Galfond's Game Plan

I written here before a couple of times about Phil Galfond, usually in response to some of blog posts he’s shared over the years -- few in number, but always thoughtful and worthwhile.

I happened to have helped cover his bracelet win way back in 2008 when he won his WSOP bracelet in a $5K pot-limit Omaha event (and before he was on most folks’ radar). Here’s a post from 2012 where I’m reflecting on one of his blog posts and also tell a little about that ’08 final table, titled “Human Interest.”

Galfond’s got people reading him again with this manifesto-like post from earlier today indicating his intention to start a new online poker site under the branding of his instructional site, Run It Once, sometime during the first quarter of 2017.

It’s a short piece (less than 500 words), presented under the title “A Poker Site Should.” Using anaphora by repeating the title throughout (I’m getting to recall a rhetorical term learned long ago), Galfond provides a list of qualities and characteristics he believes an online poker site should provide to players.

He speaks of how a site should cater to a variety of player types (casual players, “semi-professional” players, pros), give priority to software and user experience, be “transparent” with its intentions, be fair to all and vigilant to keep things safe, be willing to evolve with the game and market, and above all understand the need to keep players happy and (therefore) coming back.

Near the end he talks how an online poker site “shouldn’t obsess over where poker was five or ten years ago.” A good point, something most who were playing online poker five or ten years ago and who are still around the game today have a hard time with as well.

In some ways it amounts to a wish list, describing a kind of situation and site that hasn’t ever really existed and possibly cannot, or at least not on anything more than a very small scale.

It’ll be interesting, though, to see both what Galfond is able to do and whether or not the site has any sort of meaningful impact on the present state of things for online poker. Hard not to take that name -- Run It Once -- and apply it to this endeavor, insofar as I imagine this isn’t the sort of thing Galfond (or most) would want to try a second time should the first go-round not work out.

A Captive Audience

Did something kind of unusual on the plane ride back from Barcelona yesterday.

It was about a nine-hour flight, perhaps a little more, starting in the morning and ending around dinner time. Sleeping wasn’t an option, really, although I don’t ever do that well trying to sleep on planes. If it’s a redeye I’ll usually can at least rest my eyes for an hour or two, but in truth I never really zonk out, even if I happen to have a row on which to stretch.

I started out watching one movie -- David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence -- which I hadn’t seen before. I’m up on practically all early and mid-period Cronenberg, and also being a noir fan I ended up enjoying this one, even if it turned out to be a little awkward watching certain scenes there in an aisle seat where those behind me could watch as well, if they wished.

Against Cronenberg’s earlier stuff, of course, it played as a little more restrained. Meanwhile when compared to the noir tradition the story, situation, and characters followed, it read as a modern, more graphic update. Certain elements of the latter act (in particular William Hurt’s character) seemed over the top, but by then that fit well enough in the somewhat stylized world being presented.

Finishing that as well as the in-flight meal, I scrolled around and dialed up another movie to watch -- The French Connection (which I have seen, long ago) -- but within 10-15 minutes I couldn’t keep focused on it and switched it off, opting for some music instead. Then after sitting there a bit I pulled out my laptop.

During a conversation with Jack (my buddy and blogging partner) early in the two-week poker festival I’d brought up this draft of a novel I have. Same Difference had been essentially written well prior to my getting into poker (and starting this blog in 2006), and I only published it in 2009. Meanwhile this new novel was written subsequently, the first draft of which was completed around three years ago. I revised it a couple of times -- the file is marked “3rd draft” -- but hadn’t opened it back up since earlier this year.

I opened it there on the flight and began reading. Got through the first several chapters and kept going, then eventually was approaching the midpoint. Finally at some point I realized I was ready to read the whole sucker, and doing some math realized I’d be able to finish it before we landed which I did. Was perhaps seven hours of reading, I think -- the book’s novel-length but on the shorter side (around 70,000 words).

I don’t think I’d ever read it through in one sitting like that, and it was satisfying to do so. Like the first novel it’s essentially a murder mystery, although not a detective novel and draws much more on my own experiences than did Same Difference which is set in New York City in the mid-1970s. This one is also set in the past, with the story starting in 1979 and ending in 1980, but takes place in a setting essentially pattered after my hometown with a boy protagonist/narrator of my same age then.

I tinkered just a little as I went, but not much as the draft had been pored over many times already. I remembered certain sections I’d cut, glad they were gone in this version. A couple of plot points have been altered from the initial version, too, though a lot of it is still there.

