WSOPE Fast Fade

I realized today that the World Series of Poker Europe played down to its conclusion over the weekend, and it never even crossed my mind to write a thing about it here yesterday. This is due to a couple of factors.

The relative lack of fanfare regarding the series from the WSOP, most poker news sites, and over Twitter meant it was hard ever to get into the sucker from afar. The time difference mattered somewhat, but in truth that never lessens my interest in the European Poker Tour events. Heck I was already tuning in today for a short while to watch coverage from Malta on EPT Live.

Another factor was that neither the WSOPE Main Event final table nor the WSOPE High Roller final table were streamed at all, the Twitching from Berlin having stopped last Thursday. In other words, just when most of us might have gotten interested, the shows stopped. (I believe that choice was made in order to facilitate shooting those final tables to be aired in edited versions later on.)

I was aware that Kevin MacPhee managed to win the Main Event, topping a field of 313 (down from the 375 who played the WSOPE ME in 2013). And Jonathan Duhamel’s victory in the High Roller -- his third career bracelet -- got more of my attention thanks to Twitter where the congratulations were coming frequently thereafter. Duhamel joins Phil Hellmuth as the only players to win both the WSOP Main Event and the WSOPE Main Event.

Like I say, though, Malta is already front-and-center for now, while the November Nine is now less than two weeks away. Meanwhile the WSOPE fade out happened fast, or at least it seemed that way from here.

2015 WSOP Europe So Far

The 2015 World Series of Poker Europe festival has been rolling along at the Spielbank Casino in Berlin for more than a week -- no shinola. They are now eight events into the 10-event schedule, with only the €10,450 Main Event and the €25,600 High Roller left to get going.

Aside from the €550 buy-in “Oktoberfest” tournament (Event No. 2), the turnouts have seemed modest-sized so far. Even so, there have been more entries and more euros at stake in Berlin than was the case at the last WSOPE that took place at the Casino Barrière in Enghien-les-Bains, France in October 2013.

Here’s a look at the turnouts and prize pools from the first six bracelet events at the 2013 WSOPE (all but the Main and High Roller):

No. 1: €1,100 Ladies NLHE -- 65 entries, €62,400 prize pool

No. 2: €1,100 NLHE Re-Entry -- 659 entries, €632,640

No. 3: €5,300 Mixed Max NLHE -- 140 entries, €672,000

No. 4: €1,650 PLO -- 184 entries, €270,480

No. 5: €2,200 NLHE -- 337 entries, €647,040

No. 6: €3,250 Mixed Max PLO -- 127 entries, €373,380

Here’s what’s happened so far through the first seven events at the 2015 WSOP (Event No. 8 has another starting flight on Saturday):

No. 1: €2,200 NLHE -- 197 entries, €382,180 prize pool

No. 2: €550 NLHE “Oktoberfest” -- 2,144 entries, €1,039,840

No. 3: €3,250 PLO 8-Max -- 161 entries, €468,510

No. 4: €1,650 NLHE “Monster Stack” -- 580 entries, €843,900

No. 5: €2,200 8-Game Mixed -- 113 entries, €219,220

No. 6: €3,250 NLHE -- 256 entries, €744,960

No. 7: €550 PLO -- 503 entries; €243,955

The offerings from each festival don’t exactly parallel each other, so it’s hard to compare individual events. Just adding up prize pools, the first six events of the 2013 WSOPE (all but the Main and HR) totaled €2,657,940 in prize pools. Meanwhile the first seven of the 2015 WSOPE have added up to €3,942,565 (boosted significantly by the big “Oktoberfest” crowd).

Meanwhile there were 1,512 total entries for those first six 2013 WSOP prelims. Setting aside the “Oktoberfest,” there have been 1,810 total entries for the other prelims so far in Berlin (3,954 with the “Oktoberfest”).

The Main Event and High Roller will earn most of the attention in Berlin -- indeed, that’ll probably be the first time a lot of folks bother to see what’s going on at the WSOPE. Thus will more comparisons be made between the turnouts at the Spielbank Casino and what was the case two years ago when 375 played the 2013 WSOPE Main Event (for a €3.6 million prize pool) and 80 played the High Roller (for a €1.92 million prize pool).

Honestly, I have barely tuned in at all to any of the streams on Twitch. Perhaps it is my connection or browser, but Twitch very often gives me trouble with freezing, buffering, and cutting out, making it less than ideal for me. And I’m thinking the Main and High Roller may not be featured over there, anyway (I have to check). If not, I’ll try to fight it and watch some, or at least look in on the updates.

WSOP Europe and WSOP Asia Pacific To Alternate Years

The World Series of Poker yesterday announced a change of plans regarding the WSOP Europe and WSOP Asia Pacific events, or at least a move away from the pattern of offering both series on an annual basis.

As you’ve probably heard, both the WSOPE and WSOP APAC will henceforth be staged on an every-other-year basis, alternating back and forth. Thus the WSOPE will be taking a year off in 2014, with the WSOP APAC happening in October of next year (and featuring 10 bracelet events). Then the WSOPE will return in 2015 with the WSOP APAC stepping aside. No word at the moment on how many events will be included at the 2015 WSOPE or when (or where) it will be held.

Numbers at the 2013 WSOPE last month weren’t stellar, with some small fields and the Main Event slipping from 420 entrants to 375, kind of settling back toward where the ME field sizes began at the WSOPE when it began when 362 entered in both 2007 and 2008. The 2013 WSOP APAC in Melbourne (the first year of the series) also featured some events with small turnouts, although a healthy 405 entered the Main.

There was some talk earlier in the year that having the WSOP APAC (in April) come so close on the heels of the Aussie Millions (in January) might have affected turnouts somewhat as some players chose one over the other, with most choosing the Aussie Millions. Having the WSOP APAC in October again puts it within three months of the Aussie Millions (in January), although this time the WSOP series will come first.

Some immediately began talking again about the whole WSOP Player of the Year debate in response to the announcement, an issue of importance only to a very small percentage of players, though nonetheless one that gets an inordinate amount of attention from forum posters and media folks.

The news made me think back to what WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart said back in May 2012 when the WSOP APAC was first announced, in particular the suggestion of a “goal... to establish the worldwide grand slam of poker.”

That thought seemed to suggest further expansion, with perhaps a fourth location for a WSOP series in the works and a global schedule rivaling other “grand slams” such as the one in tennis with its four “majors” in Australia (the Australian Open), France (the French Open), England (Wimbledon), and the U.S. (the U.S. Open).

Such could still happen, although this week’s announcement suggests if it does it will be later than sooner. Responding to comments on his Twitter feed yesterday, Stewart noted how the WSOP “never desired to be a tour,” but was committed to the idea of the World Series of Poker reflecting how poker is indeed a “Worldwide game.”

Will be interesting to see over the next few years how the WSOP continues to fare as far as bracelet events outside of the U.S. are concerned.

If You Never Go All In, You Cannot Lose

“Tournaments are like plus-EV lottery tickets... or in some cases, minus-EV lottery tickets.”

That was an idea tossed out by Phil Laak this week while helping with the commentary on the WSOP Europe live stream. Kind of an interesting observation, I thought, about tournament poker that highlighted how much luck is involved in winning a tourney while also noting that some players can via their skills and tourney know-how lessen that chance element -- or, with a lack of such know-how, increase it.

During some of the breaks this week on the WSOPE stream they’ve been showing clips from last year’s WSOPE Main Event final table won by Phil Hellmuth. Saw the finale again a little earlier today, including Hellmuth’s coming over to the rail after winning and saying something about having been all in and at risk only a single time throughout the entire tourney.

We take him at his word, I suppose, but in truth I think that is one statistic Hellmuth can be counted on to keep track of as he plays -- namely, the number of times he’s been all in and at risk in a tournament. He’s famously pronounced in the past with pride his ability to avoid such spots in tourneys. Of course it is an inarguable truism that if you never go all in versus a player with more chips, you cannot possibly be eliminated. (Easier said than done.)

