WSOP and POV

Had an especially enjoyable weekend, spent with family while occasionally following the WSOP coverage at PokerNews and WSOP.com.

My birthday was on Saturday, and thus it was nice to be able to hang out at home to celebrate the day for a change rather than spend it 2,500 or so miles away.

Got to visit with my Mom and brother some. From my brother I learned about two new things. First he told me all about the Wilhelm scream. Then he taught me what a trebuchet was. He said he wanted one. I asked him what that was and he explained it to me. Then I asked him why he wanted one.

“Have some stuff I want to launch,” he said.

The WSOP launched nearly two weeks ago, and they are already up to starting Event Nos. 22 and 23 today. (See the full day-by-day schedule here.) After having been right in the thick of it there at the Rio from start to finish for the last several years, it is interesting -- and useful, I think -- to observe the Series from afar as it has progressed through these first couple of weeks.

The fact is, it is often difficult to have any sort of broader perspective at all about the WSOP when there. Especially when immersed in the business of closely covering a single event, which has generally been the case for me since I started covering the sucker in 2008. Point of view gets all narrowed down and blinkered.

One writer whose perspective I have particularly enjoyed following thus far is that of Dr. Pauly. Pauly gets a lot of accolades for his WSOP reports on Tao of Poker, so my chiming in (again) and adding another clapping of hands to the already loud applause ain’t gonna make a lot of difference. Indeed, anyone wandering over here during these first couple of weeks to see what I might be writing about prior to heading out to the WSOP is certainly already following Tao and so knows already how good it gets over there.

But if somehow you aren’t already reading Tao of Poker -- and if you have an interest in following what’s happening at the WSOP -- let me encourage you to go over and read Pauly’s account of the scene during the Event No. 16 final table from Saturday night: “2011 WSOP Day 12: Hellmuth Chokes and Prohibition Ends at the Mothership.” That was the $10,000 2-7 Draw Lowball (No-Limit) Championship in which John Juanda denied Phil Hellmuth his 12th WSOP bracelet.

There you will find...

considered commentary on the make-up of the field (a mix of old school mixed-game vets and online-trained neophytes)

a few behind-the-scenes tidbits regarding those who made the final day

an account of the food-and-beverage-prohibition subplot at the so-called “Mothership,” theatrically lifted once play reached heads-up

anecdotal sketches of various crowd characters, all of which add up to a comprehensive portrait of the audience’s attitude toward watching poker played with no community or “up” cards

a glimpse at side action between ultra-keen bookmaker Neil Channing and underdog Benjo

the shifts of momentum and mood during heads-up play

And more. Then comes a postscript covering other WSOP events plus extracurricular activities at the Rio sportsbook and elsewhere, again peppered with lots of fun, generally unseen stuff that helps convey what it’s like to be there.

There are a few others whose WSOP reports I find myself actively seeking out day-after-day in addition to checking in on the usual news outlets. These include (but are not limited to) Jesse May’s Poker Farm posts, Snoopy’s articles and blog posts over on Black Belt Poker, Jess Welman’s nifty “WSOP By the Numbers” pieces on the BLUFF site (here’s the latest), and Nolan Dalla’s always awesome WSOP.com reports and wraps.

Am also every day checking out PKRGSSP’s great compilation posts, too, which often point me to other stuff worthy of attention. (I wonder if PKRGSSP knows he has successfully revived a tradition begun by the erstwhile Blogfather, Iggy, with his “uberposts” each weekday?)

But to get back to Pauly, it’s that ability to combine close details and “big picture” stuff that makes his reports special, one of many reasons why they are so worthwhile. Like I say, it’s hard enough to have any kind of larger perspective at all when there, let alone successfully convey it to an audience in a way that makes sense (and is entertaining, too).

Have about a week more to try to appreciate the “big picture” before I launch myself Vegas-ward. Looking forward to it, for sure, but also have been glad to have had this chance to “see” it all from afar via others’ POVs.

2010 WSOP, Day 22: Heads Up!

Fun day yesterday. First Vera arrived, which suddenly helped make life seem a lot more normal. Then I got to help report on the first two rounds of Event No. 35, the $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship, an event that attracts a ton of big names and provides a high degree of entertainment for observers -- not too mention lots and lots to write about for those of us reporting.

Was paired with the endlessly clever and talented Snoopy for the first time this summer. If for some reason you aren’t familiar with Snoopy’s writing, check the Day 1 blog from yesterday for a sample. Also add his Black Belt Poker blog to your WSOP reading list, if it isn’t there already.

