Plotting a Getaway

Was sincerely contemplating making a run over to Cherokee early next month to play in one of the World Series of Poker Circuit preliminary events, but I’m not sure it’s going to work out schedule-wise. Even if it doesn’t, the WSOP-C now comes to Harrah’s Cherokee multiple times a year, and so I’m sure there will be another chance before long to go.

The World Series of Poker Global Casino Championship is running there from August 4-16. Here is the schedule.

The idea of making the trip got me thinking about how infrequently I’ve played live poker of late, never mind tournaments. That would necessarily put me into a certain category of player, say, in a WSOP-C event or one of the lower buy-in events in other tournament series (including the WSOP) -- the player for whom the tournament is a relatively unique occurrence, not part of a longer “grind” or more involved commitment to the game.

In fact, that category is a fairly big one -- probably the biggest by a decent margin, as far as the lowest buy-in tournaments go. In other words, at any given table in (say) a $365 event at Cherokee next week, there will be several seats occupied by folks for whom the buy-in level and status (for want of a better word) of the event is about as high as they’ll ever play.

Such players necessarily approach such tournaments much differently than do those occupying the other seats for whom it’s small change, or just one of dozens (or even hundreds) of events they’ll play over the course of a year. From a strategic standpoint, then, dividing everyone into one of the two major camps -- regs and recs (you could call them) -- would be an important first step to make when it comes to player profiling and reads.

We’ll see -- I may be able to get off the farm for a day or two yet. Would be fun to try to shovel some chips instead of stalls, even if only for a short while.

Photo: Visit Cherokee, NC.

Eight-Figure Cashers Meet Heads-Up in WSOP-C Finale

I was up late last night doing some work and so noticed some of the tweets going by signaling that Jamie Gold and Antonio Esfandiari were among those who were at the final table of the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at the Bicycle Casino. Also making the final nine in that $1,675 buy-in event (with re-entries) were Ray Henson, Bryn Kenney, and Ludovic Geilich.

As the night wore on the messages continued to pop up as Gold and Esfandiari eventually made it to heads-up. It was then I clicked over to the live stream provided by the Live at the Bike folks and watch the last several hands play out, with Esfandiari eventually winning to take the ring.

With 756 entries, the first prize for Esfandiari was $226,785. Many commenting over Twitter noted how the pair showing up at this WSOP-C Main final table was a bit of a throwback. “It was like 2006 all over again!” tweeted Jennifer Tilly, a thought occurring to many others, I imagine.

That of course was the year of Jamie Gold’s victory in the WSOP Main Event, marking his introduction to most of us via the subsequent ESPN coverage. By then we also were well familiar with Esfandiari thanks to his 2004 win in the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic, also shown repeatedly on our teevees.

Both players have made California home, explaining their having turned up for the event at the Bicycle. Both have also at one time in their careers sat atop the Hendon Mob’s “All-Time Money List” ranking players’ tournament winnings, a list currently headed by Daniel Negreanu.

There was another connection between the two I couldn’t help but think about while watching them square off last night. This had to be the first time two players with eight-figure cashes on their tournament résumés ever met heads-up in a tournament.

By winning the first Big One for One Drop at the 2012 WSOP, Esfandiari cashed for $18,346,673, while Gold won a $12,000,000 first prize for taking down the largest-ever WSOP Main Event in 2006. (As we know, neither player actually won those full amounts, with Esfandiari reportedly only having around 15% of himself and Gold famously giving up half of his prize in the subsequent lawsuit.)

Only two other players have eight-figure tournament scores -- Daniel Colman (awarded $15,306,668 after winning the 2014 installment of the Big One for One Drop) and Martin Jacobson (who won $10,000,000 for his victory in the 2014 WSOP Main Event. Safe to make the assumption, then, than none of these guys have played heads-up before. (Sam Trickett, who finished runner-up to Esfandiari in that Big One for One Drop, became an eight-figure cashers upon the conclusion of that event, as his prize was $10,112,001.)

One other bit of trivia from last night’s WSOP-C results -- Gold’s second-place cash for $139,820 was the second-highest of his career.

Image: “List of largest poker tournaments in history (by prize pool),” Wikipedia (retrieved 3/30/16).

Checking in on Cherokee

The latest World Series of Poker Circuit stop over at Harrah’s Cherokee in the western corner of the state just completed its 12-event run yesterday. Found it interesting to see that Daniel Weinman, the Atlanta-based player who took second in the very first WSOP-C at Cherokee (which I helped cover), managed to win the Main Event this time around.

Weinman topped a 1,010-entry field to win the ring and a $280,260 first prize. Back in April 2013 there were 856 entries in the event when Weinman finished runner-up. In April 2014 there were 665 entries in the Main, in December 2014 there were 797, then in April 2015 there were 786, meaning this latest field was the biggest Main Event field so far in the five instances the WSOP-C has come to North Carolina.

I remember Weinman well from two years ago thanks to a funny story involving him and Greg Raymer at that year’s Main Event. I shared that one here in a post titled “Giving Away Chips, Rocks.”

After the 2004 WSOP Main Event champion -- who incidentally lives in Raleigh -- was knocked out in 29th by Weinman, “Fossilman” followed his custom and gave his vanquisher the signed fossil he’d been using as a card protector. After Raymer departed, Weinman said to a friend on the rail “This dude just gave me a rock,” then gave the memento to my buddy Rich with whom I was reporting on the event.

I seem to remember later on Weinman asking Rich for it back over Twitter. In any case it was a funny moment amid what I recall a very entertaining tournament and final table, made so in part because of Weinman’s deep run.

I had actually been eyeing this WSOP-C stop earlier this year, thinking maybe this would be one for which I’d be making the drive up into the mountains myself to take a shot in a prelim. But the Brazil trip ran into the first part of the series and I knew I wouldn’t be up to it after getting back.

The good news is Cherokee has proven popular enough for the WSOP-C to keep putting it on the schedule twice per year, and indeed there’s a return engagement scheduled next April. Something to file away.

Poker All Over As Tours Start Back

Taking note these days of the various tours all starting to crank back up now that the 2013 World Series of Poker is now just a speck in the rear view mirror.

The 2013-14 World Series of Poker Circuit is off and running with the first of 22 scheduled stops already completed. Like last year, each stop of the WSOP-C is following a similar format with 12 events highlighted by a $1,675 buy-in Main Event in which the winner earns a spot in the season-ending WSOP National Championship along with the first prize cash.

The Foxwoods Main Event completed yesterday with Jason Strasser topping a field of 591 to earn the ring and $186,600 first prize. Seems like I was just at Foxwoods for the last WSOP-C ME there, won by Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul back in April, one of the last stops of the 2012-13 WSOP-C campaign. Saul beat a field of 615 to win $194,178.

Was perusing the WSOP’s live updates from the Foxwoods event today and saw the inclusion of a nifty replayer in which one can watch all 218 hands from the final table. That’s in addition to extensive reporting from all three days of the tournament as well. Seek that replayer out among the WSOP site’s live updates (I can't link directly to the replayer).

Here’s the full 2013-14 WSOP-C schedule:

Aug. 8-19, 2013 -- Foxwoods (CT)

Sept. 5-16, 2013 -- IP Casino Resort & Spa (Biloxi, MS)

Sept. 19-30, 2013 -- Horseshoe Cincinnati

Oct. 3-14, 2013 -- Horseshoe Southern Indiana

Oct. 17-28, 2013 -- Horseshoe Hammond (Chicago)

Oct. 24-Nov. 4, 2013 -- Harveys Lake Tahoe (Stateline, NV)

Oct. 28-Nov. 8, 2013 -- River Rock (Vancouver, Canada)

Nov. 7-18, 2013 -- Horseshoe Bossier City (Lousiana)

Nov. 13-24, 2013 -- Casino Montreal (Montreal, Canada)

Nov. 29-Dec. 9, 2013 -- Harrah’s Atlantic City

Dec. 5-16, 2013 -- Harrah’s Rincon (San Diego area)

Jan. 9-20, 2014 -- Choctaw Durant (Dallas/Oklahoma)

Jan. 23-Feb. 3 2014 -- Harrah’s Tunica (MS)

Feb. 6-17, 2014 -- Palm Beach Kennel Club (Florida)

Feb. 20-Mar. 3, 2014 -- Caesars Palace (Las Vegas)

Mar. 6-17, 2014 -- The Bicycle Casino (Los Angeles)

Mar. 20-31, 2014 -- Horseshoe Cleveland

Apr. 3-14, 2014 -- Harrah’s Cherokee (NC)

Apr. 10-21, 2014 -- Horseshoe Council Bluffs (Iowa/Omaha)

Apr. 17-28, 2014 -- Harrah’s Philadelphia

Apr. 24-May 5, 2014 -- The Lodge Casino, Black Hawk (Colo.)

