Poker, Poker, Poker (WSOP, Super Tuesday, Epic)

I mentioned yesterday how there’s a lot to occupy us in the poker world these days, even for those of us here in America who aren’t spending an hour or two (or ten) of the day playing online.

Found my attention taken up by three different tournaments yesterday -- one on television, one online, and one live -- and thought I’d share a few thoughts today regarding each.

The one on the teevee was ESPN’s coverage of the final table of $50K Poker Player’s Championship (Event No. 55) in which Brian Rast at the end dramatically faded three flush draws by runner-up Phil Hellmuth to take his second bracelet of the summer. Vera watched some, too, and we remembered being there for a while that night. Could fleetingly identify our silhouettes a couple of times in the background, in fact.

This was the first time I’d sat down to watch any of the packaged stuff ESPN began airing a couple of weeks ago. Incidentally I didn’t get a chance to watch any of the live streaming of this on ESPN3 over the summer, which I imagine would considerably affect how some would view these two hours of edited coverage. (The live stream of the $50K final table is currently available over on YouTube here: Part 1 & Part 2.) Had a few quick reactions to the show, and so I thought I’d just offer them here in list form.

1. A lot of above-average interesting hands were shown, and Hellmuth in particular (involved in the majority making the cut) made a number of nifty plays and reads. While he didn’t play perfectly and made at least a couple of decisions that could be questioned, Hellmuth was playing some creative poker that night -- more so than I think some would suspect him of being capable of -- and I think partly showed why he had such a remarkable WSOP this year. Should add, too, that Rast was a beast as well, his high-level thinking and play perhaps being slightly less obviously demonstrated during the two-hour show.

2. I like Norman Chad, but some of his commentary, particularly jokes about players’ looks, didn’t quite land last night. Kept calling Rast pale and compared George Lind to Billy Bob Thornton’s Karl character from Sling Blade. I remain a Chad fan, though. (By the way, if you’re curious, see Lind’s complaint on 2+2 last night about the Sling Blade stuff and Chad’s classy response.)

3. The Kara Scott updates fit just fine with the narrative, I thought. I’ll mention again that having watched those being shot (as well as the ones with Chad and Lon McEachern), they were invariably done in a single take.

4. The inserts from Joe Navarro about body language and Barry Greenstein offering analysis were fine, too. Vera in particular found the Navarro segments intriguing, which made me realize that like the personal profile stuff (e.g., about Rast’s Brazilian fiancee) the Navarro segments might have an appeal for those beyond the hardcore poker audience -- which the strategy stuff surely does not.

5. Was a little surprised at how the table was shot, actually. Felt like we were somewhat removed from the action, craning to see what exactly was going on at the table when players were making their bets. (Those crazy multi-colored chips -- which we didn’t enjoy trying to count at all, by the way -- weren’t helpful either.) Even the sound was a little strange at times, with the table talk not always coming through clearly. Kind of had the look and feel of a live broadcast, in fact -- very different from what we’ve seen over the last few years of WSOP coverage on ESPN.

As we all know, there was a new production company this year, with Poker PROductions having replaced 441. Meaning there’s necessarily going to be differences, and it’ll likely take a while for us loyal watchers of the WSOP on ESPN to get acclimated to those changes and then decide whether or not we like them. My overall impression, though, from these first two hours was positive.

The online tourney I gave attention to last night was the Super Tuesday, the $1,000+$50 no-limit hold’em tourney that runs each week on PokerStars at 5:00 p.m. ET.

Thought it noteworthy to see that 360 players played in the event last night. That meant the $360,000 prize pool was well over twice the $150K guarantee Stars now has for the Super Tuesday. (The guarantee has been scaled back from $300K after Black Friday.) That field of 360 represented a big increase over the last few weeks, and looking back it turns out that was the biggest field since April 12 (373), the last Super Tuesday before Black Friday.

Yesterday I also saw PokerScout’s report noting how PokerStars’ traffic has surged of late, thanks largely, of course, to Full Tilt’s shutdown. Just four months down the line, Stars is edging closer to getting back to its pre-Black Friday traffic, kind of incredible when you think how the site instantly lost a significant chunk (perhaps 25-30%) of its player base on April 15. According to PokerScout, Stars currently claims 54% of the worldwide online poker market (among dot-coms).

The World Championship of Online Poker is coming up in a few weeks over on PokerStars, starting September 4. Will be interesting to see how numbers for those 62 events turn out, and how they compare to 2010.

