Travel Report: PokerStars Festival New Jersey, Day 3 -- Shirt Tales

Worked through Day 2 of the PokerStars Festival New Jersey Main Event on Thursday, a relatively short day during which the field was whittled down to 23 players. Still several in the field who’ve notched big scores before, including Darren Elias, Matthew Affleck, David Vamplew, Michael Gagliano, and Randy “nanonoko” Lew of Team PokerStars Pro Online.

Afterwards I grabbed a dinner with Jess Welman and Lance Bradley, where among the topics discussed was Lance’s famous “shirt bet” with Antonio Esfandiari. Not a bet per se but a freeroll for Lance that requires him to wear the same shirt (when in public) for one year in order to win $8K from “The Magician.”

If you haven’t heard about the bet, you can read all about here from Lance himself on PocketFives. As you might have guessed, Lance was quite careful when dining. I had a French Dip sandwich that came with an awkwardly-shaped gravy boat full of au jus with which I was extra cautious while sitting within striking distance of Lance and the shirt.

The situation inspired me to share that New Year’s Eve tale from a couple of years ago I wrote about here, one involving a reckless busboy and me ultimately wearing a full glass of red wine. Of course Lance has imagined such a horror already and thus has worked through both strategically how to avoid it and mentally how to deal with it should it occur.

Meanwhile that Third Annual Chad Brown Memorial tournament last night was a roaring success, drawing something close to 90 players who rebought enough to create 300-plus entries I believe. Appeared a very good time for all involved, and as I was saying yesterday I was to be encouraged to think again of Chad who was such a friendly guy and so well liked by so many.

I ended up making an early evening of it, passing up on a chance to play some poker and I think I made a good call as I was already asleep in front of Thursday Night Football by nine-thirty. Am seriously catching up on rest here after all the travel of late.

Back at it today for the Main Event and perhaps more as the Festival continues. Check the PokerStars blog again to see what’s happening.

Travel Report: PokerStars Festival New Jersey, Arrival -- From NC to North Carolina Avenue

Hello from Atlantic City. Place looks a bit different from the last time I was here over three years ago.

That’s partly because no less than five casinos (of the 12) on the Boardwalk have closed since then, including the Trump Taj Mahal right next door to the Resorts Casino Hotel where I’m staying for the PokerStars Festival New Jersey.

The trip up was easy-breezy, with the ride from the Philadelphia airport to AC taking nearly as long as the flight from Charlotte. The Resorts is actually on North Carolina Avenue -- one of those Monopoly streets here in AC -- which somehow felt right to this Tarheel. Got checked in mid-afternoon and wandered around a bit, taking in the “vintage” feel of the place.

Am reading that the Resorts first went up back in 1978, and while there have obviously been renovations and new construction -- including the tower in which I’m staying which went up a little over a decade ago -- there’s definitely a bit of a stepping-back-in-time feeling when you turn certain corners of the place.

I found the tournament rooms and media area, reuniting with my buddy Jan of the EPT with whom I was just working in Malta as well as the PokerNews guys, other EPT folks and some from the LAPT, too, and a few others I haven’t seen for some time. It really is going to be a reunion of sorts for me, especially since I haven’t been to the WSOP in a while.

Later on met up with Brad, Jess, and Joe for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The place where we’d originally planned to go was closed, and indeed the whole Boardwalk was fairly quiet without a lot of foot traffic on a mild, breezy Monday evening. Nick (with whom I also was just working in Malta) had a delayed flight and so missed dinner, but we’ll get up with him tomorrow.

Got up very early this morning -- I’m still somewhat on European time -- and after a bit went down around 7 a.m. to the Dunkin Donuts, trekking through the casino to get there. Always a somewhat grim scene, seeing patrons of the slots and table games that early, and uncanny, too, as the lack of windows, noise, and smoke all conspire to make you forget it’s not dusk, but dawn.

Not too sure what to expect in terms of the tournaments, but it ought to be a fun one, I think. The $1,100 buy-in Main Event starts today at 11 a.m. ET, so don’t pass go, don’t collect $200, and head over to the PokerStars blog a little later to see what’s happening.

Photos: “North_Carolina_Avenue,” Mark Strozier. CC BY 2.0; “Resorts Casino Hotel,” tripadvisor.com.

2015 WSOP November Nine, Day 1: Having Fun Filling the Pauses

Sat up until 2 a.m. here last night until Pierre Neuville was eliminated in seventh and play was paused at the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event final table. The 72-year-old lasted 72 hands, as it happened. At least he didn’t go out with seven-deuce.

