One Rich Character

So Dan Colman tops that 1,499-entry field at the $5,300 Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Main Event last night to be awarded a $1,446,710 first prize and thus take the biggest chunk of anyone from that $10 million guaranteed prize pool for which there was a $2.5 million-plus overlay.

It was Colman’s ninth tourney cash of the year, seven of which have been final tables with three victories among them. Four of those final tables were in “high roller” or “super high roller” events, with a fifth in a $10K buy-in tourney from the WSOP this summer. And of course he won the Big One for One Drop for a $15,306,668 prize.

I believe with his win last night his total 2014 tourney winnings now add up to $21,058,153. Daniel Negreanu sits in second on the 2014 money list with more than $10.2 million, also thanks in large part to his big score in the Big One. Take those Big One cashes away from Colman and Negreanu, and Colman would still be well in front on the year’s money list with the $5.75 million he’s won in other events.

Meanwhile on the “all-time” list -- which lost whatever small significance it might have had years ago -- Colman’s new total of $21,562,852 allows him to jump a few spots into third just ahead of Phil Ivey and behind Negreanu (first) and Antonio Esfandiari (second).

Colman’s win last night culminates an interesting summer that saw him swiftly claim the poker spotlight in four rapid scenes. Winning the Super High Roller at the EPT Grand Final in April earned him some attention, with a few who didn’t already know about “mrgr33n13” -- who in 2013 became the first hyper-turbo player to earn more than $1 million inside a calendar year -- learning his name.

Then, of course, came the One Drop, the interview refusals, and the subsequent poker is “a very dark game” declaration that provoked a little bit of discussion about poker’s place in culture and a lot more about Colman himself.

Also part of that was Colman’s attempt to clarify his distaste for making heroes out of poker players and hope that “we stop idolizing those who were able to make it to the top.” I explored that stance here in a post titled “Colman, Chomsky, and Irrational Attitudes of Submission to Authority.”

Then came the sloganeering by T-shirt at the EPT Barcelona Super High Roller final table which besides provoking various other debates about poker (and politics) seemed weirdly to contradict that earlier desire to remain unnoticed and without influence.

Finally Colman’s victory last night over a large field in the SHRPO Main -- including outlasting a talented final table -- has evoked expected amazement at such a run of successes. It’s almost funny, in fact, to read all of the superlative-laden responses to Colman’s win and think about how they more or less serve to aggrandize his achievements -- that is to say, to do that which he spoke against in that angry “I don’t owe poker anything” Two Plus Two forum post and those “I don’t care about poker” tweets.

That is to say, simply by continuing to win and accumulate such remarkable tourney totals, the spotlight necessarily remains squarely on Colman, with his wins also helping build further an image -- problematic in its construction, no doubt -- of a kind of poker “hero.”

Obviously “hero” isn’t the right word (on that I’d agree with Colman). But he’s certainly become an interesting, complicated character, caught somewhere between protagonist and antagonist among the cast in the current poker drama.

The Guarantee (In a World Without Guarantees)

I was thinking again today a little about the missing of the guarantee -- by a long, long shot -- at the $10 million Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Main Event, the final table of which is currently being live streamed over at PokerStars.tv.

By the way, I enjoyed last night’s stream from the SHRPO (the Super High Roller final table) enough to write an article today about it on Learn.PokerNews pointing out how great those shows are not just for being entertained but also for hearing smart strategy talk, especially from the pros who come on as guests.

Guarantees have become more and more common for poker tournaments, especially live ones with many series’ Main Events featuring them. I believe all of those tourney series I mentioned in yesterday’s post featured guarantees of some sort, though none as gaudy as what they had down in Hollywood, Florida.

The recently completed WinStar River Poker Series Main Event in Oklahoma had a $1 million guaranteed first prize which helped create a dizzyingly steep payout structure with second place only getting about a third of that amount. Even the WSOP got in on the guarantee-making this year with a $10 million guaranteed first prize for the Main Event.

Some are discussing the significance of guarantees which do tend to work as part of the marketing of tournaments, usually giving players some indication of what size field to expect. For example, PokerStars is about to start its WCOOP series this weekend, and as usual there are guarantees set for all of the scheduled events. And you can almost guarantee all of those guarantees will be met (easily), meaning those who play in the events will be almost assured of what the minimum field size will be in each tourney.

Field sizes matter to players. Prize pools matter even more. For those focused on the potential ROI when playing a tourney -- or just getting pleasure from being able to set their sights on a certain ideal payout -- guarantees can be especially meaningful.