The experience made me eager to begin the process of publishing it, something I’d like to before the year ends. In fact, I have another creative project of sorts I’m going to “publish” (so to speak) later this week, in fact, that falls under the same heading of me wanting to share something I’ve done rather than keep it to myself. For a couple of reasons, I’ve been feeling a lot of this “life-is-too-short-to-wait” pressure over the last few weeks, which is partly why I want to move ahead with these things.

Traveling will inspire that feeling sometimes. While in Barcelona I had a conversation with Brad (also my buddy and also my blogging partner) about watching movies on planes. On the surface, it seems less than ideal to watch these things on relatively small screes on the backs of passengers’ seats. But as Brad pointed out, the audience is uniquely captive, free from the endless distractions that mark our lives when we aren’t 30,000-plus feet in the air.

Coupled with being away from loved ones (if you’re traveling alone), that can make viewers especially receptive emotionally (we agreed), causing us to be more readily affected by certain films -- something both he and I have experienced before.

I can’t say A History of Violence moved me too deeply, although it had its moments. Meanwhile it might have been that being on the plane, all alone and in a relatively unique state of mind, affected me as I read through my novel again.

Doesn’t matter, I guess. Same difference, as they say.

Gonna get moving on this thing. More to come.

Image: “Plane” (adapted), Alper Çuğun. CC BY 2.0.

Hogar, Dulce Hogar

Home safe and reasonably sound. Was a fine, direct flight of nine-plus hours, plus some driving at the end. And now I’m pretty knackered.

Was still reflecting on that wild finale on Sunday during my travels today.

I mentioned yesterday how infectious Sebastian Malec’s enthusiasm was, and affecting his emotional reaction to winning at the end.

From the reporting side of things, all of that helped distinguish the final table from most, and as I said made it more memorable. It was also a bit hectic to chronicle as it went by, with Malec’s high-energy and constant talking actually sometimes creating a wall of static through which a reporter had to fight in order to get to the action.

There was also the desire to share some of that dialogue amid the hand reports, too, which was challenging sometimes since there was so much of it. In retrospect, it really was one of those “had to be there” kind of situations, where going back and looking at the archived live stream -- available over on YouTube -- gives you a better idea of how manic it all was.

Was a fun trip all around, and unlike a year ago I think I managed to remain relatively illness-free start-to-finish. Very glad to reunite with Vera and our four-legged friends on the farm, of course. That pic above is our buddy Shakan, a horse we board, standing before a cloud that uncannily echoing his shape. More soon.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 12 -- Exponentially-Growing Happiness

Most of these tournaments we cover tend to run together, with most ultimately not standing out too starkly in the memory even just a few weeks on, let alone years later. Somehow I think tonight’s finish to the European Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event will ensure this one will stick in the memory a little more successfully.

They pretty much raced down to heads-up in the sucker, leaving just two players from the 1,785 who entered -- Uri Reichenstein (originally of Israel, now Germany) and Sebastian Malec (of Poland). Reichenstein is in his late 20s, has a ton of big online wins, and fits the mold of the very solid, smart young player. Malec, meanwhile, is just 21, and qualified for the €5,300 buy-in Main via a €27 satellite online.

Malec is also clearly an intelligent player, and in fact it wasn’t that surprising to see these two emerge from the final group to make it to heads-up. Malec didn’t necessarily stand out all that much prior to it getting down to two, but afterwards he did. I mean that literally, too, as in he was standing for a lot of the time while playing, particularly after he made an incorrect hero call of a big river shove by Reichenstein to give the latter the chip lead.

His nervous energy made watching and reporting on him a little stressful, I have to admit. He chattered nonstop, mostly to himself and occasionally to Reichenstein. He’d rock back and forth on his feet while standing and added tons of extra movements to every action. Meanwhile Reichenstein couldn’t have been more stoic and serene, and when Malec occasionally did engage him in conversation, he was very cool and classy with his responses (I thought), making him a likable character in the developing drama.

I found myself liking Malec a lot, too, though, despite all of the talking and near-mania of his behavior. When heads-up first began, he said something to Reichenstein about the “glory” of winning an EPT title, asking him whether he wanted heads-up to be short or last a long time. They were very deep to begin, with Reichenstein on about 100 big blinds and Malec on 70 or 80, so a long duel was a possibility.

Reichenstein said he didn’t care much one way or the other about the length of their match, he just wanted to win. But Malec was firmly on the side of wanting it to go on for a while. He referred to how special it was to get to that point and how he wanted it to last as long as possible.

