To Panama and Back

Am back safely on the farm after a fun, long trip to Panama and back.

I miss a little doing the daily “travel reports” here, although as I’ve mentioned previously especially when returning to a place I’ve been before there ends up being a little less that’s fresh from the road to discuss. Never mind how busy the trips are, which obviously uses up a lot of the mental fuel left for scribbling further about what’s happening.

It was interesting going back to Panama where I’d been twice before for Latin American Poker Tour stops. Both there and elsewhere, the LAPTs were always popular though modest-seeming relative to European Poker Tour festivals or the World Series of Poker.

Usually LAPTs only featured a dozen or so events with a Main Event often featuring a buy-in on the small side (e.g., in the $1,100-$1,500 range). Meanwhile the EPTs would have as much as 100 events or more, including satellites, making for a much busier schedule.

This inaugural PokerStars Championship Panama series had 46 events on the schedule, a $5,300 Main Event (like at the former EPTs/other PSCs), and other elements that made it less like the LAPTs of old and more like the first PSC in the Bahamas and what is coming up in Macau, Monte Carlo, Sochi, and Barcelona.

In the coverage we focused largely on the $50K Super High Roller (won by Ben Tollerene), the $10K High Roller (won by Steve O’Dwyer), and the $5K Main Event (won by Kenny Smaron). Meanwhile there was some time here and there to look upon the city’s remarkable, idiosyncratic architecture, with several excursions by foot around the Sortis Hotel, Spa & Casino and a cab trip over to Old Town for a nice meal and more interesting sightseeing.

Those two photos up above -- and the idea to juxtapose them -- come via Brad Willis of the PokerStars blog who snapped ’em on one such evening out. “Panamanian noir,” he titled them.

Probably the night from the trip I’ll remember the longest was that of the media tournament. There were 30-40 entrants including three Team PokerStars Pros -- Jake Cody, Felipe Ramos, and Leo Fernandez. Tito Ortiz, the MMA fighter who managed to get all of the way to 22nd in the Main Event also took part in the media tournament, and I ended up playing with all four of them before the night was over.

After a slow start in the sucker, I had some good hands come my way and after a while had made the final table, then eventually got all of the way to heads-up before coming up short to finish second (again!). Was kind of a circus by the time we got to the end, with tons of people having stuck around to support both me and eventual winner Melanie.

And heads-up featured some big time back-and-forths with both of us getting close to finishing the other off in preflop all-ins before cards fell on either the turn or river to keep the thing going. Afterwards I knew I could’ve played a bit more aggressively heads-up, but I’ll have to file it away as more experience to draw from the next time around.

The best part of the trip was of course getting to work and laugh alongside my many colleagues and friends there, too. Among them was Carlos, who took that great pic of me just above during the media event, one of several great ones he snapped. “You are the most boring player,” grinned Carlos to me, referring to my lack of animation at the table. But from his photos you’d never guessed that was case.

Will be sitting tight for a while now, the next trip likely going to be another return visit, this time to Monaco. Plotting the summer as well, which might contain a fun adventure, too -- will update accordingly.

Photos: Brad Willis (top); Carlos Monti / PokerStars blog (bottom).

Clocking in from Panama

Hola from rainy Panama City where I’ve been since Friday, having arrived in time to help cover the PokerStars Championship Panama series for the next week-and-a-half.

Had a chance this morning to get out and about a little, then again at lunchtime when my friend Nick and I were able to find a very busy local establishment to enjoy a Sunday brunch of Panamanian fare. The temps are warm and the air humid, and right now as I write a thunderstorm is pouring down sheets of rain outside. (Meanwhile, check out what happened back at the farm this morning -- nuts!)

Inside the Sortis Hotel and Casino the PSC continues with the $50,000 Super High Roller, a “shot clock” tournament in which players have 30 seconds to act, unless they want to use any of their three “time bank” chips that give them an extra minute each to be a decision.

I’m not sure if I ever have covered a tournament using a shot clock before -- if I have, I don’t recall it -- but yesterday made it seem an awfully attractive addition to tournament poker. My sample is a bit misleading, given that the players (all high rollers) are pretty much without exception both experienced and skillful, and the dealers are also top notch, making the incorporation of the clock (a hand held time piece) seem not at all intrusive.

