2009 WSOP, Day 1: It Gets Real

Another fun day yesterday. Ended with a couple of hours of socializing at the bowling alley over at the South Point Hotel and Casino with AlCantHang, the Poker Shrink, California Jen, Benjo, FerricRamsium, Pokerati Dan, Change100, Dr. Pauly, Dave King, Tom Bostic, and a few others.

Made it back home by midnight and so am reasonably rested (I think) for the upcoming grind. Before that the day had been taken up with a few more setting-up-shop type activities (got the rental car, finally got the friggin’ internet connection working here in the home away from home, etc.). Then spent part of the afternoon with about two-thirds of the PokerNews’ staff enjoying some delicious BBQ over at Lucille’s in Henderson. Big fun reuniting with a few more of the crew, as well as meeting some new folks. We talked a little shop, too, but the day was more devoted to pleasure than business.

That’ll change today, when we have some more preparatory meetings. Then work really begins in earnest tomorrow.

Technically speaking, today is the first day of the 2009 World Series of Poker, as that Casino Employees Event, a $500 buy-in, two-day no-limit hold’em event (Event No. 1), kicks off at noon. PokerNews will report something on that one, I believe, but won’t be giving it the attention the other 56 bracelet events will receive as far as live blogging and everything else goes.

So, really, all eyes are on that Event No. 2, the much anticipated $40,000 buy-in, Special 40th Annual No-Limit Hold’em event that starts on Thursday. Or, as Mike Matusow referred to it on the most recent episode of Wise Hand Poker (5/20/09), what “truly could be the dumbest idea in the history of the World Series of Poker.”

Matusow’s criticism is focused primarily on the timing of the event -- i.e., placing it right here at the start rather than later on. “Why, in God’s name, when you juice everybody to death, would you want to bust everybody on Day 1?” he asks. He went on to suggest it would have made a lot more sense to have positioned it after the $50K H.O.R.S.E. and before the Main Event, or really anywhere other than right off the top.

I can see a couple of obvious reasons why the decision was made to position the $40K NLHE event at the beginning. As many have observed, the presence of a no-limit hold’em tournament in the WSOP with a buy-in that exceeds that of the Main Event does have some significance. For one thing, the Main Event is the only so-called “World Championship” bracelet event in the entire schedule for which the buy-in is not the highest for that particular game. (Was writing about that here some three-plus months ago when the schedule was first announced.)

So there’s a good reason not to have the $40K NLHE event happen too closely to the Main Event -- namely, to prevent encouraging any sort of thinking that the Main Event isn’t really “the big one.” Daniel Negreanu was asked to comment on the event on the Two Plus Two Pokercast (the 5/19/09 episode), where he was specifically asked about the possibility of the $40K becoming a regular part of the schedule. “The danger there,” said Negreanu, “is that it really does change what the Main Event is. I mean, it’s kind of silly, wouldn’t you think, to have the $40K buy-in not to be the Main Event if it [were] to happen every year. And I think it’s dangerous to do that, because then you sort of dwarf the significance of the Main Event.”

That’s one reason why this year the sucker is early, not late -- so as not to dwarf the ME. Another reason for having it early is probably tied to ESPN’s production schedule. As you know, the network is only filming four events for broadcast later this summer and fall, the $40K NLHE event, the WSOP Champions Invitational, the Ante Up for Africa Celebrity Charity Poker Tournament, and the Main Event. The first two happen right at the beginning (this week), while the latter two occur right at the end (in July). ESPN will therefore be able to do their work this week, disassemble everything and send most of the crew away for a month (save the smaller group who will remain to do the ESPN360/Bluff final tables), then come back and reshoot at the end.

So how many will enter the $40K? Matusow seems to think the turnout will be huge -- 250, easily, or maybe even more. Which will be good for the moment, but bad ultimately, says the Mouth. “They’re gonna be just horrified, because they are going to get a way bigger turnout [for the $40K event] than they thought, and all of the other tournaments are going to be way down.” Negreanu was less concerned about the impact the event was going to have on turnouts for the rest of the Series. In fact, he seemed to suggest that having it so early will mean fewer will actually enter the event, since having it later could have made it possible to have more satellites.

The number I’m hearing most often is 225 or thereabouts. That seems to be the “line” near which most over-under bets are happening. I talked about it some at the BBQ yesterday with Tom Bostic and Jeremiah Smith. You might remember Jeremiah from his deep run in last year’s Main Event, or perhaps his hosting of PokerRoad’s Cash Plays podcast. He’ll be playing in several events this summer (though not the $40K), and will be doing some blogging over on PokerNews as he goes.

