Welcome, Visitor!

Am on the run today and thus not able to post too much at the moment. Spent part of the day traveling down to Jacksonville, Florida for the start of tomorrow’s World Poker Tour event, the bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble, a $3,500 buy-in tournament that will continue through to next Tuesday.

Was trying to remember if I had ever been to Jacksonville before and could not recall. Got a friendly welcome from the shuttle driver who lives here. She overheard me telling Josh -- one of my partners in crime this week -- how I had tweeted “Touchdown, Jacksonville” upon landing then joked that those two words have been rarely used together this season. “Hey, we won last week!” interjected the driver, alluding to the Jags’ upset victory over Tennessee and I laughed, duly chastened.

Looking back at last year, it looks like this event drew 477 entrants total (including re-entries), with Florida native Noah Schwartz taking top honors and a little over $400K for a first prize.

Speaking of Schwartz, Michelle Orpe has been doing a weekly interview series over on Learn.PokerNews called “Orpe’s Top Ten” in which she’s talked to numerous poker pros about how they got started. They’re all pretty cool, but Schwartz took a lot of time and thought with his responses, making his interview worth checking out if you’re curious. (More good interviewees coming soon, too.)

Have now checked into what will be the home-away-from-home for the next several days, waiting at the moment to connect a little later with some of the others who’ll be helping me report on this one, including the aforementioned Juice Box Josh as well as Milkshake Mickey. I’ll likely be sending along a few brief reports here as we go, so more to come from the Sunshine state.

Meanwhile, I noticed this morning a milestone of sorts arrive for Hard-Boiled Poker. When logging into Blogger lately I’d been seeing this figure for “pageviews” (somehow a single word in Blogger’s vocabulary) creeping closer and closer to the 1 million-mark. Finally today it got there, and after tweeting a screenshot earlier I got a lot of very nice replies in response.

In truth, the tracking of hits only goes back to May 2007, which is about a year after I started the blog. The traffic wasn’t all that heavy during the first 12 months of posting, though, so I’ll guess the actual crossing of the million-view milestone wasn’t that long ago (like just a few weeks at most).

I know “hits” doesn’t always equal reads -- and in fact more often than not equals “hit-and-runs.” But I’m grateful nonetheless to have people continue to stop by and thus that number of views continue to go up. Thanks again for all those nice messages on Twitter today, and thanks to you, too, for coming around today to add one more to the total.

2013 WSOP, Postlude: Unfinished Business

I am home again after a thankfully uneventful voyage back across the continent yesterday. Got to sleep around 11 last night and didn’t wake until just a couple of hours ago.

I admit the first few minutes of consciousness this morning were filled with confused thoughts regarding my whereabouts and duties for the day. I wasn’t completely sure at first that I wasn’t still in my room in Vegas, and that I didn’t have another day’s worth of reporting ahead of me.

“Am I really done?” I asked myself. Couldn’t help it.

In 2008 I was first recruited to go out to Las Vegas to help cover the WSOP for PokerNews. I’d signed on in the spring, then a couple of weeks later the announcement came regarding the whole “November Nine” idea. I remember then being disappointed I wouldn’t be there to see the Main Event final table finish and a winner emerge, and as I wrote here at the time, I thought delaying the final table four months was mostly a lousy idea, even if I understood some of the potential benefits of doing so.

Like most, I’ve more or less come around to accepting the delayed final table now. Do anything six years running and it’s hard not for folks to get used to it. As I was saying last week about the Rio having become the WSOP’s new home, what was once novel became custom, and now what was custom has edged over into a kind of tradition.

Thus for those of us who are in Las Vegas every July for the Main Event’s play down to nine, we’ve come to accept the moment when the 10th-place finisher gets eliminated as a kind of climax of the summer. For reporters, that’s the moment when the “end” of the story can finally be chronicled, even if the last tournament of the Series hasn’t really concluded. There’s always some more to do after that last hand plays out, but soon the WSOP fades from view as other business comes to occupy us.

I’ve actually never gone back out for the final table, having always followed it from home. I had a desire to do so those first couple of years, but that’s waned over time. It would still be fun to witness the spectacle in person once, I think, but having seen and experienced so much else at the WSOP over the years, I don’t feel so much like I’m missing out on something I absolutely need to see.

That said, each year when I have come home from the WSOP and finally woken up in my own bed again every mid-July, I do so with a sense of incompleteness. Part of that feeling stems from the Main Event being artificially paused as it is, but there are other factors, too, that increase the sense of work left undone.

