Podcast Recommendations: Alan Boston on Thinking Poker & Kara Scott on the Remko Report

Had a chance over the weekend to listen to a couple of poker podcasts which I found very interesting and entertaining, so I wanted to pass them along here.

One was the most recent episode of The Thinking Poker Podcast, co-hosted by Andrew Brokos and Nate Meyvis. I’ve mentioned the TPP show here many times before -- and in fact appeared on that one a couple of times, once very early when they had just started, then again more recently.

Last week they had as a guest the poker player and sports bettor Alan Dvorkis -- better known as Alan Boston. I’ve often enjoyed hearing Boston talk about sports betting on other podcasts, and he’s an entertaining follow on Twitter for sure, especially when expressing misery and/or vitriol regarding bets gone wrong.

Other than exchanging a few tweets with him about Todd Rundgren on Twitter, I haven’t really interacted with Boston that much -- one hilarious exchange at the WSOP from a few years back comes to mind -- but I’ve always found him an interesting, thoughtful guy whenever he’s interviewed.

On the TPP show the interview was divided between some stud strategy talk (including some anecdotes about Danny Robison and Stu Ungar), and discussion of helping others with mental issues (and dealing with one’s own). All pretty engaging and not what you typically hear on poker podcasts.

The other was the latest “Remko Report” on which Remko Rinkema interviewed Kara Scott. Besides being friends with both Remko and Kara, I’m a big fan of both as well. As you might imagine from two people so good at talking and expressing themselves, their conversation is highly enjoyable.

The first half or more of the episode is poker-focused, with some good discussion about various things including the ongoing struggle to introduce poker to larger audiences, some good talk about Joe McKeehen and this whole (overdone) topic of WSOP Main Event champions needing to be “ambassadors” (Kara and I agree they don’t), and some further discussion about how the WSOP Main Event is currently covered and what could be changed.

They also share notes on the challenges of interviewing poker players, something I think both do very well in part because they are both so interested in examining more closely what goes into making a good, engaging interview. (It’s a lot harder than it looks or sounds, as they both are well aware.)

From there they cover some of Kara’s life before becoming a poker presenter. Some of this story I knew before, in part from having interviewed Kara myself several years ago for Betfair Poker. (That’s another one of those interviews that has now disappeared from the internet -- and which I may try to recover and republish here at some point, as I’ve done with some of the other ones.)

I knew about her background as a teacher, something I very much enjoyed talking to her about given how that’s an experience we have in common. I knew a bit about her growing up in Canada and moving to England, as well as her transition from teaching to training in Muay Thai and then becoming a presenter for a martial arts show. Which eventually led (along with some acting gigs on the side) to her getting involved with poker television.

There were other things discussed with which I was less familiar, including some having to do with how getting involved with poker and the poker community helped Kara at a time in her life when such help was really needed. Here the show reminded me a little of Boston’s appearance on TPP, if only for the way both interviewees got across the message of how important it is to have support from others, especially during difficult times.

If you have a couple of hours when you’re driving or cleaning barn stalls or doing something else where you need some interesting audio to fill that noggin’, check out both shows:

Thinking Poker Podcast Episode #186: Alan Boston

Remko Report #45: Kara Scott Opens Up About Her Life Before Poker

Photos: Alan Boston courtesy PokerNews; “Kara Scott at the Main Event of the World Series of Poker 2015,” Dutch Boyd, CC BY 2.0.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 11 -- Learning Games

Was a nice morning and early afternoon today, as I had a chance to visit the pool for a short while and also to go for a longish walk along the coastline to see all of the beachgoers. Saw a bunch of dudes gathered around a table playing some sort of dice game at one point (and snapped the pic at left).

When I tweeted the photo earlier today, Remko Rinkema shot back that “Looks like they have a lot of skin in the game,” reminding me of one of my other favorite Remko quotes: “Imagine how much funnier I am in Dutch.”

They had a cup they used to shake up the dice, and one had drawn lines on a sheet of paper for tallying the score. Anyone know what game they might be playing? (Click the picture to embiggen.)

Speaking of not understanding games fully, I had a couple of funny things happen in short succession while helping cover Day 2 of the €10K High Roller at European Poker Tour Barcelona, both suggesting something similar -- and perhaps not so obvious when looking at these tournaments from the outside.

In order to get to the High Roller tables in the back right of the spacious tournament room one had to pass through a few dozen other tables in the front, and early on there was a pot-limit Omaha hi-lo tournament happening. It was a smallish side event with a 72-player cap and a €550 buy-in.

As I was passing through, that tournament was going on break and I noticed lingering at one of the tables two seated players, two more standing up, and the dealer engaged in an animated conversation while pointing to a set of community cards on the board. From the looks of things, one of the players had just lost the hand, but had questioned the result afterwards.

“You use three of these and two of these,” another player was saying, pointing first to the board cards then to the player’s hole cards. The player was nodding, and before I got out of earshot I heard him express his appreciation.

A little later I was back on the other side of the room with the High Roller, and noticed a couple of people near the edge of the playing area but didn’t pay them too much mind. Then someone came up behind me and after greeting me in Spanish had a question for me.

“What is the short stack?” he asked. Thinking initially he was one of the group I had seen observing the tournament, I asked him what he meant. Was he asking who was the shortest stack in the room at that moment with about 150 players left or what size stack at that point in the tournament qualified as “short”?

He clarified that he was asking the latter. The blinds were 2,000/4,000, and I’d just reported a couple of hands in which players with 10-12 big blinds had shoved all in. “About 40 or 50 thousand,” I said. “That’s when people are going all in,” I added, using my hands to mimic the gesture of pushing chips forward.

He nodded. “Good,” he said. “I have to wait.”

I watched him then proceed back over to the edge of the tournament area and take a seat behind a stack of about 110,000.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. They were about 30 eliminations off the money, and he was trying to gauge whether or not he could fold his way into the money. Indeed, over the next hour-plus he mostly did just that, but alas went out a few spots shy of the bubble bursting.

It had been amusing to see the player in the Omaha hi-lo event being confused about the rules. It was more surprising to encounter the one in the €10,300 high roller inquiring about short-stack strategy as the bubble approached.

