Heads-Up and Humility

Wanted to share a short thought I had related to that Masters championship that concluded on Sunday. Actually the thought was inspired from both an impression of the ending of the golf tournament and after following the last live updates from the PokerStars Championships Macau Main Event final table, also taking place on Sunday.

I say the latter took place on Sunday, although in truth while it was Sunday morning and early afternoon here, it was Sunday evening and Monday morning in Macau, as the tournament didn’t conclude until around 2 a.m. their time. That reminded me of my lone visit to Macau back in late 2012 and the very long and late final day of the Asia Championship of Poker.

That day play didn’t end until around 3 a.m. I’ll skip over the details -- all recorded here in a blog post written after I’d gotten back -- but what followed was a kind of mad scramble by me afterwards to make my plane out of Hong Kong that morning. In fact, I didn’t make my flight, but things worked out in the end.

Much like happened back in 2012, heads-up lasted an inordinately long time at inaugural PSC Macau Main Event. In fact, it lasted about twice as long, as the final two in my tournament went about six hours while the final two last weekend -- Tianyuan Tang and eventual winner Elliot Smith -- went something close to 12 hours before finishing.

I followed the updates while chatting online with some of the fellas there reporting. I also noticed some of the talk on Twitter, with a few judgments passed along here and there about the heads-up skills of the final pair.

Televised coverage of the final round of the Masters began just about the time play ended in Macau, and as you know that ended up with a kind of protracted “heads-up” finish between Justin Rose and Sergio Garcia. By the last few holes those two had broken ahead of the chase pack, then both missed some big putts down the stretch before Garcia managed to take it down on the first playoff hole.

Heads-up is hard, man. No relaxing. No matter if it lasts a few minutes or hours and hours.

Garcia’s a poker player, as many readers of this blog probably know, regularly playing at the Bahamas each January and also turning up in tournaments in Spain. Has even cashed a handful of times, including in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure Main Event once a few years ago, although I’m not aware of him ever making it to heads-up in a poker tournament. (He does have a third-place finish, though.)

When Garcia and Rose were battling at the end -- and especially after each missed big pressure-packed putts -- there was also some censure of their play. I’m remembering someone describing the play as a “disgrace” and comparing some missed putts to what amateurs might do when playing a round for $20. That’s part of the fun of following major sporting events, though -- the armchair quarterbacking and coaching, I mean. Adds a lot to the overall entertainment.

Anyhow, the combination of these two “heads-up” matches and the crowds of onlookers made me think a little bit of my own experience, in particular that recent poker tournament I played in which I made it to heads-up and with dozens of people watching and cheering came up short of winning the sucker.

I’ve gotten to heads-up in poker tournaments plenty of times before, winning some and losing others. That might’ve been the first time there was a significant rail, though. I remember thinking afterwards that I’d played heads-up okay for the most part, though obviously second-guessed a few decisions and concluded I could’ve handled it differently. I might have thought as well for just a moment or two about what others might have thought about it all, but didn’t waste a lot of time with that, to be honest.

I’ve watched countless number of players going at it heads-up to conclude tournaments before, and I know it’s always very tempting to cast judgments as an observer. Sometimes it’s obvious enough when a player makes a mistake or poor play. In that case, criticism is essentially going to be objective and informed. A lot of times, though, it’s harder to know from the outside all the variables making up the context of each decision and/or action.

Over what is now approaching a decade of reporting on poker tournaments, I’m a long way away from having the judging instinct when watching and reporting on hands. There’s always more information than can be understood or appreciated by a spectator, even when you know the hole cards.

All in all, I’ve become less quick to jump on even the more obvious mistakes competitors will make to betray themselves as less than graceful under pressure. Especially when they’re heads-up.

Image: “one on ones,” Jurgen Appelo. CC BY 2.0.

Some Bad Hands Are Badder Than Others

I was working yesterday afternoon and so while I had the teevee tuned to the fourth round of the Masters I wasn’t paying especially close attention to it. Besides, defending champion Jordan Spieth was up by five strokes with just the back nine to go, so it didn’t seem like there’d be that much drama in store as the tournament wound toward its conclusion.

That means I didn’t quite live through the moment-by-moment agony of Spieth’s 12th hole, the par 3 that he quadruple-bogeyed. I looked up and saw he was strangely and suddenly down by three strokes, then caught up a bit to discover more details of what had happened.

