Judgment Calls

Been watching the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event coverage on ESPN again which finally got going a week-and-a-half ago. There have been four episodes thus far, picking up the action on Day 4 (post-bubble) and now already around halfway through Day 5 with just 140 players left.

This week’s episodes featured a ton of table talk, thanks largely to Alex Keating being on the feature table where he was engaging everyone fairly constantly, and William Kassouf drawing the cameras’ attention at other tables.

A bit of buzz this week over Kassouf’s performance, in particular in a couple of hands with Stacy Matuson. Both involved Kassouf pushing all in and putting Matuson to a test for the rest of her stack, and in both cases -- after an avalanche of disorienting chatter from Kassouf -- she folded (once correctly, once after being bluffed).

I remember when these hands happened back in July, in particular the one following which Kassouf was actually given a one-round penalty by WSOP tournament director Jack Effel for “taunting” (as Effel described it).

Following it online at the time over Twitter and then via the hand report on WSOP.com, an admittedly partial view of the affair. Seemed perhaps as though Kassouf must have crossed some not-so-obvious line somewhere with his behavior, but it was hard to say.

The way things were shown on ESPN revealed more of the interaction, but it remains incomplete evidence for those of us who weren’t there. Indeed, even the two hands featured between Kassouf and Matuson are only partially shown, with the action only being picked up postflop when the “speech play” (as Kassouf refers to his table table) began in earnest.

It’s interesting following some of the belated back-and-forthing about it happening thanks to the ESPN coverage finally being shown (here, some two months later). Deservedly or not, Kassouf is clearly being set up to fill the “villain” role for ESPN right through to the final table which starts in late October.

Hard for me to make any profound judgments about those Kassouf-Matuson hands, though, or about how the WSOP staff chose to respond to them. From afar I want to say everything we witnessed is “part of the game” and shouldn’t be proscribed, but who knows, really? Just too much we can’t see or be sure about here -- including a lot of obviously relevant context -- although that doesn’t make the speculating any less interesting.

Kind of like how poker works -- we know what we can see, and have to guess about a lot else.

Caesars’ Swoon and the WSOP

Noticed earlier this week that Twitter-related flare-up that saw poker pro Matt Glantz tweet a list of suggestions for improving the World Series of Poker, and the initial response from WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel less than half an hour later to block Glantz. (He’s since been unblocked, Glantz reports.)

Was kind of hilarious to see that playing out on the timeline Monday afternoon in between my reporting on the penultimate day of poker in Peru. Of course, those of us who have followed the WSOP’s various accounts on Twitter have gotten used to this sort of behavior. I’m talking about these seemingly hostile responses (or non-responses) to criticism or even just vague references that something is less than ideal.

Goes without saying this kind of thing doesn’t help at all when it comes to promoting the WSOP as a friendly brand. In fact it almost seems self-sabotaging in a way, although obviously not intentionally.

Was thinking again about this sort of digging-a-hole-even-deeper sort of dynamic yesterday when reading the news about Caesars’ stock falling so fast they had to stop trading for a short while.

Caesars Entertainment Co. has been trying to deal with a nearly $23 billion debt over the last many months. They restructured in the spring of 2014, splitting into three units and moving most of the debt over into one of them, Caesars Entertainment Operating Co. Then this past January the CEOC filed for bankruptcy, which then prompted a bunch of lawsuits from creditors angry about the restructuring and viewing the whole rigmarole as having been rigged to dodge billions’ worth of debt.

Caesars had tried to stop the creditors’ lawsuits from going forward, but a judge in June ruled against those efforts in one case, then another yesterday ruled in favor of the creditors in the others. That’s what spurred the sudden plunge in the CZR stock on NASDAQ, which hit a nadir at $3.30 per share, I believe, amid a crazy surge in trading (causing the brief halt during the afternoon).

If you bought a share of CZR back in late February 2014, it would have cost you almost $26. It closed today at $5.14 just a little while ago.

