2015 WSOP November Nine, Day 3: Kudos to Joe Cool

Don’t have a heckuva lot to add to last night’s finale at the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event where Joe McKeehen took care of things with little difficulty. Definitely enjoyed the show last night, although I’ll admit I was a little confused by ESPN’s “What to Look For” tips once they got to heads-up (wink).

Tomorrow I’ll share some nerdy stuff regarding the hands shown during the three nights’ worth of shows, but for today I just wanted to share one quick thought.

I was frankly pulling for McKeehen to win even back in July when Daniel Negreanu was still among those left in the sucker. It goes back to that WSOP Circuit event I covered in early 2013 in which McKeehen similarly entered the final day with the big chip lead and cruised to victory without much resistance, at the time the biggest cash for the Philadelphian.

From that event (at Caesars Atlantic City) I remembered a few things about McKeehen. One was the fact that he had an iPad at the table and was following our coverage, occasionally interacting with us as he reacted to some of the hands being reported. I remember getting the sense that he enjoyed especially whenever we’d include table talk or other details that went beyond the cards (in other words, the stuff I, too, tend to find more interesting a lot of the time).

I also recall how he arrived early for the last day, the first of the 19 players still left in the event to show up. As we didn’t have a photographer for the tournament, I got him to pose for a quick iPhone photo for us to use in the blog. He also did kind of a mock-muscle pose in his winner’s photo, I’m remembering, which produced some grins.

The main thing, though, that I remember about the tournament was how McKeehen seemed not just in control and especially cool at the table, but also how amiable he was with players who were clearly less confident and/or experienced. It wasn’t anything extraordinary, but it was something positive about the guy I ended up taking away from the event.

Watching three-handed last night -- and also some the night before -- you could occasionally see McKeehen being similarly friendly with Blumenfield sitting on his left, and really with everyone. Those exchanges reminded me of how I’d first encountered McKeehen, and like I say made me glad to see him do well this summer and then take it all down this week.

Saw just a few truly dumb responses over Twitter last night to McKeehen’s win and his short post-tourney interview (including a burst of bitter, embarrassingly unfunny heckling from the mostly dormant Wicked Chops Poker account). When asked about being poker’s “ambassador,” McKeehen very reasonably responded “we’ll see,” which to me went right along with his matter-of-fact demeanor and playing style.

All of which is to say I was glad to see McKeehen win, thought Josh Beckley and Blumenfield were pretty likable, too, and on the whole was both entertained, enthused, and even encouraged by the WSOP’s finale.

2015 WSOP November Nine, Day 2: McKeehen’s Still On Top

Watched every hand again last night as the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event final table played down from six players to three, with Joe McKeehen remaining in a dominant position going into three-handed play for tonight’s finish.

It’s reminding me once again of that WSOP Circuit final table from a couple of years ago that I’ve mentioned before, the one at Caesars Atlantic City I helped cover where McKeehen entered the final day with a big lead and never seemed to be challenged much at all on his way to the win.

Kind of remarkable, really, to think how easily things have gone for McKeehen at the final table thus far. Not only has he avoided making any bad decisions, he’s barely even taken that many risks at all even with decent hands in good spots. Both his opponents’ styles and the cards have dictated that result somewhat, but the overall impression has been that it’s hard to imagine how things could have gone much differently for McKeehen up to this point.

Easily the most interesting hand last night was the one that came relatively late when they were four-handed and Josh Beckley managed to three-bet and then fold pocket jacks to a reraise from the chip leader. We knew when watching that McKeehen had four-bet with pocket queens, which helped raise the eyebrows a little further when we saw Beckley avoid getting hooked by his two hooks.

The hand reminded me of one from the 2006 WSOP Main Event final table, something I brought up in another “what would you do?”-type PokerNews article today. I’m referring to a hand in which Richard Lee reraised all in with pocket jacks versus Jamie Gold’s queens and was knocked out in sixth.

Even though the two hands were similar, it’s funny to go back and think about how crazily different the play was at the ’06 final table -- where, it should be said, most of those there were amateurs, with Allen Cunningham being the exception. In fact in the hand Gold limped in with his queens, something that is hard to imagine happening today. So, too, have the 3x-and-above opening raises at that final table become a thing of the distant past.

Will be there ’til the end again tonight. While it’s hard to envision McKeehen in trouble, it sure would be interesting to watch should either Beckley or Neil Blumenfield manage to get in a position where they can present him some difficulty to complicate the conclusion.