Perhaps it was because of my casual viewing, but I didn’t anticipate how the pundits today would characterize that hole and Spieth’s overall “collapse” as “the most shocking in golf history.” Part of me wants to react by talking about recency bias and hyperbole, although like I say I wasn’t as tuned in to the proceedings as many others were, nor do I have a command of all of golf history to provide me the needed authority to counter such a claim.

I do remember Rory McIlroy’s less sudden but no less affecting “collapse” five years ago when he led the Masters heading into the back nine only to finish in a tie for 15th.

As I wrote about here then, McIlroy’s fall was perhaps easier for many of us to identify with than what happened with Spieth yesterday, given Spieth’s utter dominance over the previous seven-and-a-half rounds’ worth of Masters golf. The lightning-bolt quality of Spieth’s single-hole nightmare also made it seem like too much of an aberration to recognize and empathize with as it was happening.

Thinking again about the different ways players lose at poker, I guess Spieth’s “one really, really bad hand” probably happens a little less often to us than does the gradual series of small mistakes and lack of focus McIlroy demonstrated on his ill-fated back nine in 2011.

It happens sometimes, say, in a tournament, where one especially poor decision overwhelmingly determines a player’s fate, bringing on elimination either right there and then or shortly thereafter. But usually it’s not so simple to pinpoint precisely where it all goes wrong.

In poker I think it is easier to come back from the one really bad hand where one can focus on a particular error or misjudgment and correct it going forward. It’s a little less simple to overcome the bad habits and overall skill deficiencies that often lead to more gradual slides out of tournaments or to the felt in a cash game.

Not sure it’s quite the same in golf or other sports, though. Thinking back, McIlroy did come back to win the U.S. Open -- the very next major -- just a couple of months after that Masters five years ago. Which variety of losing is easier to correct and/or overcome?

Photo: “Golf ‘Lessen’,” JD Hancock. CC BY 2.0.

The U.S. Open, the WSOP, and Player Complaints

The U.S. Open concluded late last night -- late for us on the east coast, I should say, as it was held out in Washington state at the much-talked-about Chambers Bay course in University City -- ending somewhat dramatically with a surprising three-putt by Dustin Johnson on the last hole to give the 21-year-old Jordan Spieth a second straight major title.

It was a stirring finish, but I was fascinated as well by all of the complaints from players (and others) about the Chambers Bay course during the four days of the tournament. If you followed the U.S. Open you likely heard those complaints, too, so I won’t rehearse all of them here. If you haven’t heard about them and are curious, see this story from yesterday on ESPN which collects many of the criticisms, or this one from today in which some of those who played can be found listing all of their issues with the course.

The state of the greens received most of the attention -- that pic of one of the greens was posted to Instagram by the player Ian Poulter (whose frustrations are included in the second article listed above). Comments by other players that it was like putting on broccoli or cauliflower were humorous. And Johnson’s three-putt -- even if not directly consequent to the poor greens -- seemed to put a somehow appropriate punctuation mark on the gripe-filled week.

The complaining reminded me more than once of what has been happening at the WSOP this summer, where a lot of players have been similarly outspoken about various aspects of the series with which they haven’t been satisfied. Such criticisms are not atypical, mind you, but have perhaps been coming with a bit more frequency and volume than has been the case over recent years.

I’m not going to rehearse those complaints, either, which have involved the playing cards, structures, scheduling, communication issues, media coverage, the POY formula, among other issues. Matt Glantz summed up a few of the criticisms in a piece for BLUFF last week the headline for which -- “Matt Glantz Says the World Series of Poker is Losing its Luster” -- indicates the position being advanced.

To explore the comparison a little further, both the U.S. Open and WSOP enjoy a special place in the respective fields for those participating in each. “If this was a regular PGA tour event lots of players would have withdrawn and gone home on Wednesday, but players won't do that for a major,” wrote Poulter of the U.S. Open. That sounds a lot like players complaining about the WSOP, yet still playing because of its “major” status.

Some have responded to players’ complaints about Chambers Bay with the very logical observation that since everyone plays the same course, all are equally subject to the conditions (good or bad) which means the integrity of the competition is not affected. The fact that Spieth -- who just won the last major at the Masters playing on the immaculate Augusta course -- came out on top again would seem to support that position.

That said, when the deficiency of those conditions rises to the level of potentially affecting the integrity of the competition, that’s the point at which the willingness to accept such problems begins to break down. That’s where the piling on tends to start, too, whether justified or not.

From afar, players’ complaints about the new Modiano cards being used this year are the ones that most directly concern the issue of game integrity. Late last week poker pro and bracelet holder David “Bakes” Baker posted a thorough summary of the problems with the cards and how easily they can be marked.

