Talking Weight, Not Gravitas, With Hall of Fame Nominees

After having had the honor of being part of the panel of “poker media” invited to vote in the Poker Hall of Fame the last few years, I’m not part of the process this time around. The WSOP wanted to rotate some new folks into the mix, something I think is a great idea and thus don’t mind a bit stepping aside.

Since I’m not voting, I haven’t given that much thought regarding the list of 10 nominees (which I talked about briefly here a short while ago). I did notice, though, that two of them -- Ted Forrest and Mike Matusow -- have gotten back onto the gossip pages lately thanks to that weight loss bet from about four years ago won by Forrest.

Matusow had won a different weight loss prop bet between the pair previously, picking up $100,000 from Forrest after managing to go from 250 to 181 lbs. in less than a year. Then the pair made a second bet that would require Forrest, then 188 lbs., to get under 140 lbs. I’m not sure of the exact terms, but if Forrest could manage it by a specific deadline -- less than a year away, I believe (perhaps just a few months) -- Matusow would owe him $2 million.

Forrest achieved the feat, and then afterwards they agreed that Matusow -- who didn’t have the funds with which to pay his debt -- would pay Forrest $5,000 a month thereafter with the debt adjusted down to $1.8 million. That would still take over 30 years to pay off.

Cut to four years later, and Matusow has apparently only paid Forrest $70,500 thus far. Forrest took to Twitter earlier this month, and Matusow now seems to be referencing the collapse of Full Tilt Poker (version 1.0), the fact that the pair had been drinking when the bet was made, and other factors as lessening his obligation.

There are other details, but to be honest it took some extra effort for me just to get up the energy to look into it that far.

In terms of tourney results, both players have built up impressive, lengthy lists of wins and deep finishes, which is how both made it onto the PHOF ballot. Even with these accomplishments, I wouldn’t have been too enthused to vote for either, however.

I don’t say that because of these prop bet shenanigans, but just because when it comes to rating a super-select few above the rest, it’s hard (for me) to think of either as belonging to the toppermost tier of poker people.

That said, it’s hard to imagine “hall of fame nominees” of any other sport sniping at each other on Twitter in such a fashion. Seems to lack a certain gravitas, doesn’t it? I’m sure similar things have happened, but it still feels like an “only in poker” kind of story.

Who Would You Select Among the 2013 Poker Hall of Fame Nominees?

In a rush today and so just thought I’d post a quick one noting the announcement of the 10 finalists for this year’s Poker Hall of Fame. I’ve had the honor in the past of being one of those called upon to vote in this process, and as I look at the finalists for this year I’m again thinking about how difficult a task it will be when it comes to deciding between them.

As you’ve probably read elsewhere, the following players all made this year's list of finalists: Chris Björin, Humberto Brenes, David Chiu, Thor Hansen, Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow, Tom McEvoy, Carlos Mortensen, Scotty Nguyen, and Huck Seed.

Of those, McEvoy and Nguyen have both been nominees for each of the past five years -- indeed for every year since they instituted this new process by which fans were able to nominate candidates over at WSOP.com and then the panel of living Hall of Famers and poker media then vote on finalists culled from those who were nominated. Harman has also been nominated each of the last four years.

Meanwhile four of this year’s nominees are back for a second go-round, with Björin, Chiu, and Hansen on the ballot for a second consecutive year while Seed is on for a second time after being a finalist once before in 2011. The other three candidates this year are all first-time nominees -- Brenes, Matusow, and Mortensen.

Matusow won his fourth WSOP bracelet this past summer and has the unique distinction of also having made a couple of WSOP Main Event final tables (in 2001 and 2005). Mortensen of course won the WSOP ME back in 2001 and very nearly made another final table this year before being ousted in 10th.

Brenes, meanwhile, might surprise some as a nominee, but I knew his nomination was a distinct possibility after learning about a groundswell of support for him when at LAPT Peru a couple of months ago, something I noted in one of my reports from Lima for the PokerStars blog. Brenes’s standing in that part of the world as an important ambassador of the game is not unlike that of Hansen in Norway where Hansen is viewed as the “Norwegian Godfather of Poker.”

Interestingly, six of the 10 nominees were born outside of the U.S. (Björin, Brenes, Chiu, Hansen, Mortensen, and Nguyen). Four won WSOP Main Event titles (McEvoy, Seed, Nguyen, Mortensen). And all 10 have won at least two WSOP bracelets.

Gotta think McEvoy, Nguyen, and Harman will have an edge when it comes to the voting, given their having been on ballots for several years running by this point, but like I say those voting will have a tough decision to make. Only two at most will be voted in to join the other 44 already inducted in the Poker Hall of Fame.

Say you could only pick two of these candidates... how would you cast your vote?

A Slowrolling Spot

Sounding a theme not too distant from the one contemplated in yesterday’s post, this week has come a teaser reel from that Poker Night in America show shot back in August.

You might remember some cash games were played at the Turning Stone Resort Casino involving a somewhat eclectic cast of poker players flown there from all over the country to participate.

They streamed some of the action online, although as I recall technical issues tended to mute the impact of the presentation somewhat. However, some edited programs were made from the games, and it’s from those that this short video showing a couple of hands was compiled.

Take a look:

I say the clip kind of highlights a theme explored yesterday. I say that not so much because the hands featured are of that same all-in-and-let’s-see-what-the-cards-bring variety that Salon contributor Argun M. Ulgen fretted over as having dominated a lot of ESPN’s coverage of the World Series of Poker over the years, especially during those formative “boom” years starting with the 2003 Main Event and after.

Rather, I’m referring to the latter hand in the clip in which Shaun Deeb flops quad fives and then delivers a wicked slowroll to Mike “The Mouth” Matusow. Deeb and the other players at the table enjoy a great laugh, but Matusow responds with mood-killing venom.

The clip has already generated a lot of debate, with some responding to Deeb’s play in much the same way Ulgen was lamenting ESPN’s WSOP coverage, namely, by complaining that it misrepresents poker in some fashion, or perhaps portrays the game in way that is unfavorable (according to some).

Whereas Ulgen complained that ESPN’s version of poker minimized the game’s skill component and thus made it out to be more of a gambling game than deserved, some critics of this clip have suggested it advances a notion that poker is a game that somehow encourages the abandonment of sportsmanship, also thought by some to be a non-representative portrayal.

There have been a lot of other responses, too -- to Deeb, to Matusow, and to perceived ideas about what Poker Night in America is going to be all about. Rather than toss out my own, I thought I’d just share the clip, point out how it has gotten poker people talking, and invite you to consider what you think of it.

Tom Makes It Three

Was up late last night following various poker-related happenings, including that Event No. 15, the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. event in which my friend Tom Schneider, a.k.a. the “Donkey Bomber,” was leading as the final table played out.

From a starting field of 862, they’d gotten all of the way down to three-handed with Schneider ahead of Owais Ahmed and Viatcheslav Ortynskiy when I finally hit the hay. Got up to discover Schneider had won, and thus began the day with a grin much like was the case about a week-and-a-half ago when I woke to see Chad Holloway had managed to outlast the final few players to take down that Casino Employees Event No. 1.

Schneider joins Mike Matusow atop the weekend headlines from the WSOP, as “The Mouth” also managed to claim another bracelet -- his fourth -- after winning Event No. 13, the $5,000 Stud Hi/Lo. Meanwhile the Canadians keep grabbing gold, with Mark Radoja picking up a fifth bracelet for Canada in Event No. 16, the $10,000 NLHE Heads-Up event. (The U.S. has won the other 11 bracelets thus far.)