Finally, I couldn’t help but follow -- pretty much all day -- coverage of the Epic Poker League’s first-ever Main Event. PokerNews provided updates, with Donnie Peters having flown from Uruguay to Vegas to join the coverage right away. I said something on Twitter yesterday about how his doing so reminded me of Phil Collins taking the Concorde to perform at both London and Philadelphia on the same day at Live Aid. (Not only was I referring to something too far back for many to remember, but in the poker world the name Phil Collins -- one of this year’s November Nine -- now evokes someone other than the pop star.)

There were also detailed updates on the Epic Poker website, including a lot of nifty features including chip counts by table and some other unique elements.

Early in the day ESPN Poker’s Andrew Feldman set a line of 137 entrants for the event. My first instinct was to think that number seemed high. There were only 252 eligible players, plus eight more who’d won their way in via the Pro-Am. (Andy Bloch, already eligible for EPL Main Events, won a seat, too, by finishing third in the Pro-Am).

As it turned out, Feldman nailed it with his line, as exactly 137 players did participate. Dunno what Epic’s expectations or hopes were exactly, but as I say that turnout seems pretty healthy to me, higher than I would’ve projected. Will be curious, of course, to see if the number goes up or down for the second Main Event, coming up soon in early September.

I mentioned here a week ago how I’d been asked by Epic Poker to contribute a “poker and pop culture” column, a fact which will you can freely keep in mind when reading any comments by me regarding the EPL and its prospects. There are some -- players (both eligible and non-eligible) and others -- who have already been critical of the league and occasionally sound as though they are hopeful the EPL will fail to sustain itself or to achieve its various goals, some of which are certainly lofty.

I certainly hope to see the EPL survive and even do well. Sure, I very much like having the opportunity to write for them now and then, and necessarily can’t help but share from afar the excitement regarding the league’s launch. But I’m also aware of the many factors currently in place here in the U.S. that will make it very challenging for the league to succeed -- the biggest, perhaps, being poker’s highly uncertain place in our culture at the moment.

Will be something else to watch, then. Along with everything else.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Departure

That’s one of the last pictures I took while in Uruguay. From the back of the shuttle, somewhere between Punte del Este and Montevideo. Not bad, considering we were hurtling forward at more than 100 km per on a bumpy highway.

We had an early check-out yesterday, but weren’t leaving until later in the afternoon. Meaning we were pretty much stranded in the hotel lobby for several hours waiting for our shuttle to Montevideo. That gave us the time to hang out some more with our friend Luke (of Australia) whom we envied as we watched him grind a bit on PartyPoker.

This was my first trip out of the U.S. for a tourney since going to LAPT Lima back in April, the one I took with Dr. Pauly during which Black Friday surprisingly smacked us all. I’m realizing now how for every subsequent trip abroad a hard-to-ignore theme is necessarily going to be America’s (essential) non-involvement in the online poker scene. At least in the near term.

Watching Luke play, I was inspired to dial up Hero Poker where I have my small roll and I goofed around with some nickel-dime PLO while we waited. Hardly the stakes for which Luke plays, of course. But that wasn’t the only thing different about our games.

I’ve mentioned here before how even for a recreational player like myself the whole concept of online poker has suddenly become something entirely different from what it was prior to April 15. More theory than practice, now, if that makes sense. Something we Americans are aware of as an idea, but don’t do anymore. Not really.

Our shuttle finally arrived and a couple of hours later we were checking in at the Carrasco International Airport, shaped like a huge clam shell suddenly opening up there amid the Montevideo countryside. A couple more hours’ wait there and we were off to Miami.

Drew an especially good seat for this one, having the next-to-last row all to myself. There was a group of eight- or nine-year old boys in the row ahead of me, which looked for a moment early on like it could spell trouble. But they didn’t make too much noise, especially after the first half-hour or so. In fact, one of them helped provide an especially funny moment early on, just before dinner was served.

A flight attendant was standing by my aisle when the boy jumped from his seat and stood before the uniformed man. He had a question for him.

“Where’s the bathroom?” he asked.

The attendant responded without expression. “There are no bathrooms on this airplane,” he said. The kid’s jaw dropped. “Really?!” The attendant raised his hand. “Hang on,” he said, and turned around, reached back behind him, then faced the youngster once more.

I couldn’t help but grin as I saw the attendant hand the boy a plastic cup.