Was kind of setting those two ideas beside each other today while watching what has turned out to be a long heads-up battle between Fabrice Soulier and Adrian Mateos, thinking about how that strategy of avoiding all-ins -- when employed in conjunction with a lot of other poker skills, of course -- can work to improve ones chances in the tourney “lottery.”

Especially in a relatively small field tourney like the WSOPE Main Event usually is -- Hellmuth topped a field of 420 last year; there were 375 entered this time -- the chances of making one’s way all of the way through it without being at risk more than once is better than is the case, say, in the WSOP Main Event where I have to imagine all nine of those who made this year’s final table were at risk somewhere along the way, perhaps more than once. Would be interesting to sort that out regarding this year’s November Nine (if possible).

In any event, it’s interesting to think how playing a tournament is on one level a willing acceptance of risk (especially from the perspective of a cash game player), a primary strategy of the tournament itself is to avoid risk.

Have a good weekend all. And whatever you do, manage your risk appropriately.

From the Front Row

Kind of a crazy day filled with various tasks and obligations that carried me past the dinner bell without even having stopped to eat anything. Looking up and realizing night had fallen, I remembered having agreed to go see a Charlotte Bobcats’ preseason game with my friend, James, a season-ticket holder who had asked me earlier in the week about going.

I raced down the highway to arrive shortly after tip-off, then was pleasantly surprised to discover James had in fact scored us a ticket upgrade that put us courtside, right on the first row just a few feet from the baseline. Even better, the ticket got us into a buffet -- free through the first quarter! -- and before we got comfortable in our seats I’d had the chance to fill my empty belly with some good eats.

Like I say, the day had been filled taking care of a number of different tasks, all done while I had the WSOP Europe €25,600 High Roller final table streaming, eventually won by Daniel Negreanu who also clinched the WSOP Player of the Year for his finish. That’s two WSOP POYs for Negreanu after having one before in 2004, and caps a fairly remarkable year’s worth of tourney finishes dating back to his WSOP APAC Main Event win.

Was kind of interesting to hear it reported early on during that final table that those remaining had made a “gentleman’s agreement” not to collect any information from live stream which came with a half-hour delay and with hole cards shown after the hands had completed. (For more about the delay and players utilizing such info, see last week’s post “The Blessing and the Curse.”)

I think my favorite comment regarding that agreement came via Twitter from Mike “Tîmex” McDonald who tweeted “Just a headsup if I’m ever part of a gentleman’s agreement to not utilize hole card info from a live stream. My word is worth under €725,000.”

Actually I stayed away from Twitter for much of the day, especially once the final table got going in earnest, as I didn’t care to have results reported ahead of time. That delay starts to work on you after awhile, I think, so much so that once I finally tore myself away from work to go to the game it was a little disorienting suddenly to be back in “real time” so to speak.

Sitting so close to the action was a little jarring, too. I would say I felt like Haralabos Voulgaris, who whenever he sees an NBA game live he invariably sits courtside. But it was preseason, and the Bobcats and the Cavs, and, well, that ain’t exactly “high rolling.” But it was fun to pretend. The Bobcats won tonight, though it will probably be another long season.

Was also in very close proximity to lots of sideline reporting going on, and glancing over shoulders I saw people blogging and tweeting not unlike what I do when live reporting from poker tournaments. Indeed, it took me a few years to figure this out, but that sort of work resembles sports reporting more than anything else, and thus when people ask me what I do these days I find myself often quickly bringing up reporting on sports as the easiest way to explain writing about poker all the time.

Speaking of NBA ball, I’m contributing to a roundtable over on Ocelot Sports that will appear soon in which some of us are picking over/unders on all 30 teams, so check over there for that.

Now I’m back home and settling into some more sports-watching in real time, flipping back-and-forth between Game 2 of the World Series and my Panthers playing Tampa Bay. Will slide back into the delay again tomorrow, though, I imagine, to see that WSOPE final table play out, again taking a front row seat... on my couch.

The Blessing and the Curse

Woke this morning to watch some of the WSOP Europe live stream on PokerListings, catching most of the final heads-up match of Event No. 3, the €5,300 no-limit hold’em Mixed-Max event in which Darko Stojanovic of France came back to beat Dan O’Brien of the U.S. to win the bracelet.

These live streams are so commonplace now, many of which come on a delay of some sort and feature hole cards. The ability to go back through the program and instantly click back to earlier moments also adds a lot to the experience when following along.

I believe the 2011 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure might have been the first, most prominent experiment with the format, which means we’re going on almost three years’ worth of having it around. One of the first questions that came with the delayed-with-hole-cards format was how it would affect the actual play of tournaments -- that is, when players found out later what their opponents had in hands in which they hadn’t shown, how might they use that additional knowledge going forward?

This Event No. 3 finale this morning presented an interesting moment during O’Brien and Stojanovic’s heads-up battle that brought that issue to the foreground again, a match-changing hand that saw a big bluff succeed.

The “mixed max” format has players carrying stacks forward through the tourney, which meant in this case O’Brien had a healthy 3-to-1 advantage to start the heads-up match with 1,594,000 to Stojanovic’s 507,000.

Stojanovic quickly evened the score, however, after the Parisian turned two pair on just the second hand between them. But a few hands after that O’Brien took back a big chunk to push back out in front, setting up Hand #12 which began with O’Brien at 1,337,000 and Stojanovic with 764,000.

The hand began with a 2x button raise to 20,000 by O’Brien who held , then Stojanovic three-bet big to 70,000 with and O’Brien called.

The flop then came , giving O’Brien top pair and Stojanovic a gutshot to Broadway. With 142,000 in the middle, Stojanovic led with a huge overbet of 160,000. O’Brien paused at that for a short while, then called, and the pair watch the turn bring a cliché of a “blank card,” the .

This time Stojanovic shoved all in with his last 533,000, and O’Brien took about four minutes before folding.

The live stream commentary was provided by David Tuchman, Max Steinberg, and Jesse Sylvia, and during that lengthy tank Steinberg spoke about how strange Stojanovic’s line was ("That makes no sense") while also developing a convincing argument for why it was very difficult for O’Brien to call, even predicting (correctly) that he would fold.

O’Brien still had the lead after the hand with about 1.1 million while Stojanovic had climbed back to just under 1 million. A few hands more and they were even, then as Stojanovic nudged out into the lead the trio began speculating about what would happen when O’Brien eventually found out about Stojanovic’s bluff.

Steinberg referred to “the blessing and the curse of the 30-minute delay,” something he himself had some experience with after making a couple of final tables during the WSOP this summer. “It’s almost like you don’t want to find out” explained Steinberg with reference to such a hand and the possibility of learning definitively what your opponent had.

About 15 minutes after the hand took place, they explained on the live stream how O’Brien -- in real time -- had spoken to his rail and likely had learned that Stojanovic held Q-J in the most memorable hand of their duel thus far. “He looks sort of down on himself,” speculated Steinberg, and the discussion moved on to consider how (or whether) O’Brien might be affected going forward with the knowledge that had he called the bluff early in the match he very likely would have won the tournament.

The pair would ultimately play 53 hands before Stojanovic won, and so it was probably only for the last dozen or so that O’Brien would have known about the bluff. In truth, it wasn’t obvious on the live stream that he was especially affected by any extra knowledge of the earlier hand, no more so than he might have been by the doubts about it that probably were lingering in his mind anyway. Meanwhile, they were still breaking down the hand right up until the last few hands, with the consensus favoring O’Brien's fold. “It was a good fold with the information he had,” said Steinberg.

I tend to think O’Brien probably felt the same even after getting the additional information. Now I see O’Brien is tweeting that he’s about to jump on the live stream to do some commentary on the Event No. 4 final table and to talk about his match, so I’ll think I’ll jump off here to tune in.

The Bracelets and the Bucks

The 2013 World Series of Poker Europe is underway, kind of appearing suddenly and without too much fanfare amid all of the other tours already up and running all over the globe, not to mention the coming of the November Nine which is now just three weeks away.

