All-Star Voting Royally Skewed

Major League Baseball’s All-Star game is scheduled for Tuesday, July 14 this year. That’s also the last day of the summer portion of the World Series of Poker -- that is, the day they’ll play down to a final nine in the Main Event.

It’s been a while since I’ve paid much attention to the MLB All-Star Game. Back in the day as a kid I remember looking forward to it every year -- even mailing in ballots -- and then always rooting for the National League which enjoyed a lengthy streak of victories, as I recall.

I continued to follow the MLB into adulthood, albeit less intensely, though by the late 1990s my interest had begun to fade. As far as the All-Star game goes, I remember staying up to watch 11 innings of the 2002 game only to watch it end in a tie after both teams ran out of players, which for me (and I imagine for many others) made that the last All-Star game I bothered to watch all of the way through.

I could be bothered to watch the game this year, though, at least the first couple of innings. That’s because one team’s fans -- the Kansas City Royals -- has done a great job of stuffing the ballot box thus far. In fact right now Royals players are leading for eight of the nine positions for which fans get to vote.

Below is a shot of the latest update of the AL voting totals:

Only Mike Trout of the Angels has one of the outfield spots at the moment -- the rest are all KC.

Something similar happened in 1957 when Cincinnati fans voted seven different Reds into the NL starting line-up. The MLB took voting away from the fans the next year, not giving it back until 1970.

You can now vote online -- up to 35 times per email address, in fact -- and as this Washington Post article spells out that’s a big reason why Kansas City fans have been successful thus far.

The Royals are leading their division currently, although all of their starters are hardly having seasons worthy of earning the All-Star nod. In fact one of them, Omar Infante, who is leading among second basemen, is batting .204 and is currently ranked dead last in the league in “OPS” (on-base % plus slugging %).

Still, I’m kind of pulling for the Royals all to get voted in, just for the sake of anarchy. Kind of reminds me of the time online voters chose Tom Dwan as a Poker Hall of Fame nominee (back in 2009). Like MLB Commissioner Ford Frick did back in 1957, though, when he took a couple of Reds off the NL team in order to give Willie Mays and Hank Aaron spots, the WSOP took Dwan’s name off the ballot.

The Professionals Leave the Table

Today Full Tilt Poker announced they aren’t renewing sponsorship contracts with Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and Gus Hansen, thereby jettisoning the last two sponsored pros from the site. Also gone (apparently) is the name originally given to the site’s “power trio” of sponsored pros -- Blom, Hansen, and Tom Dwan -- shortly after the launch of FTP 2.0 in November 2012: “The Professionals.”

Dwan left the band in December 2013. I wrote here then how the occasion inspired “thoughts of how the whole idea of poker celebs -- that different class of poker ‘professionals’ -- once such a very effective construct of online sites and abetted ably by the TV shows the sites sponsored, seems like something from an earlier era.”

Today’s news moves the needle even less. Hansen has long remained a figure of interest to many thanks to his win in the very first televised World Poker Tour event way back in 2002, his high-level involvement with FTP as a member of Team Full Tilt, and his continued participation in the “nosebleed” stakes games on the site where he’s reportedly lost over $20 million, including more than $17 million on the site during the last two years (according to High Stakes DB).

Blom, too, has fascinated many ever since the mysterious “Isildur1” showed up to challenge all of those Team Full Tilters and the rest of the world in late 2009. I’ve written here many times about Blom, including how intriguing it was to report on him at the WSOP. High Stakes DB shows Blom sitting around break-even during his almost two years playing on FTP 2.0, having been up nearly $6 million during the first six or seven months before falling back down to where he was on the site back in November 2012 (down a few milly).

The last post I wrote here about Hansen was in January 2013 when just a couple of months after FTP 2.0 went live he fired off some tone-deaf tweets in defense of Howard Lederer that were dismissive of just about the entire online poker community. The title of that post, “Ungrateful Gus; or, Hansen on High,” suggests how his thoughts were received here. The last one I wrote about Blom was right about the same time, the title of which was a response to enthusiastic tweets from the FTP account reporting his presence at the high-stakes tables on the site: “Blasé About Blom.” Again, the title is an indicator of the attitude expressed in the post.

Today the dissolution of “The Professionals” altogether brings a different thought to mind about the significance of sponsored pros to online sites. I actually think they can serve a great purpose, even today, not just in helping attract players and building sites’ presence, but in helping to advocate for poker, generally speaking. The Team PokerStars Pros are an obviously well managed example of this, with players all over the world doing a lot to help explain and promote poker to wider audiences in their respective countries.

I’m realizing today, though, that FTP’s “Professionals” idea -- a dim echo of Team Full Tilt from the start -- had very little to do with establishing and strengthening connections among members of an online poker community. Rather, its whole ethos was to emphasize the impassable distance between Hansen, Blom, and Dwan and the unwashed masses.

The spectacle of watching “The Professionals” play for high stakes was mildly diverting for some, but hardly inspiring for most, particularly given the seeming apathy -- or even antipathy (in Hansen’s case) -- they appeared to have for the poker community as a whole.

In fact, the news of the end of the “The Professionals” makes me think of what a table full of amateurs might say to each other after a pro player finally gets up to leave after having made things difficult for them for the previous several hours.

“Glad he’s gone.”

The Durrrration of the Poker Spotlight

Was thinking a little about that news this week of Tom “durrrr” Dwan parting ways with Full Tilt Poker 2.0. Dwan is no longer one of the site’s three sponsored “Professionals,” leaving Gus Hansen and Viktor Blom to carry forward as the site’s primary player-reps.