I was a little surprised at how tightly Neuville played for much of the night. Having seen him take chances and be bold in other tournaments before -- including online -- I knew he liked to play against the old-man image and mix things up. He and I talked about that very idea back in August, in fact, when I had a chance to interview him at EPT Barcelona.

But alas last night seemed to go in a different direction for the Belgian. Neuville was shown making some tight folds, then got a bit unlucky in a couple of spots including his last hand, although by then he was so short a double-up wouldn’t have helped him a lot, anyway.

Meanwhile the other older player, Neil Blumenfield (aged 61), made me think of Jerry Yang early on when he three-bet with Q-8-offsuit. He did well for himself to maintain a competitive stack all night, although leader Joe McKeehen -- now with over 91 million chips or nearly three times that of the chase pack that includes Ofer Zvi Stern and Blumenfield -- is going to be hard to catch.

Speaking of Stern, his lengthy tanking quickly became the foremost topic of conversation last night.

“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….vi Stern. #November9,” tweeted Joe Stapleton. “Get it Ofer with,” was Remko Rinkema’s take. Meanwhile my constructive contributions included “At this rate, they won’t finish before Tanksgiving” and “Did I just hear a commercial saying if you have an erection lasting longer than four hands to call your physician?”

I saw Kevmath tweet something this morning about the action begin on Stern for something like 55 minutes or so out of the five-plus hours it took to play those 72 hands. All of the commercial breaks during the first two-and-a-half hours (during prime time) also helped lengthen things considerably.

Regarding the Stern commentary (pun intended) on Twitter last night, let me also shout out to D.J. MacKinnon and Jess Welman for a couple of Global Poker League-inspired thoughts. “Wonder how much more exciting this final table would be with a huge cube around it,” speculated MacKinnon, who then offered a laugh-out-loud artist's rendering as a follow-up. “You know what would make this final table so much better?” Jess then asked. “If everyone was standing up.”

That’s my cat, Sweetie, up above, by the way, mesmerized by another hand involving Stern.

Now, of course, the “shot clock” talk has begun again, although as has been the case when that has come up before, I can’t really get behind the idea. Players playing slowly is part of the game, and if other players have a problem they can call the clock to try to speed things up. Obviously Stern doesn’t have to play that way, but just as obviously he has every right to do so.

Phil Hellmuth tweeted something about him receiving a warning at one point, although it might have been the Stern warning (pun intended) was not for his slow pace of play. (Can’t really trust Hellmuth always to know what he’s tweeting about.) Will be curious to see if Stern is influenced at all into speeding up after no doubt getting feedback on what happened last night.

Have to say, though, I enjoyed the show last night, even with the sluggish pace. In part it was because I like watching how well McKeehen has been pushing around others by pushing his chips. But mostly it was because of the tweets, which were a fun way to fill all those pauses.

The Strangest Race

Was listening earlier to the PokerNews Podcast where Jason Somerville, Donnie Peters, and Remko Rinkema are getting together in the Rio hallway every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to talk about what’s happening at this year’s World Series of Poker. Have started to realize listening to these guys chatting for a couple of hours three times a week has become my primary way of following the WSOP.

I’ll read the recaps on PokerNews, follow the back-and-forthings on Twitter some, and occasionally visit Two Plus Two to see what the latest gripe is. I’m also tuning into the final table live streams over on WSOP.com which have been quite good, with better production values and graphics than what has generally been the case over there in the past.

I’m not sweating every event as I tended to do last year, but am still enjoying following some of the finishes. As far as getting deeper into what’s interesting about a given event or how the latest scandal is (or is not) being handled, though, I feel like just sitting in on the PNPod guys’ discussions has kept me as in tune as I want to be with the day-to-day out there this time around.

Today on the show one of the topics discussed was the WSOP Player of the Year race, which I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago is this year being newly “powered” (i.e., sponsored) by the Global Poker Index. It’s also thoroughly out of whack, predictably so as Jess Welman and others noted it would be even before things got started.

Among the strange examples Donnie cited today was the case of Cord Garcia (a.k.a. Lance Garcia), winner of that crazy Colossus (Event No. 5) that drew 22,374 entrants. Garcia also picked up a small cash in the Millionaire Maker (Event No. 16).

Garcia is one of only 15 bracelet winners thus far; however, those achievements are only enough to put Garcia in 230th place (!) in the WSOP POY race at the moment. No shinola. He earned nearly as many points, actually, for finishing 652nd in the Milly Maker (101.71 pts.) as he did for winning the Colossus (128.92 pts.). (Click the pic above to details of his current ranking.)