May 8-19, 2014 -- Harrah’s New Orleans

May 2014 -- Caesars Atlantic City, National Championship

Meanwhile, the World Poker Tour’s Season XII has already gotten underway with the bwin WPT Merit Cyprus Classic at the Merit Crystal Cove Hotel Casino in Kyrenia, Cyprus.

Today they played down to a final six-handed table from a starting field of 262 in the $4,400 buy-in event with Alexey Rybin leading. Rybin led at the end of his Day 1 flight and at the end of Days 2 and 3 as well. First prize earns $258,000 in that one.

From Cyprus the WPT hops over to the Bicycle Casino in California for the Legends of Poker then the WPT Foundation Ladies’ Night Invitational, then continues to hop around from continent to continent until the season ends with the $25K WPT World Championship at the Bellagio next May.

Here’s the schedule for the first half of WPT Season XII:

Aug. 16-21, 2013 -- bwin WPT Merit Cyprus Classic

Aug. 29-Sept. 4, 2013 -- WPT Legends of Poker (Bell Gardens, CA)

Sept. 5, 2013 -- WPT Foundation Ladies’ Night Invitational (Bell Gardens, CA)

Sept. 15-20, 2013 -- WPT Borgata Poker Open (Atlantic City, NJ)

Oct. 25-30, 2013 -- bwin WPT Grand Prix de Paris

Nov. 7-11, 2013 -- WPT Emperors Palace Poker Classic (Johannesburg, S. Africa)

Nov. 15-19, 2013 -- WPT bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble

Nov. 19-24, 2013 -- WPT Caribbean (Maho Bay, St. Maarten)

Nov. 29-Dec. 5, 2013 -- PartyPoker WPT Montreal

Dec. 6-Dec. 11, 2013 -- WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic (Las Vegas, NV)

Dec. 16-19, 2013 -- WPT South Korea

Dec. 15-21, 2013 -- bwin WPT Prague

The WPT also has a pretty full “Regional & National Schedule” of events with a dozen stops all over the U.S. and in Morocco, Spain, France, and China. The WPT additionally has that new “Alpha8” schedule of high-roller tournaments with buy-ins of at least $100,000 that gets going next week down at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida. I’ll be heading down to do some reporting for that one, actually, and like many am looking forward to seeing how that new series plays out.

Finally, many in the poker world are excited about Season 10 of the European Poker Tour getting underway next week in Barcelona, Spain. All of the EPT 10 stops feature many events, with the Barcelona one including 27 different tournaments plus eight more Estrellas Poker Tour events going on as well.

Highlights from the EPT Barcelona stop will include the €50,000 Super High Roller event, a €10,300 regular High Roller event, and the €5,300 Main Event. I’m actually getting a chance to go report on the EPT Barcelona Main Event as well, and so expect I’ll be sharing some observations from that trip here, too.

Here’s the full EPT Season 10 schedule in which the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure gets included:

Aug. 26-Sept. 7, 2013 -- EPT Barcelona (Spain)

Oct. 2-12, 2013 -- EPT London (England)

Dec. 8-18, 2013 -- EPT Prague (Czech Republic)

Jan. 4-13, 2014 -- 2014 PCA (Bahamas)

Jan. 22-Feb. 1, 2014 -- EPT Deauville (France)

Mar. 12-22, 2014 -- EPT Berlin (Germany)

Apr. 6-16, 2014 -- EPT San Remo (Italy)

Apr. 23-May 2, 2014 -- EPT Monte Carlo (Monaco)

A pretty packed calendar for tourney players, and that’s not even including the many other tours, including the the Latin American Poker Tour (Season 6), the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (Season 7), the United Kingdom & Ireland Poker Tour (Season 4), the Heartland Poker Tour (Season 9), and others already ongoing.

To the Victor Go the Spoils

These last two weekends I’ve been away at the World Series of Poker Circuit stops, helping report on the Main Events (at Foxwoods and at Harrah’s Cherokee) for PokerNews. Thus was I mostly distracted from all of the happenings down under at the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific which came to a close on Monday.

We did call up the live stream right at the end of the WSOP APAC Main Event on Monday, seeing Daniel Negreanu finally finish off Daniel Marton to win the title. Kind of uncanny to think of Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth winning the last two non-Vegas WSOP Main Events, although the fact that they did kind of highlights how different those MEs are from the one that plays out at the Rio each summer. So far -- and likely for the foreseeable future -- WSOP Main Events in Europe, Australia, or elsewhere are necessarily going to feature smaller fields and more “name” pros.

I wrote a little last week about “Bracelets and Rings” and the whole debate over trying to discover ways to compare and relate the achievements of those who win WSOP events, wherever they happen to take place.

While at the WSOP-C Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee, we couldn’t help but make note of the fact that the prize pool there ($1.284 million) exceeded that of each of the first four bracelet events at WSOP APAC. And how the winner John Bowman took away a first prize ($250,380) that was more than what any of those bracelet winners had won, in fact nearly five times what Ivey got for his victory in the $2,200 (AUD) mixed event.

The debate over bracelets -- as well as the WSOP POY race, in which the WSOP APAC results count -- gets amplified a little thanks to Ivey and Negreanu having each succeeded in bringing another one out of Australia. Negreanu picked up his fifth bracelet, and first since 2008. It was also his first no-limit hold’em bracelet, incidentally.

Negreanu’s also already pretty mindful of the POY race, tweeting out a link to the standings yesterday. Greg Mueller tweeted congrats to Negreanu in response, but added “Its kind of blown [sic] being 400 points behind before event #1 at rio.”

Meanwhile Ivey’s racing Hellmuth now, his nine still well behind the Poker Brat’s 13. Kind of weirdly, none of Ivey’s bracelets have come in hold’em events. By the way, F-Train has provided an interesting breakdown of Ivey’s WSOP performances over the years for Flushdraw.

As a fan of tournament poker and someone who at times likes to follow the big tourneys as though they were sporting events, I can’t help but be a little intrigued by the various ways of marking achievements -- bracelets, rings, points, etc. The players are clearly motivated by such extra rewards, too. Bracelets and rings possess some tangible value, while POY points may or may not have any at all. (I’m not even sure the WSOP POY wins anything anymore.)

I’m reminded of a funny exchange at the final table of the WSOP-C Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee. It came at a point when Kory Kilpatrick and Hugh Henderson were both battling with short stacks while Weaver was leading with more than twice the chips of anyone else.

Kilpatrick asked Weaver what he was going to do with the first-prize money, and Weaver said he’d put it in the bank. Then Henderson asked if he was at least going to buy something nice first, and Weaver said he wasn’t interested in doing so.

“No,” he said, “I just want the ring or the bracelet... whatever they have here.”

That led to some more funny banter, including Kilpatrick and Henderson saying they’d gladly let Weaver have the ring if they could have the money. But that wasn’t really Weaver’s point, I don’t think. He wasn’t saying he only wanted the jewelry and wasn’t interested in the cash, just that he wasn’t eager to spend whatever money he might win on material goods.

It was one of several humorous moments at that final table, some of which frankly stemmed from the not-always-perfect communication happening between the elder Weaver and the others. It kind of highlighted, though, all of the different reasons why people play the tournaments, and how the various rewards more or less figure into everyone’s thinking, although not uniformly so.

No, just as money has different significance to each individual, so, too, do other spoils like rings or bracelets or points or even the intangible benefits of challenging oneself and competing with others all signify differently, depending on the person.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Harrah’s Cherokee Main Event, Day 3 -- Expectations

With about 20 players left in the 2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee, my blogging partner Rich and I took a look at the remaining field. Quickly we decided upon three of the players as kind of standing out from the others, and agreed that the eventual winner would likely be one of the trio.

