You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best

The WSOP Main Event drew 7,221 entrants this year, a big boost from a year ago and actually the third-largest field ever behind the pre-UIGEA 2006 Main (8,773) and the last pre-Black Friday one in 2010 (7,319).

They’re down to a final table now, with the two-day respite before that gets going very welcome to those of us who've been at this for 10 days running. You’re no doubt following the action in the usual places, as well as on both ESPN and PokerGO (a very welcome addition to the coverage, imo).

Just to report quickly here on a few off-the-beaten path items, the WSOP Media Event happened back on Tuesday. Close to 100 played, I think, and your humble scribbler made it to the last 20 or so before finally busting a short stack.

“Thanks to all my backers,” I tweeted, forgetting to add the obligatory “AQ<QJ” afterwards. (The Media Event is a freeroll).

A few days after that Howard Swains and I felt uptight on a Saturday night and so spent part of the dinner break walking over to the other side of the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino to enjoy a round of KISS Mini Golf.

Was a fun 45 minutes or so knocking golf balls around the course replete with cool black lights and glow-in-the-dark decor full of all sorts of KISS imagery, with the tunes blasting the whole way (natch). Click that pic above for a bigger image. Imagine “Calling Dr. Love” pounding through your device’s speakers as you do.

I’m going to post a full report in a few days over on the PokerStars blog which I’ll link to here. (Here’s that report: “Rock in the Rio at KISS Mini Golf.”)

Finally, the day after that (Sunday the 16th) I was parked as usual on media row when Antonio Esfandiari came around to settle up his “shirt bet” with Lance Bradley (here with Pocket Fives). Was humorous watching them tie up that loose end, then seeing Esfandiari look up at everyone with a grin to say “Who’s next?”

Most everyone cowered behind their laptops in response, not having Lance’s courage. (If you aren’t familiar with the bet, Lance spells it out here.)

More to come.

Goals and Outcomes

Cleveland finally did it. Was a highly entertaining finale to the NBA season last night.

LeBron James gets the hero title, of course, even if Kyrie Irving was the one hitting the game-winner. Meanwhile the Warriors couldn’t find a hero of their own despite a valiant effort from Draymond Green to play that role. I want to say relying on three-pointer necessarily invites the sort of variance shown last night (GS hot in first half, cold in second), although the way the Dubs shot from the arc this year they seemed to challenge that oft-cited claim to the point of making us all doubt it actually applied to them.

James’s streak of going to six straight finals (four with Miami, two with Cleveland) and winning three is remarkable. The whole going-back-home narrative is intriguing, too, no matter where you happen to stand on “King James.”

Speaking of going home, looks like the Cavs hit Vegas last night on their way back to Ohio. That’s where I was the last two times the NBA Finals featured a Game 7 -- in 2010 and 2013 -- so it was fun to be able to sit down and actually watch such an event this time around.

Incidentally, Jason Mercier’s last seven days in Vegas have been something else, too, with the two bracelet wins a runner-up, and his securing added bounties of all those many side bets. It feels like this summer the side action is in some cases overwhelming the main prize pools, creating some added storylines.

Looking back at my post from Friday, I made a few predictions for Game 7, although most were non-specific enough to have a better than average shot of being accurate.

There’s no doubt the Warriors suffered a most ignominious conclusion to their record-setting season, becoming the first team to lose a 3-1 lead in the finals.

I also said the Cavs wouldn’t be as consistently brilliant as they’d been in the previous two games (they weren’t) and the Warriors wouldn’t be as consistently bad (they weren’t either). Suggested there would be evidence of some nerves, too, especially at the start and the finish, and that’s exactly what happened as the game started very slowly, then both teams had trouble scoring during the endgame (with GS incredibly going the last four-and-a-half minutes without scoring a point).

In a way all of these predictions were a little like “side action,” not unlike prop bets or inventing other in-game contests to up the interest level.

My “hot take” on Friday was to suggest there’d be a controversial call (or non-call) that many would highlight after the game as having affected the outcome, but I can’t really say that happened. There were a few missed calls and questionable fouls during the course of the game, but on the whole the refs did an admirable job, I thought, and I noticed nothing especially egregious down the stretch when it really was a situation when a single whistle could’ve changed everything.

In fact, the only example I can think of was Andre Iguodala’s block of LeBron James’s layup with exactly three minutes to go in which Iguodala got mostly hand and little ball.

As it turned out, it was over at the U.S. Open where it looked as though a ruling really would inordinately affect the outcome. I won’t go into the whole story of the delayed one-stroke penalty assessed to eventual winner Dustin Johnson -- you can read about it here -- but will say it seemed a terrible example of the rules and the mechanism of enforcing the rules potentially overwhelming the players’ control over the competition.