The WSOP announced plans to replace the decks a few days ago, although I think they weren’t introduced until yesterday (for Day 1 of the $50K PPC, but not for other events). Kind of recalls a similar announcement at the beginning of the 2007 WSOP following the fiasco of the “Poker Peek” cards that trucks carrying new decks were on the way.

In any case, I found the whole analogy regarding players’ complaints at the U.S. Open and the WSOP curious to consider, as well as how both examples offer us a lot to think about with regard to the staging of high-level competitions, issues of game integrity, and the way groups tend to respond to undesirable stressors.

“Imagine You Have Pocket Aces,” Says the Caddy

Was listening earlier today to an interview with Michael Greller, the former sixth-grade math and science teacher who is now the full-time caddy for Jordan Spieth, winner of the Masters over the weekend.

Greller’s story is interesting, in part because he isn’t necessarily someone with a traditional background of those who caddy for the game’s top players. He has experience, though not as much as others who serve in that role. During the interview (on the Dan Le Batard Show) he explained how circumstances led to him getting involved with Spieth and ultimately becoming not just his full-time caddy but a trusted friend as well.

When asked about what kind of advice he gave to Spieth during the final round, Greller interestingly brought up poker as a game both he and Spieth like to play and as a source for ideas from which to draw upon to help him guide Spieth on Sunday.

“What I told Jordan all day Sunday, he’s been playing probably better than anybody in the world for a little while now. And I said -- he had a four-shot lead -- and I said... we play cards a lot on the road with each other, [so] I put it into poker terms.”

“I said ‘You’ve got pocket aces, you’re playing better than anybody in the world... [and] you’ve got the chip lead.’ He just wanted to build that chip lead. We talked about that a lot on the golf course.... He wasn’t thinking about the other guys; he was just thinking about getting to 20-under. And that was the goal all day Sunday.”

Analogies between poker and golf are endless. I’ve written about them before here many times, including in the context of the Masters which always seems to inspire that kind of thinking. So it wasn’t surprising to hear Greller bring up playing cards, although it was kind of interesting to think of the two of them chatting about poker during the endgame, one during which Spieth never was challenged much by the field as he was able to keep them at a safe distance right to the end.

Greller really combined two different analogies -- one comparing leading a golf tournament to having the best hand (pocket aces) and thus a necessary edge over one’s opponents, and the other comparing that to leading a poker tournament. Both emphasized Spieth playing from an advantageous position, either in terms of his “cards” or his “chips,” with the resulting lesson being to use that edge smartly by pressuring those with “less strong cards” or “shorter stacks.”

Of course, such advice is only going to be helpful if the recipient knows something about playing from ahead, as Spieth -- who raced out to a big lead after the first round and led wire-to-wire last week -- clearly does.

Watching Golf, Watching Poker

Got thoroughly caught up in the PGA Championship yesterday. Such high quality play from the leaders at the end, and Rory McIlroy more than proved himself with his comeback, making shot after shot to top that tough field and claim yet another major. Three straight weeks’ worth of wins by McIlroy is pretty incredible, too -- perhaps slightly more likely than a poker player winning three successive tournaments, but still a very rare feat to pull off.

I’ve written here before about the many similarities between golf and poker, both of which are games that players of wildly differing levels of skill and commitment can enjoy. Amateur golfers like myself can watch pros and still feel somewhat connected with what we are seeing, having ourselves attempted similar shots even if we’re competing on a much lower level. I’m not sure that’s really so much the case, though, with poker. Not currently, anyway.

I was realizing yesterday that when we think back to televised poker’s heyday during the mid-2000s, one of the primary attractions for a lot of us was the fact that we could make a similar connection with what we were watching. Whether it be the WSOP Main Event, the prelims that got some play on ESPN during those couple of years, the WPT, or other poker on TV, many of us watching were players ourselves and without too much effort could readily appreciate similarities between hands we were playing and those we were watching.

It was kind of like one big game then (if that makes sense), with online poker especially helping all of us feel connected in a much more immediate way than is the case today. Even if we didn’t necessarily think “one day that’ll be me” as we watched, we still recognized the games on TV as analogous to what we were doing when we played.

Some of us who continue to tune in and watch televised poker today still think in similar terms as we watch -- that is, we connect somewhat with the players and the game -- but I think the gap between what’s happening on screen and what most of us experience with poker is a lot wider now. Certainly when it’s the “Big One for One Drop” being shown none of us identifies that much with those participating in a $1 million buy-in event. But even in other tourneys I’d venture to say many of us find it hard to relate to what we’re seeing.