The WSOP and WSOP.com are not part of the embattled CEOC unit -- they belong to Caesars Interactive. That said, the news on Wednesday that the lawsuits can go forward means that the parent company might also be forced to declare bankruptcy. Which one assumes would ultimately affect the WSOP, perhaps sooner than later.

Gotta be a pressurized place to be right now, I imagine, so like the amiable Glantz I’m inclined to cut Effel and others doing what they can at the WSOP a little slack. Still, curious to see how Caesars can avoid continuing its downward spiral, and what might happen to the WSOP if it cannot.

Lehavot’s Leveraging

One of this year’s November Nine, Amir Lehavot (currently second in chips), yesterday announced that he was selling pieces of himself to interested buyers. He tweeted the news, linking to a Two Plus Two thread he’d begun outlining the details of his offer.

In the thread-starter Lehavot makes reference to past results (mostly online) and to the fact that going into the Main Event he had 80% of his action. Of that, he’s now offering up 30% (overall) while keeping 50%.

The price Lehavot is setting on shares he’s deriving from the value of his current stack as determined by the Independent Chip Model (ICM) such as is often used when negotiating final table chops. Subtracting the ninth-place money he and each of the other final tablists have already been given ($733,224) and then comparing his current stack to the remaining prize money still up for grabs, this makes his stack of 29.7 million chips “worth” $2,924,822 according to ICM.

Thus the price for 1% of Lehavot for potential buyers is $29,248, nearly three times the Main Event buy-in.

Lehavot will need to finish third or better in order for investors to make any profit at all. To finish third would mean earning a $3,727,023 payday for Lehavot. Take away the $733,224 he’s already gotten, that adds up to $2,993,799; thus, every 1% purchased for $29,248 would get back $29,938, or just a little less than $700.

If Lehavot finishes fourth, that will only yield $20,588 per 1% (a loss of more than $8K), and so on down to a ninth-place finish which would mean investors get zero return. If he finishes second, 1% would be worth $44,399 (about $15K profit), and if he wins, 1% would be worth $76,263 (about $47K).

From Lehavot’s perspective, if he were to sell all 30% he’s offering, that puts another $877,440 in his pocket before he plays a hand in November, which added to the ninth-place money is a little better than the total prize for finishing sixth.

While most responding in the thread are critical of the deal, a few are not. Meanwhile, responses to Lehavot’s original tweet are mostly characterizing it a less than attractive offer for buyers (“it’s only a good deal if your name is Amir Lehavot,” says one).

I think I belong to that latter, skeptical group when it comes to assessing the merits of Lehavot’s offer. But setting the actual deal aside, it seems to me that the whole idea of a November Niner selling pieces of himself at the delayed Main Event final table must be creating a headache for the WSOP.

The issue of deal making at the WSOP has always been complicated. Unlike on the European Poker Tour where everything is done out in the open -- such as was exemplified with a little bit of extra drama at the recent EPT Barcelona Main Event final table -- the WSOP doesn’t acknowledge or help broker deals. There have even been suggestions here and there that the WSOP doesn’t allow deals at all, although that isn’t really the case.

Back in 2010 in a $1,500 limit hold’em shootout event there was a notable instance of a player -- Yueqi Zhu -- being disqualified at the start of the tourney’s second round after having made a deal heads-up with his short-stacked opponent in the previous round to ensure he would advance. At the start of the next day Zhu was disqualified, with WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel at the time announcing “there is no deal making at the World Series of Poker.”

In truth, Zhu’s case wasn’t simply “deal making” but an instance of a player essentially giving up his chips to Zhu at the end of their match, an action considered as having violated the WSOP’s rule about “Ethical Play” which states “Poker is an individual game. Soft play will result in penalties that may include forfeiture of chips and/or disqualification. Chip dumping will result in disqualification.”