PokerListings got the word from an FTP spokesperson a few days ago, noting how Dwan hadn’t been part of some FTP-related recent events alongside his fellow “Professionals.”

Another story on PL referred to the long-in-limbo “Durrrr Challenge” between Dwan and Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates and what appears little likelihood of its continuance. That article included an interview with Cates who seems like he is more or less shrugging his shoulders and saying “wtf” over and again in response to questions about the status of the pair’s competition.

Like both Hansen (long ago) and Blom (more recently), Dwan had his moment of being the focus of much of the poker’s world attention for a short period just a few years back.

Dwan first got on the radar for most of us around 2008, particularly after ousting Phil Hellmuth in the first round of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship, luckily cracking the Poker Brat’s pocket aces with a pair of tens, then watching Hellmuth predictably crack up himself afterwards.

Then the “Dwan era” dawned in earnest right around early 2009 with the launching of the first Challenge (versus Patrik Antonius), followed shortly thereafter by a celebrated appearance on High Stakes Poker a month later that included one hand in particular that seemingly had everyone buzzing for months.

I wrote a post here about the hand then titled “Tom’s Adventures in Wondurrrrland” (creating the graphic to the left for the occasion). Those who saw it remember it well -- a crazy eight-way hand that saw Dwan, Barry Greenstein, and Peter Eastgate make it to the turn with Dwan holding the worst hand of the three (behind Eastgate’s trips and Greenstein’s pocket aces), yet somehow getting the other two to fold after his fourth-street bet.

It was later that year Blom emerged -- or rather, his alter ego “Isildur1” did -- to take over the poker spotlight from Dwan, but not after the then-23-year-old had somehow gotten himself nominated for the Poker Hall of Fame by some zealous visitors to the WSOP’s website.

Right around that time -- late 2009 -- Dwan became a Team Full Tilter, a designation that lasted until April 2011 and Black Friday. A relative newcomer to FTP’s shameful circle of owners and mismanagers, Dwan was more or less on the outside with the rest of us (or appeared so) in the months following Black Friday, and particularly after the amended indictment and civil complaint came in September 2011 that more specifically damned FTP Version 1.0, Dwan’s association with the site faded quickly only to be revived a year later with the FTP’s second incarnation and the “Professionals” signing.

It’s all sort of felt like an extended anticlimax after that blockbuster beginning for Dwan. All of those forces that helped create a poker celebrity of him so quickly -- the online game and televised poker, especially -- have now waned considerably when it comes to influence and image-shaping. Now we’re more or less in an era when conspicuous tourney successes seem to be the primary means to poker stardom (be it brief or lasting), with live wins much more capable of creating “stars” than online ones.

Dwan is still winning online. And he’s playing live, too, although it sounds like much of it has been at the high-stakes cash games in Macau, more or less out of the purview of those who might be curious to make him the subject of forum threads and other “railbird reports.”

I was as fascinated as everyone else by Dwan for those few months a few years ago, and am still somewhat curious about what he might do next. But his departure from FTP 2.0 and its team of “Professionals” inspires thoughts of how the whole idea of poker celebs -- that different class of poker “professionals” -- once such a very effective construct of online sites and abetted ably by the TV shows the sites sponsored, seems like something from an earlier era.

Eve of Reconstruction

I’m only home for a short stretch here between these two trips to Atlantic City (just completed) and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (where I head tomorrow). Have been busy enough not to have had time to pay all that much attention to various poker-related headlines over the last few days.

Skimming around this morning, I see Full Tilt Poker’s FTOPS XXI has been playing out over the last week-and-a-half, with a lot of familiar names among those winning or going deep in events thus far, including Dani Stern, Taylor Paur, Bill Gazes, Dylan Lynde, Luke Schwartz, Keven Stammen, and others.

Kind of interesting how in the reports one sees many players being identified by their real names, the identification of their online nicks now common knowledge. And what’s happening is a lot of those who made their “names” on FTP prior to Black Friday have come back to the site to find success again.

Speaking of FTP, there was also a big heads-up match between their pros Viktor Blom and Tom Dwan over the weekend, kind of patterned after the “All-Star Showdown” matches recently staged on PokerStars. Apparently Blom and Dwan were together down $3.3 million or so after one month of play on Full Tilt Poker 2.0., making the $100K that “Isildur1” won off of “durrrr” this weekend seem less notable by comparison.

Sort of weird to be reading about these things going on over at Full Tilt Poker, all of which perhaps give the impression that nothing strange at all happened with the site over the last couple of years.

When in AC these last few days, I overheard multiple conversations between U.S.-based players regarding their current, uncertain online poker careers. Players spoke about having buddies in Toronto with an extra room, and how they’d escape up there for a weekend or more to try to grind Sunday tourneys or just put in some hands. And how difficult it was to play well or consistently under such circumstances.

It reminded me a little of the other table talk I’d heard (when playing) about post-Sandy reconstruction and the various hardships people were having to endure. You know, like Black Friday had swept through online poker and wiped out everything, and now players were having to make do with less than ideal arrangements until things could be fixed.

It does sound like “repairs” (so to speak) to online poker in the U.S. are proceeding in some fashion, with next year seeming like a possible target for the return of games via Nevada licenses, other states’ offerings, or perhaps even (still) that federal online poker bill that keeps getting alluded to here and there as a faint possibility.