I’ve written here before about tournament reporting and how in the end no matter how comprehensive one is -- or a team of reporters are -- there’s always so much left unsaid. Even doing the hand-for-hand reporting as we did that last day leaves out a lot. All of the bets and raises and folds and cards are there, but as anyone who’s ever played a hand of poker knows, there’s a lot more happening every single hand than can be seen and passed along.

I was chatting with Mickey after all was over early Monday morning (around 3:30 a.m.), and he was still thinking about the night and wanting to go back over everything to make sure all was finished. So was I.

Mickey likes to be as accurate and exact as possible, his famously precise chip counts being just one example of this trait. During the short break before the start of the 10-handed final table night before last, he took on the task of counting Carlos Mortensen’s creatively stacked chips and I wasn’t the only one taking a picture of him doing so. His work ethic has inspired many of us over the years, but I think a lot of us also share his same wish to be as complete as possible with what we do.

There happens to be a construction company based in Las Vegas the name of which coincides with mine. One sees the name around here and there, and in fact on a few occasions when introduced to Vegas-based folks I’ve had them react by mentioning the company. It’s not the only time I’ve experienced such coincidences with my name.

For the last several years, those going to the WSOP have been seeing a building going up near the Rio on Twain Avenue. Construction on Wyndham Vacation Resorts Desert Blue (a 19-story, 281-unit timeshare) began about five years ago and was originally scheduled to be completed by 2010. But they’d only really gotten started on the project when construction was shutdown. Some recession-related reason, I think.

So the building has been standing there within view of the parking lot for years now, and the fact that my name has been emblazoned on a large banner attached to the side of the edifice has inspired a long-running gag. “When are you going to finish your building?” I’m asked, and I usually respond that I’ve been so busy at the Rio I haven’t been able to find the time.

After something like three years of no movement on the project, construction finally resumed a couple of months ago, and so this summer some have commented to me about perhaps my building being completed sometime soon.

The last few times people mentioned the building and my name hanging on it, I’ve responded by saying that by now it had evolved into a kind of symbol to me. For weeks I’d park my car and walk into work, and every time I did I’d glance over to see this large, conspicuous reminder of the many unfinished projects in my life.

In his piece about Doyle Brunson last week, Brad “Otis” Willis touched on the problem of getting older and this feeling that increases with each year that we aren’t accomplishing what we should. “I look at what I’ve done and know it’s not enough,” writes Brad. “I look at what I’m doing and know it’s not enough.” I’m probably not the only one who reads such lines and thinks “I know what you mean.”

And so another summer in Vegas ends, and once again things still aren’t finished. There was so much more to write about this summer than I was able to do here on the blog. There always is. In fact, I still intend to write one last post here about Carlos Mortensen’s amazing run that also ended with him not quite finishing what he set out to do.

I’ll get to that eventually. But I’ll post this today as a kind of final postlude to the summer’s reporting, realizing again that this sense of incompleteness is just something I have to accept, just as we never really get to finish all that we set out to do.

Kevmath Adds Up Points to Become Hard-Boiled Poker Home Games Player of the Season (Season 2)

Was a fun Sunday, filled with football and poker.

The football went well, as I managed to have my best week of the year with my picks, going 14-2 to gain three full games on the leaders. Still leaves me four out with just one week to go, but I’m close enough to keep caring about how things turn out. Was most proud to see my two “hero picks” both come through yesterday (Minnesota and Baltimore). Also took Seattle in the late game, and so enjoyed watching their dominating romp over the 49ers.

Meanwhile, the last two events of Season 2 of the Hard-Boiled Poker Home Games series on PokerStars played out last night. The first one, Event No. 19, was a “deep-stacked” no-limit hold’em event that Mickey won and I took second. I joked with Mickey once we reached heads-up, asking him if we could just split the play money and stop there (as we saw happen earlier in the week at Sands Bethlehem).

Mickey managed to win the second event last night as well, Event No. 20, a H.O.R.S.E. one. Despite that late surge, he didn’t quite crack the top three in the Season 2 standings to win a book.

In the end, Kevmath ended up taking the top spot, winning two of the 20 events along the way while finishing in the top three seven times. (Points were earned by finishing in the top third of a given event, which generally meant making the top 3-5 as the fields ranged from 10-15 players.)

Nasal_Drip took runner-up in Season 2, having won three events out of the 20, tying with Mickey for the most wins of anyone in Season 2. And Season 1 winner thejim2020 finished third, having won a couple of the tournaments this time around, too. (Click the pic to enlarge and see the full standings.)