Schneider has been cashing at the WSOP for quite some time, his first in-the-money finishes coming in 2002 and including a 36th-place in that year’s Main Event. He became better known in the poker world in 2006 after a third-place finish in the televised WPT World Poker Challenge (during which Mike Sexton first dubbed him the “Donkey Bomber”).

Anyone who missed that show finally got to know Tom the following summer when he won his first two bracelets at the 2007 WSOP on his way to winning that year’s WSOP Player of the Year. He’s continued to post frequent cashes and deep runs both at the WSOP and elsewhere during the years since, including a 52nd-place finish in the 2009 Main Event.

Long time readers of this blog might remember I first met Tom way back in 2007, just a few months prior to his breakthrough at the WSOP that summer. I’d become a fan of the podcast he, Karridy Askenasy, and Dan Michalski (of Pokerati) were doing at the time, called Beyond the Table. After having interacted with those guys several times previously online, I happened to be in LV on a trip that spring at a time when Schneider was there, and so we had a chance to meet up in person. I wrote about that meeting here in a post titled “Shamus, Get Your Ass in Here!”

Kind of interesting to look back at that post, actually, written before I’d gotten involved in tourney reporting myself or really writing about poker anywhere except here at HBP. Later on I was thrilled to see Tom soon winning bracelets, then once I started in 2008 going out to the WSOP every summer, he and I would generally get together at least once each summer to catch up.

I have continued to report on those later meetings with Tom from time to time here. This morning I’m remembering in particular one post from 2010 titled “On the Schneid” in which I shared some of Tom’s comments to me over dinner regarding the emotionally-challenging grind the WSOP can be. I’m also recalling that deep run Tom made in the 2009 Main Event, as well as an unintentionally funny text message I sent to him then which I revealed here later that summer.

You can click above to read the whole story, but I’ll sum it up quickly here to say I’d accidentally sent Tom a memorable text message that I thought I was sending to Vera. It was a message in which I had referred to the recipient as “mama” and ended with “xxx.”

Waking up this morning to see Tom had claimed his third WSOP bracelet -- just a week after his wife, Julie, made her second career WSOP final table in Event No. 5, the $2,500 Omaha/Stud Hi/Lo event -- I couldn’t resist sending him a text in acknowledgement:

“Congratulations, mama!”

The Mouth, The Brat, and Poker on the Tube (Again)

Like you I heard about Mike Matusow winning that NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship over the weekend, outlasting Phil Hellmuth in the final to win the sucker. Was somewhat intriguing afterwards to follow some of the reactions to these two having made it to the final and thus securing themselves starring roles when the tourney makes it to air this spring.

Seemed as though responses covered the entire spectrum. Some were impressed. Others dismayed. Some saw in the result reason for optimism regarding poker’s popularity going forward and/or future prospects for televised poker. Others were considerably less enthused about “The Mouth” and “The Poker Brat” finding their way back into the poker spotlight.

The “Is good for poker?” question was posed again in different ways (and with different degrees of sincerity). In some cases I thought it was just a kind of instinctive response, caused by a vague memory of having at one time cared about who played poker on television and whether that person was skilled or not. Or entertaining. Or well behaved or well groomed or well spoken or well... whatever.

Like... how do I respond here, again? Oh, right. Poker needs this because....

Still, even those who seriously desired to stake out a position on the issue seemed cognizant of how televised poker has most certainly become much less meaningful, especially in the United States where online poker remains (essentially) positioned beyond American players’ reach.

Most appeared aware that the stakes are much, much lower. That is to say, whether the ratings for NBC’s poker show are high or low matters about as much as the difference between being dealt a pair of deuces or a pair of treys. Or should I say, 9-4 or 8-3. The game is probably going to play out similarly, either way.

When both Hellmuth and Matusow made the final four of the NBCHU, I was reminded of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event in which both made deep runs before Hellmuth finished 45th and Matusow 30th. They’d lasted long enough for people to begin considering how interesting it would be should they both make it to what was going to be the first ever “November Nine.” But neither did, and a couple of days later came the discussions of how there weren’t any “names” among the final nine (and whether or not that was “good for poker”).

When the two of them subsequently made it through to the finals, I then thought of how some viewers happening upon the shows later on might think they were watching a rerun from years ago. Incidentally, it sounds like the schedule will involve six two-hour episodes, with the first three coming on consecutive Thursday evenings (9-11 p.m. ET) starting in March, then the last three airing on Saturday afternoons (1-3 p.m.) in April. (Those prime-time shows in March will be up against the NCAA men’s basketball tourney on 3/21 and 3/28.)

I’ve written here before about both Hellmuth and Matusow on many occasions, including noting more than once that neither seem to me to be especially great ambassadors for poker. Then again, just repeating that assertion makes me want to rethink the whole idea of what such an “ambassador” really is (or should be). Clearly some are better suited than others when it comes to representing poker in a favorable, constructive way that ultimately might prove beneficial to increasing its popularity and acceptance among the general public.

I suppose in the end, those who serve the game best will find a way to do so. And it won’t require them to win the one tourney that happens to be on the teevee, either.

Playing for Real Money: Haxton and Blom

Poker players talk a lot about finding the right stakes for one’s skill level. Usually the advice is to find limits where you can play comfortably, that is, where the amounts won’t influence you to the extent of negatively affecting your decision-making.

Meanwhile, there are certain types of gamblers who prefer playing limits where wins can produce tangible pleasure and losses genuine pain. You know, where what you are playing for is somehow most real, if that makes sense. I guess for a lot of players there’s a middle ground in there somewhere where the stakes are just right for them -- they can play without reservation, but winning or losing is gonna matter in the end.

Was thinking about all that a little this morning when reading about the heads-up match that took place between Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and Isaac “philivey2694” Haxton over the last three days on PokerStars. Wild stuff, that.

Recall how in early December 2010 Blom was signed as a Team PokerStars Pro, his identity still theoretically hidden although by then most everyone knew who the mysterious Swede was already. (Isildur1 would officially be revealed as Blom at the 2011 PCA a few weeks later.)

Soon after Isildur1 came on board at Stars, the “SuperStar Showdown” challenges involving Blom began, and Haxton was the first to take him on. Haxton would win that initial challenge by a relatively slim margin (not quite $42K).

Blom went on to play a dozen more SuperStar Showdowns over 2011 and early 2012, essentially winning them all save a rematch versus Haxton last month in which Ike beat him a second time by an even slimmer margin (just over $5K). Blom technically split two back-to-back matches versus Daniel Negreanu, although Blom was the overall winner, taking more than $123,000 off of Kid Poker during the almost 4,000 hands they played. (Here’s a page listing all of the Showdown results.)

Perhaps losing to Haxton twice inspired the ultra-competitive Blom to take him on again. Or maybe Haxton saw a chance to win more against an opponent against whom he’d built up some experience.

Whatever their motives, this time the two decided to raise the stakes considerably from the usual SuperStar Showdown format (2,500 hands, with $150K the most a player could lose). Here the pair would each sit down with $500K and play $200/$400 heads-up no-limit hold’em across four tables with no limit on the number of hands played. They’d play four hours a day, continuing until one had all the money.

Gotta think for these two upping the stakes made it all a little more “real.” If that makes sense.

You’ve probably heard already how it all went down. If not, check out the PokerStars blog where Change100 and Otis recapped all of the action from each of the three days the duel lasted.

On Saturday, they played just over 1,900 hands with Blom leaving nearly $200K up (Day 1 recap here). On Sunday, Haxton closed the gap for a while before Blom pushed out ahead again, ending the day over $285K ahead overall (Day 2 recap here). Then yesterday they played almost four more hours, with Blom finally taking the last of Haxton’s money, having won $500K total over 5,030 hands (Day 3 recap here).