“Wha...?” the boy began, and finally the attendant gave him the straight dope. “Just kidding... it’s right here,” he said, pointing to the restroom located just behind us.

Having the extra seats meant I was able to stretch out and sleep pretty much without interruption from dinner to breakfast, about five-and-a-half hours. Felt kind of luxurious after a week of not-always-so-comfy accommodations. We all went our separate ways in Miami, and I made it back home to Vera in decent time and relatively decent shape.

As happened with that Lima trip, it feels like I’ve returned to an America that’s changed more than a little since I’d left, what with the stock market’s dramatic nosedive yesterday dominating the headlines today. Lots of poker news happening, too, of course, including another cheating drama (that “Girah” story), more Full Tilt Poker machinations, and the Epic Poker League kicking off their first Main Event about an hour from now. Oh, and there’s decent some poker on the teevee tonight, too, with that $50K Poker Player’s Championship finale airing.

So much going on, it seems, even when not playing online. Stuff just flies by. Hardly time to stop and take a photo.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Pregame
Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Arrival
Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Day 1
Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Day 2
Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Day 3
Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Day 4

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Day 4

We’re done in Punta. The last hand has been dealt, and now we wait to begin the long return trip home. Mine begins later this afternoon with a shuttle back to Montevideo to catch a redeye back to Miami. One more flight after that, and I’ll be home mid-morning tomorrow.

The poker went quickly yesterday, with the final table done in less than five hours. There was a decent crowd on hand to watch. Not as big as what I’d seen in Lima, but every player had a cheering section, and there were some chants and shouts that made the scene somewhat festive.

The most memorable moment of the entire day came early on when the Brazilian Nelson Neto doubled up, then amid his celebrating put on a ski mask (!) and ran down into the crowd. He shared a hug with his supporters, ran back up on the stage to his seat, then sat with the mask on for another moment or two before taking it off. (For pictures by our great photographer, Carlos, scroll to the bottom of our post from yesterday on the PokerStars blog.) He ended up going out in sixth, playing only another hour or so, and so we didn’t see the mask again.

The Uruguayan, Alex Komaromi, won. He entered the final table with a big chip lead, stayed in front until heads-up when he lost the lead briefly, then scored a big double-up and knockout to take the trophy and nearly quarter million U.S. dollars for first.

Soon after we’d wrapped up our work we rode up the coastal highway a few miles to have a nice dinner at a restaurant called Isidora. Was good to break out of the small circle we’d been running in from our hotel to the Mantra and back and at least see a little bit of Uruguay. Along the way we stopped at Garry’s hotel, the Yoo, and rode up to his room on the 19th floor and looked off the balcony into the Punta del Este night.

Dinner was great. Lots of laughs, and good eats as well, including some especially good squid rings for an appetizer and a seafood dish including fish, prawns, and scallops for my main dish.

We drove back around 11 p.m., having the main highway that runs along the beach largely to ourselves. Indeed, all of Punta del Este -- at least what we saw of it -- was like a ghost town this week, it being the winter and thus largely bereft of tourists and others enjoying the beaches.

On the way back we passed part of the beach called “La playa de los Dedos,” a.k.a. “Finger Beach.” There one finds these big sculptured fingers and a thumb sticking up out of the sand. We swung the car over, scampered up the sandy hill, and snapped a few photos. I took this one of Brad, which he tweeted later. “Sorry, I can’t talk,” he said. “I’m in a hand.”

Might’ve made a long night of it with card playing and further carousing, but I ended up hitting the sack around midnight, resting up as well as I could for today’s long day of waiting-slash-traveling. Woke this morning and as I’ve done each morning while here had breakfast with a new friend, a player named Luke from Australia who’d qualified for the tourney online.

Luke actually won his seat to the event over three years ago, but only now was able to fit it in his schedule to come play. He didn’t cash in the main or the one side event he also played, but I think he did quite well playing blackjack in the casino. Not a lot going on there at the Mantra, really, though again it is the middle of winter here. I understand things pick up big time from December through March.

Has been a good week, made especially so once again by the company and colleagues with whom I get to work on these things. Is fun to travel sometimes and I do feel lucky to have had the chance to see places I never would’ve otherwise if not for these poker writing gigs. Wouldn’t be worth it, though, if it weren’t for folks like Brad, Reinaldo, Sergio, Carlos, Donnie, Mickey, Will, Lynn, the LAPT staff, and other people who help make the trips not just manageable but a lot of fun, too.