I’ll be sending each of those three books for their finishes. (See this post for details.) ’Tis the season, after all. Thanks again to Mike Fasso and Zach Elwood for donating books for me to award as prizes. And thanks as well to everyone for playing in the HBP Home Games. Big fun all around.

Meanwhile, we’ll run a Season 3 starting in January. I’ll probably stick to a similar schedule (Sunday nights), which I know makes it hard for our European friends to play but I suppose I’m mainly trying to offer something for us poor Yanks to do while we wait for online poker to return for us. By the way, I mentioned on Friday how I’m trying to move my funds from the now-dormant Hero Poker over to Carbon, but I still await a response to my request. Have a feeling it’s going to take a while.

Finally, if anyone has any poker and/or gambling books (or DVDs or anything else) that might work as prizes and you’re willing to donate them, let me know. Anyone wanting to join up, the info for doing so is over in the right-hand sidebar.

Travel Report: Sands Bethlehem DeepStack Extravaganza Main Event, Day 3

We’re done in Bethlehem. Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki indeed won the event after having ended both Day 1a and Day 2 as the chip leader.

The ending was a little like what I saw in Macau last month at the Asia Championship of Poker Main Event insofar as the final two players decided against playing out a lengthy heads-up match, instead agreeing on a deal that allowed them simply to end the tourney with a non-competitive final hand.

It was a little surprising, though not nearly as much as had been the case in Macau where the two players involved had battled for six hours before making their deal, whereas here the decision was made prior to the start of heads-up play.

I mentioned yesterday how the final day of the tournament was scheduled to be relocated up in the Sands Poker Room in the casino after having played out in a conference room the first three days. That first location had been brightly lit and mostly quiet, aside from a bit of noise coming late in the evenings from the Vision Bar nightclub down the hall. The casino, however, was dim and quite loud, which made for a very different environment in which to work.

The poker room has 30 tables, and the remaining 16 players were seated at a couple in the back and thus comfortably away from cash games and the traffic surrounding them. We had a nice setup, too, at a nearby table, giving us easy access for reporting and a solid wi-fi connection to the internet. But we were right next to the circular bar situated in the center of the casino and near the slots and other table games, which wasn’t necessarily ideal as we were close enough to smokers to be affected.

There were slot machines ringing, money wheels clicking, people talking, televisions blaring, and music pumping throughout the night, all producing an unceasing cacophony around us as the tourney played out. The players didn’t seem to mind too greatly, and I don’t think the noise interfered too much with their being able to communicate at the table, although there was certainly less chit-chat along the way.

Once the short stacks were knocked out and the final table began to shrink down to the last few players, the pace slowed as everyone became especially deep. After playing 60-minute levels on Days 1a and 1b, then 75-minute levels on Day 2, they played 90-minute levels on the final day, which further slowed things down. By the time just three players remained, the average between them was more than 90 big blinds.

Three-handed play between Klodnicki, Edward Pham, and Richard Allen was highly competitive, with all three leading at one point along the way. Then Allen ran queens into Klodnicki’s aces to lose nearly all of his stack before soon being eliminated in third, thus setting up Klodnicki and Pham to make their choice to deal rather than duel.

Was a little anticlimactic, although as was the case in Macau those of us covering the event weren’t too disappointed not to see the final pair battle on for another few hours. We were already edging up toward 2 a.m., and with the stacks so deep they really could have gone on until dawn, as they might well have done if some set-aside money or a bracelet was on the line. But they decided otherwise. Such deals really are part of the game and could be regarded as a natural extension of the ongoing “negotiations” (advertising, selling, buying) that happens in every hand played.

I believe plans are in place to stage more events at the Sands Bethlehem. I hope there are more, as I think the destination is quite accommodating and players might well enjoy checking out the venue and participating, especially those who are based on the east coast and can’t always get out to Vegas and California on a regular basis.

Was great fun working with Mickey Doft and Joe Giron again reporting on the event for PokerNews. There they are to the left on either side of Klodnicki who is standing in between holding up the big comedy check at night’s end.

Also appreciated the support given us by David Urie (the Sands poker room manager), Mark Valentine (who handled marketing), and the entire staff who were especially helpful to us as well. Fun meeting all of those guys, too.

Turning my thoughts homeward now, though, and looking forward to a little rest from all the traveling. Back to the airport I go.