All of it reminded me that the stakes for which players are playing don’t automatically suggest anything in particular about their skill level or experience. These were exceptions, of course, but I don’t think it’s that uncommon to find players in low buy-in non-hold’em events who aren’t completely clear about the games they’re playing. And when you have a €10K NLHE tourney with nearly 600 entries, there are probably going to be more than few less experienced folks among the field.

One more day of poker to go here in Barcelona, with the €10K playing down from 36 players to a winner and the Main Event final table also playing out. Check that PokerStars blog all day and night on Sunday to find out how things turn out.

The Asynchronous Audience

Over the last few days I’ve gradually been listening to the final PokerNews Podcast of the 2016 World Series of Poker (episode #406) -- of the summer portion of the WSOP, anyway. Kind of just the way things worked out in terms of my listening opportunities, although there wasn’t such an urgency to listen right away as there was with earlier episodes since this one recapped the action as it concluded on that final day when the Main Event played down from 27 to nine.

That’s where the Main Event will remain, of course, for approximately 100 more days until the “November Nine” (which starts at the end of October) finally gets going.

There are a lot of good interviews in this episode -- the ones with Gordon Vayo, Cliff Josephy, and Griffin Benger stand out as especially interesting. Again, I’ve said it before (and recently), but Remko Rinkema is terrific with these.

Along the way Remko and Donnie Peters talk through that last day, recounting highlights and big hands. Which is how most of us will be experiencing that day (and the couple preceding it) once ESPN begins airing its coverage -- not until Sunday, September 11, actually.

In other words, the WSOP shows won’t begin on ESPN until after the NFL has already begun, as the network is obviously once more using poker as a kind of “counterprogramming” to football. Doesn’t matter too much, though, as I imagine many will go the DVR route, watch “on demand” via the WatchESPN app, or view the episodes online in some other fashion when and where they wish. Kind of like the way I’m listening to the PNPod.

If you think about it, those of us who like to follow the WSOP Main Event now experience this particular tournament very much like other “series” people watch on demand -- i.e., dramas, comedies, etc. That delivery method also creates conditions for the same sort of “asynchronous” dialogue about the tournament we often have online via various social media outlets and discussion forums.

All of which means our talk about the tournament so far has been necessarily scattered and strung out. Even when the episodes start airing seven weeks from now, they’ll only serve as vague points of reference for the discussion as it goes forward -- apart, perhaps, from a big hand or two (such as Benger’s aces-over-kings ouster of the talkative William Kassouf in 17th) which might get us all on the same page for a brief moment.

Not saying this is good or bad, just different from most major poker tournaments and sporting events that are covered live (or essentially live), and perhaps more like other facets of entertainment culture that are not collectively experienced at once. At least the final table will give us a chance to witness and respond to the WSOP Main Event as a group.

Meanwhile, if you want to talk about the WSOP Main Event, well, go right ahead. We’ll catch up eventually.

Image: “Scattered Time,” dommylive. CC BY 2.0.

Pay Dat Man Hees Mahney

Some of you have probably seen this already, but I thought I’d end the week by sharing it here, anyway.

A tip of the fedora to our buddy, Remko Rinkema, for having tweeted about it yesterday -- a short three-minute clip from a longer interview Matt Damon recently gave to BBC Radio 1.

During the clip Damon talks about the 1998 film Rounders with which most of us in poker are still obsessed after all of these years.

Damon starts off by noting how when the film was made, the skill element in poker wasn’t appreciated by the larger public nearly as much as is the case today. He also chats a little about having gotten the chance to visit the underground clubs in New York on which the ones in the film were based.

From there Damon moves on to share a hilarious anecdote about John Malkovich, a.k.a. Teddy KGB. I won’t spoil the fun if you haven’t seen the clip yet, other than to say it involves Malkovich appearing to confess to a major bluff to Damon while actually only making a smaller one:

Image: Rounders (1998) (dir., John Dahl), Amazon.

Tuning into the Main Event

The World Series of Poker Main Event is now well underway, and in fact the last of the three Day 1 flights is already edging over into its latter levels.

Back at the start of the WSOP I had predicted 6,613 for a total number of entrants this year, and for a while this afternoon and early evening it was looking like that might have been an uncannily close guess. They pushed past that mark, though, hitting 6,737 overall after a monstrous Day 1c field of 4,240 -- the largest single flight ever.

As has been the case the last three summers, I’m realizing as the WSOP Main Event gets underway that without any sort of live streams or anything beyond the hand updates and chip counts, it feels as though there’s a hole in the coverage. Too bad they cannot have an EPT Live-style stream running these first several days of the event -- say, up until Day 4 or whenever edited ESPN shows are going to pick up the story once they start airing later in the summer.

This is a point that keeps coming up every single summer. Matt Glantz tweeted about it a year ago (earning himself a block from the WSOP account for doing so). “Players would tell you that an absence of live streaming, in an event so big to the game, is a huge mistake that needs to be turned around for the upcoming year,” wrote Glantz. Alas, such a move didn’t happen, likely due to preexisting agreements with ESPN. Instead it’s almost as though with the Main Event the WSOP is already kind of over for the summer for those following from offsite. I’ll still eagerly check in on how things go from here, of course, particularly once the field shrinks to less than 100 and the pre-final table excitement starts to build. But it’s almost like mentally I’m recording everything to watch later, not fully focusing on it right now.

I’ve had fun again this summer listening to the PokerNews Podcast with Remko Rinkema and Donnie Peters, catching it nearly every day while doing barn chores or other outdoor activities. Has been a fun way to follow results, while also including a lot of interesting discussions about various topics having to do with the current state of tournament poker. (Remko’s also terrific with interviews -- I marvel at how good he is.)

The “PNPod” made me think some sort of live audio from the Main Event each night could be an entertaining and different way for audiences to experience the tournament. The final day in particular -- when they play from 27 to nine -- could be covered from start-to-finish as a radio show, interspersing interviews. I know I’d listen.

Then again, I might be a bigger fan of radio and “theater of the mind” than the average content consumer. Still, it’s starting to feel like in this age of the live streaming and all of our nonstop “feeds” that live updates might finally be slipping over into anachronistic status.

