Book Announcement: Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game Coming 2019

I have some fun news to share, and for some reason April 1 felt like a good day to share it. This one is a long time coming, something I’ve hinted at here on the blog a few times before.

The “poker & pop culture” book is happening. No foolin’! (And no shinola.)

The book will be published by D&B Poker. After many years of publishing strategy books, D&B Poker has widened its scope a bit to include other poker-related titles like Tricia Cardner and Jonathan Little’s books on psychology and poker, as well as autobiographies by Mike Sexton and Phil Hellmuth.

You’ve probably heard as well about Lance Bradley’s book due to appear this summer titled The Pursuit of Poker Success: Learn From 50 of the World’s Best Poker Players that features Bradley interviewing many of the game’s best known and most successful players. You can preorder Lance's book now either via D&B Poker or Amazon.

My book will be titled Poker & Pop Culture: Telling the Story of America’s Favorite Card Game. Ordered somewhat chronologically as a history of the game, the book primarily will focus on poker’s prominence in American popular culture or the “mainstream.” In other words, I’ll be examining the game as it has been discussed and portrayed over the last two centuries-plus not just at the tables, but in newspapers, magazines, letters, memoirs, paintings, fiction, drama, radio shows, music, film, television, and elsewhere.

The book will additionally highlight poker being frequently evoked in politics, business, economics, warfare and diplomacy, business, economics, sports, and other “non-poker” contexts, with all of those references furthering the argument for poker’s importance to U.S. history and culture.

Such references to poker popping up day-to-day American life also tend to foreground links between certain ideals and values considered “American” -- things like individual liberty, self-reliance, the frontier spirit, egalitarianism, the “pursuit of happiness,” the ideologies of capitalism, and so on -- and so that obviously will be part of the story, too.

The idea of doing some sort of poker book probably began for me way back during the early days of the blog (begun almost 12 years ago), at some point not long after I picked up the habit of writing about poker on a regular basis both here and then soon after for a variety of different sites and publications.

For a few years that was mostly just an idle thought encouraged by the fast-growing number of Hard-Boiled Poker posts. However, once I developed and began teaching my “Poker and American Film and Culture” class in 2011, the idea began to take on a more concrete shape as I envisioned creating a book that might serve as a kind of textbook for the course.

Then in 2014 things got even more specific when with the help of an agent I began shopping book proposals and developing blurbs, detailed outlines and annotated tables of contents, sample chapters, and the like.

That process evolved into a year-and-a-half long mini-adventure that was interesting for me though less so for others, I imagine, so I’ll gloss over the details. Instead I’ll just skip ahead to the happy ending of D&B Poker entering the picture. I’ll be spending most of this year writing and rewriting as I get the manuscript together, with the 2019 World Series of Poker being the current target for the book to hit the stands.

I’ve written a book-length disseration and two novels before (Same Difference and Obsessica), and so I have had some experience planning and completing long-term writing projects. As in poker, patience is a big part of seeing such things through and having something to show for it in the end.

But this will be something different, a new and different kind of writing challenge. And I expect it ultimately to be a lot of fun for your humble scribbler and (hopefully) for some of you, too.

I’ll keep you updated on the project over here as well as on Twitter. Meanwhile big thanks to everyone who has read posts here and other articles of mine, and whose support and feedback encouraged me to keep writing. I know already the list of people I’m going to want to mention in the Foreword will be a long one.

Image: A Friend in Need (1903) by Cassius M. Coolidge, public domain.

WPT Success for Sexton

“I work much too hard for every Panther win.”

That’s what I texted a friend late last night after Carolina hung on to beat New Orleans 23-20.

Was kind of a familiar story with the Panthers starting strong and continuing to maintain a big lead through three quarters, entering the fourth up 23-3. Then the offense just shut down altogether, having three straight three-and-outs to give the Saints the ball back over and over, enabling them to climb back into the sucker.

Thankfully Carolina was able to convert on a third down late -- the team’s only first down the entire fourth quarter -- to milk just enough time to make it difficult (though not impossible) for New Orleans to mount one last drive to attempt a tying field goal. The Saints came up short, and the Panthers eked out the win.

Meanwhile starting in the afternoon I had dialed up the streaming coverage of the World Poker Tour Montreal final table at the Playground Poker Club, following along with a lot of the poker world to see if WPT host Mike Sexton -- who brought the chip lead to the six-handed final table -- might win his first WPT title.

We all know Sexton pretty well by now, of course, given that the WPT is in its 15th season and he’s been there from the very start. He played a fairly prominent role during the poker “boom” of the 2000s (to which the WPT shows contributed significantly). And over the years just about everyone who has been around the poker world has gotten to know him in some capacity, his unofficial status as “Ambassador of Poker” being well confirmed.

I have covered Sexton in a number of tournaments over the years, of course. Also had the chance to help report on a few WPT events as well -- including at the Playground Poker Club -- at which I’ve gotten to chat with him about his years living in North Carolina and playing in underground games before moving out to Vegas. Not too long ago I read and reviewed his new autobiography, titled Life’s a Gamble, which filled in further gaps about his interesting life (and the history of the WPT).

By the time the game ended it was down to heads-up between Benny Chen and Sexton, with Chen enjoying the chip lead to begin their duel. I’d noticed a few hands go by in which Chen seemed to be running especially well connecting with boards, and his lead increased as a result.

Looking back through the WPT live updates, I see that Sexton nearly pulled even in an early hand between the pair, but Chen pushed back out ahead and maintained the lead over the first several dozen hands the pair played. At one point Chen had 17.775 million to Sexton’s 1.675 million, a better than 10-to-1 chip advantage. That’s an even bigger edge, percentage-wise, than the lead the Panthers had entering the fourth.

Sexton doubled once with Q-10 versus Chen’s 9-4-suited and chipped back a bit. But then Sexton fell back and found himself all in and at risk again, this time in a bad spot with A-4 versus Chen’s A-Q-suited. Fortunately for Sexton a four came among the community cards and he survived, and after 90 hands they were still going at it.

I ended up hitting the sack some time after that as they’d end up playing almost a couple of hours more. Sexton would double up two more times -- once with pocket kings, another time coming from behind with J-10 versus A-8 -- finally wrestling the chip lead away from Chen. It was just two hands later Chen would shove with K-J, Sexton snap-called with pocket queens, and the big pair held to give Sexton the title.

They played 158 hands of heads-up, and Chen had the chip lead for 156 of those hands. In other words, it played out not unlike some of these NFL games where one team is ahead for 59-plus minutes only for the other team to pull it out in the end -- as almost happened to the Panthers.

Kind of neat to see Sexton get this one. He’s been playing WPT events since the sixth season, and had made a couple of WPT final tables before. Easy to understand Chen’s disappointment, though, having had to endure the big comeback during which he had Sexton on the ropes for much of the endgame (not to mention everyone pulling for his opponent).

That’s the way these games go, where it’s often the case you have to work hard for these wins.

Image: “Mike Sexton | WPT Five Diamond (S13),” World Poker Tour. CC BY-NC 2.0.

Jesse May Interview, April 2011 (Part 2 of 2)

Here’s the second part of that interview with Jesse May, conducted just about four years ago in the spring of 2011 (Part 1 here).