In fact, the current leader Paul Volpe (who has two runner-ups and a 12th-place finish already) has about five times as many POY points as Garcia. Garcia could have won the Millionaire Maker, too, and then gone on to win the Monster Stack (Event No. 28) and the Little One for One Drop (Event No. 61) and still would finish with less points than Volpe already has through the first two weeks.

That’s because (as Jess pointed out in her pre-WSOP post) all of these events feature buy-ins of $1,500 or less, and according to the GPI formula are diminished in value, POY points-wise, relative to the bigger buy-in tournaments. By a lot.

I’m of the group that tends to view the whole POY thing as a diverting bit of trivia, hardly of central significance to the WSOP. But the formula being used is so strange and non-intuitive, it’s hard to assign much importance to it at all.

The imbalance in favor of bigger buy-in events also makes it a race many players are essentially not even able to participate in, which as the PNPod guys noted is too bad for Garcia and others who might’ve earned a little more notice had their wins gotten them into those POY conversations.

Then again, I guess Garcia was in a POY conversation -- for being out of the running, that is, and not a contender.

GPI, WSOP, POY, et al.

A little behind with other stuff this week. Saw one item over the past few days I might’ve written more extensively about in the past, but am only going to allude to briefly here today -- both because I don’t have time to sort through it fully, and I’m not sure how deeply I’d want to get into it even if I did.

It was announced last week that the Global Poker Index will be “powering” the World Series of Poker Player of the Year rankings this time around. (That’s a great, positive-sounding verb, by the way, to describe such a relationship, isn’t it?) In fact, the new name for the race/award will be the “GPI WSOP Player of the Year.”

BLUFF had previously been the one powering the WSOP POY, and their method seemed reasonably powerful enough although like any ranking system it was the subject of plenty of debate. I think over recent years more have objected to the WSOP Europe and/or the WSOP APAC events being included in the tabulations than have had any problems with the way the rankings were done.

Now the WSOP Player of the Year will be determined according to points players earned as determined by the current GPI model, which differs in a number of ways from what BLUFF had done. Like I say, I might’ve written at length about this before, but instead today I’ll point first to Jess Welman’s recent post over on her blog that highlights some of these differences, titled “POY Problems.”

Amid the Twitter discussion of the topic I was led to read another interesting post written a few months ago that like Jess’s takes issue with the GPI rankings while also comparing them to BLUFF’s method. That one is by poker player Michael Wang and is titled “A Critique of the GPI Ranking System.”

The WSOP POY race -- or should I say, the GPI WSOP POY race (which is hard to rattle off if you need to ASAP or PDQ) -- serves a few different purposes, including heightening interest in the events for fans of poker and in some cases providing encouragement to players to play more events. The winner gets a trophy, is pictured on a banner to be hung in the Rio hallways each summer (like Allen Cunningham’s above), and is honored in a special ceremony, but there aren’t any other tangible benefits (as far as I know).

Stepping back from the whole issue, it feels a lot like a different, more detailed version of the debate over WSOP bracelets and their relative worth. It also resembles other debates from major sports, too, having to do with the numbers games can create and how we interpret them.

I’ll just leave it all right there for now, though, and let you, reader, do your own interpreting.

Travel Report: Season XII WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, Day 3 -- Tight Fit

Down to 59 now in the World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic, just 14 eliminations away from the money. There are three more days to go the six-day event, so today will probably see the field carved down to the low 20s or so, then on Tuesday they’ll play down to six and finish up on Wednesday.

I was talking yesterday about how the re-entry format and lengthy period for buying back in made the first day and much of the second kind of anticlimactic, likening it to a “regular season” and calling the period after re-entries end the “playoffs.”

I might have called that re-entry period the “preseason,” actually, with this interim between the re-entry period ending and the money bubble bursting being the regular season and play following the cashes starting being the playoffs. However we want to draw our analogies, things are getting increasingly more interesting with much more to report as the significance of individual hands grows incrementally as they go.

Nearly all 40 or so tables in the Bellagio poker room have been constantly filled for the past three days, initially with tourney players, then as the field finally got smaller (especially yesterday) with cash games filling in once the tourney no longer needed tables. Bobby’s Room -- the walled in inner room inside the poker room -- has had two or three tables going constantly, too, with Doyle Brunson (who didn’t play the tournament bearing his name), Eli Elezra, David Oppenheim, Kenny Tran, Huck Seed, and several other familiar folks among those who have been sitting at the tables in there.