Travel Report: Sands Bethlehem DeepStack Extravaganza Main Event, Day 2

Yesterday’s Day 2 at the Sands Bethlehem DeepStack Extravaganza Main Event saw players push through eight 75-minute levels and the field cut down from 70 to 16. The money bubble burst at 18, and in fact the two most intriguing hands of the day came right on the bubble when 19 players were remaining, both of which involved chip leader Chris Klodnicki.

Klodnicki was one of a handful of familiar faces in the field at the start of the event. Eventually we have gotten to know nearly everyone, but he was among the few pros playing whom we regularly see elsewhere. He only bought in once, accumulated chips throughout Day 1a to end as the leader, then ended yesterday’s Day 2 on top of the final 16 as the only player with more than a million chips.

My blogging partner Mickey Doft was reminding me that Klodnicki made a deep run in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, finishing 12th (for $591,869) and just missing the first November Nine. He was barely featured in the ESPN coverage that year, and so kind of flew under the radar as he accumulated more cashes over the next few months, including winning a couple of events in Atlantic City (one a WSOP Circuit one).

Klodnicki kept cashing and making deep runs, including finishing runner-up to Chris Bell in the WSOP-C Harrah’s Atlantic City $10K Regional Championship in 2010. In fact, Ketan Pandya and Micah Raskin were also at that final table, finishing third and fourth, respectively. Pandya was the last elimination in our event last night, finishing 17th, while Raskin returns today to a healthy stack.

By the 2011 WSOP (where he cashed six times), everyone definitely knew him. Then in December of last year he had a big win in the last event staged by the ill-fated Epic Poker League, earning over $800K for winning the Mix-Max event. This year was then highlighted by Klodnicki’s second-place finish to Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi in the $50K Poker Players Championship at the WSOP, earning him his largest career score of $896,935.

Klodnicki already had a big chip lead with 19 left last night, and he continued to add to it by leaning on others and pressuring them with his big stack during bubble play. One wild hand eventually developed in which Klodnicki managed to get Vince Baldassano to fold his ace-high flush on a paired board with a river shove, and afterwards revealed he only had two pair. Read about that one here in a post titled “Tricky Klodnicki.”

The other memorable moment yesterday came in what proved the hand that burst the bubble, when a short-stacked Abhinav Asija reraised his stack of just under 10 big blinds with pocket tens and Klodnicki thought a while before calling with A-Q-suited. A ten flopped, but Klodnicki rivered Broadway to eliminate his opponent.

The painful way the board ran out for Asija was interesting enough in that one, although Klodnicki’s subsequent explanation that he really would have preferred to keep the bubble going was also enlightening. He talked about it a little after the hand, then when play wrapped up for the night he continued to explain how he felt like he really should have folded in that spot. He was the chip leader by a wide margin at the time, in fact, with nearly 1.1 million when no one else had more than about half that amount.

I’d love to hear Klodnicki talk about those two hands, say, on the Two Plus Two Pokercast or the Thinking Poker podcast, as I think they illustrated a lot about the dynamics of bubble play and perhaps some factors that many players aren’t necessarily aware of or consider. They also helped further the impression we’d already developed early on Day 1a that Klodnicki had an edge over most of the players in the field when it came to tournament strategy.

Klodnicki’s clearly the favorite with 16 remaining, although there are several other savvy players left as well. The plan for today is to relocate up in the poker area of the casino for today’s final day, which will be a dramatic difference in terms of ambience (noisy and dark rather than quiet and light). Will be curious to see how that plays out and how players adjust.

Check over at PokerNews for live updates from today’s final day at Bethlehem, where Mickey and I will be chronicling it all and Joe Giron providing the great pictures (like the one above) to accompany our posts.

Travel Report: Sands Bethlehem DeepStack Extravaganza Main Event, Day 1b

As expected, the second Day 1 flight of the Sands Bethlehem DeepStack Extravaganza Main Event saw a larger turnout than did the first. In the end there were 188 entries total into the $2,500 buy-in event (including re-entries), which meant some overlay thanks to the $500,000 guarantee.

Ended up being a longer day for us than was the case on Friday, as things got started a little later and with more players there was a little more end-of-the-night tying up of loose ends needing to be done. The pace during the day also seemed to slow down at times, especially once we crossed out of the late registration period and into the portion of the night where re-entries were no longer an option. The blinds hadn’t quite gotten big enough for players to have to push, so a number of the short-to-medium stacks tightened up so as to try to make their tourney runs last a little longer.