In this part we focus more particularly on the story behind Late Night Poker, the first series of which appeared in 1999. That picture down below of the two of us, by the way, comes from this year’s PokerStars Caribbean Adventure where I had a chance to interview Jesse once again for the PokerStars blog (photo by Neil Stoddart).

* * * * *

“The Betfair Poker Interview: Jesse May, Part 2”
[Originally published at Betfair Poker, 8 April 2011]

This week we present the second half of my conversation with poker player, author, and commentator Jesse May. After focusing primarily on May’s 1998 poker-themed novel Shut Up and Deal, we turned our attention to the early days of Late Night Poker, the groundbreaking show that debuted in the U.K. on Channel 4 in the summer of 1999.

Short-Stacked Shamus: Late Night Poker is one of those shows I’ve always been curious to learn more about. A lot of fans of poker on television -- especially those of us over here in America -- don’t necessarily realize how important and influential Late Night Poker really was when it comes to televised poker. What are some of your memories from the show’s early days?

Jesse May: I remember the whole thing very well. It was one of the most formative things in my life, really.

I was invited as a player for the first series. I had become friendly with Nick Szeremeta. My book [Shut Up and Deal] had been out, and I was spending more time in Europe around that time. I had recently gotten married and was trying to get some gigs as a writer, and Nick was getting me some work.

Nick had been contacted by Rob Gardner [the show’s original producer] to help get players for the show. In fact, they’d had a lot of trouble getting players for this first series of Late Night Poker. Most people turned them down. At the time I was on the way to going broke. After about five years I was kind of at the tail end of my professional poker career. And the action had been drying up a little bit.

SSS: What was the buy-in for that first series?

JM: The buy-in was £1500. It was a massive, massive buy-in (laughs). At that time there might have been three tournaments during the entire year with a buy-in bigger than £1500. And I had about £1800 to my name... that was it! And I can’t remember why, but I felt like I needed to be a part of this.

And as it turned out, most of the people who showed up at that first series of Late Night Poker had the same sort of idea. In that first series there were maybe three or four legitimate pros -- Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Surinder Sunar, and a couple of others. There really weren’t many, a lot of the pros had turned it down. Everybody else, we were all just kind of chancers in a sense. But for some reason I felt like I had to be part of it.

SSS: So they taped all of the heats for that first series at once.

JM: Yes, it was in Cardiff in the spring... it must have been April. I remember I played in the very first heat. Back then, all the players who had bought in got a free hotel room for the week, which was quite a big bonus (laughs)! [That meant] everyone showed up and stayed all week.

So I played in the first heat, and I embarrassed myself, basically. I didn’t know anything about tournaments -- I probably hadn’t played 10 tournaments in my life! I ended up getting third in the heat. I got knocked out after going all in with something like 9-3-offsuit... it was pretty embarrassing. People were giving me pretty awkward looks as I walked out the door (laughs).

So then I had the rest of the week to hang out, and I had those thoughts: “What the heck am I going to do next?” I thought I might be back to selling storm windows or something.

SSS: But then you ended up being brought in to be a commentator on that first series.

JM: Yes. In fact, the original idea for Late Night Poker was that there would be no commentators. They filmed it thinking that the table talk was going to carry the show. Today that might work, but back then nobody had been on television before. Everybody just froze up! Aside from maybe the Devilfish there might not have been ten words said during the entire tournament. So the producers were panicking a bit and they decided they were going to have to have commentary.

And I volunteered to do it for free. I said I’d be happy to do it, that it sounded like a great idea. I was just thinking, really, at least I can try and give some explanation for being such an idiot -- you know, maybe I won’t come across so badly (laughs). And [I was also thinking I would] maybe get a chance to promote my book or something, although I didn’t really even think that through. Who knew at the time that would actually turn into a career for me!

SSS: The show really was pioneering. When it first aired in July 1999, we were still about four years away from the World Poker Tour debuting and Moneymaker’s WSOP victory being shown on ESPN.

JM: The thing about Late Night Poker that most people don’t realize, it wasn’t just the first poker TV show. I mean, it was that. And it was the first to use the under-the-table hole card cameras. But if you go back and watch those first few series, what made it great and the reason it took off was because of the way it was edited and the way it was filmed.

Rob Gardner was the producer of the first three series, and Rob really understood that it wasn’t enough to just show everything. He knew that what was going on here was a mini-drama, and it was filmed and edited to show that. I’m talking about the shots, the way they used to reveal the hands, the way they used to show the decisions being made... plus the atmosphere! The shots of cigarette smoke and looking up at the players from under the table... the fact that they used the under-the-table cameras -- and still do, in Europe, for a lot of the stuff, while in America they use the hole-card cams and put the graphics on afterwards -- that shot of the camera from under the glass, with the person’s cards and then his face, was such a new and exciting and dramatic type of shot!

SSS: You’re right, that low-angle shot looking up at the player, who now has the knowledge of the hole cards -- a secret that we now know, too -- it’s very cinematic, really.

JM:: Yes, and it all would be worked into [the telling of the story]. And when it took off, most of the people who watched it didn’t know anything about poker. They were drawn in by the natural drama of the TV show.

Later when the World Poker Tour started -- and I think the WPT and Mike Sexton are great and majorly responsible for the growth of poker -- it was really so much different. What they were really capitalizing on was the big money that they were playing for, and the “all ins” and things like that. It was not at all like what Late Night Poker had been doing.

SSS: Well, it definitely works. Even going back and watching those old shows today, they definitely hold your interest.

JM: Rob’s background is kind of interesting -- it was actually in dance. He was a modern dancer with a dance troupe or something like that, and didn’t know anything about poker. He was hired by Presentable Productions to come up with new ideas for TV shows. And he just came up with the poker idea out of the blue, and got in touch with Nick Szeremeta and it went from there.

They sold it to Channel 4 in the U.K. which back then used to do some very, very out there kind of stuff, especially late at night. They used to have this thing called “4Later” or something like that when they would air these shows. It was the kind of idea that would never, ever get sold today. But they took a flyer on it and it just went from there. But Rob was really a driving force behind that.

Rob passed away three years ago and the European Poker Awards set up an award in his honor. It was originally called the “Rob Gardner Poker Innovation Award” and I think now has been changed to the “Poker Personality of the Year,” perhaps because there aren’t enough innovators in poker anymore.

[Speaking of,] there was a lot that came later regarding Henry Orenstein having taken credit for having invented the hole card camera...

SSS: The “lipstick camera.”

JM: Yes, the lipstick camera and how Orenstein had come up with the idea of showing hole cards. And nothing could be further from the truth. It upsets me, obviously, to see Rob denied this because I was such good friends with him.

Henry Orenstein was a poker player, of course. I used to play with him in Atlantic City. He was also an inventor and a toymaker -- he came up with the Transformers, I think -- and had many patents. And to get a patent on an idea, all you have to do, basically, is write three sentences on an A4 and get it through the committee. I think you can find the patent [for the hole card camera] online, and if you look at it, you’ll see it’s not even an idea. It basically just says “What if you could see the players cards when they are playing poker?” or something like that. And that’s it.

