Let’s Talk Player-to-Player

As I was mentioning yesterday, there’s a ton happening poker-wise these days, including the World Series of Poker inching ever closer.

The first WSOP bracelet events start in just over a week (on Wednesday, May 29). Meanwhile we’re hearing announcements practically every day from the WSOP concerning all sorts of other news, including about that Carnivale of Poker schedule of events, the 2013-14 WSOP Circuit schedule (expanded to 22 stops) and the 2013 WSOP Europe schedule in Paris, France (including seven bracelet events).

One thing we haven’t heard anything about as yet is a specific date for the launch of the new WSOP real money online poker site, something that came up in that WSOP Conference Call last week. Lots of chatter on the grapevine about that. For example, there was a brief item on Pokerfuse earlier today passing along a forum rumor that the sucker was going to launch tomorrow, but WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky has already confirmed that ain’t going to happen.

Lots of eyes on that story, obviously, which is starting to draw some of the attention away from Ultimate Poker as far as Nevada’s newly burgeoning online poker scene is concerned. Many are assigning a lot of significance to whether or not Caesars manages to get the site up and running during the WSOP, with a failure to do so already being characterized as a big misstep before the fact. But I think it’s clear the desire to launch a site that is tested and ready is probably a higher priority at the moment than to beat a deadline, especially since Ultimate Poker has already managed to claim the title of first to the virtual felt.

As this new U.S. Online Poker 2.0 starts to reveal itself, it’s interesting to observe how differently-managed the new games are from what went before. Licensing requirements in Nevada include a number of provisions that necessarily introduce changes from what players experienced previously with online poker, one of which is to disallow sites from enabling player-to-player transfers.

Players being able to transfer money back and forth to each other was common to pretty much all online poker sites (as far as I can recall), considered by most to be an extension of sorts from the frequent practice in live poker of exchanging money, backing and/or staking, and so on. I remember when I first started playing online I didn’t think too much of P2P transfers being a significant issue, particularly since as a recreational player I didn’t engage in making transfers all that often, but was glad to have the option for the few occasions when I needed it.

Now, though, I think we all see a lot more clearly all of the potential problems that can arise from sites allowing the unrestricted transferring of funds among players, or even the ability to do so with certain limitations. I’m thinking, of course, of things like Full Tilt Poker’s multi-layered implosion (prior to PokerStars’ acquisition and rescue) and the insider cheating scandals at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker and how P2P transfers could be said to have helped facilitate other more obviously bad (and even fraudulent) practices. The recent Lock Poker brouhaha is also highlighting potential problems surrounding P2P transfers, although there are lots of other issues are in play as well.

The always provocative Kim Lund has been inviting conversation about the topic of P2P transfers via his Twitter feed (@InfiniteEdgeKim). Yesterday morning, Kim invited such discussion thusly: “Writing something on a sensitive subject. Why should sites facilitate player-to-player transfers? I see few reasons, none good enough.”

Responses have come arguing both sides of the issue, with those in favor of keeping P2P transfers in online poker often referring to customers’ desiring having such capability while others have pointed out reasons for doing away with the practice.

I lean in Kim’s direction on this one, perhaps in part because I am a recreational player for whom P2P transfers was never a vital element in my online poker experience. But I understand the arguments of those on the other side, too. I guess removing P2P transfers entirely from the game does, in a sense, further transform online poker into something very different from the live game.

But then again, it always was a different game, wasn’t it?

So how would you respond to Kim's question? Go on, you can tell me... there are no restrictions here regarding our exchanging thoughts and ideas, after all.

Ideas and Execution

Had a most excellent few days with Vera Valmore visiting my father in Florida. Did not play any poker this trip, opting instead to spend time running around with Vera and hanging out with Pop.

I did mostly unplug while we were gone, although I have since managed to catch some of the follow-up regarding last Thursday’s announcement that the Federated Sports + Gaming had declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and what appear to be much weakened prospects for the Epic Poker League going forward.