I remember in 2008 when the WSOP first announced the whole delayed final table concept less than a month before the start of the Series that summer. One of the instant subplots created by the announcement was the fact that the WSOPE (which only began in 2007) would be playing out before the Main Event concluded, which meant a lot of curiosity about whether or not the WSOP ME final tablists would be turning up in London (where the WSOPE was then held) prior to their final table playing out in November.

After six years’ worth of delayed ME final tables, there doesn’t seem to be that much fuss about the current November Niners and the WSOPE. Nor is there quite as much of the “Are WSOPE Bracelets ‘Real’?” debate happening like there once was, although the conclusion of the first event over the weekend did stir up a few related discussions.

You’ve no doubt heard by now that Jackie Glazier, fresh off of finishing 31st in the WSOP Main Event in July (where she was the last woman eliminated), won the first of eight gold bracelets to be awarded in Paris this week when she took down the €1,100 Ladies Event. Glazier won €21,850 for topping a field of 65 players.

Obviously some want to debate whether non-open tourneys should be regarded as “real” bracelet events. The undersized field of 65 and/or the relatively small first prize can be cause for some also to build similarly-themed arguments.

That first prize of €21,850 is well under what the winner of every other bracelet event during the 2013 WSOP took away. In fact it’s almost five times less what the smallest first prize was this summer (David Chiu’s $145,520 for winning the $2,500 stud event), and that’s not counting the Casino Employees Event. Even there, Chad Holloway won a prize nearly three times as large ($84,915).

A couple of the bracelets won at the 2013 Asia Pacific back in April also featured five-figure first prizes, with Jim Collopy winning AU$69,992 ($1,650 PLO) and Phil Ivey AU$51,840 ($2,200 Mixed Event).

Such comparisons are diverting, but do they add up to a coherent argument about the worth of a WSOP bracelet? Ever since a bracelet came with a $18,346,673 first prize attached, any ideas of a “range” in which first place prizes ought to fall somehow seem less persuasive.

The same might be said for field sizes (which in the case of the “Big One for One Drop” in 2012 was smaller than Event No. 1 at the 2013 WSOPE), the relatively quality of fields, or other of the several distinctions that tend to make every tournament unique.

I’m of the mind that each WSOP bracelet event is different, anyway, and while it’s hard not to equate them on some level to do so always requires momentarily setting aside each event’s uniqueness in favor of indulging in a different kind of scorekeeping.

Hellmuth and the WSOP

Last week I published a post just as the WSOP Europe Main Event final table had reached a break and only four players remained. As we all know, Phil Hellmuth ultimately emerged as the winner at that table, topping a field of 420 players to earn another gold bracelet to go along with the 12 he’s won at the WSOP in Las Vegas over the last two-plus decades.

After Hellmuth’s win, Grange95 wrote a post titled “Hellmuth & the Hobgoblin” reminding us all of the “Should a WSOPE bracelet count?” debate that started when the WSOP Europe began in 2007. He even pointed to an item I’d written for Betfair Poker almost exactly two years ago in which I brought up the debate.

Both Phil Laak and Gus Hansen had just won bracelets at the 2010 WSOPE (the last in London), and perhaps as a result there had been a revival of discussions over whether or not the bracelets won in Europe were as valuable or coveted as the ones won in Las Vegas. I’m guessing we’ll start hearing similar debates -- though perhaps pursued less energetically -- when the first World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific (“WSOP APAC”) kicks off in April 2013.

In that Betfair item I mentioned Matt Savage (who served as a tourney director for the WSOP in the past) suggesting the WSOPE bracelets were “like a real bracelet” and WSOP VP Ty Stewart firing back that yes, indeed, they were.

The piece also quotes none other than Phil Hellmuth having discussed the issue just a few days before on a podcast, The Hardcore Poker Show (the 9/27/10 episode). There Hellmuth maintained that a WSOPE bracelet was “not the same thing” as a bracelet won in Las Vegas, even going so far as to say that “everybody knows it's not really a bracelet.”

When Hellmuth made that pronouncement a number of people quickly responded by saying as soon as he won a WSOPE event he’d be changing his tune. Such seems to be the case, and Grange95 has some fun in his post pointing out the irony of the Poker Brat’s situation.

There was a lot more reaction to Hellmuth’s win last week, almost all of it coming in the form of praise for his accomplishment in Cannes and expressions of awe at his having added yet another big win to a storied career. The €1,022,376 first prize (equal to about $1.32 million) represents his second-biggest score ever, only exceeded by his prize for finishing fourth in the “Big One for One Drop” where he won about twice that ($2,645,333).

If we count those WSOPE bracelets (and I think we all are at this point), Hellmuth extends his record total to 13, now three ahead of Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan. And, of course, he’s the only player to win both the WSOP Main Event and the WSOPE Main Event.

Among the reactions to Hellmuth’s victory came a few voices bringing up another idea some have been floating pretty much since Hellmuth parted ways with UltimateBet at the end of 2010. In fact, it’s an idea some were talking about even before Hellmuth had officially cut ties with UB when he’d begun turning up at events during those last couple of months no longer sporting UB gear, something I wrote about in November 2010 in a post titled “Signs of the Times: Hellmuth & UB.”

The idea I’m referring to is the possibility of Hellmuth signing with the WSOP itself as a sponsor. Speculation about such usually has been linked to further conjecture about the WSOP getting seriously involved with online poker, perhaps even in the U.S. (should legislation and other factors align properly).

Somewhat ahead of the curve, B.J. Nemeth briefly sketched out this scenario in a post back in November 2010. The announcement that Hellmuth was no longer to represent UB then came on December 30, 2010. Black Friday arrived a few months later, after which the whole discussion of site sponsorships quickly receded to the background.

Like I say, though, the thought of Hellmuth becoming some sort of spokesperson for the WSOP hasn’t gone away, as evidenced by a few people articulating it once again in the wake of his WSOP Europe Main Event win.

Of course, the whole idea of the WSOP ever wanting or needing a spokesperson might well be a bunch of applesauce. (Indeed, I’d be one to favor not having such a figure at all, at least not among active players.) But if we were going to speculate about the selection of a spokesperson, would Hellmuth be a candidate?

He’s won the most bracelets, he’s made the most final tables, and he has the most cashes. Whenever one goes to search players in the WSOP database, his name is the first listed, right at the tippy-top. He’s obviously one of only a handful of players non-poker people sometimes recognize as a “poker pro” (as currently understood). And he’s known not just stateside but around the world for his accomplishments at the poker table.

If it ever does come to pass that the WSOP is looking for someone to represent them as a kind of spokesperson, then, wouldn’t Hellmuth be a reasonable choice?

I say no way. A couple of reasons spring to mind.

For one, his long-term association with the UB/Cereus crowd, including continuing to promote the site and essentially turn a blind eye while insider cheating scandals rocked the poker community, should make him much less attractive as a potential spokesperson.

In that “Signs of the Times” post from a couple of years ago I noted how “the UB patch has become a unique symbol. It yields various interpretations, but for many it evokes certain, specific themes, including greed, fraud, self-interest, and other negative and/or detrimental associations for poker.” I also noted how Hellmuth’s long-time connection with UB meant that even if he were to stop wearing the logo he’d still always be linked to the site and all of the destructive influence it brought upon the poker community. He “always will be... UB.”

That said, some will argue that since Hellmuth hasn’t been linked to any of the cheating scandals directly, we shouldn’t hold his UB past against him. In other words, that we should overlook his overlooking the scandals.

Even so, the WSOP could do much, much better than to hire the world’s whiniest winner and poker’s poorest sport. (That photo up top of Hellmuth in the fetal position is from the 2010 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars event, taken just after his being eliminating in sixth.)

There’s not much need to catalogue all of the many examples of the Poker Brat’s being bratty, although for a few recent additions to the list check out Jen Newell’s “Table Talk” column (for Poker.co.uk) in which she describes some of Hellmuth’s bad behavior at the WSOPE final table.