A little hard to imagine right now, but if it does happen and games for Americans resume at some point in the not-too-distant future, I suppose this little “interregnum” when online poker went dark in the U.S. might actually fade from people’s memories. Especially if PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker are allowed back in the States to rule online poker once again, thus making the post-BF environment resemble the pre-BF one even more.

We’ll then enter into what might be called a “reconstruction” era for online poker in the U.S., during which the forward-thinkers and those who are positioning themselves right now to be ready to act in the new market will benefit greatly.

Are we on the eve of such a return? Could be. Then again, I’m sitting here just contemplatin’... I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation... Handful of senators don’t pass legislation....

The Challenge to Follow the Durrrr Challenges

Already a lot happening in poker here during the first few weeks of 2011. Or “twentyleven,” as I have suggested we agree to call it. I mean, really, that extra syllable is such a bother, ain’t it? Plus, think of all the time we’ll save saying it this way!

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure kicks off soon, with that “Super High Roller” $100,000 buy-in event starting on Thursday, then the $10,000+$300 Main Event getting going on Saturday. This month will also see another WSOP-Circuit event take place at the Choctaw Casino Resort in Durant, Oklahoma. There’s the Beau Rivage Southern Poker Championship down in Biloxi, Mississippi coming up, too. And, of course, the Aussie Millions is just around the corner as well.

Meanwhile, on the tube this week a new season of “Poker After Dark” is premiering, with a big $100,000 buy-in sit-n-go featuring Phil Ivey, Erik Lindgren, Huck Seed, John Juanda, Phil Galfond, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan.

Speaking of Dwan, I was reminded yesterday that his “durrrr challenge” with Daniel “jungleman12” Cates is still ongoing. Actually both of the challenges are still ongoing, technically speaking. Was almost funny to think how the previous night’s SuperStar Showdown on PokerStars between Tony G and Isildur1 had grabbed so much more attention, even though the stakes for that match were so much less (relatively speaking) than those for which Dwan and Cates are playing.

If you recall, the “durrrr challenge” involves Dwan and an opponent playing 50,000 heads-up hands of either no-limit hold’em or pot-limit Omaha, with the blinds being a minimum of $200/$400. (The blinds in the SuperStar Showdown are at least $50/$100.) If Dwan is up at the end of the 50,000 hands, he wins whatever profit he’s made plus an additional $500,000 from his opponent. If his challenger is up, that player gets the profit plus $1.5 million from Dwan.

Remember also that Dwan said way back in late 2008 when he first announced the challenge that the one player he would not compete with would be Galfond. (Perhaps another encouragement to watch “Poker After Dark” this week.)

The first challenge between Dwan and Antonius, begun in February 2009, has gone quiet over the last few months. Dwan currently enjoys a lead of about $2.05 million over Patrik Antonius. They’ve played 39,436 hands of the scheduled 50,000, but none since early August 2010.

The second challenge between Dwan and Cates started in late August. So far those two have played 17,108 hands -- a little over a third of the way -- with Cates currently up over $820,000. Unlike the Antonius match in which PLO is the game, Dwan and Cates are playing NLH.

Last night saw several $100,000-plus pots, including one of $216,505.50 won by Cates in which both players turned heart flushes, but Cates had the better of the two. You can check the “Durrrr challenge” page over on the Full Tilt Poker website for more information, including graphs, stats, hands, etc.

Despite the big pots, it’s hard to get too psyched about Dwan’s challenges, primarily because with so many hands left to play, the end is much, much too far off to add much excitement to the watching of any individual hands. Indeed, with the Antonius match one wonders if the pair will ever get to the 50,000-hand mark. Perhaps the Finnish player will just concede the sucker first.

Comparing it to the PokerStars SuperStar Showdown, it’s kind of like the difference between a single game -- a game of special importance, like an NFL playoff game -- and an entire college football season. I pick college football because without a playoff it ends in anticlimax, limping to the finish with a lot of relatively non-significant battles punctuating the season’s final days.

Never mind the fact that here in 2011 we ain’t got time to follow something of such length. It’s twentyleven, man!

Or, as the Black Widow of Poker yesterday suggested we call it -- a craps-inspired proposal that would save us even more time -- “twenty-yo.”

Sounds cooler, that.

Railbirds Gather for Durrrr Challenge II

You probably heard something about this second version of Tom Dwan’s “Durrrr Challenge” having recently taken off over at Full Tilt Poker. Looks like the sucker kicked off one week ago (August 27th), with Daniel “Jungleman12” Cates having stepped up to take on Dwan.

It’s been a long, long time -- like 18 months now -- since the first “Durrrr Challenge” was issued and accepted by Patrik Antonius. So long ago it is hard to remember what the original terms for these here challenges.

Looking back, it was early 2009 when Dwan said he’d play anyone -- except Phil Galfond -- to play four tables of heads up simultaneously, either pot-limit Omaha or no-limit hold’em, at a minimum of $200/$400 blinds. The challenge would last for 50,000 hands, and if Dwan’s opponent was up at the end -- even by just a buck -- Dwan would give his opponent a handsome prize of $1.5 million on top of the winnings. Meanwhile, if Dwan ended ahead, his opponent would owe him an additional $500,000.

Antonius was the first to try -- with PLO the chosen game -- and there was a lot of initial hype as the pair started playing their first hands. We also heard at the time that Phil Ivey would be next in line to take on Dwan, but that match has yet to materialize.