What Mitchell Towner Did On His Summer Vacation

I’m kind of chuckling at this result from one of the World Series of Poker bracelet events this week, the so-called “Monster Stack” event that cost $1,500 to play and which attracted a huge field of 6,927.

A fellow named Mitchell Towner won the sucker, collecting a $1,120,196 first prize that will end up being one of the biggest cashes anyone makes all summer at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino.

Towner is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Arizona, which means he hasn’t gotten tenure yet and might have had to dodge teaching during summer session in order to take a Vegas vacation. Towner is a self-admitted amateur; in fact, he said afterwards (as reported by PokerNews), “I really don’t play poker.”

The WSOP’s official report elaborates a bit more on Towner’s story, including his sharing how he only devotes about an hour a week to poker, and had only twice before played events with buy-ins of more than $100.

Gotta love Towner’s Hendon Mob page, listing exactly one cash worth $1,120,196.

I was listening to Remko Rinkema and Donnie Peters chatting about Towner’s win on the PokerNews Podcast, and Remko pointed out how players can safely assume the $1.12 milly Towner won was now gone for good from the poker “economy,” not likely to be put back in play by the 29-year-old teacher.

Indeed, with a Ph.D. in finance, he probably has a good idea how smart it would be to put nearly all of those winnings away, perhaps only to play other small buy-in events here and there during the breaks between semesters.

Am doubly glad to hear of fellow teacher and fellow amateur being the one to tame the “Monster Stack.”

Photo: WSOP.com.

Travel Report: EPT12 Grand Final, Day 11 -- Bird or Fish?

It’s over, at least for me. As I have a shuttle picking me up at 4:30 tomorrow morning (a bad draw, one could say), the fellas released me a bit early tonight (a good result) once both the €10K High Roller and Main Event at the EPT12 Grand Final reached heads-up.

So after getting a few last bits of business in order I’ve been packing while watching EPT Live, and occasionally checking in on my colleagues blogging the High Roller finale which seems to have gotten short-circuited by endless double-ups of the short stack.

I know my buddy Remko Rinkema (covering the HR for PokerNews) is hurting as the heads-up match continues, carrying him further and further from the jovial mood he was in at the start of this final day of play. At one point I was watching one of the final two tables, and he appeared at my side, whispering a question.

“Which would you rather be, a bird or a fish?”

Remko loves such hypotheticals, appreciating the thought experiments they sometimes can engender. I was thinking too much about a hand I was watching, though, and so answered “bird” without thinking too deeply about why I’d made my choice.

“Yeah, bird for me, too,” answered Remko, who after pausing a beat had more to say about it.

“It would be hard to watch sports if you were a fish,” he said, and I nodded with a grin while looking out of the corner of my eye. The wheels were spinning in my Dutch friend’s head.

“If you were a bird, you could get into games for free,” he said. “You could even get snacks... peanuts on the ground....”

I tweeted Remko’s wisdom, and got a good response from someone: “He's not wrong.”

That pic above came from the two of us goofing around just before I’d left the night before. Remko had taken a picture of some chip counts off of one of our colleagues’ phones, I decided to take a picture of his, and, well, things got a little out of hand after that.

Home tomorrow, after having spent 11 days taking picture after picture after picture (mostly of the verbal variety) of what I’ve seen. Will be nice to get back and stop keeping track of everything so closely, if only for a while.

See the PokerStars blog to find out how these heads-up matches end up, which I assume will happen. Now that the bird-vs.-fish one has been settled.

Travel Report: EPT12 Grand Final, Day 5 -- Cracked

“That should be some sort of art installation.”

So suggested Remko Rinkema, speaking of the cracked window there to the left. One of a few looking out the media room onto the Mediterranean Sea, it has been cracked in this way for as long as anyone can remember, and there are a lot of lengthy memories among those who have been covering EPTs over the last dozen years.

Was a little overcast today, making for a less stunning view through those cracks. More often the sky is a light shade of blue and the water a deeper one, with cruise ships typically passing to and fro to create an animated postcard constantly in motion behind us as we work.

The window takes on a symbolic significance with each passing day, too, as everyone tries to hold it together while the festival unrelentingly marches onward. In truth, aside from a few sore throats and a cough here and there, everyone seems to be managing just fine as we approach the halfway point of this year’s European Poker Tour Grand Final.

Five days are done, and six more are left. Today’s fifth day was a long one for your humble scribbler who again was helping cover the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event. Meanwhile the EPT Main got started, the €100K Super High Roller finished up (won by Ole Schemion with Mustapha Kanit part of the heads-up chop, natch), and a myriad of other side stuff was going on as well to make for another crowded time at the Sporting Club.

Our tournament started with 1,261 runners, 60 of whom returned for Day 3. From that bunch just six are left to play tomorrow, with France’s Stephane Dossetto the leader just ahead of the often entertaining British player Niall Farrell. They’ll be streaming “cards up” coverage of the final table on Sunday, so if you tune in over at EPT Live starting at 2 p.m. Monaco time (that’s 8 a.m. ET), you can watch this one play out to a conclusion.

None of the players seemed to crack up today, at least not in observable ways. A decision made near the end of the night to keep on playing down to six players (rather than stop at eight) was met with approval. It’ll make for a shorter day on Sunday, for certain, which I think also will make things a little easier for these final half-dozen if they wish to jump in the second Day 1 flight of the Main.

Check out yesterday’s coverage of all the big events over on the PokerStars blog, and tune in today for some FPS final table fun as well, as I’m sure James Hartigan, Joe Stapleton, and Matt Broughton of EPT Live will have viewers cracking up.

The Future Is Now, Bro

Can it really be 2016? How is that possible? I mean I can remember reading 1984 before it was 1984. And watching (and reading) 2001: A Space Odyssey way, way before that. When I read Stephen King’s The Stand (the original version, anyway), it was set in what seemed a distant future. The story began on June 16, 1985.

As my buddy Remko likes to say, the future is now, bro.

I mentioned yesterday how my first trip of 2016 will be a return to the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure. Had the chance to go down there a couple of times last year -- once to St. Kitts, the other time to Nassau -- which was a nice, warm way to break up what was a pretty bitter winter for us on the farm, weather-wise.