The three we chose were all younger (early-to-mid 20s) and had already shown enough competence and skill to distinguish themselves. And having covered so many tourneys between us over the years, we felt we had a decent feel for how this suckers usually go.

When writing about the WSOP-C Foxwoods trip a week ago, I’d mentioned how the eventual winner Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul had already stood out well before the final table as the player to beat, and as it happened he’d go on to win. Had kind of a similar feeling this time about the ones we had picked.

As it happened, we were wrong with our guesses. Expectations thwarted, you might say. Kind of like when Rich and I were at Paula Deen's Kitchen a couple of nights before, and Rich found out the vegetable of the day was brussel sprouts.

The field at Cherokee this week likely included a number of first-time tourney players, or at least folks for whom the $1,675 buy-in event represented something special to them after years of home games and (much) lower buy-in tourneys. Such is one of the fun elements of the WSOP-C, namely, the way even the Main Event can bring in players who don’t necessarily participate in the other, higher profile tours or go to the WSOP in Las Vegas.

And I suppose, such is also the cause for the occasional surprise, too, when it comes to the way WSOP-C events sometimes play out.

As it would happen, none of the three we’d pegged would win, although one -- Daniel Weinman -- did finish runner-up. Speaking of Weinman and that Fossilman story from yesterday, Rich told me Weinman tweeted to him today “I forgot to get my rock back,” and it sounds like Rich will be returning it to him at another WSOP-C event stop.

Rather it was John Bowman, a 30-year-old amateur from nearby Hickory, North Carolina who won. Apparently (so we heard afterwards) he’d only played in his first tournament a few days before.

I liked Weinman, but I was still glad for Bowman and his excited buddies afterwards, despite the fact that Bowman sported a Duke shirt. Rich took some winner’s photos, and had me laughing pretty hard when he got everyone to deliver a boisterous “HELL YEAH!” for the camera.

But it was 69-year-old Raymond Weaver that had us raising our eyebrows time after time yesterday. Neither of us had thought he’d have much of a shot on Day 3. But he not only made the final table, he had an especially active first couple of levels that saw him chip up to more than 6 million at a time when no one else had even half that.

Weaver still had a big lead when three-handed began, but soon lost a hand to Bowman in which the latter doubled through Weaver, then quickly slid down before losing the last of his chips to Bowman to land in third.

Weaver definitely exhibited a lot of the familiar signs of older, amateur players, limping and calling a lot and occasionally going into super-tight mode at times when he might’ve been better off remaining aggressive.

But unlike Rick Hensley on Day 2 -- the player who managed to go from first with 201 left to elimination before they’d even gotten down to 150 or so -- Weaver had some good instincts and played relatively well. And his making the final table wasn’t such a fluke, we’d discover, as he already made one other WSOP Circuit Main Event final table last year (at Tunica).

So Bowman and Weaver surprised us, and all in all it was an interesting and entertaining final table to follow and report on, even if we were more than a little distracted by the news from the Boston Marathon from early in the afternoon. Talk about upsetting expectations. Reminded me of covering the Sands Bethlehem tourney back in December on the day of the Newtown shootings. Indeed, much of what I wrote on that day applies again here. Again it felt odd to be locked in that poker tourney cocoon while such terrible things were happening outside of it.

The tourney ended just in time for Rich and I to make it to the Ruth Chris in the casino before they shut their doors, and after rewarding ourselves with late night filets we finally got a decent night’s sleep before I carried him to the Asheville airport this morning. Had a fun visit with PokerGrump and Cardgrrl afterwards, both of whom now live in Asheville, then motored back home.

Am pretty spent after the last spell of traveling and working, but it looks like I’ll get to stay put for a while, perhaps even until June when I’ll head back out to Las Vegas for the WSOP. Was glad to have been there at Cherokee for this event, and from the looks of things the WSOP-C will most certainly be returning after what turned out to be a successful series that exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Harrah’s Cherokee Main Event, Day 2 -- Giving Away Chips, Rocks

Just one day remains in the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee. After a couple of relatively reasonable noon-to-midnight days for the first two Day 1 flights, we had our marathon session yesterday in order to ensure a reasonable final day today.

There were a total of 856 entrants, from which 201 players made it to Sunday’s Day 2. They managed to play all of the way down to just 11 players yesterday, pushing through 10 one-hour levels then two more 75-minute levels to get there.

Was a long grind, with play starting at noon and not concluding until a quarter to three. Rich and I got there an hour early and left about an hour after play concluded, and there was only a half-hour dinner break in there, too. So we basically stuck close there in the Event Center, eating hot dogs, sandwiches and other snacks at our desk to sustain ourselves throughout the day.

Poker-wise, the quick exit of start-of-day 2 chip leader Rick Hensley was easily the most out-of-the-ordinary aspect of the day. Hensley began Day 2 with more than 400,000 at a time when the average stack was around 85,000. He’d knock out an opponent on the second hand of the day to push up even further to about 460,000, then he somehow managed to lose all of those chips before we even made it to the first break of the day (after two hours).

Hensley’s rise the night before had come almost as quickly, as he’d gone from about 120,000 to 401,400 pretty much during the final hour of play. But he’d gotten those chips by gambling big and hitting several hands in rapid succession, and the same strategy -- which included lots of limp-calling and check-calling, no matter how big the bets -- would fail him to start Day 2.

I came upon one hand in which he’d lost close to half of his stack to an opponent who held pocket aces, eventually learning that he’d called an all-in shove on a 2-3-4 flop holding but 7-6. When he finally busted, he sort of jovially said “Hensley’s out!” before leaving, reporting his own exit before we could. Sort of seemed a little like someone sitting down at a blackjack table, determined to play until he ran out of money, no matter what.

Just one woman made the money -- Claudia Crawford (who finished 36th). Greg Raymer cashed as well, getting knocked out in 29th by Daniel Weinman, one of those who has made it to today and who looks capable of winning the event. As is his custom, Raymer signed and dated the fossil he had been using as a card protector, then gave it to Weinman before leaving. But Weinman didn’t seem overly fazed by the gesture.

“This dude just gave me a rock,” he told a friend on the rail after. He then gave it to Rich.

With 11 left, some of the shorter stacks aren’t too much ahead of what Hensley had at the beginning of play yesterday with 201 left. Unsurprisingly given the makeup of the field, there are a few older players who’ll be making the final table, although again the younger guys who are left -- especially the big chip leader, Hugh Henderson of South Carolina -- have to be the favorites to have the best shot of winning the $250K-plus first prize today.

The ESPN guys have arrived, including Bernard Lee, and so they’ll be live streaming the final table with commentary over on the WSOP site and perhaps ESPN3 (if you can access it). I know the poker world is mostly attuned to Melbourne this morning -- or this evening, in Australia -- as Daniel Negreanu leads the WSOP APAC Main Event final table and appears on the verge of winning. But when that wraps up in a few hours, click on over to PokerNews and/or check out that live stream if you’re curious to see how things play out at Cherokee.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Harrah’s Cherokee Main Event, Day 1b -- Vegetable of the Day

“You writin’ a story about me?”

Said the elderly gentleman sitting in Seat 7 to me as he noticed me standing just a few feet away from his table. It was the first level of Day 1b, and while there was another player at his table I’d recognized and was checking in on, I didn’t know him as yet.

“I’m writing a story about everyone,” I replied, and he nodded with a grin.

The second Day 1 flight at the WSOP Circuit Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee drew a bigger field than Day 1a, with 502 players including a number re-entering after busting on Friday. That made the overall total 856 entries for the event, making for a prize pool more than $1.28 million and a first place prize of just over $250K.

I think some had hoped to have gotten 1,000 for the ME, but most seemed very pleased at that turnout, which actually makes Harrah’s Cherokee the fourth largest WSOP-C ME this year out of the 17 that have been played thus far.

We’ve been looking in occasionally on the reports from the WSOP Asia Pacific that is reaching its climax this weekend with the Main Event and that non-bracelet High Roller event finishing out. Kind of marveled a little at how the first prize here at the WSOP-C Main Event ($250,380) is greater than the first prizes at each of the first four bracelet events at WSOP APAC. And, of course, dwarfs the $51,840 (AUD; i.e., not quite $55K USD) Phil Ivey earned for winning Event No. 3 down under (the $2,200 mixed event).