Still, as always, I’m now especially looking forward to getting back home. After breakfast this morning I went for a short windy walk on the beach, touching the water just to say I had. Not a soul in sight, which kind of added to the lonely vibe.

I watched the waves crash for a few minutes more, then walked back to the hotel. Soon the journey from winter back to summer will begin.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Day 3

“They play differently here.”

That’s what Mickey Doft said to me after we watched yet another preflop all-in confrontation occur yesterday, this one involving a player with an average stack four-bet shoving with pocket sixes and getting called by one of the big stacks who held A-5-offsuit. The sixes held, and the big stack lost half of his chips.

Mickey was alluding to a willingness to gamble that those who spend a lot of time around the Latin American Poker Tour have grown accustomed to seeing.

Perhaps in part because of that readiness to take risks, yesterday went quite quickly, with the 27 players who returned getting whittled down to eight in about seven hours’ time. Alex Komaromi -- the lone remaining player from Uruguay -- will start today’s final table way out in front with something like a third of the chips in play.

Probably the most interesting story from yesterday involved Dr. Max Stern, the septuagenarian from Costa Rica with three WSOP bracelets who ended up finishing 21st. As it happened, Stern and his wife, Maria, were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary yesterday, so his busting by the late afternoon meant they would be able to enjoy a nice dinner together to mark the occasion.

I don’t think Maria minded her husband playing on their special day, though. In fact, she herself is an accomplished poker player, one of the few women to win a WSOP bracelet in an open WSOP event (1997, $1,500 seven-card stud).

All done and ready for dinner, our group headed back over to one of the two restaurants there in the Mantra Resort and Casino, necessarily a return visit as we’d already exhausted both options during the first two days of play. We arrived at 7:30-ish, but were told they didn’t begin serving the dinner menu until 8:30.

They eat differently here, too. So we left, loitered around a bit, then returned at the assigned time.

Our group consisted of Mickey and Donnie Peters (from PokerNews), Sergio Prado (from PokerStarsblog.la/br), Garry (Acting LAPT Media Coordinator), and Brad and myself (here writing for the PokerStars blog). We had fun reliving Garry’s deep run in the WSOP Main Event this summer. He made it all of the way to the end of Day 5, finishing 173rd for a nifty $47,107.

Garry also had a full day at Phil Hellmuth’s table (on Day 3), much of which was captured by the ESPN cameras. The pair had a number of memorable exchanges, and there’s little doubt their battling -- both verbal and poker-wise -- will be part of the story ESPN tells when they repackage things and air it a few weeks from now.

Garry told of one hand in particular versus Hellmuth. The pair had made it to the turn at which point Garry -- knowing of Hellmuth’s unwillingness to call off his chips in a tournament, no matter how small his stack -- put him to the test with an all-in shove despite only having a drawing hand himself.

Hellmuth reacted with extreme displeasure at the bet, eventually folding and then spending the next couple of minutes crazily berating Garry. That led us to recall other entertaining tirades from the Poker Brat we’d witnessed over the years, with Mickey eventually calling up some old PokerNews posts Change100 and I had written from 2008 reporting examples of classic Hellmuthian bluster. (Here’s one, chronicled here in a HBP post called “Laughs and Lightning Bolts.”)

Wonder how Hellmuth would do at a tournament like this one, where everyone -- it seems -- is so much more willing to gamble than he.

Just a theoretical exercise, of course. In fact, looking back at the list of 422 entrants for this tournament, there was exactly one U.S. player in the entire field, a fellow named Sean Nolan. I realize there would probably have been only a handful of Americans here prior to Black Friday, but still... just one!

That’s the way it is in the U.S. right now. Will be a long time before online poker provides American players the chance to win their way to seeing other parts of the world.

I guess we play differently in America, too.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Day 2

“Una mano mas!”

So came the call -- again and again and again -- as hand-for-hand play continued on the money bubble of the LAPT Punta del Este main event last night.

We heard the line so many times it was becoming a punch line to various, nonsensical jokes and exchanges. Someone even fed the line into Songify on his iPhone, literally turning it into a funky refrain.

There were 57 players left, meaning the next to go would be the last not to cash. After a wild, fast-paced afternoon and early evening that saw about 130 players go out during the six hours played before the dinner break, the tourney had essentially ground to a halt.