We all had our ideas, but none of us really know. Indeed, with just a few short hours until the WSOP gets underway, that’s kind of how the next seven weeks exist in all of our minds at the moment. We have vague notions of how it all will happen, but the specifics are yet to be determined.

’Cause you can study and you can prepare. But then the cards go in the air.

For the Record (Thoughts on Tracking Tournament Winnings)

Yesterday I happened to be hunting around over on Hendon Mob looking up players’ stats. That’s the comprehensive, quite reliable site that compiles poker tournament winnings and presents them in a way where one can quickly see a player’s cashes, overall earnings, year-to-year stats, and so forth. Nearly 100,000 players are listed there.

Came across one dude’s totals and when I saw his lifetime earnings had one of those “yeah, but” moments as I wondered just how many tourneys he’d actually entered. I started to think about how it would be interesting for someone to compile statistics that included the number of tourneys a person had played, thus providing some added context to the number of cashes and total winnings.

I mean, the way it looks over on Hendon Mob, everyone is winning and no one is losing. All cashes, no fees.

Was pondering this one a bit more as the day wore on. I thought that while it would be improbable to expect all tournaments everywhere to make available complete lists of entrants to a site like Hendon Mob, perhaps the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour could handle such a thing with regard to their respective series of tournaments.

If the WSOP began keeping track of all entrants this way, they could compile databases such as one finds on PGA.com and its associated sites. Those guys keep track of everything everyone does it seems, including cuts made, scoring average, driving distance, greens in regulation, how they did on par threes, and so on.

If all entrants in poker tourneys were tracked, the WSOP could (say) for a given year show us who had the best ROI (return on investment) percentage, who did best in the higher buy-in events, who had the most cashes per entry, and the like. And eventually statistics could be compared from year to year, adding further information to consider when debating players’ relative abilities.

Later in the day I listened to Mike Matusow interviewed over on the Wise Hand Poker podcast (the 3/18/09 episode), and coincidentally he spoke to Wise about how in his opinion he had “the best year in the history of poker” in 2008, even though “nobody really wants to put it on record and say what kind of year [he] had.”

According to Matusow, he played in 21 tourneys, cashed in 11, made five final tables, and won one, Event No. 18 at the 2008 WSOP, the $5,000 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw w/Rebuys event. (By the way, that picture above lists Matusow’s 2008 WSOP cashes.) “Nobody realizes I only played 21 tournaments... when most people play a hundred,” he added.

Of course, 11 cashes looks impressive, anyway. But out of 21 tourneys -- if that’s accurate, well that is fairly special.

At first I thought Matusow was implicitly supporting this idea I had about keeping track of folks’ entries in order to produce stats which more closely indicated how well players were performing.

Then I realized -- what a horrible idea. Why?

Because the publication of such information, while perhaps satisfying fans’ curiosity, would likely have a detrimental effect on the players. And the tournaments, too. The WSOP or WPT would have little to gain, I would think, from showing all of its players (and the rest of the world) exactly how much they’ve lost over the course of their respective series. Could possibly discourage some from entering tourneys, even. In any event, I can’t really see how it would help.

Of course, sites like SharkScope (where the graph on the left representing one player’s stats appears) have made the publication of such information about players’ performances in online multi-table tourneys and sit-n-gos a significant part of that world, with players routinely looking up their opponents’ stats which do not hide the number of times they failed to cash. (SharkScope focuses on SNGs, while other sites provide similar info regarding MTTs.) I don’t suppose those sites have negatively affected the popularity of MTTs and SNGs -- in fact, one could perhaps argue they have added to their popularity (?) -- but I think the story for live tournament poker is considerably different.

Such are among the many special considerations those who wish to market poker as a sport -- particularly the professional tourney circuit -- have to keep in mind. The fact that most players pay their own way (aside from the lucky few whose sponsors pay their entry fees) means they cannot be treated the same as, say, those who secure PGA Tour cards or who qualify for the Sunday NASCAR races.

So it isn’t just that “nobody really wants to put it on record” how Matusow did last year. Nobody wants to put it on record how anybody did, I think. Not really.

Pokerback Writer

Have arrived at another centennial here. Seven hundred friggin’ posts. Damn lot of scribblin’ that.