This year has been markedly different, with temperatures in the low 70s just last week here. Believe it’s a touch warmer down south at the moment and will continue to be so for the first couple of weeks of the new year, so I’ll be packing lots of t-shirts. And a pair of swim trunks, too, for a return down a few of those water slides.

Last year while in Nassau I was writing here and on the PokerStars blog about the PCA having become kind of a central event on the poker calendar, including chatting with Jesse May about that idea. It’s not on everyone’s must-visit list, of course, although it does remain a kind of nexus for all the different tours.

It’s also been around since 2004, taking place on a cruise ship that first year, then at the Atlantis every year since. That’s long enough to give the PCA an especially lengthy history -- a tradition, even -- at least in poker terms.

I guess looking at it from this direction, 2004 doesn’t seem like the future at all, but rather a long time ago.

Photo: “Future,” Hartwig HKD. CC BY-ND 2.0.

Dialing Up Some Poker Podcasts

Was writing a little last week about the Thinking Poker Podcast, which got me thinking once again about poker and podcasts (natch) and which ones have moved up to the front of the queue for me of late.

To be honest I no longer listen to any single one regularly, although the Thinking Poker Podcast is one I tend to catch fairly frequently. It’s a good mix of strategy discussion and “lifestyle”-type discussions prompted by the guests Andrew Brokos and Nate Meyvis have on the show.

While the strategy sessions can be kind of intense (with a single hand occasionally being enough to encourage a half-hour’s worth of discussion or more), I very much like the way the show allows guests to stray over a wide range of topics, with poker being kind of a jumping off point for all sorts of interesting discussions.

The European Poker Tour Prague stop is nearing its conclusion and I’ve been tuning in again to EPT Live as the Main Event is now down to just three tables. That puts me in mind of the EPT Not Live podcast, which comes around about once a week in between EPT events (and during them, too, I think).

I’m a huge fan of James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton and the shows feature them being their usually humorous selves along with an array of guests. This “Best of” episode from near the end of the summer might be a good place to start with the show, if you haven’t heard it before.

Another podcast I find myself listening to almost every week is Todd Witteles’s Poker Fraud Alert. Sometimes I’ll listen live if up late on the night he’s doing a show, while other times I’ll find shows in the arCHives (to which the above link goes). Those of you who’ve listened know how Witteles’s shows are usually made up of lengthy segments in which he responds to various poker and gambling news of the week, as well as other topics of interest to him. He has co-hosts occasionally, although often is on his own for what can become marathon episodes lasting five or more hours.

Witteles is a thoughtful guy and nearly always adopts reasonable positions on various issues of the day. His show also provides something kind of unique in poker as far as its editorial freedom goes. He provides show notes for each episode, so you can skip ahead and find topics of particular interest if you like rather than listening the whole way.

Also on my list of regular listens is the Remko Report over on PokerNews where my friend Remko Rinkema similarly takes his time interviewing guests from the poker world with each show usually taking an hour or so. It has been a few weeks since I’ve listened, but some relatively recent ones I’ve enjoyed have included his interviews with Talal Shakerchi, Martin Jacobson, and Joe McKeehen (a couple of weeks before his victory).

I’ve written here before about Remko’s enthusiasm for poker and how infectious it can be if you spend any time at all around him, something listeners of the show surely pick up on as well, I imagine, via his often inspired questions. You can find the Remko Report among other PokerNews podcasts by clicking here -- I also often enjoy the regular “PN Pod” and this fall have dutifully listened to (and enjoyed) the BookieSmash SuperContest shows as well.

Finally I’ve only lately started tuning into to Joey Ingram’s Poker Life shows, which like Remko’s often are focused around lengthy interviews with a single guest. He does his live over on YouTube, so there’s a video component with the shows, although you can get to ’em via iTunes as well. Most recently he had on both Daniel Negreanu and Dani Stern to discuss the PokerStars VIP changes, one of a few instances of late of the show jumping on a hot and trending poker-related topic to provide something interesting for those following the stories.

I’ll still dial up the Two Plus Two Pokercast now and then, usually depending on whether or not there’s a guest I’m interested in hearing. I mentioned House of Cards here not long ago, too, as one to which I sometimes listen. There are others, too, I’ll happen upon now and then. If you are curious to see what all is out there, PokerFuse keeps track of many poker podcasts as they appear on this page.

You still listen to any poker podcasts? If so, which ones do you like?

2015 WSOP November Nine, Day 1: Having Fun Filling the Pauses

Sat up until 2 a.m. here last night until Pierre Neuville was eliminated in seventh and play was paused at the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event final table. The 72-year-old lasted 72 hands, as it happened. At least he didn’t go out with seven-deuce.

I was a little surprised at how tightly Neuville played for much of the night. Having seen him take chances and be bold in other tournaments before -- including online -- I knew he liked to play against the old-man image and mix things up. He and I talked about that very idea back in August, in fact, when I had a chance to interview him at EPT Barcelona.

But alas last night seemed to go in a different direction for the Belgian. Neuville was shown making some tight folds, then got a bit unlucky in a couple of spots including his last hand, although by then he was so short a double-up wouldn’t have helped him a lot, anyway.

Meanwhile the other older player, Neil Blumenfield (aged 61), made me think of Jerry Yang early on when he three-bet with Q-8-offsuit. He did well for himself to maintain a competitive stack all night, although leader Joe McKeehen -- now with over 91 million chips or nearly three times that of the chase pack that includes Ofer Zvi Stern and Blumenfield -- is going to be hard to catch.

Speaking of Stern, his lengthy tanking quickly became the foremost topic of conversation last night.

“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….vi Stern. #November9,” tweeted Joe Stapleton. “Get it Ofer with,” was Remko Rinkema’s take. Meanwhile my constructive contributions included “At this rate, they won’t finish before Tanksgiving” and “Did I just hear a commercial saying if you have an erection lasting longer than four hands to call your physician?”

I saw Kevmath tweet something this morning about the action begin on Stern for something like 55 minutes or so out of the five-plus hours it took to play those 72 hands. All of the commercial breaks during the first two-and-a-half hours (during prime time) also helped lengthen things considerably.