I can’t help but think back to when we first heard about Isildur in late 2009, back when we really didn’t know who he was and he was multi-tabling against all of the Full Tilt Pros, winning millions off some and losing back millions to others.

Remember the $1,356,946.50 pot Isildur1 lost to Patrik Antonius? Remember the subsequent data-mining controversy and Isildur1 indicating an intention to file a “formal complaint” to FTP presumably in an effort to recover millions won from him? (He never did.) Remember others marveling at the multi-million dollar swings, with some -- including Team Full Tilter Mike Matusow -- describing the games as “not real poker”?

Matusow’s comments came in an interview on the Two Plus Two Pokercast back in March 2010. His point was a little complicated and not entirely clear, although it seemed to boil down to the idea that since a lot of those involved in the biggest games were FTP pros using money they’d gotten as part of their endorsement deals, the money was therefore not “real” to them.

“They’re just numbers,” said Matusow, referring to the mind-boggling amounts of the pots being shipped back and forth. “And it’s not real money. If them guys had to use their real money -- like if they were playing in a live game with those kind of moneys -- you think they’d be throwing it in like that?”

Of course, today we look back on all of that talk a lot differently, knowing, in fact, that a lot of the money being shipped back and forth on FTP really would turn out to be just numbers, and not “real” -- if not then (late 2009-early 2010), then later on, for sure.

Anyhow, it seems much more likely the half million clams Blom managed to take off of Haxton over the last three days was real enough. To them, anyway.

To the rest of us, though, it still seems pretty unreal.

Taking DeepStacks360 for a Spin

Poker instruction has become a complicated, crowded business.

It wasn’t that long ago there were only a handful of good books out there, plus a couple of forums where one could read about strategy and perhaps participate in conversations about how to play the game. Not only are there a lot more books and forums today, but other types of instruction have emerged, too, including “boot camps” and live seminars, as well as video-based tutorials available online via subscription.

Being a “book guy,” most of my away-from-the-table poker study has been confined to reading books and magazines, although I have looked at a few vids and can see how valuable they can be. (One of those things I keep intending to spend more time pursuing, although I’ve yet to find the time to do so.) I also can see how those who aren’t crazy about reading -- or “visual learners,” as some educators like to call such students -- would prefer and probably get a lot more out of the video-based instruction model.

I had a chance yesterday to look in on another type of poker teaching, one that kind of combines the video lesson idea with the live seminar. It took place over at DeepStacks360.com, a lengthy (five-hour) seminar of sorts dubbed “Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi’s WSOP Final Table Power Poker Course.”

Some may recall those “All360Poker” cameras from this summer’s WSOP. Touted as “the best thing since the hole card camera,” the technology really is pretty cool (in my opinion) for viewing above-the-table poker. Using a special camera with 11 different lenses which is positioned over the center of the table, the resulting video is interactive in that the viewer can use the mouse to pan all of the way around the table, tilt up or down, or zoom in and out. The kind of thing some might have seen on real estate or hotel websites, allowing prospective buyers/renters to get a full “360° view” of rooms.

If you want to read more about how it works, Dan Michalski of Pokerati wrote a piece describing the technology for the WSOP last July titled “Poker in the Round.” You can see it for yourself, too, as they still have a lot of that footage from the 2010 WSOP archived over on the All360Poker site. For example, click here to see the final hand from Day 8 of the Main Event in which Brandon Steven was eliminated in 10th place.

Anyhow, the 360° guys have teamed up with the DeepStacks University poker training site to produce some online “courses” employing the technology. I think Mizrachi’s “power course” from yesterday might’ve been one of the first -- if not the first -- attempt at such. Was definitely kind of neat to be able to “sit in” (so to speak) on the seminar. I also found it interesting to watch a very cool, relaxed-looking Mizrachi hanging out like that just three short days before the WSOP ME final table is set to begin.

Had a few other impressions to share from what I saw and heard yesterday.

Essentially, the “course” consisted of poker pros Mizrachi, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Tristan Wade, and half-dozen amateur players sitting around a table playing a sit-n-go. The stacks began quite deep (300 big blinds, I think), and the blinds/antes rose quickly enough for them to get through the thing during the scheduled time, thereby covering early, middle, and late stage strategies for tourneys. (I’ll admit I signed off prior to the conclusion last night, so I don’t know how things turned out.)

With each hand, players kept their cards after they’d folded, then when the hand concluded all turned up their hands and discussion ensued about how everyone had played. A fine model for teaching tourney strategy, I think, which I assume has been used with success in the live seminars.

There were a few technical problems yesterday. It took me about 20 minutes after the scheduled start time to get the image and sound up and running, and from what I gather I wasn’t the only one having trouble early on. I continued to experience audio drops and image freezes pretty much the entire time I was watching, which sometimes hindered my ability to follow what was happening.

Also, while the 360° cameras do allow one to see all of the players quite well, one can’t really focus on the cards too easily. To compensate, the dealer and players began calling out the cards as they were shown so as to help in this regard, although they weren’t consistent with that and so it was a bit of a struggle at times to know precisely all of the details of a given hand.

That said, there were some interesting moments during the hands I did watch, and I think there is some potential here -- if some of the techy stuff can be smoothed out -- for this type of online instruction to work.

Mizrachi struck me as an especially good communicator and teacher, something I didn’t necessarily expect but was glad to see. Asked a question about tells early on, Mizrachi unhesitatingly responded by saying he looks at opponents’ breathing, posture, how they move their hands, and their bet sizes. He also gave a lot of credence to an opponent’s first reaction to the appearance of a new board card, using that as a guide by which to judge future behaviors.

Mizrachi also shared an interesting theory regarding how best to utilize one’s chips in a tourney, suggesting that one think of one’s stack as in fact three different stacks, with a certain portion (15-20%) reserved for bluffs, another (15-20%) for flips/gambles, and the rest (60-70%) for “solid poker” or chip accumulation. Might be worth remembering that formula come Saturday as we watch him try to build his below-average stack back into a competitive range.

All three of the pros interacted well with the amateurs. Tristan Wade was the most soft-spoken of the trio, but he seemed to communicate and made useful comments about the amateurs’ play. Matusow was his usual, boisterous self, and while his advice was also mostly fine he seemed frequently to lapse into the old bromides (“tight is right,” “think long, think wrong,” etc.).

There was some interaction happening between the players and those following at home, too. There was a chat box where one could ask questions (with a “premium” subscription, I believe), and the players did respond to some of those along the way.

I definitely think the amateurs sitting at the table benefited from the time they spent with the pros. And I imagine at least some of those watching at home did, too, although like I say technical difficulties may have gotten in the way in some cases.

When it works, though, the 360° camera can be fun and I really do think it might prove a useful way to broadcast live poker. And perhaps even to include folks in these live instructional sessions, too. If you’ve never played with it, do head over to the All360Poker site and see how it works. You can literally tilt the table!

The True Story: Day 1 Chip Leaders at the WSOP Main Event

Watched some of the coverage of the 2010 WSOP Main Event again last night on ESPN. Yesterday they showed highlights from Day 1c and Day 1d, giving an hour to each day. These Day 1 flights are okay, but not terribly riveting, really. I’m glad ESPN appears to have changed its original plan to give two hours each to the four flights and instead devote more time to the more exciting -- and relevant -- Days 6 and 7. (See the full schedule here.)