From a reporter’s standpoint, the shot clock is very welcome given the way it obviously sets a limit on the amount of time any one hand will take. It’s nice to know something is going to happen relatively soon whenever you get involved watching a hand, and to avoid ever getting lost in those endless tanks that end in folds and little to report.

These guys (the regular participants in SHRs) generally act fairly quickly, anyway, of course. I could see how the shot clock wouldn’t be so welcome among more varied fields. Then again, I can also imagine everyone getting fairly used to them, and don’t necessarily see their introduction as being that much different than other experiments with structures designed to make events play out more quickly. I’m remembering not being so crazy about such an idea three years ago or even more recently, but I could warm to it.

Get over to the PokerStars blog to see how the $50K SHR is (rapidly) playing out and everything else happening in Panama.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart / PokerStars blog.

On the Grind

Was a pleasant enough day of traveling yesterday, starting early in the morning and ending with me back home at not too long after 10 p.m. So glad to be back on the farm again, and to be looking at what should be a stretch of staying put for the next several weeks, too.

Between the EPT Grand Final in Monaco and LAPT Panama, the last 24 days have involved me working 16 of them and traveling another five, only being home for those three full days in between last week. That’s probably the longest, most involved stretch of tournament reporting I’ve been on for the last couple of years at least -- surely since we got the farm in late 2013.

As I was writing about last week, though, that’s nothing, really, compared to the schedules most of the others who report on and/or help staff and run these events go. Over on his blog, Will O’Connor, with whom I had the chance to work in Panama, mentions at the start of his last post how he’s already worked 100 days this year. (I believe I’m somewhere in the neighborhood of a third of that.)

It’s truly a nonstop game, both for the players and everyone else who involved in helping keep this traveling tournament poker circus going. Have been chatting with various folks preparing themselves for the seven-and-a-half-week grind of the WSOP as well, which presents its own special kind of psychological and physical challenge similar to what happens elsewhere but more intense (and, for some, stress-creating).

Unless something unexpected happens, I’ll be home again this summer, not too bothered about not being in Las Vegas although it has been long enough now I’m starting to get an itch to go, if only just to touch base with friends and colleagues whom I know will be there, even after a couple of years’ worth of turnover.

I like the rhythm of going on the road for short stretches then being able to stay home long periods, too. I suppose it resembles the rhythm of play (for many), say, at a full ring game or in a tournament, where you find yourself occasionally involved a lot but folding and watching others a decent amount, too.

For me, though, not always “grinding” allows me to miss it enough when I’m away to look forward to it when I go back.

Photo: “World Alarm Clock - Grove Passage, London,” Bob Bob. CC BY 2.0.

On to Panama

Heading back out on the tournament trail today, a little sooner than usual given I only got home from Monaco on Saturday. Going back down to Panama to rejoin the Latin American Poker Tour this time, a return trip after I went there two years ago.

They’ve moved over to a new venue -- which I’ve heard is terrific -- and so am looking forward to that. Also looking forward to getting back together with the LAPT gang. Saw some at PCA back in January, though it’s been since last November and São Paulo that I’ve been at an LAPT event in a Latin American locale.

There were 422 entries in the event a year ago when the buy-in was $2,500, and 550 the year before that (when I was there) when it cost $1,700 to play. The buy-in is $1,500 this time around, same as LAPT9 Chile in March which drew 565, so we’ll see how many make it to Panama City this time.

Had a chance to do some touristy stuff when there last time, including seeing much of the city as well as the Panama Canal. I don’t expect I’ll have that urge quite as strongly this time, although I’ll keep my eyes open should anything interesting come along that makes me want to go along.

At times it feels like I’m on the road a lot, but in truth I’m not compared to many of my colleagues. For a lot of those guys, they’re away more than they’re home.

At Monaco, Remko Rinkema was mentioning to me one day how everyone who was there seemed like they’d be at a different tournament in a new city just days later. (He’s already in Amsterdam covering another event.) I think that’s the norm for many, although I’ve been fortunate to space these suckers out for the most part, and thereby spend longer stretches home on the farm.

Where, by the way, we’re holding up well -- those of us with two legs, and our four-legged friends, too. Thanks to the many who contacted me this week after I shared the news about Sammy. I’ve found myself wanting to go out and check on everyone several times these last couple of days, and I know I’ll have to deal with that urge during the short time I’ll be away.

More to come from Panama, where the only papers I expect to see are the scraps on which poker hands will be chronicled.

Image: Flag of Panama, public domain.