As I was saying on Thursday when reflecting briefly about the news, for the EPL to struggle was not unexpected. I think most rational observers felt from the beginning that the league’s chances for success weren’t great. But even the most skeptical seemed to believe the league would at least make it through its initial season of events before talk of closing shop would arise.

I remember early last year when we first heard about the as-yet-unnamed league. I wrote something here titled “A League of Their Own” in which I kind of questioned the whole idea of trying to segregate out poker’s elite to compete exclusively against each other.

I also made a hardly unique comment in that post about the practicality of what the FS+G folks were then describing with regard to the big overlays and $1 million freeroll. “Am wondering a little about the money,” I said, “the securing of which will obviously prove crucial to the league’s survival.”

Yeah, I know. Obvious point is obvious.

The idea of a pro poker league still isn’t necessarily a bad one. Kim over at Infinite Edge has offered what seems to me a smart commentary on how the idea behind the EPL to try to create a professional poker league was in fact a good one -- even “noble” (as he says). But as Kim explains, in this case there existed from the start a disconnect between the theory and the execution.

Rather than create a sports-like league in which players took pride in competing against the best players in the game, the league ended up being all about trying to woo members of a select group into accepting what appeared an opportunity to profit financially (a +EV opportunity). Thus came the big overlays, the $1 million freeroll, and the big buy-ins, too, which would guarantee large prizes to those who succeeded -- all there because it was thought no one would play without such incentives to do so.

Kim suggests how a league might’ve been created with smaller cash prizes, say, with $100K freerolls (no buy-ins) in which the point wasn’t to make a big cash score but to pit the “best against the best... for undisputable honor and a high standing within the poker community.” That is, to play more for the glory, and not so much for the money.

That might not have worked either, of course. Money is, after all, a crucial element to poker -- the game is meaningless without it, some say -- and so it is hard to imagine creating a professional poker league in which money’s significance is somehow diminished (or made meaningless) while still remaining the same game.

So that might’ve struggled or failed, too. But as Kim suggests, it would’ve stayed true to the league’s idea.

Also, it wouldn’t have cost as much.

Crashing the Free Games

You might have heard something about two weeks ago about how the Las Vegas-based South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa had started an online poker site where they planned -- among other offerings -- to run some freeroll qualifiers to next year’s World Series of Poker Main Event.

I looked into the site a little last week prior to its official launch yesterday. It’s actually on that same Zen Entertainment Network on which one finds Rise Poker, UFC Poker, WWE Poker, the National League of Poker (NLOP), and others. That meant that since I already signed up for a Rise account before, I didn’t need to again in order to log into the South Point Poker software.

All of these sites not only share player bases but the same software, too, so I really didn’t need to download the South Point Poker client at all as the only difference between it and Rise was “SP” on the backs of the cards. But I did, anyway.

Last night I noticed some tweets about South Point Poker finally going live and that first WSOP ME satellite freeroll happening, and so I ended up registering and playing. Was kind of fun for a while, then more than a little frustrating. But the frustration part was mostly on my end (I explain below).

I’d played a little on the Rise Poker site before. Also earlier in the evening, before the tourney started, I messed around on the South Point version, too. I chatted with players to discover they were logged in via Rise. So I was already somewhat familiar with where things were.

Those of you who’ve taken a look at the Rise site know that it’s not the greatest interface, especially when compared to what a lot of us are used to. But it is somewhat manageable. The ads around the sides of the table aren’t really that distracting to me, nor are the commercials they run during breaks. (Sucker does seem to use a lot of computing power, though, when compared to the PokerStars client or others.)

The slider for betting is a little awkward to use, and it is actually hard sometimes to tell how much others have bet. Particularly for the player sitting in the seat on the left side of the table, near the “Rise” logo (which appears even with the South Point client).

For instance, here’s a shot of a bet in which the total was obscured by the logo. You can kind of count the chips here, but there was one hand later on last night when this design flaw posed a genuine problem for me.

I had opened with a raise from middle position and it had folded back to a relative short stack in the big blind who like this guy reraised all in, and I could not tell how much his bet was for. The total pot amount is displayed at the top of the table, so I guess I could have done some math to figure out the total of the shove, but I didn’t and just ended up letting the hand go.