A few months passed, and by the summer it was obvious it was going to take Antonius and Dwan much longer than most had thought it would take to get through the 50,000 hands. According to the Full Tilt Poker site’s tracking of the progress of that first challenge, they’ve now played 39,436 hands and Dwan enjoys a hefty lead of about $2.06 million. As Dwan explained earlier in the week on This Week in Poker, his lead isn’t necessarily insurmountable, but he’s definitely looking as though he is in position to finish off the Finn.

Perhaps because that match seems to be somewhat in hand for Dwan, he’s begun a second challenge with Cates -- with the game being no-limit hold’em this time -- and the pair didn’t take long to move through the first 6,800 hands or so. Dwan is already down something like $700,000, as shown on this here graph appearing in the Two Plus Two forum sticky devoted to the Dwan-Cates challenge (click to enlarge):



Looks like they’re still getting the official tracking page together for Durrrr Challenge II over on the Full Tilt site, but meanwhile AlCantHang has set up this here page to report on the proceedings. Dr. Pauly has chimed in over there as well with a guest post commenting on it all; check it out: “Freaky Styley: Durrrr and Jungleman12.”

Most of the talk seems to suggest this second match will probably finish much more quickly than did the first with Antonius, and in fact might even conclude before the Antonius one does. Interesting how the second challenge appeared to get the forum guys and most other pokery people excited again about watching online poker, despite the fact that the first one had become kind of a running joke, with “Durrrr Challenge” having become a handy metaphor for anything tedious or slow-moving.

I’ll admit I remain highly intrigued by it all, and like most folks continue to find Dwan a highly compelling figure. On the most recent episode of the TwoPlusTwo Pokercast, Scott Seiver -- another interesting figure, not to mention excellent poker player (both online and live) -- commented a bit on the challenge. (An excellent interview, by the way, with a highly articulate, smart, and likable guy.)

Seiver was asked for his take on why he thought Dwan was issuing the challenge, in particular why he thought Dwan was willing to give that 3-to-1 advantage to his opponents. Seiver said he didn’t know exactly what Dwan might be thinking, but that he thought it had to do both with the publicity it drew and the fact that when playing that many hands offering 3-to-1 “isn’t that big of a deal.”

“If you’re the better player, you’re going to make enough money to overcome any odds you basically give as a side bet,” explained Seiver. He later added another comment about the challenge that I thought was very insightful, and perhaps helped explain why it remains interesting:

“To be able to play something like the Durrrr Challenge where you are in the spotlight and playing 50,000 hands against the same opponent, you can’t ever let doubt or fear creep in. And that’s what I think is one of Tom Dwan’s best assets, that he just has so much confidence and he doesn’t have the fear to make the right play.... Sometimes you know what a right play is, but it’s tough to actually pull the trigger on it. I think that’s one of Tom’s biggest strengths.”

I’m sure Dwan has his moments in which he experiences doubt, or even fear. If he’s human, that is. But still, it’s fascinating (I think) to see someone operate in a way that suggests he has neither, and even inspiring to see someone act with confidence, whatever it is that person is trying to accomplish.

2010 WSOP, Day 13: The Real Tournament of Champions?

“I just hope I don’t deal a flop.”

That’s what a dealer said to me prior to the start of yesterday’s Event No. 19, the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw Championship (No-Limit).

He had told me he’d only dealt the rarely-spread game once before, and was only half-joking, I think, when noting how he hoped not to slip into the usual routines of hold’em during this event.

Yesterday probably counts as my first superlong day of the WSOP, given that I was up early in the morning, went in to cover an event starting late in the afternoon, and didn’t get back to the home away from home until after 4 a.m. So I was up 20-plus hours, which’ll happen now and again with this gig.

I had gotten to the Rio early for the event, and when I’d mention to people I was on the 2-7 more often than not I’d get sympathetic noises or nods in return, the draw events being for some folks less than desirable to cover.

But I like a diversion from the flop, turn, and river. And with this event -- one that draws (pun intended) just about every top level poker pro one can imagine -- there was constantly something of interest to engage the mind. I’m not going to list all the stars here; go take a quick peek at the chip counts to see how incredibly stacked this field was. You’ll get an idea looking at that list how every single table had four, five, six, or even seven players those of us who are fans of poker would know.

Think about all the bracelets won by the players entered in this event! Not a stretch to claim Event No. 19 to be the real Tournament of Champions.

With all the immediately recognizable names in the field, the chip leader is a fellow named Homan Houshiar, a Canadian player who told us near night’s end that this was only the third or fourth time he’s played deuce-to-seven. You’ll hear stories like that with these less popular games, sometimes. As with the dealers, not all of the players who play an event like this -- even a $10,000 buy-in version of it -- will come to it with a great deal of experience.

Many remember the tale of how Jennifer Harman won a bracelet in this same event in 2000 having never played the game previously, and only receiving a five-minute tutorial from Howard Lederer prior to the event. Indeed, for much of the middle part of play yesterday it was a young player named Stephen Chidwick who’d raced out to the chip lead, and we learned from Maria “Maridu” Mayrinck that he’d only learned the game during the afternoon from David “Bakes” Baker yesterday afternoon!

Donnie and I handled the blogging, with Neil helping us in the field. By the end of the night the three of us had actually managed to enter about 80 of the players’ names into the counts, and were able to keep them all fairly well updated during the latter four levels of play. (During the first four levels players could still use their three allotted “add-on” chips, and so the counts -- while updated -- were not so indicative of how things were going since the chip counts page didn’t show how many of the add-on chips a player had left.)