I believe the event had around 50 or so players win their way in via satellites, and while we didn’t necessarily know which players had won their seats and which had not, there were instances during Day 1a and the first half of Day 1b -- when re-entering was still possible -- that the difference between the two categories of players would become apparent. While some were clearly ready and able to buy back into the event should they bust, others were not, and so sometimes that difference would appear to manifest itself in players’ styles. And in other ways, too.

I’m remembering one player, Jason Roth, kind of spelling out the distinction in concrete terms at one point on Friday. Roth is an amiable guy who ended up delivering a few good lines along the way during Day 1a, including a couple that made it into the live blog. He was playing at a table with Chris Klodnicki (who’d end Day 1a as chip leader) and a couple of other poker pros, and I’m assuming Roth was one of those who’d gotten in via a satellite.

“This is just another tournament for you guys,” he said. “But it’s like Christmas for us!”

I know those running the tourney would’ve liked to have had even more satellites and ultimately seen a larger turnout, but I believe the time to do so might have been limited in this case. Still, I think things so far have run well and hopefully this event will inspire more tourneys at what is a very nice and comfortable venue, perhaps helping make the Sands Bethlehem a better known destination for poker players outside of the area.

Speaking of making Bethlehem a destination, there was one interesting side story yesterday involving Andy Frankenberger who got a little misdirected on his way to coming to play Day 1b. As he tweeted about afterwards, he’d mistakenly set his GPS for Matt Glantz’s place in Bensalem, Pennsylvania rather than Bethlehem. That’s over an hour away, and so that detour necessarily made him later in arriving than he’d planned.

As someone with an especially bad sense of direction who relies heavily on GPS to point me in the right direction, I could totally identify with Frankenberger’s plight. I also felt bad for him when he busted fairly quickly after arriving to the event yesterday, although despite what had to be a frustrating day he was in good spirits nonetheless.

Glantz busted a short while after Frankenberger did, and in fact to go back to that distinction between the satellite winners (whom one might assume are mostly amateurs) and the pros, I noticed a lot of players talking afterwards about how friendly Glantz and Frankenberger were. That is to say, I think at least some of the amateurs enjoyed sitting alongside the pros, competing with them while getting to know them a little, too.

All of that helped contribute further to what I was suggesting yesterday regarding the overall atmosphere of the event being quite upbeat and even jovial. People are enjoying themselves so far, and as I’ve remarked before here, when the players are having fun at a tournament that always makes covering these suckers more fun, too.

From the first two Day 1 flights just 70 players will be coming back for today’s Day 2, and I imagine the mood will become increasingly serious as they reach the final 18 and the money, then work their way down to a final table. Check over at PokerNews’ live updates for details where Mickey Doft and I will be writing all about it while Joe Giron provides the pictures (as he did above).

Travel Report: Sands Bethlehem DeepStack Extravaganza Main Event, Day 1a

On Thursday I was writing from an airport and talking about those spaces we sometimes occupy where we find ourselves momentarily isolated from our usual networks of connectivity. There I was referring to the couple of hours I had to wait for my plane, during which time I was mostly free to read or write or think whatever I liked without feeling obligated to do much at all beyond keeping track of what time my flight departed.

I made a comparison to sitting at a poker table and how that, too, can provide a similar kind of respite. A momentary escape, so to speak, from the so-called “real” world and into a separate sphere where there exists an option to shut out everything beyond poker’s all-consuming perpetuum mobile.

Covering a poker tournament can be similar, insofar as it will often happen that I’ll be engaged in the work of reporting from, say, noon to midnight -- as was the schedule for yesterday’s Day 1a here at the Sands DeepStack Extravaganza Main Event in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania -- and be essentially shut off from whatever else might be going on in the world. Sometimes when at the World Series of Poker during the summer, days or even weeks will go by without my having watched television or heard the first thing about headlines or current events.

Such was obviously not the case yesterday, though, especially early on, as we passed back and forth whatever we’d heard regarding the horrific news of the shooting at a Connecticut elementary school. Eventually the discussions stopped and we all -- players, staff, and those of us reporting -- focused our attention on the tournament. But I imagine most continued to feel a kind of vague dread regarding what had happened, and I know I could sense the sadness creeping in to affect me off and on during unguarded moments.

Yesterday’s events are causing people to point back to another shooting in April 2007 that occurred on a college campus and also left an unfathomable number dead. I wrote something here then, a post titled “Lament,” where I noted my grief at the senseless violence, and how the feeling was perhaps increased (for me) by its having occurred in a place of learning. That yesterday’s shooting happened at an elementary school and children were victims makes it all the more ghastly.