The WSOP has no specific rules (that I know of) forbidding final table deal making in the traditional sense, although like I say they don’t help players make the deals nor do they recognize them when it comes to payouts and tax documents. (Thus does Lehavot also add a note to his offer about needing SSNs from investors to handle potential tax issues later on.)

I have to guess the WSOP isn’t crazy about Lehavot selling shares of himself this way -- i.e., so publicly -- and thus foregrounding the whole idea of final table deal making. What would happen if all nine of the players were to make similar offers? What if they started buying pieces of each other? Or what if all nine arrived at a more traditional arrangement to flatten out the payouts prior to the start of play in November?

Four-plus months of down time obviously gives us lots of time to imagine such scenarios. Gives the players a lot of time to ponder them, too.

Entrants Lists and the WSOP

Unlike the last couple of years, this summer the World Series of Poker is not making available complete entrants lists for all events. Thus the website wsopdb.com -- not affiliated with the WSOP -- has not been adding any new information to its database that makes available individual players’ histories of participation at the Series (from 2011-2012) via simple name searches. (That to the left is a pic of the first part of one of last year’s entrants lists. Always wondered why those lists were missing a few letters, as though they came from a typewriter with a busted key or two.)

I’ve mentioned that wsopdb.com site here a couple of times before, most recently after last year’s Series in a post titled “ROI at the WSOP.” I’ve also written posts here before about the whole idea of tracking tournament participation and making it public along with results.

For example, in a post titled “For the Record (Thoughts on Tracking Tournament Winnings),” I made the (obvious) observation that sites like Hendon Mob only report cashes and not entries, thus perhaps giving the superficial impression that “everyone is winning and no one is losing.” But there I also pointed out how I understood some of the reasons why most players wouldn’t be very enthused by the idea of their full tournament participation being publicized for all to see.

I’d noticed the WSOP wasn’t providing the entrants lists this year, but was reminded of this fact yesterday while following a Twitter conversation about it begun by players who were seeking information about players’ participation in the 2013 WSOP on wsopdb.com and failing to find it.

I believe Josh Brikis kicked off the conversation by asking WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel if he “could get the wsopdb.com up and running” and Effel responding to say that this year the WSOP was not releasing the entrants lists (not that the WSOP had anything to do with the site, anyway). From there a few others joined in to talk about uses for the information, including Jonathan Aguiar who mentioned how helpful it was for staking arrangements, specifically as an assurance to those doing the staking that their horses had actually participated in certain events.

Jessica Welman, Managing Editor of the WSOP website, chimed in to confirm again to Aguiar and others that indeed, the WSOP had changed its policy this year with regard to the release of entrants lists, noting that “Customer privacy is a priority” and that “there are many ppl who don’t want their ROI out there for public consumption.”

I found the discussion diverting, noting how it appeared the stakers -- a small but significant subset of WSOP players -- seemed to be the ones most interested in having the entrants lists made public, while others (I assumed) probably weren’t so curious.

I thought about how from a tourney reporter’s perspective such lists can occasionally be helpful, although in truth they aren’t so necessary. At some of the WSOP Circuit stops this year, I did get a look at some entrants lists and seating assignments during Day 1 flights, mainly just to help locate notable players and perhaps help identify a few during the afternoon and evening. But at the WSOP it usually isn’t such a challenge to find and identify players even in the large field events, and so I can’t think of much reason why I’d need to see an entrants list in order to report on a specific event.

Of course, if I were wanting to write some sort of feature or study about a particular player’s Series, one that would include a rundown of his or her entries, having such lists would make the task a little easier. I could probably think of other kinds of reporting for which the lists might be of use, but as I say, from the live reporting perspective, they aren’t so vital.

I thought a little bit, too, about how besides wanting to protect players’ privacy, the WSOP likewise has a practical interest in not making such information public. I wrote in that earlier “For the Record” post about how the WSOP and other tours “would have little to gain, I would think, from showing all of its players (and the rest of the world) exactly how much they’ve lost over the course of their respective series.”