Then, much later in the match, Malec uttered a line amid the chatter that really stood out -- so much so that my colleague Howard quoted it in his recap of the night:

“My happiness grows exponentially the longer we play,” he said.

You don’t hear that kind of stuff at the poker table very much. Heck, you don’t hear it much anywhere at all, with reference to any profession or recreation or activity in which we engage.

But if you think about it, there are certain things in our lives (hopefully) that do give us happiness, and for which the longer we experience them the happier we grow. I’m mostly thinking of friendships and our relationships with those we love, but there are other things we do that we really like to do, and which keep giving back to us over and over in greater degrees.

One of the things I like to do is to watch other people be happy. And so when Malec won and his joy was such that he couldn’t avoid letting the tears flow, it was hard not to enjoy that. A lot.

Check Howard’s recap for more on what happened, and you can also read the account of the last hand in the live updates. Really, though, you ought to watch the last half-hour or hour of the EPT Live broadcast to get a better idea of what a spectacle it all was. I’m thinking I probably will be doing that myself again once I’m home.

Flying tomorrow. Was a great time and ended on a genuine high, and getting to experience it with friends made it even better. Talk again from the other side of the Atlantic when I’m back on the farm.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 11 -- Learning Games

Was a nice morning and early afternoon today, as I had a chance to visit the pool for a short while and also to go for a longish walk along the coastline to see all of the beachgoers. Saw a bunch of dudes gathered around a table playing some sort of dice game at one point (and snapped the pic at left).

When I tweeted the photo earlier today, Remko Rinkema shot back that “Looks like they have a lot of skin in the game,” reminding me of one of my other favorite Remko quotes: “Imagine how much funnier I am in Dutch.”

They had a cup they used to shake up the dice, and one had drawn lines on a sheet of paper for tallying the score. Anyone know what game they might be playing? (Click the picture to embiggen.)

Speaking of not understanding games fully, I had a couple of funny things happen in short succession while helping cover Day 2 of the €10K High Roller at European Poker Tour Barcelona, both suggesting something similar -- and perhaps not so obvious when looking at these tournaments from the outside.

In order to get to the High Roller tables in the back right of the spacious tournament room one had to pass through a few dozen other tables in the front, and early on there was a pot-limit Omaha hi-lo tournament happening. It was a smallish side event with a 72-player cap and a €550 buy-in.

As I was passing through, that tournament was going on break and I noticed lingering at one of the tables two seated players, two more standing up, and the dealer engaged in an animated conversation while pointing to a set of community cards on the board. From the looks of things, one of the players had just lost the hand, but had questioned the result afterwards.

“You use three of these and two of these,” another player was saying, pointing first to the board cards then to the player’s hole cards. The player was nodding, and before I got out of earshot I heard him express his appreciation.

A little later I was back on the other side of the room with the High Roller, and noticed a couple of people near the edge of the playing area but didn’t pay them too much mind. Then someone came up behind me and after greeting me in Spanish had a question for me.

“What is the short stack?” he asked. Thinking initially he was one of the group I had seen observing the tournament, I asked him what he meant. Was he asking who was the shortest stack in the room at that moment with about 150 players left or what size stack at that point in the tournament qualified as “short”?

He clarified that he was asking the latter. The blinds were 2,000/4,000, and I’d just reported a couple of hands in which players with 10-12 big blinds had shoved all in. “About 40 or 50 thousand,” I said. “That’s when people are going all in,” I added, using my hands to mimic the gesture of pushing chips forward.

He nodded. “Good,” he said. “I have to wait.”

I watched him then proceed back over to the edge of the tournament area and take a seat behind a stack of about 110,000.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going on. They were about 30 eliminations off the money, and he was trying to gauge whether or not he could fold his way into the money. Indeed, over the next hour-plus he mostly did just that, but alas went out a few spots shy of the bubble bursting.

It had been amusing to see the player in the Omaha hi-lo event being confused about the rules. It was more surprising to encounter the one in the €10,300 high roller inquiring about short-stack strategy as the bubble approached.

All of it reminded me that the stakes for which players are playing don’t automatically suggest anything in particular about their skill level or experience. These were exceptions, of course, but I don’t think it’s that uncommon to find players in low buy-in non-hold’em events who aren’t completely clear about the games they’re playing. And when you have a €10K NLHE tourney with nearly 600 entries, there are probably going to be more than few less experienced folks among the field.