Vera Valmore came up with that phrase -- “pokerback writer” -- some time ago to describe whatever it is I think I’m doing here (and elsewhere) writing about poker. This whole idea (to write about poker, that is) started on a whim, of course. As these things tend to do. Over two-and-a-half years later, and I’m writing about poker, either here or elsewhere, just about every single day. And when I’m not writing about it, I’m thinking about writing about it.

Oh, and I’m playing it, too. But even then I’m thinking about writing about it.

Last week I was referring to Vicky Coren’s interview over on Wise Hand Poker (the 1/14/09 episode) and mentioned how she had offered some thoughts in there about the relationship between writing and playing.

“I think every poker hand is a story,” she began. “My favorite situations in poker are [in a] cash game or a deep-stacked tournament, you know, and there’s an awful lot of chips... and maybe it’s on the turn and somebody’s made a big bet and you have to work out what to do. And at that point, you look back through the whole story.”

Coren is obviously not the first to make that observation about the story-like nature of poker -- how the game is constantly suggesting these tales to us over and over again, affording us countless plots, settings, characters, conflicts, themes, and differing points of view. We’re all familiar with the way the game produces such an effect, allowing us to live out all of these tales as ourselves but also as someone else.

Say, a detective.

“You know, you’re like Hercule Poirot, [doing] the detective thing,” Coren continued. “Going back over the entire sequence of events.... And you’re piecing together this great narrative, [reviewing] tiny little incidents, [asking yourself] what happened that I didn’t notice at the time but subconsciously I did? I mean it’s very poetic. It’s like reading a book, every time you sit down to play.... Watching the action is like reading a story, but it’s up to you to determine the ending.”

I like the stories poker produces. I like experiencing them. I like reading about them. And apparently, if we are to regard all this scribblin’ as evidence of something, I must like to try to write about them, too.

I also like that last bit Coren suggests, that we have a say in determining the endings of these stories. Of course, at the table, the cards ultimately tell us our fate, making our stories into comedies or tragedies. That we cannot control. Not fully, anyway.

But we don’t have to let the stories end there, do we? We can keep them going, playing another hand, making what just happened not the denouement but yet another element of the rising action, the climax, or the falling action. Or afterwards, even after we leave the table, we can continue to tell our stories, scribblin’ those hands into a larger narrative.

So thanks once more, all, for coming around again and again to follow this here story. And for telling your stories, too. We’ll all determine our respective endings eventually, I suppose.

Not just yet, though. Still a few more clues to find.

Victoria’s Secrets

The latest Wise Hand Poker podcast (the 1/14/09 episode) contains three interviews. Wise starts out talking to 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event champ Peter Eastgate, and concludes with a conversation with Jeffrey Haas, president of the Asian Pacific Poker Tour.

Those two interviews are fine, but the one I especially want to recommend is the middle one with British poker player, writer, and PokerStars Team pro Victoria Coren. The Coren interview begins at about the 27:00-mark and lasts about a half-hour. Definitely worth checking out if yr curious to hear an insightful, articulate, and interesting observer commenting on all things poker. To share a few highlights....

During the first part of the interview, Coren discusses her poker-playing background, including winning the 2006 EPT London Main Event. That was the first televised final table ever won by a woman, and so Wise asks her a bit about the significance of that achievement.

Coren immediately responds with what I thought was a very provocative comment about men, women, tournaments, and cash games. Coren says that she, like many others, had previously found herself “falling into the trap of believing that women are more natural cash game players than tournament players. You know, [the idea that] in cash games where there’s virtue in patience and perception and guile, women were better suited to it, than [to] the aggressive, blustery nature of a tournament.”

Coren’s victory at the EPT London helped her see through this notion, realizing there wasn’t anything particularly “natural” about women being better suited to cash games than to tourneys. (“It proved to me that was a load of old hogwash,” as she puts it.)

Perhaps an obvious dichotomy to some -- this suggestion that we might theoretically “gender” tournaments and cash games this way -- but one I can’t say I had necessarily thought about all that much before. Since I spend about 95% of my poker time at the cash tables, I don’t generally spend much effort contemplating all that deeply the differences between cash games and tourneys (though I certainly immediately recognize ’em whenever I do decide to take a seat at a MTT).

That issue of the relative “competitiveness” or “aggression” of men and women at the poker table emerges as a kind of theme in the book Women’s Poker Night (2007), edited by Maryann Morrison. I reviewed that book here a while back, if you’re curious. As it happens, several of the essays in that collection deal in one way or another with the notion that “there’s a killer instinct women don’t naturally have” (as one contributor, Raparata Mazzola, quotes pro Kristy Gazes saying).

