The Return of the American Online Grinder

Have to confess I hit the sack early last night, only following those hand-for-hand updates from the World Series of Poker Main Event until they’d gotten down to just under two tables. Looks like they managed to hit the nine-handed final table right at midnight (judging by the time stamps at WSOP.com), so it wasn’t a short final day but not too outrageously long either.

Eyeing the final nine players, I can say for sure I’ve covered four of them previously in tournaments -- Cliff Josephy, Kenny Hallaert, Vojtech Ruzicka, and Griffin Benger. I probably also reported on Jerry Wong at some point, though don’t remember him quite as well.

Probably the most interesting, obvious thread when looking at the final nine is the extensive and well known online background of Josephy (“JohnnyBax”), Hallaert (“SpaceyFCB”), Benger (“Flush_Entity”), Ruzicka (“Vojta_R”), Wong (“hummylun”), and Gordon Vayo (“holla@yoboy”).

There were other big online winners who nearly got there, too, like James Obst (“Andy McLEOD”) who ended in 13th, Tom Marchese (“Kingsofcards”) who took 14th, and Jared Bleznick (“Harrington10”) who finished 16th.

Of course for guys like Josephy, Vayo, Wong, and Marchese (Americans), online poker hasn’t been that much of an option for the past five-plus years. (Bleznick, of course, has been the focus of a lot of multi-accounting speculation in the past, including post-Black Friday.)

Sam “@SamSquid” Grafton -- Benger’s co-commentator on the Global Poker League -- tweeted today how he was looking back on the entire series as having signaled a next, belated chapter in the story of U.S. online pros.

“This year’s WSOP seems to confirm the reinvention of the last generation of US online regs into the dominant force in the post-BF live arena,” suggested Grafton. He went on to list Andrew Lichtenberger, Tony Dunst, Ryan D’Angelo, Paul Volpe, Kyle Julius, Shaun Deeb, Michael Gagliano, and Josephy as players who did well this summer in Vegas who formerly played prominent roles online -- all “top names on P5s and on training sites” when Grafton first started playing online.

“Real impressive the way these guys have survived and thrived after being stripped of their main source of income,” Grafton concluded.

It does seem like kind of a milestone of sorts being passed, perhaps given even more emphasis by Josephy being chip leader among the final nine. As he noted in his interview with the PokerNews Podcast a couple of days ago, Josephy “retired” the “JohnnyBax” nickname back in April 2011, having been made to step away from that version of himself.

Josephy’s extensive backing of other players also makes him the hub of a huge network of others, many of whom likewise transitioned from online to live. He made reference to his backing of others in this year’s Main Event in the PNPod interview, too, saying how they’d all busted and joking “I guess sometimes you gotta do the work yourself.”

These players represent a small subset of the most skilled and successful U.S. online pros, although they do (as Grafton suggests) represent a larger group who have managed to make the online-to-live transition. Of course, a much larger group made the online-to-something-else transition, but it’s still interesting and notable to consider the significance of the success of these few.

Image: Full Tilt Poker.

GPL Moves Into Third Week

Was busy for much of yesterday although by late afternoon I was able to switch on the Global Poker League and watch the 6-max matches go by.

They’ve now introduced webcams for those (a couple of players at a time) as well as some “postgame” interviews with players, all of which adds considerably to what would otherwise be a fairly dry watch of an online sit-n-go. I also feel like there’s something genuinely interesting -- and perhaps even unique -- when it comes to the players’ attempts at analyzing hands on the fly.

I’ve never much gotten into watching the single-player streams on Twitch in which a player tries to do what he or she can to engage an audience, and perhaps offer some strategy advice along the way. Many of those often seem to be “about” cheering for a player to go deeper in a tournament or build a stack on a cash table, which can be interesting if you care about the player but otherwise is not terribly compelling.

Meanwhile on the GPL streams players are perhaps in a bit more vulnerable position when it comes to offering on-the-fly analysis. For one thing, viewers can see everyone’s hole cards (whereas the player obviously cannot), a big distinction from the Twitch streams in which those watching can only see the channel host’s cards. Thus we hear the player talking through decisions knowing whether or not his or her reads of others’ ranges are accurate, which in turn gives us a better idea how such decision-making works (or doesn’t).