I was talking yesterday about running around in circles. As tourneys progress and fields shrink, the circles around which we perambulate become smaller and smaller. By the time of last night’s bubble, just eight tables remained. (At some point during Day 2s of these LAPT events they switch to eight-handed.) Around and around we would go, eventually pausing before the last table to complete its hand. And with no elimination, we’d spiral back out and then back in. Again.

Dizzying, it was. And as the bubble period wore on, we had more time to think about the incredible hand in which it began, the one that saw Roman Suarez go out in 58th.

In that one, Suarez and Erik von Buxhoeveden had bet back and forth to the river at which point the board read . There was about 140,000 in the middle, and Suarez pushed his last 70,000 forward in a last-ditched attempt to claim the pot. Von Buxhoeveden had only thought a short while before calling the bet, turning over... ! And he was right! Suarez had , his pair of eights having been counterfeited on the end.

The next hour-and-a-half was punctuated by a handful of short-stacked survivals and gradually increasing amazement at how long the bubble was enduring. “Can I press fast-forward?” said one member of the media. “To, like, an hour from now?” he added.

And the call came again... one more hand.

Finally a player who was down to a single yellow (1,000) chip couldn’t win with his pocket deuces and the bubble burst. From there they played down to 27 players before they stopped some time after midnight.

They’ll start up again today at noon and play down to the final eight-handed table before concluding. We’re hopeful for a shorter day, and perhaps a chance to relax a bit afterwards before coming back on Sunday.

The trip has been pretty much wholly occupied by the tourney thus far, but I think we have some time on Monday before flying home perhaps to see a little more of Punta del Este. Whatever happens, I do plan to break out of these little circles and take a walk on that beach we’re facing.

The days are long, for sure. And more than a little repetitive at times. But again I’m working with a bunch of cool cats who are helping make the days not just endurable but fun, too.

They’re creative, too. I mean they can make a song of anything, these guys.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Day 1

Was a relatively smooth day, reporting-wise, at LAPT Punta del Este yesterday. A day of running around.

The event attracted 422 players. Or “runners,” as they say. Well above what many were predicting based on the 307 who came the last time the tour stopped at this east coast city.

That big field meant we were racing all over the Mantra casino, covering the main poker room and an additional room downstairs, plus two more rooms full of players on an upper level. So up the stairs we went. And back down. And back up again. And back down again.

As it happened, all of the PokerStars team pros busted out by the end of the day, meaning that over on the PokerStars blog we’ll be refocusing our attention on everyone else going forward. Which is just fine, as a few personalities have already started to emerge among the 188 who made it to today’s Day 2, and other stories will surely come up as play continues today.

I say the reporting went well yesterday, although I will add that as the day wore on our attentions began to be affected somewhat by a simple, basic human need -- hunger.

I mentioned yesterday how we find ourselves without many options nearby, our hotel located on a mostly desolate highway running alongside the beach. Our hotel did provide a nominal breakfast (bread and coffee), but we’d had no lunch when play began. We then pushed through all eight levels without a dinner break, and without any drinks or snacks to sustain us we were friggin’ famished by the time all the day’s loose ends were tied.

The Mantra casino has but two restaurants, and so sometime after 10 p.m. a group of us landed at one of them for what turned out to be a very good, leisurely-paced meal. Salad, steak, and cheesecake for your humble scribbler, all delish. On the expensive side -- as most everything is here -- but actually fairly priced given the quality of the eats.

The meal took something like two-and-a-half hours, which pushed us past midnight. A shuttle back to our hotel was supposed to run until 1 a.m., so we weren’t too concerned. However, after we got to the lobby and waited a half-hour, it was obvious no shuttle was coming for us, so we ended up cabbing it back.

At one point while we were waiting for the non-existant shuttle, Mickey got a laugh from me by ducking into the revolving door to exit, taking a tiny lap, then walking back inside.

“How metaphorical,” I said to Mickey upon his reentry.

It was a lot of running around yesterday. And most of it in circles. And we find ourselves this morning back where we started. The dealers have arrived and are preparing for the day’s play.

Soon we’ll be watching hands again, following the action go around the tables. And around and around.

Fun circles in which to be traveling, though.

Travel Report: 2011 LAPT Punta del Este, Arrival

We’re here. Thousands of miles and many hours later, we’ve made it. Poker awaits.