Kind of interesting to think about this whole issue of personal privacy amid the huge furor currently raging over the recent revelation that the National Security Agency (NSA) ordered Verizon to turn over all phone records of calls placed within the U.S. or originating in the U.S. to those abroad over a three-month period (starting in April and extending through July) -- a discovery which has led to increased speculation about the extent of other types of governmental surveillance and heated debates over privacy rights.

Obviously the WSOP can employ any policy it likes with regard to publicizing entrants lists. Somehow, though, it feels correct not to publish them, not so much from any particular policy standpoint, but as a practice that conforms somewhat with etiquette emanating from the game itself.

We can tell which players are winning by all of the chips sitting in front of them. Meanwhile, if we’re paying attention we also generally can identify who has been losing, but there’s often a tendency not to draw undue notice to such. That’s because everyone -- the winners and losers -- for various reasons understands there’s little (or no) benefit to be had from advertising the plight of the losing player.

Makes me think of a tweet sent out by Andy Bloch a few days back responding to one sent by WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky reporting that through the first 14 events “Players at the @WSOP have won $27,352,360 thus far, up from $19.99 million last year.”

While the comparison is a little off anyway thanks to the fact that the first 14 events from the two years aren’t really parallel to one another, Bloch came up with a different rejoinder:

“Players at the @WSOP have won $27M thus far, lost $30M, net -$3M.”

Coming Soon... the 2011 WSOP

Yesterday the World Series of Poker held its annual conference call for the media. That’s when folks like Seth Palansky (WSOP Communications Director), Jack Effel (WSOP Tournament Director), and Ty Stewart (WSOP Executive Director) share news and answer questions regarding the upcoming Series, now less than three weeks away.

I’ve participated in this call before, but was unable to this time as I was giving that final exam I wrote about yesterday. Got up to speed fairly quickly afterwards, though, thanks to Twitter and all of the usual suspects providing accounts of the main stories.

We learned that automatic shufflers would be used at the WSOP this summer (unlike in the past). Response seems generally positive to that innovation, from what I gather.

The WSOP has picked up a few new sponsors, including Miller Lite (replacing ghastly Milwaukee’s Beast). Dearfoams, makers of slippers, has (oddly) signed on, too, as a sponsor. Apparently all who play the Main Event will be given some slippers for entering, which guarantees everyone will start out being dealt a pair.

Thank you. I’m here all week.

There was some further talk of the expanded coverage (both online and on teevee) that was announced last week. The nomination process for the Poker Hall of Fame was brought up as well, with a few changes discussed, including the not-unexpected insitution of a new “Chip Reese Rule” making 40 a minimum-age requirement.

Skimming through the Q&A stuff, I see a question was asked about how “Black Friday” would affect this year’s WSOP and am not surprised by the “business as usual” response. There will be effects, though, most particularly if Full Tilt Poker fails to deliver players’ funds by June.

Talk of men playing in the Ladies Event resurfaced. (I covered the Ladies Event last summer, writing about the experience here.) TD Jack Effel noted that the WSOP had “no respect” for any man who enters, though conceded that from a legal standpoint the WSOP can’t do anything to stop men from doing so.

Sounds like there was also some discussion of that rule, listed in this year’s media guidelines, stating that “media shall not place themselves in the area of play at any poker table in excess of five (5) minutes per each half hour,” a rule that goes on to say media also need to move on if asked to do so by dealers, players, or staff.

At the time some fretted over this rule, as well as the one indicating that “credentialed media may not speak with or in any other way distract players during tournament action while they are seated at the table,” both of which were likely added in response to the incident late last summer involving the player Ali Tekintamgac conspiring with a faux-blogger to cheat at the Partouche Poker Tour Grand Finale. (For more on that incident, read here.)