One more day of poker to go here in Barcelona, with the €10K playing down from 36 players to a winner and the Main Event final table also playing out. Check that PokerStars blog all day and night on Sunday to find out how things turn out.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 10 -- Popeye & Paella

Had a short one today, working only up to the dinner break of Day 4 of the EPT Barcelona Main Event and skipping out on the last 90-minute level as I’m due to work what will likely be a late one tomorrow. Gonna be over on the €10K High Roller, and with 550-plus entries on today’s first day (with late registration open until the start of Day 2) it’s going to be an unavoidably long day.

The most interesting hand of the day I watched was between the young Belgian Anthony Chimkovitch and a Polish player named Norbert Berent. Wrote it up on the PokerStars blog with the generic-sounding title “Big-chip battle between Berent and Chimkovitch” -- click here and scroll to 5:15 p.m. if curious.

To summarize here, Chimkovitch called a raise from the blinds, check-raised the flop, barreled the turn, then bet big on the river only to see Berent raise all-in. With three spades and a pair on the board, Chimkovitch ditched his hand pretty quickly, and Berent showed his ace-high for a bluff.

In the post I began by describing Chimkovitch’s t-shirt which had a picture of Popeye, and with Berent in the role of Bluto I had Chimkovitch’s strength-representing bets expressing the sailor’s “I am what I am” ethos. Ultimately, though, Chimkovitch needed some spinach because he wasn’t strong to the finich. I liked his play on the hand, though, and his demeanor at the tables as well, and so wouldn’t mind seeing him take his run deeper if he can.

After finishing had a chance to enjoy a “real meal” somewhere other than the casino or hotel, hitting one of the places along the beach called Moncho’s. I actually remembered eating there a year ago (and not enjoying it very much), but this time was much better. My colleague Stephen and I shared a lobster paella dish, and our buddy Brad took a picture of us just before digging in. It wasn’t spectacular, but quite good and satisfying, with the on-the-way-back ice cream from Farggi rounding out a pleasant evening meal.

On the way back we watched a little beach volleyball. Check out these dudes -- no hands!

Like I say, it’s going to be a long one tomorrow. Check that PokerStars blog for updates of both the Main and the High Roller.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 9 -- Friberg Reflects

Day 3 of the European Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event went smoothly enough, ending at a decent hour. They’ve now played down from a starting field of 1,785 players to just 98. Starts to get a little more interesting from this point onward.

One of the players making it through to tomorrow is Erik Friberg of Sweden. Those with longer poker memories will remember him from the 2006 Main Event final table where he finished eighth. That was the biggest WSOP Main ever, won by Jamie Gold.

Was kind of intriguing today hearing Friberg talk to a tablemate (Felipe Oliveira) about the experience of making that WSOP Main Event final table just over 10 years ago. Oliveira asked him if he enjoyed it, and Friberg immediately responded “no.” He then explained how he’d made a couple of mistakes, he felt, partly because of the pressure of the situation and not being able to be as mentally strong as he would’ve liked.

Most interesting (I thought) was hearing Friberg say he wished there had been some kind of delay before the final table such as has been introduced and made the norm with the November Nine (in place since 2008). Even just a week, he said, would’ve helped him get his wits together and perhaps helped him to have performed better.

Of course, we can all argue how being able to handle those pressures and the stress of many consecutive days of poker is “part of the game,” so to speak. That’s what those making the final table of this event will have to handle, all of whom will be playing their sixth day of poker in either six or seven days.

Meanwhile I’m on nine straight days here, and as I’m tired I’m gonna cut it short. Talk again mañana.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 8 -- Double Bubble

Today at the European Poker Tour’s Barcelona stop was highlighted by Day 2 of the Main Event reaching the bubble near the end of Day 2 (faster than typical thanks to the new payout schedule in which 20% of the field cashes) and the always fun media event.

I happened to be there for the bubble hand today in the EPT Main. I was also there for the one in the media event as, alas, I was the one going out one spot shy of the cash.

In the Main Event there were 360 players left, meaning exactly 45 eight-handed tables had gone to hand-for-hand play as the top 359 made the money. There were several of us on hand to try to catch the bubble hand, although to be honest it usually isn’t that hard to witness at least the end of such a hand given how the usual procedure is to stop the tournament, get the EPT Live cameras over and ready, then deal out the hand and/or have a showdown. By then there are many reporters from multiple outlets there, too, again making it easier to get details if needed.

I was watching just a handful of tables, and somewhat uncannily was standing right beside the one where the bubble hand ended up taking place, being there from the very start to record the preflop action. The hand was a bit unusual for a bubble hand. Rather than a preflop all-in, it had lots of postflop back-and-forthing and culminated in the at-risk player calling off his remaining chips on the river. Kind of a neat hand to follow, actually -- you can read about it here.