After that long layover in Chile, there was one more short, sleepy flight to Montevideo, Uruguay which landed late afternoon. Still more journey to go, though, as we were about an hour-and-a-half drive from our destination in Punta del Este.

We pushed through customs without much difficulty, then wound our way to transportation where thankfully a driver awaited us. Along with Brad, Mickey, and myself came two players, one from the U.K. who now lives in Australia and another from Canada.

When the three of us identified ourselves as American, the Canadian -- thinking we were players, too, and not there to report on the tournament -- asked “How are you able to play?” We just shook our heads and answered “We don’t,” leading to a short conversation about how Americans were being summarily shut off from online poker, generally speaking. I didn’t bring up my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class, my grim smile the only evidence of my awareness of the irony.

We speedily hurtled over to the east coast and then northward as both night and a steady rain fell. Eventually the beach came into view out the right side window, the white caps of the waves emerging in the darkness like mouths opening and closing. We were taken to one abandoned-looking hotel and informed the driver it was not ours. He then took us to another, also desolate and from an initial glance seemingly uninhabited. It was the right one, though, and we piled out, entered the lobby -- weirdly unlit, with only a light above the desk -- and checked in.

The clerk then led us to our rooms, a trip that began in an elevator -- also worryingly unlit -- then wound through a series of eerie turns through the basement, the time passed with jokes about leaving bread crumbs. Finally we were pointed to our rooms, which while hardly on par with those luxurious suites at the Thunderbird back in Lima in April look as though they’ll be adequate. (As long as the water works, as it hasn’t always thus far.)

We weren’t quite able to rest yet, however. There was still the welcome party, a usual first step for these things. While all the travel had pretty much taken us out of a partying mood, we were all in a food mood, there being zero options anywhere close to the hotel for such. By nine o’clock we were back in another van, taking the 20-minute trip to the Nogaro Casino where the party was being held.

We found food. And some friends, too, including our PokerStars pals Reinaldo and Sergio and Lynn and Will from PokerNews. We reunited with LAPT President David Carrion, too, who later spoke a bit about the upcoming schedule this week and Season 4 of the LAPT. Was a huge crowd, and the buzz was that we’ll see a relatively large turnout for the $2,300+$200 main event.

We’ll be over at the Mantra Resort, Spa & Casino in a short while for the start of Day 1, a few minutes’ drive from where we are staying. Raining again this morning, although as I look off the beach-front balcony of my room I can spot a little bit of blue sky peeking out.

I do like seeing that sun. Cold, dark, and wet ain’t great for the spirits, especially on the tail end of such a long, exhausting journey.

But the temps are supposed to be mild this week (i.e., in the 50s), and hopefully the sun will remain out to brighten things up, too. Might even have to wander out on that beach before all is said and done.

But that’ll have to come later. ’Cos poker awaits.

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.

New Adventures

Embarking on a couple of new adventures this week.

One is another tourney trip, this time down to Punta del Este, Uruguay to help report on the Latin American Poker Tour event that begins there on Thursday. I’ll be at the airport later this afternoon for the first of three flights that will eventually get me there. Will basically be either in the air or waiting to get on the next plane for about 24 hours or so.

I think distance-wise this’ll about equal my longest-ever voyage (as the crow flies) to go cover a poker tournament. The number of miles -- like 5,100-plus -- is close to the same for that trip to Kyiv, Ukraine back in 2009.

This’ll be my first time to LAPT Punta del Este, after having twice reported from LAPT Lima. So there will be some familiar folks about including the LAPT staff, Brad “Otis” Willis (with whom I’ll be working for the PokerStars blog), the PokerNews folks, and probably a number of players, too.

But there will be much that is new, too, I expect. Hoping to provide a few updates here along the way, so stay tuned.

The other new adventure I’d like to pass along is a new column/blog I have begun over at the Epic Poker site, called “Community Cards: Poker in Popular Culture.” Kind of reviving that old “Poker & Pop Culture” column I’d written before (see here). Am planning to write both about poker in contemporary culture as well as occasionally delving back in history for interesting poker-related stories and anecdotes. My first entry is up now, having to do with poker frequently popping up as a topic of conversation on late night talk shows.

Has been a lot of buzz of late over the fast-approaching first event for the Epic Poker league (of Federated Sports+Gaming) which kicks off in just a few days. The just-announced television deal with CBS and Velocity got a lot of talk last week. And I think many are going to be curious to see how many of the 252 players who are qualified to participate wind up playing that $20,000 buy-in, six-handed NLHE main event (with $400,000 added to the prize pool) that starts Aug. 9.