Interestingly, in the interview Coren goes on to talk about her own game and explicitly notes how despite her tournament success she still believes she lacks the “killer instinct” at times, and in fact recognizes that as a weakness in her game. But it is a weakness with which she is willing to live.

“For me, it’s a balance,” says Coren. “I want to beat the game, I want to be successful, I want to win, but I want to do it while still being able to sleep at night and look myself in the mirror with pride. And I’m aware that it’s a cruel game with a lot of hard edges, but I think I can find my way through it doing things that are morally acceptable to me while still winning.”

There’s more of value in the interview, including some thoughts from Coren about “poker writing” (and some of the great poker narratives), as well as a comparison or two between poker playing and writing (of special interest to yr humble gumshoe, for sure).

Coren is at work on a poker narrative herself. I would expect it to be a good one, given her writing background. She currently has regular columns in both The Observer and The Guardian, and she’s also already authored or co-authored four books, including one detailing her experiences trying to produce a porn movie, titled Once More With Feeling (2002). (Was a little surprised Wise didn’t ask her about that, though I suppose he was being tactful.) If yr interested in that, or anything else about Coren, you can find out more on Coren’s website.

Meanwhile, if yr wanting to hear some thoughtful commentary about men, women, writing, and poker, check out that interview.

PokerNews News

My association with PokerNews began around May 2007. Card Player had covered the World Series of Poker in ’06, then the next year Bluff secured the rights and an agreement was made to have PokerNews handle the live reporting. I came on board to help out with some background stuff and also write some for the site while all the first-stringers were in Vegas that summer. I have continued to work with PokerNews ever since.

Early last year John Caldwell, the Editor-in-Chief over at PN, asked me if I’d be interested in coming out to Vegas and helping with the live blogging at the WSOP. I took him up on the offer, and have noted here several times how positive an experience that was. As a poker player and fan, it was a blast to be there at the Rio for those seven weeks and experience the madness up close.

A huge part of what made the summer so satisfying -- both personally and professionally -- was the smart, supportive, fun group of folks with whom I got to work. I probably interacted with and in many cases worked closely with more than 50 different people, and I know there were more coming and going who were also part of the team. It really was a “team,” with everyone genuinely looking out for each other and committed to making the coverage as good as it could be.

And while there were other talented people who had a lot to do with the whole operation running so smoothly, Caldwell was the one overseeing the sucker. Hellmuth might’ve been prancing around the Rio in the general’s outfit, but Caldwell -- never one to seek such attention -- was the one leading troops.

Yesterday we heard the news that Caldwell had decided to step down from his post over at PokerNews. Dr. Pauly quickly posted his thoughts, and if you’re interested you might head over to Tao of Poker to see what he has to say and to read the comments, too, for others’ reactions.

Thought I’d also take the time to add my thanks here to Caldwell for the opportunities he’s sent my way, and for having done such a terrific job over the years helping build PokerNews up into a prominent part of the poker media landscape.

If you’re curious to learn more about Caldwell and/or PokerNews, you might check out the 3/26/08 episode of the Wise Hand Poker podcast on which Caldwell appeared as a guest. Gary Wise interviews Caldwell for the first half of that episode.

Wise and Caldwell began the show chatting some about the history of PokerNews (which first started up in late 2004), moved on to talk about Caldwell’s background working in the music industry, then spent the rest of the conversation discussing the role of poker media in general and PokerNews in particular. Last spring I wrote a post here, titled “Sunshine & Lollipops,” that focused on that latter portion of the interview, particularly the issue of how the poker media has to negotiate this sometimes-tricky business of reporting on subject matter -- i.e., gambling -- that certain segments of the general public find objectionable.

The first part of the interview -- the part in which Caldwell relates some of the background about PokerNews -- is interesting, too. Caldwell tells about the site’s humble beginnings, starting over at pokernews.info, then gravitating to pokernews.com, and how thanks to “a lot of hard work and a lot of belief” the site was able to grow.

Caldwell notes that a “big turning point” for him occurred when PokerNews began to focus on providing content in languages other than English. In 2005, a German version of the site was launched, then one in French, until eventually versions of the site became available in over 30 languages.

That meant finding qualified people in all of those countries to translate articles appearing on the main site, as well as to report on items of particular interest in to poker players and fans in those countries, too. A huge undertaking, to be sure. And fascinating, really, when one considers the extent of the site’s reach.

I do hope PokerNews makes it okay without Caldwell. And, of course, that Caldwell does well, too, without PokerNews.

