2013 WSOP: Day 24: Year of the Player of the Year

Was a late one on Friday as I was on Day 3 of Event No. 35, the $3,000 pot-limit Omaha event here at the World Series of Poker where Jeff Madsen led pretty much the entire last day as they played down from 19. Madsen won his third WSOP bracelet and first since winning two in one week as a 21-year-old back in 2006.

Afterwards my blogging partner Rich and I marveled a little at how many of the WSOP Player of the Year winners seem to be thriving in 2013. In fact, four of them have won bracelets, counting 2004 WSOP POY winner Daniel Negreanu’s Main Event win at WSOP Asia Pacific. Madsen won the WSOP POY in 2006, Tom Schneider (who has won two bracelets this year) won it in 2007, and Erick Lindgren (who won a bracelet this week) won WSOP POY in 2008. Additionally, after the event completed last night, Jess Welman tweeted that seven of the nine WSOP POY winners have made final tables this year.

I liked Rich’s way of describing the trend. “Year of the Player of the Year,” he said. That pic above, by the way, is from the start of the 2008 WSOP (via Pokerati) and shows Madsen’s WSOP POY banner on the right and Schneider standing in the spot where his poster eventually would be hung that year.

I’ve been on two events thus far since I’ve arrived, won by Lindgren and Madsen. Good players repeatedly performing well in poker tournaments always inspires lots of talk about the game’s skill component, with results such as the ones we’ve seen at the WSOP this summer often becoming cited examples in a long running argument that the rewards in poker ultimately correspond to players’ relative decision-making abilities -- i.e., that poker is, indeed, “a skill game.”

Such results do not, however, work as evidence to support arguments minimizing luck’s role in the game. As dominating as Madsen was yesterday, there was a hand in which he was not involved that saw a short-stacked Scott Clements fail to earn a double-up after getting his last chips in on the turn with a 90% chance of winning only to bust in fifth.

For a good while before that hand, it appeared somewhat likely that Clements -- who like Madsen had won two bracelets prior to this event, both in Omaha games in fact -- would be the one eventually to meet Madsen heads up. Besides being the most accomplished players remaining, they appeared the strongest, too, and so it was hard not to anticipate such a conclusion.

But Madsen wouldn’t have to worry about Clements from four-handed on down, and after losing his lead momentarily just as heads-up play began with Douglas Corning, Madsen retook the advantage and more or less rolled to the win. That is him on the left from last night, still exhibiting that same characteristic pending-action pose with his left hand on his opposite shoulder as was captured in that banner photo from seven years before.

Such is often the case, that even in tourneys where a winner’s skill appears to have been unequivocally demonstrated, one still can’t deny the chance element in poker, especially short term. Sure poker “aintluck” entirely (as the poker news site says). But it ain’t all skill, either.

By the way, that Phil Hellmuth blow-up I alluded to in yesterday’s post was in fact directed toward Madsen shortly after the latter had eliminated him.

Amid Hellmuth’s petulance -- which included him calling Madsen the “worst f***ing player ever” -- Hellmuth asked a question of the tourney’s eventual winner.

“How do you even have all those chips?”

Madsen didn’t reply, but the actual answer to such a question is always complicated, no matter how good the player with the chips is.

I’m back on another PLO event today, picking up Day 1 of the $5K PLO 6-max. (Event No. 41) on which I’ll be reporting from start to finish, an event that no doubt will have Madsen and Clements in the field. The higher buy-in will ensure a number of other strong players will be there as well when play begins later this afternoon. Click on over if you get the chance.

Talkin’ Teamwork

Still enjoying some down time here as the year comes to a close. Mostly lazing about reading some, writing some, and watching a lot of hoops on the teevee.

After indulging in that NBA marathon on Christmas day -- a quintuple-header’s worth of games of which I watch parts of all five -- I tuned in last night to watch my Charlotte Bobcats lose their 16th straight game, this one to the Miami Heat. The Boobcats (as Vera and I like to call them) did cut Miami’s lead to two about halfway through the fourth quarter, but in truth the outcome was never in doubt. Was sort of like watching a big brother playing against a little brother, only trying enough to ensure the victory.

Of course, last season Charlotte had a record-setting year for woefulness, going a miserable 7-59 to set a new standard for lowest winning percentage ever. This year began promisingly, with the ’Cats equaling that total of seven wins in the first dozen games, racing out to a 7-5 mark. But they’re now 7-21, and if they lose a few more talk will surface regarding whether or not they’ll exceed that 23-game losing streak with which they concluded the 2011-12 season.