Connected with the league is a newly-launched site featuring all sorts of information about the league, the players, the events, as well as a bunch of other poker-related content. Author Michael Craig is serving as the editor-in-chief over there, and he’s assembled a number of different folks to contribute columns on a regular basis.

Have to say I’m fairly psyched to be there writing alongside this group. Shane “Shaniac” Schleger will be sharing highlights from the Two Plus Two forums. Jen Newell will write about legal news. AlCantHang will report on poker in social media. Mark Gahagan will be analyzing poker news items to identify “winners” and “losers.” Jess Welman will contribute features about Epic Poker league players. John Vorhaus (author of the poker-themed novel Under the Gun and those “Killer Poker” strategy books) will write an advice column for new players. Fred Bevill will report from the Heartland Poker Tour. And Craig will also be frequently contributing variously, including filing updates on that new Global Poker Index.

Craig has written an introductory “mission statement” post with some further info about the site and the columnists, if you’re curious. There are also some player blogs, videos, photos, and other news already up on the site. And I imagine once the events start happening there will be a lot of reporting from the tourneys, too.

Meanwhile, in a few weeks I’ll be teaching my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class again. Will be changing a few items on the syllabus over the next couple of weeks, for sure. And I have a couple of other poker-related items brewing which may well evolve into still more adventures.

Better sign off now, though. I mean, if I’m gonna run off on another one of these epic-length odysseys, I probably oughta pack a bag.

The Poker Cult

Last Friday Vera and I went to see a stage version of Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show. We’d seen the film many times, of course, although it had been a while. Was a ton of fun, with a lot of clever staging decisions and some truly inspired performances among the cast. (Here’s a review.)

We went with another couple, one of whom had never even seen the movie. A “virgin,” as it goes. Kind of wondered what exactly he thought of the whole spectacle, particularly since the already twisted plot was perhaps made even less coherent in this version.

Incidentally, at this particular performance of the stage show (which predates the film, actually, and I believe includes a couple of songs not in the movie), the audience was instructed to refrain from the various antics that have always come with the midnight movie screenings. So no scripted shout-outs or newspapers or water guns or rubber gloves or party hats or what not. A few folks still dressed up, though, and many couldn’t resist doing the “Time Warp” and singing along with other numbers when they came around.

At dinner prior to the show, Vera and I tried to summarize the story to our friend who wasn’t familiar with it so as to help him know what to expect.

“It’s kind of an homage to the old ’50s sci-fi and horror movies,” I said. “So there’s a couple and their car breaks down and they end up at this weird castle full of characters....”

That was about as far as I got with regard to explaining the story. “But everything is over the top and it’s from the ’70s, so there’s a lot of sex, too,” I added, thinking in the back of my mind how the film brings to the surface all of those not-so-carefully hidden subtexts of the old horror and SF films. Was glad later I’d mentioned that, as the live show if anything was more explicit than the film in that regard.

Over the weekend I thought a little further about Rocky Horror and the whole idea of any sort of cultural production or practice that can be regarded as having a highly devoted or “cult” following. Had a chance also to spend some time visiting with family, and thus once again found myself having a few conversations here and there about poker with “non-poker people.”

Perhaps it was because of having seen the show on Friday, but I realized that in a lot of ways poker resembles something like The Rocky Horror Picture Show or other films, books, bands, or areas of culture that have their own specialized vocabulary and set of customs and other idiosyncracies that necessarily seem alien to the “virgins” or those on the outside.

Last week I mentioned I had been reading Tommy Angelo’s new book A Rubber Band Story and other Poker Tales. I managed to finish the book -- it is terrific -- and to review it for Betfair Poker, if you are curious to read more about it.

Angelo includes a piece in there titled “Broken Down English” in which he highlights the highly specialized -- or downright weird or “cult”-like -- language of poker. Illustrating his point, he imagines a monologue from the perspective of a non-player:

“Some guy limped in with rags, suited up. I woke up with two cowboys, so I popped him. I'd been beating him up all night. He was stuck like a pig and tilting bad. I put the cap on, of course. I hit my hand hard when a king flopped along with two clubs. Then I picked up a house on fourth street. And if that wasn't good enough, he flushed up on the river and started pounding me!”

It all means something, of course. But really, it’s easy to see how to some it makes as much sense as elbow sex.