Yesterday went reasonably well from the reporting side of things. Less crazy for us when the two Day 1 flights are actually played on separate days rather than all on one day (as was the case in Foxwoods), although that’s dictated by the expected turnouts. In terms of hours, it’s still a long haul, but a tad less chaotic in terms of following everything and presenting it in the blog. Thus even if the hours are about the same, we feel less like vegetables at day’s end.

Speaking of not feeling like vegetables, we made it to dinner break in decent shape and decided to walk over to the other side of the complex and eat at Paula Deen’s Kitchen. You pass through a large gift shop in order to reach the entrance, filled with endless cookbooks, bakeware, cookware, kitchware, keychains, pastel-colored t-shirts with “Hey Y’all” written in glittery cursive, and more. Most items featured conspicuous Paula Deen branding, including pictures of her smiling face.

As we waited in a short line to be seated, Rich commented on the scene.

“There’s too much Paula Deen going on here.”

Upon being seated, we ordered our meals. Rich had a moment with the waitress that reminded us both of Dumb and Dumber when Jim Carrey’s character asks what the soup du jour, is told “it’s the soup of the day,” and responds “mmmm... that sounds good, I’ll have that.”

“Would you like the vegetable of the day?” the waitress asked Rich. “Yes, I would!” said Rich eagerly, adding “What is it?” “It’s brussel sprouts,” she responded. “No, I would not!” he said with equal enthusiasm.

After tweeting that exchange, our buddy Eric Ramsey tweeted back the funniest response: “Too bad you weren’t there on Wednesday when the vegetable of the day is butter.”

I ended up ordering a “low country” combo plate that featured fried shrimp, fried flounder, fried chicken, a baked potato with butter and sour cream, and hush puppies to follow the “cheesy biscuits” they’d brought us. Probably ate about a fifth of what was on the plate, and even after that was still moving slowly as we walked back.

Then Nolan Dalla supplied us with huge enormous chunks of locally-produced chocolate fudge on our return, which seemed a fitting postscript to our meal.

Post-dinner poker was dominated by Rufus “Rick” Hensley of Morganton, NC who went on a wild heater to go from about 120,000 up to just over 400,000 chips to end the day. Only a couple of other players have more than 300,000 at the moment, and only those in the top 10 have 200,000-plus.

But 201 are left, and so there’s still a lot more poker to be played. And walking around for Rich and I. Click over to PokerNews today to see how the story continues.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Harrah’s Cherokee Main Event, Day 1a -- Southern Hospitality

Hello from the Carolina mountains, where I write on a brisk Saturday morning from Cherokee, NC. My home-away-from-home for the next few days isn’t that far away, in fact, as I only had to travel a few hours west in order to help cover the World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event at Harrah’s Cherokee for PokerNews.

Hopped in the car and drove over to Asheville first in order to pick up my blogging partner, Rich, who has ties to the region as well as a graduate of Elon University. Teeny airport that I can’t remember ever having visited before, and we joked about trying to find the car in the parking lot which is only slightly bigger than the Food Lion one where Kung Fu Grandpa sometimes practices his nunchucks.

Rich and I took the winding path to Cherokee, found our hotel just up the road from Harrah’s, then went to explore a bit and have what turned out to be a nice dinner at the Brio Tuscan Grille. Also enjoyed a kind of hilarious conversation with our waitress there who spontaneously engaged us with her thoughts about poker players and gambling culture, generally speaking.

“Don’t they know their chances are SLIM to NONE?” she explained, and we nodded amiably. “It’s a game of chance,” she continued, then shared further thoughts about the folly of wearing sunglasses indoors and being overly preoccupied by smartphones and iPads.

We stopped by the handsome-looking poker room briefly to see 20-plus tables, many occupied by players, then hoofed it up to the Event Center where the tournaments are being played. It’s a great space for it, with the surrounding balcony up above -- from which people looked down on the action throughout the day -- adding positively to the atmosphere and making it all seem like more of an “event” than might be the case in nondescript ballrooms.

Seemed like Rich and I kept encountering lots of characters on Thursday, folks opening up and joking around with us constantly as the waitress had, and we found ourselves laughing a lot after some of the exchanges. We’re both used to the whole “southern hospitality” thing having spent time in NC, but we still found ourselves enjoying all of the friendly banter at seemingly every turn.

We got back to the hotel and settled into our adjacent rooms, then a little later the lights tantalizingly flickered on and off before shutting off altogether. We sat in silent darkness for a short while, then ventured out into the hall, realizing we were in fact the only inhabitants of our entire floor.

Was starting to feel a little like a horror movie. Weren’t those original Evil Dead movies filmed in North Carolina? We found our way down to the lobby.

Soon we discovered it wasn’t just our hotel, but all of Cherokee that had suffered a power outage thanks to a passing storm. We gazed out the front windows up Paint Town Road to discover the large Harrah’s complex had gone dark, too. The lady at the front desk gave us candles, and we hung around for a while before heading back up in the darkness.

Power did return a couple of hours later, and by morning the bright sun filled the little valley in which Harrah’s Cherokee sits as we rode in for the first day of play. Have to confess I was feeling a little added anticipation heading in. As I’ve mentioned before, having been born here and lived most of my life in the state, I have added curiosity about this event and harbor hope that it goes well and will encourage more events here in the future.

Ken “Teach” Aldridge delivered the “shuffle up and deal” yesterday, and he prefaced the call with a few remarks about poker’s popularity in the state and region. Aldridge won a WSOP bracelet in 2009 in a $1,500 six-handed NLH event and has cashed every year since, including making a H.O.R.S.E. final table in 2010 where he finished fourth in an event won by Phil Ivey.

Aldridge actually owns a car dealership in Burlington (Ken’s Cars), and I grew up in nearby Elon. I’ve had a conversation with my Pop about him and I believe they either know each other or have mutual acquaintances. He busted in the afternoon yesterday, but I imagine we’ll be seeing his signature bright yellow jacket and cap sometime today as players who have been eliminated can re-enter for Day 1b.

Ended up running into and talking to other players from Elon, Burlington, and the surrounding area yesterday as well, which made the day more interesting. Just glancing at an early, incomplete list of yesterday’s entrants, it looked like around a third of those who came out were from North Carolina, a little less than a third were from Georgia, and around 10% each were from Tennessee and South Carolina.

The field probably skews a little older than the typical WSOP-C crowd, although I haven’t sorted through the DOBs. I say that both because of my general impression walking through the tables yesterday and because of how things played out in other events prior to our arrival, including a largest ever field for a seniors event here. A total of 648 played in the non-ring $250 buy-in event, won by 62-year-old Tennessean David Moersdorf who then went on to win one of the ring events, too (a $365 NLH one).

The day went well and we were out by midnight, with 83 players making it through to Sunday’s Day 2. Again we encountered several characters at the tables, many engaging us throughout the day as we passed to and for with our notepads. Probably the most interesting hand of the day came relatively late when I happened on a table where all nine players limped in to see a flop. Couldn’t resist calling the post describing the hand “Southern Hospitality.”

A few names standing out among those making it through thus far. The leader at the moment, David Nicholson, is a three-time Circuit ring winner. Claudia Crawford (“Roll Tide!”), Kyle Cartwright, and Greg Raymer all bagged up big stacks, too.

There were a total of 354 who played yesterday, which I think undershot some expectations a bit as folks had been thinking the tourney would draw as many as 1,000 entries. That seems a little out of reach after Friday’s number, although the current buzz is suggesting we’ll see a bigger field today. At least that is what Stewie thinks.

Click over to PokerNews today if you are curious to follow how things are playing out in Cherokee.

Cherokee Bound

Am readying this morning to drive over to the western part of the state to Harrah’s Cherokee where I’ll be helping cover the WSOP Circuit Main Event there from Friday through Monday for PokerNews.

Have to say I’m kind of excited about being there for this first ever WSOP Circuit stop in my home state. Am also excited to be driving to one of these suckers rather than flying. Not that I mind flying so much, but there’s obviously an added convenience to being able to throw my stuff in the car and go. I mean I can take full tubes of toothpaste, big bottles of water, my guitar... practically anything!

