Pursuing Poker

Spent the last couple of days watching poker on my computer. The PokerStars Championship Sochi series is running, and as I’m staying on the farm for that one I’ve had occasion to check in now and then from here to follow the coverage both on the PokerStars blog and via PokerStars TV.

Then yesterday I had Day 1 of the Super High Roller Bowl on all day, that $300K buy-in tournament that started last night and lasts for several days. Both events are serving as a kind of prelude to the World Series of Poker that gets cranking on Wednesday.

Did very much enjoy seeing Kevin Hart knock out Phil Hellmuth on Day 1. Hellmuth had a bit of a cooler versus Justin Bonomo early (flopped set versus flopped straight), then as a short stack lost all his chips in a set-under-set hand versus Hart.

In fact, when the cards were dealt and Hellmuth had pocket treys versus Hart’s queens, I was already imagining a Q-3-x flop and that’s exactly what happened. Such fun.

Realizing the NBA Finals don’t start until Thursday -- a full week since the last game of the conference finals completed -- I had to joke on Twitter that poker had found a “sweet spot” amid what amounted to a “November Nine-like wait” for basketball to return.

Indeed, the entire WSOP, right through the Main Event that will go until July 22nd, will more or less function to fill a fairly dead spot in the sports calendar between the NBA and NFL. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m all on board with getting rid of the November Nine and playing the Main down to a winner this summer with only a couple of days’ delay before the final table.

This new PokerGO channel that PokerCentral has created seems okay from the outside, although there are obviously a lot of kinks still to be ironed out. While it’s nice to be able simply to click through and watch (as with PokerStars TV) -- ideal, really -- I’m not too bothered by the subscription model they’ve set up and $10 a month doesn’t seem like a lot to fuss over, as long as the sucker works.

(That said, I’m still waiting for the PayPal option to become functional, as I prefer that route to using a credit card. And I’m looking forward to them getting Roku up and running as they are saying they will, as I’d much rather watch on the teevee than the laptop.)

Still feel like televised (or online streaming) poker remains a super niche form of entertainment, and frankly can’t imagine it being otherwise. There’s always a dream to grow televised poker into something bigger than it is, something resembling or even competing with other sports or entertainment. In other words, something like it was 13-14 years ago, when the televised poker boom first boomed.

That ain’t happening again, of course. But a more modest goal of providing something worth checking out when other desired distractions aren’t available isn’t such a bad one.

Images: PokerStars; PokerCentral / PokerGO.

Nine Years Enough for November Nine

I never liked the November Nine. I got used to it, like everyone else. But I never liked the idea.

The World Series of Poker first introduced the “delayed final table” format for the Main Event in 2008, stopping the tournament at nine players in July and restarting it in November. That was also the first summer I went out to help cover the WSOP.

The announcement came at the beginning of May that year, a couple of weeks after I’d already signed on to go out for PokerNews. I remember being disappointed to learn at that late date that I wouldn’t be seeing the Main Event play to a conclusion. I thought the idea to pause a poker tournament for four months was absurd, wildly distorting whatever “standard” might have been established for tournament poker since its rise in popularity.

It’s a little silly, I know, to speak of poker tournaments as a format unable to withstand too much variation. That’s the beauty of poker, of course -- namely, the way the game can accommodate all sorts of imaginative twists and alterations. And in fact, over the last decade we’ve seen an incredible number of different kinds of poker tournaments developed, both live and online, to challenge all sorts of “traditional” ideas of what a poker tournament is or should be.

Tournaments are like novels in that way -- an incredibly elastic “genre” under which heading a seemingly endless array of different kinds of “narratives” can qualify.

But the idea of playing for a week-and-a-half, then waiting four months, then playing another day or two or three was just too much. Even the most experimental novelist would have difficulty selling the idea of presenting 90 percent of the book all at once, then withholding the last couple of chapters until everyone has forgotten the story and characters.

The WSOP and ESPN did what they could with the idea, and by the last couple of years managed to build it into something that was genuinely interesting to follow. Even so, the disconnect between what happened in the Main Event during the summer and how it ended always made it seem more like two, separate “events” than not.

Today -- at an even later date than in 2008 -- we learned the November Nine is finally being scrapped this year. And that there will be a lot of televised coverage in July on both ESPN and PokerCentral, starting with the Day 1 flights and lasting all of the way through to the end. All welcome news, as far as I’m concerned.

Sure, there will be no more coaching and simulations filling those four months in between to challenge ideas of “integrity” and further shape the Main Event into something barely resembling other poker tournaments. Most importantly, though, the story’s momentum won’t be interrupted, which means the building drama over the first seven days of poker will get to continue into the last three days of the final table.

There is still a delay before the final table, but one lasting just two days. Plenty of time, I think, to get to know the players and build some interest and excitement heading into the finale -- like that extra week before the Super Bowl.

After being away a few summers, I’m also plotting a return to the WSOP this time, meaning if all goes as intended I’ll be there to watch this Main Event play out -- all the way out, that is.

I’ll even get to lend a hand when it comes to telling the story of how the sucker ends, too. Finally. Nine years later.

Talk about a final table delay.

Image: PokerNews.

Watching the Super High Roller Bowl

I actually had Day 1 of the 2016 Super High Roller Bowl on from start-to-finish yesterday.

Took a little while for the live stream to work out the kinks during the first hour or so, but the PokerCentral channel finally got up to speed and I had it on the teevee via the Roku. Then starting at 7 p.m. ET I switched over to the CBS Sports Network (which I rarely watch but thankfully get) and left it running all night until 3 a.m.

