TWIP Notes

An especially interesting episode of “This Week in Poker” yesterday, I thought.

The Entities from Wicked Chops managed to cram four guests into the less-than-hour-and-a-half long program. I'd say three of those four guests shared thoughts and/or opinions which might’ve caused some viewers to utter the catch-phrase of Mel Allen, longtime Yankees broadcaster and host of “This Week in Baseball.”

Don’t tell me you don’t remember...! What did Allen always say at the end of the weekly “TWIB notes” segment?

“How about that!”

Dan Fleyshman, CEO of Victory Poker and seventh-place finisher at last month’s WSOPE Main Event, was in the studio. Fleyshman shared a lot of interesting views about the state of online poker at present, particularly in the United States where we remained mired in ambiguity, legally speaking. He expressed cautious optimism about the eventual regulation of online poker in the U.S., though noted that we’re still at least a couple of years away from such occurring.

He also had some things to say about the upcoming WSOP November Nine and sponsorships. If I heard him correctly, Fleyshman mentioned that last year’s chip leader (Darvin Moon) had been offered $300,000 by both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to wear their patches, but had turned down the offers.

Last fall some of the rumors suggested Moon had been offered as much as $1 million to get himself patched up, although most had guessed something less than that. Last year Paul Leggett, COO of Tokwiro Enterprises (then owner of UltimateBet), was interviewed about the topic over on Poker News Daily, and while he didn’t confirm exact figures, an editor’s note suggested $350,000 to have been the offered sum. (Tip of the fedora to Kevmath for help recalling that item.)

Another guest on the show, November Niner John Racener, was also asked about the wearing of logos at the final table, specifically who among the November Niners being sponsored by Full Tilt Poker will be the ones to sport FTP patches.

Over on Full Tilt’s site, they are currently listing seven of the nine as part of their stable -- Filippo Candio, Joseph Cheong, John Dolan, Matthew Jarvis, Michael Mizrachi, Soi Nguyen, and Racener. (The other two -- Jonathan Duhamel and Jason Senti -- have PokerStars’ backing.)

Racener was asked the question because of the restriction listed in the WSOP rules that limits the number of players who can wear a single site’s logos at a televised table. According to the rule (Rule 50, section B), “During all events taped for television coverage, and at the start of each television taping day, no more than three (3) players at the Final Table -- and all other tables featured for television coverage -- will be allowed to wear apparel with logos, patches or promotional language from the same entity.”

Racener initially seemed under the impression that all seven of the FTP players would be wearing garb representing the site. However, further discussion seemed to reveal that he was assuming as much because he hadn’t been told otherwise.

Kind of interesting to see how FTP has kept even their players in the dark regarding this decision, a strategy which Fleyshman -- who remains interested in possibly having a November Niner don a Victory patch -- commended as strategically sound insofar as all seven necessarily remain identified with FTP throughout this long build-up to the final table.

Another “how about that” moment from Racener’s interview came up when he was asked whether or not he and his friend Michael Mizrachi had pieces of one another or had swung any sort of deal leading into the final table. Racener said no, adding that the WSOP explicitly forbid the players from making deals at the final table, an admonition expressed to them in a meeting with the final nine before they left Vegas in July.

Speaking of Full Tilt, one of their “red pros” Phil Gordon also appeared on the show. And speaking again of the battles between online sites, one of the more interesting items Gordon brought up was his frustration over the fact that the FTP pros and members of Team PokerStars couldn’t compete against one another on televised shows like “The PokerStars.net Big Game” or the “Full Tilt Doubles Poker Championship.”

In fact, when Gordon was asked which player he’d like most to team up with in a doubles tourney among those not already on the Full Tilt show, Gordon somewhat surprisingly answered Joe Cada, the 2009 WSOP ME champ and PokerStars pro. The issue was discussed further, and Gordon acknowledged that the marketplace was so competitive that his desire to see the sites no longer segregate themselves this way was perhaps not something that was likely to happen.

Can’t honestly report the fourth guest on yesterday’s show -- Victory Poker model Victoria Moore -- offered anything as intriguing as did the other guests. Besides being easy on the eyes, that is. Or the news of her being named this year’s “Official Wicked Chops Poker Girl.”

