Fading Rich

I’m a little bit in awe of my friend and colleague Rich Ryan for having the cojones to make and publicize his “10 Poker Predictions” at the start of each year over at PokerNews.

His list for 2014 includes a few provocative prognostications. He thinks four Russians will win WSOP bracelets this year, for example, which seems like a total that would be over the betting line.

Rich did correctly call for the Canadians to break through in 2013, however, boldly guessing they’d get at least eight WSOP wins (they won 10, plus two more by Daniel Negreanu at the WSOP APAC and WSOPE). In fact Rich somehow got eight of his 10 predictions for 2013 correct, which seems way over the line I would’ve set for correct picks in his list a year ago.

One other prediction Rich offers for 2014 is to say that “a ‘well-known’ pro will win the WSOP Main Event.” He then usefully narrows the definition of “a ‘well-known pro” down to just the top 100 players in the current Global Poker Index plus the top 50 players on the all-time money list, guessing that with overlap he’s probably narrowed himself down to about 125 players altogether.

I think I’ll take the field versus Rich on this one.

Looking back at the GPI rankings as of July 1, 2013, not one of the eventual November Nine from last year’s Main Event was anywhere near the top 100 on the list. The only one of the group who even appeared in the Top 300 at that time was Amir Lehavot in 273rd.

Meanwhile, I believe J.C. Tran was already inside the top 50 on the All-Time Money List for tourney earnings when he made last year’s Main Event final table, sitting just inside the top 40 before snaring another $2.1 million-plus for his fifth-place finish. But none of the other ME final tablists was close.

To be fair to Rich, he does classify this prediction as a “shot” and indeed I think it is probably more than 10-to-1 against he gets it right. Being less ballsy than he, though, I’ll go out on a short limb and make one prediction for 2014 here that he misses this one.

Travel Report: WPT Alpha8 Florida, Day 2 -- Florida Finale

The second and last day of the $100,000 buy-in World Poker Tour Alpha8 Florida event played out in relatively rapid fashion, with play starting a little after noon yesterday and wrapping up around 11 p.m. or thereabouts. Steven Silverman ended up winning the sucker, outlasting current WSOP Main Event chip leader J.C. Tran to take the title after a brief heads-up battle.

That up above is a shot Joe Giron took yesterday for the WPT from up in the bleachers looking down on the playing area I was describing before. Kind of an uncanny-looking scene from that vantage point.

Josh and I arrived and set up late morning, then mostly were behind the laptops entering hands, our day broken up a couple of times by breaks. One came early on after Bill Perkins busted in ninth, at which point the crew took some time setting up to shoot the official eight-handed final table. Then another short dinner break came later after start-of-day leader Matt Glantz busted in fourth for a “min-cash” of $243,180.

During that first break Josh and I took a walk around the Seminole Hard Rock property, taking a look at the modest water fountain show play out (kind of a mini-version of the Bellagio’s) while noting the small lizards positioned in the greenery around the water’s perimeter. With temps in the 80s it’s definitely a pleasant time to be in south Florida, and I can imagine a trip to the Seminole might offer a lot to entertain visitors with its sights, shopping, shows, and of course, the casino.

Following that second break for dinner Jeff Gross went out in third for a $364,770 cash. Silverman led Tran slightly to start heads-up play, and Tran even grabbed an early lead before Silverman earned a big double-up and then finished off Tran shortly thereafter. Tran took away $526,890 while “Zugwat” won $891,660. (Hell of a year playing out for Tran, eh?)

Silverman also won a huge trophy shaped as the number “8” -- not sure what it is made of, but it looks silver, man.

None of the four cashers had re-entered the event, and none of the three players who bought in twice cashed. Isaac Haxton was one of those who’d fired twice, and he unfortunately finished fifth after leading with five to go then experiencing some misfortune to fall on the bubble.

As I was saying earlier in the week, more Alpha8 events are certainly in the works, so it’ll be curious to see how this “super high roller” tour fares and whether it ultimately manages to attract the participation of those who regularly play the six-figure events elsewhere during the year.

