Why Why Zed

Flew to Montreal today, transferring through Toronto Pearson International Airport to get here. I will be here for the next week helping to cover the World Poker Tour National: Canadian Spring Championship.

These flights of less than two hours seem trifling to me now after all of the trips to other continents. Heck, the flight from Santiago to Atlanta earlier this week was about nine-and-a-half hours -- longer than the entire trip up here took, including driving to the airport.

I’ve been both to Toronto and Montreal before. The trip to Toronto was more memorable for me as it was more recent, though both were quite some time ago.

One aspect of the Toronto trip I’ve always remembered was how when Vera and I came the city was in the midst of a huge strike related to education cuts. I don’t remember the details, but all of the teachers had walked out and I think others were striking, too, with then Premier of Ontario Mike Harris the target of everyone’s anger over the cuts.

We were hanging around the University of Toronto mostly for a conference, and whenever we’d walk about we’d see lots of protestors marching and chanting. They carried signs, too, including many mentioning Harris specifically.

“Harris Doesn’t Scare Us,” read one. “Harass Harris,” another. “Spare Us from Harris,” a third. And so on.

That my last name coincided with the Premier’s gave these signs a humorous meaning, especially when captured in photos of me with a “What kind of a welcome is this?!” look on my face.

I don’t know how that situation ultimately played out. I also somehow missed during my earlier visit that the Toronto Pearson International Airport has the International Airport Transport Code of “YYZ.” And that the Rush instrumental that carries that title -- a song I’ve listened to hundreds of times -- begins with the band banging out a rhythm built upon the Morse code transmission of the letters Y, Y, and Z.

Here’s a clip from the “VH1 Classic Albums” show about Moving Pictures, the 1981 LP on which the track appears, in which the band explains the song and title (with the song taking up the second half of the clip):

So now I know. Meanwhile I’m having trouble remembering anything about my visit to Montreal (which was during the early ’90s), so I’m curious to see a little of the city while once again reporting long days from a week-long tourney. Kind of interested to see the Playground Poker Club and actually visit Kahnawake, too, a place I wrote about so many times 5-6 years ago here I memorized how to spell it.

Gotta get some sleep first, though. And probably dream of dash-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dash-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot.

Big Money

Utterly fatigued today after sitting up until nearly dawn here on the east coast following the conclusion of the World Championship of Online Poker Main Event on PokerStars. Was a marathon final table lasting more than four hours and finally concluding with three German players -- PlayinWasted (who won), Daniel “Allanon85” Drescher, and SwissCantMis -- chopping at the end, all of whom took away more than a million dollars from the $5,200 buy-in event. Meawhile PokerStars Team Online member and blogger Shane “shaniac” Schleger took sixth in the event to earn a nifty $291K-plus payday.

The WCOOP Main Event has genuinely become one of the most significant poker tourneys during the calendar year, if one considers the attention it receives, the prestige given to those who do well in it, and, of course, the money. The big, big money.

This year 2,133 entered to create a prize pool of $10,665,000. The buy-in for the WCOOP ME has remained steady over the last few years, with the prize pool peaking back in the last pre-Black Friday year of 2010 at $12,215,000 when Tyson “POTTERPOKER” Marks won an incredible $2,278,097.50 first prize when there was no final table deal.

In 2011 the WCOOP ME prize pool dipped to $8,135,000, then increased to $9,125,000 in 2012. This year it again topped the $10 milly mark, and like most other online tournament series on PokerStars the overall numbers are edging back toward (or even surpassing) the pre-2011 totals when Americans could play on the site.

Over on Wikipedia one can find a list ranking the largest ever poker tournaments (by prize pool). The list looks reasonably well maintained (although I haven’t tried to verify its accuracy).

Of the 30 tournaments listed, the last 10 World Series of Poker Main Events crowd the top part of the list. The 2003 WSOP ME won by Chris Moneymaker doesn’t make the list, as its total prize pool was “only” $7,802,700.

Meanwhile the 2008-2010 WCOOP Main Events sneak into the bottom part of the list. This 2013 WCOOP Main Event should earn a spot on there as well just behind those earlier WCOOP MEs. That’ll make six online events among the top 30 of all time.