“Congrats to the best tournament poker player that ever lived!! Phil Fking Hellmuth” tweeted Doyle Brunson (@TexDolly) a short while before the WSOPE Main Event concluded. Like others, I couldn’t help but react similarly to Hellmuth’s win and acknowledge a remarkable sequence of performances at the WSOP and now the WSOPE.

But as far as electing Hellmuth spokesperson for the WSOP/Harrah’s is concerned, I can think of hundreds of candidates for whom I’d rather vote.

What the Hellmuth?! 2012 WSOP Europe Main Event Nears Finish

At the moment just four players remain at the €10,450 buy-in 2012 World Series of Poker Main Event in Cannes, France. The players are currently on an extended break but will be returning at 21:45 CET (15:45 ET) to finish things up today.

Just 420 entered the 2012 WSOPE Main Event, down big time from the 593 who played last year and thus continuing that trend of lower turnouts in Cannes this time around.

Phil Hellmuth, seeking his 13th career WSOP bracelet after winning his 12th this past summer in Vegas in the $2,500 razz event, came into today’s final day of play with the chip lead. He continues to sit on top with four left with a stack of nearly 5.5 million.

The Ukrainian Sergii Baranov is currently in second (with about 3.75 million). Baranov has just a few prior scores from the European Poker Tour and the Russian Poker Tour, his highest-earning performance to date coming from having won a preliminary event at EPT Vienna in 2010.

In third right now is Joseph Cheong (with 2.1 million), who we all remember from his deep run at the 2010 WSOP Main Event where he finished third. A mostly dominating performance at that final table led most to assume we’d hear more from Cheong, and indeed he’s put up a number of impressive cashes since including another near-miss at the WSOP this summer in the $5,000 “mixed-max” event where he finished second. Cheong also went fairly deep in the WSOP Main Event this summer, finishing 116th.

Finally in fourth is the Frenchman Stephane Albertini who sits with 1.26 million. This was the first year for any French players to win bracelets at the WSOPE, with both Roger Hairabedian and Giovanni Rosadoni grabbing gold. Albertini has collected some nice cashes over the last couple of years, mostly in Europe. He also made a relatively deep run at the 2011 WSOP Main Event where he finished 46th to earn $160,036.

Will probably have to check in on the PokerNews updates once they restart things about 90 minutes from now. Might have to see as well about the live stream situation, although as I’ve mentioned here before I’m shut out from the ESPN3 applesauce and so probably am going to remain in the dark as far as that’s concerned.

Amazing, if not too surprising, to see Hellmuth at the summit once again. As I wrote about over on the Betfair Poker blog this summer, his tournament poker record is pretty much without parallel.

Sure, like many I kind of instinctively root for Hellmuth to fail, the resulting schadenfreude being just too damn sweet to resist. That said, it is remarkable (and impressive) to see him in the mix for yet another big poker prize. And his presence certainly makes the playing out of a WSOPE Main Event final table that much more interesting to follow.

Cannes Openers: 2012 WSOP Europe Underway

The 2012 World Series of Poker Europe is currently in full swing in Cannes, France, with the first three bracelets (of seven) having already been won, and one more to be claimed later tonight.

In Event No. 1, the €2,700 buy-in six-handed no-limit hold’em event, Imed Ben Mahmoud topped a field of 227 to win. Mahmoud is the first player from Tunisia ever to win a WSOP bracelet of any sort. Meanwhile runner-up Yannick Bonnet came one spot shy of grabbing a first WSOPE bracelet for France.

Event No. 2, a €1,100 NLHE tourney, drew 626 entries. Antonio Esfandiari won a third career bracelet in that one. Again, it was a Frenchman who took second, Remi Bollengier.

It looks like France finally broke through, however, in Event No. 3, the €5,300 pot-limit Omaha tourney, where just moments ago Roger Hairabedian of beat the Finnish pro Ville Mattila heads-up to win. I remember “Big Roger” as one of the more entertaining personalities from WPT Marrakech a couple of years ago. (I believe Marrakech is Hairabedian’s current home, although he was born in Marseille.)

They drew 97 entrants for the PLO event. Event Nos. 4 and 5 are underway as well, and it looks as though so far the overall turnouts are significantly lower than was the case last year.

The schedule is essentially the same except for all of the buy-ins having been increased slightly from 2011. But check out how the number of entrants fell off in the first four events (see left).

Esfandiari’s win follows his big victory this summer in the “Big One for One Drop,” the one in which he won a bracelet and that massive $18,346,673 first prize. (Yeah, I know -- he didn’t really win $18-plus million, as he was staked for much of the million-dollar buy-in.)

I remember covering a tournament just after the “Big One” in which Esfandiari was playing, I believe it was Event No. 59, a $1,000 no-limit hold’em tourney. It was Day 1, and Andy Frankenberger (who also won a bracelet this summer) was asking Esfandiari from a neighboring table if his win in the $1 million buy-in event had counted toward the WSOP POY race.

Esfandiari said he didn’t know. He then asked me if I knew, and I remember finding out (confirming with our buddy Kevmath) and reporting back that yes, indeed, the “Big One” counted.

I seem to recall some discussion after that at both players’ tables over whether or not the $1 million buy-in event should count toward the POY race. That debate was revived this week after Esfandiari won the €1,100 event and grabbed the POY lead away from Phil Ivey.

Some are arguing the “Big One” should not count. Others are suggesting as well that counting WSOPE events is not necessarily right, given that a significant number of players who played in Las Vegas over the summer don’t make the trip to play in the European events. The fact that the WSOPE also only spreads no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha (i.e., no stud or draw, no mixed-games, etc.), has been brought up as well by some as a reason for excluding the Cannes tourneys from the POY race.

I don’t have a problem with counting the WSOPE events toward the POY race, although understand arguments against doing so. I do think the “Big One” probably might’ve been excluded as an utterly unique tournament (both in terms of the participants and the buy-in) that doesn’t really belong in the category of events being weighed against one another for the WSOP POY.

The POY race is still up for grabs, though, as Ivey, John Monnette, David “ODB” Baker, and Phil Hellmuth (who round out the current top five) are all in Cannes battling for bracelets along with leader Esfandiari. Those are the current standings to the left, which are being updated here as the events play out over the next week in Cannes.

That’s one reason for checking in on the coverage (on PokerNews and the WSOP site). The Main Event getting started this weekend should provide another, despite the lower turnouts and what seems a slight dip in interest overall in what’s happening at the WSOPE.

WSOP Asia Pacific Adds More Bracelets

This week the World Series of Poker announced that a new series of gold bracelet events will be happening at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia. The first installment of the WSOP Asia Pacific series will take place April 4-15, 2013, where five bracelets will be awarded.

Most seem pretty excited about the news, including many players. The Crown has a decade’s worth of history hosting the successful Aussie Millions, and it sounds like at least some pros might make a return trip down under for the WSOP APAC. (That’s the sorta awkward acronym it appears we’ll be using to refer to the WSOP Asia Pacific series.)

Shortly after the announcement, Lance Bradley of BLUFF Magazine tweeted “Coming Soon: arguments amongst poker media about whether or not WSOP APAC bracelets count as WSOP bracelets or not,” adding a hash tag clarifying his position in advance: “#TheyCount.”

Bradley is, of course, alluding to debates over whether or not WSOP Europe bracelets are “real.” By now those arguments appear to have mostly settled into a general acceptance of WSOPE bracelets being more or less equivalent in status to the ones awarded in Vegas. The WSOPE started in 2007 and has expanded over its five years with its new home in Cannes, France appearing to suit many.

The schedule for this fall’s WSOPE has already been announced, and like last year seven bracelets will be awarded. Meanwhile there will be a record 61 events at this year’s WSOP in Las Vegas, plus one more bracelet given for the WSOP National Championship. So 69 bracelets total will be won in 2012, which means if the WSOP and WSOPE stick with similar schedules in 2013 we’ll likely see at least 74 bracelets awarded.