When we first arrived late yesterday afternoon, there was some confusion about where exactly the matches were going to take place. We were being told the Amazon room, but they needed 64 tables (with two matches played at each end of each table) to play the first round, and there weren’t even a dozen tables free in Amazon just a half-hour before start time.

Finally we saw they’d carved out some space in the Pavilion, and we got set up in a cramped space off to the side and were ready to go in time to begin reporting.

A bit of a whirlwind reporting on the first round, when 128 matches were happening at once, with bustouts beginning with the very first hands. I didn’t really look too closely at the structures beforehand, but the matches seemed to go especially fast. (Would be interesting to compare the structures for this event to, say, what they employ in the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship.)

The levels were just 20 minutes long. We are used to hour-long levels in the other events, but, of course, in heads up hands can be dealt at a much faster clip than in nine-handed games. But like I say folks were busting out very quickly, and the first round was done in a little over three hours. The second round also went by swiftly, it seemed, with the last match finishing in three-and-a-half hours or so.

Safe to say Phil Ivey stole the show yesterday. He was simultaneously playing in the $2,500 pot-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha event (Event No. 33), and so when he sat down for his first round match with Michael Mizrachi, he raised, then four-bet all in with , and Mizrachi called with pocket nines. Ivey spiked an ace on the river, and was back over in the Amazon Room having advanced to the second round.

His opponent in Round 2 was Victor Ramdin, and Ramdin, too, was playing in the PLH/PLO event. So a table was set up over in the Amazon for the pair to play their match during the breaks of that event. However, the tourney clock ran for them, so the blinds rose accordingly. Ivey won that match, too, and comes back today for the round of 64.

Ivey also made it through to Day 3 of Event No. 33, where he sits ninth in chips with 14 remaining. So it appears he’ll probably once again be the focus of attention today.

(One other player was double-dipping as well, Justin “Boosted J” Smith, but his opponent wasn’t in Event No. 33. Not sure exactly how their match was conducted over in the Amazon, but Smith lost.)

I have the day off today to spend with Vera, but will be back over there with the Heads-Up event tomorrow to see it through to its conclusion. Have a feeling Sunday will be a much longer day, with three rounds’ worth of matches, including the final which is played best-of-three.

Meanwhile, check in over at PokerNews to see how they go from 64 to 8, as well as to monitor Phil Ivey’s quest for an eighth bracelet in the PLH/PLO.

2010 WSOP, Days 4-11: Catching Up

Been away from the WSOP for a little over a week, during which time there has already been a fair amount of drama happening over at the Rio. Felt a little weird to be away like that, but in this golden age of wireless, I never felt too detached from what was happening.

(That’s right -- a Thomas Dolby allusion for you there. Sheesh, can it really be true that album is pushing 30 years old?)

When in Lima, I frequently followed the live reporting on PokerNews, then also checked in on those other sites I recommended in a post last week (“Where to Go”).

As is probably the case for a lot of you, I found Dr. Pauly’s daily recaps mandatory reading for keeping up. Kevmath’s posts at Pokerati were helpful, too. And while Wicked Chops’ photos from the WSOP didn’t necessarily help with the “big picture” the way, say, B.J. Nemeth’s photo blog does (also a must-follow), I nevertheless might’ve checked in over there from time to time as well.

Lots of places to go, then, for someone on another continent wishing to satisfy a WSOP fix. Here were a half-dozen stories I found myself following most closely over the last week-plus while I was away.

1. The “Near Disaster” of Event No. 3

Among the stories from the first week-plus of the 2010 WSOP that got my attention, the first was that “near disaster” (as some have called it) of Day 1b of Event No. 3, the first of the $1,000 no-limit hold’em events, or “The Grand Games” (as one has called them).

I was actually there for that one, reporting on Day 1b, and, indeed, some were sweating it a little there near the end. On Day 1a, 2,601 players showed up and only 276 remained at day’s end. Then on Day 1b -- a day when all seemed to expect at least as many or even more to play -- only 1,744 came out. That meant 4,345 total, which translated to 441 spots paying.

They had to play 10 levels, but they couldn’t allow the 1,744 who showed on Day 1b get below 165 left, or else they’d reach the cash. Can’t do that before consolidating the fields, and so tourney officials were having to decide on the fly whether to stop play short of the end of Level 10 (if needed). Turned out not to be an issue, as there were still about 200 of the Day 1b entrants left when play concluded.