How big can the WCOOP Main Event and/or other online tournaments get? It appears their potential for further growth is less limited than that of live events, although it doesn’t seem as though an online tourney could ever reach the heights of the biggest WSOP MEs with prize pools these days usually around $60 million. (The biggest ever in 2006 was $82,512,162.)

Was reading David Schwartz's article a couple of days ago in which he looked back five years to “The Day Wall Street Went Bust” and snuck in a subtle allusion to a Rush song along the way. And so with Rush on the brain -- and big money -- I much more lazily titled this post. Hey... I said I was tired.

Riding the Rush

So I did find time to sit down for a relatively brief session of Rush Poker on Full Tilt yesterday. Jumped into the $25 max. buy-in, six-handed pot-limit Omaha game, where I joined about 160-170 others. A little over a half-hour later I’d played 111 hands, at which point the game paused. I noticed players quickly dropping out of the pool, and after a couple of minutes of waiting I decided to skedaddle as well.

I was happy enough to leave, having accumulated a handsome profit during those hands. I managed to double my buy-in (almost) very early on, then added a few more bucks before the pause. So I came away feeling fine, although the whole experience was likely unduly affected by my good mood at having that early success. In fact, I’m sensing a lot of early reactions to Rush Poker are tied pretty closely to whether the player won or lost during that first session or two, which is understandable.

With that in mind, I’m gonna resist offering some long-winded analysis and/or judgment of Rush Poker as of yet. I need to try it again and become more familiar with the ins and outs before presuming to say anything meaningful about it.

I will say one thing, though. Those initial hands, when I first realized how the game worked, evoked for me a feeling I hadn’t experienced for quite some time while playing online poker. I’m talking about that sorta nervous excitement that came with first signing onto a site and playing those initial hands. You remember that? That mix of fascination and edginess you felt when you first realized how online poker worked -- how you could play against others all around the world, any time of day or night? And then, when you won your first hand, and thought, hey, I like this!

Not saying that getting to relive that feeling necessarily means Rush Poker is the cat’s pajamas. But it was pretty cool to “go back” like that, even if only for a few moments.

Speaking of “going back,” the New York Jets are playing the Indianapolis Colts this weekend in the AFC Championship game, with the Colts being huge favorites. Spent some time this week listening to “the Fan” -- i.e., the New York sports radio station -- and enjoying all the excitement and hype. And all of the references to Super Bowl III, the Jets’ finest moment, when “Broadway” Joe Namath led them to a stunning 16-7 victory. Over a heavily-favored opponent. The Colts.

As a Carolina Panthers fan, I have no particular allegiance to any of the remaining teams, which means like most unaffiliated folks, I’ll be rooting for the underdog in this one. That decision a few weeks ago by Indianapolis to rest their starters against the Jets and forgo the chance at an undefeated season -- see “The Colts Find a Fold” -- provides another reason to pull for the Jets on Sunday.

What a story that would be, eh? The Colts give a game away to the Jets, saving New York’s season, then find themselves in a nightmarish situation wherein a newly vitalized Jets team gives ’em all sorts of hell just one step from the Super Bowl. Sort of like a chip leader passing on a chance to eliminate a short stack, only to see that player then double up a few times to become a real threat to take it all away.

That Jets defense is obviously going to have to step it up to slow down Manning et al. And New York will absolutely have to run the ball effectively to chew up the clock and keep Indy’s offense off the field. Here’s hoping they keep that momentum going -- first launched just four weeks ago in that game versus Indy -- and make things interesting Sunday.

As far as the NFC Championship between the Minnesota Vikings and New Orleans Saints goes, I’m mainly just looking for a good game there. Really, whoever wins that one will make for an interesting story.

So enjoy the weekend all, whether it be filled with Rush Poker, monitoring the Jets’ rushing attack, or rushing around doing something else.

Like listening to Rush!

WSOP Final Table Hand No. 60: Riding the Rush?

Before reaching that huge hand between Jamie Gold and Richard Lee I found one other interesting hand involving two of the short stacks. Figures I would. To paraphrase a Chandler short story title, shorts stacks is my business.