Bracelets weren’t awarded at the first few WSOPs -- last year’s media guide lists 1976 as the first year they were -- although the WSOP still classifies those who won events in prior years as “bracelet winners.” If I follow the WSOP’s numbers correctly, there have been 954 WSOP events from 1970-2011, although there are actually 959 “bracelet winners” since five of those were mixed doubles events (in the late ’70s and early ’80s).

That means somewhere along the way this summer we’ll be commemorating the awarding of the 1,000th WSOP bracelet. When that 1,000th WSOP bracelet is awarded -- around Event No. 41, I suppose (a $3,000 no-limit hold’em event) -- I believe that will mark the 470th bracelet won since Chris Moneymaker grabbed his at the 2003 WSOP Main Event.

By the end of the 2012 WSOPE, the overall total number of WSOP events during its history will be up to 1,028, with more than half (533) having been contested during the last decade (2003-2012).

In the presser about the WSOP APAC, WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart mentions a desire eventually “to establish the worldwide grand slam of poker,” a statement that suggests the WSOP is already eyeing a fourth destination at which to stage another series of bracelet events.

Took 43 years to get to 1,000 bracelets. At the current clip it’ll take a little over 13 years to get to 2,000, although we may well get there sooner.

Epic Returns

No, that title isn’t referring to my having realized any sort of massive ROI. Rather the latest Epic Poker League series is underway, about three months after the last one concluded.

This is the third tourney series so far of the EPL’s first season. A fourth will happen late Jan.-early Feb. of next year, followed directly by the Season One Championship in which the top 27 money winners in the four “regular season” Main Events will play in a $1 million two-day freeroll.

The third EPL Main Event (which kicked off yesterday) adopts an unusual format that recalls a couple of those “mix-max” or “split format” events from the most recent World Series of Poker Europe in Cannes, France.

If you recall, the €3,200 no-limit hold’em shootout Event No. 4 at the WSOPE (won by Tristan Wade) had players playing eight- to ten-handed on the first day, three-handed on the second, then ten-handed for the final table. Then Event No. 5, a €10,400 buy-in event won by Michael Mizrachi, had them play a mix of multi-table tournament poker and heads-up. For that one, Days 1 and 2 were played as an MTT, nine-handed the first day then six-handed the next. Then from Day 3 onward the remaining 16 players played a heads-up tourney, although they carried forward the chips they’d won from the first two days, making for uneven starting stacks for the remaining matches.

The new EPL event kind of resembles that latter WSOPE event in that it begins as an MTT then becomes a heads-up tourney at the very end. Days 1 through 4 are played as a multi-table tournament, eight-handed on the first day, then seven-handed on Day 2, then six-handed on Day 3 (or on Day 2 if they get to 36 players), then four-handed on Day 4 when they will play down to five players.

Those last five will return on Day 5 and play down to two, then those two will play best two-out-of-three heads-up, starting out the first two matches with whatever stacks they had when the third-place player was knocked out. If those two make it to a third match, they’ll reset the stacks to even for the decider. (Make sense?)

Exactly 100 players came out for this third EPL $20,000 buy-in Main Event, up from the 97 who played the second Main Event (an eight-handed MTT, won by Mike McDonald) though less than the 137 who played the first (a six-handed MTT, won by David “Chino” Rheem). Erik Seidel -- surprise, surprise -- was the overnight leader among the 61 who survived to today’s Day 2. (See updates here.)

Not sure what the format will be for the fourth EPL Main Event. It had been originally planned as a “mix max” event (and #3 as a heads-up only event), but I imagine that’s being changed. Probably will end up a straightforward MTT, if I had to guess. (EDIT [added 6:45 p.m.]: Sounds like the fourth one will be a regular nine-handed MTT, but with a shot clock! Thanks, Kevmath, for pointing me to the info.)

Neither am I sure how exactly to interpret the turnout for this week’s Main Event. Or even the relationship between turnouts and the overall health and future of the Epic Poker League. If there had been a huge drop off from the second event, that certainly would’ve been meaningful. But holding steady is a less obvious indicator of where things stand, I think.

The partnering of Epic with USA Today and Big Lead Sports announced a couple of weeks ago -- a move that seems part of that general effort by the EPL to try to move poker more into the mainstream -- is also suggestive of future machinations, though again it’s hard to say what exactly it all signifies.

Meanwhile, the finale of this third EPL Main Event will once again necessarily involve several of poker’s biggest names. Kind of expect it won’t be long before the EPL makes the move others have made to offer live streaming coverage of its final tables, although I don’t believe there is any plan for such this time around. Perhaps for the big freeroll in February?

I know I’d be curious to see that. As I am about where the EPL might be headed, generally speaking.

Refreshing Reading: Following the WSOPE Main Event Final Table

Spending today following that World Series of Poker Europe Main Event final table over in Cannes, France. Once again, I’m thwarted by that damn ESPN3 applesauce, since my internet service provider isn’t listed among those who get to access anything on the site.

I’m sure the arrangement is handsomely profitable for all involved and I don’t begrudge anyone trying to make an extra buck if they can. Nor am I whining about not getting something for free (although I do pay a satellite company a decent amount per month to view the other ESPN networks).

Is a bummer, though, to be shut out. Makes me wonder about closing off what is really niche programming to a decent-sized percentage of one’s audience.

All is not lost, however, as I am refreshing the updates over at PokerNews as well as Jesse May’s terrific live blog of the Main Event final table over on the Poker Farm site.

Of course, in some ways reading about poker can be more entertaining and enlightening than watching it. Especially if the accounts are being delivered by talented scribes.

We happen to be reading The Biggest Game in Town by Al Alvarez this week in my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class, that highly literary, richly drawn account of the 1981 WSOP. Referring to the book, James McManus once wrote that “Alvarez demonstrates once and for all that an understated prose account of poker action is quite a bit more exciting than watching the game in person, or even on television with hole cards revealed.”

I tend to agree with McManus, particularly when we’re talking about a talent like Alvarez. While watching a live video of the 1981 WSOP would be certainly be intriguing, I can’t imagine it matching the depth and insight of the Englishman’s wide-ranging narrative.

Not unrelatedly, in his live blog Jesse May just now digressed to opine a bit about the trend toward live or sort-of-live streaming coverage of poker, such as will be happening in less than three weeks with ESPN’s coverage of the 2011 WSOP Main Event final table. (See his entry at 17:40.)

There all of the action -- with hole cards -- will be shown on a 15-minute delay. May invites us to imagine that gap closing even further, with hole cards being shown “immediately following the conclusion of every hand, all the hands are revealed on the screen to both players and audience alike.” It’s a logical conclusion May believes we are heading toward.

“Perfect information after every hand,” adds May. “Now every player will know exactly what his opponent had, showdown or not. Every bluff revealed. And each player will have to react to every hand both to his opponents and the audience. Now we’ve got banter, now we’ve got history, now we’ve got levelling. Now we’ve got a spectator sport.”

An interesting prospect to consider. And a wholly different game, really.

Still, wherever this all leads, there will remain a need for the post-game reflection -- “the understated prose account” that can yield still more insight or edification than can ever be delivered even when watching live.

Looks like Jake Cody just busted. Which means at the moment six remain over in Cannes, with the American Elio Fox leading the way.

Back to my reading.

LOL Americans

I was playing online over the weekend over on the Hero Poker site. While some of the Merge network sites are now allowing U.S. player sign-ups, I believe Hero is one skin that is not letting any new American players jump in. They are, however, allowing those who currently have accounts there to continue to play.

It is pretty silly, all of the different restrictions and what not. Not to mention the many hoops through which American poker players presently have to go in order to play online at all. And of course our prospects going forward remain dim as far as the near future goes, although perhaps down the road we may have some sort of legislation to allow us back online to play what Al Alvarez once called “the American game.”

Am seeing some funny usernames around the tables at Hero, stuff like “FTPTookMyMny” and “FtheDOJ” the like. On Hero you can see what country a player is from, and it does seem like whenever I check that a lot of my opponents are from the U.S.