I think also there’s much less of an “us-versus-them” feel to the GPL streams as opposed to other poker streams on Twitch. Sure, we might well have a rooting interest, and curiosity about outcomes and who wins and who loses also obviously motivates a person to watch. But I’m finding my attention shifting a lot as I follow the different players’ thoughts about the hands their playing, occasionally expressed by multiple players within the same hand.

The last couple of matches today (involving the “Americas Conference”) were fun, too, thanks in part to Tyler Kenney (Bryn’s brother) and Felipe “Mojave” Ramos both getting to heads-up and splitting the victories.

Both players were “wild cards” added to their respective teams (the New York Rounders for Kenney and the São Paulo Metropolitans for Ramos), and both were clearly very excited to do well in their GPL debuts. They both tended toward the “fit-or-fold” style of play (as noted by commentator Sam Grafton along the way), which I think many of us who consider ourselves recreational players also often employ, adding perhaps another layer of interest to following their progress.

The excitement level varies quite a bit, of course, with these GPL shows, and I’ll admit during certain stretches finding myself wandering away when it fails to engage. But I do think there’s something genuinely different about the shows compared to other poker TV, and so for now -- while the novelty remains fresh, anyway -- I’m continuing to dial them up.

Image: Global Poker League.

Anyone Can Win… Except Not Everyone Can Win

Over the weekend I had a chance to read poker pro Sam Grafton’s excellent post on the RunItOnce site inspired by his viewing of the “Big One for One Drop” coverage on ESPN. Titled “Poker and Silence,” Grafton’s article deftly covers a number of overlapping issues currently of relevance not just to the world of poker players but also to those who cover them. He also offers many thoughtful observations about poker’s current cultural status, his comments marked by a thorough understanding of poker’s history -- both long-term and more recently.

Indeed I could almost imagine assigning the post to my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class as a smart introduction to the current state of affairs for poker. For part of the class we do address the idea of the “poker professional” as it is described in some of our reading assignments, in particular David Hayano’s Poker Faces (from the early 1980s). Grafton offers a nice update to that discussion when he describes “the modern poker pro” and the various challenges and/or responsibilities that come with such a role.

Incidentally, by contrast consider again that Newsweek screed by Leah McGrath Goodman from last month concerning the threat posed by online poker. On the one hand a writer who lives fully outside of the world she’s describing cobbles together a haphazard feature regarding it, trying to build an ethos upon conversations with a sampling of individuals many of whom also aren’t part of that world (and who also are mostly dimly informed about it). On the other a writer speaks of a world in which he has lived for many years, having gained not just an understanding of how it operates but retained the perspective of how it appears and functions to those on the outside.

It’s no surprise one article obscures while the other illuminates.

In any event, I don’t intend to summarize the entire piece -- read it yourself and be enlightened by such intelligent commentary on our favorite game. I did want to point to one idea he shares, however, one of those obvious-yet-often-overlooked points that is in fact crucially relevant to anyone hoping to “sell” or “market” or “make acceptable” the game to those who aren’t already fans or players.

The point concerns what Grafton calls the “two rather contradictory narratives of how poker functions” often advanced by those wishing to promote the game. “The first centres on the idea that anyone can win a poker tournament,” writes Grafton. “This is needed to encourage a constant influx of losing amateurs and enthusiasts that they too could claim a big pay-day. The second is that this is a game of skill where some players excel in a similar manner to great athletes. If poker tournament winners were just a random series of individuals the game would, of course, be no different to a lottery.”

That second narrative -- that to win at poker requires skill -- Grafton then relates to the idea of the “poker pro” who most obviously exemplifies that idea for those wishing to distinguish poker from other gambling games. Yet the first one suggesting “anyone can win” is also essential when it comes to making the game inviting to new players. Who would want to venture into such a world were there no hope of succeeding?

Sure, there are ways of reconciling the paradox -- e.g., to speak of “short term” versus “long term,” or perhaps even to argue that anyone can develop the skills needed to succeed (unlike, say, in most sports where physical limitations necessarily make success at the highest level unattainable). But the paradox remains. One of many in poker, in fact.

Go read Grafton’s piece, which has a lot more to say than that.