Speaking of Day 1 not being all that important in the larger scheme of things, there was an interesting moment from last week’s episodes involving Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, the highlighted player at the feature table during Day 1a. If you saw the show, you might remember this -- a kind of strange-sounding statistic thrown out by Matusow to his tablemates.

Matusow’s claim came following a weird hand involving himself, Gerhard Maurer, and Alex Carr. The Mouth is in the small blind with , Maurer in the big blind with , and Carr on the button with , and all three players make straights on the turn, with the board showing .

“What are the chances of that?” asks Lon McEachern. “Actually we just checked our statistical archives,” answers Norman Chad, tongue firmly in cheek. “It’s the first time in the history of the Main Event three players have made a queen-high straight on the turn on Day 1!”

Matusow checks from the small blind. Maurer, in the big blind, then bets 3,000 into the 4,800 pot, and Carr promptly calls from the button. “That could be the greatest check I made in my entire life,” says Matusow. “I was checking to induce a bluff, not a bet and a call,” he adds with a grin. Finally, he lets his hand go.

The river is the , pairing the board, and Maurer wastes little time moving all in for his last 8,925. Carr doesn’t wait long, either, before calling, and Matusow is a bit dismayed to see his two opponents had neither better straights, flushes, or full houses.

“This is one long, long, long, long, long tournament,” says Matusow afterwards, perhaps in part to make himself feel better about the hand. Having made no less than two WSOP ME final tables (2001, 2005), plus made a couple of other deep runs (87th in 2004, 30th in 2008), Matusow obviously knows from experience that losing a hand on the first day isn’t necessarily cause for too much despair.

A commercial break follows, and when the show resumes Carr is shown saying “running good early on Day 1... that’s bad.” That’s when Matusow -- sort of like Chad did with McEachern, only Matusow isn’t kidding -- offers to provide some data, in this case to back up the idea that being among the chip leaders on Day 1 is no guarantee of success in the WSOP Main Event.

“In 2008 when I got 30th,” says Matusow, “I was like 16% of average chips for five straight days.” His opponents nod in agreement, Matusow’s experience sort of affirming Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare. No need to worry about racing out in front early. Slow and steady can win the race, too.

The Mouth continues. “And only one person of the entire top 100 chip leaders on Day 1 cashed.”

“That can’t be right,” says Carr. “Actually, that’s not even close to accurate,” Chad slips in. “That is a true story,” affirms Matusow. “That’s why Day 1 doesn’t mean zero!” he concludes. Probably meant to say that’s why Day 1 means zero, but we get the point.

Carr was right to question Matusow’s claim. A good number usually make it through Day 1 of the Main Event. This year a little over 70% of the starting field of 7,319 made it to Day 2. In 2008, there were 3,629 players still in the hunt after one day of play out of the starting field of 6,844 (about 53%). The top 10% or so make the cash (in 2008, the top 666 were paid), so it stands to reason at least a few of those in the top 100 at the end of Day 1 should still be around once the cash bubble burst.

Chad’s editorial comment made me curious to see just how inaccurate the statement was that only one player among the top 100 at the end of Day 1 in 2008 actually made the cash. So I looked back to see.

What follows is a list of the top 100 at the end of the four Day 1 flights (combined) from the 2008 Main Event. If the player ultimately made the money, I’ve added in parentheses where the player finished and how much he or she earned (and put them in bold). If the player did not make the top 666, there is no note beside the name.

2008 WSOP Main Event, Day 1 chip leaders

1. Henning Granstad -- 242,950 (finished 553rd, $23,160)
2. Mark Garner -- 194,900
3. Ben Sarnoff -- 177,500
4. Brandon Adams -- 176,450
5. Curt Kohlberg -- 173,050
6. David Baker -- 163,450 (252nd, $35,383)
7. Brian Schaedlich -- 160,725 (456th, $27,020)
8. Howard Berchowitz -- 160,075
9. Arnaud Mattern -- 157,650
10. Kellen Hunter -- 155,200 (115th, $41,816)
11. Stefan Mattsson -- 154,275
12. Steve Austin -- 149,000 (552nd, $23,160)
13. Mohamad Kowssarie -- 146,000
14. Patrick Fortin -- 145,275 (390th, $28,950)
15. Robert Mizrachi -- 142,400 (458th, $27,020)
16. David Stucke -- 140,525 (510th, $25,090)
17. Sami Rustom -- 140,450
18. Dylan Linde -- 138,425 (366th, $28,950)
19. Jeff Frerichs -- 138,025
20. Diren Yildiz -- 136,075 (181st, $38,600)
21. Soren Peterson -- 135,475
22. Josh Schiffman -- 133,000
23. Adam Hudson -- 127,750
24. Nick Caltabiano -- 127,700
25. Nikolay Losev -- 127,225 (28th, $193,000)
26. Evan Woodington -- 127,125 (451st, $27,020)
27. Michael Souza -- 126,100 (291st, $32,166)
28. Serj Markarian -- 126,000 (521st, $25,090)
29. Joe Marcal -- 125,325
30. Victor Ramdin -- 124,600 (64th, $96,500)
31. Wayne Brown -- 124,575
32. Robin Andreas Berggren -- 124,125 (196th, $38,600)
33. Todd Rebello -- 123,925
34. Andrew Tisler -- 123,900
35. Michael Martin -- 123,025
36. Samir Shakhtoor -- 122,875 (208th, $38,600)
37. Christian Choi -- 122,225
38. Marko Batanjac -- 122,000
39. Charles Dolan -- 121,625 (177th, $38,600)
40. Kido Pham -- 120,650 (41st, $154,400)
41. Nghia Le -- 119,750 (108th, $41,816)
42. David Singer -- 119,425
43. William Purle -- 118,575 (171st, $38,600)
44. Igor Ioffe -- 118,525 (345th, $32,166)
45. Diogo Borges -- 115,825 (404th, $28,950)
46. Joe McGowan -- 115,575 (505th, $25,090)
47. Jason Mannino -- 115,100
48. Jay Katsutani -- 115,000
49. David Oppenheim -- 114,400
50. Michael Johnson -- 114,000 (545th, $23,160)
51. Mark Vos -- 113,200 (80th, $77,200)
52. Alexander Borteh -- 112,425 (197th, $38,600)
53. Anton Allemann -- 112,250
54. Woodrow Johnson -- 111,900
55. Alexander Kostritsyn -- 111,850
56. Mojgan Stringham -- 111,475
57. Chino Rheem -- 111,375 (7th, $1,772,650)
58. Liya Gerasimova -- 111,050
59. David Dao -- 111,005 (453rd, $27,020)
60. Kara Scott -- 111,000 (104th, $41,816)
61. Bill Blanda -- 111,000 (333rd, $32,166)
62. Brad Booth -- 110,825
63. Patryk Hildebranski -- 110,350
64. Robert Eckstut -- 110,275
65. Evelyn Ng -- 110,225 (238th, $35,383)
66. Danny Smith -- 110,175
67. Alex Balandin -- 109,925
68. Carlos Mortensen -- 109,825
69. Leonid Yanovski -- 109,575
70. Jan Skampa -- 108,450
71. Messaoud Bouchaib -- 108,375 (643rd, $21,230)
72. Kory Mitchell -- 107,500 (414th, $28,950)
73. Mohsin Charania -- 107,475
74. Jason Kang -- 107,375 (532nd, $25,090)
75. Coco Valerice -- 106,727
76. John Goossens -- 106,350
77. Joshua Norris -- 106,325 (179th, $38,600)
78. Marc Podell -- 105,800 (100th, $41,816)
79. Bryan Colin -- 105,650
80. Doron Malinasky -- 104,950 (246th, $35,383)
81. Michael Watson -- 104,425
82. Dale Sing -- 104,125 (662nd, $21,230)
83. Tim Loecke -- 104,050 (23rd, $257,334)
84. Heidi Northcott -- 103,075
85. Gus Hansen -- 102,900 (160th, $41,816)
86. David Saab -- 102,525 (46th, $135,100)
87. Paul Loh -- 102,125
88. Andrea Benelli -- 102,050
89. Israel Hodara -- 101,525 (381st, $28,950)
90. Gilles Smadja -- 101,450
91. Whitney Blanton -- 101,450 (412th, $28,950)
92. Johan Berg -- 101,450
93. Bill Meyer -- 101,150
94. Raymond Rice -- 100,575
95. Eetu Vehilainen -- 100,325 (434th, $27,020)
96. Arthur Azen -- 99,800
97. Aaron Kanter -- 99,700
98. Grudi Grudev -- 98,800
99. Daryl Yarosh -- 98,575
100. Scott Montgomery -- 98,525 (5th, $3,096,768)