All of which means the poker room has been constantly packed with people, including players, media and the TV crew, poker room staff and Bellagio servers, and others filling every inch. Interestingly, though, I’m not really sensing anyone being that bothered by the crowded quarters, and I, too, have realized ideas of “personal space” kind of automatically adjust in such situations.

It’s like we’re all at a sold out, standing room only show or something, and while there isn’t much room to move around, all seem pretty glad to be there. The fact that everyone has been especially helpful and all seem to be working together well to keep things running smoothly has gone a long way in this regard, making it a fun tourney thus far to cover. Kind of an emblem of multi-table tournament poker, I guess, a huge field all doing what they can to try to fit into just a few seats at the end.

Non-tourney news from yesterday included me winning one NFL bet (the Bengals) and correctly resisting making a second one (on the Panthers). Also I’d had ideas during the day of perhaps joining B.J. Nemeth and Jess Welman to watch 2001: A Space Odyssey (which Jess had never seen) once the day was done, but decided to go for the extra couple of hours of sleep instead. (Here is an old post in which I wrote a bit about 2001: “My Mind Is Going... I Can Feel It....”)

Sounds like from the tweets B.J.’s attempts at making Jess appreciate the film’s achievement didn’t quite land, given Jess’ tweet afterwards (“Worst. Movie. Ever.”). I imagined a scene of conflict between the two resulting in the remote control being thrown up in the air, rotating end over end in slow motion like a bone or a space station. I also thought of B.J. responding to Jess’ dislike of the film in HAL’s voice…

“Look Jess, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.”

I think Jess will soon be explaining her response to 2001 on her blog, for which we can stay tuned. Meanwhile, as always, check back over at the WPT site for updates today from Day 4 of the WPT Five Diamond.

2013 WSOP, Day 26: Cold

“Is Daniel out?”

So asked Shaun Deeb of me with about 40 players left in Event No. 41, the $5,000 PLO 6-max. event. I glanced at Daniel Negreanu’s table and he was still there, albeit completely obscured by his long-sleeved hooded jacket. Uncharacteristically for him, he had the hood up over his head, as photographed to the left for PokerNews/WSOP.

I jerked a thumb in Negreanu’s direction. Daniel wasn’t out. He was in, both the tourney and a large, heavy plaid cocoon.

“Keeping warm,” I said. “Good idea,” answered Deeb.

When I landed at McCarran Airport last week, I tweeted that I’d arrived, noting how my first order of business was to remove the jacket I’d been wearing aboard the plane. The hot, dry Vegas air was immediately apparent upon my first exposure outside the airport, and as usual the temps have been hovering in the 90s or low 100s for much of the time I’ve been here so far.

Several responded to be prepared to put my jacket back on once I’d made it to the Rio. It’s cold, they said. Real cold.

People have complained about it being too cold in the spacious ballrooms of the Rio where the World Series of Poker and other associated tourneys play out every single summer I’ve come out, so no one was telling me anything I didn’t already know. Sure enough, when I visited the Rio that night and entered the mostly empty Amazon room where a couple of tourneys had reached their end stages, there was a chill in the air. But I had my jacket and a sweater, and as I was writing about last week, everything seemed in its place in an almost comfortable sort of way. Including the chill.

Last night we were stationed in the far right corner of the Amazon. Again, like just about every day I’ve been there so far, the Amazon was mostly empty with Day 2s playing out in the corners and Day 3s finishing up on the main and secondary stages.

Players started complaining about the cold mid-afternoon, and after a while it became apparent that it really did seem colder than usual. I started out in a heavy shirt, then added the sweater, then added the jacket. All of the players were wrapped up in jackets and hoods, and while no one in our event had taken to wearing gloves, we were hearing stories of some in other events who had.

I’d say Negreanu finally reached a boiling point, but the metaphor seems inappropriate. After talking to the TDs about the situation a few times, he’d return from the dinner break with a digital thermometer, just to get an idea how cold it really was.

I’d mentioned to my reporting colleague Matt W. at one point that I’d guessed it to have been at least 15 degrees’ difference between the hallway and inside the Amazon. “I thought walking in I could see my breath,” I joked, and while I couldn’t actually do that, the change was so abrupt it did uncannily feel like stepping outdoors during winter rather than coming inside during summer.

Negreanu later tweeted the results of his test. I think he might’ve deleted the photo since, but I believe it read 60 degrees. Not sure if it was actually that cold in there, but the lower 60s is likely.