Was playing against one guy on Saturday, though, who wasn’t from the U.S. but from Germany. He had a funny name, too -- “LOLAmericans” -- with a smirky Sarah Palin pic as an avatar.

A little later another player lost a decent-sized pot after getting it in good versus “LOLAmericans” only to be sucked out on. The loser -- a U.S. player -- got a little fired up in the chatbox about it afterwards, referring to the player’s nationality once or twice in the process. I think the username might have tilted him as much or more than losing the hand.

I had to laugh a little, both at the situation and the “LOLAmericans” name. Made me think of a couple of different stories coming out over the last few days regarding non-Americans doing a bit of trash-talking about the relative poker-playing abilities of American players and the rest of the world.

There was that story involving 2010 WSOPE Main Event winner James Bord and Matchbook.com opening up betting on who will be this year’s WSOPE Main Event champ. You might heard how Bord (who is from the U.K.) has said he will be refunding all losing bets if an American wins the ME.

A pretty bold offer, really. By the way, this year’s WSOPE Main Event at Cannes attracted a record-smashing total of 593 players. (The previous high for a WSOPE ME was 362.) Just eyeballing the list of entrants, I’m seeing 107 Americans listed in the field, meaning a little more than 1 in 6 players are from the U.S.

All of the seven WSOPE bracelet events drew big fields, in fact. Incidentally, among those first six prelims three Americans won bracelets (Steve Billirakis, Tristan Wade, Michael Mizrachi).

The other America-versus-the-rest-of-the-world story from over the weekend involved the always needling Tony G. The G decided to do a little boast-posting on his blog after getting asked by Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier to join the European team in the upcoming Caesars Cup that starts on Wednesday. That’s that team event pitting a U.S. team versus a European team that was started back in 2009 as a kind of postlude to the WSOPE. (Sort of poker’s version of golf’s Ryder Cup.)

By the way, Phil Hellmuth is captain of the U.S. team this year. I am certain Hellmuth will bring the needed gravitas to help the Americans avoid any further ridicule. I mean no one ever makes fun of him.

Tony G’s post was titled “Bring on the Americans!” and there he offers some more mostly playful-sounding vitriol directed toward the U.S. players, concluding with a somewhat confusing call to “reignite the cold war.”

He also noted there how he was betting $20,000 at 5/1 on Matchbook.com that he’d make the money in the WSOPE Main Event. After drawing a straight flush on his first hand to crack Barry Greenstein’s pocket aces, Tony G remains in the running at the moment with about 240 players left. (The top 64 cash.)

Those side bets on the online betting exchange certainly can spice up things a bit for players and fans alike. For everyone but Americans, that is, since we cannot place bets on Matchbook.com. (LOL.)

Making fun of Americans is a worldwide sport in and of itself, really. In fact, Americans themselves tend to enjoy it as much as anyone else.

How do Americans compare to the rest of the world as poker players? Historically speaking, the U.S. had a big head start versus the rest of the world with regard to poker. But I think it’s safe to say that whatever general edge Americans once had has been essentially closed over recent decades.

And given the way we’ve closed ourselves off from the online game at present, I suppose it won’t be that long before we might have to admit the U.S. will be playing from behind (generally speaking) when it comes to “the American game.”

They Called It the World Series of Poker

The 2011 World Series of Poker Europe is off to what appears to be a successful start in Cannes. Seven “open” bracelet events this time around, plus a ladies-only event, too. They are getting good turnouts thus far. And the early buzz from players seems positive with regard to the move from London to the south of France.

The WSOPE began back in 2007 and has steadily grown ever since. This year’s Event No. 2, a €1,090 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, drew a whopping 771 entrants, the most of any WSOPE event thus far. (The previous high had been 608 for a £1,000 event in 2009.)

I was thinking this morning about the early days of the WSOP, those initial few years back at Binion’s Horseshoe when only a handful of players, many from Texas or other southern states, made their way over to Fremont Street each spring.

You’ve probably read that story somewhere before. About how a fellow from San Antonio named Tom Moore staged what he called a “Texas Gamblers Reunion” at his hotel up in Reno in 1969. Moore decided not to bother the next year, partly because all of the players he’d invited did nothing but play poker and thus it had failed to produce much revenue for him.

So Jack Binion asked Moore if they could do something similar the next year, and Moore said sure. And thus the WSOP was born.

Most accounts suggest that at that very first WSOP there were a total of 38 different players who kind of came and went during the playing of five different games. However, usually only a small percentage of those names ever get mentioned as having participated, a list that usually begins and ends with Johnny Moss, Amarillo Slim Preston, “Sailor” Roberts, Doyle Brunson, Puggy Pearson, Crandall Addington, and Carl Cannon.

In his autobiography, The Godfather of Poker, Brunson notes that “about thirty different players” were there playing in the games, mentioning Jack Straus and Titanic Thompson as being among them, too.

In any case, it was a modest-sized event by any stretch of the imagination, thus making it seem all the more audacious for the Binions to have named it the “World Series of Poker.”

The following year they’d stage some tournaments, including three prelims and a $5,000 buy-in Main Event in which just six played. If you hunt around the internet you’ll find all sorts of different line-ups listed for that 1971 WSOP ME, but I trust Brunson’s memory: himself, Moss, Pearson, Roberts, Straus, and Jimmy Cassella.

That’s four Texans, a Tennessean (Pearson), and a New Yorker (Cassella). And yet they called it the World Series of Poker. And following the lead of major league baseball, the Binions would add the Poker Hall of Fame in 1979, the year the Main Event would exceed the 50-player mark for the first time. Still a pretty small “world,” really.

It would take a few decades, but the WSOP would eventually literally evolve into an international event. Players from 105 different countries participated in WSOP events in Las Vegas this summer. In the Main Event, just about 33% of the field were non-Americans coming from 84 other countries. And as usually happens whenever the WSOPE gets going, we’re hearing some chatter about the possiblity of staging WSOP events on other continents, too, like Australia or Asia or Africa.

Was a bold thing dubbing that first get-together the “World Series.” Yet, if you think about it, calling it such allowed for growth -- without limit, really -- in a way that could never be the case for, say, something like the “Texas Gamblers Reunion.”

So, yeah... I guess that turned out to be a good call.

Are WSOPE Bracelets “Real”?

The World Series of Poker Europe Main Event concluded yesterday, with James Bord of England besting an especially tough field of 346. Thus ends the five-event series, at which five WSOP gold bracelets were awarded.

Not coincidentally, there has been a lot of discussion of late over whether or not WSOPE bracelets are “real” World Series bracelets and/or should be counted in that “most bracelets, all-time” list currently led by Phil Hellmuth (with 11) and Doyle Brunson (10) and Johnny Chan (10).

The Entities over at Wicked Chops helped stir things up regarding this topic yesterday by drawing attention to a comment made by WPT Executive Tour Director Matt Savage last week on their excellent weekly show, This Week in Poker (the 9/21/10 episode). (If you’re not familiar with TWiP, click here for a quick overview.)

The question to Savage -- sent in by Jay “whojedi” Newnum -- was “How do you feel about bracelets being awarded outside of Vegas?” Savage answered without hesitation. “I don’t like it,” he said. “I don’t think it’s like a real bracelet.”

Savage then alluded to how the WSOP could very well start applying its brand elsewhere (“they could have WSOP Asia, WSOP Latin America,” etc.), the implication being that doing so would further devalue the bracelets’ significance. “I mean, the WSOP was founded in Las Vegas,” added Savage. “That’s kind of what it’s about, so I don’t think those bracelets [i.e., the ones awarded in London at the WSOPE] are as valuable.”

The post over at Wicked Chops yesterday quickly drew a comment from Harrah’s/WSOP Vice President Ty Stewart, who strongly disagreed with Savage’s position while also foregrounding the competition that exists between the WPT and WSOP, especially in Europe. “It doesn’t take an investigative journalist to understand Mr. Savage’s parent company is motivated to be antagonistic to other activities in the European marketplace,” writes Stewart.