Probably the funniest hand I witnessed yesterday was one in which Chris “Jesus” Ferguson cheekily raised and stayed pat after being dealt quads. (See the hand write-up here.) Table cracked up afterwards, with the usually stolid-seeming Ferguson laughing the loudest.

There were a lot of other interesting moments during the day as well, not all of which were related to the play.

One was when the dealers quizzed Erik Seidel at the end of the dinner break about the whereabouts of the visor he wore at the 1988 Main Event final table. (That's pic to the left is from Seidel playing that final hand against Johnny Chan -- who busted in Day 1 of Event No. 19 yesterday.)

Seidel said he thought his wife might have thrown it out somewhere along the way, but he agreed with the dealers it would be a hoot if he were to show up wearing it at at some future final table. He will be returning for Day 2 today. Maybe if Seidel makes it back tomorrow he’ll consider some sort of orange visor reprise.

Speaking of hats... during the dinner break I ate in the Poker Kitchen where I saw Jeff Lisandro with a couple of people who appeared to be a salesman and an assistant (I’m not sure). Last year’s WSOP player of the year was trying on hats -- an assortment of bowlers that evoke that Prohibition-era gangster image his style sometimes evokes.

I could only assume he was looking to purchase one or more. He’d put on one, walk across the hall to the restroom to check it out in the mirror, then return to try another. All looked equally cool to me, but then I would like that hard-boiled style.

Mike Matusow was talking a lot at his table, as he is wont to do. Was relating in great detail to the table the screwing he received at UB where he was cheated out of millions, a story he’s told elsewhere more than once.

Billy Baxter is in this event, too. Naturally. He holds seven bracelets, all in lowball events, a fact of which just about every other player seemed aware. Many came over during play -- there was a lot of talk and visiting between tables all night -- to acknowledge “Mr. Lowball” (as John Juanda called him).

Tom “durrrr” Dwan is in this one, too, and at one point early on appeared to have successfully crossbooked action with Baxter. Both players return to similar, above-average stacks today that put each in the top ten.

Have to say I wouldn’t mind at all seeing Baxter make it deep in this one. But then, there are a lot of players I’m pulling for here. Hard not to feel like a fan with such a field.

If you want to follow the action from Day 2, skip over to PokerNews for updates as they play down from 72. The goal today is to reach a seven-handed final table today, although they’ll stop before that if it gets too late.

But if it does go late, we’ll handle it. Will happen now and again with this gig.

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!

Raising the Stakes for Poker on TV: “High Stakes Poker”

Found time yesterday to catch up on the first five episodes of “High Stakes Poker” of 2010. These mark the start of the sixth season of the Game Show Network series which first aired in January 2006. The format of the show has remained essentially the same from past seasons, although with a couple of changes this time around.

The show returns to the Golden Nugget where it began in Season 1 and had returned for Season 5. One big difference is the removal of A.J. Benza who had previously joined Gabe Kaplan in the commentary booth. With Benza gone, Kara Scott has joined the show to host short segments and interview players.

The removal of Benza from the show garnered a lot of reaction on the forums, including a still-ongoing “Online Petition to bring Back AJ Benza for HSP” thread on Two Plus Two. For those joining that cause, the thinking is the “HSP” hosting/commentating formula had worked well for the first five seasons, so there was no reason to muck with it.

I, too, liked Benza’s contribution to the show. Despite being a funny guy himself -- Benza’s initial appearance on the Ante Up! show (in June 2008) was one of the funniest episodes of that podcast I can recall -- Benza mostly played the straight man to Kaplan on “HSP.” The pair (both Brooklyn natives, actually) seemed to have great chemistry and added a lot of flavor to the proceedings, both with the poker commentary and the humor.

So I wasn’t necessarily happy either when I’d heard Benza wouldn’t be returning, although that doesn’t mean I’m not glad to see Kara Scott on the show. When I first saw Scott at the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, I’d known she’d been a presenter or host on a couple of different poker shows in Europe, having worked on “Poker Night Live” and with the European Poker Tour. Scott made a deep run in that year’s WSOP ME, finishing 104th. I remember writing a little about her in a recap about one of the Day Twos here and having written a post about her late in the day over on PokerNews.

Scott does well, I think, in her somewhat limited role on “High Stakes.” I was surprised, actually, at how little screen time the producers give her, though in the short interviews both her poker knowledge and ease before the camera serve her well. This week, Jennifer Newell and I wrote a new “He Said/She Said” column for Woman Poker Player in which we discussed the subject of women and poker shows, and we both ended up remarking on how we thought Scott was underused on “HSP.” You can read those pieces here: He Said / She Said.

Meanwhile, Kaplan still gets to crack wise often enough. There do seem to be a few more quiet stretches with Benza gone, but Kaplan carries it well enough, and I remain a big fan of his humor and his poker commentary.

There are a couple of other small format changes to note. I’m noticing the frequent use of a graphic now and then to update us on stack sizes at the table -- a plus. (The minimum buy-in for the game is $200,000, with two players, Phil Ivey and Tom “durrrr” Dwan, having bought in for $500,000.) Also, Daniel Negreanu is hosting a brief “Did You Know” segment that is interesting enough, I guess.

What remains most interesting -- and the biggest reason why the show tops my list of faves on teevee -- is the poker. Many fascinating hands already on these first five episodes. I’m not gonna rehearse them here, both because I’d rather not spoil ’em for those who haven’t watched and intend to, and because I can’t hope to provide real analysis, but just share the reactions of a poker player/fan.