Okay, so I probably won’t take my guitar. Have a feeling it’s going to be a busy time up there, anyway, with few spots for interludes.

Amid the packing, I found myself searching through results from other WSOP Circuit events during the 2012-13 season, looking at the numbers of entries for each event. I had been hearing that the turnouts at Cherokee for the preliminary events were especially big, and so was curious to compare how they look alongside what has happened elsewhere on the WSOP-C this season.

As I was mentioning yesterday, there are 20 stops total on the 2012-13 WSOP-C schedule, each featuring 12 different events. The Main Event is always a $1,675 buy-in NLHE tourney with a couple of Day 1 flights that allow for re-entries. Sometimes both Day 1 flights are scheduled for the same day, and sometimes they are on separate days. (The Cherokee one will have Day 1a on Friday and Day 1b on Saturday.)

The other 11 events are usually mostly NLHE events with buy-ins ranging from $365 to $1,125, with most stops throwing in a single PLO event along the way. A couple have other variations in there, too; for instance, at Horseshoe Hammond last October they actually had a H.O.R.S.E. event, a Limit O/8 event, and a PLO with rebuys event mixed in with the usual fare.

But for the most part the schedules are fairly uniform. So even though I was talking about yesterday how hard -- or even foolhardy -- it is to compare tournaments, it’s possible to look at, say, each of the Main Events on the 2012-13 WSOP Circuit and at least compare the number of entries. The buy-ins are the same, the Main Events tend to come later in the schedule (often appearing as Event Nos. 10 or 11), and the number who play in the ME generally reflects how the other 11 events on the schedule did in terms of turnouts, too.

Here’s a quick look at the number of entries for each of the 16 previous WSOP-C Main Events this year:

So there’s been a range this year from as low as 300 at IP Biloxi up to the biggest turnout of 1,523 at Horseshoe Hammond, with most stops having Main Events with entries numbering around 500-600 (or just above or below).

At Cherokee this week there have been events with especially large fields compared to other prelims on the WSOP-C, including 872 for the initial $365 NLH tourney (Event No. 1), 949 for the next one (Event No. 2), and 1,350 for the $365 NLH tourney with re-entries (Event No. 4).

Hard to say what the Main Event will bring in terms of numbers, although I’m guessing it’s probably going to be higher than the 615 entries we saw at the Main Event at Foxwoods last week. We’ll see soon enough.

(By the way, when writing about these WSOP Circuit Main Events I see people constantly refer to fields of, say, “615 players,” when that is never the case because of re-entries. This week I was reading a few of the summaries of the Foxwoods Main Event around the web -- all necessarily written following the reports on PokerNews and the WSOP site -- and was surprised at how many inaccuracies there were with various details. Summarizing a skill game, too, I guess.)

Okay, gotta take care of some more business here and then fill up the car and go. Talk to you next from Cherokee.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Foxwoods Main Event, Day 3 -- Saul Crushing

Another airport posting here as I await my flight out of Providence back home. The WSOP-C Foxwoods Main Event wrapped up a bit before midnight last night, with Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul emerging as the winner.

After the tourney ended, I saw some of the congratulatory tweets coming through for Saul, including one from Jason Somerville ending with the hashtag “#saulcrushing” which I immediately wished I had thought of at some point when posting his hands over the last couple of days. (So I stole it for the post title above.)

Saul started the final day of play with a below average stack among the final 16, but it had been clear since the middle of Day 2 that he was probably an odds-on favorite to make it deep, if not win the sucker. My blogging partner Chad and I were discussing at night’s end how this often happens in these events, namely, that a particular player tends to emerge even with six or seven tables left as a likely candidate to win, and while it doesn’t always work out that way it often does.

It was a similar story a few weeks ago at the WSOP-C Caesars Atlantic City Main Event, where Joseph McKeehen had already distinguished himself as a tough player on Day 2, then he picked up significant chips late in the day to be a prohibitive favorite going into the last day (when 19 were left). Also happened at that Sands Bethlehem Deepstack event from December with Chris Klodnicki, although in that case he was already a seeming favorite with 100 players left.

Actually everyone at yesterday’s final table distinguished himself, I’d say, with all having good moments in which hands were played well and most getting lucky here or there, too. Saul even experienced some good fortune yesterday in a hand against Bobby Corcione.

In that one Saul and Corcione traded bets after a flop to build a nearly 3 million-chip pot, with Saul ultimately all in and Corcione just barely having Saul covered (by 10,000, it turned out). Corcione had and Saul , which meant it was almost exactly a 50-50 flip -- kind of uncanny, actually, considering they’d begun the hands with nearly even stacks, too. A diamond came on the river and Saul survived.

“That’s not good,” said eventual third-place finisher Cory Waaland to me off to the side, remarking on Saul’s having not only avoided elimination but had built himself a big stack once again. Paul Snead -- who’d end up fourth yesterday -- had said nearly the same thing to me the day before when Saul had won a big pot while eliminating a player, again indicating the respect others had for Saul.

Snead actually was knocked out by Saul in another near coin-flip of a hand in which Snead was all in with ace-king and up against Saul’s two red eights, then the two black eights came out on the flop to give Saul quads.

Saul was on the other end of a number of bad-beat scenarios, too, both yesterday and the day before. But when such hands occurred he always had the chips to sustain himself afterwards, and continued to apply pressure and play smartly to build back up time and again.

There was an even more eye-popping flop than that quads hand yesterday, one that saw Waaland find himself in what I called a “hand-in-the-cookie-jar” moment after shoving from the blinds with and getting called by Ethan Foulkes who held . The flop then came , driving everyone into hysterics. The turn was the , thus giving Foulkes a flush draw, then the river brought the , giving Foulkes the flush but Waaland a better full house.

It was a nutty hand, and while both Waaland and Foulkes played well throughout the tournament, it is funny to think how a hand like that can affect how these things turn out. (Foulkes ended up finishing seventh, Waaland third.)

Saul is probably the best known player to win a WSOP-C Main Event during the 2012-13 season, aside perhaps from Dan Heimiller who won the ME at the Horseshoe Southern Indiana stop last October. Heimiller needs to update his awesome website to reflect that triumph.

Foxwoods was a fun place, although Chad and I didn’t have a heck of a lot of time to explore it much other than to sample a few of the restaurants. We didn’t play any poker either, although we did use our $10 freeplays to try our luck at Caveman Keno, with Jay “WhoJedi” Newnum tutoring us as we did.

Besides being a great blogger and photographer for the WSOP and an expert in all things Star Wars, Newnum also has advanced training in Caveman Keno, and thus advised us regarding optimal play. Alas for your humble scribbler, I couldn’t turn a profit with my Fibonacci-derived numbers (skipping 1 and 2 and using 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55), but Chad did manage to walk away with a small win of $14 or so.

From here it’s back home for a couple of days, then I’ll be trucking it over to Harrah’s Cherokee for the Main Event there (which starts Friday). Am very curious to see the scene, and bracing myself for what will likely be a huge turnout for the Main Event. I expect I’ll see a number of the same folks from this weekend’s tourney at that one, although the difficulty of flying in -- the closest airport is Asheville -- might keep some away from Cherokee.

All in all it was an exciting tourney in Foxwoods with a somewhat satisfying result, confirming once more the curious combination of luck and skill that distinguishes the game.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Foxwoods Main Event, Day 2 -- Will Reason Win Out?

Another crazily long day of criss-crossing the tourney floor leaves your humble scribbler in a less than ideal state for chronicling his adventures this morning. We started at noon, didn’t leave until nearly 3 a.m. this morning, and after a few hours of winks I’m up again and eyeing one more day of poker at Foxwoods.

The day went well, all things considered, as the field whittled down from more than 200 to just 16. There were some good story lines emerging along the way, including the fact that among the final group there are two players who coincidentally share the distinction of having both finished 21st in the World Series of Poker Main Event.

Robert “Bobby” Corcione accomplished the feat last summer, the first time I got to know the player. And Paul Snead did so back in 2008. Corcione is a regular player these days, but I know Snead only plays occasionally since his deep ME run, and so it’s kind of intriguing to see both still battling as this tournament has reached the final two tables.