Since I live in the Bobcats’ market, I end up getting to see a lot of their games and thus have probably spent more time than most contemplating the causes for their mediocrity. Talent-wise, they’re well obviously behind most other teams, lacking at pretty much every position. But while each player is often a step behind his counterpart in a given game, the Charlotte team often seems not to work together especially well either, which tends to make the whole feel that much less than the sum of the parts.

The inability to work together is most obvious on the offensive end, where plays are constantly breaking down prior to a decent shot being attempted. There was an article in the Charlotte Observer just a few days ago documenting how the “Shot clock has become Bobcats’ worst enemy.” They lead the league in shot-clock violations (by a lot), and Bobcats beat writer Rick Bonnell offers several theories for why the team has so much trouble working together to get a shot off.

Basketball is a game that often rewards players being able to work together effectively, whether by passing well, creating good spacing, or just understanding and fulfilling given roles in an effective way. It reminds me a little of a game like Omaha in which you want the four cards in your hand to “work together” (so to speak), complementing each other in a way that gives you the greatest chance for success. And having just one “dangler” or odd card that doesn’t really fit with the other three can significantly lessen the potential of the entire hand.

Part of me wants to single out Gerald Henderson as the Bobcats’ “dangler,” actually. Although he’s ostensibly one of the top three or so players on the squad, it seems like at times the team functions less well when he’s part of the mix. I suppose one could analyze various stats to help support or disprove the idea, but the fact is the ’Cats have done a lot worse overall when he’s played than when he hasn’t. This year they’re 6-8 with Henderson out of the line-up, and 1-13 when he plays. (They were also 1-7 in the preseason, when he played every game.)

Then again, it’s probably putting a little much on Henderson’s shoulders to pursue such a theory, as there’s a lot else to complain about when it comes to the team’s failure to function. Still, as a Bobcats fan, it would be nice to stop getting dealt crap hands like over and over again.

The Search for Inspiration; or, You Get What You Pay For

Had a six-handed, pot-limit Omaha hand a couple of days ago in which I open-raised from the button with and only the big blind called. The flop came -- the nuts for me -- and not surprisingly my opponent checked.

I have no standard line for this situation, although generally speaking I’ll usually bet something here. The continuation bet doesn’t mean I’ve necessarily hit the flop, and so while often it will induce folds, suspicious players occasionally will call, especially if they have a lower flush, a set, or even two pair. And at the low limits I play (with dime-and-a-quarter blinds), some will happily stack off with less-than-nut flushes, too, so it is often worth at least trying to build a pot.

Here I bet about half the pot, and my opponent called. The turn was a harmless , and again when it was checked to me I bet again, a little more than half the pot this time. Once more my opponent called.

The river brought the and my opponent surprised me a little with a half-pot-sized bet of his own. The straight flush was quite possible here -- indeed with that board there were several ways to make the hand. I minimum-raised, and when my opponent responded by pushing all in I was fairly convinced he had it. I had been playing with him a while and he had done nothing to make me suspect he didn’t know what he was doing. So, after a bit of thought I folded my ace-high flush, and the two of us engaged in some chat after the hand.

My opponent initially denied having had a straight flush, but the more we chatted the more I was certain he had. Somewhere in there I said, “if not, an inspired bet” and complimented him on a good hand, and it was after that he appeared to let down his guard, suggesting I’d made a good fold.

It’s possible, of course, that I folded the best hand. But at these low limits such “an inspired bet” -- i.e., an attempt to force the ace-high flush to fold by representing a straight flush like that -- is pretty out of place. Folks simply aren’t folding here, not for less than ten bucks or whatever it was. Such was my thinking when I did fold. I didn’t believe my opponent would be so foolhardy as to reraise all in without a straight flush, not after the way I’d played the hand up to that point, anyway. (Was my play “inspired”? Or just timid?)

In any event, the hand stood out for me in a couple of ways. One was the way it gave me that funny “I-lost-but-I-won” feeling that comes with making a correct fold. Even if it weren’t correct, I still felt that way afterwards. As John Lukacs says in that “Poker and American Character” essay I’ve been referring to off and on over the last few months, poker is a unique game, one in which “free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered free moral agents, and where -- at least in the short run -- the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens.”