Can’t say I had much of a rooting interest in that one, although like most I was glad to see Johnson overcome what seemed an unfair circumstance to succeed. Didn’t really have a rooting interest in Cavs-Dubs, either, which I realized I was glad about as the fourth quarter was winding down.

I was flashing back both to this year’s Super Bowl (where my Panthers fell) and the NCAA final (where my Heels lost a heartbreaker). It’s much less stressful watching without such intense feelings about how the sucker is going to turn out.

Makes it easier, too, to be less critical of the refs. Without a focus on perspective-altering goals, outcomes can be more clearly assessed.

Image: “Basketball Net” (adapted), Akash Kataruka. CC BY-ND 2.0.

On the Props

Was spending part of today considering all of these Super Bowl prop bets. I was put in the mood to do so after having posted a discussion with Rich Ryan over on PokerNews the focus of which was Super Bowl betting -- this week’s “Inside Gaming” column.

As mentioned there, last year the Nevada sports books took in more wagers than ever before, besting the previous year’s record by a lot. They also profited considerably thanks in part to heavy action on favorite Denver and Seattle ending up crushing, earning more percentage-wise in nearly a decade.

Super Bowl prop bets are significant for the sports books, with many of them longshots and thus great opportunities for the books to win. The lines can be a bit skewy on them, too, which perhaps opens up some opportunities for savvy bettors. But on the whole they’re hard to read (at least for an amateur like me).

Among the items I read today was USA Today’s “19 craziest prop bets for Super Bowl XLIX.” Like a lot of folks this week, they look to Bovada -- the site we online poker players know better as the-one-that-used-to-be-Bodog -- as their source of props. Bovada has more than 500 prop bets listed, with practically every detail regarding what might happen in Arizona on Sunday covered.

These “19 craziest” ones include many with nothing to do with the actual game itself. Those include bets on Katy Perry’s wardrobe during her halftime performance as well as how many times she will be mentioned during the first half, whether or not Idina Menzel will forget a word of the national anthem, Bill Belichick’s hoodie color and type, which team owner (Robert Kraft or Paul Allen) will be shown more often during the game, the number of times Gisele Bundchen (Tom Brady’s wife) will be shown, the number of times deflated balls will be mentioned, the number of viewers, who the Super Bowl MVP will first mention after the game, whether Marshawn Lynch will grab his crotch after scoring a TD, and whether Bill Belichick will smile. Of these I most like the one about whether or not Al Michaels will make any gambling references during the telecast (i.e., to the point spread, over/under, game odds, prop bets).

Even the game-related ones have to do with extracurriculars, like the parlay pairing whether or not Punxsatawney Phil sees his showdow and the game’s outcome, or the one comparing the length of the Silva-Diaz UFC fight and LeGarrette Blount’s rushing attempts. In fact among these “crazy” bets are only four football-only ones -- whether or not Tom Brady will throw a TD or interception first, whether or not one of the kickers will win MVP, which Seattle player will catch their first pass, and how many field goals Seattle will make.

Every one of these feels like a sucker bet, as do many of the other props even if one might legitimately have an edge betting a particular side of them. Heck even the game itself -- which Rich tells me the Football Outsiders guys are describing as historically remarkable in terms of how mathematically even the two teams are talent-wise -- feels especially hard to predict.

Who do you think will win on Sunday? Other than the sports books, that is.

Talking Weight, Not Gravitas, With Hall of Fame Nominees

After having had the honor of being part of the panel of “poker media” invited to vote in the Poker Hall of Fame the last few years, I’m not part of the process this time around. The WSOP wanted to rotate some new folks into the mix, something I think is a great idea and thus don’t mind a bit stepping aside.

Since I’m not voting, I haven’t given that much thought regarding the list of 10 nominees (which I talked about briefly here a short while ago). I did notice, though, that two of them -- Ted Forrest and Mike Matusow -- have gotten back onto the gossip pages lately thanks to that weight loss bet from about four years ago won by Forrest.

Matusow had won a different weight loss prop bet between the pair previously, picking up $100,000 from Forrest after managing to go from 250 to 181 lbs. in less than a year. Then the pair made a second bet that would require Forrest, then 188 lbs., to get under 140 lbs. I’m not sure of the exact terms, but if Forrest could manage it by a specific deadline -- less than a year away, I believe (perhaps just a few months) -- Matusow would owe him $2 million.

Forrest achieved the feat, and then afterwards they agreed that Matusow -- who didn’t have the funds with which to pay his debt -- would pay Forrest $5,000 a month thereafter with the debt adjusted down to $1.8 million. That would still take over 30 years to pay off.

Cut to four years later, and Matusow has apparently only paid Forrest $70,500 thus far. Forrest took to Twitter earlier this month, and Matusow now seems to be referencing the collapse of Full Tilt Poker (version 1.0), the fact that the pair had been drinking when the bet was made, and other factors as lessening his obligation.

There are other details, but to be honest it took some extra effort for me just to get up the energy to look into it that far.