When play concluded last night and I got back to my room, I watched some of the coverage and read some more online to gather further details. Then I went to bed, had a somewhat restless sleep, and woke up again with thoughts directed toward the unimaginable suffering happening just a few hours up the road in Newtown.

To tell about the tourney, a relatively small group showed for Day 1a, with just 70 entries being bought (for $2,500 each). But those who came clearly seemed to appreciate the quiet atmosphere (we’re in a conference room far away from the noisy casino) and amenities (free snacks and drinks), and also appeared happy with the staff, dealers, and structure, too. We’ll definitely see more come out to play today’s Day 1b, although the prospect remains for a possible overlay given the event’s $500,000 guarantee.

There were several fun hands to report, and some personalities emerged as the day wore on, too, which made the chronicling all the more interesting. And having Joe Giron here taking pictures adds even more to the blog, with Joe several times grabbing action shots during hands that were used to illustrate the reports. Speaking of personalities, that shot to the left -- taken by Joe -- was of the player David Hill who had a supply of different-colored pipe-cleaner glasses he’d pull out and wear during hands.

The overall atmosphere was quite positive, actually, with compliments for good play, grins and even laughter shared, and wishes of good luck delivered by the defeated to those who remained. And working with Mickey and Joe is always a pleasure. All of which is to say, it was a good place to be, in a community (of sorts) and enjoying the company and mutual support of others.

Here’s hoping everyone else finds such community and support today, wherever you happen to be. And going forward as well.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City, Main Event, Day 3

Am sitting in Philadelphia International Airport, awaiting another flight home after having helped cover another poker tournament. The WSOP-C Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City Main Event wrapped up just before 2 a.m. last night, with Adam Teasdale ultimately winning after making a helluva call in a final hand when heads up versus Wade Woelfel.

The day had begun at noon, so by the time that last hand arrived we were nearly 14 hours into Day 3 (including breaks). And it appeared we might well be sticking around a lot longer given that even though Teasdale had edged out to a 2-to-1 chip lead, Woelfel still had about 60 big blinds. The levels get lengthened at the end of WSOP-C Main Events as well (to 75 minutes) -- we’d just started a new one -- and with two strong, careful players sitting behind those tall towers of chips, it definitely seemed like we’d be there for quite some time.

Speaking of those chips, you might be able to make out the stacks of pinks (10k) and grays (5k) sitting in front of the players in the picture above. The 10k chips are kind of strange, actually. I believe they are only used in Atlantic City and a few other spots, and I know I’ve rarely if ever had to count them when covering tourneys. Despite there being over 12 million chips in play, they continued to use just the 5k and 10k chips to the very end, never introducing any 25k ones.

All came to an end, however, in a hand that saw Teasdale float a flop with nothing, make a small pair on the turn, then call a bold all-in raise by Woelfel who had but ace-high himself. (Here’s the hand, if you’re curious.) Not quite the ending I saw at APPT Macau last month, when two players ended six hours’ worth of heads-up play by deciding to chop the prize pool evenly and go all in blind on the last hand. But a fairly abrupt conclusion nonetheless, involving some inspired play by both players.

This was the second WSOP Circuit event I’ve done, the first having also been in Atlantic City (at Caesars) about a year-and-a-half ago. It’s a neat tour, really, and has been around long enough by now -- since 2005 -- to have developed its own tradition. And with 20 stops in 2012-13, it’s pretty much a year-round affair, with many players hitting multiple stops to play in the low buy-in prelims and affordable Main Events.

For those of us reporting, it’s an intense, brief grind. Just three days of play, but each day saw us there working for about 15 hours, which didn’t leave a lot of time for anything else. Unlike the last AC trip, I didn’t step foot outside the venue at all during my stay. But the accommodations were fine, and the WSOP staff were especially helpful and fun to work alongside, so all in all it was a good trip. And it is always enjoyable to work with tourney reporter extraordinaire and master chip counter Mickey, too.

Have to cut it short as my flight will be boarding soon. As I mentioned last week, I’ll be heading right back out again for another quick event, this one in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania starting later in the week. Should be another interesting one, but I’ll admit I’m already looking forward to returning from that one and getting some real rest while visiting family over the holidays.

2012 WSOP, Day 47: Tracking Stacks

Was another busy day yesterday at the Rio for Day 3 of the World Series of Poker Main Event. More than a thousand players were eliminated yesterday, with the field shrinking from 1,765 down to just 720 by night’s end. That means it won’t be long after today’s Day 4 begins that the money bubble will burst.

