2011 WSOP, Day 35: I See What You Are Doing, But What Are You Thinking?

“Poker used to be a gentleman’s game. Now they let any idiot play.”

So said Scott Seiver to Phil Hellmuth yesterday evening as Day 4 of Event No. 55, the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship, was playing out. On the surface it might sound more like something Hellmuth would say than Seiver. But a little bit of context might help explain what was happening here.

When covering these events we tend to hear a lot of table talk. And in events such as the $50K Player’s Championship, when the field is made up of seasoned veterans and the best of the younger players, the chatter is often especially intriguing.

While it can be fun sometimes to report what players are saying at the tables, one has to be wary when doing so. A passing comment, taken out of context, can be highly misleading when reported. Often if I have any doubts about what was said or the speaker’s intended meaning, I’ll choose not to report comments as I don’t want to misrepresent anyone. And to be honest, even here I wasn’t completely sure about what Seiver might be getting at with his comment, although I did see enough of the action at the table and heard enough from others to get an idea what might be going on.

They were playing six-handed at the time, with Hellmuth, Seiver, and David Bach (who won the $50K H.O.R.S.E. event in 2009) sitting at one end of the table, and three young players, Alexandre Luneau, Steve Billirakis, and (I believe) Roman Yitzhaki sitting at the other. The dealer and two empty seats were positioned between the the two groups, and it was obvious that an interesting “old guard vs. young guns” dynamic had begun to develop at the table.

I came upon the end of one Omaha/8 hand in which Hellmuth lost to Billirakis. From late position, Billirakis had aggressively played Q-J-3-2 against Hellmuth who was in the blinds with A-K-x-x. Billirakis rivered a Broadway straight and Hellmuth called him off with top two pair, prompting Hellmuth to grumble some about the “young guys” and their play.

The talented Seiver is of course one of the young guys, too, still in his mid-twenties. But from his comments he appeared to be siding with Hellmuth, and kept referring to “those guys” at the other end of the table and their crazy play. Meanwhile David Bach sat silently between them, smiling underneath the brim of his leather “gunslinger” cowboy hat.

It struck me that Seiver was likely egging Hellmuth on, his joining him in the criticism of the players at the other end of the table forming part of a larger plan regarding Hellmuth. And, of course, there was something inherently funny about the idea that “any idiot” could (or would) lay down $50K to tangle with this stacked field in a mixed-game event. I felt like I was starting to understand what was happening here.

The table soon broke, at which point Seiver made another comment that seemed to support my read. “I do all of this work to get the table tilting and playing like sh!t,” Seiver said with a grin. “And now the table breaks.”

But Seiver’s work at the table had been interrupted. As had mine.

Hellmuth took his new seat card, then moved over to an empty chair at Matt Hawrilenko’s table. I watched Hawrilenko’s face as Hellmuth sat down a couple of seats to his right and couldn’t help noticing him smile. I thought about that infamous LHE session the two had played on UltimateBet a little over two years ago, the one in which Hawrilenko (“Hoss_TBF”) won so thoroughly that Hellmuth said in the chatbox he was going to ask UB security to review the session to ensure he wasn’t being cheated. (I wrote a little about that in a post here titled “I Am Irony Man.”)

Was Hawrilenko thinking of that -- or other encounters with Hellmuth -- when the Poker Brat took his seat? Who knows? There’s only so much one can see or know when standing by the table, watching players play hands against one another. Contexts shift and overlap, adding layers of meaning that one can’t possibly appreciate when simply jotting down flops, turns, and rivers.

Still, just like at the tables, it’s fun sometimes to speculate about what the people sitting there might be thinking.

While Hawrilenko did not make it through to today’s Day 4 of Event No. 55, both Hellmuth and Seiver did. In fact, both will be returning to big stacks today. Follow along over at PokerNews to see reports on what they and the other 27 players still alive in the event end up doing today.

But not on what they are thinking.

WSOPE Main Event Down to 36, Hawrilenko Ahead

They are down to 36 at the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event, that £10,000 + £350 no-limit hold’em event that began last Friday. Also known as “Event No. 4” or, perhaps, “Event No. 61.” Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko is atop the leaderboard going into today’s play.

Hawrilenko won a bracelet this summer at the WSOP at an event I helped cover. In fact, it was the last bracelet awarded in Vegas -- Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. I wrote some about that one here, particularly noting how most of the attention in the Amazon Room at the time was being directed toward that Ante Up for Africa celebrity-charity event. Meanwhile Hawrilenko was busy taking down a $1 million-plus first prize.