The fact is, when it comes to poker media and the professional circuit, it is probably best to understand that nearly everything is subject to change at any moment. Tournament series appear and disappear, the WSOP is constantly revising itself, advertisers come and go, and thus are media outlets constantly affected by a myriad of forces that are mostly out of their control. Indeed, Caldwell’s lengthy tenure at PokerNews (going on five years) is something of an anomaly, really, insofar as he’s helped provide a kind of stability there that one doesn’t really find much elsewhere in the industry.

As I say, best of luck to Caldwell and his family. And to PokerNews, too.

Worryin’ About Hurryin’: The 2008 WSOP Main Event Final Table

Was catching up on some podcasts over the weekend and heard Gary Wise’s interview with David Rheem on Wise Hand Poker (the 8/13/08 episode). Rheem is one of the so-called “November Nine” who made the delayed final table of this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event. You might remember Rheem from his appearance at the Event No. 4 final table (the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event) shown on ESPN a couple of weeks ago. He entered that final table the chip leader, but ended up going out in fifth.

You might also recall back in July an article appeared in the South Florida Sun Sentinel reporting Rheem had an outstanding warrant in Hollywood, Florida for apparently having failed to appear in court in 2003 on a misdemeanor trespassing charge. Less widely circulated was a subsequent report that the 2003 warrant is apparently no longer valid.

I had heard Rheem interviewed once before on the Two Plus Two Pokercast (Episode 32, 7/14/08), but on Wise’s show Rheem mentioned something new. When asked his thoughts regarding the 117-day delay before the WSOP ME final table, Rheem admitted that when he began the tournament, he had no idea such a delay was scheduled.

According to Rheem, following Day 2 he had a decent-sized chip stack and was discussing the tournament with some friends. “They were, like, ‘you know, once you make the final table, you make a three-month break,’ and then, you know, I almost lost money on it because I didn’t believe them. I was like ‘I’ll bet you money that you don’t!’ And then when their arm was out ready to shake my hand, I knew they were serious.” Rheem said he then went to the Tournament Director to confirm, and that’s when he first found out about the delay.

There was no hurry, I guess. Not like it really mattered on Day 2.

Rheem seems pretty likable. So do his fellow final tablists Dennis Phillips, whom I heard interviewed on Phil Gordon’s The Poker Edge (7/24/08), and Craig Marquis, who appeared on The Poker Edge as well (8/7/08). Listening to their interviews got me wondering about where things stood heading into that final table, still nearly three months away.

Play stopped in the early morning hours of July 15th with exactly 21 minutes and 50 seconds left in Level 33. That means these guys played over 65 hours of poker to get to this point in the tourney. The blinds are currently 120,000/240,000 with 30,000 antes. Here’s what each player will have in front of him when the first hand gets dealt on November 9th:

On the World Series of Poker website, there’s an article dated July 15th that purports to give final table seat assignments, but that information is incorrect. As Dennis Phillips mentioned on The Poker Edge, they will be drawing for seats five minutes before play begins on Nov. 9th.

I listed the number of big blinds each player currently has as well as the “M” or ratio of one’s stack to the current total of blinds and antes -- i.e., the “cost per round” figure popularized by Dan Harrington and Bill Robertie in their Harrington on Hold’em series.

On the most recent episode of The Poker Edge, Phil Gordon suggested that “the pace of play at that final table is going to be ridiculously slow.” He was referring to the fact that when it came to players like Marquis -- whom he said was “not exactly short-stacked, not exactly desperate yet” -- “you’ve got 40 big blinds, there’s no hurry.”

Indeed, if one looks at the “M” ratio of the nine players, a lot of them are still in that “Green Zone” (an “M” of 20 or higher) in which Harrington and Robertie say “all moves are available.” However, Arnold Snyder, in his discussion of “chip utility” in The Poker Tournament Formula 2, would certainly disagree with the notion that “there’s no hurry” when one is down to 40 big blinds.

For Snyder “full utility” is only possible when one has 100 big blinds or more, a situation only Phillips and Demidov currently enjoy. That, says Snyder, “is the minimum stack size required for unhampered post-flop play, including information bets and more advanced moves on later streets or against more aggressive deep-stacked opponents.” Snyder describes a stack size of 60 big blinds as still “competitive,” though not “fully functional.” Stacks of 30-60 big blinds have “moderate utility,” and below 30 makes one’s utility “low.”