So, yeah, a few more than one of the top 100 at the end of Day 1 did cash back in 2008. In fact, almost half of them did -- 46 in all. More than I thought would be there, to be honest. Among those in the list are two who made the final table (Chino Rheem and Scott Montgomery), as well as nine players who’d be among the top 100 at the end of the event.

Incidentally, any errors here are obviously my own. I did the cross-checking myself, and could well have missed somebody, especially if the name was listed differently on the counts and payouts, although I think I caught everyone. (Also had to mess with spreadsheets a little to combine the four Day 1 flights -- another chance for errors to creep in.)

I imagine the results from other years would probably be similar. The WSOP Main Event is a long, long tourney, and there are many, many ways to get from that first hand to the money and ultimately the final table and the bracelet.

Then again, I think it is safe to say that Day 1 does mean more than “zero.” Especially if that happens to be your chip count at the end of Day 1, as was unfortunately the case for 2,173 players this year -- including Matusow.

2010 WSOP, Day 13: The Real Tournament of Champions?

“I just hope I don’t deal a flop.”

That’s what a dealer said to me prior to the start of yesterday’s Event No. 19, the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw Championship (No-Limit).

He had told me he’d only dealt the rarely-spread game once before, and was only half-joking, I think, when noting how he hoped not to slip into the usual routines of hold’em during this event.

Yesterday probably counts as my first superlong day of the WSOP, given that I was up early in the morning, went in to cover an event starting late in the afternoon, and didn’t get back to the home away from home until after 4 a.m. So I was up 20-plus hours, which’ll happen now and again with this gig.

I had gotten to the Rio early for the event, and when I’d mention to people I was on the 2-7 more often than not I’d get sympathetic noises or nods in return, the draw events being for some folks less than desirable to cover.

But I like a diversion from the flop, turn, and river. And with this event -- one that draws (pun intended) just about every top level poker pro one can imagine -- there was constantly something of interest to engage the mind. I’m not going to list all the stars here; go take a quick peek at the chip counts to see how incredibly stacked this field was. You’ll get an idea looking at that list how every single table had four, five, six, or even seven players those of us who are fans of poker would know.

Think about all the bracelets won by the players entered in this event! Not a stretch to claim Event No. 19 to be the real Tournament of Champions.

With all the immediately recognizable names in the field, the chip leader is a fellow named Homan Houshiar, a Canadian player who told us near night’s end that this was only the third or fourth time he’s played deuce-to-seven. You’ll hear stories like that with these less popular games, sometimes. As with the dealers, not all of the players who play an event like this -- even a $10,000 buy-in version of it -- will come to it with a great deal of experience.

Many remember the tale of how Jennifer Harman won a bracelet in this same event in 2000 having never played the game previously, and only receiving a five-minute tutorial from Howard Lederer prior to the event. Indeed, for much of the middle part of play yesterday it was a young player named Stephen Chidwick who’d raced out to the chip lead, and we learned from Maria “Maridu” Mayrinck that he’d only learned the game during the afternoon from David “Bakes” Baker yesterday afternoon!

Donnie and I handled the blogging, with Neil helping us in the field. By the end of the night the three of us had actually managed to enter about 80 of the players’ names into the counts, and were able to keep them all fairly well updated during the latter four levels of play. (During the first four levels players could still use their three allotted “add-on” chips, and so the counts -- while updated -- were not so indicative of how things were going since the chip counts page didn’t show how many of the add-on chips a player had left.)

Probably the funniest hand I witnessed yesterday was one in which Chris “Jesus” Ferguson cheekily raised and stayed pat after being dealt quads. (See the hand write-up here.) Table cracked up afterwards, with the usually stolid-seeming Ferguson laughing the loudest.

There were a lot of other interesting moments during the day as well, not all of which were related to the play.

One was when the dealers quizzed Erik Seidel at the end of the dinner break about the whereabouts of the visor he wore at the 1988 Main Event final table. (That's pic to the left is from Seidel playing that final hand against Johnny Chan -- who busted in Day 1 of Event No. 19 yesterday.)

Seidel said he thought his wife might have thrown it out somewhere along the way, but he agreed with the dealers it would be a hoot if he were to show up wearing it at at some future final table. He will be returning for Day 2 today. Maybe if Seidel makes it back tomorrow he’ll consider some sort of orange visor reprise.

Speaking of hats... during the dinner break I ate in the Poker Kitchen where I saw Jeff Lisandro with a couple of people who appeared to be a salesman and an assistant (I’m not sure). Last year’s WSOP player of the year was trying on hats -- an assortment of bowlers that evoke that Prohibition-era gangster image his style sometimes evokes.

I could only assume he was looking to purchase one or more. He’d put on one, walk across the hall to the restroom to check it out in the mirror, then return to try another. All looked equally cool to me, but then I would like that hard-boiled style.

Mike Matusow was talking a lot at his table, as he is wont to do. Was relating in great detail to the table the screwing he received at UB where he was cheated out of millions, a story he’s told elsewhere more than once.

Billy Baxter is in this event, too. Naturally. He holds seven bracelets, all in lowball events, a fact of which just about every other player seemed aware. Many came over during play -- there was a lot of talk and visiting between tables all night -- to acknowledge “Mr. Lowball” (as John Juanda called him).

Tom “durrrr” Dwan is in this one, too, and at one point early on appeared to have successfully crossbooked action with Baxter. Both players return to similar, above-average stacks today that put each in the top ten.

Have to say I wouldn’t mind at all seeing Baxter make it deep in this one. But then, there are a lot of players I’m pulling for here. Hard not to feel like a fan with such a field.

If you want to follow the action from Day 2, skip over to PokerNews for updates as they play down from 72. The goal today is to reach a seven-handed final table today, although they’ll stop before that if it gets too late.

But if it does go late, we’ll handle it. Will happen now and again with this gig.

Not Real Poker

Have noted before how I consistently enjoy the Two Plus Two Pokercast, hosted by Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz. Last week’s episode again featured a number of good segments, including a discussion with Andrew “LuckyChewy” Lichtenberger of that great “High Stakes Poker” hand from last week between Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey (mentioned here).

The featured guest last week was Mike Matusow, and as is often the case Johnson and Schwartz asked all of the questions of their guest that we’d like to hear answered -- including some attempts at getting further details regarding provocative anecdotes from Matusow’s autobiography, Check-Raising the Devil (co-authored with Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli). They also got Matusow to talk again about Russ Hamilton and UltimateBet, an exchange that also provided some interesting moments.