During the PGA broadcasts this week they would occasionally show short instructional segments featuring Lou Guzzi, the 2013 PGA Teacher of the Year. That’s a shot of him above, getting set to deliver a quick lesson about how to hit the ball out of a fairway sandtrap. The lesson didn’t seem out of place at all within the context of the coverage. Players could benefit from the instruction, and even non-players might have found it interesting to see the mechanics of such a shot being explained.

I know in televised poker there have been various attempts to introduce strategy discussion into the coverage. In truth, every single hand shown is usually accompanied by some talk along those lines. But I think most of such commentary is received simply as describing the action, not prescribing potential plays we viewers might make. The level of engagement by the viewer just isn’t the same with poker as it is with golf.

I’m discussing this phenomenon as if it isn’t just personal but applies more broadly among most viewers, which could be incorrect. This might just be me. Or what I’m describing might primarily apply to recreational players of both golf and poker (in which categories I put myself in both cases), and not as much to others.

Still, I think for all the similarities between golf and poker, there are some big differences, too, particularly when it comes to trying to make the card game into a game as engaging to watch as golf can be.

Rankings and Recency

Been scribbling nonstop all day today and thus have little left in my scrambled brain to give over here, I’m afraid.

I’ve seen the tweets today reacting to the news from the Borgata regarding the resolution of “chipgate” -- i.e., the counterfeit chip scandal from the 2014 Borgata Winter Open that saw the tournament halted with 27 players remaining. I haven’t looked closely as yet at the terms of the resolution, but from the impassioned responses I’ve seen it obviously has produced a lot of reaction. Then again, as I mentioned here earlier, it was hard to imagine any resolution that wasn’t going to be problematic.

I’ll look more closely at it when I’ve got more mental fuel to give it more proper consideration. Speaking of being low on mental fuel, I did run an errand today and heard a little sports radio, including some commentary by John Feinstein on the conclusion of yesterday’s Masters won by Bubba Watson.

I probably have an unreasonable prejudice against Feinstein that stems from his being a Duke grad, so take this observation for what it’s worth. He was all hot and bothered today on his radio show over the PGA’s World Golf Rankings which currently have Tiger Woods in the top spot and Watson fourth.

Feinstein was complaining how recent winners of golf’s majors -- e.g., Jason Dufner, Justin Rose -- weren’t in the current top 10, while Henrik Stenson was ranked third without ever having won a major. And, of course, Tiger hasn’t won one since the U.S. Open in 2008.

He went on to whine about how the PGA’s rankings are calculated, complaining how they draw from golfers’ performances over a two-year period. “They should just start from zero,” he went on, blithely ignoring the whole idea of a ranking system that didn’t overvalue what happened most recently but recognized achievement over a more significant sample size (if you will).

The little rant recalled to me the Global Poker Index system which similarly uses not just the most recent and biggest tournaments but tries to incorporate a more comprehensive view of performance (in the GPI’s case over a three-year span).

Not saying either system is without flaw, but it just seemed to me like Feinstein was willingly ignoring what a ranking system actually was in favor of an instinctively simple bit of airtime filler designed to sound like a thoughtful position on debatable issue.

But what do you expect, really. I mean look at Duke... they just lost to Mercer.

Teeing Off

The Masters began today. Like happens with the Olympics I find myself keeping it on as a kind of ambient soundtrack to my work, with occasional glances up to see a shot or check who is leading.

While the absence of Tiger Woods from Augusta was the most frequently reported story over the last couple of weeks, other articles catching my eye included several emphasizing how open the field is this year thus making it difficult to predict a winner.

I read one pointing out how the last 24 majors had been won by 21 different players. Another noted how during the 2013-14 PGA season there have been 18 different winners in 21 total events. Rory McIlroy was quoted saying he thought up to 70 different players among the 97-player field were capable of winning. Meanwhile, Phil Mickelson said he thought about half the field had a chance (although if the greens were fast he’d reduce that number to under a dozen).

Indeed, these stories are all kind of related to the one about Woods, as those looking to predict a winner in Tiger’s absence found themselves hard-pressed to latch onto a favorite. I’ve been noticing as well several in my Twitter timeline sharing their bets on various players to win, with all standing to earn big returns given the fact that the odds are long on everyone.

The situation isn’t perfectly analogous to poker tournaments, but it is similar insofar as the likelihood of any single player winning is always fairly slim, and there’s also usually going to be great variety in the winners over the course of a large enough sample size.