What Stewart suggests, of course, is that Savage’s devaluing of non-Vegas WSOP bracelets is connected to the WPT’s efforts to compete with the WSOP in places like London, and may or may not represent a sincere view to which Savage personally subscribes.

While I’m well aware that there indeed exists genuine competition between the WSOP and WPT -- being fought on several fronts at once -- I still think Savage’s comment was sincere and represents his personal opinion on the subject. And the fact is, there are many other folks (including players, media, and fans) who aren’t tied to the WPT or groups in competition with the WSOP who share Savage’s view that indeed the WSOPE bracelets aren’t as “real” or prestigious as the ones won in Vegas.

Another person who doesn’t believe the WSOPE bracelets are equal to the ones won in Vegas is the fellow with the most bracelets of all, Phil Hellmuth. The Poker Brat was a guest on the most recent Hardcore Poker Show podcast (the 9/27/10 episode) where he was asked the same question Savage was about the relative significance of winning a WSOPE bracelet.

“Honestly, it’s not the same thing,” Hellmuth began. “I have a feeling that if I had won a bracelet over there [at WSOP Europe], there would have been a lot of people stepping up saying ‘It’s not the same thing,’ and it would’ve been hard for me to argue against that.”

The conversation continued for a few more minutes, with Hellmuth elaborating on some of the reasons why he believes the WSOPE bracelets can't really be considered on the same level as those won at the World Series in Vegas.

Hellmuth made some good points, actually -- kind of surprising how uncharacteristically balanced and aware he sounds here, really -- including drawing attention to the fact that when it comes to his race with the current leaders in all-time bracelets, neither Brunson nor Chan even made the trip to the WSOPE this year.

“Everybody knows that it’s not really a bracelet,” Hellmuth concludes, adding that when it comes to record-keeping, the WSOP should establish different categories for bracelets won outside of Vegas, thereby referring to someone as having one a certain number of each rather than compiling all together.

Click here to listen to the interview, if you’re curious. Hellmuth comes on about 17 minutes into the show, and the conversation about bracelets begins a little after the 23-minute mark.

As the comments on the Wicked Chops post further show, opinions over this issue are divided. Questions about the “legitimacy” or relative significance of the WSOPE bracelets have been asked since before the first WSOPE in 2007. I recounted some of that debate in a Betfair piece a couple of weeks ago which talks a little about the short history of the WSOPE, “London Calling: 2010 WSOP Europe Coming Soon.”

In that column I alluded to some of the early questioning, then added the comment that “by now that debate has subsided somewhat, thanks in large part to the high quality of player fields the WSOPE has attracted during its first three years.” (Perhaps I spoke to soon!)

So do I think WSOPE bracelets are “real”? Well, sure.

I think it is fine -- and perhaps inevitable -- for us all to debate whether, say, Gus Hansen’s victory in WSOPE Event No. 4, the £10,350 no-limit hold’em heads-up event, is as great an achievement as Ayaz Mahmood’s in WSOP Event No. 35, the $10,000 NLHE heads-up event in Vegas. The tourneys were the same in some ways, but different in many, many more.

Indeed, I think if one were to try to compare any two WSOP tournaments, the list of relevant factors making the two events different would be so long it would rapidly become evident that it is a little silly to try to claim any two tourneys are the “same thing.” In fact, one could argue differences between the 2010 WSOPE events and those played in Vegas at the 2010 WSOP are much less significant than the differences between the 2010 WSOP events and those played in the 1970s and 1980s at the WSOP.

So, yeah, I think WSOPE bracelets are “real” bracelets. I also think that for a variety of reasons they continue to carry less prestige, ultimately, than do the ones won in Vegas. But that’s true of bracelets won in Vegas, too, with some being more esteemed than others.

That said, I acknowledge that others can decide for themselves what is “real” and what isn’t. I am an existentialist, after all.

For the To Do List

Looks like another busy weekend for your humble scribe. Hell, it’s been a busy week.

Among the various scribbling I’ve done lately is a review of a book called Peak Performance Poker by Travis Steffen which went up over on Betfair today.

I liked this book more than I thought I would, and can see myself going back to it again to reread some of its advice.

It’s really more of a sports psychology book than a poker book per se, but the advice readily applies to the situation faced by poker players, I think. All about improving the body and the mind, and how those two necessarily go together.

Funny, one bit of advice Steffen gives concerns making “to do” lists, something I already tended to do before but was encouraged to keep doing after reading his recommendation. Helps me a lot just to stay organized and get things done, not to mention the small but significant pleasure one gets from striking those items off the list one by one.

Anyhow, I did like the book, so if you are looking for something like this to read you might consider putting it on your list.

On the “to do” list for me this weekend are a few items, including a last bit of work with the PokerStars’ World Championship of Online Poker which finally comes to an end after three-plus weeks. The big one is Sunday -- Event No. 62, a.k.a. the “Main Event,” a $5,200 buy-in, two-day, no-limit hold’em tournament which not only comes with a jaw-dropping $10 million guarantee, but also a $2 million guarantee for first. That’s gonna be one decent ROI for someone, come Monday.

Last year 2,144 entered the big one at WCOOP, meaning it eclipsed the $10 million guarantee. Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko took it down, earning a little over $1.71 million. J.P. “djk123” Kelly made the final table, finishing fourth, as was Jamie “Xaston” Kaplan (whom I was writing about earlier this week), who took fifth.

I’ll also be continuing to follow the Main Event (Event No. 5, £10,350 NLHE) over at the World Series of Poker Europe this weekend. Looks like they ended up drawing 346 entrants this time around, which is up from last year (334) though not as high as the 362 who played in both 2007 and 2008.

And this afternoon I’ll definitely be checking in to see who wins the rubber match between Jim “Mr_BigQueso” Collopy and Gus Hansen in the finals of WSOPE Event No. 4, the £10,350 NLHE heads-up event.

(EDIT [added 9/25/10]: That third match was postponed, as both players were involved in Day 1b of the WSOPE Main Event on Friday. Again, as I wrote about earlier this week, the situation reminds me of what happened this summer at the WSOP at the Heads-Up event there. Also makes me wonder about the best way to handle structures in heads-up tourneys.)

You probably heard about Dwyte Pilgrim winning the World Poker Tour Borgata tourney last night. I have to say Pilgrim and Collopy might be two of the most entertaining players I’ve covered at events this year, so it is kind of fun to see both doing well this week. Hansen is always an interesting guy to watch, too -- definitely too bad the WSOPE heads-up event isn’t being televised anywhere.

Heard over Twitter Hansen was playing Angry Birds earlier today. Have you played that game? I wouldn’t think Travis Steffen would recommend it as part of one’s “game day” preparation. Those damn green pigs! Puts me on tilt just thinking of ’em, sitting there staring at me with their dumb grins after I’ve failed to take ’em out.

Another thing for the “to do” list, I guess. Smash some green pigs.

Gus Goes For Gold

The World Series of Poker Europe continues to intrigue, with that “high roller” Event No. 4 -- the £10,350 no-limit hold’em heads-up event -- now down to just four from the starting field of 103.

In just a little while they’ll be starting the final day of that one. The always smiling Jim “Mr_BigQueso” Collopy will play Hendon Mobster Ram Vaswani in one semifinal match, while Andrew “Not the ESPN guy” Feldman goes against Gus Hansen. The winners will then play a best-of-three match to determine who gets the bracelet.

Incidentally, the structure for the WSOPE heads-up event is similar to that used this summer at the WSOP, only less one round. That is to say, players are taking chips won to subsequent matches, meaning the finalists today will start with nearly two million chips. (I wrote something about this format earlier this week.)

Both Collopy and Feldman are gunning for their first WSOP bracelets, while Vaswani is trying to land his second. Of course, all eyes will be on Hansen today to see if he can land his first bit of WSOP gold.

Hansen has been the focus of a lot of attention of late for his massive online losses. I wrote some about the subject not long ago. Apparently he dropped another $3 million on Full Tilt Poker in August alone!