I was thinking, though, in a more abstract way about how paradoxical is the idea of anything being “guaranteed” in poker, a game in which bad play is sometimes rewarded and good play is not. Tournament poker in particular tends to highlight that fact with the players who enjoy the greatest returns almost invariably having enjoyed some form of good fortune along the way.

That is to say, the game itself constantly demonstrates as a fundamental principle that practically nothing is “guaranteed.” Except, I suppose, for those relatively rare instances of players all in and “drawing dead.” (You know, when you really can say “the turn changed nothing” and mean it.)

Perhaps that’s why these guarantees assigned by tourney organizers to prize pools seem so meaningful, providing as they do players with at least something they can count on.

Short at SHRPO

Poker news over the three-day weekend focused largely on that Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship, a $5,300 buy-in event with three Day 1 flights and unlimited reentries that sported a $10 million guarantee.

They ran a similar event last year right about this time, again culminating a long series of tournaments comprising the “SHRPO,” and after it drew 2,384 entries to build a $11,920,000 prize pool the tourney earned a lot of notice. I was there last year at the time, actually, helping cover the first World Poker Tour Alpha8 event that was happening that same week at the Hard Rock in Hollywood, Florida, and I recall the buzz surrounding the event which Blair Hinkle ultimately won to claim a hefty $1,745,245 first prize.

The return of the “$10 milly” was announced back in May and I remember Rich Ryan then spending one of his “Five Thoughts” looking forward to the sequel while commending the tourney’s organizers for scheduling it after EPT Barcelona (albeit by just a couple of days).

Barcelona ended up breaking all kinds of records, attendance-wise. Then the end of August ultimately became quite crowded on the poker calendar on this side of the pond with events in California (the WPT Legends of Poker), Oklahoma (the WinStar River Poker Series), Mississippi (Beau Rivage Gulf Coast Poker Championship), Colorado (Colorado Poker Championship), Ohio (Labor Day Deepstack), Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh Poker Open Summer Series), and Montreal (Playground Poker Montreal Festival). There might have been others, too, not to mention the WSOP Circuit stops happening on either side as well.

Even so, it was a little surprising to hear they only ultimately drew 1,499 entries for the SHRPO Main Event, meaning an enormous overlay of just over $2.5 million after the tourney organizers honored the $10 million guarantee. The tourney is now down to 18 players. The EPTLive folks will be live streaming the final table tomorrow, I believe, as well as the final table of the Super High Roller today with James Hartigan and Joe Stapleton handling the commentary.

Among the chatter over the last couple of days has been the observation that this represents biggest overlay in poker tourney history, exceeding even that International Stadiums Poker Tour (ISPT) event at Wembley last summer where €589,060 had to be put up to ensure a €1 million first prize. The Seminole’s big overlay has also spurred other interesting conversations about the current state of tournament poker.

Those who think the turnout coming up short at SHRPO indicates something dire about the state of tourney poker in the North America are wrong. The other events listed above all saw healthy turnouts and there’s hardly a shortage of players and/or interest in tournament poker here. Those wondering about the possible negative effects of unlimited entry tournaments upon non-professional players have a point, although I don’t think they really dissuade the non-pros from participating all that much. Meanwhile those speculating about the future of super-big guarantees have a point as well. In any case, one would think the Seminole will probably be a lot more cautious about trying another $10 milly event in the future.

I guess I’m most intrigued by how complicated the reaction to the SHRPO overlay has been. Rather than simply hearing from players rejoicing at free money in Florida, the angles of inquiry and subsequent discussion has gone in all sorts of directions, including some that seem constructive. The fact is, the overlay has highlighted several issues relevant to players, casinos, tourney organizers, and even the media who cover tourneys, bringing to the foreground concerns that have significance to anyone with an interest in tournament poker.

Tournament Director Matt Savage summed up the conversation well in a single tweet, I thought, when he noted that “Poker tournaments are a fragile ecosystem, we (Players, TD’s, and Casinos) need to work together to get them to survive and thrive.”

There is most certainly an “ecosystem” (or special “economy”) in poker, something the rise of tournament poker has made all the more conspicuous over the last decade. And everyone who is part of it affects it in some fashion, whether they work together or not.

Laboring Along

It’s Labor Day in the U.S., a holiday from work for most, although for freelancing types like me it doesn’t really rate much differently.