After all was done and the final interviews were shot, the whole “WPT family” assembled around the table for a final group picture and before too long we were packing up and heading back to the hotel. Got a reasonable night’s sleep, then this morning was able to meet an old student of mine who lives in the area and had contacted me not long ago. Kind of a highlight of the trip to reunite and catch up with him.

Overall it was a fun few days and I got a kick out of getting to know some of the WPT folks and seeing how a yet another group -- an especially well-seasoned and talented one in this case -- puts on and covers a poker tourney.

Looking forward now to getting home and resting up today and tomorrow before flying to Spain on Friday where I’ll again see a lot of the players and other media folks who were here in Florida this week. I guess this was sort of an end-of-summer bash for a lot of folks, with “school” (or the regular curriculum) about to be back in session starting with the always popular EPT Barcelona stop.

Then again, to paraphrase that Emerson, Lake and Palmer quote on the wall at the Seminole Hard Rock, the traveling circus that is the professional poker tourney circuit is kind of the show that never ends.

2013 WSOP, Day 48: The Last 633 Hands of the Summer

It’s over. The last hands of the summer have been played. Just nine players remain of the 6,352 who started the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event, and now they’ll wait another four months to play again.

There were a number of instances during yesterday’s Day 7 of the Main Event that I found myself thinking back to last year and making comparisons, with the memories probably being most vivid near the very end of the night once the field had been whittled down to 10 players and they’d reassembled around the not-quite-final final table to play down to nine.

Before that, I’d thought of how many of those who led with 27 players left last year weren’t able to survive to the end of the day. As I mentioned yesterday, just two of the top nine in the counts were still in the tournament at night’s end of Day 7 last year.

This time, just three of the top nine made it -- J.C. Tran (started fourth, ended first), Jay Farber (started eighth, ended fourth), Sylvain Loosli (started second, ended sixth). Meanwhile, David Benefield began yesterday 27th of 27 players, and he’s still in the tourney in ninth position.

The precipitous drop of Anton Morgenstern from the big start-of-day chip lead to a 20th-place finish reminded me of what happened with Daniel Strelitz last year who began second in chips and went out quickly in 24th. I was assigned to the secondary feature table yesterday and since Morgenstern was on the main feature table I didn’t really follow his day very closely, although looking back it appears two big hands versus Mark Newhouse led most directly to his fall.

One was a big preflop all-in versus Newhouse in which the latter had A-Q and Morgenstern pocket eights (Feature Table, Hand #81). Then just a little over an orbit later Newhouse doubled again through Morgenstern after flopping deuces full on an A-A-2 board while the German held an ace for trips, and they got it all in on the turn and Newhouse’s hand held (Feature Table, Hand #90).

Actually that latter hand was kind of like the one that saw Greg Merson knock out 2012’s start-of-day-7 leader Marc-Andre Ladouceur in 13th place, with Merson flopping an underfull while Ladouceur had trips, although in that hand all of the chips were in before the flop.

Once they’d gotten to 10 players thoughts went back to last year’s crazily dramatic finish that saw the two remaining women -- Elisabeth Hille and Gaelle Baumann -- go out in 11th and then 10th, respectively. This time it was Carlos Mortensen kind of surprisingly slipping during 10-handed play to become the short stack, then getting bounced by Tran.

Last year they played 15 hands once they’d gotten to the 10-handed table; this year they played 21. That picture above is one I snapped during that stretch (click it to enlarge).

Like in 2012, many were disappointed by the finish. The story of a former champion getting back to a final table would have obviously been a good one going forward (Mortensen won the Main Event in 2001). But I think that disappointment was mitigated somewhat by the fact that so many strong, well known players did make it -- with leader Tran the foremost among them -- and folks are already looking forward a little more to the finish this year than was the case last July.

Tran has won two bracelets before at the WSOP, and back in 2008 I happened to have covered his first win for PokerNews in a $1,500 NLHE event. Looking back at that coverage I’m recalling how we did hand-for-hand reporting from the final table, which is something PN brought back again this summer for the NLHE and PLO events.