Word yesterday was that yes, such guidelines will be enforced. I, for one, am not overly concerned about the restrictions, as I feel it is certainly possible to do the job of reporting without speaking directly to players (even if there are instances where it makes things a lot easier to do so). And really, it’s not often I need to be stationed at a table for more than five minutes at a time, either, although I think there the point is merely to prevent unreasonable “sweating” of players -- i.e., to keep the media from unduly affecting play, a concern which I’d hope everyone interested in the game’s integrity would share equally.

Speaking of media getting involved, a post-conference call brouhaha erupted over Twitter when another guideline regarding media was made public, an “unwritten rule” (said the person manning the @WSOP account) that credentialed media weren’t allowed to play in any bracelet events!

I follow quite a few folks who regularly report on the WSOP, many of whom also occasionally play in events, too. The news of this prohibition against playing was surprising. The reaction was not.

Like myself, many of those who got into writing about poker did so out of a love for the game. Just a couple of nights ago I got a big kick out of listening to Remko Rinkema (@happyfreaked) and Frank Op de Woerd (@webjoker), the two Dutch poker reporters alongside whom I’ve worked at past WSOPs, being interviewed over on QuadJacks. I enjoyed hearing them partly because they are a couple of funny guys, but also because they so obviously love poker (and covering it). Their enthusiasm when describing what was happening at EPT Madrid was infectious, and reminded me of some of the reasons why I’ve found myself writing so many words over the last few years about people playing cards.

Loving the game (like most of us do), it only follows that we want to play as well. Thus the negative response. Also, as writers we tend to value the written word, and perhaps that gave us another reason to object to this new “unwritten rule.”

To the WSOP’s credit, we were told a little later in the day that the rule was going to be revisited, with a suggestion that something would be done to allow credentialed media to enter events. In my mind, requiring such folks to leave their tags back at their hotel rooms and not do any reporting while playing in a given event would seem a reasonable enough request, but we’ll see what happens.

In any event, all of the WSOP buzz certainly got me thinking about the Series. My plan this summer will be a little different from the last few years. Rather than go out for the entire Series, I’ll be heading out about three weeks in this time, staying until the November Nine is decided on July 19th. That had actually been my plan prior to Black Friday, and I’m grateful the events of April 15th haven’t disrupted things too terribly.

Indeed, with all that has happened over the last month, I am probably even more curious than I would have been otherwise to see just how it all shakes out this summer.

On the 2009 WSOP Conference Call, the Hall, and All

Listened to that conference call earlier in the week for the World Series of Poker. That was Tuesday morning, with Jeffrey Pollack (WSOP Commish), Jack Effel (WSOP Tournament Director), Doug White (ESPN’s Senior Director of Programming), and Seth Palansky (WSOP Communications Director) all offering a few observations and announcements, then taking questions from reporters.

I have to say do very much like the WSOP’s efforts to communicate with players, the media, and fans like this. I know I’m critical every now & then of certain stuff that comes out of the WSOP’s brain trust (e.g., am still no fan of the delayed final table). But I do admire the effort and what seems to me to be a lot of sincere desire on the part of those running the show to build the WSOP and poker in constructive, profitable ways.

Can’t say there was too much in the way of “breaking news” in the call, especially if the listener had already leafed through the “Official Media Guide” that came out last week. Last year, of course, the news of the delayed Main Event final table and the whole “November Nine” thing had just broke a day or two before, so there was much discussion of that. There was also some real news in there, including word that the final tablists’ prize money would be placed in an interest-bearing account and thus would be increased between July and November.

Like I say, not too much of note, really, in this year’s call. Was kind of surprised at how few reporters seemed to be on the call asking questions, and very few (one?) from “mainstream” press (unlike last year). Those guys are fun, usually, mainly ’cause they are capable of firing the occasional clueless question (“Does the winner get all the money?”). But they also generally give us an indication of what non-pokery types are thinking about poker, and there wasn’t much of that this time around. I think there was one question at the end from the Chicago Sun-Times, but otherwise all came from poker people. (Not sure why that was.)

