Slides, Celebs, and Likes

Been in the Bahamas for more than a week now, having left the farm just a day before the Great Snowstorm of 2017 hit to cover the place with eight inches of the white stuff. Vera and our four-legged friends all managed okay, though I felt more than a little guilty not being around to help deal with it all.

Quite a contrast down here, weather-wise, as you might imagine, with temps in the mid-to-upper 70s, the cloudless skies baby blue, and the water an even darker, more brilliant shade of blue. It’s been busy, but I did manage to goof around on the water slides on two separate occasions already, including daring to plunge down “The Abyss.” It only lasts a few seconds, but it’s still long enough for all manner of existential doubt to overwhelm a dude before splash landing at the bottom.

The PokerStars Championship Bahamas festival is now heading into its home stretch, with the High Roller and Main Event both ending tomorrow. The poker’s been fun to follow, as I was on the $100K Super High Roller to start, then the Main Event, and now the $25K HR.

That first event saw the actor-comedian Kevin Hart take part, livening things up quite a lot for the first day-and-a-half before he finally busted a second time. Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame then played in the Main, so there was a lot of star-gazing going on between those two.

Speaking of poker-playing actors, Jennifer Tilly is here, too, and in fact took runner-up in a $5K turbo event this week, one where the final table included David Peters, Benjamin Pollak, and Mustapha Kanit.

I’d met her before but finally had a chance to talk with her a bit more this week. She’s a great follow on Twitter by the way -- @Jtillathekilla2 -- and one of the things we talked about were the folks we follow on there.

I also confessed to her that I never have gotten in the habit of favoriting tweets. I’ll retweet ones I like occasionally, but I just never got around to start “liking” them. For example, I liked one she sent a few days ago sagely observing: “Poker tournaments are like life: We're all gonna die, just some of us last longer than others.” But I just had to tell her I liked it as I didn’t “like” it on Twitter. (She assured me that was fine.)

(That reminded me of something similar I’ve been known to utter around poker tournaments.)

Vera kids me about not “liking” tweets. I’ll tweet something and get a bunch of likes, then mention it to her. “And how does that make you feel?” she asks with a grin.

“I like it,” I reply.

One more day of poker tomorrow and then back home to the horses where the snow has already melted. There’s a pic to the left from the day after that I tweeted before. It’s totally okay if you didn’t favorite it.

Big Numbers at the Bellagio

The World Poker Tour has returned to the Bellagio this week for the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, a $10K buy-in event that has become a huge punctuation mark of sorts to the poker calendar each year.

I had the chance to help cover this one three years ago, the last time (I believe) it still had Doyle Brunson’s name attached to it. Dan Smith won the event that year, topping a 449-entry field to win about $1.16 million.

In 2014 they drew 586 entries, and Mohsin Charania won it, earning $1.18 milly. Then last year there were 639 entries, with Kevin Eyster taking the title and a big $1.59 million first prize.

This year the Five Diamond is even bigger with a whopping 791 entries, which means the first prize is way up to $1.938,118 and even the runner-up will win seven figures. It’s a re-entry tournament, which helped boost the overall total. Still, that’s a huge turnout, suggesting the Five Diamond has become kind of a must-play for many top pros as they plan out the close of their tournament year.

Am seeing Jennifer Tilly is second in chips out of about 270 players heading into tomorrow’s Day 3. Tilly sent a funny (and insightful) tweet late in the day alluding to her status near the top of the leaderboard.

“Trying to hold on to my big stack is exhausting!” she wrote. “It’s like trying to keep a giant rock from rolling down the hill.”

I know some players thrive when they have a big stack, and in fact some aren’t comfortable otherwise. But many (most of us?) are more used to being in the middle somewhere or on the short side, which can sometimes make the new challenges presented by having a lot of chips especially taxing or even anxiety-producing.