Of concern here for players other than Phillips and Demidov is the fact that 20 minutes after they start play on November 9th -- i.e., probably less than one orbit -- the blinds and antes will be moving up to 150,000/300,000 plus 40,000. That means unless a player like Marquis picks up a pot within those first few hands, he’s down to 30 big blinds and “low utility” (according to Snyder’s rubric).

Gordon’s comment reminded me that he had said something similar last year at the start of the 2007 final table. Indeed, that final table also began with 120,000/240,000 blinds and antes of 30,000, with roughly the same total number of chips in play. After the first hand of that final table -- in which Jerry Yang raised to 1.4 million from under the gun, was called by a late position player, then took the pot with a big bet on the flop -- Ali Nejad spoke of the 630,000 that was in the pot before each hand began and how that was a decent-sized prize to go after.

“Yeah, but the blinds are very small in relation to the stack sizes here,” answered Gordon. “There’s not a single player at the table who’s ready to just push under the gun or raise all in…. It would surprise me greatly -- unless there are just some huge hands, like aces versus kings or something like that -- to see any elimination here in the first three or four hours of this tournament.”

Anybody remember where we were after four hours last year? No less than four players -- Philip Hilm, Lee Watkinson, Lee Childs, and Hevad Khan -- had already busted.

We’ve a long time to wait, still. But I tend to believe we’re probably gonna see some serious hurryin’ once we get there.

Is This the Real Life?

Left Vegas nearly two weeks ago. Have been hanging out with Vera, visiting family, resuming a more stable sleeping pattern, etc. Have also gotten back into my usual online poker playing routine -- mostly short sessions (1-2 hour) at the cash tables, scattered here and there. After those two months in the desert, life is starting to return to “normal” (whatever that was).

Am also listening to the podcasts again, and enjoyed hearing Gary Wise’s post-WSOP show (Wise Hand Poker, 7/23/08 episode) in which he compiled a number of interviews he conducted throughout the summer.

Among the several interesting conversations in there is a 20-minute one with Brandon Adams. Wise talked to Adams just after his big Day 1 of the Main Event (he ended the day among the chip leaders). Before Day 2, Adams had helped pull together a high-stakes cash game at Bobby’s Room in which he and about a dozen others had convened for a $300/$600 PLO/NLHE game. Oh, and everyone also had to pony up a $300 ante each hand, too, just to make things interesting.

The discussion of the cash game is compelling enough, but I especially enjoyed hearing Adams’ comments about his non-poker life. Some of you might know Adams is kind of an anomaly in the poker world, having gone to graduate school and picked up a couple of Masters degrees (one in economics), then having entered Harvard’s Ph.D. business program in 2001 where he did all of the course work and is now what they call “A.B.D.” (all but dissertation). In 2004 Adams published a novel, titled Broke: A Poker Novel. He also continues teach courses at Harvard every spring in behavioral finance and, more recently, in applied game theory.

“This makes you unusual as a poker player,” said Wise. “Because you are a successful poker player, yet you choose to have a job. What keeps you teaching?”

Adams quickly came up with a witty response to the question. “I like to keep one foot in the world of respectability,” he said (amid Wise’s laughter).

“And the other in the real world?” Wise cracked (pun intended).

Adams went on to talk about how much he enjoys being in the college/university environment, full of interesting, smart people who are in a place where they actually have the time and energy to explore ideas, be creative, and learn.

I appreciated the exchange for a couple of reasons. Wise’s reference to the poker world being the “real” world is funny because of how often that world is characterized as fantasy land -- is defined, in fact, as being a place where “real” world obligations and concerns simply do not register.

That’s the primary allure of professional poker (for some). In The Biggest Game in Town, Al Alvarez well portrays what he calls the “different ordering of reality” that routinely goes on in the world of high-stakes poker where Adams currently spends a lot of his time. Alvarez writes about how some of those who live in that reality particularly value being able to avoid the so-called “straight world” or “stay outside the system.”

Wise’s reference also reminds some of us of how the college/university campus -- that intellectually-stimulating environment that Adams values -- is also often regarded as somehow not being the “real” world. For Adams, teaching his classes gives him the chance to challenge others and explore ideas without money being on the line. That’s what the classroom is -- a place where theories are formed and discussed, then later can be tested or confirmed outside the classroom in the so-called “real” world.

Adams clearly benefits a great deal from having this sort of balance in his life. He went on to tell Wise how he’s been involved with the very high-stakes games for the last three years or so. He mentioned how especially helpful it was for him to have his teaching and other interests when dealing with steep downswings on the poker side. “At those times you really appreciate being able to fall back on… being a part of a broader society, if you will,” Adams explained. “I would never be willing to give that up to go full force into poker.”