For example, entire summers go by at the World Series of Poker with perhaps only a single double-winner -- or even none -- among the 60-plus events. The European Poker Tour is about to mark its 100th Main Event this fall when it returns to Barcelona, and they’ve actually yet to have anyone win more than one title.

That said, those playing in the Masters this week all represent the sport’s elite -- a marked difference from the field of pretty much any poker tournament which invariably includes a number of amateurs and part-timers with varying skill levels represented throughout.

I think it’s probably the case with most golf tournaments and with any poker tournament that there are usually a handful who participate who have essentially zero chance of winning. But while there’s little likelihood for someone without any experience or ability to have earned a spot in the 97-player field at this week’s Masters, such can always happen with poker tourneys where anyone with enough to buy in with can play.

Invitation to Learn

Had a lot of fun over the weekend playing golf again, something I hadn’t done a lot of for a long while until recently. Ended up writing something about it elsewhere and so thought I’d just use today’s post here to point you there.

The post appears over on Learn.PokerNews, sort of a spinoff site from PokerNews that I’ve recently begun to help manage. Learn.PokerNews is intended as a site for new poker players and those just getting interested in the game, and I’m contributing with some articles and in other ways including starting to get others involved.

The idea of the site is to bring new players into the game, so the articles are mostly geared toward newcomers or those with a little poker experience -- that is, people looking for a new challenge and thinking poker might be one worth trying.

There are a few contributors at Learn.PokerNews currently and we’ll be adding more soon. I’m also doing a lot of brainstorming with folks about the site and the idea of creating interesting content for those curious about poker and/or just picking up the game.

The whole project is making me think back to first getting hooked by poker -- I mean really hooked like so many others were about a decade ago. Since then there have been multiple waves of new “post-boom” poker players coming to the game for the first time from a variety of different avenues.

Just the other day I was sent a brand new poker strategy book and was kind of surprised to read one of the co-authors describe himself as having first gotten into the game by playing Zynga poker on Facebook... in 2009!

Reading that I realized how after several years of belonging to the same “generation” (so to speak) of players who began playing in earnest -- say, after seeing Rounders in the late 1990s/early 2000s or after watching Chris Moneymaker win the WSOP Main Event in 2003 -- that group has come and in some cases now gone. Meanwhile it’s probably in the interests of those of us who remain to try and get new players into the game both for reasons of self-preservation and for more altruistic purposes of sharing with others all of the good things we’ve enjoyed and gotten from poker since we were first introduced.

I may bring up Learn.PokerNews here from time to time in the form of pointing you to pieces or announcing new writers having gotten involved. I’d like also to ask for your suggestions as well regarding what kinds of content might be of interest on such a site, which like I say is geared toward the new player but should have items of interest to a wider audience, too.

Also, let me go ahead and put out a “call” (of sorts) to anyone who might be interested in contributing in some fashion to Learn.PokerNews to get in touch.

We’re just getting things started over there and so there’s a lot of building up to do with various plans for doing so already in the works. But I am already thinking of the site as hopefully becoming part of a community of people interested in poker and promoting the game, and so would like to do something not unlike what others did for me when I first got interested in the game -- i.e., provide interesting and useful content that helps that interest grow, as well as perhaps a place for folks to contribute as well.

Like I say, leave a comment or shoot me a note (email in the profile) with any suggestions about possible content or thoughts about perhaps participating yourself.

Meanwhile, that piece I mentioned in which I wrote a little about the weekend golfing excursion is called “Off the Green and On the Felt; or, The Object of the Game.” What will you learn from it? Well, for one thing, you’ll learn about what happened to make possible that picture to the left taken on the very first hole of my Saturday round.

Links on the Links (Poker and Golf)

Not too long ago I was writing about golf and how unlike poker it was a sport that readily appealed to spectators who weren’t necessarily players. I wrote mainly from experience -- or should I say, from non-experience -- seeing as how I’d only played golf a couple dozen times in my life and not for around 15 years.

Well, last Friday I broke my lengthy streak of non-golfing by playing a full round with my father and brother, something the three of us had actually never done before. Like me, they’re both casual golfers although both have been playing now and then over recent years, with Pop having gotten back into the game a lot more since he retired a few years ago. (That’s him up above putting.) But we’d never had a golf outing together, and so besides being fun just spending time with them there was an added novelty to the day as we wound our way around the lengthy course one stroke at a time.