Those who remember Snead probably think first of that incident in which Tiffany Michelle called the clock on Snead in what turned out to be his final hand of the tournament (not against Michelle, but Scott Montgomery). Snead ended up making a great call after his session of contemplation was cut short by Michelle, but sadly suffered Montgomery hitting a three-outer to end his tourney run.

My blogging partner Chad Holloway has been industriously grabbing a few interviews with players here and there during the short 10-minute breaks to use in his future PokerNews pieces, with Snead being one of those with whom he’s spoken (probably for a “Where Are They Now?” column). Snead was very candid with Chad about that 2008 ME bustout and how it really kind of sent him away from poker, at least in a full-time sense. He’s a super amiable guy and a good player, too, one of several personalities left among the final group that help keep things interesting.

Looking at other sidebar stories, not a single woman made the money in this event (out of 63 cashing), the first time I think I have seen that happen in something other than a high buy-in, non-hold’em event at the WSOP. Meanwhile, Ylon Schwartz -- who also made a deep run in that 2008 WSOP ME with Snead, finishing fourth -- was knocked out late yesterday to finish 22nd.

Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul is probably the player left most likely to grab one’s attention as an observer. A good table talker and a great player, Saul might have been in first position to enter today’s final day if not for losing a big race with the excellently-named Ben Reason near night’s end to give the latter the chip lead. We’ve been somewhat restrained with the puns so far with Reason’s last name, although I couldn’t resist doing so above. I also had to break out a literary reference for my introductory post today.

Speaking of excellent names, one player who busted yesterday and with whom I chatted a little bit before his exit was named Z Stein, his legal name actually being just the letter Z. A nice guy who offered some encouraging comments about the reporting, Stein finished 26th.

Would obviously like to see a relatively shorter day play out today, perhaps giving us a chance to explore Foxwoods a bit more and maybe even play down in the very popular poker room where tons of tables are always going. But it’s likely we’ll go late again, thus diminishing the chance of our doing much of anything other than covering poker today.

Like I say, though, there are some characters and stories still in play. As you finish clicking around elsewhere to follow the WSOP Asia Pacific events -- where their day will be ending just as ours begins -- come follow along over at PokerNews to see how the remaining cast of characters play out today's last act in the WSOP-C Foxwoods Main Event.

(1900th post here, by the way. Damn lot of scribblin’!)

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Foxwoods Main Event, Day 1 -- Zen and the Art of Tourney Reporting

I write this morning from my hotel room in Mystic, Connecticut, about a half-hour’s drive from the Foxwoods Resort Casino on the Manshantucket Pequot Indian Reservation where I spent nearly 16 hours yesterday helping cover the sprawling Day 1 of the WSOP Circuit Main Event.

It’s been a somewhat strenuous journey already, as I flew into Providence, Rhode Island, then had to drive close to an hour to get to Mystic. Got off the plane in RI and as I made my way to the rental car counter I spotted a fellow sitting on a bench looking very relaxed and holding a sign. Obviously he was a driver waiting on an arrival, although looking a little too laid back for the part.

Then I read his sign -- Providence Zen Center -- and decided he did look the part after all. And I took a cue from his seemingly serene state going forward, going with flow as it hurtled me down I-95 toward my destination.

I’ve never really visited this part of the country before. In fact, I can’t remember ever having set foot in the country’s smallest state, not that I was there for very long on Friday. I do think I’ve been through Connecticut before, but never to Mystic which seems a friendly, tiny seaport.

I did spot the Mystic Pizza, although rather than think of the film after which it was named the town always makes me think of a random line from a fake news report on The Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers comedy LP...

“And there’s hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut.”

Got together with my blogging partner Chad on Friday and the two of us reunited with Jay (a.k.a. “WhoJedi”) who’s here covering things for the WSOP. Then yesterday our intrepid trio together reported all day and night on the two Day 1 flights, which as mentioned took up most of our waking hours.

It wasn’t until a few hours into play that Chad and I realized the two flights -- each comprised of a dozen 40-minute levels -- would actually be overlapping rather than there being a break in between. Which of course meant no dinner break for us, although we each managed to get away for a quick bite anyway so we could sustain ourselves adequately until things finally wound down sometime after 1:30 a.m.

There was some interesting poker along the way, probably the most interesting hands watched by your humble scribbler coming between Andy Frankenberger and Danny “Middleboro” Smith near the end of the first Day 1 flight. I won’t rewrite both hands, but you can read about them here and here. The second was actually kind of a standard cooler that saw Smith get eliminated, but the first saw Smith interestingly decide to fold bottom set on the flop.

Was a little distracted a couple of times yesterday as those two NCAA semifinal games -- both nail-biters -- came to their respective conclusions. The players were predictably into those games as well, which briefly made for a sorta giddy atmosphere as everyone “oohed” and “aahed” at the plays on the big teevee screens.

Meanwhile there was a lot of talk during the day about how big the field turned out to be -- 578 entries total, with the possibility of a few more jumping in before play resumes at noon today. And there was a lot of scattered conversation as well about what’s been happening this week down in Cherokee, North Carolina, where the fields have been tremendous for the preliminary events and the Main promises to be huge as well.

Speaking of, Greg Raymer is here, and I spoke with him a little yesterday about whether or not he was planning to attend the Cherokee event. As most know, he lives in North Carolina, and I was glad to hear him tell me he thought he probably would make it to the WSOP-C event week. We obviously didn’t talk about the recent NC-based news about him, nor did anyone else it appeared as he was his usual friendly, chatty self at the tables. (He comes back to an above-average stack today.)

There will be around 200 players back to start things today, and it’ll be another lengthy one as the schedule calls for three more 40-minute levels, then 10 (gulp) more one-hour levels before play will be halted. Of course, we might again find things today turn out a little differently than planned, so we’ll be ready for any change-ups.

You know, trying to continue with the Zen thing going forward. And if somehow I’m unable to, I now know of a place nearby where I can go work on that.

Hoops Anniversaries (and Traveling Tales)

It’s another travel day for your jetsetting friend as I’m heading up the east coast to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Connecticut to help cover the WSOP Circuit Main Event that starts tomorrow.

After that I’ll turn around and trip over to Harrah’s Cherokee for the WSOP-C Main Event stop next weekend. Am kind of marveling at the reports from Cherokee over the first couple of days of prelims there, as it sounds like the turnouts are huge for the first significant tournament poker series ever (really) in North Carolina.

On the topic of my home state, yesterday and today have marked a couple of significant anniversaries for two of the college basketball teams here.

Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of N.C. State’s incredible victory in the 1983 final versus heavily-favored Houston. I was writing here about that not too long ago, a post titled “Ordinary People Accomplishing Extraordinary Things” in which I compared the Wolfpack’s crazy, logic-defying run to Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP Main Event win a decade ago. I also wrote something over on Ocelot Sports about the ’83 game, if you’re curious to read more about it.

Meanwhile, today is the 20th anniversary of the NCAA triumph of my alma mater, UNC-Chapel Hill, who defeated Michigan in the finals on April 5, 1993. The Heels won titles before that one, and have picked up a couple more since, but that year stands out for me as a special one, and in fact the only time I was living in Chapel Hill during a successful NCAA tourney run.

Dr. Pauly and I recently listened to a radio broadcast of the game as it played over the Tarheel Radio Network 20 years ago, and we subsequently got together to talk about the broadcast and the game as well. We recorded our conversation, included some cool clips from the old radio broadcast, and today posted it as a first Ocelot Sports Podcast.

Most remember that game for its incredible finish, with Michigan superstar Chris Webber calling a timeout the team didn’t have, thereby giving Carolina technical free throws, possession of the ball, and ultimately ensuring the Heels’ victory. There were a ton of other interesting side stories associated with that drama, some of which were highlighted in interviews and other material included on the original radio broadcast.

Doing the show sort of felt a little like a belated reprise of my old Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show in which I also incorporated old time radio as part of the format. It was a fun time listening back and then talking about the game with Pauly, and if you’re at all interested in college basketball I think you might get a kick out of it. And if you do click over and give it a listen, give us some feedback as we’re now thinking of perhaps creating more shows down the road.