I actually think this story got blown up a little more than it deserved, probably because we were still early in the WSOP and there wasn’t much else to write about yet. Apparently, however, there is a new policy in place going forward to stop play on Day 1a if they get down to 15% of the field, then have the Day 1b crowd stop at the same point so as to avoid any further “near disasters.”

2. The Mizrachi Crunch

Some of us old enough to remember The Golden Age of Wireless are also old enough to remember that “Happy Days” episode in which Fonzie and Pinky Tuscadero enter a demolition derby. They find themselves up against the villainous Malachi brothers. Actually, looking online I am reminded this was a three-parter, with one episode ending on a cliffhanger after Pinky gets caught in the “Malachi crunch” -- i.e., the brothers simultaneously smash her pink car from either side. We had to wait a week to find out, I guess, but Pinky did survive.

Was fairly amazed to see both Michael and Robert Mizrachi making the final table of the $50,000 buy-in Player’s Championship (Event No. 2), with Robert ultimately finishing fifth and Michael earning his first WSOP bracelet. In fact, “The Grinder” knocked out Robert on his way to the victory.

The WSOP site tells us this was the just the third time two family members made a WSOP final table, with the Mizrachis having the best finish of any such pair. In 1995, siblings Annie Duke and Howard Lederer both made the final table of the $1,500 pot-limit hold’em event. Duke finished sixth in that one, with Lederer going out in ninth. And in 2002, brothers Ross and Barny Boatman both made the final table of the $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event, with Ross finishing seventh and Barny ninth.

3. Hellmuth Gets (Sort of) Close

Phil Hellmuth finished 15th in Event No. 8, a $1,500 no-limit hold’em event which attracted 2,341 entrants. Close enough to bring out all of the fans and haters. Dr. Pauly summed up the frenzy well in his post titled “Darth Hellmuth.”

Hellmuth was in the Event No. 3 I covered, though only briefly. He arrived very late on Day 1b and lasted about an hour before pushing his signature hand -- pocket nines -- from the button only to run into a big blind player holding K-K. Despite drawing such huge fields, these low buy-in NLHE events are clearly the Poker Brat’s best chance at getting a 12th bracelet.

Most have heard that some Native Americans believe having one’s picture taken steals one’s soul. The idea is usually linked to the fact that Crazy Horse apparently never allowed his picture to be taken. For some reason, Pauly’s account of a fan of Hellmuth (or “Hellmouth”) taking the Poker Brat’s picture from the rail made me think of that.

“The more photos he took” of Hellmuth, writes Pauly, “the more powerful he became.” Make of that what you will.

4. For the Nguyen; Men Lands Seventh Bracelet

Men “All You Can Eat, Baby” Nguyen won Event No. 10, the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud World Championship event, outlasting an amazing final table that included (in order of finish) Brandon Adams, Steve Billirakis, Nikolay Evdakov, Joe Cassidy, Michael Mizrachi, Vladimir Schmelev (who finished second to the Grinder in the $50K), and Sirous Jamshidi. That’s Men’s seventh bracelet, won in a variety of poker variants (hold’em, O/8, stud, lowball) -- interestingly, all fixed limit games.

I remember covering one of the early events last summer in which Men cashed. It was Event No. 19, the $2,500 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event (won by Brock Parker). Nguyen eventually finished 16th in that one. Just after the cash bubble burst, he stopped me to tell me he’d moved within one WSOP cash of Phil Hellmuth’s record, but a quick check with Nolan Dalla showed he wasn’t quite there yet. (This year’s WSOP Media Guide has Hellmuth with 75 WSOP cashes entering this summer’s Series, with Men in second with 65.)

Besides competing with Hellmuth for cashes and bracelets, Nguyen rivals the Poker Brat in the number of haters he has, too. I’ve heard the same stories all of you have, and as a result am necessarily reserved about celebrating Nguyen’s accomplishments. Still, seven bracelets is nothing to sneeze at.

5. Cool Britannia

The British are coming, apparently. And winning. Lots of success for U.K. players here early on. First, Praz Bansi won Event No. 5 ($1,500 NLHE). Then in Event No. 6, the $5,000 NLHE Shootout event, Neil "Bad Beat" Channing and Stuart Rutter both made the final table, finishing second and third respectively. Then James Dempsey took down Event No. 9, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em event.