I wanted to focus a bit on one part of the conversation -- the part where the hosts asked Matusow to comment on the whole “Isidur1 saga.” As most probably know, after that wild ride late last year, Isildur1 has recently resurfaced over on Full Tilt Poker with a replenished bankroll, seeking still more action.

“Everybody wanted us to ask this,” begins Schwartz, who then asks Matusow to comment on Isidur1’s apparent “death wish” or desire to keep playing the top players for the highest stakes, ostensibly until he loses all he possibly can.

Matusow’s response reflected some of the same cynicism about online poker we’ve heard him advance many times before, though I thought it was kind of intriguing to consider what he was saying in the context of discussing these super-high, “nosebleed”-stakes games. After confidently predicting Isildur1 will be going busto soon (again), Matusow went on to address the following topics...

On the Object of the Game

“Don’t you understand those games?” asked Matusow. “Those games are not real poker games,” he clarified, noting that those who play at those stakes are “degens” playing for a “ridiculous amount of money that are [primarily] trying to see who’s going to go broke first.”

Part of Matusow’s assessment of the games, then, seems to concern the approach the players take towards them -- an approach seemingly guided by that “death wish” idea Schwartz had mentioned. “All it is... it’s no real money,” said Matusow. “The only reason why it looks like real money is because you got people... [playing in the games] like Ivey and them that have uncountable amounts of money that don’t care. The people that play are people that, you know, they don’t care until they go broke.”

Matusow then spent some time talking about a specific live hand Tom Dwan played versus Phil Ivey in which Matusow believed Dwan played much too loosely when calling a check-raise from Ivey with nothing but an inside-straight draw.

The hand was from that Full Tilt Poker Million Dollar Cash Game, and I’m assuming it was one where Matusow himself was present. I haven’t seen that hand and thus am not sure what the context was or whether Dwan may have been planning a later-street bluff. In any case, for Matusow the hand exemplified the “don’t care”-attitude toward money he says Isildur1 and his opponents are demonstrating.

On Endorsements and Their Effect

Schwartz then asked Matusow “How much do the Full Tilt disbursements kind of drive these games and turn it into this sort of circus?”

Matusow had no concrete answer to this question. In fact, he started off saying “no comment,” but then added “you think it [i.e., the fact that some of the players are FTP pros and thus are being compensated in some way for playing in these games] kind of has something to do with it.”

A good question, actually. Kind of reminded me of a discussion that came up in the comments to a post over on Pokerati from last December. One commenter asked “is there any possible way these players actually are not playing for that much and it is merely b.s. so the poker site can get more traffic...?”

The subsequent discussion suggested most thought it was a bit outlandish to think Full Tilt would “invent” a player like Isildur1 and have its pros play him for what appeared to be real high stakes but what in actuality was not -- all for the sake of attracting some publicity and (potentially) some more action on the site.

Schwartz isn’t suggesting that the money isn’t “real,” of course (I don’t think). But he is implying that some -- perhaps a significant percentage -- of it isn’t really coming out of the players’ pockets, and that the site itself is the reason why this is the case. If you think about it, the idea isn’t that different from that of the commenter who wondered if “these players actually are not playing for that much.”

On the Difference Between Live Money and Online Money

Later in the show, Matusow comes back to this issue of online poker not being “real poker” -- and I think ultimately adds yet another idea or theory to (try to) support that thesis.

Matusow is asked about his current business venture, Deep Stacks University (an online training site). After discussing Deep Stacks a bit, Matusow noted that for him a primary motive for getting involved with the business was simply to get out of the house and stop playing online poker.

We’ve heard Matusow talk before about the negative influence online poker has on him. As he told the hosts, “it takes over my life, it destroys my life... it totally consumes me.” He quickly moved on from talking about Deep Stacks, though, and instead mentioned how he recently had a very successful three-week period of live play at the Commerce Casino. That then led him back into the subject of online poker not being “real.”

“It’s a video game,” said Matusow. “If you watch those big games... where is the skill? They’re just shipping in $200,000 on 60/40s over and over and over. I mean, it’s an absolute joke. It’s comical. I mean, people look at it as real money, but it’s really not. They’re just numbers. And it’s not real money. If them guys had to use their real money -- like if they were playing in a live game with those kind of moneys -- you think they’d be throwing it in like that?”

Of course, earlier in the conversation Matusow had referred to a live hand in which Dwan had done just that, but no matter. I think we can now list at least three reasons why Matusow (or others) might regard the super-high, “nosebleed”-stakes games as not “real poker”:

1. The object of the game is different from that of “real poker.” (That is, the object is primarily to see who can avoid going broke first, not necessarily to make as much money as possible).

2. Site endorsements (and/or other staking arrangements) make it less likely players are playing with their own money, thereby making the game less “real” in a relative sense.

3. The nature of online play -- where real money can be so easily be regarded as “just numbers” -- makes the game different from “real” (i.e., live) poker.

All three of these reasons have to do with money and its significance. That is to say, for Matusow the online game -- especially the highest-stakes variety played by Isildur1 et al. -- introduces way too many mitigating factors that upset the meaning of the money involved to allow it to be considered “real poker.”

All of which I found intriguing, if not entirely convincing. It all depends on how you look at it, yes? While I’m sure Matusow is not the only one thinking these thoughts about those games on Full Tilt, I can readily imagine rational responses to each of his theories that would constitute hard-to-refute defenses of the “reality” of the poker being played.

Is it “real” poker being played by Isildur1 and his opponents? Who can say for sure?

Is real interesting, though. Both the games and what people say about them.

The Green-Eyed Monster

Noticed over the weekend that a new thread had popped up on Two Plus Two begun by the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, Joe Cada. Cada’s post begins “Lets first by saying if anyone thinks I'm denying I got lucky at the final table then im not.”

The rest of Cada’s message is a bit difficult to parse, but he appears to be both acknowledging his having been the beneficiary of some good cards on his way to winning the Main Event while defending himself as a skillful player who made some good decisions, too.

“Did I run like god at the final table 100 percent correct,” he admits. Then, referring to that big hand versus Antoine Saout (Hand No. 272), Cada writes “Now 22 when your playing 3handed opening basically every pot and the person to the left of you is really aggr and has 3bet a lot and you have 40 bb with tons of fold equity noting 1hand he thought up to 5min getting it in preflop to a button 4bet after he 3bet with ak in bb is not bad.”

Like I said, a bit difficult to parse. More than a bit, actually. “Some may not understand this but oh well,” adds Cada. Not sure if he’s referring to the play or the way he’s described it.

The post generated many responses, with some congratulating Cada for his win while others took it as bait to issue further challenges regarding Cada’s poker playing ability. The responses are somewhat interesting, I guess, but more intriguing to me is the fact that Cada felt the need to defend himself at all. His post obviously responds to other threads and reactions to last week’s final table, particularly those that characterized Cada and his opponent Darvin Moon as somehow undeserving of having landed the top two spots in poker’s biggest tourney.

The thread made me think of something I’d heard on the Casino City Gang podcast late last week. Have been enjoying that weekly show -- hosted by Vin Narayanan, Gary Trask, and Dan Igo -- quite a bit. In this most recent episode (the 11/12/09) episode, the trio shared reactions to the November Nine. Toward the end of the discussion, Trask noted how disappointing it was that so few of the top pros -- many of whom had been there on Saturday -- did not come back to the Penn & Teller Theater on Monday night for the heads-up portion.

That led to some speculation about why so few were there for the finale, with Narayanan suggesting that some of “these pro players are stung by the fact that they are not winning the Main Event,” and that until one of them does, it will continue to be “a big sore point among the top professional players.”