Like I say, another interesting and engaging episode of “This Week in Poker.” An archived version should appear over on the “This Week In” site soon. I’ll add a link here when it does.

(Here you go.)

Round-the-Clock Poker

Am back on the WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) beat again this week, helping cover the events for the PokerStars blog. Was up late last night with Event No. 26, the $320 mixed hold’em event (recap here), and I’ll be writing up other events over the next week as well.

Yesterday started with my dialing up PokerNews’ coverage of Event No. 1 of the World Series of Poker Europe, the £2,650 six-handed no-limit hold’em event. Looks like they attracted a healthy-sized field of 244 for that one, and this afternoon (or evening in London) they are down to nine players at the moment with Phil Laak, Chris Bjorin, John Tabatabai still with chips.

David Peters, whom I saw come heart-breakingly close to winning a bracelet this summer at the WSOP (in Event No. 54, a $1,000 no-limit hold’em event), is there, too, currently in second behind Andrew Pantling. They will play down to the final six today -- unless they get through 10 more levels first, which is unlikely -- with that bracelet being awarded tomorrow.

That event had begun by the time I woke up here on the east coast yesterday. Then I was up until about four in the morning with my WCOOP event. A long day-slash-night-slash-morning of poker.

My WCOOP event was the first to conclude last night, actually, with both of the other events lasting another hour or so. In one, Event No. 27 ($320 Badugi), John Monnette won the bracelet, outlasting (among others) Greg “Fossilman” Raymer who finished third.

Our buddy Dr. Pauly wrote up the story of that Badugi event early this morning (see here). He was a guest on yesterday’s episode of This Week in Poker, and if you happened to watch you might’ve noticed he had his laptop open and at one point mentioned he was covering the event.

Another good episode of TWiP, by the way, including some conversation in there about about Pauly’s book, Lost Vegas. Worth catching, if you missed it. Oh, and Lacey Jones is on there, too, in a bathrobe, if Pauly ain’t enough to get you over to watch.

I spent a couple of hours last night watching ESPN’s coverage of Day 4 of the WSOP Main Event as well. I was especially interested to watch last night as I was covering the two feature tables for PokerNews that day, and so had been there for a lot of the action that was shown last night. Even caught a number of glimpses of an out-of-focus Shamus last night, too -- mostly over Johnny Chan’s shoulder -- which Vera Valmore got a kick out of. (And maybe I did, too, a little.)

That Day 4 of the Main Event was one of my favorite days of the WSOP this summer, actually, the day the money bubble burst. I wrote at length about it back in July here in a post titled “Your Roving Reporter.”

By the time I packed it in early this morning, I found myself thinking about how full the day had been, poker-wise, taken up as it was with following all the tourneys and shows. Poker players and fans certainly have plenty to occupy themselves these days, never mind actually getting to the tables (online or live) and playing themselves.

Gonna rest up a little for another late night. Meanwhile, I send you over to PokerNews and the PokerStars blog for more pokery fun on these here intertubes.

Tuning In (Poker in the Media)

Watched a lot of poker yesterday. On the teevee. On the intertubes. People playin’ poker. People gabbin’ about it. I must really be into poker or somethin’.

First came “This Week in Poker,” the online show hosted by the Entities over at Wicked Chops. I’ve ended up watching that one live the last couple of weeks, as it comes on at a convenient hour for me (7 p.m. here on the east coast). This week they interviewed Kimberly Lansing of the newly-revamped World Poker Tour and Phil Laak who chronicled in detail his harrowing ATV accident. I wrote a little something about TWIP a couple of weeks ago. You can view archived episodes here.

Then I switched off the computer and turned on the TV to see ESPN’s coverage of Day 2a of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. Was looking forward to this, as I remembered a few different hands from that day’s play I thought might make it into the broadcast.

In fact, two of those hands I had remembered from Day 2a did make it into the show -- the Chris Moneymaker-Bryan Pellegrino hand in which both thought the other was in the tank, and a hand involving Annie Duke in which she made a straight flush. (I mentioned both in a post back in July.)