Again, check out Pauly’s discussion of this one. Also, be sure to add Snoopy’s Black Belt blog to your regular reading for more on the Brits.

6. Dwan’s Song

Probably the biggest story from the first 11 days of the WSOP was Tom “durrrr” Dwan nearly taking down Event No. 11 ($1,500 no-limit hold’em). Indeed, if Dwan had won the event rather than finishing second, this one might’ve ended up the story of the entire WSOP this summer.

That’s because -- as you’ve no doubt read elsewhere -- side bets on Dwan winning a bracelet this year apparently amounted to something in the neighborhood of $8-$10 million, meaning his winning would’ve scored him a payday that will possibly be even bigger than that enjoyed by the person winning the Main Event.

Terrence Chan wrote an interesting post about how the side bets essentially meant the final heads-up battle between Dwan and eventual winner Simon Watt of New Zealand amounted to the biggest game in poker history. (Thanks to the Black Widow of Poker for pointing me to this one.) According to Chan’s estimates, if one takes the side bets into considerations, the real-dollar value of the blinds were something like $55,000/$110,000 at the end.

Interesting stuff, although I’d add to the commentary that while the blinds may have had that significance for Dwan, Watt -- whom I presume wasn’t on the other end of any of Dwan’s bracelet bets -- obviously wasn’t playing quite so high.

Those are the biggies thus far. That's the way it seemed from 4,000-plus miles away, anyhow.

Have also been following F-Train’s posts about the total numbers of entrants thus far at the WSOP. (Here is the most recent one of those.) And while I haven’t heard anything tangible about our having passed the June 1 deadline for banks and other financial institutions to start complying with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, I’m braced for some sort of news on that front, too.

That's better. Will probably take a day or two before I feel completely back in the swing of things, but I’m looking forward to rejoining the fray. More stories to come!

2009 WSOP, Day 14: Insert Clever Post Title Here (Wordplay Optional)

As planned, I yesterday worked that Day 2 of Event No. 19, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. We were down one field reporter, making it a bit strenuous early on when the field was 135. But once we got down under 50 we had a fighting chance to identify everyone, follow their rapidly changing chip stacks, and report most of the important hands.

Ended up with just 11 when the night concluded, a little shy of 3 a.m. And cards go back in the air at noon today, which means I barely managed to score about five hours of sleep before getting up again to down some java, shower, shave, and get my weary carcass back over to the Rio to cover this final day. Oh, and write a little something here.

Apparently once this one gets down to the six-handed final table we will be on the feature table where ESPN360.com will be streaming it live. I still don’t personally know anybody who actually has access to ESPN360, but I know there must be a few out there who do.

Was writing alongside Homer last night, a good guy whose predilection for puns probably exceeds my own. Perhaps feeling vaguely threatened, I found myself titling a post describing a big Men Nguyen double up hand last night as “It’s Reigning Men.” (Groan!) I think I might say a little something tomorrow -- when I have more time and a clearer head -- about the relative worth of puns, that form of humor about which Edgar Allan Poe once noted “those most dislike who are least able to utter them.”

Not much time for anything this morning, so let me quickly point you to three other places to go to try to satisfy yr WSOP cravings.

Ran into Homer’s fellow countryman Snoopy (also an Englander) the other day. Snoopy was a live blogger for PokerNews last summer, and while we never worked the same tourney together I always enjoyed reading his posts (many of which also included some wordplay to go along with the reporting). And I’d been a close follower of his blog, too, Snoopy System, where he also wrote almost every day last summer. Once the WSOP ended last year, Snoopy decided he’d had enough of the blogging thing for a while and stopped cold turkey writing the Snoopy System. In his final post over there last July, he noted how time-consuming the blog had become and how he needed a rest, and so he took one.

Good news. Not only is Snoopy back in Vegas, but back writing about poker again, keeping a daily blog over at Black Belt Poker. See if you can’t fit Snoopy back into your regular reading this summer, as I’m sure you’ll enjoy his take on poker’s annual circus.

Secondly, I think everyone reading Hard-Boiled Poker probably already reads Pokerati, but if somehow you don’t, then you should get over there PDQ. Or at least ASAP.

When you do get over there, you will find lots of posts every day covering all things WSOP, including a good deal of behind-the-scenes stuff that some us aren’t as able (or willing) to share.