The only time in my life I ever played golf regularly was in grad school at Indiana, joining some buds at a Par 3 many times and occasionally playing the regular course where students could play on the cheap. Lining up my first tee shot on Friday, I had little confidence I would remember how to swing and strike the ball, but kind of stunningly managed to hit it perfectly about 140 yards right down the middle of the first fairway.

Of course, things became decidedly less simple as I struggled to recall how to use the irons and wedges, and indeed I can’t really say even after 18 holes that I’d figured out how to handle the middle game. But I did drive okay all day, even hitting a green on a par 3 (the highlight of the afternoon), and while my putting was erratic I at least didn’t feel incompetent once on the greens.

We didn’t really keep score, and in fact on the back nine decided to play “Captain’s Choice” (a.k.a. “scramble golf”) in order to help speed things along. Again, we were playing my tee shot usually, but after that it was Pop getting us to the greens and then usually one of them getting us to the hole.

I found myself thinking occasionally of various parallels between golf and poker, of which there are many. At one point I remembered a “Pop Poker” piece I wrote for PokerListings a while ago in which I talked with Tom Schneider about some of those connections as well as “Why Poker Pros Love Gambling on Golf.”

It’s pretty easy to think of a single hole of golf as being like a poker hand, and when I say I was fairly comfortable with my tee shots but not so much afterwards it does feel a lot like saying I knew what to do preflop, but would get a little lost on the flop, turn, and/or river. (Indeed, I literally got lost in the river more than once -- that is, the small water hazards that dotted the course.)

There are myriad other connections between the games, too, perhaps the most obvious being the way both incorporate skill and luck, with the more accomplished players being necessarily less affected by the games’ chance elements, and the novices being more needful to get lucky in order to succeed.

Both games feature sometimes complicated rules and layers of etiquette. Both are usually played on a soft green surface. Oh, and of course, in both players occasionally need to be mindful of the rake. (Rimshot.)

Not really seeing myself becoming a regular golfer any time soon, which perhaps evokes yet another personal poker parallel with my choice to remain a “recreational player.” But I definitely was reminded of both the game’s appeal as well as forced to appreciate how mentally and physically challenging the game can be.

Falling Out of Sync

Spent a little time this afternoon looking in on this live streaming cash game from the Turning Stone Resort Casino over on the Poker Night site involving Kristy Arnett, Tom Schneider, Mike Matusow, Greg Mueller, Shaun Deeb, David Levi, and some others. Or trying to, anyhow.

As anyone who has taken a peek at the webcast knows, there have been some technical difficulties with the presentation. The audio has been about 15-20 minutes ahead of the video and the onscreen graphics describing the hands are not always matching up, either. I am sure they will get these issues resolved eventually, but for now these difficulties are making it hard to stick with the show for very long.

The various elements of the webcast falling out of sync got me thinking momentarily about each of those elements individually, perhaps more so than I would have otherwise. I was thinking about the importance of seeing the hole cards and how that affects one’s enjoyment when watching others play poker. I also was considering separately the value of commentary, hearing table talk, and other aspects of the show.

Meanwhile I had the PGA Championship playing on the television, too, which I also was following only in a vague way, looking up now and then to see a shot and learn how certain players were doing thus far today in the tournament’s second round. Obviously the production and presentation of that broadcast was much better handled for the TNT network, although like I say I was only really following it intermittently and without any serious concentration.

I guess you could call my viewing of both events “passive” insofar as I was watching without any serious rooting interest or even curiosity about results. The coincidence of having both on at once reminded me a little of a post I wrote a little over a year ago about how golf somehow attracts my interest as a spectator even though I don’t play the game.

That post was written while watching the Masters that spring and was titled “A Tradition That’s Totally Way, Way Different From All the Other Ones.” I contrasted golf’s success at attracting non-golfers to watch with the special challenge poker faces when it comes to getting non-poker players to find a reason to be interested in watching others play.

In the end I concluded the two weren’t really so comparable -- not just “apples and oranges,” but “apples and orangutans” -- the main difference being, I decided, that when it comes to poker nearly everyone who finds the game interesting to watch plays the game in some fashion, whereas such is not the case for golf.

Without online poker for the last two-plus years, I now most often speak of myself as someone who “used to play” poker. Sure, I played this summer in Vegas and will play again in the future when given the opportunity, but for the most part I’m not identifying myself as an active player these days. And I’m starting to recognize that because of that my interest in watching others play via a webcast or on television has been severely limited.

It’s much different watching poker as a reporter, where I’m locked into what’s happening in a much more direct way. As a non-playing spectator -- or a non-active player who is watching -- I feel kind of “out of sync” with the game in a way that significantly affects my interest level. Perhaps it has something to do with not really identifying with or feeling invested in the players’ decisions or the outcomes, because I don’t really see myself playing hands and facing similar decisions myself anytime soon.