I remained pretty much out of shot during both hands, having hung out near the cameraman when they were happening. I did have fun last night, though, recognizing many colleagues wandering around the tables. And seeing one -- Garry Gates -- at the tables, too! I worked with Gates in both 2008 and 2009 at PokerNews, and last night ESPN showed Scotty Nguyen busting him out of the ME.

Next week there will be two more hours devoted to Day 2b of the 2010 WSOP Main Event. See the full schedule here.

When the ESPN show went off the air at 11 p.m., I considered staying up to watch still more poker, namely a scheduled segment about online poker on the ABC News program “Nightline.” Ended up packing it in before then, though, although it appears the segment was bumped until tonight.

There’s a brief article over on the ABC News site previewing the segment which I suppose gives us some indication of what its angle will be.

The first thing one notices when clicking on the link is that the article includes a brief clip of the robbery at EPT Berlin from back in March. No context is provided for the clip, nor is there any reference to it in the article. No idea why that is even there, other than to suggest in a vague way that poker is dangerous.

The second thing one notices is one of the more banal leads I can imagine someone coming up with for such an article: “What happens in Vegas often happens at the poker table, but many of the winners raking in huge jackpots aren't even old enough to enter a casino.” Phew.

Tough to get past that, but once you do, you see the “news” being reported in the article -- or central theme, anyway -- appears to be that young people (mostly men) are playing a lot of online poker. The article is thus letting its mostly non-poker playing audience know that “online poker games have allowed teenagers to become expert card players long before they turn 21.”

2009 WSOP Main Event champion Joe Cada is interviewed as an exemplary figure here, someone who honed his game prior to turning 21, then went and won the big one just prior to turning 22 last November.

While there is reference later in the article to the fact that online sites generally require players to be at least 18 years old, there appears to be a desire to point out that some teenagers get onto the sites and start playing before reaching 18. There is reference to a recent study conducted by the Institute for Research on Gambling Disorders that “estimated over 70% of Americans, ages 14 to 19, have gambled in the past year.” There’s another study, conducted by a group at the University of California-Berkeley, that is mentioned as well, in which it is reported “that 19.6% of young men gamble online regularly.”

The second half of the article then presents a 19-year-old college student named Blaine Brount who plays online poker, and who has won enough to think of poker as “a real job.”

Brount’s story appears on the surface to present poker in a positive way -- he’s serious about studying the game and improving, he’s winning, his mother approves, etc. It’s possible, though, to view Brount’s story less favorably, especially when presented in the context of studies highlighting young people gambling in large numbers.

It will be interesting to see how it all gets edited and presented in the “Nightline” piece. Not really going out on a limb here, but I have a feeling in the end it probably ain’t gonna add up to an unequivocal endorsement of online poker.

The fact is, while poker might seem like a perfectly “normal” or acceptable activity to those of us who regularly seek out shows like “This Week in Poker” or the WSOP on ESPN, for the “Nightline” crowd -- a more “mainstream” bunch -- there’s always going to be something sensationalistic, or even scandalous, about poker and/or gambling. Especially when young people are involved.

(EDIT [added 8/26/10): The segment did not air on Wednesday night, having been postponed yet again. Will add a note here if/when it does finally air.)

(EDIT [added 9/1/10]: The segment finally aired last night [8/31/10]. It didn’t add too much to the written piece, although I’ll say it did strike me as a fair enough look at the world of online poker -- if anything, even more balanced-seeming than was the article. You can view it here.)

Checking Out “This Week in Poker”

Most reading this blog probably already are aware of Wicked Chops’ relatively new web-based show, “This Week in Poker,” which has been around for a couple of months now.

If somehow you haven’t found it yet -- and like news-based poker podcasts like the Two Plus Two Pokercast, The Poker Beat, or the Casino City Gang (like me) -- you should definitely try to find time to tune in to “This Week in Poker.” Good stuff.

The show is part of a network of programs appearing over on the “This Week in” website. It took me a few episodes to get around to watching it -- some time after the WSOP had ended back in July -- and since finding it I have liked what I have seen.