Narayanan then talks a bit about Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, who had been there to see Phil Ivey bust on Saturday, but did not come back on Monday. Matusow did send some tweets on Monday, however, showing that he was following the action. Narayanan notes how Matusow “was just killing” Cada and Moon on Twitter, “talking about how the two biggest luckboxes of the tournament were sitting there playing for [the championship] and that poker was not a game of skill anymore.”

Indeed, over @TheMouthMatusow the pro starts by saying “I can't go see the two worst players of the final 9 play for pokers biggest prize its too embarrassing,” then adds “These 2 hu os a new low point for poker as any kind of skilled game so om staying home gl to both.” He goes on to call Cada “a stone idiot” who has “no clue how to play poker,” before finally signing off with less-than-sincere sounding congratulations and a final message that “this is a lesson on bow not to play hu poker.”

Kind of an interesting phenomenon, the way that this year’s final table generated this sort of response. Of course, it happens just about every year -- doesn’t it? Not sure what I think of the whole “pros are jealous because they aren’t winning” argument, but I think we’re all pretty familiar with how one poker player’s success at the tables tends to elicit others’ envy. One could argue there is something in human nature that makes us that way. As Jonathan Swift once wrote in his elegy to himself “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” (1731), “What poet would not grieve to see / His brethren write as well as he? / But rather than they should excel, / He’d wish his rivals all in hell.”

Speaking of good writers, I just finished Vicky Coren’s For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker this weekend, and it is absolutely terrific. Very smart, witty, even “literary.” I plan to say more about the book here eventually, but I will share one passage she includes about poker players and “schadenfreude” -- that weird, German-derived word that refers to our tendency to derive pleasure from others’ misfortune.

“Poker players are the bitterest, most resentful, most grudging, most jealous humans on the planet,” writes Coren. “They enjoy nothing more than schadenfreude. They hate nothing worse than someone else’s success. They are happiest when describing a huge pot lost by a regular opponent. They don’t care who won it.... That delights them.”

“God, I love them,” Coren adds, a kind of winking punchline to the discussion.

And really, you have to. ’Cos that’s how people -- especially poker players -- are, for the most part. So all you winners out there, don’t expect everyone else to rejoice in yr triumphs.

2009 WSOP, Day 1: It Gets Real

Another fun day yesterday. Ended with a couple of hours of socializing at the bowling alley over at the South Point Hotel and Casino with AlCantHang, the Poker Shrink, California Jen, Benjo, FerricRamsium, Pokerati Dan, Change100, Dr. Pauly, Dave King, Tom Bostic, and a few others.

Made it back home by midnight and so am reasonably rested (I think) for the upcoming grind. Before that the day had been taken up with a few more setting-up-shop type activities (got the rental car, finally got the friggin’ internet connection working here in the home away from home, etc.). Then spent part of the afternoon with about two-thirds of the PokerNews’ staff enjoying some delicious BBQ over at Lucille’s in Henderson. Big fun reuniting with a few more of the crew, as well as meeting some new folks. We talked a little shop, too, but the day was more devoted to pleasure than business.

That’ll change today, when we have some more preparatory meetings. Then work really begins in earnest tomorrow.

Technically speaking, today is the first day of the 2009 World Series of Poker, as that Casino Employees Event, a $500 buy-in, two-day no-limit hold’em event (Event No. 1), kicks off at noon. PokerNews will report something on that one, I believe, but won’t be giving it the attention the other 56 bracelet events will receive as far as live blogging and everything else goes.

So, really, all eyes are on that Event No. 2, the much anticipated $40,000 buy-in, Special 40th Annual No-Limit Hold’em event that starts on Thursday. Or, as Mike Matusow referred to it on the most recent episode of Wise Hand Poker (5/20/09), what “truly could be the dumbest idea in the history of the World Series of Poker.”

Matusow’s criticism is focused primarily on the timing of the event -- i.e., placing it right here at the start rather than later on. “Why, in God’s name, when you juice everybody to death, would you want to bust everybody on Day 1?” he asks. He went on to suggest it would have made a lot more sense to have positioned it after the $50K H.O.R.S.E. and before the Main Event, or really anywhere other than right off the top.

I can see a couple of obvious reasons why the decision was made to position the $40K NLHE event at the beginning. As many have observed, the presence of a no-limit hold’em tournament in the WSOP with a buy-in that exceeds that of the Main Event does have some significance. For one thing, the Main Event is the only so-called “World Championship” bracelet event in the entire schedule for which the buy-in is not the highest for that particular game. (Was writing about that here some three-plus months ago when the schedule was first announced.)

So there’s a good reason not to have the $40K NLHE event happen too closely to the Main Event -- namely, to prevent encouraging any sort of thinking that the Main Event isn’t really “the big one.” Daniel Negreanu was asked to comment on the event on the Two Plus Two Pokercast (the 5/19/09 episode), where he was specifically asked about the possibility of the $40K becoming a regular part of the schedule. “The danger there,” said Negreanu, “is that it really does change what the Main Event is. I mean, it’s kind of silly, wouldn’t you think, to have the $40K buy-in not to be the Main Event if it [were] to happen every year. And I think it’s dangerous to do that, because then you sort of dwarf the significance of the Main Event.”

That’s one reason why this year the sucker is early, not late -- so as not to dwarf the ME. Another reason for having it early is probably tied to ESPN’s production schedule. As you know, the network is only filming four events for broadcast later this summer and fall, the $40K NLHE event, the WSOP Champions Invitational, the Ante Up for Africa Celebrity Charity Poker Tournament, and the Main Event. The first two happen right at the beginning (this week), while the latter two occur right at the end (in July). ESPN will therefore be able to do their work this week, disassemble everything and send most of the crew away for a month (save the smaller group who will remain to do the ESPN360/Bluff final tables), then come back and reshoot at the end.

So how many will enter the $40K? Matusow seems to think the turnout will be huge -- 250, easily, or maybe even more. Which will be good for the moment, but bad ultimately, says the Mouth. “They’re gonna be just horrified, because they are going to get a way bigger turnout [for the $40K event] than they thought, and all of the other tournaments are going to be way down.” Negreanu was less concerned about the impact the event was going to have on turnouts for the rest of the Series. In fact, he seemed to suggest that having it so early will mean fewer will actually enter the event, since having it later could have made it possible to have more satellites.

The number I’m hearing most often is 225 or thereabouts. That seems to be the “line” near which most over-under bets are happening. I talked about it some at the BBQ yesterday with Tom Bostic and Jeremiah Smith. You might remember Jeremiah from his deep run in last year’s Main Event, or perhaps his hosting of PokerRoad’s Cash Plays podcast. He’ll be playing in several events this summer (though not the $40K), and will be doing some blogging over on PokerNews as he goes.

We all had our ideas, but none of us really know. Indeed, with just a few short hours until the WSOP gets underway, that’s kind of how the next seven weeks exist in all of our minds at the moment. We have vague notions of how it all will happen, but the specifics are yet to be determined.

’Cause you can study and you can prepare. But then the cards go in the air.

Check-Raising the Devil by Mike Matusow, with Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli

This week Mike Matusow’s autobiography, titled Check-Raising the Devil, finally hits the shelves -- both virtual and actual. If you didn’t know it already, two of our friends, Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli, helped Matusow write the book, which tells the story of his rise and fall. And rise and fall and rise and fall. And rise.

Starts in the early 1990s with Matusow in his early twenties playing video poker and living in a trailer, then eventually moves through his becoming a poker pro and winning three WSOP bracelets and over $7 million in tourney earnings. Along the way, Matusow describes in detail his period of drug use and self-destructive behavior during the early part of this decade, his getting clean and properly diagnosed as suffering from both bipolar disorder and ADHD, his arrest for drug trafficking and six-month jail term, and his triumphant return to poker as well as to a more balanced existence.