Also, there only seemed to be about five or six different reporters asking questions, meaning they had to keep cycling back and inviting the same ones to ask new questions. In fact, at the end of the call Pollack said the group could take one more question, but there were no more.

There was some discussion of the new plan for dealing with player conduct, with a tracking system allowing officials to keep up with the repeat offenders as well as some tough talk about penalties, etc. They discussed the planned schedule over on ESPN, who have decided to shun almost all of the preliminary bracelet events in favor of highlighting the Main Event all summer and fall. There was a question about Annie Duke and Celebrity Apprentice, with subsequent references to that show cropping up more often than I expected they would.

One interesting part of the call (to me) was the discussion of the new procedure being instituted this year for electing people to the Poker Hall of Fame, although that was probably because I hadn’t read those two pages that carefully in the Media Guide. Harrah’s is going to involve the public in the voting process this year, which seems to me like it will add some interest in the HOF. And perhaps create some controversies, too.

From May 26-July 2, people can go over to the World Series of Poker website and submit nominations along with 250-word-or-less testimonials. The top ten most frequently nominated folks will be announced some time during the Main Event in July, probably early on I’d imagine. Then in August the HOF committee (not quite sure who is on that) will review the list and decide if any other names need to be added.

In September, the living Hall of Famers -- there’s 16, says the Media Guide, although several people have noticed some errors throughout the sucker, so don’t quote me -- will get ballots and be asked to rank those nominees whom they feel are worth electing to the HOF. Those Hall of Famers will also be able to nominate folks for 2010, if they wish. Also voting on this year’s nominees will be a group of representatives of the poker media “not to exceed the number of HOF voting members” (i.e., not more than 16). The ballots will go back to the HOF committee, and it says “Any finalist receiving 75% or more of the votes” will be enshrined in a ceremony to take place during the November Nine weekend.

Reading this over again, I’m not really sure what the point is of “ranking” the nominees, if all the HOF committee will be looking at is whether or not the nominee got voted as worthy of induction or not. While the process has changed, the criteria hasn’t (I don’t think), with players qualifying for having played against top competition, having played for high stakes, having played consistently well and thus gaining peers’ respect, and standing “the test of time.” Non-players who have also contributed significantly “to the overall growth and success of the game of poker” can be selected, too.

I think it will be interesting to follow this process, especially once the nominees proposed by the public are announced in July. There will be some names in there that definitely belong, some that definitely don’t, and some for whom it will be harder to call. And it may happen that a large number are voted in -- more than the one or two that generally go in each year -- especially on this first pass with the new procedure.

To be honest, as I think about who should be considered no one really springs to mind. I would assume names like Ferguson, Harrington, Negreanu, and Ivey are gonna come up a lot over on the WSOP site when the public starts submitting nominations, but we’ll see how all that plays out.

Here’s a list of the 37 current HOFers:

Tom Abdo, Crandall Addington, Bobby Baldwin, Billy Baxter, Lyle Berman, Joe Bernstein, Benny Binion, Jack Binion, Bill Boyd, Doyle Brunson, T.J. Cloutier, Johnny Chan, Nick “the Greek” Dandalos, Barbara Enright, Fred “Sarge” Ferris, T. “Blondie” Forbes, Henry Green, Murph Harrold, Phil Hellmuth, James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok, Red Hodges, Edmond Hoyle, Berry Johnston, Jack Keller, Corky McCorquodale, Roger Moore, Johnny Moss, Henry Orenstein, Puggy Pearson, Julius Oral “Little Man” Popwell, “Amarillo Slim” Preston, David “Chip” Reese, Jack “Treetop” Straus, Dewey Tomko, Stu Ungar, Red Winn, Sid Wyman.

The Media Guide somehow leaves both Chan and Straus off of their list. Oh, and that “Sebastian Bilodeau” currently listed over on Wikipedia as a member of the HOF is a phantom, I think.

Who else belongs here, would ya say?