No one it seemed could avoid talking about the cold. Nolan Dalla wrote a humorous post about the cold on his blog. AlCantHang compiled various tweets about the situation for PokerListings -- some serious, some less so. Jess Welman earned the highest grin-producing score by making reference to the nine bracelets won by Canadians this year, as passed along by Bryan Devonshire:

“There’s a reason why Canadians are winning all the bracelets: they’re more acclimated to the weather.”

Once Negreanu busted from our event in 34th yesterday, he voiced further complaints over Twitter, and the response was that someone had apparently fiddled with the thermostat yesterday -- that is, we weren’t all imagining things -- and that it would be set at 74 going forward.

I return to the Rio today to cover the third and final day of Event No. 41, currently led by Steve “gboro780” Gross. We’ll see if it is less cold inside the Amazon today. And if not, how well people keep their cool.

2013 WSOP, Day 22: Step Right Up

I was writing yesterday about playing a tournament downtown at the Golden Nugget, mentioning that momentary, minor feeling of trepidation I experienced sitting down to play a live event after not having done so for many months before.

Most years when I’ve come out to help report on the WSOP I felt something similar when stepping into the Rio that first day, especially early on. But I can’t really say I felt too much of that yesterday as I jumped in for my first full day of live blogging for PokerNews, helping out the team reporting on Event No. 32, the $5,000 NLHE 6-max. event.

I’ve mentioned to a few folks I’ve been reuniting with these last couple of days how it seems like the intervening months since the 2012 WSOP passed by more quickly than ever. Got to chat with both Jess Welman and Lukas Willems of the WSOP team yesterday and said as much to both of them, noting additionally how during this last year I’d been on a number of trips -- including several WSOP Circuit events -- which made coming out this year seem a little less momentous than in the past. Of course, both Jess and Lukas well knew what I’m describing, as they are both on the WSOP beat all year round.

So picking up with reporting on the second day the $5K 6-max. felt a little like stepping right back into something that hadn’t ever really ended for me. The PokerNews site had a redesign just before the start of the WSOP, and so there were a few small puzzles to solve yesterday to figure out how things were done. But none of it was too troubling, and I had both Jon and Mat to help me along the way, anyhow.

I’ve reported on this same $5K 6-max. event in the past, and it always proves to be one of the tougher events on the schedule, attracting both the toppermost tourney regs and the many online MTT and SNG grinders, too.

I remember well the 2009 WSOP when Matt Hawrilenko won this event, Josh Brikis took second, and Faraz Jaka third. There were 928 playing that year, with Hawrilenko earning over $1 million for first. The turnout slipped to 568 in 2010, though, and so for the past two years they’ve made it a $10K and drew fields of exactly 474 both times (with the winners each earning over $1 million).

Just 516 played the $5K 6-max. this year, meaning there’s a little over $600K up top for first. Of those 128 returned for yesterday’s Day 2, and 14 of them survived to night’s end, led by Jonathan Little, Allen Bari, and Vasile Buboi. Others still in the hunt include Ryan D’Angelo, Erick Lindgren, Andrew Robl, Jon Aguiar, and Lee Markholt.

There were tons of other notables among the eliminated and small-cashers yesterday. T.J. Cloutier was solidly in the mix right up until the money bubble, but he had a momentary slip-up to go out a few spots shy of the money. In his final hand, Cloutier four-bet jammed more than 60 big blinds with 8-7-suited and Mike Sowers was quick to call with his pair of kings.

“How’s that for ABC poker?” said Cloutier afterwards, as Jon reported. After losing the hand and during the counting down of chips, Cloutier expressed how he hadn’t realized Sowers had as much as he did and thus had him covered.

The table talk was generally engaging and fun for eavesdroppers. Lindgren was very chatty throughout the day and night, talking golf a lot with Craig Fishman near the end. Allen Bari could be heard occasionally sharing observations about life. Also Matt Glantz and Daniel Negreanu had a long, interesting conversation about the WSOP Player of the Year race and the inclusion of the WSOP Asia Pacific results.

Negreanu, of course, is at the center of that discussion currently as he leads the POY race thanks to his performance in Melbourne (including a Main Event win), with Tom Schneider’s second bracelet win this week putting him squarely behind Negreanu at the moment. Both Negreanu and Schneider are gunning for an unprecedented second WSOP POY title, by the way, with Negreanu having won in 2004 and Schneider in 2007.