Yesterday we actually did hand-for-hand throughout the day as the tourney played down from 27 to nine, and adding up the tally it looks like we reported on 633 hands of poker all told. Was very interesting to notice how the secondary table was moving so much slower than the other two from the start. In fact, we only saw 30 hands during the first two-hour level at the secondary table, while there were 48 played at the main feature table and 55 at the outer one.

Things picked up a little at the secondary table thereafter, but the rate of hands per level continued to lag behind. The slower pace at the features tables in part was due to ESPN’s shooting them more intensely than the outer one, but the players were really the main factor at the secondary table as several of them took a lot of time to make decisions at all stages of hands played there.

I liked how the coverage played out yesterday and hope it was interesting to follow for those with an interest in doing so. I have a few more thoughts to share about Day 7 and about these last four weeks, but I’ll save those for a postlude tomorrow as I need to start packing and ready to fly home today. I will say, though, that working with the PokerNews folks was again a rewarding experience, with the teamwork and mutual support from everyone involved making these 15-hour days or whatever they add up to be much less arduous and more fun than one might expect.

The Main Event isn’t over, but the story of the summer nonetheless ended with an exciting final chapter yesterday. Let me fly another 1,900 miles and think another 24 hours, and we’ll see what more I can say about that story tomorrow.

2013 WSOP, Day 47: The November Nine Is Nigh

Another intense day yesterday at the 2013 World Series of Poker Main Event as the field quickly reduced from 68 starters to just 27 in four two-hour levels. In fact, play proceeded so quickly that the decision was made to stop a level early last night rather than play out the scheduled five.

The last four eliminations came within the space of just a few minutes right at the end of Level 29 last night, and in fact if they had not gotten to 27 by the end of that level, I think play might not have been stopped.

But 27 becomes a convenient point to pause proceedings because there is a scheduled redraw to place players in seats around the last three tables. And as I mentioned yesterday, ever since 2008 they’ve been playing down from 27 to the final nine on the last day of the summer, so it kind of follows tradition to do so again. (EDIT [11:30 a.m.]: Jess Welman reminds me that once a couple of years ago they did return for the final day of the summer with 23 left.)

One of those four last-minute eliminations provided what was the most dramatic hand I watched yesterday, the one that saw Sylvain Loosli eliminate Danard Petit in 30th place. Here’s the hand report, which describes how the pair got all of Petit’s chips in on the turn with Petit holding an overpair with his pocket aces and Loosli having a lesser pair of jacks and an inside straight draw with his Q-J.

Even before the river card came, several who were watching were remembering to each other the Matt Affleck-Jonathan Duhamel hand from 2010 in which Duhamel busted Affleck in 15th by filling a straight on the river to crack Affleck’s aces. Sure enough, that’s what happened in the Loosli-Petit hand, and while I resisted making any puns on Loosli’s name, I did allude to the Duhamel-Affleck hand in the write-up.

Last year there were 246 more players playing the Main Event and so an extra 7.38 million chips in play, and with the same structure in place they made it about halfway through Level 34 before Gaelle Baumann was eliminated in 10th place and play ended. Play will begin at the start of Level 30 tonight.

The current chip leader, Anton Morgenstern, accumulated a ton of chips during the last couple of levels yesterday and seems one obvious choice among the final 27 to make the final table. That said, last year neither the chip leader going into Day 7 (Marc-Andre Ladouceur) nor the player in second position (Daniel Strelitz) made the final nine. In fact, only two of the top nine going into the last day of play made it, with Steve Gee coming all of the way back from 22nd of 27 to get there.

Somewhat amazingly, Gee is back again to play Day 7 this year, in 23rd place this time with 27 left, and so provides a primary storyline for today. J.C. Tran returns to a big stack, and will surely get a lot of attention. So will Carlos Mortensen, who likewise has above average chips and looks to earn a second WSOP Main Event title after having won back in 2001.

I’m not going to try to predict how long the day will go, although I keep remembering how many times in the past we’ve begun a Day 7 thinking it would last until dawn and we end up finishing around midnight. Stacks are deep, but the blinds and antes will get big fast today and I think some players find playing so many long days of poker in a row to be fatiguing enough to encourage them to play faster here at the end.

