Travel Report: 2016 PCA, Day 6: Back to “Normal”

Am I already writing about a sixth day at the PCA? Have I been here that long?

After the craziness marking the conclusion of Day 2 of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event, Day 3 was a relatively “normal” day of tournament poker that saw 195 players work their way down to 73, with the jovial Brazilian Leonardo Pires accumulating chips all day to spend a second straight night as the chip leader. Have to use scare quotes with that word when used in connection with poker, of course, as “normal” here ain’t quite what most take that term to mean.

Speaking of the craziness from Sunday, check out Brad Willis’s long form treatment of the Antonio Esfandiari disqualification and all of the surrounding circumstances, titled “The Longest Lunge.”

Pires winning pot after pot at one of the central tables in the tournament area earned a lot of attention and some entertaining table talk from his opponents. Meanwhile a table over the Scotsman Martin McCormick was a nonstop barrage of bantering and badgering, seemingly fueled in part by a drink or three. He’d earn a penalty before the night ended for all of his antics, although he produced a few grins, too, among those observing.

It’s another cloudy day today, although I might stubbornly go sit poolside for a little bit here before I go in a little later to help with the coverage of the $25K High Roller, an eight-handed NLHE event with a single re-entry.

This is the last of what are three big “high roller’ events among the 104 numbered events on the schedule, the previous being the $100K Super High Roller won by Bryn Kenney and the $50K Single-Day High Roller that Steve O’Dwyer took down.

Last year this $25K event drew 269 entries (including 69 reentries). Will be curious to see how many show this time around. Looking at the other high rollers this year, the $100K SHR drew 58 entries (up from 50 a year ago), while the $50K Single-Day attracted 80 entries. (There wasn’t a $50K at the PCA last year.)

Is this really Event No. 74? Have I been here that long? And those eight-foot green moray eels over in the Dig (an underground aquarium here), are they really that long?

Slink over to the Pokerstars blog today for $25K reports and more from the Main Event.

Photo: courtesy Carlos Monti/PokerStars blog (top).

EPT12 Barcelona, Day 1: Barceloner

After heading over to the Casino Barcelona around dinner time yesterday, I ended up sticking around until late -- after two a.m., in fact -- in order to see through to completion the first trophy event of the EPT Barcelona series, the Neymar Jr Charity Home Game.

Steve O’Dwyer happened over just before registration closed for the tournament, was encouraged to play by Team PokerStars SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo, and ended up taking down the sucker to win a seat into the EPT Main Event that starts this weekend. Halfway through the final table (where O’Dwyer knocked out all but one of the others), he estimated he’d knocked out about 15 players along the way -- not a bad clip for a 59-player event.

After several hours of sleep and a largish breakfast at the hotel, I’m back over at the casino readying for a more standard long day of work. Today things pick up in earnest for the 71-event series, with eight different tourneys going on including the start of the €1K Estrellas Main Event. Last year they had a ridiculous 2,560 entries for that one -- the first big buy-in event of the EPT season -- so we’ll see how many come out for the three starting days this time.

I’m kind of on my own, blogging-wise, here at the start of the series, with the rest of the PokerStars blog team arriving later in the week along with all the PokerNews guys and a bunch of others once the EPT Main and them high rollers roll around. I’m not really alone, though, as plenty of seats in the media room have already been filled. My buddy Carlos Monti, the LAPT photographer, is here already, too, and the two of us enjoyed each other’s company as we worked late into the night.

I guess despite all of the camaraderie during the long workdays on these trips, there’s a lot of time spent on my own, too, when traveling and the hours spent in the hotel room. That I already miss Vera and all of our four-legged friends on the farm doesn’t help too much with that, either. But I do pretty well with the alone time, all things considered.

One day is in the books, and another dozen are left to go. Check over at the PokerStars blog today for more from your soloist scribbler.

The Partial Information Game

Was just following the coverage of the start of Day 2a/2b of the World Series of Poker Main Event and was distracted momentarily by all of the tweets reporting how WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart got things going with a request that all first-time Main Event players stand up to be recognized.

I’m guessing it was a heart-in-the-right-place kind of request, one designed to highlight just how many new players came to participate in poker’s most prestigious event this year. But the rapid-fire responses highlighted a perhaps obvious consequence of the first-timers identifying themselves in such a way.

“The @WSOP has all the first times stand up, all the pros be very thankful. #WillAllTheFishPleaseStandUp #WSOP” tweeted Remko Rinkema. “The fish actually tagged themselves this time,” said AlCantHang, while Chris Tessaro added “No word if they then applied bulls eyes.”

A couple of pros chimed in amid my timeline. “Thank you @WSOP for getting all the first timers to stand up and identify themselves,” said Mizzi. “Now I know who to punish #3barrelbluffs.” Steve O’Dwyer, meanwhile, looked at the situation from the first-timers’ point of view. “How much equity did @wsopSUITd [Stewart] just cost the WSOP first timers by asking them to stand and identify themselves?” he wondered.

As I read the tweets I began to think about the possibility of experienced players standing as a kind of early “bluff” suggesting to their opponents they were less savvy than they actually were. Then Bluff’s Lance Bradley articulated the same thought: “Wonder how many non-first timers, local regs stood up to purposely misidentify themselves as first timers. #LevelsOnLevels.”

Another worthwhile point made by several was to note that just because a player was in the Main Event for the first time, that didn’t necessarily make the player a novice.

Still, interesting to consider just how the players who remained seated interpreted the situation when watching their tablemates stand up before play began today.