That’s right. Friday the 13th will start very unluckily for a few dozen players, namely those who don’t last to the final 666. (Sinister, eh?)

Gaelle Baumann began the day yesterday as the chip leader with a stack of 505,800. Someone asked me before play started whether anyone would reach 1 million yesterday and I said I thought a few probably would. I imagined the field would be cut in half, which meant the average stack would double and so 1 million seemed likely for a leader or leaders.

In fact, they busted at a faster clip than I had expected, with about 100 players hitting the rail every hour. One player did make it to 1 million just before the last break of the night, Benjamin Alcober. He’d slip back below that milestone by the end of play, but by then four others had gotten to seven figures: David D’Alesandro (1,100,000), Sean Rice (1,076,000), Jacob Balsiger (1,065,000), and Leo Wolpert (1,003,500).

It was during the last break of the night that the PokerNews video team had the neat idea to shoot Mickey Doft counting Benjamin Alcober’s stack. Check out the master at work in “Mickey Doft vs. The Stack”...



It’s true that covering any large field, multi-day tournament usually involves some scrambling around at the end of the night trying to ensure the big stacks are found and identified for the last reports of the night.

Usually the chip leaders will be players we’ve been tracking all along, although sometimes it will happen that someone will suddenly win a couple of big hands and appear with a big stack at the end without having been noticed earlier. Such can happen in the Main Event where there are so many players and so many chips in play.

Of course, finding the chip leader at the end of each day of the Main Event is a bigger deal than in other tournaments, since that person often becomes the focus of headlines and stories to begin the following day. And every once in a while a player might do something to make that task less simple than it might seem.

For example, at the end of one of the three Day 1 flights this year, the player who ended the day as chip leader refused to give his name when asked during the day. Of course, he ultimately had to write it on the slip of paper they pass out at the end of the night as well as on the bag in which he put his chips, so eventually his name was found out. But his refusal earlier made working him into the coverage a little awkward at the end of the evening.

I know I’ve written about this issue coming up before in a couple of different contexts, once in 2009 in a post called “The Name Game.” I remember back a few years ago a player who ended one of the early days -- I think it was a Day 1 -- actually writing down a false name which then got reported all over.

This year a player intentionally wrote down a larger number for his count than he had at the end of a day 1 (he added 200,000), thereby undeservedly earned himself a spot at the top of the counts and in headlines on the following day. Other, unintentional errors occasionally come up in the writing down of names and numbers, and in the transferring of names and numbers to official reports, too.

Such problems are mostly minor and/or temporary, though. Actually identifying players becomes less of an issue each day, of course, as the field continues to shrink. And there will be fewer and fewer stacks for Mickey and the rest of us to count, too.

Head over to PokerNews to follow today’s Day 4 as the stacks -- and the hands -- get bigger and bigger.

2012 WSOP, Day 45: H.O.R.S.E. Play

Was another day off yesterday for your humble scribbler, the last I’ll have this summer.

I did follow what was happening at the WSOP yesterday during that Day “2a/2b” from which Gaelle Baumann of France emerged as the chip leader. Baumann did well in the Ladies event this summer, leading after Day 2 before ultimately finishing 14th. Seeing her as a front-runner in that event made me less surprised to see her at the top of the counts yesterday, but there’s a long way to go.

By the early evening, though, my attention had mostly turned to the $120 H.O.R.S.E. tourney over at the MGM. I’d thought about trying this one when I first arrived in Vegas three-plus weeks ago, but ended up skipping out on it. But this time I’d talked to my buds Mickey and Kevmath who both wanted to play, and PokerGrump said he’d probably come over to join in as well. We had also heard Norman Chad and Lon McEachern would be playing, too, all of which meant I couldn’t pass up the chance this time around.

Mickey, Kevmath, and I arrived early, spotting Chad and McEachern already there and chatting with a small circle of people near the front of the poker room. I’ve spoken with each before, although had never really introduced myself to either, and so took the opportunity to do so.

I spoke to McEachern first, and we talked about how the WSOP has gone thus far, including discussing the turnout for the Main Event and how each year the WSOP seems to find a way more or less to keep pace with the previous year. We also talked about Chad’s final table in Event No. 42, the $2,500 Omaha/8-Stud/8 tourney where he finished sixth. McEachern clearly got a kick out of following that one online as he’d yet to come to Vegas.