Speaking of this whole freerollin’-ZEN experience, I mentioned a few months back that I knew someone who had a lot of fun playing on the NLOP site. She’d won a couple of tourneys and had checks for $10 or $20 mailed to her, which added to her enjoyment. I could see perhaps spending more time on the network and exploring a bit more, especially if the software were more palatable.

This is making me think a bit of the posts Kim of Infinite Edge Gaming is currently working on regarding the “de-gamification of poker.” I was reading through his latest installment in the series last night prior to playing in the South Point Poker tourney, including looking at the very cool and informative presentation by Sebastian Deterding called “Pawned. Gamification and Its Discontents” which Kim recommends along the way.

I don’t want to sidetrack this post too greatly, so I am not going to get into everything Kim is talking about. Also, I am still pondering Kim’s observations about the way those who have run online poker over the last decade gradually managed to take the “game” out of the game and make it something else. (Read his posts -- Part 1 and Part 2 -- and maybe that last sentence will make more sense.)

But I did want to note that I think Kim is onto something... both in his analysis of what has happened in the past with online poker and his ideas regarding what should happen in the future when the whole industry is remade here in the United States. As Kim notes, the game has to be fun, despite the fact that more than 90% of those playing aren’t going to be consistent “winners.”

Which brings me back to last night’s tournament. Like I said, it was free to play. Or actually, it “cost” 500 pts. to play, but you get 1,500 or something just for signing up. (And it isn’t hard to win more points, if you need them.)

And there was a real prize there at the end, an expense-paid trip out to Vegas next month to play a live one-table satellite the winner of which gets a seat in the 2012 WSOP ME. By the way, the freerolls are continuing nightly all week -- click here for more details.

Also, folks finishing in the top 120 or so did win points that can be used in other tourneys and sit-n-gos on the network. I’ve played a few of those before. There are a number of free events one can play, but more that “cost” points with prizes consisting of either more points or even actual cash. And, of course, if you get the $20/month thing you are allowed to play even more events with real money prizes. (Upgrading like that also allows you to change your avatar and do other stuff, too, I believe.)

The tourney had a fast structure and we only began with 1,000 chips, so as might be expected it was super-gambly early on. Took me a while to realize play was eight-handed, not nine. I hit a couple of hands during the first few orbits, then kept chipping up before winning a big one. I’d opened with and had a couple of callers, then the big blind reraised small and we all called. The flop brought three diamonds and all three of the others were happy enough to put their stacks in with me. My hand held, and just like that I was first with 800 players left.

I was either first or second over the next hour or so as the field got trimmed down to less than 200. Then I finally fell back a little to the bottom of the top 20. That’s when my computer -- a desktop PC running Windows Vista -- shut down unexpectedly on me.

I say “unexpectedly” because there is no warning beforehand the shut down is going to occur, but I have experienced the problem occasionally in the past. I am pretty sure it is a driver-related issue -- in fact, I think it began not long after I bought a new keyboard some months ago. Could also be a temperature thing, but I’m not really sure. (That will be one of the puzzles I try to solve today.)

In any case, I rebooted and rejoined the game, played a few hands, and had another shut down. Went through the same sequence and by the time I was logged back in I found I was 33/74. It happened a couple more times, though, and so eventually I fired up another desktop we have, installed the client, and got back in just in time to play two more hands with what had become a less-than-3BB stack. Finished 31st, for which I won a few thousand more points with which to play other tourneys and sit-n-gos.

Setting aside my computer troubles, the tourney was fun enough, especially for that short stretch where it looked like I might actually be positioned to make a run at winning the thing. Might have to take another shot in one of these WSOP ME sattys. And like I say I think I am reasonably intrigued enough to try to negotiate that schedule of tourneys and sit-n-gos to see what else might be on offer.

Would love to be able to play on my Mac laptop, though. That thing always works.