In terms of tourney results, both players have built up impressive, lengthy lists of wins and deep finishes, which is how both made it onto the PHOF ballot. Even with these accomplishments, I wouldn’t have been too enthused to vote for either, however.

I don’t say that because of these prop bet shenanigans, but just because when it comes to rating a super-select few above the rest, it’s hard (for me) to think of either as belonging to the toppermost tier of poker people.

That said, it’s hard to imagine “hall of fame nominees” of any other sport sniping at each other on Twitter in such a fashion. Seems to lack a certain gravitas, doesn’t it? I’m sure similar things have happened, but it still feels like an “only in poker” kind of story.

Sick Bet: Griffin, Qureshi, and “the World of Poker Players”

Creative, crazy, even dangerous proposition bets have long been part of poker. A few spring to mind.

Huck Seed once bet Phil Hellmuth $10,000 that he could float in the ocean for 24 hours without touching the bottom, though Seed forfeited the bet before making an attempt. Erick Lindgren won $340,000 from Gavin Smith, Phil Ivey, and others after he played 72 holes of golf in one day, shooting under 100 each round, in the 108-degree Vegas heat in June 2007. And this past summer, Ted Forrest won $2 million off Mike Matusow after managing to go from 188 lbs. to under 140 (138, to be exact) in the space of just two months. Forrest fasted the final 10 days straight to win that one.

Trumping them all, I suppose, is Brian Zembic, also a poker player though probably more of a blackjack/backgammon player. In the fall of 1996, Zembic won a $100K prop for receiving breast implants, the story of which was subsequently chronicled in Michael Konik’s 1999 anthology The Man With the $100,000 Breasts and Other Gambling Stories.

However much some want to argue that poker is somehow not gambling -- that its significant skill component allows one to approach the game as a strictly intellectual and/or psychological competition -- it is, in fact, a game that involves chance and is therefore a gambling game. Even if it weren’t, poker’s frequently close proximity to all those other gambling games -- usually just a few steps away in the casino (or a click away online) -- would probably increase the likelihood for action-seeking poker players to seek further opportunities to gamble. Especially when they are encouraged by fellow, like-minded “degens” as they are sometimes described, usually with a semi-serious mix of reproach and wonder.

You probably recently heard about another such prop bet, one involving a couple of young poker players, Ashton “theASHMAN103” Griffin and Haseeb “INTERNETPOKERS” Qureshi. Both have emerged over recent years as part of the latest generation of tough, successful online players, with Griffin additionally enjoying some big live scores including winning the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Shootout event at NAPT Venetian in February 2010.

Like Griffin, Qureshi has been involved in some of the highest-stakes online games, including being an early combatant of Viktor “Isildur1” Blom last year. His well-considered thoughts about those battles and their significance were shared by Qureshi on his CardRunners blog last fall (alluded to here).

Here the two roommates bet whether the 22-year-old Griffin, formerly a college wrestler and by most accounts well-conditioned athlete, could run 70 miles on a treadmill within a 24-hour period. The bet incorporated various provisions, and ultimately went off with Griffin giving Qureshi 3-to-1 on a wager of $285,000, meaning that if Qureshi lost he’d owe Griffin $285K and if Griffin lost he’d owe Qureshi $855K. Griffin booked an additional $15K of action with others, meaning he was risking a total of $900K -- not to mention the physical trauma of running nearly three marathons in one day -- to win $300K.

As reported on many outlets earlier this week, Griffin incredibly succeeded in the task and won the bet. Meanwhile, his friend Qureshi appears to have been affected by much more than having lost a significant portion of his bankroll. Yesterday and today Qureshi published a lengthy two-part account of the bet on his blog: The Million Dollar Bet, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2.

It’s a harrowing read, one that should give a great deal of pause to those eager to celebrate Griffin’s accomplishment and/or the undeniably fascinating culture that seems to produce such rash, risky behavior. Qureshi is highly self-critical throughout, recognizing the absurdity of the situation of his having bet on his friend’s body to fail him physically -- perhaps even irreparably. The experience seems to have been unrelentingly hellish for Qureshi (who turns 21 this year), and he writes with the self-awareness and perspective that belies his young age (and which he appears to have been lacking when he agreed to the prop).

Near the conclusion Qureshi speculates about “the world of poker players” in which he has lived for a short time, wondering if perhaps there is something “fundamentally unhealthy” present there of which all should be wary. It’s not a new observation he is making. But perhaps it is being made in a new way here -- and from a different perspective -- and thus might capture the notice of some it might not otherwise have gained.

People complain about the overuse of the term “sick” to describe risky maneuvers at the poker table or the awe-inspiring exploits of some of the games’ most celebrated “degens.” Qureshi’s account perhaps invites us to reconsider the term’s applicability to “the world of poker players,” including considering its possibly literal significance for some who inhabit it.