On the prior hand, Michael Binger had doubled up through Allen Cunningham thanks to a fortunate draw. Down to about 3 million (7th out of 7), Binger had raised to 700,000 UTG. (The blinds at this level were 100,000/200,000 with a 30,000 ante.) It folded around to Cunningham who called from the big blind. Cunningham checked the QJ8 flop, Binger moved all-in, and Cunningham called with ace-queen. Binger had ace-ten, and luckily for him a king came on the turn, filling his gutshot.

Now comes Hand No. 60. Binger is now the big blind, and his 6 million puts him in 5th place. At this point the seven players have essentially divided into upper and lower divisions, with Gold (37 million), Richard Lee (20 million), and Cunningham (11.5 million) all with large stacks and Douglas Kim, Binger, Rhett Butler, and Paul Wasicka all with short stacks (from 3 to 7 million).

As the hand begins, we watch from overhead as Binger carefully stacks his new chips into a symmetrical arrangement. Doyle Brunson is in the booth answering questions about the H.O.R.S.E. event. It folds around to Paul Wasicka on the button. Wasicka looks at his cards and spends twenty seconds or so counting out part of his chips before announcing he’s all-in. Cunningham folds in the small blind and the action is on Binger.

Binger looks at his cards and it is immediately apparent that whatever he has, he’s not ready to fold it instantly. He scratches his forehead and looks worriedly over in Wasicka’s direction. He rubs his eyes and audibly exhales. He momentarily bends forward and covers both ears with the palms of his hands. In short, he looks like a poor sap who has finally gotten up the gumption to ask his best girl to marry him and she just said let me think about it . . . .

In all, Binger deliberates about 30 seconds or so before finally saying “I call” and turning over his hand -- . Wasicka turns over , and Binger says “damn,” grimacing and shaking his head as if he’s trying to undo what he’s just done. “I can’t believe the ace-nine called here, do you, Doyle?” asks Gordon. (Brunson later says he’d rather have two face cards in that spot, “’cause the other guy figgers to have an ace.”) Nejad correctly notes that even if Wasicka didn’t have an ace here, Binger wouldn’t have been that big of a favorite against any two random cards. All agree the call was a major miscalculation by Binger.

The board comes , and Wasicka has doubled up to 6.7 million or so. Meanwhile Binger has landed right back where he was two hands earlier, in last place with less than 3 million.

Is there any defense for Binger’s play here? Perhaps not. I’ll offer what I think might be a partial explanation, though . . . .

When Wasicka moved all-in from the button, it was the fifth time he’d made a large preflop raise from late position (always from the button or the cutoff). That’s out of eight orbits or so. Binger is in the small blind when Wasicka is in the cutoff seat and in the big blind when Wasicka is on the button, thus making Binger acutely aware of what Wasicka has been doing. Having lost his blinds four times already, Binger had probably already thought to himself that the next time Wasicka pulled that move and he had any kind of hand at all, he’d consider looking him up. The fact that he had just doubled his stack perhaps made him even more eager to entertain the idea (since prior to Hand no. 59 he and Wasicka had been essentially even in chips the entire evening).

I really don’t think Binger was “riding the rush” here and acted recklessly after winning his first big pot of the night. No, I think his call was very likely at least somewhat premeditated. Of course, A9-offsuit is hardly the ideal hand with which for him to have made this play. But we’ve all been there . . . you’ve picked up an opponent’s betting pattern and have convinced yourself precisely how best to exploit it, but when the opportunity comes around certain factors (e.g., other players’ actions, your starting hand, what happened the hand before, etc.) compromise the play. All in all, I’m not faulting Binger too terribly here. Think how hard it would be to make correct decisions with all the various pressures (the money, the cameras, etc.). How’s it go? Living on a lighted stage approaches the unreal for those who think and feel . . . ?

Also worth noting here is how smartly Wasicka appears to have played his short stack during the latter stages of the tourney. Recall he was the player who began day 7 (the next-to-last day) way down in 24th place (out of 27) and managed to claw his way to the final table. While Gold’s successful handling of the big stack is getting most of the attention, Wasicka’s short-stack play during the last two days of the tourney is probably also worth some praise. (I believe I’ve read somewhere how Wasicka somehow managed never once to call a river bet at the final table, but I haven’t checked that out.)

Hand No. 122 coming up.

Image: Rush, Moving Pictures (1981) (adapted), Amazon.