And so Rob knew nothing about Henry Orenstein when he came up with the idea for the under-the-table cameras for poker. But later on, when there was talk of putting Late Night Poker or something like that on in the U.S., all of a sudden Henry Orenstein found his patent and said “I own this.” And later when Steve Lipscomb got the idea for the WPT, even though it was expressed a bit differently, the idea was completely based on Late Night Poker.

SSS: The show found an audience right away. In For Richer, For Poorer, Vicky Coren refers to its debut and how “more than half a million people [were] tuning into this cultish new programme, broadcast after midnight on Channel 4.”

JM: It was an amazing time. I remember when the Devilfish won the first series of Late Night Poker, there was no question that he was the greatest winner of all. Nothing could have been better for poker or for televised poker than having the Devilfish win -- because of his personality and the fact that he really was a good player.

Right after he won they threw a big party in the hotel at Cardiff, and everybody was there. Devilfish bought a couple of cases of champagne for everybody, and basically, besides the Devilfish, of the 40-something people who had played in this, at least 39 of us were dead broke (laughs)! We’d all gone broke in this tournament! Guys like all the Hendon Mob and myself and Mad Marty [Wilson]... we had gone completely skint.

Yet there was such a fantastic feeling that night in the bar about what we had done. There was a real idea that something special had happened there. It was a great experience. I mean, we hadn’t seen the show and had no idea what kind of response it would get, but we just kind of felt that people were going to see what we loved about poker so much -- which is what ended up happening, really. It was a slow-burner, really, but it ended up growing, and there are so many people who got into poker through Late Night Poker. And I really give all the credit to Rob not only having the idea but being able to execute it.

I think a lot of poker television, especially in America, has gone backwards in the sense that they’ve forgotten what makes the game interesting. It’s not that there is just too much poker TV and people have gotten bored with the game. It’s that they are not creating formats and they are not filming them in a way that conveys the natural drama of the story.

SSS: I think about this issue in tourney reporting a lot, actually -- the challenge to find the “story” of the event. There’s kind of what might be called a “functional” approach to tourney reporting -- and this happens in TV shows, too -- where it is really just about delivering data with very little attention being given to the importance of creating characters or plot or something for the reader or viewer to be able to identify with on some level.

JM: Yes, and in many cases you’re facing a much tougher task now than people used to, because there is no story! I mean, there is a story -- someone is going to win a million dollars -- but that story is completely uninteresting. That happens now 365 times a year in poker. So that’s not the story. Is the story something about trying to find out who the best poker player is? No... for a lot of reasons people aren’t convinced that’s the story, either. Is the game exciting? Well, a lot of people aren’t even sure that’s the story. The fact is, there’s a lot of trouble with the narrative right now in the poker world.

SSS: Like you say, the editing and choice of shots and atmosphere are all important, but as a commentator you had a hand in the shaping of the story, too. Tell me, when you did the commentary for the first series, where did the idea come from to use a pseudonym -- to take your character’s name [from Shut Up and Deal] and be “Mickey Dane”?

JM: Well, we got in there and were doing the commentary and they said it was going to be awkward if you’re commentating on yourself, so why don’t we just pretend it’s somebody else?

SSS: I guess you weren’t talking too much at the table, then, so there wasn’t a situation where viewers were going to say “Hey, that guy sounds like that guy?”

JM: Right, it just worked out. It never really came up, because I didn’t last that long anyway (laughs). There was so much care taken with Late Night Poker. Nowadays a lot of commentating will be done live, but this was all done in post-production, and you could really be a perfectionist back then.

And there was a real camaraderie among those guys, too. No one was really making money at poker back then. Everybody was trying to survive as well as they could, but it still two or three years before people really started to think they could do well at poker. You know, once online poker started and sponsorships came and so forth. It was a special time.

* * * * *

Thanks again to Jesse for this one! Check out as well his memories of Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott over at PokerNews.

“May All of Your Cards Be Live...”

I mentioned how this most recent trip of mine culminated with that WPT final table at the Bellagio which was a “TV” one. Not all WPT events are shot for later broadcast (on Fox Sports), but quite a few are. Since this was the first time I’d actually been present at one of these, I thought I’d share a few quick impressions.

Anyone who has attended a WPT final table that was scheduled to be televised probably will be familiar with everything I’m sharing here. That is to say, it isn’t as though anything I noticed as someone there reporting on the event is that different from what anyone else in attendance gets to see, too.

In fact, for poker fans who happen to be where a WPT televised final table is taking place, I recommend checking it out. The entire day I was thinking of a good friend of mine who loves to watch poker on TV -- still (!) -- and who is always asking me about players he sees. I realized how much of a kick he’d get out of seeing one of these shows being created.

I knew before that Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten were present at these final tables, but I hadn’t necessarily realized how they actually are commentating quite a bit as the hands go by. I know they’ll go back and do more in post-production, but I hadn’t necessarily appreciated from watching the WPT on television that some or even most of what we hear from those two comes during the actual playing of the final table.

The desk at which they sat was far enough away from the table -- and from the crowd and those of us reporting -- that you couldn’t hear every word they said. But you could definitely pick up on the excited responses as Sexton and Van Patten both reacted to a big river card or other crucial moments at the final table (of which there were several), which added an extra bit of fun to the proceedings.

Meanwhile, Lynn Gilmartin is now doing the anchoring for the WPT shows, and she, too, was shooting a lot of her segments as the final table was being played.

I’ve known Lynn for a while now thanks to her long association with PokerNews and PokerStars, and so am well familiar with how great she is in front of the camera. In fact, I’ve joined her a few times for brief vids from the LAPT -- here’s one from last year -- on which the contrast between our relative levels of ease only further underscores her skills.

Lynn was positioned at an elevated table over to the side where she could be heard introducing returns to action or taking us to commercial breaks, interspersing questions of Mike and Vince. Then we also saw WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage interviewing players to the side of the stage, too, both before play began and after bustouts.

Watching both reminded me of sitting in the press box at the WSOP while Kara Scott would shoot segments and marveling at how cool they all are, often able to move through the segments in one take and sound great doing it.

As someone who has spent a lot of time standing in front of classrooms full of students, I’m not necessarily shy about talking to groups. But the challenges faced and conquered by these folks whose jobs put them in front of the camera still impresses me, and I can’t imagine how much work it would take to get to the point they seem to be.

The play moved rather quickly without a lot of delays for setting up for certain shots or for other production-related reasons. I suppose that defied my expectations a little, too, after having worked a lot of events on other tours where there would be frequent stoppages of play related to the broadcasts being shot or streamed. By contrast, they kept things moving pretty quickly throughout yesterday, no doubt in part because of a desire not to keep the extensive crew working longer than necessary.

All of the other elements of the TV show were there, too -- the Royal Flush girls and their “bar,” the trophy presentation, and so on. There were nice recognitions of Jack McClelland made both before and after the final table as well, as this was the last event for the Bellagio’s retiring tournament director.

All of it kind of took me back to the days of being a big “poker fan” -- i.e., a decade ago when I was right there with everyone else discovering the WPT on television for the first time and becoming instantly fascinated with the show, the game, and the people who were part of it.