Not only will I be engaged in my usual scribbling-related workload today, but as Vera and I have come to realize here on the farm there’s always work to be done. We don’t even grow anything (yet), but just keeping the pastures in check, the barn clean and tidy, the horses happy, and everything else clicking along keeps us plenty busy.

By the way, that’s Freckles above, one of our barn cats who oversees that all the barn work gets done in a timely fashion. We had three barn cats when we first moved in -- Freckles, Lily, and Mo -- but sadly Lily went missing a few weeks ago after a big storm came through. Freckles, meanwhile, has become more bold in Lily’s absence, although as you can see she continues to keep her distance.

Speaking of keeping busy over the holiday weekend, I noticed a lot of poker tourneys happening all over the continent these last few days, including, of course, that Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open Championship down in Hollywood, Florida where it looks as though they’ve experienced a massive overlay after failing to draw enough entries to meet their big $10 million guarantee.

Think I’ll write something tomorrow about that, but today I’ll give myself a bit of a blog break at least in order to get some other work done.

I mean if I don’t shovel all this stuff today, it piles up, you know?

Defending MyStack

On the way home from Florida yesterday I listened to the latest episode of the always interesting and entertaining Two Plus Two Pokercast (episode 283). Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz spent a lot of time at the beginning discussing this week’s tournaments down at the Seminole Hard Rock, focusing in particular on the $100K WPT Alpha8 Florida event I’d been there to cover and the $10 million guaranteed SHRPO Main Event that finished up yesterday.

During the discussion of the SHRPO ME the pair became very critical of the PokerNews MyStack App, kind of railing against it somewhat unfairly, I thought, although it seemed as though their comments were based on a misunderstanding about PokerNews’s coverage of the SHRPO ME. (By the way, I was not there for PN, but rather reporting on the Alpha8 for the World Poker Tour.)

Used to the usual full-blown live reporting, chip count updates, and reports of results that PokerNews generally provides for tournaments, I think Mike and Adam were expecting something similar when it came to this event, although in truth PokerNews didn’t send a full crew to Florida, instead only having Rich Ryan file some feature stories each day (which I thought did a pretty good job of updating readers about what was happening day-to-day). That is to say Rich wasn’t doing the typical live reporting of hands and action nor was he updating chip counts, although the PN site did enable the MyStack app to be used by players if they wished.

Rather, the SHRPO hired a team to do the live reporting which could be found on their own website. Included in that coverage was a feed that came via PokerNews included player-entered MyStack updates, which I think understandably caused some confusion for those who casually followed the coverage on the SHRPO site.

At a glance one saw a list of chip counts on the front page of the SHRPO site (with “MyStack App Chip Counts” noted above), but those were only the counts players had been entering with the app. In fact, even though the tournament ended yesterday, that list is still visible on the landing page, although now with no players listed as I assume the feed has been stopped.

So the same list of “MyStack” counts was being shown on the SHRPO site and over at PokerNews as the tournament played out, but that list was never a full one and was a little misleading insofar as it looked like a regular chip counts list but only included a small percentage of players in the tournament.

Meanwhile the SHRPO team was providing their own counts -- gathered by their reporting team -- which did not incorporate the MyStack counts. This is where some misunderstanding arose, I’m sure. If one poked around the SHRPO site one found two sets of counts, but only the reporter-created one was really representative of the tourney (i.e., had the leaders’ counts and most players’). I only casually followed the coverage on the SHRPO site while reading a lot of Rich’s articles on the Main Event along the way, but I saw enough of the set-up to understand why it could be confusing, and why Mike and Adam sounded a little frustrated about following the counts from the event.

Like I say, in Mike and Adam’s brief discussion about the chip count issue they spent most of the time dismissing the MyStack app as a worthless tool that hurt rather than helped tourney coverage. But in my view they arrived at that conclusion incorrectly, basing it on the probably not-so-great experiment with the app that was tried at SHRPO. The fact is, the app was used to great effect all through the WSOP (I thought), where the players’ chip counts updates were incorporated into those being entered by those of us reporting on the event. (I wrote about the app back in May when it was first introduced.)

In their discussion Mike and Adam seized on the example of Terrence Chan having entered his chip count at some point with the app, then later busting from the tournament and not bothering to update his count to reflect he was out of the tournament. Since the MyStack counts weren’t being incorporated into a larger, reporter-updated list of counts, his stack was never changed to “0” and thus gave the wrong impression that he was still in the tournament.