Finally, let me join the chorus of others praising this excellent video history of the World Series of Poker produced for PokerNews by a coupla cool cats, Tom Kinsman and Gloria Balding. Its called 40 Years of WSOP and this is the first of three planned parts, focusing on the early years. Good stuff.



See you over at the PokerNews’ live reporting page today, and back here tomorrow perhaps to deal with that issue of whether there’s a place for puns in poker tourney reporting. The fact of the matter is, I do understand -- and even agree with -- the point of view that puns can be over the top sometimes.

That being said, we all know it doesn’t matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationery.

2008 WSOP, Days 32-33: The Beginning of the End

July? Really? What just happened? Anybody see where June went?

What a month. And now I notice we’ve somehow slipped into what Haley affectionately refers to as “silly season,” that latter stage of the WSOP when the Main Event (which starts Thursday) and other associated phenomena bring out the celebs and additional media, transforming our meticulously ordered, carefully regimented sequence of competitions into some sort of Cirque du Soleil-styled spectacle where, suddenly, anything seems possible. Even a friggin’ poker musical.

Yesterday’s final table of Event No. 49, the next-to-last of those $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events (a.k.a., the “donkaments”), went smoothly. I enjoyed working with Pojo on that one, and didn’t mind at all seeing J.C. Tran claim another one for the pros. If you go back through our hand-for-hand coverage -- especially the heads up portion -- I think you’ll see chronicled fairly substantial evidence of how solid a player Tran really is. Not that we didn’t know that already.

All told, that makes eight final tables I have covered this summer for PokerNews (Events No. 4, 11, 19, 28, 34, 40, 46, and 49). The winners in those events were Erick Lindgren, Phil Tom, Vanessa Selbst, Phil Galfond, Layne Flack, John Phan, Joe Commisso, and J.C. Tran. Tran’s performance was definitely one of the better ones I was privileged to follow, although the PLO aggression of both Selbst and Flack was both impressive and fun to watch as well.

Get to do one last final table tomorrow, for Event No. 52, the last of the “donkaments.” Then we’re all moving on to the big one.

We’ll see what happens tomorrow, but I can’t imagine it eclipsing the memory of Event No. 19’s final table, the one with the crazy-ass heads up between Selbst and Jamie Pickering (discussed here and here). People continue to marvel about that one, with those who saw it still breathlessly recounting what happened to those who did not.

That’s the one, you’ll recall, where Pickering, who had played a tight, controlled, and smart game until heads up began, suddenly started raising pot again and again -- before and after the flop -- without looking at his cards. I’ve since seen Pickering playing in other events, including a deep run (finishing 13th) in another PLO event I covered, and whenever I have seen him he has without exception kept to the careful, decidedly inconspicuous style that got him to heads up in Event No. 19. All of which confirms my belief that he was mindfully employing a strategy there with Selbst -- one which included ordering round upon round of drinks for himself and others -- and damned if it didn’t almost work.

Getting down to the end. We desire it. We dread it. Faced with such a prospect, ordering drinks seems an appropriate response, really.

As we approach the Main Event and suddenly become conscious of the idea of “the end” (previously only a pipe-dreamy theory from which we’ve been too damned distracted really to pursue), it’s hard not to start the business of reflecting back on the meaning of it all.

Speaking of, I see Snoopy made it back to the U.K. safely, where he has written a terrific, lyrical conclusion to his WSOP adventure in which he suggests he might be taking a break from -- or maybe even breaking off entirely -- outlining for us all the ins and outs of the Snoopy System. (Here’s hoping Snoop don’t give it up entirely.)

There Snoopy points out how even though “we embrace the poker boom, we also need to keep a hold of the reality… It’s just a game of cards.” Good advice for those of us he’s left behind, anxiously eyeing that Main Event Monster creeping closer. Wondering how exactly we’re gonna tame that sucker enough to “keep it real.”

It is just a game of cards. I mentioned before how I haven’t played all that much poker this summer -- how writing about poker nonstop has significantly tempered the urge to play. Just five live sessions the whole trip, most of them quite brief, plus one very enjoyable home game last night over at Pojo and Mean Gene’s. And looking back through my record book for online play, I see I only played online 13 of the 30 days in June, by far my lightest month of play since making my first deposit back in ’04.

Even so, my time at the WSOP has not, in fact, changed the way I feel about poker. At least I don’t think it has. But it has certainly clarified those feelings for me in some important ways.

Not gonna try to spell that out today, though.

There’ll be time later for that. After the end.