I know the WPT doesn’t quite occupy the central place in poker’s subculture today as it did back then. But it is still an important part of the overall scene and I think still brings a lot that’s good for the game as a whole when it comes to promoting the game to a wider audience. And they continue to put on a good show that ultimately seems more than anything to underscore that sense that poker really can be a fun time.

The Cab is Parked

Heard the sad news of Tom Sexton’s passing this week. Brother of Poker Hall of Famer Mike, Tom was also a lover of poker and eagerly promoted the game in various ways. As the outpouring of responses this week have reminded us, he was an especially well liked member of the poker community and will be missed by many.

I pretty much entirely knew Tom only through his writings and occasional appearances on poker podcasts, his voice uncannily sounding like that of his brother. In a relatively small community of poker media types, we had tons of mutual acquaintances although our paths never quite crossed.

Back in the summer when the seriousness of his health problems was first discovered, former PokerNews Editor-in-Chief John Caldwell shared with the site the story of Tom becoming a contributor at PN where he would ultimately file 60 columns under the heading of “Sexton’s Corner.”

As Caldwell relates, back in 2007 (when PokerNews was first getting into the live reporting game), Sexton helped with the coverage of some of the stud and draw tourneys, and while doing so shared several “back in the day” tales that eventually inspired Caldwell to suggest he write them for the site.

In his first column for PN, Tom began with the story of the windfall his brother had received from PartyPoker back when he was signed on to represent them, noting how Mike had told him then he could quit his job as a cab driver, thereby inspiring what would become Tom’s signature line throughout the series, “the cab is parked.” He also started that first column with lots of praise for his brother, something he was able to offer again when introducing him at the 2009 Poker Hall of Fame induction ceremony (as pictured above by Casino City Times’ Vin Narayanan).

The Sexton’s Corner columns ultimately ran from July 2007 through September 2008 and cover a variety of topics including many stories involving his brother, other tales of pros like Puggy Pearson, Dewey Tomko, Stu Ungar, Jennifer Harman, and Johnny Chan, plus additional sketches of various poker people Tom had met and events he had witnessed.

A two-part treatment of Russ Hamilton's 1994 WSOP Main Event win and the shenanigans involved with the bonus prize (the winner's weight in silver) makes for an interesting read, especially in the light of Hamilton's later sad descent into the UltimateBet madness (Part 1, Part 2). And speaking of falls from grace, just a few days ago I had been dipping into Tom's 10-part series (starting here) about Archie Karas following the news of his being accused of marking cards in a blackjack game in a San Diego casino.

As first-hand storytelling with a decidedly personal point of view, some of the Sexton’s Corner columns are probably more valuable than others when it comes to historical veracity and/or objective reporting. But most are interesting and obviously bear witness to the author’s interest in the game and its promotion as well as a few of the characters associated with it.

Will leave to those who knew Tom the business of eulogizing him appropriately -- for example, this piece about him written by Nolan Dalla after his illness was disclosed gives a more detailed portrait of him and what he meant to others. I did, however, want to express condolences here to his family and the many folks I’ve come to know over the years whom I know this week are feeling his loss.

2013 WSOP, Day 23: Divided Attention

Worked Day 2 of Event No. 35, the $3,000 pot-limit Omaha tournament that started with 640 runners, saw 137 come back yesterday, and would eventually play down to 19 before play was halted a little before 3 a.m.

Was kind of an interesting scene just as the tourney reached the money bubble with 55 players remaining. Hand-for-hand play had commenced, and as it turned out it would take probably 20 hands or so for another bust to occur. PLO is definitely an action game, but without antes the short stacks can endure folding hands between the blinds for a lot longer, especially when the game is nine-handed.

About halfway through that sequence came the tipoff of Game 7 of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and Miami Heat. Nearly all 55 of the remaining players and pretty much every one of the reporters and staff as well were interested seeing how the game would play out, and so many were as much attuned to the large screen televisions on either side of the tourney as to the hands being played on the bubble.

During the break many of us assembled in front of one of the TVs, and I took a few pictures, including experimenting a little with the “panorama” setting on the iPhone:

That’s Mike Sexton in the middle with the red jacket. I asked him if he’d bet the game, knowing the answer would yes, and he told me he had a bet on the Spurs to win the series but had put something on Miami for this final game.

I believe the bubble finally burst around halftime, then the game concluded just before the dinner break arrived, meaning players, staff, and reporters all continued to be distracted by the thrilling conclusion that saw Miami prevail.

I was pulling for the Spurs, and in fact threw a twenty on the money line just for kicks as a San Antonio win would give me more than three times my money back. My blogging partner Rich, meanwhile, took the less risky path of betting Miami and giving the points, and he ended up earning a small profit.

It was actually kind of a fun way to experience Game 7. Not as absorbing as watching without working, but still entertaining to be around lots of others whose attentions were divided like mine.

As mentioned, they’d ultimately play down to 19, with Jeff Madsen taking a big lead to carry into today’s final day of play. Among those cashing yesterday was Tom Schneider, his seventh cash already this summer (and we’re just now crossing the halfway mark).

Schneider went out in 60th, but his name was coming up amid table talk much later on as both Will Failla and Sexton sung his praises. The subject of the WSOP Player of the Year race came up again, too, with both of them agreeing they’d prefer the non-Vegas WSOPs not count (and thus Schneider’s stellar summer make him the current leader rather than WSOP APAC winner Daniel Negreanu).

Another player who was being talked about after his exit last night was Phil Hellmuth who finished 26th. That’s because as usual Hellmuth made his customary show of petulance following his bustout, which Rich ended up including in the report of his last hand.

I was working on another post at the time and couldn’t be too bothered to pay much attention to Hellmuth’s antics. I won’t deny that they can be entertaining, even after witnessing them dozens of times before. But these days I find myself thinking more and more how poor they reflect on the all-time leading WSOP bracelet winner.

I’ve mentioned before here on the blog that rumor that has floated around off and on over the last few years regarding Hellmuth perhaps becoming some sort of spokesperson or representative of the WSOP once its online site goes live for real money. I have no idea whether that talk has any basis in reality or not, but I can say I’d be plenty disappointed if such ever were to come to pass.

Never mind Hellmuth’s self-serving, community-destroying, decade-long endorsement of the most thoroughly corrupt online poker site ever, I can think of hundreds of others I’d rather choose to introduce new players to the game.

When the night finally ended, Sexton came around to give me and Rich a “good work today” and wish us good night. I found myself thinking again about Hellmuth and his departure.

Sexton is of course known as the “ambassador of poker,” and the contrast between the two of them couldn’t be greater, in my opinion, as stark as the cheery red of Sexton’s jacket yesterday and the gloomy black of Hellmuth’s. To give my post title another meaning, when it comes to these two players, the attention of one seems always to be on others, while the other’s attention is always on himself alone.

Back at it today, where Rich and I will be seeing this sucker through and report on Day 3 of Event No. 35. Besides Madsen, Scott Clements, Ashton Griffin, Jarred Solomon, Christian Harder, and Sexton are perhaps the best known players remaining, although there are a number of other players of note still in the field including some other former bracelet winners.