I guess the Five Diamond (and WPT) is itself kind of experiencing having built up a “big stack” (in a way), with such a big field having turned out. As always happens with tours and particular events, drawing huge numbers presents a new challenge for organizers, sometimes causing problems as they discover various reasons why it isn’t so easy to accommodate so many. Thus will certain events peak in terms of turnouts, then fall back to something more sustainable thereafter.

I haven’t followed things that closely, so don’t know how well the Bellagio -- which doesn’t have the biggest room -- managed things these last couple of days. Hope all has gone well, though, and that sucker can continue to grow going forward.

Have to admit Tilly’s giant rock metaphor made me think as well about my status in my Pigskin Pick’em pool, where I continue to maintain a lead (and have for most of of the season). It is exhausting -- that is, the amount of mental energy I’ve found myself putting into this sucker when both picking games and sweating them every Thursday, Sunday, and Monday.

Am hoping Tilly can keep that big rock of chips right where it is as the tournament continues. Meanwhile I’ll be jetting in the other direction tomorrow, heading over to Prague for the European Poker Tour’s last festival, where I imagine some of those playing in Las Vegas this week will be heading once they are done.

Will have to see how well EPT Prague does to close out both 2016 and the EPT (nominally, anyway, as the rebranding begins in January).

Image: “2008-03-26_IMG_0519_Las Vegas - Fountains at the Bellagio” (adapted), Dieter Weinelt. CC BY-ND 2.0.

Eight-Figure Cashers Meet Heads-Up in WSOP-C Finale

I was up late last night doing some work and so noticed some of the tweets going by signaling that Jamie Gold and Antonio Esfandiari were among those who were at the final table of the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at the Bicycle Casino. Also making the final nine in that $1,675 buy-in event (with re-entries) were Ray Henson, Bryn Kenney, and Ludovic Geilich.

As the night wore on the messages continued to pop up as Gold and Esfandiari eventually made it to heads-up. It was then I clicked over to the live stream provided by the Live at the Bike folks and watch the last several hands play out, with Esfandiari eventually winning to take the ring.

With 756 entries, the first prize for Esfandiari was $226,785. Many commenting over Twitter noted how the pair showing up at this WSOP-C Main final table was a bit of a throwback. “It was like 2006 all over again!” tweeted Jennifer Tilly, a thought occurring to many others, I imagine.

That of course was the year of Jamie Gold’s victory in the WSOP Main Event, marking his introduction to most of us via the subsequent ESPN coverage. By then we also were well familiar with Esfandiari thanks to his 2004 win in the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic, also shown repeatedly on our teevees.

Both players have made California home, explaining their having turned up for the event at the Bicycle. Both have also at one time in their careers sat atop the Hendon Mob’s “All-Time Money List” ranking players’ tournament winnings, a list currently headed by Daniel Negreanu.

There was another connection between the two I couldn’t help but think about while watching them square off last night. This had to be the first time two players with eight-figure cashes on their tournament résumés ever met heads-up in a tournament.

By winning the first Big One for One Drop at the 2012 WSOP, Esfandiari cashed for $18,346,673, while Gold won a $12,000,000 first prize for taking down the largest-ever WSOP Main Event in 2006. (As we know, neither player actually won those full amounts, with Esfandiari reportedly only having around 15% of himself and Gold famously giving up half of his prize in the subsequent lawsuit.)

Only two other players have eight-figure tournament scores -- Daniel Colman (awarded $15,306,668 after winning the 2014 installment of the Big One for One Drop) and Martin Jacobson (who won $10,000,000 for his victory in the 2014 WSOP Main Event. Safe to make the assumption, then, than none of these guys have played heads-up before. (Sam Trickett, who finished runner-up to Esfandiari in that Big One for One Drop, became an eight-figure cashers upon the conclusion of that event, as his prize was $10,112,001.)

One other bit of trivia from last night’s WSOP-C results -- Gold’s second-place cash for $139,820 was the second-highest of his career.

Image: “List of largest poker tournaments in history (by prize pool),” Wikipedia (retrieved 3/30/16).