That’s not to say I paid close attention every step of the way, and indeed I think that would have been hard to do even for dedicated televised poker watchers. But I watched a lot, generally enjoying the show and tolerating well enough all of those Dollar Shave Club commercials.

We’ve been listening to Ali Nejad do poker play-by-play for a decade now, and he was solid as usual. Nick Schulman was doing commentary as well. I haven’t heard him do a lot before, but he was an absolute natural (I thought), very funny and quick with Nejad while also giving good analysis, often smartly directed toward a wide audience.

Interestingly, a $300K buy-in “super” high roller doesn’t really provide all that much novelty anymore. Or excitement, even, given how common six-figure buy-in events have become since they first started cropping up in early 2011. But this free-to-play “MVMT Million Dollar Final Table Challenge” game being put on by PokerCentral and MVMT watches has added an extra incentive to follow this one, even if the challenge being presented by the contest is all but impossible to meet.

You probably heard about it. Seven players will cash in this tournament, splitting a $15 million prize pool with $5 milly going to the winner. For those who entered the contest, guessing all seven cashers correctly -- in order -- wins a $1 million prize. (No shinola.) And if no one gets that, the closest to doing so wins $10,000, with the top 25 getting fancy watches.

Sure, as Fedor Holz (one of the players who I’ve picked to make my final table) joked on Twitter yesterday, “Don't miss the 0,000006$ EV and bet the Final Table order in this 300k @PokerCentral #SuperHighRollerBowl #value.” Even so, the game added a bit of fun to watching, and the ability to change your line-up at the end of Day 1 (and jettison those who had already busted) enables that to continue into today for most who are playing along.

Just for fun, I pulled together an article on Friday for PokerNews titled “Finding a Million-Dollar Strategy for Picking the Super High Roller Bowl Winners.” I didn’t really pretend to present a sure-fire strategy for playing what is mostly a lottery-like contest, but rather went through and gave a history of sorts for all 49 players in events with buy-ins of $100K or more. That is to say, I shared how many times each had cashed in such events before (or not, as some never have), not being able to share also how many times the players had entered super high rollers.

I then picked a final table comprised of dudes who’d gotten to the money in these things many times. Two of my original picks -- Scott Seiver and Isaac Haxton -- didn’t make it to today’s second day of play, and so before the window closed to change picks I swapped them out for Timofey Kuznetsov and Daniel Negreanu (both of whom finished Day 1 with big stacks).

Looking at past super high rollers seems as good a way as any to play a game like this. I was just reading this afternoon an ESPN article by Bill Barnwell discussing tonight’s Game 7 between the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder (which is going to interrupt my SHRB viewing for certain). He essentially did something similar, going back through history and looking for examples of teams who like OKC blew Game 6 leads in which they’d have clinched series (both in basketball and baseball), then seeing how they did in Game 7s.

In truth I think the only people who can truly handicap something like this are the players themselves, as they know more than anyone the relative skill level and potential for success of those who are participating.

Anyhow, that’s my card up top. Wish me -- and those seven guys listed above -- luck.

Watching the High Rollers

Have to admit my eagerness to follow what has been going on at the World Series of Poker has been coming and going here over the last week or so. Kind of surprising to look up and realize the Main Event is almost here (it starts Sunday).

In fact, I’ve found my attention as a poker-spectator divided this week somewhat by what’s happening over at the ARIA Resort & Casino, in particular by that big three-day “Super High Roller” cash game featuring $400/$800 blinds, $200 antes, and a quarter-million minimum buy-in. That’s leading up to a $500,000 buy-in “Super High Roller Bowl” tourney at the ARIA that starts tomorrow.

All of the action at the ARIA is being delivered over the PokerCentral Twitch channel, albeit without hole cards. It’s all being shot as well for broadcast later on NBCSN. The cash game has at times resembled the old High Stakes Poker shows given the emphasis on table talk and having lots of well known personalities sitting around the table. And I think I heard something about Gabe Kaplan and A.J. Benza coming back to do the commentary, although I’m not 100% on that.

Among those taking part thus far have been Jean-Robert Bellande, Bob Bright, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Colman, Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Ivey, Matthew Kirk, Paul Newey, Doug Polk, Andrew Robl, David “Doc” Sands, Scott Seiver, Jennifer Tilly, and Sam Trickett.

There have been some huge pots and interesting props -- if you’re curious you can read PokerNews’ recaps of Day 1 and Day 2 and/or look through the live reporting blog.

You might’ve heard about one hand from yesterday involving Daniel Colman and Doug Polk in which the flop came -- that’s right, a second queen of clubs snuck in there. The craziest part of the hand, though, was the fact that neither Colman, Polk, nor anyone else at the table seemed to notice the duplicated card, and in fact the hand played to a conclusion before the fouled deck was realized. Take a look:

Seiver had a funny line soon after when Robl holding ace-queen called a preflop all-in by Polk who had a pair of kings. “Obviously Andrew’s playing this because there’s a bonus queen in the deck,” Seiver cracked.

The did fall on the flop in that one the first time they ran it, and Seiver said “I’m rooting for another queen of spades.” The then came on the turn to put Robl ahead, but a king came on the river to give Polk kings full. (Polk won the second run, too.)

Going back to hand with the duplicated card, though -- everyone’s so unfazed, despite the huge amount of money on the line. Safe to say if something similar happened at the Rio -- say, at a WSOP final table -- the response would hardly be so ho-hum.