That was not a problem at the WSOP this summer, because if the same scenario occurred with Chan one of the reporters would bust him from the counts. Other issues with the app that Mike and Adam described -- e.g., players reporting themselves as having more chips than they actually had, players not reporting chip decreases and only increases, etc. -- weren’t really issues at all at the WSOP thanks to the fact that reporters were monitoring the players’ updates and ensuring there wasn’t anything out-of-the-ordinary happening with the counts.

That’s not to say the reporting of chip counts was flawlessly performed at the WSOP -- by players or reporters -- but it did seem to me the MyStack app worked fairly well as a significant supplement to the reporting, and probably shouldn’t be rejected as worthless (especially based on how it was used in connection with the SHRPO Main Event).

Two Thousand Maniacs!

A half-century ago, a former English professor turned movie maker named Herschell Gordon Lewis collaborated with a carnival worker named David Friedman to make what at the time were some of the most popular and most vile films to receive wide distribution. They’d already collaborated on a few so-called “nudie cutie” films by then, but it was their launching of what would come to be known as the “gore” genre with 1963’s Blood Feast that ensured them a permanent, curious place in B-movie history.

Blood Feast presents a crazed food caterer named Fuad Ramses who butchers a lengthy series of victims in preparation for the feast of the film’s title, some sort of sacrificial meal designed to further his worship of an Egyptian goddess, Ishtar. The film stars June 1963 Playboy Playmate Connie Mason whose acting ability is as severely limited as most of the others in the cast. The script is laughable, the direction incompetent, and the story only barely coherent.

It was an enormous hit. With a budget of $24,500, the film is said to have made about $4 million at the box office, mostly at the hundreds of drive-ins then in operation. All because of the film’s outrageously graphic gore effects and subsequent word-of-mouth that worked a lot more effectively in those pre-VCR days.

The pair would swiftly produce a second “gore” flick starring Mason, a kind of demented reworking of the famous musical Brigadoon in which some unwitting Northerners get themselves lost in the deep South, ultimately getting lured to a strange town called Pleasant Valley where some sort of centennial celebration is happening. Turns out the town is full of crazies seeking vengeance for a Civil War massacre that occurred at Pleasant Valley a hundred years before. Bad news for the Yankee tourists!

The film’s title you might have guessed -- Two Thousand Maniacs! It’s better made than Blood Feast, although so are most home movies. It’s also a more genuinely disturbing film, or at least it was when I first saw it as a teenager many years ago. Again with a miniscule budget (just $65K), they filmed it in two weeks down in St. Cloud, Florida. And once again the movie made a huge return at the box office, helping further establish a template for low-budgeted horror that has been followed repeatedly ever since.

Like Deliverance, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, and countless other “hillbilly horrors” would later do, Two Thousand Maniacs! portrays the South as a nightmarish hell which those from the North should avoid at all costs. Ironically, the film was hugely popular in the South, especially around here in North Carolina where Charlotte and the surrounding towns were a kind of focal point for drive-ins during their heyday.

Speaking of people traveling south and taking risks, this Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open that got underway yesterday has interestingly grabbed the poker world’s attention, the tournament playing out about three-and-a-half hours south of St. Cloud. Most of the buzz stems from the fact that the $5,000+$300 buy-in event is sporting an eye-popping $10 million guarantee.

That means in order to make that guarantee they’ll need to attract exactly 2,000 entries. Madness incarnate!

Or is it? Yesterday saw 634 entrants all told, and it sounds like they’ve already got more than 500 during the first couple of hours today. There are three Day 1 flights. Players who bust the tournament are able to re-enter as many times as they wish, including re-entering on the same day if they’ve yet to reach the dinner break when late registration closes. Those ending one of the first two Day 1s with less than the starting stack can forfeit their stack and re-enter on a subsequent Day 1, too, with the full starting stack.

Will they make it 2,000 entries? Appears as though they might. In a piece yesterday for PokerNews, Rich Ryan sounds like he thinks they’ll get there, with one of the reasons being the significant growth of poker in Florida of late. Indeed, poker has been booming in the state over the last three years since the passage of legislation to allow for uncapped no-limit games.

I’ll be traveling down to the SHR this weekend to help report on the first ever Alpha8 tournament being staged there by the World Poker Tour, a $100,000 buy-in event that should attract a few of those maniacs already there for the $10 milly guaranteed. Looking forward to that as well as to get a glimpse of the other action and reunite with my many buds already there.

Will be on the lookout, though, for any sketchy-looking detour signs on the way down.