Gloria Balding of PokerNews interviewed Hansen a couple of days ago just prior to the heads-up event. Pretty interesting stuff, actually, with Hansen not being shy at all about addressing his recent online woes.

Hansen recently suffered an injury to his Achilles’ tendon, and it sounds like his mobility has been limited somewhat as he must wear a walking cast for six weeks, then go through some rehab. “Good thing you play online poker,” said Balding in the interview. “No, right now it's actually a very bad thing that I play online poker,” said Hansen with a kind of weary-looking grin, alluding to how badly things have gone for him there of late.

A little later Hansen talked about dealing with losing and acknowledged that it “takes its toll,” sometimes causing one to play worse and thus extend the downswing. He also noted that he’s been gambling for 18 years -- including a lot of high-stakes action not just in poker, but in backgammon and a Russian game called “hachi-puri” also played on a backgammon board (not sure about the spelling of that) -- and so has become well acclimated to handling losses.

“In the beginning it was tough when you lost 50 bucks,” says Hansen. “Then it was tough when you lost 500 bucks. And so forth. So you kind of get used to it.”

Hansen goes on to draw an analogy with acting and how some may begin their careers being nervous to perform in front of crowds, but gradually grow accustomed to doing so. Like I say, an interesting interview -- check it out.

Hansen is, of course, a fairly well-renowned backgammon player who may well be offsetting some of these poker losses in those other games, even though they are less readily available for him to play, especially for high stakes.

(By the way, if you are yearning for more Hansen video, take a look at this absurdly dramatic introduction by Hansen to the rules of backgammon.)

After receiving a bye in the first round of the WSOPE heads-up event, Hansen has defeated Max Steinberg, Mark Everett, Phil Ivey, and Neil Channing to make it to the semifinals. Hansen was incredibly lucky in the match with Ivey, who had about a 4-to-1 chip advantage at one point and had Hansen all in and drawing to just two outs, one of which came to save the Great Dane.

Not necessarily rooting for Hansen today, but I do think his being there in the final four adds a lot of interest to the event. And of course if he does win, that’ll make a good story -- as would his subsequent return to the online high-stakes games which one assumes would inevitably follow.

The WSOPE Main Event (£10,350 NLHE, Event No. 5) gets started today, too -- in fact, it is already underway -- so I’ll probably once again be checking in frequently on those reports over at PokerNews. Will also be looking in over at the World Poker Tour live updates some today, where the final table of WPT Borgata kicks off a little later.

But as I imagine will be the case for most poker-watchin’ peoples, it’s gonna be Gus who’ll get most of the attention today.

Minding the Gaps in World Series of Poker History

Excitement continues over in London at the WSOPE. After Phil Laak’s victory in Event No. 1 (£2,500+£150 six-handed no-limit hold’em), Jeff Lisandro picked up his fifth WSOP bracelet in Event No. 2, the £5,000+£250 buy-in pot-limit Omaha event, coming from behind against Joe Serock heads up to win.

Today the final table for Event No. 3, the £1,000+£75 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, will play out. Indeed, it began just a few moments ago. You can follow the action online at PokerNews.

The big story today concerns English player J.P. Kelly, who won a WSOP bracelet in a $1,000 NLHE event last summer, then at the 2009 WSOPE won this same £1,000 event. J.P. Kelly is a PokerStars pro, incidentally, whom I was following over the weekend in that WCOOP heads-up event (No. 38) to which I referred yesterday. Kelly was the only PokerStars pro to make it to Day 2 of that one.

Kelly begins the final table third in chips, and thus has a chance to be the first player since Johnny Chan in 1987 and 1988 to “defend” a no-limit hold’em title in a WSOP bracelet event -- that is to say, to win the same NLHE event at the same buy-in in consecutive years.

At age 24, Kelly could also apparently become the youngest person ever to get to three bracelets. Nolan Dalla explains in his report from last night that if he wins Kelly would break Phil Ivey’s record for that (Ivey was 27 when he won his third bracelet in 2003).

Some of us were chatting on Twitter yesterday, trying to determine if yes, indeed, no one since Chan had defended a WSOP event in no-limit hold’em. Thang Luu went back-to-back in ’08 and ’09 in the $1,500 Omaha/8 event, and Phil Hellmuth won the $5,000 limit hold’em events in both ’92 and ’93. I scanned all of the multiple bracelet winners, checking who had won in consecutive years since 1988 to see if any had won their bracelets in the same NLHE events, and didn’t see any other examples of anyone winning the same no-limit hold’em event in back-to-back years during that stretch.

The Twitter conversation continued regarding the “youngest to three bracelets” question, and it occurred to me that while one can certainly find a lot of information rather quickly online to help one answer such questions, there isn’t a definitive “WSOP Records” site listing records like “youngest to three bracelets,” “title defenses,” and the like.

Later in the day the question arose whether or not a player from the continent of Africa had ever won a bracelet. Mehdi Senhaji of Morocco enters today’s Event No. 3 final table second in chips, and so the media was trying to figure out if that might be another bit of history, should Senhaji win. It doesn’t appear there has been, but there didn’t seem to be a simple way to look something like that up.

The official WSOP site has a ton of information, including info on just about every player who has ever played and cashed in a WSOP event, results for past WSOPs (all of the way back to 1970), and more. But there are gaps in the info there -- understandably, since it wasn’t until relatively recently people cared that much about any of this stuff and so record-keeping wasn’t always a priority.

The Hendon Mob site is another good one to consult for WSOP records, and in some cases has more complete info than the WSOP site does. But there is still a lot that is missing there, too.

In fact, even just trying to find information about the final tables for the WSOP Main Event during the 1970s is a hit-or-miss affair. For example, who exactly was sitting at that first final table in 1971, the first year they held a tournament to decide a champion?


The WSOP site only gives us the winner, Johnny Moss.

Over at the UNLV Center for Gaming Research site, they don’t say who the six at the final table are, but list “Amarillo Slim” Preston, Brian “Sailor” Roberts, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Brunson, Walter “Puggy” Pearson, Crandall Addington, and Carl Cannon as “notable players,” and Moss as the winner.

In their book All In: The (Almost) Entirely True Story of the World Series of Poker, Jonathan Grotenstein and Storms Reback say seven men played in the event -- Brunson, Moss, Pearson, Preston, Robert, Straus, and Jimmy Cassella -- but don’t identify the final six. “No one bothered to take notes or keep records,” they explain, conceding that “the details of what happened” during the two days of the event “have for the most part been lost to history.”

Over on Wikipedia, we find Moss, Pearson, and Bob Hooks at that final table, and the other three seats empty (“unknown”). At Hendon Mob, only Moss and Pearson (as runner-up) are listed.

Doyle Brunson writes about that event in his 2009 autobiography The Godfather of Poker. “There were only six players for this first tournament,” writes Brunson, “me, Johnny Moss, Puggy Pearson, Sailor Roberts, Jack Straus, and Jimmy Casella.”

I would be inclined to believe the first-hand witness, particularly his omission of Preston from the list of participants. Texas Dolly should remember if Amarillo Slim had played, I’d think. I mean, after all, Preston plays a pretty large role in Brunson’s story, having “faded the white line” with him and Roberts all those years.

Yet in Preston’s memoir, Amarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People (2005), he also refers to “six players each putting up the $5,000 to enter,” and includes himself as one of the six. In fact, Preston essentially takes credit for having come up with the idea of having a freeze-out tourney to determine a champ.

“I wouldn’t say I was a long shot,” writes Preston, “but very few people gave me much of a chance.” According to Preston, he finished third, with Straus runner-up to Moss.

Look elsewhere and you find still more variations, not just for the 1971 WSOP, but for others as well (especially for the 1970s). There’s probably a worthwhile historical project in there for someone. Even just an extended investigation of that 1971 final table could prove an interesting inquiry.

Those looking back at the 2010 WSOP and WSOPE won’t have these problems, of course, as every move is being watched and most every pertinent detail recorded many times over. And, like I say, I’ll be checking in over at PokerNews today to see how the history gets written.