The play was solid throughout, and obviously several steps up from what I experienced in my little tourney on Tuesday. There were a few situations like Cloutier’s bustout that perhaps appeared to ride that fine line between “move” and “mistake,” but as always I don’t think a person watching intermittent hands at a table can ever be wholly confident about such judgments.

It was a long day, and I suppose even after working a lot of events over the last several months I found myself dragging a bit as we crossed the 2 a.m. mark to work that 15th and final hour. Playing for 11 hours the day before probably didn’t help.

But it was a good day full of good poker. And some good eats, too, as B.J. Nemeth stepped up to make a dinner run to In-n-Out Burger for a bunch of us.

Will be back at the Rio today and the next several in a row, this time stepping over to join the coverage of Day 2 of the $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event in which 137 remain. Step over to the PokerNews live reporting page starting this afternoon to follow along.

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.”

The Big One for One Drop One Month Away

Am settling in after the big trip, looking to relax a bit here over the next two-and-a-half weeks before heading Vegasward. Was able yesterday to catch up with some of the World Series of Poker coverage going on, including checking out updates on PokerNews.

Last night I had a chance to join Lou Krieger and Shari Geller on their podcast, Keep Flopping Aces, which has recently moved over to the newly-relaunched Hold’em Radio network. We talked some about my trip to Uruguay, but mostly about the WSOP. The show is being replayed all week and will be available for download.

I also last night had a chance to enjoy some of the live streaming from the WSOP.com site I mentioned last post. Saw a bit of the end of Event No. 3, the $3,000 Heads-Up NLHE/PLO event won by Leif Force, plus a good stretch of Event No. 4, the $1,500 Seven-Card Stud Hi-Low event won by Cory Zeidman. Couldn’t stay up for the end of the latter as it went until after 3:30 a.m. or so Vegas time, dawn here on the east coast.

After some glitches early on, the live streams appeared to be in working order. David Tuchman led the commentary on Event No. 3, with Steve Gross and Doc Sands helping out. The other feed had no commentary, but the cards and bets were announced well enough to follow the action.

Here’s that page again for the live streams. The next one starts at 2 p.m. today, I believe, as that stacked final table of Event No. 5 gets underway, the $1,500 pot-limit hold’em event with Bryan Pellegrino, Jon Aguiar, Tommy Vedes, John Eames, and Daniel Negreanu among the last nine.

For those looking for daily recaps and highlights from the WSOP, let me recommend “The WSOP Daily Shuffle” that WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla is putting out each day. You can find those on the “News” page on the site amid other articles, including Dalla’s initial wraps from each event. For more then go over to the individual pages for each tourney and find Nolan’s “Official Report” from each event for all sorts of facts about each.

By the way, the WSOP made another good move this week by hiring Jess Welman as the new Managing Editor of the website. As we’ve come to know via her work with various other outlets, Jess makes everyone with whom she works better, and it’s great to see her teaming up with Nolan and the rest of the WSOP folks in this way.

One of the stories Dalla, Welman, and others are going to be reporting on more and more as the Series goes will be the $1,000,000 buy-in tournament scheduled to begin one month from today (July 1st), a.k.a., “The Big One for One Drop” (Event No. 55).

It is sounding more and more like the field for that one may exceed 40 entrants, perhaps even reaching the announced “cap” of 48. At present at least 30 have confirmed they’ll play, and when I spoke to Seth Palansky not too long ago he sounded confident they’ll get several more.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had some nice email exchanges with some of those involved with promoting both the event and the One Drop charity, and agreed to make Hard-Boiled Poker a “media partner” for All in for One Drop. There’s a website with lots of information about the tournament and One Drop, now the official charity of the WSOP.

Unlike some charities with dubious organization and/or handling of resources, the One Drop charity, initiated by Guy Laliberté in 2007, seems especially well run and devoted to an unmistakably worthwhile cause to increase access to clean drinking water in countries presently lacking such a basic need to sustain health and life. If 40-plus do participate, with $111,111.11 taken from each entry for One Drop, that’ll translate to around $4.5 million or perhaps $5 million raised.

Was glad to get involved when asked, happy to help folks like 2010 WSOP ME champ Jonathan Duhamel (pictured above with Laliberté) and others looking to promote the tournament and the charity. Besides, I’m as intrigued as anyone by the prospect of a poker tournament with a $1 million buy-in... and, perhaps, a first prize of more than $15 million (or even more than $17 million).

A ton happening at the WSOP between now and then, of course. Looking forward to a little time to enjoy being a fan before heading out to help report on it all.