We’ll see. Follow along at PokerNews to find out how it all goes.

2010 WSOP, Day 27: Boom Boom (Out Go the Lights)

Was reporting on the last day of Event No. 39, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout yesterday. Actually the event had turned into something other than a “shootout” since 14 players had made it through the first two rounds, so we were basically looking at a 14-person sit-n-go, eventually won by Steven Kelly around 2 a.m. this morning.

Event No. 39 was attracting a bit of attention during the first part of the day yesterday since both J.C. Tran and Annette Obrestad were part of the final day field. But both went out early -- boom, boom -- shy of the final table, and thus a lot of the potential drama for the event was eliminated with them.

Tran ran into some hard luck during the first couple of levels and went out in 13th. Meanwhile, Obrestad had the chip lead briefly early on, but doubled up a short stack twice in short succession, thereby becoming a short stack herself.

Then came a hand in which Derric Haynie opened from the button, Obrestad reraised all in from the small blind, then Michael Pesek reshoved from the big blind. Haynie thought a bit, then called (having both covered), turning over pocket tens. Pesek had , and Obrestad was in a tough spot with . “Sevens!” was the yell from the rail, but none came and Haynie scored a double-knockout when his tens held.

We then scurried over to the main stage, where the remaining nine were quickly in their seats and awaiting a restart. As I got over there and began to set up, I heard the players laughing about something one of them had said a little while earlier. Soon I realized they were referring to a post I had written in which I’d reported some humorous table talk.

Michael Cooper, who ultimately finished eighth, had said something funny after surviving an all-in situation versus Dustin Dirksen, and I think Dirksen had read the post on his iPhone and shared it with the table. Here’s that post, if you are curious.

Last summer I wrote more than once about the whole Twitter-texting phenomenon in a post called “Land of a 1000 Reporters.” There I was remarking on how others -- namely the players themselves -- were also “reporting” on the event. Of course, once a tournament reaches the money players are made to put away those electronic devices, although they can pull them out during breaks and write or read to their heart’s content.

This was something a little different, though -- players reading and responding to what I had reported. Kind of uncanny, actually, to have the players on whom one is reporting almost immediately aware of what one writes about them. A little later in the evening we had a couple of final table spectators -- including the Hinkle brothers (Grant and Blair) -- let us know they were reading our reports, too.

Last summer I concluded that I didn’t mind all the Tweeting so much, regarding it more as a complement to the coverage we were trying to provide rather than competition. Feel the same way this year about it, and I also don’t mind so much that the players are themselves following the coverage as the tourney goes.

It is a little weird to think about, though. Compare any other sporting event and try to imagine those competing also directly interacting with the reporting on their event as it goes.

Our tourney eventually ended about 2 a.m., and as we were putting up the last post of the night the power unexpectedly went out in the Amazon Room. We heard it went out all over the Rio, and perhaps elsewhere on the strip, although those reports could have been exaggerated, I think.

Was a weird scene, having been suddenly plunged into total darkness. Not to mention a brief moment of total silence as the hum of all the machines had abruptly stopped. The quiet didn’t last long, however, as a loud roar soon went up, with someone loudly pleading “Cover your chips!” over the top.

About 15 seconds later some lights had come back on, and within about five minutes order seemed mostly restored, although for the tourneys still going they had to go on an unscheduled break to set things completely aright. That picture to the left is of WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla and Bluff Magazine’s Jessica Welman with our event’s winner, Kelly, just after the brief blackout. Their interviewing of Kelly had been interrupted momentarily, and there they are trying to get back on track.

Luckily for us, we were done already so I got back to the hotel in time to spend one last night with Vera before taking her to the airport this morning. Tough stuff, this being apart, and as I mentioned last week this will probably be the last summer I spend entirely out here in Vegas. More likely in the future I look for a way just to come for a couple of weeks, perhaps for the Main Event only.

No time off for your humble gumshoe, as I’m back in the Rio again today to help with another event, Event No. 44, the $2,500 Mixed Limit/No-Limit Hold’em event. Join the players and people on the rail and follow the coverage yourselves over at PokerNews.