The format, with the hosts sitting at a round table with a dark backdrop talking to guests either in studio or via Skype, sort of resembles “The Charlie Rose Show” or other no-nonsense type talk shows where the content of the conversations is the main focus (and not other commercially-driven priorities). Shows look like they typically last about an hour-and-a-half or so, beginning with an opening segment in which various news items are discussed, after which comes in-depth interviews with a variety of pokery people.

That first part includes “Poker Headlines with Jess,” with Jessica Welman -- recently dubbed the “Tina Fey” of poker by Chops -- going over the week’s big news items. Then come the interviews, with the conversations guided by primary host Chops and the other “Entities,” Colin and Brian.

Last week (Episode #7) Annie Duke, John Pappas (Poker Players Alliance), and Dan Michalski (Pokerati) were on to discuss H.R. 2267 and other items. The most recent show (Episode #8) was also entertaining and informative, with the time split between an interview with actor and poker player Samm Levine and Joe Sebok.

Levine is a pretty familiar face, having had guest spots on numerous TV shows over the last decade. He’s probably best known for a recurring role on “Freaks and Geeks” a while back, a short-lived show that I never saw but have had recommended to me many times. (Whether that makes me a freak, a geek, or both, I cannot say.)

Levine turned out to be a very interesting guest, sharing a lot of inside dope about the Hollywood home games. He also offered what I thought was a pretty insightful perspective regarding what he called the “weird curve” of skill one finds in poker, with lots of bad players at the lower stakes, lots of solid players in the middle, and bad ones again showing up among the high rollers at the biggest games.

Then Joe Sebok came on and the conversation mostly revolved around ongoing interest in the UltimateBet insider cheating scandal, revived again by the publishing of Part 2 of Wicked Chops’ summary account. Chops pointed out early on that while he and the Entities are friends with Sebok and Annie Duke -- both UB sponsored pros -- and they also worked on the recently cancelled “Poker2Nite” show (also sponsored by UB), their report on the UB scandal was pursued independently and as objectively as possible.

Sebok was forthright in the interview, doing the best he could to address various ongoing concerns regarding the scandal. Nearly a year after joining UB, becoming both a sponsored pro and a “media and operations consultant,” Sebok continues to sit in an awkward spot, fielding questions about events at UB that mostly transpired prior to his joining the site. That Sebok had an upset stomach at the time of the interview seemed almost symbolic, given how nauseating details of the entire four-and-a-half year long scandal can be.

There were a few interesting moments in the interview, I thought. Sebok spoke of how news of the security breach at UB (from back in May) had been “pretty demoralizing” for him both personally and professionally. He also noted his genuine oncern about the likelihood of UB getting a license to operate in the United States should H.R. 2267 gather enough momentum to get pushed through and made law.

When asked if he ever wished he hadn’t taken the “media and operations consultant” role with UB -- and perhaps just signed as a sponsored pro like others -- I was a little surprised to hear Sebok say “probably, on some level.”

Then again, such a response indicates Sebok’s desire to be as frank as he can about everything, I think.

The problem, of course, that Sebok faces is that he simply doesn’t know the answers to most of the questions people have about what happened at UB. Neither, really, does Tokwiro Enterprises COO Paul Leggett, who just this week posted a statement on the UB blog which includes (again) the profession that none of those linked to the cheating scandals at either Absolute Poker or UltimateBet currently “have an ownership stake in our company [Tokwiro, which owns UB and AP] or any company that we have debt obligations with.”

Of course, some continue to dispute whether that is actually the case, and probably will continue to do so until Cereus finally gets bought up or gets dissolved entirely. As Sebok himself noted, the only real way for everything to come out regarding what happened at UB from 2003-2007 (or at Absolute Poker, for that matter), will be for the individuals involved in the cheating to come forward and tell about it.

And we all know full well how likely that is to happen.

Do check out both the Wicked Chops post from yesterday as well as “This Week in Poker” to get up-to-speed on what people are saying currently about the UB mess. Haley Hintze continues to chronicle a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff from the Absolute Poker scandal, too, with her blog being the place to go for information about that one.

Indeed, while the stories of both scandals will never be fully told, I’m personally glad that isn’t stopping some folks from doing what they can to tell them.