EPT12 Barcelona, Day 11: On the Air

Gonna deliver a short post today while I have a few moments. Afraid I’ve been struck down by the “blergy,” just a couple of days from the end of my long stint here in Barcelona. Sore throat, fever, sinus stuff -- it’s taken over.

Was starting to feel it coming on while playing the media event deep into the night on Thursday, then woke up yesterday knowing I wasn’t in great shape. Have secured some meds now and they’re helping a bit, but I’ll be glad to get out from under this soon.

Dinner last night began magnificently with a satifying goat cheese salad then limped to the finish with a crayfish platter which I hadn’t even ordered, but ended up picking through anyway. Smoke all around from neighboring tables didn’t help the throat situation, either.

I described it afterwards as being like getting pocket aces early on, then going frustratingly card dead for the remainder of the meal.

Shortly after getting back to the media room, I was invited to come on the EPT Live stream for a stint. Wasn’t exactly the ideal circumstances for my debut on the stream, as my voice was about an octave lower than normal and my pounding head creating a lot of static when it came to trying to think and talk at the same time.

Had a blast doing it, though, and was marveling the whole time at how the entire EPT Live operation is run. Such a complicated thing, all flowing along incredibly smoothly with a team of folks behind James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton (who were at the mics when I came on). Both of the pics come from Neil Stoddart of the PokerStars blog, shot earlier in the week.

They are down to penultimate days of both the Main Event and €10K High Roller, both of which have drawn enormous, record-setting fields. Check the PokerStars blog today for updates on it all, and watch EPT Live, too, to follow the Main Event as it plays down to a final table today.

EPT12 Barcelona, Day 10: Chipping Up

There were a ton of events going on at the Casino Barcelona yesterday, with the Main Event playing down from 343 players to just 110 and numerous side events going on as well.

The big €25K High Roller -- originally called a “Single Day” HR -- finally finished up on a second day of play with Martin Finger taking it down. That was the event in which Brazilian soccer star, member of FC Barcelona, and PokerStars SportStar Neymar Jr played (as did his teammate, Gerard Piqué).

I didn’t even write about that here, which was kind of a fun spectacle, really, especially when Neymar was chip leader in the tournament late in the afternoon on Day 1. You can find lots of articles about his appearance on the PokerStars blog. It’s one of those more-than-poker kind of stories, drawing a ton of attention to the EPT and poker, generally speaking, around the world.

The day ended with the media event which didn’t get started until close to 11 p.m., I think, which might have been part of the reason the turnout was on the small side. There were 21 entries (including reentries), and from that field I managed to make it all of the way to third, which meant a cash as the top four spots paid.

Played decently though made a couple of mistakes along the way, including perhaps waiting one hand too long before shoving a short stack at the end. Also was especially lucky to survive with pocket sixes versus pocket jacks during the second hour (echoing my “Getting It In Bad” post from a few days ago), which made everything after that a bonus. Had a couple of other key hands after that where I got it in with the best cards and the hands held, which was also fortunate.

Both James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton of EPT Live played. Hartigan delivered great commentary while playing at our table, especially during his bustout hand when after getting all in preflop he called the action after each postflop street -- Flop: “Not good.” Turn: “Still not good.” River: “Sh!t.”

It occurred to me along the way to tweet out updates to match the messages that fill my timeline every day. But as I have mentioned here before, I tend not to want to pull out my phone when I play, probably because I don’t play that frequently and so would rather just focus on enjoying the game as it is happening. I guess also I spend so much time reporting on poker tournaments, I like having a break from that as well.

I did snap a pic of my stack once, though (see above), when it was big enough to look like some sort of achievement.

Speaking of pictures, I realized as we got deeper that I was wanting to win not so much for the money but to get a winner’s photo taken by one of the guys here. I’d have gotten a big kick out of having Carlos Monti, with whom I work regularly on the LAPT, take such photo, and I think he would’ve, too. Or having Neil Stoddart (with whom I’ve worked on several events) or René Velli (whom I’ve gotten to know over the last couple of EPTs) snap the pic would’ve been a lot of fun as well. (For an example, see Lynn Gilmartin’s winner pic from a couple of days ago.)

I’ve written here before about how closely the bloggers and photographers work together, often collaborating when it comes to how the reporting gets done. I don’t just mean helping decide which stories get told as part of the overall chronicle of an event, but also helping come up with more imaginative or even abstract ways of communicating what is happening and giving audiences something interesting, informative, and entertaining, too.

Getting that far made my night a late one, and I didn’t get back to the room until around a quarter to three. Got decent rest, though, and so am ready to head back into the maelstrom today, again mostly to focus on the voluminous side action. Check that PokerStars blog for more.

Rewatching Notkin’s Triple-Knockout; or, Did Anybody Fold an Ace?

Glad today to tune back in for the return of the EPTLive stream from Barcelona. Coverage of the Super High Roller has been featured today, the first of nine straight days’ worth of all-day shows.