Click on by and check it out, if you like, now that there’s no more basketball to distract you.

Sexton’s Scolding

The rightly-revered Poker Hall of Famer Mike Sexton posted an op-ed of sorts today over on his PartyPoker blog, titled “Poker Pros -- Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.” The post kind of echoes calls by others to encourage players to act professionally, most obviously a post by Matt Glantz from about three-and-a-half months ago titled “Responsibility in Poker.”

Like Glantz, Sexton is primarily speaking to “poker pros” whose success garners them more attention than most, including securing television spots and other chances to speak out and thus represent poker to large groups.

In Glantz’ post, after carving out a balanced position from which to speak (“I am not here to bash or scold you guys”), he explains to his readers that “how you act or speak out in any public forum or media outlet” has significance, since “the things you say and do reflect on all of us.”

Glantz then speaks broadly about poker’s negative image in mainstream culture and how that fact alone should encourage those given the chance to represent the game to accept the “responsibility” he’s recommending -- that is, “to make a consistent and conscious effort to always do our best to publicly present poker in a positive light.”

I think Sexton essentially shares Glantz’ view and wanted to say something similar in his post. And given Sexton’s influential position in the industry, it doesn’t hurt for him to repeat what another has already said, if only for the fact that the message will undoubtedly reach a wider audience.

That said, Sexton’s post adopts a much different, less balanced tone than Glantz’. Nor does it share Glantz’ broad perspective on the game and its place in the culture, instead focusing much more narrowly on the need for pros to embrace television shows like the World Poker Tour and recognize the financial reward for doing so.

“I’ve been disappointed and, frankly, disgusted by a lack of professionalism by some poker pros,” Sexton begins. He notes that these bad-behaving pros “don’t see the big picture” and “just live in their own little worlds.” Sexton then presents two quick examples of such bad behavior, one being a pro failing to appear for a scheduled WPT interview and the other being players dressing too casually for a televised WPT final table.

As Sexton explains, the player who missed the interview apparently overslept -- he’s “a nice guy who just spaced out” -- and apologized. The slovenly-dressed final tablists consisted of four T-shirt wearers and another in a sweatshirt, the sight of which leads Sexton into a digression about a dress code for poker.

As I say, it is clear enough that Sexton essentially agrees with Glantz, but unfortunately the Ambassador of Poker is himself probably being a little too narrow in his thinking when it comes to finding examples to support the larger point. As a result, the argument is less convincing, since it could sound a bit like the WPT host complaining about players failing to support his show rather than a larger argument about representing poker in a positive light.

The fact that Sexton keeps coming back to sponsorships as a reward for good, conscientious behavior isn’t really that effective either, since for the great majority of players -- even among the top performers -- sponsorships aren’t really a meaningful consideration. Sexton is really talking about sponsors of the WPT show (and other poker shows), and the indirect -- and real -- benefit that has for those who participate in WPT events, but even that is a somewhat narrow point to be making in this context.

All of which is to say, I’m fine with the position and argument, but feel like Sexton would have been more persuasive had he left off complaining about a few instances of players missing appointments or wearing T-shirts and adopted a broader perspective on improving poker’s place in the culture, generally speaking (as Glantz did). And really, when it comes to bad behavior reflecting poorly on the poker community as a whole, there are a lot more egregious examples to cite.

2011 WSOP, Day 43: A Glimpse

It’s hard to explain what it is like to stand amid hundreds of tables while the World Series of Poker Main Event plays on around you. It’s exciting, for sure. But there’s also this weird, sinking feeling that occasionally creeps up on you. A feeling that all that is presently happening is racing into the past, never to be recovered.

You catch a glimpse here and there. But only a glimpse. Imperfect. Incomplete. And as you write it down and try to share what you saw with others, the tourney continues while you look away. Running away from you, forever to hide in the past.

Yesterday Mike Sexton was playing Day 2b of the World Series of Poker Main Event. He was sitting just a few yards from my location, and so I was able to check in fairly frequently on his progress.

The “World Poker Tour” host was short-stacked for most of the day. I saw him lose a significant chunk in one hand versus an opponent in which he called a river bet, then saw his opponent had flopped a set and turned a full house to end with a better hand than his. Lost more than half his stack on that one. Wasn’t long after that he picked up pocket nines, ran into someone with pocket queens, and five cards later was out.

The latter hand occurred when I was on the other side of the room. In fact, the ESPN cameras had been hovering over Sexton’s table quite a bit during the day, but they were elsewhere as well when his elimination happened.

Players were just about to go on break, and so after I returned to the table I waited until the level had concluded and asked the dealer about Sexton’s bustout. I might’ve asked a player, but I didn’t want to take any time away from the 20 minutes they each had to stretch their legs, visit the restroom, call their loved ones and/or backers, grab a bite or drink, or whatever.

A couple of lingering players jumped in, though, to share details, including the fellow who’d knocked Sexton out, Josh Mancuso. We laughed a little afterwards about how no media had been at the table to catch the hand, in particular the TV crew. Incidentally, I’d heard that the ESPN guys had missed Jonathan Duhamel’s bustout the day before (on Day 2a). I’m sure they lamented that, but I think ESPN’s plan this year might be to spend less time on Days 1 and 2, anyway, so perhaps Duhamel’s bust would’ve only rated a brief mention anyhow.

“That’s how bad I run,” Mancuso said to me with a grin, referring to his missed chance for some air time on ESPN. I thanked him and made sure to give him at least a small bit of recognition in my post of the hand. Mancuso would finish the day with 115,700 chips, just a tad above the average stack heading into Day 3.

Long, long ago I remember writing a post about the bias toward “name” players in tourney reporting. The post was titled “Playing Favorites,” and basically addresses how the more famous faces often get more attention and even on some occasions tend to come off better in the reporting.

Big field tourneys cannot be comprehensively covered by small staffs of reporters. It becomes necessary to be selective in the reporting, and since it takes more time and effort to learn about and follow non-“name” players, the bias persists. Later on, when the field gets smaller and more manageable, that bias will gradually fall away. Players with big stacks -- regardless of how well they were known before this event -- will start to get the most attention. As they should.

At some point during the day yesterday I ran into Robbie Thompson (a.k.a., “Red Bull Robbie”), and he asked me how things were going. I said fine, and he responded by saying how it really isn’t until Day 4 and after that the tournament gets at all interesting. “It’s like the NBA in the first quarter,” he said, and I nodded. Lots of scoring happening, but not much terribly vital in terms of indications of how the sucker is going to turn out.

Of course, these first few days of the tournament do in actuality become the days when the final buzzer sounds for many. The majority, in fact. And for many, their stories begin, develop, and end without notice, like so many mute inglorious Miltons.

There are 6,865 different narratives going on here, all with their own specific arcs, all with their own distinct heroes and villains. There are considerably fewer storytellers around to capture those narratives, and then only in bits and pieces.

Just glimpses, hastily recorded and shared. Imperfect. Incomplete.

No Mike at the Mic: Sexton Makes WPT Bay 101 Final Table

Tonight’s six-handed final table at the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event will feature a few familiar faces, some perhaps more so than others.