The other reason why the hand stood out for me was the way it encouraged me to think about non-straightforward plays and/or “Level 2” thinking (and above) -- something that basically doesn’t happen a heck of a lot when playing the dime-and-a-quarter games. Kind of ensures that those of us who stick to these limits are probably only going to grow so much as players, perhaps developing to the point of being able to fold an ace-high flush once in a while when it appears warranted, but not to explore more advanced or “inspired” plays. Not really.

Before signing off, let me point to a couple of other items you might check out sometime before we meet again on Monday.

Speaking of looking for inspiration, I greatly enjoyed writing up a piece for Betfair this week about Jack Ury, the oldest-ever WSOP participant who died on Tuesday at the age of 97. Got to relive some Ury’s most memorable hands from the last four WSOP Main Events in that one, including the epic “slowroll” from 2009. Check it out -- I promise you grins if you do.

Also let me point you to a piece over on Full Tilt’s “Poker on the Rail” blog by Dr. Pauly regarding the recently-announced 2011 WSOP schedule. More chuckles and some other benefits to be had there, too.

Enjoy the Super Bowl weekend, all.

Oh, Brother, Where Am I?

An up-and-down start to 2011, poker-wise, for your humble gumshoe. Several winning PLO sessions early, followed by some losing ones, followed by some more o’ that “break-even poker” I’ve been writing about off-and-on (and playing) for some time now.

Am beginning to think about stepping back and studying a bit, including doing some serious video watching -- something I have never really done, to be honest -- as a means to improve. So many seem to have gotten themselves over the hump and into some real success that way. I’m thinking of folks like bellatrix, Change100, and of course that dude on the Two Plus Two Pokercast now living in a sick house in Thailand.

I’ve also pretty much abandoned using PokerTracker/HUDs anymore -- not for any particular reason other than laziness, really. Have been playing more and more on my Mac laptop, on which I have none of that stuff loaded. I was curious about getting Omaha Manager (the Omaha version of HEM), but can’t really explore that at the moment since the HEM products aren’t Mac-compatible yet.

I know that to become genuinely serious about improving -- and competing with others -- it would greatly behoove me to consider use tracking programs more seriously (especially since I know a lot of the video tutorials incorporate them into the instruction). Of course, lessons, tutorials, HUDs, notes, and so forth are only useful if you both understand them and are willing to act accordingly. As we all know, in poker it is not always easy to pull the trigger even if you know it is correct to do so.

Had a funny situation the other day which kind of illustrated this idea, I suppose. Was playing my usual six-handed, dime-and-a-quarter PLO when a new player -- I’ll call him DontTeaseMeBro -- arrived at the table. He sat out the first couple of hands, waiting for the big blind. Then, just before getting his first hand, he typed the following:

“what am i going to do when my brother finds out that i have been playing his ps account? i have to win 2500 back in three days from this”

I lol’d, too (for real). Various other responses occurred to me as well, but I resisted. As did everyone else.

Finally he posted the big blind. The UTG player limped in for a quarter, and the action was on me. I had and raised pot to $1.10. The button called, as did DontTeaseMeBro and the UTG limper.

There were four players still in, then, when the flop came . Into this crowd the newcomer unhesitatingly bet the pot ($4.28). UTG folded, and I got out, too, but the button called. They got the rest in on the turn, at which point I laughed again when I saw DontTeaseMeBro’s hand -- . The button’s hand was a little amusing, too -- -- just second pair and an open-ender on the flop, but the turn had given him two pair. Then came the river card which was simply a riot, the , giving DontTeaseMeBro a set and a quick double-up.

We played a couple more orbits, and I watched as our new visitor settled into a more reasonable-appearing mode of play, seemingly content to protect his windfall. He’d added a couple of bucks to his total when the following hand arose.

DontTeaseMeBro began things by limping in from under the gun, and it folded to me on the button where I held . Certainly so-so (if not trash), but with position I called, and both blinds came along, too. The flop came , giving me middle set. It checked to me, I bet the pot ($0.95), and both the small blind and DontTeaseMeBro called.

The small blind, I should mention, was a fellow I’ve played with a lot. In fact, now that I look up his stats in PT I realize he’s a good example of why I really should study more.

My impression after playing ~1,500 hands with the guy was that he was not a dumb player, though not particularly difficult to deal with, either. Probably explains why I have kept sitting at tables with him. But looking at his numbers, I see he’s down nearly $120 in the hands we’ve played! I know I’ve seen him overplay big pairs a few times, but I hadn’t really suspected he was down like that.