The first episode was dominated by Phil Hellmuth’s swift downfall, a rapid sequence that kicked off the season with a delicious sampling of schadenfreude. Although Kaplan says something about prop bets being forbidden this season, there have been several discussed already, including that big one involving Phil Ivey going vegetarian for a year. Meanwhile, Ivey once again shows his incredible acumen at the table, Negreanu struggles once again on the show, and other players come and go.

This most recent episode (the fifth one) was probably the most entertaining to watch so far. There were several all-in hands, though with a couple of exceptions most were not caused by the stacks being short but rather were consequent to a series of postflop decisions. One especially interesting hand took place between Jason Mercier and Ivey, a hand which Mercier recounts in an article from yesterday over on PokerListings.

Of course, the big highlight was the hand between Phil Ivey and Tom “durrrr” Dwan that concluded the fifth episode -- kind of a jawdropping hand on the order of the one from last year involving Dwan, Barry Greenstein, and Peter Eastgate. Ivey starts the hand with over $1 million, and Dwan with around $750,000. Watch and enjoy yourself:



I was saying last week how I hadn’t had a lot of time for watching poker on teevee. But if I’m only going to watch one show, this has got to be the one, yes?

$1,356,946.50

It is interesting sometimes to read theories about how the money flows in online poker -- that is, how the cabbage tends to move from the less skilled players to the more skilled players, and how that transfer tends to work relative to the stakes being played.

Those with a better understanding of economics, generally speaking -- and “poker economics” in particular -- can comment on this subject much better than I can. (Which is to say, most of you, probably.) But what I tend to hear is that the money doesn’t “trickle down” from higher stakes games to lower stakes games, but rather moves in the opposite direction. That is to say, the better players win at the lower stakes, then take the money out of that level and move it into the higher stakes games. There they either keep winning and moving up, or encounter still better players and lose, with the winners taking the money to the next highest level. And so forth.

Of course, this has to end somewhere, yes? A highest level where the money stays until someone leaves the game with it all?

When it comes to online poker, that level appears to be the so-called “nosebleed” games over on Full Tilt Poker. There the site has designated five different stakes: Micro, Low, Middle, High, and Ivey’s Room. The latter, named after Full Tilt pro Phil Ivey, of course, is where we find the toppermost games such as $500/$1,000 no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha.

Those who play in such high-stakes games are generally known quantities, either Full Tilt pros like Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, or Tom Dwan, or other non-Full Tilters whose identities are generally understood by those involved. Thus it was a somewhat novel development a few weeks ago when a new player -- named “Isildur1” -- showed up relatively unannounced to challenge poker’s current royalty.

Even more curious, the player (from Sweden, it seems) began winning. Big time.

Isildur1 had first arrived on the site sometime in September, starting out at the $25/$50 NLHE tables. By October he had moved up to challenge the likes of Cole South, Brian Townsend, and Brian Hastings at the $200/$400 and $300/$600 PLO and NLHE tables. At the start of November, he appeared to have settled into Ivey's Room, ready to take on all comers.

By last week, Isildur1 had become the talk of the virtual town, having amassed over $5 million in profit while occasionally seen taking on Ivey, Antonius, and Dwan simultaneously at multiple tables. One particularly epic session of multi-tabling took place between Isildur1 and Dwan in which the unknown Swede took more than $3 million off of Dwan.

The player Haseeb "INTERNETPOKERS" Qureshi keeps a well-written blog for CardRunners where he is one of the site’s stable of pros, and early last week he wrote a thoughtful post (dated 11/17/09) about the Isildur1 phenomenon. Qureshi played (and lost) to Isildur1 as the latter was on his way up in stakes, and shares some thoughts about their match. But he also speaks thoughtfully about the significance of Isildur1’s sudden rise to prominence and how it affects the “mythology of online poker.” If you are at all interested in the Isildur1 phenomenon, Qureshi’s post is a good read.

On Saturday night I found myself railing the games in Ivey’s Room. I saw Isildur1 playing multiple tables versus Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey while also participating in the $25,000 buy-in PLO heads-up tournament from which Isildur1 eventually busted in the quarterfinals. The games went back and forth for a while, then Isildur1 went on a big downswing, highlighted by a record-setting $1,356,946.50 pot won by Antonius (pictured at the top of the post).

In the hand, Antonius started with almost $1.26 million, while Isildur1 had just over $678,000. The buy-in at these $500/$1,000 PLO games is $200K, so that gives some indication of how well Antonius had been doing at this particular table versus Isildur1.

Most every hand between these two began with a pot-sized raise from the small blind/button, and this was no exception, with Isildur1 raising to $3,000. Antonius reraised pot to $9,000 -- something that happened, say, every fourth or fifth hand or so. Then Isildur1 reraised pot again to $27,000. That was relatively rare to see, but would happen every once in a while.

Then Antoinius reraised again to $81,000. I’d been watching the pair play four tables for the last hour or so, and I hadn’t seen that happen once. After thinking for a while, Isildur1 made the call.

With the pot already $162K, the flop came . Antonius requested time, then bet $91,000 -- a little over half the pot. Isildur1 then also requested time, ultimately raising to $435,000. Antonius reraised to $779,000, and Isildur1 called with his remaining $162,473.

Antonius held for a five-high straight. Isildur1 turned over for a big draw to a higher straight. Two Dimes says Antonius is 54.6% to win here and Isildur1 45.4%. The turn was the and the river the , and the Finnish pro’s hand had held. Total rake for the hand? Fifty cents.