I’ve missed the EPT guys’ coverage over the last few months since Season 10 wound down back in early May. Always worth tuning in when the EPT is on, both because of the play and the high quality of the production and commentary -- the most consistently engaging televised poker around, in my opinion.

I was reminded this week that we did get another glimpse of James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton and the production team since the EPT Grand Final, namely at that Canada Cup event that played out at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal in late May.

I wrote about that one here briefly then, entirely because of the wild conclusion that saw no less than four players all in on the final hand with a rare triple-knockout giving the tournament to Robert Notkin. Yes, that really happened.

They’ve isolated the hand in a YouTube clip, which if you haven’t seen it is probably worth five minutes to watch:

“This would be the weirdest end of a tournament ever,” says Stapleton while Vincent Rivers contemplates making the call with his pocket eights, the only genuinely questionable action in the hand needed to create the weird four-way all-in.

Then when Rivers does call and everything is getting sorted out before the delivery of the community cards, Stapes delivers the following hilarity:

“Did anyone fold an ace?”

I’d missed that line when watching this hand before. Think about it.

Afterwards Hartigan makes reference to it having been “the strangest hand ever streamed online,” and it’s hard to disagree.

_{This post is sponsored by Spreaditfast.}

Writing and Playing

A thread was started over on Two Plus Two last week by a poster complaining about commentary regarding a particular player on a poker broadcast. The poster was specifically talking about Dan Shak and referring to some commentary on EPTLive.

The poster had some things to say about how some players might be discussed more favorably as players when compared to others, although might have been a little unfair in this particular instance as the subsequent discussion helped point out.

In fact EPTLive co-host James Hartigan posted a few times to help clarify some of the commentary highlighted by the original poster, with his response being both interesting to read and constructive. From there the short thread moved on to talk more broadly about poker commentary before winding down a few days later.

One of the more interesting points made in the thread came from Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke who contributes to the EPTLive shows and for that reason was encouraged to join in the discussion. He spoke humbly about the challenge to produce good, insightful strategic commentary on poker, noting how easy it is to be wrong with one’s read of a situation or player.

“Writing about poker correctly is a lot like playing poker,” Fricke then added.

Fricke mainly refers to writing (or discussing) strategy, and what he says makes a lot of sense. Commenting on hands well presents a challenge very similar to playing them well.

I was tempted, anyway, to apply the point more broadly to other kinds of poker-related writing which likewise can require technical knowledge, analytical ability, and creative thinking. You could even take the analogy further and talk about how writing about poker well also involves being able to read others, understanding how stories are put together and affect others, and even sometimes enjoying luck in the form of good timing or other external factors that lie outside one’s “skill.”

In what other ways is writing about poker like playing poker?

Tanks for Nothing

Was watching a lot of the EPTLive coverage today from Sanremo as the Main Event played down to just 16 players. Lot of big names in there, including Victoria Coren Mitchell who is short-stacked but the only one left with a chance to break the decade-long streak of no double-EPT winners ever.

The EPTLive shows are terrific in my estimation, with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton always entertaining. I like hearing Marc Convey and the PokerStars bloggers on there, too, as well as the players they recruit to come do commentary. Very easy to get locked in when watching and not want to turn away, especially as the tourneys wind down toward the latter stages.

There was one small hand early in the day on the TV table this afternoon involving Dinesh Alt (who eventually went out in 25th place) and Raul Mestre (who survived and is second in chips overnight). Not at all a remarkable hand, but on the turn Alt tanked for nearly two minutes before folding, during which time Hartigan and Stapleton eventually had to fill the space by talking about the length of time he was taking to act -- not just on that hand, but generally.

A little later I clicked over to the High Roller updates on PokerNews and noticed a hand reported involving Davidi Kitai and Jonathan Duhamel in which Kitai apparently spent more than 10 minutes making a river decision before folding and showing he’d had a strong hand with trip aces on a board with no flush and only one unlikely-looking straight possible. The pre-river action wasn’t described and it looked like a legitimately difficult decision, but that’s still a lot of time.

There’s much talk these days about tanking and players taking inordinate time to make decisions, with that “shot clock” idea continuing to get kicked around with varying degrees of seriousness.

As I was watching the Alt-Mestre hand, I realized that I actually like the way the pace of poker will alternate between fast and slow. Sure, I get impatient as the next guy when at the table. Even when reporting sometimes I dread those hands with super-long tanks that end with anticlimactic folds and therefore (occasionally) a page full of scribbles that aren’t necessarily even worth reporting.

I’ve mentioned before here how I’m no fan of the shot clock idea in poker, and I think one other reason why I don’t like it would be the way it would eliminate this variety in the pacing of the game, which adds a kind of unpredictability to it that makes it more enjoyable to follow.

All things considered, then, I don’t mind the tanks. I also like Stapes’s jokes during the long wait for a player to act.

(So who couldn’t read that post title without thinking about Caddyshack?)