I then approached Chad. “You look familiar,” he said with a sidelong squint, and I explained to him how I’d been one of those hovering around the tables during Event No. 42 helping report on it all for PokerNews.

I told him how fun it was covering that event, and he agreed that playing with folks like Tom Schneider, Bryan Devonshire, and others helped make it so, kind of reiterating an idea he brought up in a Washington Post column a few weeks back titled “World Series of Poker: It’s time for civil behavior from the pokerati.” (My buddy Rich Ryan elaborated further on Chad’s argument in a PokerNews op-ed, “Norman Chad Whamboozled the Anti-Socialness of Poker.”)

Soon I was being recruited to take a picture of Chad, McEachern, and the group with whom they’d been talking, and Chad mentioned something about how I was playing the role of media again as I took the camera and snapped some shots. It wasn’t much longer after that we were all seated and the tourney began.

I drew a seat just to the left of PokerGrump and across the table from Kevmath. We began short-handed, then the seats filled to eight-handed, and we ultimately played nine-handed for much of the night.

I started fairly well, picking up pots in the hold’em and O/8 rounds including one Omaha hand in which I flopped quad kings and actually made a couple of bets. That put me above average early on, then Kevmath scooped an O/8 pot against me to put me back to the starting stack of 10,000. Made it to the first break (after five 20-minute levels) with 8,850.

During the break I chatted with Brian Ali, also playing in the tourney. Ali had won the WSOP Circuit event in Atlantic City that I’d help cover back in the spring of 2011, and so like Chad he, too, had a “you look familiar” moment with me once I’d introduced myself.

Ali had kind of run over that final table, knocking out nearly all of the opponents including a fellow named Jeff Frazier, and I told him how we reporters were all excited about the invitation to employ boxing metaphors. He said he loved all the reporting and of course the whole tourney was a great experience for him. Cool, friendly guy, and it was neat to take a few minutes to remember that week from a year-and-a-half ago with him.

Soon we were back at the tables. Ultimately they drew 64 players, which meant the top eight places paid and there was a cool $1,920 up top. The limits started to climb rapidly, and over the next few levels I let my stack dwindle until about 25 had busted. Finally a stud/8 hand arose in which I was all in by fourth street against four opponents, two of whom would be all in themselves by sixth.

I’d started [][] / , then picked up three low cards (including one club), meaning by the time seventh street was dealt I needed any club for a flush and was drawing to a 7-4-2-A low. But my last card was another deuce (not a club), and I think I was the only one of the five of us not to claim some share of the chips scattered all about the table in separate piles.

I played okay, I thought, although probably should’ve taken my chances a few times and played more hands, especially in the early rounds. Was definitely fun and different, and despite the fast-moving structure I still got to play three hours’ worth of poker without even coming close to the cash.

Bob had busted shortly before I did, and Mickey would shortly after, so we went over to the Stage Deli to grab sandwiches and visit for a while. I liked getting the chance to talk to Bob as he’s been out of town and we hadn’t been able to previously. As we ate, Kevmath DM’d me that he was down to three big bets and figured his exit to be imminent, and soon we were stepping back over to the poker room to see how he was doing.

By the time we’d gotten there, he’d run his stack back up to have average chips with 19 left. Bob would soon depart, but Mickey and I hung out to root Kevmath on and chat about various aspects of covering the WSOP.

When it comes to the PokerNews folks, me, Mickey, and Donnie Peters are pretty much the only ones left from 2008, the first year all three of us came to Vegas to help cover the WSOP for PN. In fact, I don’t think there’s anyone at all left from 2007, the first year PN covered the Series (when I did some behind-the-scenes stuff for them from home).

Kevmath finally busted in 14th, a few spots shy of the money, and the three of us walked back to the car continuing the conversation about coverage Mickey and I had begun.

As we drove back I thought about how fun the night had been, made more so by getting to hang out with all sorts of folks with whom I’ve shared a lot of this weird, fascinating poker-related journey over the past several years.

The journey continues today, as I get up from my seat and resume my usual role pacing around and between the tables, watching others try to build stacks and position themselves to make the money and perhaps a deep run in the 2012 WSOP Main Event.

Yesterday those making it through Days 1a and 1b all played together but separately, with 860 or so of them surviving to return for tomorrow’s Day 3. Today the 2,300 who made it out of Day 1c will be playing Day 2c, and I imagine something like 900 of them will still have chips after today’s five two-hour levels.

And from there more characters will emerge. And stories to tell.