Regarding the Stern commentary (pun intended) on Twitter last night, let me also shout out to D.J. MacKinnon and Jess Welman for a couple of Global Poker League-inspired thoughts. “Wonder how much more exciting this final table would be with a huge cube around it,” speculated MacKinnon, who then offered a laugh-out-loud artist's rendering as a follow-up. “You know what would make this final table so much better?” Jess then asked. “If everyone was standing up.”

That’s my cat, Sweetie, up above, by the way, mesmerized by another hand involving Stern.

Now, of course, the “shot clock” talk has begun again, although as has been the case when that has come up before, I can’t really get behind the idea. Players playing slowly is part of the game, and if other players have a problem they can call the clock to try to speed things up. Obviously Stern doesn’t have to play that way, but just as obviously he has every right to do so.

Phil Hellmuth tweeted something about him receiving a warning at one point, although it might have been the Stern warning (pun intended) was not for his slow pace of play. (Can’t really trust Hellmuth always to know what he’s tweeting about.) Will be curious to see if Stern is influenced at all into speeding up after no doubt getting feedback on what happened last night.

Have to say, though, I enjoyed the show last night, even with the sluggish pace. In part it was because I like watching how well McKeehen has been pushing around others by pushing his chips. But mostly it was because of the tweets, which were a fun way to fill all those pauses.

Backstory: Norman Chad on the Remko Report

Listening today to the latest “Remko Report” over on PokerNews in which Remko Rinkema has an entertaining and interesting conversation with Norman Chad, the longtime co-host of ESPN’s World Series of Poker broadcasts.

I’m a big fan of both of these guys. I’ve written here before (not too long ago) about how infectious Remko’s enthusiasm can be -- especially when it comes to poker. And Chad, too, has added a great deal to my enjoyment of the game, dating back of course to those first WSOP shows he and Lon McEachern hosted back in 2003 -- shows I vividly remember watching when they first aired and which get discussed at length on the podcast.

The pair cover a lot over the course of the show, including going back to his pre-poker days and start as a sports columnist at The Washington Post in 1984, a move to L.A. and Sports Illustrated in the early 1990s, then a fortuitous first trip to the poker rooms there in 1999.

They eventually come to Chad’s getting recruited by ESPN for that first seven-show series back in 2003, though before that is some interesting talk about Twitch and Twitter, creativity and writing/creating for an audience (and for oneself), different approaches to poker television (e.g., the “reality show” approach vs. the “poker as a sport” one), and the extent to which poker strategy and poker entertainment overlap (and are distinct).

I like hearing Chad’s discussion of the contributions of 441 Productions -- the group who produced ESPN’s WSOP broadcasts from 2003 through 2010 -- and his praise for how smartly they pulled together the shows, creating all of those many compelling stories and characters that hooked us all.

Chad also talks insightfully (and honestly) about the “creative curve” that exists with any endeavor, in his case referring to the challenge of finding ways to remain engaged and productive after 12-plus years of doing the same thing. (As someone who has kept a poker blog as long as I have, that discussion certainly resonated with me.)

There are a lot of interesting behind-the-scenes details shared regarding those early years at ESPN, and it’s funny to hear Chad confess to some initial (and, as it turned out, inaccurate) ideas about what they were up to, in particular his doubts about whether or not the shows would succeed. For example, his reasoning for why he thought Sam Farha would be a better winner than Moneymaker for poker in ’03 is both humorous and entirely understandable.

I’m kind of a sucker for this stuff -- heck, I was writing about looking back at these old WSOPs just last week. If you’re the same way or at all a fan of televised poker, check out the show.

The Strangest Race

Was listening earlier to the PokerNews Podcast where Jason Somerville, Donnie Peters, and Remko Rinkema are getting together in the Rio hallway every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to talk about what’s happening at this year’s World Series of Poker. Have started to realize listening to these guys chatting for a couple of hours three times a week has become my primary way of following the WSOP.

I’ll read the recaps on PokerNews, follow the back-and-forthings on Twitter some, and occasionally visit Two Plus Two to see what the latest gripe is. I’m also tuning into the final table live streams over on WSOP.com which have been quite good, with better production values and graphics than what has generally been the case over there in the past.

I’m not sweating every event as I tended to do last year, but am still enjoying following some of the finishes. As far as getting deeper into what’s interesting about a given event or how the latest scandal is (or is not) being handled, though, I feel like just sitting in on the PNPod guys’ discussions has kept me as in tune as I want to be with the day-to-day out there this time around.

Today on the show one of the topics discussed was the WSOP Player of the Year race, which I mentioned here a couple of weeks ago is this year being newly “powered” (i.e., sponsored) by the Global Poker Index. It’s also thoroughly out of whack, predictably so as Jess Welman and others noted it would be even before things got started.

Among the strange examples Donnie cited today was the case of Cord Garcia (a.k.a. Lance Garcia), winner of that crazy Colossus (Event No. 5) that drew 22,374 entrants. Garcia also picked up a small cash in the Millionaire Maker (Event No. 16).

Garcia is one of only 15 bracelet winners thus far; however, those achievements are only enough to put Garcia in 230th place (!) in the WSOP POY race at the moment. No shinola. He earned nearly as many points, actually, for finishing 652nd in the Milly Maker (101.71 pts.) as he did for winning the Colossus (128.92 pts.). (Click the pic above to details of his current ranking.)

In fact, the current leader Paul Volpe (who has two runner-ups and a 12th-place finish already) has about five times as many POY points as Garcia. Garcia could have won the Millionaire Maker, too, and then gone on to win the Monster Stack (Event No. 28) and the Little One for One Drop (Event No. 61) and still would finish with less points than Volpe already has through the first two weeks.

That’s because (as Jess pointed out in her pre-WSOP post) all of these events feature buy-ins of $1,500 or less, and according to the GPI formula are diminished in value, POY points-wise, relative to the bigger buy-in tournaments. By a lot.

I’m of the group that tends to view the whole POY thing as a diverting bit of trivia, hardly of central significance to the WSOP. But the formula being used is so strange and non-intuitive, it’s hard to assign much importance to it at all.

The imbalance in favor of bigger buy-in events also makes it a race many players are essentially not even able to participate in, which as the PNPod guys noted is too bad for Garcia and others who might’ve earned a little more notice had their wins gotten them into those POY conversations.

Then again, I guess Garcia was in a POY conversation -- for being out of the running, that is, and not a contender.