(EDIT [added 10/25/11]: Feel obligated to add a note here regarding those crashes I experienced while playing at South Point Poker. I’ve noticed others referring to the Zen Entertainment client using a ton of computing power, with some also reporting encountering the dreaded “blue screen of death” while playing. While I have no idea whether my problems were entirely related to running the SPP program, I eventually had to replace my hard disk as I could no longer run anything without the crashes occurring. I may have just had a hard drive go bad on me, but I am now somewhat reluctant to load the Zen program back onto my newly installed hard disk.)

To Bot or Not to Bot

You might’ve noticed something this week about a brouhaha having cropped up involving the William Hill poker site, one of the skins on the iPoker network. Did you hear about that? ’Bout bots?

Checking over at PokerScout, iPoker is currently challenging PartyPoker for second in terms of online poker traffic worldwide, though both remain well behind PokerStars. (Like PokerStars and Party, the iPoker sites don’t allow U.S. players.)

From what I’ve gathered, the fuss appears to have begun following a weird exchange between a player and customer support at William Hill, an exchange that led the player to believe the site not only allows “bots” -- i.e., the running of software programs that can play the games without further human input -- but in fact that the site used bots themselves sort of like “prop” players to help get games going and fill empty seats.

It appears the support person was well off the mark here, although could be partly forgiven since the William Hill Casino site does in fact apparently reserve the right to employ “bots” in some of its other games. In fact, the terms and conditions over on the WillIam Hill Casino site explicitly state how “in games offered via the Website which benefit from more players or greater liquidity we may deploy electronic players (known as robots, and whose usernames will be ‘bot’) who are pre programmed to play and join in with the game in order to assist the liquidity or the number of players gaming.” Meanwhile, over in the poker TOC, “the use of automated players (sometimes known as ‘bots')” is expressly forbidden.

Having read the statement in the Casino TOC, a player who thought it might have applied to the poker games asked about it, and it sounds like the not-too-well-informed support person mistakenly confirmed that the site was in fact filling out seats in the poker games with its own bots.

The story blew up surprisingly quickly, with many rushing in to damn the site, the iPoker network, and online poker, generally speaking. Eventually iPoker responded with a statement clarifying the matter, although some continue to harbor doubts about the existence of actual bots (not “in-house” ones) on the site.

Had a couple of thoughts about all of this as I read about the controversy. One was to note how so many immediately assumed that an online poker site was in fact using its own bots. Then, when some of the accounts with “bot” in their usernames were scrutinized and it was discovered some among them were winning players, that fueled even more outrage. Not only was the site using bots, said some, but beating its customers with them, too!

Assuming that it really was all just a misunderstanding -- and setting aside the possibility that there really are some folks getting away with using bots on the site -- it definitely says something about our collective experience with online poker over the last decade or so when such a possibility can be so readily believed by so many.

We’ve been screwed in every way imaginable so far, think many (understandably). Why not this way, too?

The other thought I had kind of anticipated a question I saw @InfiniteEdgeKim ask on Twitter earlier today: “What's so bad about bots in online poker?”

To be more precise (and honest), my earlier thought was to think about the idea of having “prop” players, and wonder whether or not it would really matter in the online environment if those props were bots rather than humans. It didn’t take long for me to decide it would be quite wrong for a site to do so. Players are already forced to trust sites aren’t “rigged” in other ways; having non-human props at the table would only cram a further wedge of doubt into the proceedings.

In response to Kim’s question, I chimed in to point out that online poker was already less than 100% human interaction, with the introduction of bots only lessening the human element even further. Thus, a person’s answer to the question would probably be swayed by how important the human element is to him or her.

To me, the human element is quite important, though I have to admit not so essential that I cannot enjoy the mediated type of interaction the online game allows. Still, I know I don’t want to play against bots. Not for real money, anyway.

Still following the Twitter conversation Kim began. Hoping perhaps a post comes out of it over on Infinite Edge. (EDIT [added 10/10/11]: Kim did write an interesting post on the subject, collecting a lot of what was said in the Twitter conversation and presenting his own argument that there may well be some instances where bots might have a place in online poker.)

Meanwhile, what do you think about playing against bots?