You may also remember “Hoss_TBF” as the fellow who posted some side-splitting chat between himself and Phil Hellmuth on his blog last spring. Hellmuth and Hawrilenko were engaged in a heads-up session of $2,000/$4,000 limit hold’em over on UltimateBet, and Hawrilenko was apparently crushing the Poker Brat. (Obviously hands Hellmuth lost weren’t resulting in pots being shipped his way that session.)

Amid Hellmuth’s chatbox insults of Hoss_TBF’s play, he at one point complained “I should have 50k right now.” To which Hawrilenko wittily fired back “Maybe if you started with 200k.”

Hellmuth also went so far as to suggest Hawrilenko might somehow be cheating during the session, noting threateningly that “Im having scurity review this session first time ever.” Read more about that applesauce in this earlier post, titled “I Am Irony Man.”

Hawrilenko enters the WSOPE Main Event today with 701,500 chips, followed by Steven Fung (648,000), Praz Bansi (471,300), and Arnaud Mattern (469,500). And in fifth place is Barry Shulman (452,500), whose son, Jeff, is, of course, currently in fourth place in chips awaiting that final table of the WSOP Main Event in November.

Speaking of Jeff Shulman, I watched a bit of the coverage of the WSOP Main Event on ESPN last night on which Shulman was featured prominently. They are up to Day 5, I believe, where my buddy Tom Schneider had cruised into the chip lead with more than two million, although he was barely shown. I believe he makes it over to the feature table soon, though, so hopefully we’ll see more of the Donkey Bomber.

Like I say, Shulman was at the feature table and was on camera fairly frequently during last night’s show. Not the most dynamic personality at the table, but interesting enough to watch, I guess. They did a short feature on him at one point that discussed his being the publisher, president, and COO of Card Player. I didn’t watch the entire two hours last night, but during the time I was watching I did not catch them saying anything about his beef with Harrah’s. (Perhaps that may come up during the next few weeks.)

Other notables still with chips at the WSOPE include John Kabbaj (6th), Daniel Negreanu (12th), WCOOP Main Event winner Yevgeniy Timoshenko (15th), Doyle Brunson (21st), Liz Lieu (26th), Steve Zolotow (29th), Jason Mercier (32nd), Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott (34th), and Men Nguyen (36th). There are also two 2009 WSOP November Niners still alive: Antoine Saout (24th) and James Akenhead (30th).

Only 334 entered the WSOPE Main Event this time around (a dip from last year's 362). Hasn't been a heckuva lot of hype stateside about the WSOPE, as far as I can tell, but I personally have enjoyed following the coverage thus far over on Betfair and also PokerNews.

And I'll be following today and tomorrow to see who takes down the sucker, for sure. The first hands of the day have just been dealt and Snoopy and Danafish are there at the Empire Casino with the coverage over on PokerNews. Check it out.

2009 WSOP, Day 37: Did You Hear? The Last Bracelet of the Summer Was Won

Yesterday I worked the final day of Event No. 56, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event won by Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko. That’ll be the very last WSOP bracelet given out this summer, as the Main Event won’t be decided until November.

I happened to cover this same event last summer when Joe Commisso won it. It also came late in the summer (it was Event No. 46), and the one thing I remember about it was the inordinately long heads-up portion of the final table.

Looking back at the live blog from last year, we did hand-for-hand coverage of that six-handed final table (as we did for most events last year). That was impossible yesterday since we weren’t on the main feature table, not that we necessarily would’ve done hand-for-hand anyway. MaconMarc and I had our laptops set up on a nearby table, a sort of makeshift arrangement necessitated by the unique location of yesterday’s final day. As far as I know, this ended up being the only final played out over in the Orange section of the Amazon room (the front left quadrant) rather than at a feature table or at least next to a feature table.

Anyhow, I see from last year’s blog that at the six-handed final table the first four players were eliminated in just 69 hands. Then it took a whopping 209 hands -- like six hours -- for Commisso finally to finish off Richard Lyndaker. My Hard-Boiled Poker post afterwards was titled “Kafkaesque, It Was.” “How did I get here?” I was asking myself as the night wore on and on and on. “What crime did I commit? Is this my punishment, or is something worse awaiting me? Just call me Shamus K.”

Anyhow, yesterday’s final day would go a little differently.