Steven Kelly will be the chip leader when play resumes. Kelly, who doesn’t turn 22 until next month, may not be known to many, but I remember him well from his WSOP bracelet win last summer. I happened to help cover that one for PokerNews -- Event No. 39, the $1,500 no-limit hold’em shootout -- an event in which another 21-year-old, Annette Obrestad, finished 11th.

Others at tonight’s final table include Casey McCarrel (in fifth), who has a few WSOP cashes to his credit, and Alan Sternberg (in second), another relative newcomer. Both players will be enjoying their largest cashes ever tonight, no matter how they finish.

However, most who end up watching the WPT show later on will more readily recognize the other three final tablists. Vivek Rajkumar (fourth) already has one WPT title under his belt, the 2008 Borgata Poker Open (for $1,424,500). And just a couple of weeks ago Rajkumar finished runner-up at the 2011 L.A. Poker Classic (earning $908,730).

Coming into the final table third in chips and with a healthy stack is Mike “the Mouth” Matusow, unsurprisingly proclaiming “It’s my time, boys and girls!” Matusow has made four WPT final tables before, his best finish being a runner-up at the 2007 Bellagio Cup. Matusow, of course, is one of the few dozen poker TV celebrities created since the WPT debuted in the spring of 2003 and that year’s WSOP (won by Chris Moneymaker) aired on ESPN helped ignite the “poker boom.”

However, it will surely be the table’s shortest stack who will get most of the attention tonight, as long as he manages to survive, anyway. In his ninth year co-hosting the World Poker Tour show, Poker Hall of Famer Mike Sexton has made it to a WPT final table. Here’s how the stacks will look when play resumes at 4 p.m. Pacific time:

1. Steven Kelly -- 4,169,000
2. Alan Sternberg -- 3,701,000
3. Mike Matusow -- 2,173,000
4. Vivek Rajkumar -- 1,616,000
5. Casey McCarrel -- 430,000
6. Mike Sexton -- 363,000

With the blinds at 10,000/20,000 (with a 3,000 ante), Sexton will likely be in shove-or-fold mode right away with his less than 20 BB stack.

After several years of not playing in the WPT events, Sexton was finally allowed to join the fun in December 2007 at the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Kimberly Lansing had recently joined the WPT team to do online interviews -- she has since become the “anchor” for the TV show in its ninth season -- and she interviewed Sexton at the time. “If you make it to the final table, who is going to stand in for you?” she asked. Sexton’s answer then was that Doyle Brunson -- the tourney’s namesake -- had agreed to join Vince Van Patten in the booth should it happen that he made it that far.

Sexton didn’t make that final table, and in fact it wasn’t until last fall at the 2010 Borgata Poker Open that he finally scored his first cash in a WPT event, finishing in 20th place (on his 63rd birthday, as it happened).

That finish added further to the $3.8 million-plus Sexton has earned in tournaments over a long, storied career that reaches back into the 1980s and includes a WSOP bracelet (in 1989) and a Tournament of Champions victory (2006) among the more than 250 in-the-money finishes listed in his Hendon Mob entry.

Sexton has certainly been around a good while, having been a prominent figure in poker well before the “boom” ignited. I was just rereading Jesse May’s 1998 novel Shut Up and Deal, mostly set in Atlantic City in the mid-1990s, a book which I am assigning in my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class. May has his narrator, Mickey, allude to a few pros in the book, Sexton among them.

WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage interviewed Sexton at the end of play yesterday, and you can tell that despite entering the final table with a short stack, Sexton is clearly excited to have survived to make the final six from the starting field of 415. Even if he goes out first tonight, he’ll still realize a six-figure ($148,000) payday. Meanwhile, the winner is due $1,013,500 plus free entry into the $25K WPT Championship at the Bellagio next month.

“Pays better than the booth, I’ll tell you that!” cracks Sexton to Savage. Take a look:



You have to like Sexton’s response to the question of how the show will handle his absence from the booth. “I’m down there playing for a million,” he points out. “Let the WPT worry about it... I’m off tomorrow!”

I had a chance to chat with Sexton a little last summer during the WSOP at that event at which the new season of the WPT was announced. Found him very engaging and got a kick out of talking to him about his many years living in North Carolina (my home state) where he played underground games for 15 years or so before heading out west.

Would also get a kick out of seeing the “Ambassador of Poker” score a needed double-up or two and stick around long enough to remain part of the story as the night goes along. Besides producing the television show, the WPT does an excellent job providing live updates of all its events on its website, so I’ll certainly be checking in over there to see how things turn out this evening.

2010 WSOP, Day 44: The Return of the World Poker Tour

Yesterday I enjoyed another day off and so ended up staying away from the Rio for Day 2b of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. Today (Sunday) is another day of rest for all of the WSOP, then the entire remaining field -- something like 2,600 or so, I believe -- comes back tomorrow for Day 3. (I’ll be back helping with the coverage over at PokerNews every day this week as the tourney plays down to 27 on Friday.)

Knowing I was going to be off yesterday, I had made plans earlier in the week with my friend and colleague Jen Newell to have lunch. She was going to this World Poker Tour press conference scheduled over at the Bellagio yesterday morning. So I met her there and went to the presser, too, and we then went afterwards for a delicious meal and enjoyable conversation over at the Cafe Bellagio. (Maryland Crab Cakes Benedict FTW!)

I ended up being very glad I went to the press conference, as it became a chance for me to meet a lot of different folks in the poker world whom I hadn’t spoken to face-to-face before.

As far as the conference itself goes, the WPT was announcing its Season 9 yesterday, although it sounds like they aren’t quite ready to list all of the stops and schedule. Mike Sexton did open things up, however, by saying there would be “six, seven, [or] eight” events in the U.S. and Europe this year.

Then World Poker Tour CEO Steve Heller said a few things, including noting the WPT’s intention “to put more show in the show” by incorporating “more information, more context, [and] more entertainment.” Part of that effort will include hosts Mike Sexton and Vince Van Patten being at the events from Day 1, and having some segments from prior to the final table included in the broadcast, so as to give viewers a better feel for how those who made the final table got there.

Adam Pliska, President of WPT, then spoke briefly, introducing Matt Savage as the WPT’s new “Executive Tour Director,” a position in which Savage will act as a liaison with the various casinos and their tournament directors to help “harmonize” the events on the tour. (Savage will also continue to be the TD for a couple of WPT stops, too, e.g., at the Commerce and Bay 101.)

Savage noted how there was a kind of excitement surrounding the WPT at the moment, so much so that he said it “feels like Season 1.” Seemed to me like others in the room -- including the media -- were picking up on this excitement a bit, too. There is a lot of competition out there among the various pro circuits, but I believe most probably agree that it would be good for poker, generally speaking, for the WPT to start thriving once again.

Pliska then introduced Kimberly Lansing -- a hostess for the show back on Season 6 of the WPT -- as the new “anchor” for the show. The position, explained Pliska, would be sort of like Bob Costas at the Olympics, and would help the show in its efforts to incorporate more context and commentary, as well as to “change the look and feel” so as to make it even more like a sporting event.