By the end of Saturday, Isildur1 would lose something in the neighborhood of $3.3 million -- $2.1 mil to Antonius, and $1.2 mil to Ivey. Apparently he was back on last night to take on both Dwan and Ivey once again, and along the way won a $1,127,955 pot himself (vs. Ivey). Reports are Isildur1 got back something like $650-850K or so yesterday, all told.

Pretty surreal stuff, watching more than a million dollars sliding across the virtual felt like this. These games still haven’t quite reached the level of those “Andy Beal vs. the Corporation” limit hold’em matches of 2001-2004 in which the stakes got as high as $100,000/$200,000. Single pots frequently exceeded a million clams in those games, and multi-day sessions ended with swings of $10-15 million. Still somethin’ to see, tho’.

Who is Isildur1? Will he fully recover from Saturday’s setback? Or is he destined to go busto? If not, and the Swede takes all the big boys’ money, where will it go? Finally, to pose a question Qureshi does a good job addressing, what does it all mean?

Questions without answers, as yet. But we’ll keep watching.

Meanwhile, I’ll stick to my $25 buy-in PLO games. It’s relatively rare, but once in a while I’ll get involved in a pot as big as $135. I only have to win 10,000 of those to make what Antonius did in that one hand Saturday night.

(EDIT [added 1/3/10]: Per Pokerati, here is a cool video showing the big hand, plus a couple leading up to it as well as commentary:)

Watch and Wondurrrr: The Challenge Crosses Halfway Point

Like everyone else, I’d largely taken my eyes off of that “Durrrr Challenge” between Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius that has been going on (and off and on) over at Full Tilt Poker for the last nine months. Found myself checking back in on it recently, though.

You might recall how Dwan issued his challenge in late 2008, inviting anyone (other than Phil Galfond) to play against him heads up, four tables of either pot-limit Omaha or no-limit hold’em, at a minimum of $200/$400 blinds. Whoever was ahead -- even by just a single buck -- after 50,000 hands would be the winner. If Dwan won, the loser would have to pay up an additional half million clams. If Dwan’s opponent won, he’d pay that person $1.5 million.

A few names surfaced as possible opponents for Dwan (including David Benyamine and Phil Ivey), but it was Antonius who was first in line. The game chosen was PLO ($200/$400). The pair began their match in February of this year amid much hype, but interest died down after several long gaps between sessions. Following the WSOP this summer, they finally began playing again in earnest, and earlier this month crossed the halfway point of 25,000 hands played.

A couple of days ago Dwan and Antonius had a lengthy session in which they played over 2,000 hands versus one another. Dwan had the upper hand for much of the session, and at one point apparently was up around $400,000-$500,000 for the night, but Antonius pulled back closer and when they logged off Dwan had increased his overall lead by $81,716.

There was a moment in there somewhere when they took a dinner break, during which time Dwan chatted with the fellas over at the high-stakes 7-game table about how the night was going. Nicole Gordon, in her latest report on the challenge for PokerNews, shares a funny moment from that conversation:

Ziigmund: durrrrr
durrrr: wtsup?
Ziigmund: who won in challenge?
durrrr: i won small
durrrr: 150 mayb
John Juanda: yeah u won small ferrari

Gotta watch that Juanda. Sits there all quiet like, then -- zing!

According to Full Tilt Poker’s official stats page, the pair have played a total of 27,185 hands to this point (in 42 sessions). Back at the 14,000-hand mark or so, Antonius was up over $500,000, but Dwan stormed back and currently is up $779,248 and Antonius down $785,355.

As the volatility of that session from earlier in the week shows, Dwan’s lead is by no means insurmountable, and indeed could potentially be halved in a single hand. The pair have played at least 10 hands with pots of more than a quarter million dollars, with a couple nearing the half-million mark. Dwan has had the advantage in those so far, having won most (eight) of those “monsterpotten” hands (as Gordon calls them). If you’re curious, you can view replays of those biggies over on the Full Tilt page. (Clicking on the pic will get you there.)

According to the Full Tilt page, the pair have played for a total of 3 days, 14 hours, and 50 minutes. That means the average session has been a little over two hours. That also means they are playing about 5.2 hands per minute when they sit down at their four tables. All of that adds up to nearly a solid week (160-plus hours) of play in order to get the challenge done.

I guess many thought that once the challenge began, it would continue uninterrupted until the 50,000th hand was played, but obviously neither player saw that sort of insane stamina test as preferable. Even playing sporadically as they are, there have been several moments when each player has reported falling asleep at the computer, accumulated fatigue from all of the other high stakes games they are also regularly playing having caught up with them.

I remain intrigued by the challenge and am glad others are keeping tabs on it for me. As I noted in February when it began, we’ve come a long way from that Nick “the Greek” Dandalos-Johnny Moss challenge back in 1949 or 1951 or whenever it was. (Read more about that here.) Full details of what precisely happened at Binion’s between those two -- another high stakes, heads-up battle in which millions were won and lost -- will remain shrouded in mystery, perhaps never to be revealed. But with the Dwan-Antonius challenge, every mouse-click and keystroke is being carefully chronicled.