And please, no automated spam replies.

2011 WSOP, Day 48: Access

A wild one yesterday at Day 6 of the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event. Field shrunk from 142 to just 57 over the course of four two-hour levels, which I think will possibly mean a shorter day today as the schedule calls for the tournament to be stopped once they get down to 27.

We were all having to fire off posts at a rapid clip, especially early in the day as eliminations were happening very quickly. Whenever a table broke, the Rio maintenance crew would literally break it down just moments later, disassembling it and removing it from the Amazon room. I’ve seen this process a few times now, of course, but my colleague Josh -- on his first tour of duty at the WSOP -- kept marveling at how “surreal” it seemed as the tables were removed and the room emptied out.

Was kind of curious how they would take tables out, but not spread out the remaining ones as we went, meaning the total space in which they played was getting smaller and smaller. Meanwhile, the number of media covering the action was increasing, and so by the end of the third level of the night it was getting especially crowded inside the rail. The group shooting footage for ESPN (Poker PROductions) is also quite large, meaning the available space was becoming ever more limited.

Whenever I went inside the ropes, my strategy was to find an empty spot near a table where we didn’t have anyone situated, then wait for a possible hand to develop. That is, rather than roam about as I’d normally would, I stayed put while keeping a watchful eye out for the rushing over of cameramen.

All of which added up to a somewhat stressful atmosphere, although I think most folks handled it well enough. A couple of the players became impatient with the frequent delays caused by the setting up of cameras and so forth. And one -- the pink-haired Guillaume Delacourt -- outright refused at one point to show his hole cards to the portable camcorder, which led to a confrontation and threat regarding penalties. Here’s Eric Ramsey’s post from last night about that incident, which actually brings up Rule No. 24 of the WSOP’s Official Tournament Rules.

Of course, some players couldn’t have seemed more relaxed with all of the chaos circling about them. Bryan Devonshire was one of the calm ones, and everyone -- staff, media, and players alike -- marveled at his gravity-defying chip architecture that he would rapidly build shortly after being moved to a new table. (Click the pic for a better view.)

Once I got back to the home-away-from-home I was able to tune into ESPN2 and watch some of the coverage that was being shown on a delay. To evoke Josh’s word, that, to me, was a little “surreal,” having just been wandering around those tables a moment before.

Incidentally, I’ve been standing nearby several times when those segments with Kara Scott that you see interspersed into the programming are shot, and I’ve yet to see her require a second take. Nor does she read from a teleprompter. I really don’t know if those are being done “live” or what -- since the entire show is on a delay, I’m assuming they can redo them -- but it is kind of amazing to see her standing in the middle of the craziness and performing so well. Kind of like Devonshire and most of the players, I suppose.

Anyhow, I understand F-Train’s criticisms of the show being less than enthralling. (See his “WSOP Live on ESPN2 Doesn’t Deliver.”) I also like what Kim (of Infinite Edge) has to say about the decision to show just a couple of tables rather than try to give a better sense of what is going on elsewhere in the tournament. (See his post, “One Man’s Thoughts on How to Improve the WSOP.”) Especially with just seven or eight tables, it would be helpful for them once in a while at least to stop by each of the outer tables and give a heads-up on what is happening.

Then again, as I already mentioned, the space is tight in there. And there are probably other logistical reasons that would make looking in too regularly (or too intrusively) on the other tables difficult to pull off. Of course, it won’t be long -- i.e., tomorrow -- until they’re down to three and then two tables, so the coverage will essentially be comprehensive from that point, I imagine.

One sort of irony -- while everyone else in the world gets to see what is happening (on a delay) in great detail on those feature tables, it isn’t so easy for the reporters to catch the action, particularly from the secondary feature table, where everything must be viewed from 20-plus feet away. I imagine the set-up will change on Day 8 (at least I hope it does).

Anyhow, if you’re curious, do check the ESPN2 schedule to see what hours they’ll be on. And I guess there’s some stuff on ESPN3, though again it seems that most folks with whom I talk about that online-only service aren’t able to see that.

Yet another issue of access.