Meanwhile, Michigan has made it back to the Final Four this year -- the first time since 1993, in fact -- and I expect I’ll probably be sneaking peeks at the teevee screens while reporting on tomorrow’s Day 1 flights at Foxwood. I’ll be back here as well to give some updates on how it goes (starting Sunday).

Back to traveling and gathering more stories. Speaking of, among the many stories tucked into the podcast is one about Webber traveling on that fateful final play (and the real reason why no call was made). Check it out!

Here Comes the Accumulator

Event No. 1 at World Series of Poker Asia Pacific got underway today. Or yesterday. Or tomorrow. Lotsa time zones to deal with to pin that down.

The first event a the WSOP APAC is this $1,100 “No-Limit Hold’em Accumulator” event which features a novel format never employed before for a WSOP bracelet event. Nor have I heard of it being used anywhere, although I’m sure it has somewhere before.

Looking in over on PokerListings, I see that 329 players participated in today’s first Day 1 flight, with Dan “djk123” Kelly having ended the day with the most chips among the 50 or so players surviving the eight one-hour levels.

Kelly spun his starting stack of 3,000 chips up to 66,250 by night’s end to lead all of those making it to the bagging. Like everyone else who played today -- survivors and bustouts -- Kelly can come back for tomorrow’s Day 1b and/or Saturday’s Day 1c and play again. And if he were to survive either or both of those flights, he’d then be able to add whatever additional chips he wins to his overall stack, combining all to begin Sunday’s Day 2.

Thus... the “Accumulator.” Sounds a little like some sort of materialistic superhero. Or champion collector of stuff! A relation, perhaps, of the Comic Book Guy’s alter ego from The Simpsons, the Collector (pictured above).

The “accumulator” presents another variation on the whole rebuy/re-entry/multi-entry tourney twisting that has been pursued both online and live in various ways over recent years.

Rebuys have remained part of the tourney landscape even after the WSOP decided to jettison them following the 2008 Series. I remember at the time gossip going around about funny business with prize pools and the collecting of cash for rebuys, but a lot of the debate seemed focused more on ideas of fairness and “level playing fields” and suggestions that there was something wrong with players with deep pockets being able to “buy” bracelets in these straightforward rebuy events.

As I wrote about in late 2008, no one really could buy a bracelet in these events, although a player able to afford dozens of rebuys in a given event obviously had more options available to him or her than did the player only able to buy in once or twice.

In any case, the rebuys did fade a bit from the scene, soon to be replaced by the “re-entry” tournament that usually introduced some kind of restriction on how many times a busted player could buy back into an event while also not allowing players to do any rebuying unless they had busted altogether. Nowadays re-entries have become somewhat commonplace.

The World Poker Tour main events are often re-entry tournaments. This weekend I’m off to Foxwoods for the WSOP Circuit $1,675 buy-in Main Event which like every WSOP-C ME will also be a re-entry tournament.

There will be two Day 1 flights (both played Saturday, actually), with players eliminated from “Day 1a” (lasting nine 40-minute levels) unable to buy back into that flight, but able to buy in to Day 1b on Saturday evening.

Then -- if I’m not mistaken -- when Day 2 begins players who only played one of the Day 1 flights and busted can if they wish buy in a second time just before play resumes on Sunday. But those who’ve bought in and busted twice already don’t get a third chance. Covering these events before, I don’t recall that many coming to buy in at the start of Day 2 (either for a first or second time), but a few generally do.

Like I say, now these re-entry events have become somewhat standard, thus making it possible for the WSOP to try yet another variation on the theme at the Crown Melbourne this week.

I’m curious to see what kind of statistics emerge regarding participation in WSOP APAC Event No. 1. I’m sure many who busted will be back to fire another $1,100, but I wonder whether many of those who survived today will think it worth coming back again to try to accumulate more chips.

I suppose people could once more argue that those with deep pockets stand better chances to win these re-entry and “accumulator” tournies. That said, it’s already true that those with the ability to play more tournaments necessarily have more opportunities to win them.

Not everyone is a fan of the way re-entry tourneys are taking over, of course. For more on the debate over re-entry tournaments, here’s a Card Player piece from a year-and-a-half ago which includes several players’ offering thoughtful observations about the pros and cons.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Caesars Atlantic City Main Event, Day 3 -- A Game for All Ages

It’s a cold, gray day in Philadelphia this morning. I am sitting at one of the gates in terminal B at the Philly airport, where the seats, carpet, and walls are all gray as well. A bit of a contrast from the colorful scenes I have been witnessing the last three days helping cover the World Series of Poker Circuit Caesars Atlantic City Main Event.

As has become a habit of mine lately, I’ve arrived for my flight a couple of hours early. I might have taken a later train from Atlantic City and thus cut down on the waiting time, but I decided against chancing any possible weirdness that might have arisen along the way to create problems for arriving ahead of my departure time.

After those first two marathon days (discussed here and here), yesterday’s third and final day ended in relatively rapid fashion. Of course, it was still a 12-hour day, as play began at noon, ended a little before 11 p.m., and it was after midnight by the time my last task was completed.

Joseph McKeehen took the sucker down, leading the entire final day as the tourney played down from 19 to one. Indeed, once the final table began he had close to half the chips in play, and around four times the stack of the player in second position. Thus were there a number of short stacks, and the formula added up to one of the quicker final tables they’ve had on the WSOP-C this year (if not the quickest), ending in less than three 75-minute levels.

McKeehen is just 21, but already has two six-figure cashes under his belt now thanks to yesterday’s $174,150 score. He was kind of an entertaining player to cover, a friendly guy who provided a lot of fun (and at times funny) table talk along the way. He also was following the live blog on his iPad for a lot of the tournament and would sometimes engage us with responses to the hand updates, which occasionally helped make things a touch more interesting for us, too.

Actually there were a number of interesting personalities at the final table. Raymond Morgan was an amiable guy who engaged Kevin and I frequently during the tourney’s last couple of days. Meanwhile, white-haired Tom Sheets finished 10th (thus not quite making the “official” final table). He amazed everyone at one point yesterday when he revealed he was 76 years old. Among other facts about himself, he additionally mentioned being able to do 120 push-ups as part of the explanation for his not necessarily appearing his age.

Dennis Thurman, who finished fourth, was another old-timer at age 64, and he also surprised his opponents who’d guessed him to be younger. He explained how he still works full-time driving a truck, and in fact plays about 100 tournaments a year as he tours the country. Two-time WSOP Circuit ring winner John Holley (aged 51) and Leo Walker (aged 46) were also at the final table, helping further to make the average age much higher than what one usually sees among the final ten of a tourney.

You’ve read me writing of physical exhaustion and mental fatigue the last couple of days, but I have to say seeing these older fellows’ performance as they played (and thrived) through 30-odd hours of poker was somewhat inspiring. Poker most certainly is a game for all ages. And as if to prove that truism, it was the youngest player of the final table -- and perhaps one of the youngest among the 540 entries overall -- who ultimately triumphed.

Despite the heavy workload, it was great fun working with Kevin, Nolan, and the rest of the WSOP folks, many of whom I’m starting to get to know after having done a couple of Circuit events already this year. I’ll be doing two more east coast WSOP-C tourneys in April, too, and so expect to see them and probably a lot of the same players again as well.

Am glad now, though, to be heading home where I’ll stay put for the next month or so. Still consider myself part-time when it comes to this traveling reporter thing, which is how I like it. Kind of like being a “recreational player,” you might say, which kind of makes it easier to keep enjoying doing these things and get some pleasure out of the work involved.

We are getting close to boarding time. Still gray out, though the sky is starting to brighten just a bit. Maybe by the time I get back home there will be some blue to greet me.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Caesars Atlantic City Main Event, Day 2 -- The Grind

It’s a grind, man. These WSOP-C events, I mean.

Was lamenting the lost hour (to the start of Daylight Savings time) in yesterday’s post, and how much we all missed that extra time to rest and recover following a 15-hour day. Had another 15-hour one yesterday for Day 2. Longer, actually, as play started at noon, ended around 2:30 a.m., with work starting before and ending after.