In any case, as time goes by and I slide further and further “out of sync” from those who are playing the game, I’m sensing more and more how much harder it becomes to remained tuned in.

A Tradition That’s Totally, Way, Way Different From All the Other Ones

Like most sports fans, I’m tuning in this week to watch some golf as the 78th annual Masters Tournament plays out in Augusta, Georgia. Kind of weird how in this era of comprehensive coverage they actually limit the number of hours the TV folks can show, but since I’m not such a hardcore fan it doesn’t bother me much.

I’m not a golfer, myself. Sure, I played miniature golf as a kid, and in grad school went a couple of dozen times to the Par 3 course the university had. There was a regular “championship” course, too, which I think I only played once. Had a lot of fun playing, getting enough of a taste to realize the game is a lot, lot harder than it sometimes looks.

To be honest, I’m not sure why I find golf interesting to watch, but I do.

As a sports fan, generally speaking, I’m probably just gravitating toward the next major event on the sports calendar when I tune into the Masters. That is to say, I don’t really pay much attention to non-major tournaments, although will occasionally tune in on a Sunday to catch the conclusion of whatever happens to be playing out.

I’m curious about Tiger Woods and his comeback, of course. And phenom Rory McIlroy’s fourth-round flame-out at last year’s Masters and subsequent victory at the U.S. Open makes him one to watch. A few other players -- Luke Donald, Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Fred Couples -- kind of stand out, too.

But to be honest I don’t really need those guys’ participation or the various storylines they bring to be interested. The tournament will produce its own narrative, and by Sunday I’ll be curious to watch no matter who is up high on the leaderboard vying for the title.

I think about how successful golf is at attracting non-players and casual fans, especially for major tourneys like the Masters. A study from a couple of years ago determined there were 28.6 million golfers in the U.S. (aged six and above). Last year there were an estimated 42.3 million viewers tuning in for some or all of the weekend coverage of the Masters on CBS.

In other words, a lot of people are watching golf who don’t play.

Meanwhile, there are apparently 60 million poker players in the U.S. That’s the number that gets repeated a lot anyway, including in the new documentary All In: The Poker Movie, which mentions that figure as representing the number of folks playing poker every week in 2011.

But when it came the WSOP being aired on ESPN last fall, those tuning in from week to week generally numbered well under 1 million, sometimes not even 500,000. I know the “almost live” coverage of the Main Event back in July drew similar totals, peaking around 650,000 or so. I believe the November Nine stuff also hovered around the 1 million-mark, although I can’t put my finger on exact numbers.

So, obviously, a lot fewer watch poker than golf. And of those who do watch poker, I’m going to guess there are very, very few who aren’t players themselves.

I know, it’s apples and oranges. Actually it’s more like apples and orangutans, golf and poker being so very different from one another. Furthermore, there are tons of reasons why golf works better on the tube than does poker.

Still, it’s interesting to think about why the Masters can get a non-golfer like me interested, while poker is so much of a harder sell to the non-player.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Pregame

Am presently sitting in the airport in Santiago, Chile, having hopped on the Starbucks wireless here. My buds Brad and Mickey are similarly behind their laptops, reconnecting with the rest of the world. We have a lengthy layover here prior to our final flight to Montevideo, Uruguay. So a little coffee and catching up before proceeding onward.

The flights down were fine. We were just now joking about seat draws, and it sounds like we all managed to do pretty well, avoiding the loose-aggressive and/or unpredictable types that can make flights less than comfortable.

On the way to Dallas-Fort Worth I was next to a young woman who spent much of the flight enjoying The Hangover on her portable DVD player. Seemed a reasonable segue from my most recent flight home from Vegas.

Then on the long trip down to Chile I was seated to the left of a young Argentinian golfer who was returning from a junior tourney in Houston where he apparently crushed, finishing second out of a field of 150-plus (by one stroke!).

Thankfully he had enough English to make up for my lack of Spanish, and so we chatted about his plans to start attending a U.S. university a year from now on scholarship, then become a tour pro. I told him how I was a teacher, and had golfers in my classes. Or rather, had golfers miss my classes, as they were often away at events.

I also told him what I was up to, telling him about the tourney and how I wasn’t playing but reporting. “Texas hold’em?” he asked, and I nodded as he described how he sometimes played with friends.