Lansing said just a few words, then Van Patten was given the task of introducing one other new aspect of the WPT show, the Royal Flush Girls. Sort of seems like they are continuing the same hostess-type role originated by Shana Hiatt and later filled by Lansing and others, only now they’ll be rotating six different women to do the occasional on-camera stuff, including interviewing players.

The conference proper then concluded with photos and one-on-one interviews while Marcel Luske and Carlos Mortensen played a heads-up match as part of a prop bet.

Luske is from Amsterdam, and so will be supporting the Netherlands today in the World Cup final. Mortensen, meanwhile, is from Madrid, and so naturally is going to be pulling for Spain. Each wore his country’s jersey to the match, and the loser has to wear the other team’s jersey today during the final.

That match was still going on when Jen and I left, but before we did I got the chance to chat with several people there. Ended up talking with both Sexton and Van Patten. As it happened, both were in my section on Saturday playing Day 2a of the Main Event, and so I spoke with each about reporting on them and their days.

Sexton was eliminated on Saturday. I reported the hand in which he was short-stacked and all in with pocket kings versus two players. His opponents both had pocket pairs, too -- queens and nines -- but unfortunately for Sexton a nine flopped and he couldn’t catch up. “That’s poker,” Sexton said to me yesterday as he talked about the hand. We also chatted some about his time in North Carolina (my home state), where he lived for 15 years playing underground games before going to Vegas.

Van Patten fared better on Day 2a. I reported on a couple of his hands early on, too, when he was mainly holding steady with about 75,000 chips. But near the end of the day he picked up a couple of big pots and bumped way up to 174,200, which I believe is a bit more than twice the average heading into Day 3. We talked a bit about his day and he asked me some questions about the reporting.

I’ll admit to being a little fascinated by Van Patten. I remember him first for his acting career. That horror movie Hell Night in which he co-starred in the early 1980s was one of those late night cable flicks I recall seeing as a kid. He was in Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, too, which I’m making a mental note to see again soon. Van Patten was also an accomplished tennis player, once ranked as high as 25th in the world and beating the likes of Vitas Gerulaitis and John McEnroe. (No shinola.)

Anyhow, I found him a very friendly guy and will confess to have gotten a kick out of all of his questions of me about the reporting side of things.

I spoke with Matt Savage some, too, and he added a couple of other items about how the WPT events will go which I found interesting. He said that when they get to the final tables they will roll back the blinds if they are too high. He also said that at each WPT event they would be running bustout tourneys that would serve as satellites to the next WPT Main Event on the tour, which sounded like a cool idea to me.

I also had the pleasure yesterday to meet and chat with Jesse May, author of the great Shut Up and Deal, which I just happened to have brought with me this summer to reread during those rare moments when I’ve had the time. We chatted about a few things, including his entertaining poker podcast and our mutual friends Kevmath and Dr. Pauly.

Later in the day I met up with another friend, James, who has come to Vegas for what has now become an annual visit for him to see the WSOP and play some golf. He and I had dinner at the Hard Rock (the Pink Taco), and he then went over to watch some poker at the Rio. I passed on the latter -- have seen my share of poker lately, dontcha know -- instead making an early evening of it.

Today will be taken up with what should be more fun times. There’s the WSOP Media tournament at noon in which it looks like something like 130 folks will be playing (perhaps more). Then later in the day PokerNews is also having its annual freeroll, too, in which I also plan to play, barring some crazy deep run in the WSOP Media event.

Should be a fun day -- a good way to kick off my last week in Vegas. Hope you get a chance to relax and enjoy your Sunday, too.

The Poker Hall of Fame: Sexton Selected

So an article popped up last night over at the Las Vegas Review Journal leaking that Mike Sexton will be the lone inductee for this year’s Poker Hall of Fame, and that Harrah’s was expected to make an official announcement today.

Bingo, Bango, Bongo! Show tunes must be going off in his head.

Wasn’t really surprised to hear that Sexton had made it. The consensus among those voting -- at least the ones who’d made their preferences known -- seemed to indicate the “ambassador of poker” would very likely be chosen. Nor was I all that surprised that only one of the finalists got in, given the way the voting procedure was set up. (More on that below.)

I was surprised, however, that the announcement came this week rather than in November. I’d been under the impression that Harrah’s was saving that news for the weekend of the WSOP Main Event final table (which begins November 7). There will be a special ceremony at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino sometime that weekend to recognize Sexton. I suppose having the announcement come first, then the ceremony later, more closely resembles the sequence followed by most other sports hall of fames.

Coincidentally, yesterday was also the day that the newly-created NASCAR Hall of Fame announced its first class of inductees. After several years of negotiating to get that sucker established, a panel of 50 voters plus one “fan vote” chose five hall of famers from a list of 25 nominees. The 50 voters consisted of journalists, NASCAR execs, and former drivers. The “fan vote” came from an online poll on the NASCAR website. The panel spent the afternoon debating the nominees at a meeting in Charlotte, NC, then cast their ballots.

The NASCAR voters were allowed to pick five names from the 25 nominees, with the top five vote getters being selected. The process for the Poker Hall of Fame vote, newly revised this year, went a little differently.

In the Poker Hall of Fame vote, there were 30 people voting -- 15 current members of the Poker Hall of Fame and 15 representatives of the media. The names of the nine finalists were announced a little over a month ago, selected by the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council from the top ten online vote getters from over the summer. Only Tom “durrrr” Dwan was removed from that list, leaving Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Tom McEvoy, Men Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel, and Sexton. Each voter could only select three names from the list of nine, and a nominee had to get 75% “yes” votes in order to be inducted. I believe the ballots were due on Friday, October 2.

As Sexton would say, we had ourselves a race situation, Vince. That’s because the way the voting procedure was set up it was only mathematically possible for three of the nominees to get the needed 75%, and it was entirely likely one or even none would. (Wrote about this a bit last month.)

Traditionally the Poker Hall of Fame has only enshrined one or two individuals each year, so having just a single entrant this year doesn’t alter that pattern. Also, with regard to that NASCAR example, it is often the case that hall of fames kick off by inducting larger classes at first, so as to get the institution established. (Though I believe NASCAR plans to keep adding five more at a time each year here.) Indeed, when the Poker Hall of Fame was first created by Benny Binion back in 1979, seven individuals were inducted in that initial class.

Sexton is certainly a worthy recipient of the honor, handily meeting the criteria for induction. (So, of course, do several of the other finalists.) Sexton was born in Indiana and went to Ohio State University (on a gymastics scholarship -- no shinola). He then joined the Army and was stationed in Fort Bragg. After leaving the service, Sexton stayed in North Carolina and really that is where his poker career began -- in home games up and down the same highways traveled by folks like Junior Johnson, who ran moonshine before becoming one of NASCAR’s first superstars and eventually a member of its initial class of hall of famers.

Sexton later moved to Las Vegas (in the mid-1980s) to become a full-time poker pro. He won a WSOP bracelet in 1989 (in a Stud/8 event), was a friend of the late Stu Ungar and figures somewhat prominently in Nolan Dalla and Peter Alson’s Ungar bio One of a Kind, and of course went on to write for Card Player, represent PartyPoker, and, perhaps most importantly, co-host the highly influential World Poker Tour television show.

