #53 and #119). Pocket aces were dealt but once, to Sylvia (Hand #88).

We were able to see Balsiger dealt pocket pairs nine times last night. In addition to getting kings twice, he was dealt 9-9 twice (#16, #29), 10-10 three times (#20, #67, #72), 5-5 once (#130), and 2-2 once (#131). Salaburu almost equaled that clip by getting pocket pairs four times in the 65 hands he played. We saw no other player with pocket pairs more than three times last night (although some could well have folded them without their hands being shown). Balsiger picked up A-K five times, too (Hands #8, #37, #57, #78, and #135).

Gotta believe Merson (1st, 88.35 million) is the betting favorite tonight, although really both Sylvia (62.75 million) and Balsiger (3rd, 46.875 million) appear savvy enough to break through, especially if the cards cooperate. In other words, it seems doubtful there will be any slip-ups as dramatic as those of Gee and Koroknai on Monday, but who knows?

Who do you think will be the 2012 WSOP Main Event champ?