Riding the Colossus

Over the weekend I gave some time along with many other poker people tracking how that “Colossus” (Event No. 5) was playing out at the World Series of Poker, marveling as others did at the numbers it was producing.

The name sounds like what you might call a roller coaster, and in fact there was a well known ride at Six Flags Magic Mountain in California called the Colossus. That was the one you see in National Lampoon’s Vacation (the “Screemy Meemy”), and I’m reading it also turns up in the classic KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, although the ride is now closed due to a fire last year.

Was a fast, wild, bumpy ride for the poker Colossus, too, the last couple of days.

I appreciated some of the things regarding the $565 buy-in event Jason Somerville, Remko Rinkema, and Donnie Peters discussed on the Friday episode of the PokerNews Podcast, in particular what they had to say regarding the Colossus functioning as many players’ “Main Event” (more or less) as far as the WSOP was concerned. It was also interesting to see the reports of poker rooms all around Las Vegas booming with business, too, as a side effect of the event bringing so many poker players to Sin City.

The final total came to 22,734 entries (about 5K over my guess), a number that includes the many, many re-entries as players could fire up to four times. I’d expected to hear something around that number (or a little less) as the total prior to players getting their refunds for unused entries, but it sounds like that total comes after subtracting those, as there were 25,571 “raw, paid entries” altogether.

As the guys on the “PN Pod” discussed -- and as many others who played the event were tweeting about, too -- there were a lot of first-time WSOP players in the Colossus. Would be interesting to know exactly how many were playing their first ever WSOP event, or even just a rough percentage. Perhaps half? More?

[EDIT (added 6/3/15): The WSOP did release further Colossus stats, noting there were 14,284 unique players and that 5,664 of them -- just a tad under 40% -- were playing in their first ever WSOP event.]

The crew’s sentiments about it shaping up to be an especially positive experience not just for the newcomers, but for the experienced players, too, were all convincing.

As you’ve surely heard by now, 22,734 entries translated to a prize pool of $11,187,000 to be divided by the top 2,241 finishers (a little over 10% of the field). They already made it to the money last night, in fact, with no less than nine all-ins during the final hand of hand-for-hand play.

Of course, if you were following things last night you know that the excitement of the bubble bursting was basically set to the side thanks to the animated response to the announcement of the prize pool, in particular to the $636,880 up top for the winner. That figure surprised many who thought first place in a tournament with that many entries and a $11,187,000 prize pool would at least pay a milly to the one managing to survive the record-crushing field.

Not having any particular skin in the game made it easier for me to be entertained watching the Twitter feed last night as people took up either side of arguments regarding “flat” payouts, the “Golden Ratio,” the relationship of rake to payouts (or lack thereof), and so on. Defensive (and in some cases even seemingly dismissive) responses from the WSOP’s Twitter feed served to add further drama.

Marty Derbyshire does a great job summarizing last night’s immediate reaction over on PokerNews, if you missed that. Jeremiah Smith also has a good morning-after piece today over at All In where he focuses on the WSOP’s not having made clear beforehand the possibility of this particular payout schedule should the event draw the 20K-plus entries they were saying they expected it would.

Sort of felt a little like watching a movie in which the “Colossus” was this awesomely big, frightening-looking creature who turned out to be cuddly and lovable, someone everyone in the story liked. Then suddenly he starts breaking things and wreaking havoc, which might well have been expected given his size, but since everyone had been lulled into thinking they’d always like everything about him they all reacted with surprise.

I’m still on the side of those thinking the event ultimately seems as though it is (or will be) mostly positive, all things considered. And perhaps after this first wild ride it will serve to teach some lessons to players and tournament organizers alike -- also a positive.

Remko’s Run

Last summer I remember listening to an episode of the Dope Stories Podcast, the one featuring Shane “Shaniac” Schleger and Dr. Pauly. It was their “last” episode, actually, titled “This Is The End,” although they’d get together for another reunion ep. after that one.

On the show Pauly tells a funny story about working at the World Series of Poker several years back, with one of the story’s highlights (for me) having to do with our Dutch friend Remko Rinkema. I must’ve first met Remko at the 2008 WSOP when he was there reporting for PokerNews’ “NL” site, and we’ve had the chance to work together many times since then including most recently at the EPT Grand Final in Monaco.

I won’t rehearse all of Pauly’s story, but I will say it has to do with him having noticed something special about Remko. As the good doctor explains, his powers of perception had been heightened pharmaceutically, thereby enabling him to see more clearly than the rest of us Remko’s unrelentingly bright and positive aura. I’m remembering Remko back then often dressed in the orange jersey of his native country’s football squad, which I suppose only heightened the sunshiny effect Pauly was witnessing.

You can take Pauly’s story however you like, but anyone who knows Remko would readily agree that it is almost impossible not to pick up on the positive vibrations he consistently gives off. There are many others with whom I’ve had the good fortune to work at poker tournaments over the years who have also made my life brighter and funnier, and I’ll bet a lot of them -- like me -- would include Remko in that category of colleagues, too.

Thus was it especially fun to see Remko not only go deep in yesterday’s PokerStars’ Spring Championship of Online Poker Event #35-M, the $215 8-game mix, but actually come close to winning the sucker. He finished second out of 548, and in fact took away the largest share of the prize pool ($18,195.21) thanks to making a deal heads-up when he had the chip lead.

Even wilder, he outlasted both fourth-place finisher Dzmitry "Colisea" Urbanovich (who finished fourth) and Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier (who finished third), even knocking both of them out. Urbanovich is just coming off a series of European Poker Tour victories and earning EPT Player of the Year for Season 11, while Mercier has won three SCOOP titles over the last week-and-a-half. Seriously, what a barnburner!

When he and the eventual winner, a player named “Toby Work” from Denmark, were heads-up and getting the deal done, Remko’s opponent asked “u r journalist?” Remko didn’t hesitate before answering.

“I’m a top poker pro, I just write about poker so that the others have a chance to win,” he typed.

Remko’s many friends who were railing -- including both players and other poker media -- all laughed wherever they were around the world, each imagining hearing Remko delivering that line. (“Imagine how much funnier I am in Dutch,” Remko once told me. I believe it.)

