No November Nine, But Delay Remains for WSOP Main Event

F-Train was the first I remember mentioning last summer how the November Nine -- that four-year long experiment tried by the World Series of Poker to delay the Main Event final table nearly four months from the start of the tournament -- might not be returning again after 2011.

He noticed early on how the move to “almost live” coverage of the Main Event kind of ran against one of the original reasons for the delay, namely, as a means to build interest in the tournament for a close-to-simultaneous presentation of the ME’s conclusion in November.

Indeed, when the prepackaged shows dedicated to telling the story of the Main Event saw a precipitous drop in ratings during August, September, and October from previous years, some pointed to the “almost live” shows back in July as having perhaps negatively affected the size of the audience for the later, edited shows.

There were certainly other reasons, too, for the drop in numbers, but by the time we got around to November and it was announced that every single hand of the final table was going to be shown in the same “almost live” format, it really did seem as though the whole November Nine concept had perhaps run its course.

In fact, our buddy Kevmath kicked off the conference call we had a few days before the November Nine with that very question, alluding to WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky’s comment in a PokerListings interview that having both the delay and the sort-of-live coverage “doesn’t quite work.”

There were no WSOP folks on that call, and so only Doug White, Senior Director of Programming and Acquisitions for ESPN, was able really to address the issue. White suggested the delay still had a place insofar as it helped contribute further to “the pomp and circumstance that you get around the final table in November.” Even so, by then many observers were starting to believe we were about to see the last November Nine.

Those suspicions appeared to have been confirmed yesterday when the WSOP cheekily hinted over Twitter that the November Nine would not be part of this year’s schedule.

Initial reactions to the apparent end of the November Nine experiment were mixed, with many seeming to say that while they opposed it at first they eventually came to like the format and were sorry to see it go.

I remember way back at the start of May 2008 when the idea was first announced -- at a relatively late date, if you recall -- I was strongly opposed to the idea as affecting too greatly the overall integrity of the most important tournament in poker. Fired off a few posts suggesting as much, including one titled “Nine Players in Search of a Final Table” and another with the angry-seeming header “The WSOP Main Event: Birth, Build-Up, Boom... Bastardized?”

While I have eventually come to enjoy certain aspects of the unique (if artificial-seeming) narrative arc created by the delay, I still haven’t entirely accepted the idea of building a whole, strange four-month long “season” out of a two-week long tournament.

As it turned out, when the WSOP finally turned over its hand today we discovered that tweet from yesterday was in essence just some misleading table talk -- in fact they will be keeping the delay in 2012. Indeed, the November Nine is (technically) no more. But that is only because the sucker has been moved earlier to the end of October so as to avoid coinciding with this year’s presidential election.

For details, check out the official 2012 schedule released by the WSOP today. I have to admit I’m a little disappointed to see F-Train’s early suggestion -- subsequently echoed by many -- not coming true and the delay remaining part of the WSOP Main Event schedule.

Four years is a long time in poker, though. More than enough to create the impression of a “tradition.” And so to alter that now would probably seem almost as incongruous as it did when the idea was first introduced.

2011 WSOP, Day 23: Percentages, Points, and Kevmath

Yesterday was a relatively relaxing one as I mentally prepared myself for the run of workdays to come. Prepared myself physically, too, I suppose. I believe I’m on the schedule to work the next six days straight, and so the time for resting up is nearly over.

Had fun early on yesterday enjoying a visit with Kevmath who happened to have a rare day off. We spent an hour visiting over a late breakfast before he took off to join the daily deepstack madness going on over at the Rio. There are three of those tourneys going off each day, with the big one ($235 buy-in) starting to attract over 1,000 runners again and again. That means over $40K for the winner, one sweet ROI.

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve felt like I’ve gotten to know Kevin pretty well already over the last few years. Thus is our finally getting together almost more like reuniting with a friend than getting to know someone new, given the large amount of common reference points we share.

We have some other things in common, too, which we chatted about some over our eggs, bacon, and toast. We both became part of this complicated and interesting world of poker players and writers through somewhat unusual means, and both also found ourselves having created these “characters” through which many know us (“Kevmath” and “Shamus”). Then again, we’ve both been playing those “roles” for such a while they have become a bit part of how others see us. And, I suppose, who we are, too.

As Kevin told me about his experience thus far this summer, I was reminded a lot of what it was like for me in 2008 when I covered my first WSOP. As those of you who were reading over here back then know, I was definitely possessed with a kind of “shot-taking” mentality then, not entirely sure how it would all work out but knowing I’d regret it if I didn’t take the chance and see how it did.

Obviously I’m glad I did take the chance back then, and I think Kevin is glad he has, too. I know a lot of the rest of us who are here are glad he did as well.

During the latter part of the afternoon I snuck back over to the Rio for a short stay. Mainly just wanted to reacquaint myself some with a few things in preparation for going into today to help cover Event No. 40, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (Six-Handed) event. Met a few new folks and chatted with a couple of others whom I hadn’t seen on Tuesday, including WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla.