Watched the Paul Giamatti flick Win Win, which had a few decent moments but seemed to struggle with the ending. Managed to get some decent sleep after that -- unusual for me when flying -- and was awake and alert by the time we saw the glaring reflection of the sun on the snow-capped Andes mountains of Chile.

Before we parted, I got my neighbor’s name and wished him luck, and he told me to keep an eye out for him on the PGA tour in a couple of years. His story -- and self-assurance -- kind of recalled the young phenom wrestler in Win Win. As we’ll no doubt see this week at the tournament, confidence can go a long way.

Meanwhile, I’m reasonably confident the last leg of our trip will go well. If so, we’ll be checking into our rooms in Punta del Este, then hitting the LAPT party later on tonight at the Nogaro Casino. Tourney begins tomorrow (Thursday) at noon. LAPT Punta del Este drew 307 players the last time around (back in early 2010), when Jose “Nacho” Barbero won the first of his back-to-back LAPT titles, the second coming in Lima that summer.

Gonna finish this coffee now and maybe snap a picture or three during my last hour or two in Chile. Where it is chilly. Might need to pull out one of those long-sleeved shirts I packed.

Funny how they schedule winter in the middle of summer down here.

Learning from the Masters

Was a busy weekend, although I did find time to check in on that fairly exciting final round of the Masters yesterday. Also had one eye over on Twitter, where it was interesting to follow some of the comments on the golf being shared by those I follow.

Among the funnier messages was one from Jon Aguiar, sent around that moment when 10 players were all within one shot of each other atop the leaderboard with just a few holes left for most of them: “they should really chop the masters to reduce variance.”

The PokerGrump had a funny one, too, sent after Tiger Woods had completed his round and while the several players behind him were still finishing up: “How can Tiger win when he stopped playing before everyone else?! #quitter.” That’s about the time I chimed in as well with a similarly constructive comment, noting “this Masters is nearly as exciting as that one when Carl Spackler holed out from 195 yds. to win #hegotallofthatone.”

I also was intrigued by all of those sending out messages in which they variously expressed empathy for poor Rory McIlroy, the 21-year-old Irishman who led the pack with nine holes to go before his unfortunate, yips-filled back nine. He plunged from -11 to -4 over the course of those last nine holes, tumbling from the top spot to land in a tie for 15th.

“Until the last hour, I thought Rory McIlroy and I had nothing in common,” wrote Otis after the swoon. “Now it’s clear we are -- at least in one way -- cut from the same cloth.” I liked what Kim of Infinite Edge said earlier today, too, on the subject of McIlroy. “When people ask me how I play poker, I’ve always found it difficult to summarize it,” wrote Kim. “From now on I’ll just tell them ‘Like Rory McIlroy.’”

The fact is, it was hard for most of us to watch McIlroy’s dizzying fall without recognizing something that reminded us of our own shortcomings, be they in poker or other areas of our lives.

In the post-round interview, McIlroy was remarkably composed, saying he was certainly disappointed, but that he was sure he’d get over it after a few days. He talked about having become unnerved following that triple-bogey on the 10th, and how he’d started to second-guess his reads afterwards. He also noted that it would probably take a few days for the lessons of this year’s Masters to sink in for him.

But his chin was up. And the kid seemed to have a good sense of the bigger picture.

I noticed just after the short interview a lot of messages on Twitter articulating respect for McIlroy’s willingness to talk and the simple fact that he appeared on his way to accepting the fact that while he’d missed this opportunity, he would hopefully have more to come.

Among those, Josh Brikis, the young poker player with more than $1.2 million in tourney winnings to his credit, added what I thought was an insightful point in response: “Listening to Rory’s interview it’s amazing all the similarities between poker and golf.”

My first encounter with Brikis was at the 2009 WSOP when I covered the $5,000 buy-in, six-handed no-limit hold’em event. That one featured an especially tough field, including a great final table at which Matt Hawrilenko won and Faraz Jaka took third. Brikis finished runner-up (for $619K-plus), and if I remember correctly he did enjoy the chip lead for some of that final table before “Hoss_TBF” eventually it down. (Here’s the coverage of that event on PokerNews, and here’s a post I wrote up here on HBP about it at the time.)

I don’t know if Brikis was thinking in particular about that near-miss for a WSOP bracelet when he sent his tweet about McIlroy yesterday or not. In any case I could see immediately how talk of second-guessing one’s “reads” and the other points the young golfer was making readily applied to things we all experience at one time or another at the poker table.

Definitely one of the more memorable Masters to watch. And to think about. And perhaps even to learn from, too.