2008 WSOP, Day 1: Dawn

The sun officially rose at 5:25 this morning in Vegas. I think I beat the sun by ten minutes or so. The World Series of Poker starts today. And I’m here. And wide awake.

About 7 p.m. yesterday I was standing just outside one of the entrances to the spacious Amazon Room at the Rio Casino Resort and Hotel. Right next to one of those huge, inflated Milwaukee’s Best Light cans with little legs and feet sticking out the bottom, a clownish-looking commemoration of the punchline to the WSOP-sponsoring beer’s commercials.

Had only been there a minute or two. Was scanning the hallway, looking for other PokerNews live bloggers, as we had one last pre-Series meeting scheduled. There was a moderate amount of activity in the hallway, with a number of folks passing to and fro amid the big beer cans and the CardRunners display. I noticed a figure walking toward me, a fellow a few inches shorter than me sporting a WSOP baseball cap and a dark T-shirt with “MALIBU” printed across the front. He quickly brushed past and into the Amazon.

Hey, I know that guy. I turned around and followed him in, the laminated, green pass hanging around my neck permitting my entry. I watched the fellow I had recognized -- 2006 WSOP Main Event champion Jamie Gold -- swiftly resume his seat behind a short stack of chips at one of the last two tables in a WSOP Mega-Satellite. The board indicated 91 entrants had begun the tourney, and they were down to the final 11. It appeared that only the top three spots paid, with the total prize pool adding up to a modest $26,000 or so.

I went over and stood with TassieDevil, one of my blogger colleagues, and we chatted about Gold for a moment, speculating about why the man who’d claimed the largest single payday in WSOP history had entered what looked to be a $300 satellite. A pre-tourney warm-up, perhaps?

Eventually we assembled with the other bloggers -- about 16 altogether, I believe -- around another one of the 200-plus tables to discuss numerous particulars of our planned coverage of the 2008 World Series of Poker.

We had all just come from a BBQ dinner in Henderson that brought together the entire PokerNews team, about 60 or so bloggers, field reporters, multimedia folks, and others. That’s where I had finally met in person a number of others whom I’ve come to know via Hard-Boiled Poker and/or other means, people like Change100, B.J. Nemeth, Mean Gene, Snoopy, Steve Horton, loganmark, Dr. Pauly, and PokerNews Editor-in-Chief John Caldwell.

As has been happening all week, I felt that sort of uncanny, strangely familiar sensation with everyone. I could sense they’re having the same response to me. (Indeed, Pauly somehow pegged me as Shamus even before we were introduced, though he’d never to my knowledge had any reason to know what I look like in “real life.”) That’s what happens when you read thousands and thousands of each other’s words, some addressed directly to you in private messages, some broadcast to you and the rest of the world via blogs or articles. Kind of makes introductions superfluous, really.

During the dinner, Pauly symbolically represented all of us writers by having a small notepad and pen at the ready at all times, presumably to aid a soon-to-be-composed chronicle of the proceedings. Like you, I eagerly anticipate his reports over at Tao of Poker, as well as the features he’ll be writing for PokerNews, the first of which (highlighting week one storylines) went up this morning.

The blogger meeting lasted at least a couple of hours, as there was a lot to cover regarding the complicated, carefully-coordinated system by which the reporting gets done. I glanced back a couple of times during the meeting, noticing Gold had made it to the final table of the satellite, then that he didn’t seem to be among the last five or so with chips.

The meeting concluded with a “style guide” discussion led by Haley. Some people find such discussions of usage and mechanics at best boring and at worst useless. Not this crowd. These are writers, people who care about words and how they are employed. Have to admit I had a little “I’m-in-the-right-place” moment there as we debated whether hyphens have a place in words like “preflop” (no) or “no-limit” (yes). Haley convinced me, actually, that “hold’em” is in fact a contraction (I have always typed it as two separate words).

Things kick off a little under six hours from now with Event No. 1, the World Championship Pot-Limit Hold’em event ($10,000 buy-in). We have received our schedules for the first week, and I actually will not start reporting until Monday with Event No. 4, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event in which players will alternate between LHE and NLHE. Will definitely head back over to the Amazon Room today, though, to be there when the cards first go in the air, and will probably be around at some point both Saturday and Sunday as Event No. 2, the first $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event, gets underway.

Will check in here to let you know what I see. And since yr awake now, too, be sure to head on over to PokerNews for live reports.