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.

Are WSOPE Bracelets “Real”?

The World Series of Poker Europe Main Event concluded yesterday, with James Bord of England besting an especially tough field of 346. Thus ends the five-event series, at which five WSOP gold bracelets were awarded.

Not coincidentally, there has been a lot of discussion of late over whether or not WSOPE bracelets are “real” World Series bracelets and/or should be counted in that “most bracelets, all-time” list currently led by Phil Hellmuth (with 11) and Doyle Brunson (10) and Johnny Chan (10).

The Entities over at Wicked Chops helped stir things up regarding this topic yesterday by drawing attention to a comment made by WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage last week on their excellent weekly show, This Week in Poker (the 9/21/10 episode). (If you’re not familiar with TWiP, click here for a quick overview.)

The question to Savage -- sent in by Jay “whojedi” Newnum -- was “How do you feel about bracelets being awarded outside of Vegas?” Savage answered without hesitation. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I don’t think it’s like a real bracelet.”

Savage then alluded to how the WSOP could very well start applying its brand elsewhere (“they could have WSOP Asia, WSOP Latin America,” etc.), the implication being that doing so would further devalue the bracelets’ significance. “I mean, the WSOP was founded in Las Vegas,” added Savage. “That’s kind of what it’s about, so I don’t think those bracelets [i.e., the ones awarded in London at the WSOPE] are as valuable.”

The post over at Wicked Chops yesterday quickly drew a comment from Harrah’s/WSOP Vice President Ty Stewart, who strongly disagreed with Savage’s position while also foregrounding the competition that exists between the WPT and WSOP, especially in Europe. “It doesn’t take an investigative journalist to understand Mr. Savage’s parent company is motivated to be antagonistic to other activities in the European marketplace,” writes Stewart.

What Stewart suggests, of course, is that Savage’s devaluing of non-Vegas WSOP bracelets is connected to the WPT’s efforts to compete with the WSOP in places like London, and may or may not represent a sincere view to which Savage personally subscribes.

While I’m well aware that there indeed exists genuine competition between the WSOP and WPT -- being fought on several fronts at once -- I still think Savage’s comment was sincere and represents his personal opinion on the subject. And the fact is, there are many other folks (including players, media, and fans) who aren’t tied to the WPT or groups in competition with the WSOP who share Savage’s view that indeed the WSOPE bracelets aren’t as “real” or prestigious as the ones won in Vegas.

Another person who doesn’t believe the WSOPE bracelets are equal to the ones won in Vegas is the fellow with the most bracelets of all, Phil Hellmuth. The Poker Brat was a guest on the most recent Hardcore Poker Show podcast (the 9/27/10 episode) where he was asked the same question Savage was about the relative significance of winning a WSOPE bracelet.

“Honestly, it’s not the same thing,” Hellmuth began. “I have a feeling that if I had won a bracelet over there [at WSOP Europe], there would have been a lot of people stepping up saying ‘It’s not the same thing,’ and it would’ve been hard for me to argue against that.”

The conversation continued for a few more minutes, with Hellmuth elaborating on some of the reasons why he believes the WSOPE bracelets can't really be considered on the same level as those won at the World Series in Vegas.

Hellmuth made some good points, actually -- kind of surprising how uncharacteristically balanced and aware he sounds here, really -- including drawing attention to the fact that when it comes to his race with the current leaders in all-time bracelets, neither Brunson nor Chan even made the trip to the WSOPE this year.

“Everybody knows that it’s not really a bracelet,” Hellmuth concludes, adding that when it comes to record-keeping, the WSOP should establish different categories for bracelets won outside of Vegas, thereby referring to someone as having one a certain number of each rather than compiling all together.

Click here to listen to the interview, if you’re curious. Hellmuth comes on about 17 minutes into the show, and the conversation about bracelets begins a little after the 23-minute mark.

As the comments on the Wicked Chops post further show, opinions over this issue are divided. Questions about the “legitimacy” or relative significance of the WSOPE bracelets have been asked since before the first WSOPE in 2007. I recounted some of that debate in a Betfair piece a couple of weeks ago which talks a little about the short history of the WSOPE, “London Calling: 2010 WSOP Europe Coming Soon.”

In that column I alluded to some of the early questioning, then added the comment that “by now that debate has subsided somewhat, thanks in large part to the high quality of player fields the WSOPE has attracted during its first three years.” (Perhaps I spoke to soon!)

So do I think WSOPE bracelets are “real”? Well, sure.

I think it is fine -- and perhaps inevitable -- for us all to debate whether, say, Gus Hansen’s victory in WSOPE Event No. 4, the £10,350 no-limit hold’em heads-up event, is as great an achievement as Ayaz Mahmood’s in WSOP Event No. 35, the $10,000 NLHE heads-up event in Vegas. The tourneys were the same in some ways, but different in many, many more.

Indeed, I think if one were to try to compare any two WSOP tournaments, the list of relevant factors making the two events different would be so long it would rapidly become evident that it is a little silly to try to claim any two tourneys are the “same thing.” In fact, one could argue differences between the 2010 WSOPE events and those played in Vegas at the 2010 WSOP are much less significant than the differences between the 2010 WSOP events and those played in the 1970s and 1980s at the WSOP.

So, yeah, I think WSOPE bracelets are “real” bracelets. I also think that for a variety of reasons they continue to carry less prestige, ultimately, than do the ones won in Vegas. But that’s true of bracelets won in Vegas, too, with some being more esteemed than others.

That said, I acknowledge that others can decide for themselves what is “real” and what isn’t. I am an existentialist, after all.