I was glad a lot of us Remko fans got a chance last night to enjoy seeing him shine.

(EDIT [added 5/23/15]: To hear Remko tell the story of his run, check out the newest PokerNews podcast.)

The Partial Information Game

Was just following the coverage of the start of Day 2a/2b of the World Series of Poker Main Event and was distracted momentarily by all of the tweets reporting how WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart got things going with a request that all first-time Main Event players stand up to be recognized.

I’m guessing it was a heart-in-the-right-place kind of request, one designed to highlight just how many new players came to participate in poker’s most prestigious event this year. But the rapid-fire responses highlighted a perhaps obvious consequence of the first-timers identifying themselves in such a way.

“The @WSOP has all the first times stand up, all the pros be very thankful. #WillAllTheFishPleaseStandUp #WSOP” tweeted Remko Rinkema. “The fish actually tagged themselves this time,” said AlCantHang, while Chris Tessaro added “No word if they then applied bulls eyes.”

A couple of pros chimed in amid my timeline. “Thank you @WSOP for getting all the first timers to stand up and identify themselves,” said Mizzi. “Now I know who to punish #3barrelbluffs.” Steve O’Dwyer, meanwhile, looked at the situation from the first-timers’ point of view. “How much equity did @wsopSUITd [Stewart] just cost the WSOP first timers by asking them to stand and identify themselves?” he wondered.

As I read the tweets I began to think about the possibility of experienced players standing as a kind of early “bluff” suggesting to their opponents they were less savvy than they actually were. Then Bluff’s Lance Bradley articulated the same thought: “Wonder how many non-first timers, local regs stood up to purposely misidentify themselves as first timers. #LevelsOnLevels.”

Another worthwhile point made by several was to note that just because a player was in the Main Event for the first time, that didn’t necessarily make the player a novice.

Still, interesting to consider just how the players who remained seated interpreted the situation when watching their tablemates stand up before play began today.

Egalitarian? Egad.

Like many of you who might have clicked through my tweet announcing a new blog post (@hardboiledpoker), you probably also had your timelines populated today with much back-and-forthing regarding the Global Poker Index and the pros and cons of ranking systems designed to indicate who might be the best of the best when it comes to tournament poker.

If you did, you noticed that Phil Hellmuth has kind of weirdly wandered into the conversation, making various claims and pronouncements that remind me of a tenured faculty member who has missed every meeting all semester suddenly showing up to share his thoughts on this particular agenda item.

Starting earlier this week, Hellmuth has tweeted about a half-dozen times on the matter, sort of firing randomly in ways that belie a lack of understanding of how the GPI works, what ranking systems actually represent, and perhaps a desire to be considered by his Twitter followers to be the kind of respected commentator on poker-related issues that other players actually are.

His first salvo was the most hilarious, although he’s come close a couple of times since. “The GPI is very flawed,” he began. “I cannot respect a points award system that counts $100,000 high rollers. Poker awards need to be egalitarian.”

I liked Dreyfus’s early response to the non-specific criticism of the first sentence. “Poker is flawed,” said Dreyfus.

Dreyfus also offered a more detailed response to the rest of Hellmuth’s tweet in a post over on the GPI site, including pointing out that the Poker Brat’s criticism of $100K events being included ignores how the GPI actually weighs high roller and super high roller events differently in order to prevent them from unduly affecting rankings.

The best part of it, though, is the line that “Poker awards need to be egalitarian.” Hellmuth might as well say that the ranking system is unfair because it penalizes poor players while rewarding the good ones.

Sure, he means to say something less obtuse about high-rolling players having an inherent advantage in such rankings, but that ain’t the words he’s chosen. (I see the latest episode of the PokerNews GPI podcast is titled “Hellmuth the Egalitarian,” which makes me want to listen.)

I suppose the only real “egalitarian” tourney rankings system would be one that accounted for buy-ins, too (something that came up during the long Twitter discussion today), but that obviously ain’t happening.

Now Hellmuth is ducking his head inside the door to say stuff about a “players council” being needed to establish criteria for ranking systems. We’ve heard this line before from him -- recently, in fact, such as last fall when he wanted to “draw a line in the sand” over which WSOP bracelets were supposed to “count.”

But like I say, it’s like the whole faculty has been working on this issue for weeks and he’s just bumbled into the room to remind everyone that even if he’s presently well outside the top 100 on the GPI, he can’t be fired!

Anyhow, sorry to those who like my buddy Remko were pointing out how there was an overload of GPI-related talk in his timeline today. “They should change the word ‘Timeline’ on my Twitter app to ‘Endless GPI Discussion with some sports news and pictures of cats,‘” he tweeted.

To which I felt like there was really only one correct response (click pic to enlarge).

Travel Report: Season XII WPT Fallsview Poker Classic, Day 3 -- Kick Your Heels

Airport blogging once again, presently awaiting first flight out of Buffalo as I’ll be winding my way back home after the conclusion last night of the World Poker Tour Fallsview Poker Classic in Niagara Falls.

We finished up around 10 or so last night, although the day felt a little longer after my blogging partner Remko and I reported every hand from the ten-handed final table on down to a winner (over 250 of them). Matthew Lapossie ended up winning the sucker after carrying a big chip lead into heads-up versus Dylan Wilkerson and then finishing the deal after a little over 20 hands.

One hand early on saw Lapossie turn a straight flush against Peter Labib’s ace-high flush to knock out the latter, easily the most remarkable hand of the day. There were several come-from-behind turn or river saves for short stacks, though, which made things interesting while prolonging the final table.

Chris Tessaro noted at one point how the table was a “short-stack shamble,” the phrase sounding enough like your humble scribbler’s moniker to wonder if I were to blame. He also tweeted the best line of the day about players’ managing to double up over and again:

“Not saying this fallsview ‪#wpt final table is taking too long,” he wrote, “but I just gave coffee shop my last 1.60 and she gave 3.20 change ‪#doubleup.”

Great working alongside Remko who always keeps people smiling. Walking back from a short dinner break yesterday, he turned to me and asked earnestly “Wanna see my favorite move?” “Whaddya mean, dance move?” I replied, but rather than answering he jogged two steps then leaped in the air, kicking his heels before landing, momentarily becoming a literal flying Dutchman. Soon Remko was encouraging one of the friendly Fallsview staff to try the move as well.

