Some Bad Hands Are Badder Than Others

I was working yesterday afternoon and so while I had the teevee tuned to the fourth round of the Masters I wasn’t paying especially close attention to it. Besides, defending champion Jordan Spieth was up by five strokes with just the back nine to go, so it didn’t seem like there’d be that much drama in store as the tournament wound toward its conclusion.

That means I didn’t quite live through the moment-by-moment agony of Spieth’s 12th hole, the par 3 that he quadruple-bogeyed. I looked up and saw he was strangely and suddenly down by three strokes, then caught up a bit to discover more details of what had happened.

Perhaps it was because of my casual viewing, but I didn’t anticipate how the pundits today would characterize that hole and Spieth’s overall “collapse” as “the most shocking in golf history.” Part of me wants to react by talking about recency bias and hyperbole, although like I say I wasn’t as tuned in to the proceedings as many others were, nor do I have a command of all of golf history to provide me the needed authority to counter such a claim.

I do remember Rory McIlroy’s less sudden but no less affecting “collapse” five years ago when he led the Masters heading into the back nine only to finish in a tie for 15th.

As I wrote about here then, McIlroy’s fall was perhaps easier for many of us to identify with than what happened with Spieth yesterday, given Spieth’s utter dominance over the previous seven-and-a-half rounds’ worth of Masters golf. The lightning-bolt quality of Spieth’s single-hole nightmare also made it seem like too much of an aberration to recognize and empathize with as it was happening.

Thinking again about the different ways players lose at poker, I guess Spieth’s “one really, really bad hand” probably happens a little less often to us than does the gradual series of small mistakes and lack of focus McIlroy demonstrated on his ill-fated back nine in 2011.

It happens sometimes, say, in a tournament, where one especially poor decision overwhelmingly determines a player’s fate, bringing on elimination either right there and then or shortly thereafter. But usually it’s not so simple to pinpoint precisely where it all goes wrong.

In poker I think it is easier to come back from the one really bad hand where one can focus on a particular error or misjudgment and correct it going forward. It’s a little less simple to overcome the bad habits and overall skill deficiencies that often lead to more gradual slides out of tournaments or to the felt in a cash game.

Not sure it’s quite the same in golf or other sports, though. Thinking back, McIlroy did come back to win the U.S. Open -- the very next major -- just a couple of months after that Masters five years ago. Which variety of losing is easier to correct and/or overcome?

Photo: “Golf ‘Lessen’,” JD Hancock. CC BY 2.0.

Watching Golf, Watching Poker

Got thoroughly caught up in the PGA Championship yesterday. Such high quality play from the leaders at the end, and Rory McIlroy more than proved himself with his comeback, making shot after shot to top that tough field and claim yet another major. Three straight weeks’ worth of wins by McIlroy is pretty incredible, too -- perhaps slightly more likely than a poker player winning three successive tournaments, but still a very rare feat to pull off.

I’ve written here before about the many similarities between golf and poker, both of which are games that players of wildly differing levels of skill and commitment can enjoy. Amateur golfers like myself can watch pros and still feel somewhat connected with what we are seeing, having ourselves attempted similar shots even if we’re competing on a much lower level. I’m not sure that’s really so much the case, though, with poker. Not currently, anyway.

I was realizing yesterday that when we think back to televised poker’s heyday during the mid-2000s, one of the primary attractions for a lot of us was the fact that we could make a similar connection with what we were watching. Whether it be the WSOP Main Event, the prelims that got some play on ESPN during those couple of years, the WPT, or other poker on TV, many of us watching were players ourselves and without too much effort could readily appreciate similarities between hands we were playing and those we were watching.

It was kind of like one big game then (if that makes sense), with online poker especially helping all of us feel connected in a much more immediate way than is the case today. Even if we didn’t necessarily think “one day that’ll be me” as we watched, we still recognized the games on TV as analogous to what we were doing when we played.

Some of us who continue to tune in and watch televised poker today still think in similar terms as we watch -- that is, we connect somewhat with the players and the game -- but I think the gap between what’s happening on screen and what most of us experience with poker is a lot wider now. Certainly when it’s the “Big One for One Drop” being shown none of us identifies that much with those participating in a $1 million buy-in event. But even in other tourneys I’d venture to say many of us find it hard to relate to what we’re seeing.

During the PGA broadcasts this week they would occasionally show short instructional segments featuring Lou Guzzi, the 2013 PGA Teacher of the Year. That’s a shot of him above, getting set to deliver a quick lesson about how to hit the ball out of a fairway sandtrap. The lesson didn’t seem out of place at all within the context of the coverage. Players could benefit from the instruction, and even non-players might have found it interesting to see the mechanics of such a shot being explained.

I know in televised poker there have been various attempts to introduce strategy discussion into the coverage. In truth, every single hand shown is usually accompanied by some talk along those lines. But I think most of such commentary is received simply as describing the action, not prescribing potential plays we viewers might make. The level of engagement by the viewer just isn’t the same with poker as it is with golf.

I’m discussing this phenomenon as if it isn’t just personal but applies more broadly among most viewers, which could be incorrect. This might just be me. Or what I’m describing might primarily apply to recreational players of both golf and poker (in which categories I put myself in both cases), and not as much to others.

Still, I think for all the similarities between golf and poker, there are some big differences, too, particularly when it comes to trying to make the card game into a game as engaging to watch as golf can be.

A Tradition That’s Totally, Way, Way Different From All the Other Ones

Like most sports fans, I’m tuning in this week to watch some golf as the 78th annual Masters Tournament plays out in Augusta, Georgia. Kind of weird how in this era of comprehensive coverage they actually limit the number of hours the TV folks can show, but since I’m not such a hardcore fan it doesn’t bother me much.