Tunes, Talk, and a Place to Raise My Lonely Dental Floss

Been listening to some cool stuff on the iPod these days. A few new things, including the latest Tortoise album, called Beacons of Ancestorship. Released over the summer, but I’m just now getting to it. Awesome grooves, soundscapes. The instrumental outfit’s 1996 album Millions Now Living Will Never Die is probably one of my all-time-top-ten-most-listened-to records -- a “desert island” disc, for sure -- and this one might be their best since that one.

Also have Metric’s latest (from the spring, I think), called Fantasies, which is pretty hard not to dial up again and again, especially thanks to the start of that gripping opening track “Help I’m Alive” (“I tremble... tremble... tremble... tremble...”). Not as stunningly satisfying as Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, their 2003 debut, which I go back to repeatedly, but a nifty collection of idiosyncratic pop, nonetheless. (Can you tell I’ve been thinking of starting a music blog?)

Mixed in there, too, as usual, has been Frank Zappa, for whom I noticed the other day I have exactly 600 songs loaded on the little music player. Some might think that obsessive, but FZ fans understand the requirements for uncovering conceptual continuity. Have been once more working through the You Can’t Do This On Stage Anymore discs here lately. Up to the start of Volume 4 and that cool sequence at the start that moves from “My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama” to “Willie the Pimp” to “Montana.”

Have also worked in a few poker podcasts of late, and had a few shows to recommend to you.

The latest installment of The Poker Beat (10/8/09) featured an interesting discussion of the marketing of the November Nine, now less than a month away. Had a lot of good comments on my post on the subject earlier in the week, and the discussion on the show added still further insight. Definitely appears as though we’re going to see more “mainstream” attention this time around. The show also featured a visit with Amy Calistri to talk about the demise of PokerPages (for which she once wrote/edited).

Daniel Negreanu was the guest on this week’s Hardcore Poker Show (10/7/09). Interesting as always, was Kid Poker, as he discussed his near miss at the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. He was additionally asked about Phil Hellmuth’s speculations -- first aired on the 9/23/09 episode of the Hardcore Poker Show -- concerning Harrah’s new online site and the possibility of the other sites teaming up to compete with Harrah’s. Negreanu roundly dismissed the Poker Brat’s idea as wayward fantasy, particularly the notion that a site like PokerStars, which he represents, would ever enter an alliance with Hellmuth’s site, UltimateBet. “I want nothing to do with that company,” says Negreanu, adding that “personally, I don’t think they should exist anymore... we don’t owe them any favors.” Run over to Pokerati to hear the UB-related stuff, which Kevmath excerpted out for your listening convenience.

During the middle portion of this week’s Two Plus Two Pokercast (10/6/09) there’s lengthy interview with Neil Channing in which the British poker pro talks about the current state of poker in the U.K. as well as his own interesting path through sports betting, backing, and poker. As always, hosts Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz do a great job with the interview, and the result is both compelling and at times laugh out loud funny.

Going back a little bit... they’ve been successively interviewing the various members of the November Nine over on Phil Gordon and Andrew Feldman’s podcast The Poker Edge. I think they’ve had six of the nine on thus far. For more on your favorite logger Darvin Moon, check out the 9/25/09 episode. (Moon should really start a blog and thus become the first poker-logger blogger.) Finally, a while back Howard Schwartz had poker author Arnold Snyder on his Gamblers Book Club Podcast (the 9/3/09 episode). I’m a big fan of Snyder’s Poker Tournament Formula books, and he made for a great guest on Schwartz’s show.

Speaking of podcasts, I do have a new episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show in the works (I know it has been a while). Hopefully it will not be too long before Episode 19 of that makes it onto your iPod or iPod-like device.

Meanwhile, I think it’s gonna be more Zappa this morning for me. Actually received a spammy e-mail today with the subject line “Montana Investment Property” that included this picture. No shinola! Looks like a nice place to raise a crop of dental floss, yes? Yippie-Yi-O-Ti-Yay!

2009 WSOP, Day 15: Live from the Rio

Yesterday’s final day of Event No. 19, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, was one of the more intriguing ones, poker-wise, I think I have covered this summer. Particularly the final six-handed table, where there were several interesting hands and moments along the way. Amazingly, Brock Parker, who won his first WSOP bracelet last Sunday in a short-handed limit event (Event No. 14), won this one, too.

I wanted to share a few thoughts about that final table here, both about the play and my helping cover it for PokerNews. I also wanted to write something today about the subject of puns (as I alluded to in yesterday’s post). I am off today, and so I think I might come back on here more than once this afternoon to write about these topics in separate posts. Wanted to pass along a couple of messages first, though.

During a break yesterday I appeared as a guest on the Hardcore Poker Show (the 6/10/09 episode) to talk for a short while from the Rio about the WSOP. That show goes out live on Sirius radio, then is made available as a podcast.

If yr curious to hear me, click here to get to the segment on which I appear. This is the first half of the show, and I’m on there right at the end for the last five minutes or so. Thanks to hosts Chris Tessaro and Rob Pizzo for having me on -- it was a blast.

Incidentally, when I told my blogging partner, Homer, last night that I was going to be on the show and explained that it appears on the Sirius network, you can guess what his response was.

“Oh, that’s the network where they never make any jokes, right?”

Like I say, more on puns later.

Finally, I want to send good vibes to my friend the Poker Grump who is taking a seat in today’s Event No. 24, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event that starts up in just a little while at noon today. That picture to the left is a live action shot of him running good in the PokerListings’ Run Good Challenge 3: WSOP Edition last month where he won his seat in today’s event. We’ll all get to read about his experience on his excellent blog later on.

Back in a while.