I’ve had the chance to read Check-Raising the Devil and can say without hesitation that it is a compelling story, very well presented. It most certainly does not lionize Matusow, and in fact most often brings him down to our level (or below) in its bald confessions of the author’s many limitiations -- some involuntarily imposed on Matusow (e.g., his disorders, other psychological issues), others brought on himself (e.g., the drug use, his ruinous sports betting). Actually, it isn’t always simple to sort through where Matusow’s culpability begins and ends, but on the whole the book doesn’t do too much passing of the buck. This is a man owning up to everything -- the good and the bad.

So Check-Raising is a very interesting character study, and since he’s a character most of us already know at least a little bit about (probably more than a little), the book is all the more intriguing.

The book also provides a nifty overview of the last ten years or so of poker from the point of view of a professional player who was there for just about every major happening -- both live and online. There’s much about the WSOP in there, as well as other major tourneys. There’s some chronicling of the online scene, too, including Matusow’s getting cheated by Russ Hamilton over at UltimateBet. (No punches pulled there.)

All of which is to say, there’s a lot to recommend here for both casual fans and hardcore players. Matusow’s life to this point has been full of extremes, although there’s a lot in his story to which most of us can relate, including the highs and lows caused by poker itself. Even if we haven’t experienced the euphoric triumphs and soul-crushing defeats to the degree Matusow has, we all know what he’s talking about.

I also want particularly to recommend what I perceive to be the contribution of our friends, Amy and Tim. This is an especially well written and well presented book (better than yr average poker text, and I’ve read a bunch), and we’ve got to believe Amy and Tim had a lot to do with that being the case.

When you start a blog, then keep at it for a while, it doesn’t take too long to become aware of this here nifty community of blogs, forums, podcasts, and other interwebby connections via which people with similar interests interact. And while there are tons of poker blogs, forums, podcasts, and now Twitter pages and so forth, the community is nevertheless still relatively small, especially compared to some other ones out there. So if you keep writing -- and, importantly, keep reading -- you are gonna find these folks eventually, I’d think.

It was probably just a few months after I began writing Hard-Boiled Poker that I became aware of Amy Calistri’s blog, Aimlessly Chasing Amy. I’m pretty sure it was via Iggy that I did. There was a good long stretch there during which we all routinely found each other through Iggy’s “uberposts.” Soon after that I was listening to Amy when she co-hosted Keep Flopping Aces with Lou Krieger. She gave that gig up about a year ago, I believe, somewhere around the time she also went back into the “real” world of business and scaled back her work with poker media.

Found Tim Lavalli not too longer after that, if I remember correctly. Probably was those series of investigative articles he wrote with Calistri about the extra two million chips that mysteriously showed up during the latter stages of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, titled “Two Million Questions: Will Poker Answer?” That series began in September 2006 (if yr interested, click here for part one). Somewhere around there I started reading Lavalli’s “Poker Shrink” articles (which he began in 2006) as well as his personal blog.

Ended up meeting Tim last summer near the end of the WSOP. Didn’t get the chance to meet Amy, who after several years in a row at the WSOP didn’t make the 2008 one. Am hopeful to see both this time around to congratulate them on having made it through the several-years-long journey that got them to the book’s publication this week.

I’ll also thank them, because while Matusow’s story is itself somewhat inspiring, as a writer I’m also inspired by seeing Tim and Amy -- two of “us” -- realize this terrific achievement and get themselves “into print.” Am looking forward to seeing others in the blogging community make that move as well one day. And those that do, I assume, probably will have been inspired somewhat by Tim and Amy, too.

(By the way, if you are interested in hearing more about the book and how it was written, tune into to Keep Flopping Aces this Thursday [5/14] where Matusow, Lavalli, and possibly Calistri will be Lou Krieger’s guests.)

For the Record (Thoughts on Tracking Tournament Winnings)

Yesterday I happened to be hunting around over on Hendon Mob looking up players’ stats. That’s the comprehensive, quite reliable site that compiles poker tournament winnings and presents them in a way where one can quickly see a player’s cashes, overall earnings, year-to-year stats, and so forth. Nearly 100,000 players are listed there.

Came across one dude’s totals and when I saw his lifetime earnings had one of those “yeah, but” moments as I wondered just how many tourneys he’d actually entered. I started to think about how it would be interesting for someone to compile statistics that included the number of tourneys a person had played, thus providing some added context to the number of cashes and total winnings.

I mean, the way it looks over on Hendon Mob, everyone is winning and no one is losing. All cashes, no fees.

Was pondering this one a bit more as the day wore on. I thought that while it would be improbable to expect all tournaments everywhere to make available complete lists of entrants to a site like Hendon Mob, perhaps the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour could handle such a thing with regard to their respective series of tournaments.

If the WSOP began keeping track of all entrants this way, they could compile databases such as one finds on PGA.com and its associated sites. Those guys keep track of everything everyone does it seems, including cuts made, scoring average, driving distance, greens in regulation, how they did on par threes, and so on.

If all entrants in poker tourneys were tracked, the WSOP could (say) for a given year show us who had the best ROI (return on investment) percentage, who did best in the higher buy-in events, who had the most cashes per entry, and the like. And eventually statistics could be compared from year to year, adding further information to consider when debating players’ relative abilities.

Later in the day I listened to Mike Matusow interviewed over on the Wise Hand Poker podcast (the 3/18/09 episode), and coincidentally he spoke to Wise about how in his opinion he had “the best year in the history of poker” in 2008, even though “nobody really wants to put it on record and say what kind of year [he] had.”

According to Matusow, he played in 21 tourneys, cashed in 11, made five final tables, and won one, Event No. 18 at the 2008 WSOP, the $5,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw w/Rebuys event. (By the way, that picture above lists Matusow’s 2008 WSOP cashes.) “Nobody realizes I only played 21 tournaments... when most people play a hundred,” he added.

Of course, 11 cashes looks impressive, anyway. But out of 21 tourneys -- if that’s accurate, well that is fairly special.

At first I thought Matusow was implicitly supporting this idea I had about keeping track of folks’ entries in order to produce stats which more closely indicated how well players were performing.

Then I realized -- what a horrible idea. Why?

Because the publication of such information, while perhaps satisfying fans’ curiosity, would likely have a detrimental effect on the players. And the tournaments, too. The WSOP or WPT 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. Could possibly discourage some from entering tourneys, even. In any event, I can’t really see how it would help.

Of course, sites like SharkScope (where the graph on the left representing one player’s stats appears) have made the publication of such information about players’ performances in online multi-table tourneys and sit-n-gos a significant part of that world, with players routinely looking up their opponents’ stats which do not hide the number of times they failed to cash. (SharkScope focuses on SNGs, while other sites provide similar info regarding MTTs.) I don’t suppose those sites have negatively affected the popularity of MTTs and SNGs -- in fact, one could perhaps argue they have added to their popularity (?) -- but I think the story for live tournament poker is considerably different.

Such are among the many special considerations those who wish to market poker as a sport -- particularly the professional tourney circuit -- have to keep in mind. The fact that most players pay their own way (aside from the lucky few whose sponsors pay their entry fees) means they cannot be treated the same as, say, those who secure PGA Tour cards or who qualify for the Sunday NASCAR races.

So it isn’t just that “nobody really wants to put it on record” how Matusow did last year. Nobody wants to put it on record how anybody did, I think. Not really.