Today’s Day 3 may well match the first two days, too, I imagine, as far as how long it will take is concerned. With the late re-entries, yesterday the tourney began with 299 players and over the course of all those levels and hands of poker just 19 made it through to the final day of play that again will start at noon. They will have to play down to a winner today and tonight, so I imagine it’ll be some time after midnight again before it’s all done and dusted.

I definitely felt myself wearing down a bit yesterday, with all the standing, running back and forth between the floor and the laptop, and constant mental challenge to blog, count chips, keep track of bustouts and winners, and so on reminding me over and over how much I’d missed getting a decent night’s sleep.

I didn’t even mention yesterday how about an hour after hitting the hay there was an alarm that went off down in the casino that kept on bleating for nearly 15 minutes, long enough to wake up the whole hotel including yours truly. Was one of those “whoop whoop whoop” repeaters that after grabbing the attention went on long enough to inspire first a studied analysis of the slightly different pitches of the three notes, then plunged the listener into terror-filled anxieties that it would never, ever, ever stop.

But stop it did, and we all got a few more hours of slumber before play began. The afternoon saw over 200 players eliminated, then after dinner the bubble burst. Lana O’Brien who was of the blogging crowd some time back (working for CardRunners along the way, I believe) made the money, but just barely as she was knocked out along with another player, Patrick Chan, during hand-for-hand play which meant the two of them split 54th-place money. Basically amounted to getting not quite the buy-in back, but better than getting none back at all.

Both Christian Harder and Matt Glantz made the money, but both were short when the bubble burst and ended up going out in 35th and 27th places, respectively. The big leader heading into today is Joseph McKeehen with about 1.9 million.

McKeehen was involved in what was easily the most memorable sequence of the day when he managed to pick up pocket aces on consecutive hands to knock out two opponents, with one of those pots being over a million. Was kind of funny as earlier in the night after the money bubble had burst he’d said something to me about how the “made-for-TV” hands were coming after we’d seen a K-K-versus-A-K encounter knock out another player.

I’ve commented before here how covering these events amounts to a kind of intense immersion into the very specific experience of a tournament, made even more so when you find yourself spending two-thirds of your waking hours with it. And, really, nothing else. Everything happening outside of the room kind of fades away as long as the tournament lasts -- at least that’s the case for me, as I have trouble being able to do much of anything else when I’m covering a tourney.

My blogging partner Kevin (“tayke2”) helped make things easier for me during the long day, of course, as did Nolan Dalla here reporting for the WSOP site. Also going a long way were several statements of support from players during the day expressing appreciation for the updates. I can easily see how the bloggers who regularly work these WSOP-C events begin to develop a kind of camaraderie with the players who frequently play in them. Hard not to pull for them all, especially when it gets late in a tourney and everyone has similarly fought through the exhaustion and other challenges to persevere.

No alarms last night, so somewhat better rested this morning. Click over to PokerNews today for coverage of Day 3 from Caesars Atlantic City, where Kevin and I will be using DeAndre Jordan as inspiration as we slam through the final day.

Travel Report: 2012-13 WSOP-C Caesars Atlantic City Main Event, Day 1 -- If This Were Yesterday, What Time Would It Be Now?

As the clock turned two this morning -- and then, in a flash, turned again to three -- I turned to WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla.

“I’d like to suggest a moment of silence for the loss of that hour,” I said. He shook his head and chuckled. A long day behind the laptops was finally coming to an end.

We’re both here at Caesars Atlantic City to cover the World Series of Poker Circuit. He’s been here the last 10 days or so, actually, as he’s covering all 12 events for the WSOP blog. Meanwhile I am here for the three-day Main Event which had gotten underway Saturday way back at 11 a.m.

Play had only just concluded -- 15 hours after the first hands of the day were dealt -- and there was still more work to do before we could call it a night. And like a rude postscript to the day, we’d suddenly leaped forward yet another hour deeper into the evening. Meaning, of course, we were already one hour closer to the start of Day 2 and another long work day.

I’d noticed earlier in the week this was to be the weekend that Daylight Savings Time was to be begin. I think we always miss that hour somewhat, but I knew already I’d be missing it even more given my assignment this weekend.

As I continued to tidy up some loose ends and prepared to pack up my stuff and head up to my room, I thought of a question Vera asked me a few years ago on the day after we’d sprung forward.

“If this were yesterday what time what it be now?”

I also remembered two years ago when I came to cover this same WSOP-C Main Event at Caesars. It was the same weekend, with Daylight Savings Time again kicking in. In that instance, the tournament had begun on Friday, so we were at the end of Day 2 when the time change occurred.

Twenty-odd players remained, I recall, and some fairly hilarious confusion began to circulate among the three remaining tables as players struggled to figure out exactly what time it really was. No one seemed to know for sure if the clocks were to be moved forward or back, and looking back at the post I wrote the next morning I think the so-called “smart phones” didn’t used to be as smart two years ago when it came to automatically adjusting the time.

As we closed in on the end of play last night, announcements were made noting the time change, the reminders designed to prevent anyone from missing today’s noon start. And while there were a few follow-up questions, the message seemed to be readily understood by all.

As was the case at the WSOP-C Harrah’s AC event I helped cover in December, this event featured two Day 1 flights in a single day, comprised of nine 40-minute levels each. Players busting during “Day 1a” had an option to re-enter the evening “Day 1b” session. Also, anyone eliminated only a single time on Saturday still can buy in a second time before the start of play today, and while it is doubtful there will be too many taking that option those that do will still get to start with a stack of 25 big blinds.

Though arduously lengthy, the day went relatively smoothly, and I enjoyed working alongside Kevin (my PokerNews blogging partner) and Nolan again. Not too many so-called “big names” among the 519 total entries yesterday. Steve Dannenmann, Christian Harder, and Matt Glantz were probably the best known of the bunch. Dannenmann didn’t make it through to today, having busted in both flights, but Glantz and Harder both did.

Another “big name” (especially around here) was Roland Israelashvili, and I’m not just talking about the number of letters in his name. Israelashvili took 25th in last summer’s WSOP Main Event, gaining him some notice. But here in Atlantic City everyone knows Roland. After all, he final tabled this same event the last three years in a row, including winning it back in 2010. But like Dannenmann, he, too, would bust twice yesterday to end his WSOP-C run prematurely.

Had a few funny exchanges with players throughout the day, something I’ve mentioned before is always more likely to occur at these Circuit events than at the relatively more series WSOP bracelet events in Vegas. Probably my favorite happened when I was hovering near the table of Christopher Leong who has managed to win two of the preliminary tournaments here this week, thus giving him a shot at winning an unprecedented three WSOP-C gold rings at a single stop.

Players at the table noticed my presence, then began wondering aloud which among them might be the reason for my being there to watch them play early level hands. One joked that he was “paulgees” -- i.e., the New Jersey-based player Paul Volpe, who I do remember playing in this event two years ago. Volpe, of course, has been busy on the other side of the country this week where he has been making consecutive final tables at World Poker Tour events in California (at Bay 101 Shooting Stars and the L.A. Poker Classic). Some might remember him as well for having like Israelashvili made a deep run at the 2012 WSOP Main Event where he finished 20th.

Finally the conversation at the table began to focus on Leong, whom some suspected had in fact done something of note during the week. "Is it really true he won two rings this week?" one of his opponents asked of me, and I just smiled and shrugged as Leong sat silently. “It's okay,” the player continued. “You won't be giving anything away. He’s wearing the rings!”

Everyone laughed, including myself. Leong wasn’t wearing the rings, of course, but the jig was up nevertheless. He did manage to survive the day, albeit with a short stack, so chances are I might be hovering near his table some more at the start of play today.

It’s a tough schedule, no doubt, although I suppose things get balanced out a bit thanks to the ease of traveling to relatively close destinations like AC. The accommodations are nice enough here, too, and staying on site always makes it easier by shortening those trips back and forth to bed.

I’m not even sure what the schedule entails today, but I know for sure it’s going to be another long one. Looking back at two years ago when the event was not a re-entry and players played longer on Day 1, I’m seeing how we had 81 work their way down to a final table of nine on Day 2. That obviously ain’t happening today, as there still a whopping 268 left. Gonna assume we’ll get it down around 20 or so, thus probably setting up another long one on Monday to settle it.

At least we know we won’t be losing another hour tonight.