Tom’s Adventures in Durrrrland

Barry Greenstein keeps what they call an “audio blog” over at Poker Road called “Tips from the Bear.” His entries come fairly infrequently, with some being genuine “tips” and others just recounting various hands or happenings. In the latest (dated 3/9/09), Greenstein discusses that amazing hand from the most recent episode of High Stakes Poker -- the final one of the episode primarily involving himself, reigning World Series of Poker Main Event champion Peter Eastgate, and the guy everybody’s talking about these days, Tom “durrrr” Dwan.

“This hand will be remembered for a long time,” Greenstein begins, using the same sober tone he always employs when doing these audio blogs. I think he’s right. Already been a bit of buzz on the intertubes about it, and I imagine the hand will continue to receive a lot of attention over the next couple of months as people discuss it even further on blogs, forums, podcasts, and elsewhere.

If you have not seen the hand, I don’t want to spoil it for you. Before reading any further, take a look:

As Greenstein points out in his audio blog commentary, stack sizes are very significant here. Greenstein says he was one of the shorter stacks at the table with about $230,000. Meanwhile, Eastgate had bought in deep (and had won a few pots), and so had about $500,000 in front of him when the hand began. Dwan also had something in the neighborhood of a half a million. All of which means we’re talking hundreds of big blinds in each stack -- nearly 300 or something for the Bear, and twice that for Eastgate and Dwan.

To describe the action: The blinds are $400/$800 with a $200 ante. Greenstein picks up under the gun and open-raises to $2,500. Incredibly, all seven of his opponents call the raise. Dwan starts it by calling from UTG+1 with . Then David Benyamine calls with , Eli Elezra with , Ilari Sahamies with , Daniel Negreanu (button) with , Eastgate (small blind) with , and Doyle Brunson (big blind) with . Total pot is $21,600.

“Who opened this pot that got seven callers, that’s all I want to know,” says a sheepish-looking Greenstein.

The flop comes . As Greenstein says on his audio blog, about as good a flop as he could hope for (aside from flopping a set) when holding pocket aces and facing a table full of opponents. Eastgate checks his trips, Brunson checks, and Greenstein leads out for $10,000 -- just under half the pot. Dwan, who has paired his ten, then raises to $37,300. “I don’t know what he’s doing,” says Gabe Kaplan on the commentary. “He’s gotta know that Barry’s really got a hand here.” It folds around to Eastgate who silently calls Dwan’s raise. Greenstein calls, too. Pot now $133,500.

The comes on the turn, and both Eastgate and Greenstein check. Dwan (who has the weakest hand of the three) considers for a good while, then fires out $104,200. Eastgate folds, perhaps worried that Dwan has ace-deuce or something, and a very pained-looking Greenstein also folds. Dwan wins the pot.

Once the hand is over, Elezra pipes up to say “Barry fold the best hand.” Technically true, as Eastgate had gotten out, but I am not sure what Elezra thought Eastgate might have had. “Well, he had the best hand,” says Dwan, pointing to Eastgate as he stacks his chips. Dwan goes on to say he’ll make a side bet that Eastgate had the best hand, and it sounds like Brunson takes him up on it. Kaplan rounds out the commentary saying the only other player he could imagine making a play like Dwan’s would have been the late Stu Ungar.

I’m not even going to pretend to try to analyze this hand. For that, go listen to Greenstein, whose 17-minute commentary in his audio blog gives us novices a lot of other things to think about here. Instead, let me just list three reasons why this hand is so friggin’ fascinating to small-time punters like myself.

For one, the action is especially peculiar, utterly unlike anything we’ve ever seen previously when it comes to poker on television. The majority of televised poker is tournaments, where such “family pots” rarely occur (and are even more rarely shown). They don’t occur in cash games that much, either, especially high stakes games. As Greenstein says in his narrative of the hand, he open-raised and “something happened to me that has never happened to me before in an eight-handed game,” namely, the whole table called. Things get even weirder post-flop, and seem even more so to a lot of us given that we see the hole cards. So the sheer novelty of the hand is one element here.

Secondly, seeing the worst hand manage to push out not one but two better hands is also something most of us find amazing to watch. Those of us who call ourselves recreational players (or amateurs) watch a hand like this and with all three players discover that we are probably not personally capable of having acted the way each of them act. Take just the turn action: most of us cannot imagine ourselves betting out like Dwan, nor folding trips like Eastgate, nor folding pocket rockets like Greenstein. The whole hand thus has an “uncanny” feel to it wherein we recognize it is the same game we play, but we also recognize what we are watching is wholly unfamiliar to us.

Finally, the fact that the hand involves these particular players makes it all the more interesting. Thanks to his frequent participation over on Poker Road and on the forums, his well-regarded book Ace on the River, his long-term record of solid play, and his humor and generosity, Greenstein rightly occupies a fairly central position in our little poker world. When we watch High Stakes Poker, we’re usually more intrigued by a hand involving the Bear than a hand, say, between Benyamine and Elezra. Eastgate also fascinates, thanks to his youth and status as the 2008 WSOP Main Event champ. For a variety of reasons, we want to see how this youngster is going to handle himself on this difficult, challenging stage.

Then there’s Dwan. Of the “Durrrr Challenge.” Cover boy of the February 2009 Bluff. “He posterized me,” says a humble Greenstein in his commentary. Indeed, Dwan is poker’s current Michael Jordan. Dwan makes this hand happen, of course. But his involvement ensures it fascinates, too.

Earlier in the episode, in response to a false claim from Dwan regarding the strength of a hand he had folded, Kaplan cracks “He lives in a little cabin in Durrrrland.”

Dunno where that is. But, like Alice, I think we’re all becoming curiouser and curiouser!