I’ve written before about the “double life” of the poker player, although my emphasis was a little different in those other posts. There I was talking about the fact that in my “real” life I am mostly interacting with people for whom poker is essentially a non-entity -- if it has any meaning at all, it is as a signifier for gambling, sin, or other unsavory activities. As a result, I don’t normally share my poker-related experiences with them the way I do here.

This summer the contrast of my “double life” became even more stark as I physically relocated and spent most of two months doing nothing but writing about poker under this here pseudonym. Still, I like (and can identify with) what Adams is saying about “being a part of a broader society” and how that helps keep one grounded.

I didn’t experience the severe highs and lows of the high-stakes player, of course. But I did immerse myself in the poker world there for a good while, a place where much that might seem fantastic, alien, or even impossible exists. It is good to be back over here in this one again, if only to regain that sense of balance.

Not gonna venture to guess which of these worlds is the “real” one. Am inclined, in fact, to agree with that other great existentialist, Freddie Mercury’s bohemian, and say it doesn’t really matter to me.

Sunshine & Lollipops

I mentioned a few weeks back how I enjoy listening to Wise Hand Poker, Gary Wise’s weekly podcast over on Rounder’s Radio. I never catch the show live -- indeed, I don’t ever catch any of these poker shows live -- I just grab the downloads whenever they become available. So while I assume he had a new show last night, I only listened to last week’s show (the 3/26 episode) yesterday.

It was a good one, in my opinion, with two more thorough, fairly absorbing interviews. The first was with John Caldwell, Editor-in-Chief of PokerNews. Wise and Caldwell talked at length about the current state of poker media, coverage of the Absolute Poker scandal, exclusivity deals (e.g., for covering the WSOP or WPT), among other topics. The second guest was Andy Bloch who shared a lot of interesting observations about the new film 21 and the book on which it was based, Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House. Was quite intriguing to hear Bloch discuss the huge differences between what actually happened with the M.I.T. blackjack team and how the story has mutated (quite wildly, in some particulars) into its various fictional forms.

Getting back to the first interview, though, there was one observation made by Caldwell that I found especially insightful -- something that brought together a couple of different ideas I had explored here before, but which in itself struck me as something I hadn’t necessarily consciously considered (nor written about, of course).

I’ve written several times here about the poker media and the various (mostly commercial) reasons why it often fails to be “objective” -- or at least reasonably free and unrestrained -- when covering the poker world. Wasn’t that long ago I was discussing that issue in an earlier post about Wise Hand Poker in which I reflected on some of Wise’s interview with Linda Johnson. Johnson had told Wise about her experience as the publisher and owner of CardPlayer back in the 1990s, and her notion that part of her role was to be “a ‘good will’ part of the industry,” an idea she mainly connected to the fact that advertisers wouldn’t support the magazine otherwise.

I’ve also written here more than once about the way poker is viewed by much of the general population as objectionable. Probably the most recent attempt to address that subject was about a month ago when I wrote “On the Poker Haters.” There I discussed a few of the many reasons why folks tend to denigrate poker as a disreputable activity.

During the show, Wise brought up the tendency of some poker media outlets to gloss over or suppress negative stories about particular players or other occurrences. Then he asked Caldwell for his thoughts on the subject. This is where Caldwell made that point I thought brought together a couple of earlier interests of mine.

Caldwell said that with regard to poker, “I try very hard to -- at least within some parameters of responsibility -- portray things in a positive light. Reason being, I feel like there are a lot of people out there that would like to see . . . that consider poker not okay. [If] the surge in the popularity of poker waned, they would like to see all of that stuff go away. So as a result, I’m going to do what I can to try to promote the game and try to put the game into a positive light . . . .”

I suppose I have always been aware of this idea -- this need, really -- for those who cover poker to remain aware of poker’s negative reputation (particularly among non-poker players). The idea is certainly related to the more practical concern of keeping advertisers happy. However, I think it is safe to say Caldwell is really thinking not so much here about the bottom line as about the big picture.

The truth of the matter is there are a lot of “poker haters” out there, and many are certainly on the lookout for further evidence to support their point of view. It makes sense, then, for those who cover poker to want to promote the game as a legitimate pastime/recreation/career. And I like Caldwell’s additional qualification that it is okay to do so “within some parameters of responsibility” -- another “big picture”-type point to make.