Speaking of, all of the Fallsview staff were especially accommodating throughout. Indeed, as is often pointed out by those traveling north of the border, there were nothing but friendly folks at every turn during my brief Canada sojourn.

Gonna cut it short as they’ll be boarding us soon. Looking forward to reuniting with Vera and the horses and barn cats later today. Return tomorrow for the farm report.

Travel Report: Season XII WPT Fallsview Poker Classic, Day 2 -- Roll Up the Rim to Win

In a bit of a rush (as usual) this morning as I get my act together for one more long day of tourney reporting. Yesterday’s second day of play here in Niagara Falls at the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic went well as 114 survivors from a starting field of 383 played down to just 10. That group will reassemble at noon today at an unofficial ten-handed final table, then play down to a winner tonight.

There were a few better known players left as the night edged towards the finish -- e.g., Mike Leah, Mike Watson, Peter Jetten, Shawn Cunix -- but all fell shy of the final ten and so the winner here will be a relative newcomer, although a few have had some nice scores before.

Matthew Lapossie final tabled the EPT6 Barcelona event back in 2009. Josue Sauvageau finished fifth in this same event a year ago. Dylan Wilkerson has 15 WSOP cashes and over $340,000 in career tourney winnings. And Jason James, who has a big chip lead to start the day, also has a number of cashes at the WSOP and elsewhere, although this should mark his biggest to date.

The day began with an enjoyable breakfast meeting with a family friend who happens to be based here in Niagara. Always nice to be able to connect with folks on these trips, and we enjoyed a nice visit before I headed to the tourney room.

I’d already had a couple of cups of coffee before breakfast, drank more there, then during the late afternoon Chris Tessaro introduced me to Tim Hortons coffee, in particular the popular “Roll Up the Rim to Win” promotion which encourages people to buy still more cups of the popular brand.

Chris bought me a cup -- and a chance at cash prizes or even a new car -- while also filling me in on the history behind the franchise first co-founded by the late NHL star after who it is named. The coffee was good (even if I didn’t exactly need yet another shot of caffeine) and while I didn’t win any prizes I did feel connected for a moment with the many other Canadians rolling up the rims of their coffee cups every day.

Speaking of hockey, there was a positive vibe in the room for much of the day as people shared stories about Canada’s gold medal victory in the morning, with the match being replayed on CBC on television screens in the afternoon. Big deal, that.

Must sign off as I have much left to do before play kicks off at noon. Join Remko Rinkema and myself for the hand-for-hand coverage over on the WPT site today. As Remko would say, it should be a barnburner.

2012 WSOP, Day 50: Racing to the End

It has come fast. The last day of the 2012 World Series of Poker -- save the Main Event final table, to play out in late October -- has arrived.

Yesterday’s Day 6 was a marathon, made both longer and more challenging by the many breaks taken throughout the day and night.

I mentioned yesterday how this year ESPN essentially has five “feature” tables around which they can shoot -- the main one in the “mothership” arena, a secondary one to the side, and three more over in what used to be called the “Blue” section but last night was dubbed “Gold.” Those pictures were from when they had gotten down to four tables, with the main, the secondary, and the two on the side.

They played down from 97 to 27 players yesterday, which meant in addition to those five tables there were six more “outer” tables set up to begin play, but gradually as players busted those were broken, the remaining players reseated, and the tables literally broken down and taken out of the Amazon room.

The various areas are quite far apart, actually, which was one reason why extra breaks would come up in order to give players time to find their new locations. They’d occasionally switch entire tables sometimes, too, in order to make one or another “featured,” and that do led to the extra 10-minute pauses in the action.

So it was a long one. All in all, it would take until after 2 a.m. (five two-hour levels plus part of a sixth) to eliminate 70 players and establish today’s final three tables. (I should mention the ESPN folks have been great to work alongside, and we’ve had many occasions to help one another out while making space for each other, too.)

The knockouts came quickly at the start, though the pace would slow down as the day wore on. There was some minor buzz about all of the “big names” getting knocked out on Day 6, including Gavin Smith, Vanessa Selbst, Jason Somerville, David “ODB” Baker, and 2011 November Niner Sam Holden. At the dinner break I joked on Twitter that there were still big names left, including Martinezalonso, Israelashvili, and Gwennael Grandmougin. Typing those made me think of players from past WSOPs such as Manoj Viswanathan and Meenakshi Subramaniam.

There will be plenty of intrigue today among the final 27, led currently by Marc Ladouceur who finished 63rd in the Main Event just last year. Also of note is the fact that two women still remain as well, Gaelle Baumann and Elisabeth Hille, with Hille currently fifth in the counts. I will have to look it up to be sure, but I think 2000 might be the last year two women made the final 27 when Annie Duke finished 10th and Kathy Liebert 17th.

Today may take a while, with the average stack still deep at a little over 61 big blinds, and only four players returning to less than 30 BBs. Who knows, though? I’m remembering 2009 when everyone was sure the 27-to-9 day would be lasting until dawn and they ended up racing to the end by 9 p.m.

Speaking of racing, I’d be remiss not to mention the late night chair racing competition that came after all was done last night in which Remko, Rich, B.J., and Ali Nejad invented a competition and executed it in the most hilarious fashion imaginable.

The contest required participants to run with a dealer’s chair, gathering momentum and then jumping on it at a certain point to see how far they could ride afterwards. Kind of like bobsledding, although the ultimate goal was distance, not speed.

The order and results could not have been funnier.

First the sight of Remko, literally a flying Dutchman, establishing the mark to beat.

Then Rich, despite his best efforts coming up short of Remko’s mark.

Then B.J., who looked for all the world as though he was about to cruise past Remko when he leaned too far and fell forward, crashing to the sound of laughter all around.

And finally Ali, there to shoot the last of his ESPN video reports for the WSOP, providing his own commentary then expertly gliding past Remko to victory.

We were still laughing as we left, racing back to get a few hours rest before today’s Day 7. Like I say, today may take a while. But I’m guessing no matter how long it takes it’ll seem like we’re flying.

(EDIT [added 7/23/12]: "The Great WSOP Media Chair Race" on YouTube.)