I’m not a golfer, myself. Sure, I played miniature golf as a kid, and in grad school went a couple of dozen times to the Par 3 course the university had. There was a regular “championship” course, too, which I think I only played once. Had a lot of fun playing, getting enough of a taste to realize the game is a lot, lot harder than it sometimes looks.

To be honest, I’m not sure why I find golf interesting to watch, but I do.

As a sports fan, generally speaking, I’m probably just gravitating toward the next major event on the sports calendar when I tune into the Masters. That is to say, I don’t really pay much attention to non-major tournaments, although will occasionally tune in on a Sunday to catch the conclusion of whatever happens to be playing out.

I’m curious about Tiger Woods and his comeback, of course. And phenom Rory McIlroy’s fourth-round flame-out at last year’s Masters and subsequent victory at the U.S. Open makes him one to watch. A few other players -- Luke Donald, Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Fred Couples -- kind of stand out, too.

But to be honest I don’t really need those guys’ participation or the various storylines they bring to be interested. The tournament will produce its own narrative, and by Sunday I’ll be curious to watch no matter who is up high on the leaderboard vying for the title.

I think about how successful golf is at attracting non-players and casual fans, especially for major tourneys like the Masters. A study from a couple of years ago determined there were 28.6 million golfers in the U.S. (aged six and above). Last year there were an estimated 42.3 million viewers tuning in for some or all of the weekend coverage of the Masters on CBS.

In other words, a lot of people are watching golf who don’t play.

Meanwhile, there are apparently 60 million poker players in the U.S. That’s the number that gets repeated a lot anyway, including in the new documentary All In: The Poker Movie, which mentions that figure as representing the number of folks playing poker every week in 2011.

But when it came the WSOP being aired on ESPN last fall, those tuning in from week to week generally numbered well under 1 million, sometimes not even 500,000. I know the “almost live” coverage of the Main Event back in July drew similar totals, peaking around 650,000 or so. I believe the November Nine stuff also hovered around the 1 million-mark, although I can’t put my finger on exact numbers.

So, obviously, a lot fewer watch poker than golf. And of those who do watch poker, I’m going to guess there are very, very few who aren’t players themselves.

I know, it’s apples and oranges. Actually it’s more like apples and orangutans, golf and poker being so very different from one another. Furthermore, there are tons of reasons why golf works better on the tube than does poker.

Still, it’s interesting to think about why the Masters can get a non-golfer like me interested, while poker is so much of a harder sell to the non-player.

Learning from the Masters

Was a busy weekend, although I did find time to check in on that fairly exciting final round of the Masters yesterday. Also had one eye over on Twitter, where it was interesting to follow some of the comments on the golf being shared by those I follow.

Among the funnier messages was one from Jon Aguiar, sent around that moment when 10 players were all within one shot of each other atop the leaderboard with just a few holes left for most of them: “they should really chop the masters to reduce variance.”

The PokerGrump had a funny one, too, sent after Tiger Woods had completed his round and while the several players behind him were still finishing up: “How can Tiger win when he stopped playing before everyone else?! #quitter.” That’s about the time I chimed in as well with a similarly constructive comment, noting “this Masters is nearly as exciting as that one when Carl Spackler holed out from 195 yds. to win #hegotallofthatone.”

I also was intrigued by all of those sending out messages in which they variously expressed empathy for poor Rory McIlroy, the 21-year-old Irishman who led the pack with nine holes to go before his unfortunate, yips-filled back nine. He plunged from -11 to -4 over the course of those last nine holes, tumbling from the top spot to land in a tie for 15th.

“Until the last hour, I thought Rory McIlroy and I had nothing in common,” wrote Otis after the swoon. “Now it’s clear we are -- at least in one way -- cut from the same cloth.” I liked what Kim of Infinite Edge said earlier today, too, on the subject of McIlroy. “When people ask me how I play poker, I’ve always found it difficult to summarize it,” wrote Kim. “From now on I’ll just tell them ‘Like Rory McIlroy.’”

The fact is, it was hard for most of us to watch McIlroy’s dizzying fall without recognizing something that reminded us of our own shortcomings, be they in poker or other areas of our lives.

In the post-round interview, McIlroy was remarkably composed, saying he was certainly disappointed, but that he was sure he’d get over it after a few days. He talked about having become unnerved following that triple-bogey on the 10th, and how he’d started to second-guess his reads afterwards. He also noted that it would probably take a few days for the lessons of this year’s Masters to sink in for him.

But his chin was up. And the kid seemed to have a good sense of the bigger picture.

I noticed just after the short interview a lot of messages on Twitter articulating respect for McIlroy’s willingness to talk and the simple fact that he appeared on his way to accepting the fact that while he’d missed this opportunity, he would hopefully have more to come.

Among those, Josh Brikis, the young poker player with more than $1.2 million in tourney winnings to his credit, added what I thought was an insightful point in response: “Listening to Rory’s interview it’s amazing all the similarities between poker and golf.”

My first encounter with Brikis was at the 2009 WSOP when I covered the $5,000 buy-in, six-handed no-limit hold’em event. That one featured an especially tough field, including a great final table at which Matt Hawrilenko won and Faraz Jaka took third. Brikis finished runner-up (for $619K-plus), and if I remember correctly he did enjoy the chip lead for some of that final table before “Hoss_TBF” eventually it down. (Here’s the coverage of that event on PokerNews, and here’s a post I wrote up here on HBP about it at the time.)

I don’t know if Brikis was thinking in particular about that near-miss for a WSOP bracelet when he sent his tweet about McIlroy yesterday or not. In any case I could see immediately how talk of second-guessing one’s “reads” and the other points the young golfer was making readily applied to things we all experience at one time or another at the poker table.

Definitely one of the more memorable Masters to watch. And to think about. And perhaps even to learn from, too.