I repeated my joke to Nolan about being disappointed they started the sucker without me, and he played along, saying how they’d tried but people just kept coming and would’ve broken down the doors if they hadn’t let them play. That led to a brief conversation about the overall numbers being up this year and how that perhaps has made the staging of the Series even more of a challenge.

We also talked a bit about the latest stat the WSOP issued regarding women’s participation, a topic Jen Newell and I addressed in our “He Said / She Said” column over on Woman Poker Player this week. Through 29 events, just 946 of the 29,421 entrants have been women, about 3.2%. CK, a.k.a. the Black Widow of Poker, points out in a 2+2 thread on the subject that if you leave out Event No. 1, the Casino Employees Event, participation by women in all of the other events is just 2.98%. Nolan expressed a bit of dismay at the fact that the percentages of women playing at the WSOP really hasn’t gone up much since the Moneymaker boom.

I got back to the home-away-from-home and soon after the PokerGrump picked me up and we went for dinner at Bachi Burger, a reprise of a visit we’d made there last summer. From there we joined a group back at the Rio at McFadden’s for a weekly pub trivia contest, which turned out to be a lot of fun. Among those at our table -- and thus, on our team -- were Kate (a.k.a. @caitycaity), David, Cheryl, Bob Lauria, and a couple of others who came and went. It’s a weekly thing for the team, named “Quiz On Quiz Off,” who besides having won weekly prizes is in the running to win the current season.

With seven or eight teams competing, it was a hard-fought contest with three or four teams having a chance to win at by the final round. In fact, as they were announcing the winner at the end, I was almost convinced we hadn’t enough points even to make the top three, although our personal tally was incomplete and thus we weren’t entirely sure. Then came the word -- we'd won, and by a single point! Woot!

The “hand of the day” (as I jokingly called it afterwards) was a question we had missed about a film starring Mickey Rourke in which Bob and I had in improbable fashion collaborated to come up with right answer (Wild Orchid) yet couldn’t summon the collective will to commit to it and write it down. It was a classic example of reading the situation correctly yet being unable to pull the trigger. Thankfully it didn’t cost us, and we were able to do what so many in Vegas strive for but few accomplish -- to walk out as winners.

Got back to the room and did a little work before crashing hard around midnight. Still a bit stuck on Eastern time, as indicated further by my early rising again today. That’ll all change soon enough after a full workday or two walking the floor and live blogging at the Rio. The $5K short-handed event should be a good one, attracting a lot of top pros including the online guys in particular, many of whom are playing as many events as they can this summer with the rolls they’ve been able to cash out from PokerStars.

On that topic, one of my trivia teammates last night, David, works with the Total Rewards folks who issue cards to players entering all of the events, and he mentioned to me how a lot of the online guys are entering 20 or more events. Struck me as an attempt to emulate the sort of volume they would put in online, although obviously the cost (and, presumably, the risk of ruin) is so much higher for them in this context.

I covered this same event back in 2009. Turned out to be one of the more exciting tourneys I’ve ever reported on, in fact, won by Matt “Hoss TBF” Hawrilenko with Josh Brikis finishing second and Faraz Jaka third. Hawrilenko took over $1 million for first prize that year, as 928 entered. Jeffrey Papola won it in 2010 when 568 entered, taking just over $667K for his win.

The vacation is really over, it seems. But I’m rested. And ready.

Head over to PokerNews live reporting today -- and tonight -- to follow all of the action.

Fooled Around And Fell (Into the Money)

Ended up having a blast yesterday playing in those “April Foolishness” tournaments on PokerStars (discussed yesterday). After a bit of study, I decided to enter two of the four $2.00+$0.20 rebuy events. By the way, that picture is the disclaimer that appeared when one entered the tourneys, which caused me to grin. Hey, I always try to have a sense of humor when playing tourneys. Them suckers can cause too much hurt otherwise.

One of the ones I entered was Mike’s Tourney -- or “yenrouT s’ekiM,” as it was listed in the lobby. That was the one with decreasing blinds/antes for the first 21 levels, at which point they began going up again. I also tried Frederik’s Tourney, the pot-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha mixed event with blinds/antes going up and down randomly and rebuys for just $0.02.

I initially was enjoying Frederik’s Tourney much more than Mike’s, mainly because of the cheap rebuys. In Mike’s tourney we all started with 4,875 chips, but the blinds started 1,500/3,000 with a 375 ante. On the first hand of the tourney I was dealt under the gun and folded. On the next hand I had in the big blind, meaning two-thirds of my stack was already in the middle. So I called an all-in and luckily flopped a ten to double up.

But that good fortune didn’t last, as within the first orbit I had A-A cracked and soon had to rebuy. I would rebuy once more, ultimately investing $6.20 in the thing, and by the time the rebuy period ended I somehow had 27,960 chips. I could not take the add-on (6000 chips for $2), since another quirky part of the event was you had to be under 12,000 to be allowed to take it.

Meanwhile, I was having more fun with the other crazies in Frederik’s Tourney going all in hand after hand during the rebuy period. I ended up double-rebuying four times over there (for just 16 cents), then took the $0.03 add-on, too, so the total investment on that one was just $2.37. Busting on the last hand of the rebuy period there meant I had the minimum -- 11,000 -- when we cranked back up again in that one.