There were 16 players returning for the last day, so three tables’ worth. There were also many who’d come around wanting to watch -- not nearly as many who would be gawking at the Ante Up for Africa Celebrity-Charity Poker Tournament that was taking up most of the rest of the Amazon Room, but eventually well over a hundred or so, many of whom were friends of the players.

Because we were set up in the unusual location, it would take tourney officials and security an hour or more to realize that we had a lot of people milling about between the tables who didn’t belong there. Indeed, I had a nearly very frustrating moment when I was quickly jotting down the cards on a bustout hand, and this joker got in my ear saying “jack of hearts two of clubs ace of diamonds jack of spades” -- basically goofing around and trying to cause me to miss the cards. Hilarious, dude. I was able to get them down anyway, and soon after security got him out of there and eventually the ropes were put in place.

While my working conditions weren’t ideal, my various distractions were minor compared to those the players had to endure. I genuinely felt bad for them, playing for a first prize of more than $1 million in what were at times some friggin’ crummy conditions.

After about a half-hour of play, preliminaries for that Ante Up for Africa tourney started up on the other side of the room. Phil Hellmuth had the microphone, and he spent a long time introducing and kibitzing with the various celebs and poker players who’d come to play in that one. Hellmuth’s voice blared loudly over the PA system, and would continue for the next three hours or so as he “emceed” the event by calling out hands and so forth.

The noise was both loud and especially distracting, such as when Hellmuth would be calling out all-in hands and the board cards. The players immediately complained and asked if the tourney could be moved to another room. It actually looked like they were going to move them once it got to 12 players and two tables, but for some reason it didn’t happen and we stayed.

I made a couple of references to the noise in the live blog, bringing up in one post the popular Kurt Vonnegut story “Harrison Bergeron.” That’s the one set in an imagined future where the U.S. has made laws designed to ensure everyone is made equal by handicapping those with greater physical or mental gifts. So, for instance, people with higher intelligence are made to wear headphones through which painfully loud noises intermittently blast so as to make it more difficult to think clearly.

That’s basically what the players faced. In addition to the way Hellmuth’s booming voice might distract one’s concentration, players couldn’t hear each other, and so were constantly having to ask each other to repeat themselves when announcing their actions. And all this with more than $3 million worth of prize money up for grabs between those final 16!

After the dinner break -- when we were down to the actual final table -- the conditions had improved, although there were still occasional problems. The Ante Up for Africa tourney had moved over to the main stage, and so was less of an issue, but that was replaced by the noise of workers replacing the tables for the Main Event which begins today, as well as other oddities filtering over the PA system.

At one point, some pop song rang out over the speakers. Again, the players looked up and wondered what the hell was going on. “You gotta be kidding me,” said Hawrilenko of yet another sudden cacophony having arisen. “God, Hellmuth was better than this,” added Josh Brikis, who’d eventually finish second.

As a side note -- for those who might not know Hawrilenko, he is the high-stakes limit hold’em specialist and Full Tilt pro who had an interesting heads-up LHE session versus Phil Hellmuth on UltimateBet back in the spring. Hawrilenko apparently crushed the Poker Brat, and the latter lost his mind in the chatbox, going so far as to entertain suspicions that his opponent could see his hole cards. Hawrilenko subsequently posted the chat on his blog, and I wrote about it all in a post titled “I Am Irony Man.”

I have to admit I thought about that story a couple of times last night as I watched Hawrilenko there winning a bracelet while Hellmuth was yammering on incessantly on the other side of the room.

Anyhow, Hawrilenko and Brikis finally got to heads up, at which point they decided to take a 20-minute break. It was just after 11 p.m. Hawrilenko had 9 million chips, Brikis 5 million. At the time that meant Hawrilenko had over 110 big blinds and Brikis over 60.

I harbored no hopes of getting out of there soon. Indeed, looking back at last year’s $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, it was a pretty similar situation, where Joe Commisso had about 132 big blinds to start heads up and Richard Lyndaker had 67.

But this time the players returned from the break, and on just the fourth hand Brikis shipped it with versus Hawrilenko’s pocket jacks. Hoss_TBF’s hand held, and we were done before midnight.

I’m off today, as it appears the bloggers are going to be on an every-other-day schedule here for the four Day Ones and two Day Twos of the Main Event. I might run over to the Rio anyway today and check out the “Poker Palooza” expo which is set up through Sunday, I believe. I missed that last summer, having worked every day it was held.

I’m thinking that’ll be a nice distraction.