Like I say, not a huge surprise to see Sexton make it, especially considering the way his career put him in close proximity to both groups of voters -- the current hall of famers and the media. And though I’m surprised, I don’t really mind Harrah’s decision to announce his selection early like this, even if it does remove a small bit of suspense from the ongoing narrative of the 2009 WSOP. If you think about it, it would have been even worse for those not selected to have perhaps made the trip to the Rio only to learn they hadn’t got in this time around.

Will be curious to see if the process gets tweaked moving forward. Meanwhile, we can now all forget about that other November Nine -- the nine Hall of Fame finalists -- and go back to thinking about the nine who still have chips in the Main Event.

(Photo of Sexton at the 2008 WSOP courtesy the great FlipChip.)

2008 WSOP, Day 3: Who Will Wear the First Bracelet?

Stopped into the Amazon Room for a quick visit this afternoon. Didn’t linger long, as I anticipate being there at least ten hours (or more) tomorrow reporting Event No. 4.

The second “Day 1” of Event No. 2 was spread out around much of the room, though there were cash games going on as well. Final tally on that one ended up being 3,929 entrants, a new record for a non-Main Event WSOP tourney. Don’t think that record will be broken anytime soon, as they’ve capped registration at 2,760 players for all of the other preliminary events. (That could change, of course, if demand warranted.)

Was too late to see Phil Hellmuth. California Jen told me he had arrived in full racecar gear at some point during Level 3 and within a half-hour of arriving had busted. The reports on PokerNews say that he’d been blinded down to 1,900 by the time he arrived -- that’s over a third of his starting stack.

I’m not 100% certain, but I believe players are allowed to register up until the end of Level 2, and those who do come in with the full complement of chips. However, if you preregister and arrive late (as Hellmuth did), you start paying blinds from the first orbit. Have no idea if perhaps Hellmuth wasn’t aware he was losing that many chips by arriving late today or not. In any event, seems like a sketchy strategy to come in when the blinds are 100/200 and you are having to start the tourney with an “M” of 6 or 7, even if it is one of your trademarks.

I walked around the perimeter and to the far side of the room, chatted with some reporters and bloggers briefly, then moved over the small, “stadium” area where final tables will be held. They were about 15 hands into that star-studded final table for Event No. 1 when I arrived. Two players had already been eliminated, Phil Laak and Mike Sowers.

One of the neat things about poker -- I’ve written about this before -- is how accessible it all is for fans who want to follow their favorite pros battle for the big money. For those who have never been in Vegas during the WSOP before, if ever you did happen to be here when it was going on, know that you can always come over and get a look at the action, and even watch from relatively close proximity an entire final table play out, if you so desired.

The staging area is surrounded by stadium-style bleachers which can accommodate around 80 or so spectators. Then there is a platform over looking the table as well. It was crowded this afternoon with several dozen onlookers. The table itself is on a raised oval which sits on a larger, rectangular surface on which four ESPN cameras were circling in some sort of specially-designed motorized wheelchairs. There was also a fellow operating a large motorized crane with another camera for high angle shots. Then there’s the camera shooting the bird’s eye-shot of the felt, and that image is projected on four monitors directly above the table. All that, plus the hole card cameras, adds up to a hell of a lot of footage for ESPN to edit down to the two-hour presentation scheduled to be aired on July 22nd. (They’ll be filming Event No. 4 as well, so I’ll be seeing all of this again from a lot closer vantage point on Wednesday.)

Between two sets of bleachers sits another small, raised platform with the cabinet full of Corum bracelets on display. Then, on the furthermost side of the little arena sat Mean Gene, Change100, and Don Peters (the live bloggers) and WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla. An announcer paced back and forth before them, narrating all of the activity into a microphone for everyone to hear. Not difficult at all to follow the action, even if one’s view of the players isn’t ideal.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention. The cash. Lordy, what a load of cash. Bricks and bricks of it on the table behind the players.

I watched a few low drama hands go by. I sensed the crowd favoring Mike Sexton, dressed in a pink, long-sleeved Party Poker shirt today (after yesterday’s lavender version). Made my way down and back through the room. I’ll have my chance to see all this again very soon.

Looked back at the reports a little while ago and saw they were now down to four -- Sexton, Liebert, Bloch, and Medic -- with Bloch holding a commanding lead with over two-thirds of the chips in play. But within a dozen hands both Medic and Sexton doubled through Bloch, so we may be in for a battle here.

More tomorrow. For now, go follow the rest of the action with me at PokerNews.

2008 WSOP, Day 3: First Final Table Delivers

ESPN must be at least somewhat pleased at how the final table of Event No. 1, the World Championship Pot-Limit Hold’em event ($10,000 buy-in), has shaped up. The event is one of only six non-Main Event tourneys for which the final table has been scheduled to be televised.

Of the nine who will be there this afternoon, no less than seven are (more or less) familiar to fans of poker TV. Patrik Antonius, Chris Bell, Andy Bloch, Phil Laak, Kathy Liebert, Nenad Medic, and Mike Sexton have all appeared on the small screen before. Only Amit Makhija and Mike Sowers will be making their TV debuts today (to my knowledge). Since they went so late last night (play didn’t conclude until 5 a.m. or so), the start of today’s FT was pushed back an hour to 3 p.m. local time.

Wouldn’t mind seeing either Sexton or Liebert take this one down. Would be especially neat if Liebert were to score the first bracelet of the Series, which would be her second if she did. Her first was in 2004, also in an open event, the $1,500 LHE Shootout. One of B.J.’s “Eight Questions for the 2008 WSOP” posted on PokerNews yesterday was whether or not a woman would win a bracelet in an open event this year. Might actually get an answer to that question sooner than later.

Meanwhile, they’ll run “Day 1b” of Event No. 2, the first $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event, and everyone will be curious to see just what the final tally of entrants turns out to be. Some want to talk about the large turnout for this first event as possessing some sort of symbolic weight with regard to the overall well-being of the poker industry, but I think Pauly makes a good point when he says it probably doesn’t mean a whole heck of lot. Still, it is good to see, and the fact that registration and the overall functioning of the tournament has run so smoothly this year (especially compared to the start of 2007) should, I would think, encourage players to keep turning out in the coming weeks.

So no new events start today, but as I was discussing with B.J. Nemeth yesterday, that will be the last time for several weeks when we can say that. I’m mostly taking it easy today, resting up for my first day of work reporting tomorrow’s Event No. 4, the Mixed No-Limit/Limit Hold’em event ($5,000 buy-in). This was the first event last year, the one won by youngest-ever bracelet winner Steve “Mr. Smokey” Billirakis. 451 players entered, although since it was Event No. 1, it might have attracted more a few entrants than it might have otherwise. I’m gonna guess around 400 for this one this time around.

It will be interesting to compare pot sizes between the limit levels vs. the no-limit ones. I recall last year talk about how, in fact, the limit hands tended to produce bigger pots, especially with the rapidly-esclating blind structure they then had in place. Haven’t as yet compared this year’s structure to that of last year, but I’ll try to do that before things get underway tomorrow.

Like I say, am mostly just resting up today, although I do think I’ll go over to check out at least some of that Event No. 1 final table. Will check back in later afterwards to report on the scene over there.