The media tournament came later, starting after 10 p.m., drawing 40 entrants. It followed the same 20% payout scheme of the other EPT events, meaning the top eight made the money with eighth getting €25, just five euros more than the buy-in.

Your humble scribbler-slash-low-roller made it to the final nine, getting lucky once along the way when my ace-king outdrew pocket kings. I might’ve folded into the money, but took a reckless gamble in one hand to lose about a third of my stack, then lost with ace-king versus pocket sevens to finish ninth.

Good fun, though, getting to play for two-and-a-half hours or so. And it wasn’t that bad getting back to the room in time to get a decent night’s sleep, upon which I am presently going to embark.

Will probably have to write a little something next week about the big announcement today from PokerStars regarding its live events and the consolidating of all the tours as “PokerStars Championships” and “PokerStars Festivals” -- a lot of buzz about that, as you might imagine.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 7 -- Knowing Where to Look

Moved over to help cover the Main Event today at the European Poker Tour Barcelona festival.

It was the very big Day 1b which ended up creating a total turnout of 1,785 players (a record for EPT Barcelona) and a €8,657,250 prize pool (also a record).

I’ve written here many times before about covering Day 1s of multi-day poker tournaments (i.e., three-day or longer), and how the big field events in particular make it both impractical and unfavorable (I think) to cover things the same way as you do later on in the event. That is to say, the individual hand reports and chip counts that are important later on -- say, after the money bubble bursts and (really) once the sucker is down to just a few tables -- simply don’t mean all that much in the grand scheme of things during a tournament’s initial stages.

In fact, I was thinking today when walking around the tournament how the reporter is often better off on a Day 1 looking up rather than down -- that is, at the faces rather than the chips and cards. See who’s there, listen to what they’re saying, get a sense for the “characters” (so to speak) that will begin rounding out the cast of the narrative you’re creating about the tournament.

Eventually you begin to move your gaze downward -- namely, to the chip stacks. Of course, you’re always counting chips, even from the start. But it really isn’t until play gets a few levels in and even into the late stages of Day 1 and the start of Day 2 that the stacks matter much at all -- except, of course, to the short stacks and endangered players sitting behind them.

Later you move your focus still further downward to the table -- specifically the cards and the chips that are going in the middle, which at some point take over the narrative as the most meaningful motivator of plot. Sure, “color” will crop up here and there, and adds greatly if noticed and shared, but you can’t avoid talking about hands anymore.

By the very end you’re looking at payout schedules and filling blanks showing where players end up. You could say you begin looking away from the table entirely, toward the cashier’s desk and that last transaction made by those participants who manage to be around for the story’s final scenes and denouement (not always a “climax” to the story, as sometimes -- even often -- that’ll happen earlier than the end).

Enough abstraction. Check out the reports on the PokerStars blog where some of these high-falutin’ ideas can be shown being put into practice.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: EPT13 Barcelona, Day 6 -- Samri, Moorman, and the Kooij

A short one today as the Estrellas Poker Tour Barcelona Main Event played down from nine players to a winner in just about six hours or so.

The Frenchman Mohamed Samri ended up winning the sucker, kind of a surprise to be honest as there seemed others in the final group more likely to come out on top, including the eventual runner-up Teunis Kooij of the Netherlands and third-place finisher Chris Moorman, the British standout.

Moorman started today with the lead, and Kooij -- which we were pronouncing as though it rhymed with “huge,” often referring to him as “The Kooij” -- took it over early on. Both had big stacks and Samri was short during three-handed play, but Moorman lost a big preflop all-in with pocket sixes against the queens of Kooij, then lost the rest in the next hand to go out somewhat surprisingly in third.

Kooij had the big lead to start heads-up play, but after the last two made a deal it was Samri winning both of the all-ins to take it down. Samri had less than $4,000 worth of tourney cashes before, so the €353,220 score was crazily big for him. And Kooij had no recorded results, so it was huge for him as well. Or should I say, hooij.

Got back in the room in good enough time to give my mom a call on her birthday and assure her I was doing fine out here with the long work days and (often) short nights of sleep.

Speaking of sleep, I’m moving over to help with Day 1b of the Main Event tomorrow, which has another of those undesirable 10 a.m. starts. I’ve traded off shifts, though, so thankfully won’t be going in until later. Gonna take advantage of the extra hours here and relax some -- more mañana.

Photo: courtesy René Velli/PokerStars blog.