Rightly or wrongly, I did not rule out top set as a possible hand for him here, though that was unlikely. Wasn’t convinced DontTeaseMeBro could have a set of jacks and be check-calling, either. Most likely I was looking at a couple of straight draws, I thought, and the on the turn didn’t complete those. They both checked, and I decided to fire again, betting the pot ($3.66). The small blind quickly folded, and DontTeaseMeBro just as quickly made the call.

The river brought the and before you could say “queen-ten” DontTeaseMeBro had instantly bet the pot ($10.63).

I only had a dozen hands with the guy. I’d read his confession like I read just everything in the chatbox or online -- with skepticism. And I’d seen him make such a bet (pot-sized, out of position) a couple of times on exactly one previous hand when he had nothing but a pair of deuces.

What to do? Pot-sized bets on the river are tough to call without the nuts in PLO. (Have a feeling my friend over in the small blind has perhaps done that more often than he should.) I weighed it all and finally convincing myself the chances were greater he didn’t have it than he did, I called.

It turned out I was right, as he had but for ace-high. A few hands later he dropped the few bucks I’d left him with on that hand and skedaddled, perhaps to go work further on the big problem he’d created with his brother’s Stars account.

Happened to hit that one, but to be completely truthful my moments of insight and confidence are only intermittent these days, punctuated by stretches where I genuinely feel at sea when it comes to taking my own lines and making reads of others.

I mean, I generally play better than DontTeaseMeBro seems to, but occasionally I feel like I’m just in there gambling it up like he was -- that maybe the kinship between our games is sometimes stronger than I’d like to admit. Some tutelage is definitely in order.

But first I think I’ll give my brother a call. You know, just to see what he’s been up to.

Four Kings, One Joker

Was goofin’ as usual at the short-handed, dime-and-a-quarter pot-limit Omaha tables yesterday. Had a couple of tables up and began badly, but made a comeback. Was up a bit and about to hit the road when the following hand came up.

Had the button and at this table the current big stack. One empty seat meant we were five-handed. I watched as the player under the gun limped and the next folded, putting the action on me. The previous orbits had proven my four opponents were mostly just playing their cards, and usually only if they were especially pretty-lookin’. In other words, there’d been little funny business from any of ’em. Lotsa limpin’. Bets meant made hands. Calls meant draws. And folds all else.

Was one of those “probably-raising-no-matter-what” kind of spots. But wait. What have I been dealt? Four kings.

I currently have about 85,000 hands or so loaded into PokerTracker Omaha -- by no means a complete run, but I’ve been lazy about loading previous years’ worth of hands in there. A quick look shows that in all of those hands, I’ve started with four cards of the same rank exactly once before -- four sixes. In that hand, I folded (promptly, I imagine) to a raise.

Poking around online, I see the odds of being dealt four cards of the same rank in Omaha are apparently a bit worse than 1 in 20,000. Not surprising, then, that there isn’t a lot of discussion about how to play such a hand. No need, of course -- most PLO players know it’s a stinker. Indeed, I’d imagine anyone foolhardy enough to create a “hand rankings” chart of the 16,432 distinct hands in PLO would probably be putting those 13 “four of a kind” hands right at the very bottom of the sucker.

I mean, really, it’s a truly miserable hand. Sort of like a used car with a couple of hundred thousand miles already on it. Not worth much, and can only depreciate further. Can’t make a straight. Or a flush. The community cards could turn the hand into two pair or a full house, I suppose, but that’s just silly talk.

I have a fuzzy memory of Bob Ciaffone talking about the prospect of being dealt four aces in Omaha. I believe it comes up in his Omaha Poker, and I’m pretty sure he was referring to Omaha/8, in which having an ace among your starting four is more crucial than in PLO. Seems like Ciaffone said something about wanting to raise that hand to see if he could force out everyone, since he’d know they couldn’t have aces. (Been searching the book and haven’t found the passage.)

Like I say, I was about to quit. And being up a bit, my capacity for mischief had been increased a touch. So, with full awareness of how loony it was to do so, I decided to play my four kings. Thinking I might at least knock out the blinds, I raised pot. But both blinds came along, as did the original limper.

Four kings. Four players. Pot four-forty. I smiled and shook my head, quietly telling myself “you deserved that.”

But then the flop came . And all three checked. The action on me, I realized that’s about the best flop I could have hoped for. So I bet. (RSSers, you might need to click through.)



The joker wins.