I’d last another hour or so in Frederik’s Tourney before unimpressively busting in 1,047th (out 2,187). Meanwhile, as the blinds were going down in Mike’s Tourney, my stack was growing.

Was kind of an interesting phenomenon, to watch Mike’s Tourney change from a shove-fest during the rebuy period, to a stretch where a select few were desperately short-stacked, to a period where everyone essentially had deep stacks. As we entered Level 21 -- the last level before the blinds started going back up again -- I had a (well) below average stack of 47,135, which at the time was still 23-plus big blinds.

Even with five-minute levels and the blinds starting to increase more rapidly then they had decreased, I was able to play some postflop poker during that part of the tourney and even managed to play a few hands reasonably well.

A total of 3,517 had entered this one, with the top 396 scheduled to get paid. When the money bubble burst, I was still there, and would continue to hang on before finally busting just shy of the top 90, getting $45.23 back for my trouble. Was pleased to see our friend Kevmath also make it that deep as well (he went out about the same time I did).

By the end, all but a few of those left were essentially short-stacked again, meaning just about all of the eliminations at that point came after preflop all-ins. Kevmath sadly ran pocket jacks into pocket kings. Then, with the blinds 17,500/35,000 (ante 4,375), I was able to open-shove my 220,614 from the button with and got called by the big blind who held . Found out later it was the same player who’d knocked Kevmath out, in fact.

Flop -- -- and turn -- -- were good. But the on the river sent me railward.

I thought afterwards about how I’d at one point had a stack of over a quarter million (even then below average) and how that might have been the most chips I’d ever had in front of me in a tourney.

I railed the other two April Foolishness events a little, including watching the final hand of Alex’s Tourney, the one which featured a normal structure for nine levels, then crazily went to 1 billion/2 billion blinds and a 500,000 million ante at Level 10.

I’m not completely sure, but I think that at the start of Level 10 there were something like 500-600 players left in that one, meaning it took three or four hands to get down to the end. I wanted to show an animation of that final hand, but the converter over at Poker Hand Replays seemed to have trouble dealing with all them chips. So here’s that final hand, converted via Deuces Cracked:

Poker Stars $2.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t1000000000/t2000000000 Blinds + t4835667 - 4 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

edja15 (BTN): t6574804 M = 0.00
Biböl002 (SB): t128984 M = 0.00
simcof (BB): t2943045 M = 0.00
yulian_99 (CO): t4835667 M = 0.00

Pre Flop: (t14482500)
Flop: (t14482500) 8 3 3 (4 players)
Turn: (t14482500) 4 (4 players)
River: (t14482500) 6 (4 players)

Final Pot: t14482500

edja15 shows 8 Q (two pair, Eights and Threes)
Biböl002 shows 7 Q (a pair of Threes)
simcof shows 6 5 (two pair, Sixes and Threes)
yulian_99 shows T J (a pair of Threes)

edja15 wins t3785244
edja15 wins t8442183
edja15 wins t515936
(Rake: t1739137)

(Not sure why there’s a “rake” listed here.)

Definitely a fun time, made funner by sneaking into some cash. That’s a couple of tourney successes this week -- talked about the other one a little here -- giving me a taste for playing more (not that I’m taking having modest success in a novelty event as an indicator of much of anything). A different sort of glee at winning tourney money versus a successful cash session. More lasting, I think. (And maybe more addictive.)

Have a good weekend, all. I hope everyone finds more time for foolin’ around.

Your Roving Reporter

Check out my new laptop! It’s awesome. I love the colors and lights that flash. And the tunes! Having a hard time composing words with just six letters, though I can work around that. I mean, it is kind of bad. But it is also def fab. (I know, I’m a cad. Hey, I just got out of bed.)

Great fun last night talking with Lou Krieger on his podcast Keep Flopping Aces. The hour flew by, with him interviewing me for the first thirty minutes, then I asked him questions about the current state of poker books and publishing for the remainder of the show. If you didn’t listen live, I imagine the show will be available for download soon (check the KFA page over on Rounders Radio), and it’ll also turn up in iTunes.

As I mentioned on the show, I’ve been a long time listener of KFA, so it was indeed a treat to get to take part like that. As others who’ve listened to the show or read his books well know, he’s a very thoughtful guy, and I found his answers to my questions about poker books and publishing both interesting and insightful. Much thanks again to Lou for having me on.

I’ll soon be writing up some of the latter part of the conversation for a piece over on the Betfair site. Today’s item over there is one I think many of you might find interesting -- a chat with Kevin Mathers (a.k.a. “Kevmath”) of Two Plus Two, Pokerati, and all of our Twitter feeds. Check it out!

Meanwhile, as I’ve been alluding to this week, I’ll be helping cover the big North American Poker Tour event at the Venetian that gets cranking tomorrow. Lot of buzz surrounding that -- will be very interesting to see how it all plays out. I’ll try to check in here to report how things are going when I get the chance.

Wish me well. Hope this new computer works for me.