Wise responded by asking Caldwell when he thought we were going to be able to know that poker had gotten past this stage in its development -- this stage of poker media needing to try to promote the game as well as simply report on it -- and therefore stop delivering what he called the “sunshine and lollipops version of the game.” (Wise admitted that he himself is guilty at times of coloring the game in a perhaps overly-rosy light, too.) Unfortunately, the conversation moved into another direction and the pair did not return to the question.

If I were asked that question, I’d probably say that will happen only when poker becomes accepted into society as readily as other games, sports, and/or forms of popular entertainment. In other words, not any time soon -- indeed, probably not ever. The fact is, as long as poker continues to be regarded as a shady activity that provokes bitter reactions, those who cover it are gonna find at least some sunshine and lollipops to be necessary.

On Poker Mags

I like Gary Wise’s podcast, Wise Hand Poker. Took me awhile to decide, but I realize I’ve come to look forward to listening to the shows whenever they turn up in the feed.

(Of course, Rounder’s Radio could upload them suckers more regularly. And more quickly. As I have mentioned before, I don’t generally sit around the computer waiting to hear live shows, so if it ain’t available as a download, I probably will miss it.)

Wise writes for Bluff Magazine, ESPN, and some other outlets, and so has a lot of connections in the poker biz. His two-hour shows generally consist of a couple of lengthy interviews with fairly well-known guests. The long format suits Wise -- he does like to talk . . . a lot. But he gives his interviewees a lot of room, too, to respond to his usually thoughtful questions. And ultimately I almost always feel like I get something out of the interviews.

On the February 6th episode of Wise Hand Poker, Wise had recent Women’s Poker Hall of Fame inductee Linda Johnson on as a guest. Johnson is another highly likable and thoughtful person (I recommend the interview, which takes up the second half of the episode). She is sometimes called the “First Lady of Poker” thanks to her important contributions to the industry, as well as her accomplishments as a player. Besides helping establish the Tournament Directors Association and being the publisher and owner of CardPlayer from 1993-2000, Johnson also has over a quarter million in tourney winnings to her credit, including a WSOP bracelet in the 1997 $1,500 Razz event.

About a half-hour into the conversation, Wise asked Johnson some questions about her prior experience overseeing CardPlayer. I was particularly interested in his question “Was CardPlayer intended to be a journalistic magazine, or was it intended to be . . . more entertaining?”

Without hesitating, Johnson answered that the magazine was not intended to be “journalistic.” “At least when I ran it,” explains Johnson, “we never made the pretense that were [producing journalism].” Rather, the primary purpose of the magazine “was to support the poker industry.”

Johnson then immediately brought up how this orientation affected the way CardPlayer would address, say, a scandalous story that might reflect poorly on the industry. (Her example was of a tourney director who was stealing from the rebuy pool in his tourneys.) Johnson explained how CardPlayer wouldn’t necessarily publicize such stories, “because I felt like we were sort of a ‘good will’ part of the industry.” Besides, if they did report such stories, “the advertisers would not support us, and unfortunately you have to have advertisers’ support to make it go.”

Makes sense, frankly. And such is most certainly still the case today, with advertisers having an even greater influence (I’d argue) over the editorial content of industry mags like CardPlayer, Bluff, All-In, and the like.

I mention all of this because I noticed the latest issue of CardPlayer (Vol. 21, No. 3) does, in fact, include an article on the Kahnawake Gaming Commission’s January report of the Gaming Associates’ audit of Absolute Poker. And yes, the article comes just ten pages after a two-page spread featuring Serinda Swan (in a Wicked Chops-esque get-up) encouraging us all to sign up over at Absolute (when we’re done lookin’).

The article (by Bob Pajich) is a straightforward summary of the report of the audit, with no editorial reflections on what the report says (or -- more importantly -- fails to say). Nor is there any attempt to address the relationship between the KGC and AP, or how that relationship perhaps makes that paltry $500,000 fine even less meaningful that it would be otherwise.

I suppose I appreciate CardPlayer’s having at least acknowledged the story. Still, rhetorically-speaking, a simple report might be read as implicitly arguing that all is A-OK at AP and we needn’t worry ever again about entrusting our moneys over there.

Which is fine, if we all understand how the relationship between CardPlayer and its advertisers means it cannot be a reliable source for unfettered, “journalistic” treatments of the poker industry. There’s great stuff in there -- the strategy columns, book reviews, and many of the other features all make it a worthwhile magazine, as far as I’m concerned. But for actual news about the industry, we still need to look somewhere other than in CardPlayer -- even if it does refer to itself as “The Poker Authority.”