Seven Dwarfs & Seventy-One Big Bets

May started with a big bang, with huge wins the first couple of days. Things calmed down a bit over the next week, though, and now we’re back to a more reasonable pace as we approach the month’s midway point. Still mostly playing pot limit Omaha -- and still mostly at the $25 max. tables -- although I’m finding I have a strange desire to try 2-7 Triple Draw some before I head Vegas-ward at the end of the month.

Anyhow, been meaning to share this crazy-ass Stud/8 hand from a few weeks ago. I’ve been enjoying interspersing quiet little sessions of Stud/8 and H.O.R.S.E. when I don’t feel like dealing with the larger PLO pots. Provides a nice contrast with the sometimes volatile world of PLO.

I sent this one to the Ante Up! guys as a possible “Hand of the Week,” although frankly I think it is probably too much of a spectacle to work for that segment. Besides the general wackiness involved with this particular hand, Stud/8 hands are generally difficult to narrate. I’m gonna give it a shot, though.

The stakes were $0.50/$1.00. Here’s how the table appeared as the hand began:



Yeah, I know. Shoulda figured something funny was gonna happen with this crowd.

Hadn’t been at the table for that long, though I’d been there long enough to have seen Dopey raising more hands than yr average dwarf. We all posted the nickel ante and the cards were dealt.

*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to Dopey
Dealt to Bashful
Dealt to Sleepy
Dealt to Short-Stacked Shamus [] []
Dealt to Sneezy
Dealt to Grumpy
Dealt to Happy
Dealt to Doc

I brought it in for a quarter, Sneezy folded, and Grumpy (with the king) raised it to fifty cents. Happy called, then Doc promptly reraised to a dollar. Dopey, Sleepy, and Shamus all called, then Grumpy reraised it. The pot ended up being capped, with six of us going to fourth street. Pot already $12.00.

I liked my low draw well enough. Three of my low cards were out, though, so I’d proceed with caution.

*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to Dopey
Dealt to Sleepy
Dealt to Short-Stacked Shamus [] []
Dealt to Grumpy
Dealt to Happy
Dealt to Doc

I pick up the six, but so did Happy. Dopey and Sleepy appear to have 8-lows going. A couple more of my low cards were gone, but I’m thinking I want to see fifth.

Grumpy bets, Happy raises, all four of us call the buck, then Grumpy reraises. Happy just calls the $1.50, and we all call, too. Still six of us in the hand. Pot now $21.00. So much for calming down with a few quiet hands of Stud/8 . . . .

*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to Dopey
Dealt to Sleepy
Dealt to Short-Stacked Shamus [] []
Dealt to Grumpy
Dealt to Happy
Dealt to Doc

Ugh. I bricked, and Dopey was looking like he might’ve made his low. Grumpy bet out again, both Happy and Doc called, then Dopey raised. I guess he got there. Sleepy called the two bucks and the action was on me.

This is where I might’ve considered bailing, but there was just too much in the middle at this point -- $28 at the moment. I knew I’d probably have to put four dollars in here to see sixth, but with all five of the other dwarfs also putting in the four (as it appeared was going to happen), sticking around seemed reasonable. Even if it weren’t, I’m not a good enough Stud/8 player to resist staying here. I called, Grumpy predictably reraised, and eventually Dopey capped it. Bottom line: all six players put in $4.00 to see sixth street. The pot was up to $45.00.

*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to Dopey
Dealt to Sleepy
Dealt to Short-Stacked Shamus [] []
Dealt to Grumpy
Dealt to Happy
Dealt to Doc

Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? Damn sure it ain’t me. The pot was creeping up past fifty clams, and the piss-poor net I was sewing to catch ’em was full o’ holes.

We ran through a similar sequence as on fifth, with Grumpy and Dopey catching us all in the whipsaw with their raises & reraises. Only difference here was that Doc dropped out and Dopey finally ran out of money. As we went to seventh street, I was thinking I was probably drawing dead, with Happy having perhaps made a 6-low. Was stuck, though, mesmerized by a pot that now exceeded $64.00.

*** RIVER ***
Dealt to Short-Stacked Shamus [] [] []

Well, I have a low. And perhaps a chance. Grumpy bet a dollar, Happy reraised with his last $1.45, I called, and Grumpy just called as well. The final pot was $71.05. Here’s what the five of us had:

*** SHOW DOWN ***
Dopey:
Sleepy:
Short-Stacked Shamus:
Grumpy:
Happy:

Happy took the High half, having filled up on fifth street. And somehow I’d snuck outta the castle with the low. We each made $35 on the hand, about $22 of which was profit.

So Dopey had started jamming the pot on fifth with his 8-7 low. Poor Sleepy was still drawing to his (smoother) 8-low at the end. And I was definitely a lucky ducky to grab that trey on the end. Happy might have been the only one of all of us who could claim to have played his hand well from start to finish, although after fifth it kind of played itself.

A 71-big bet Stud/8 hand! When that was over, I decided I needed to head back over to the PLO tables. Less stress over there.

Awareness (in One Act)

“Whatever general style you play, you must always modify it to reflect the styles of your opponents, and the current texture of the game . . . . That said, many players are so unaware, they wouldn’t notice an elephant defecating in the middle of the table.”

--Roy Cooke, “Managing Your Game Style,” CardPlayer, Vol. 21, No. 8 (April 29, 2008)

Seat 8: “Nice hand.”
Seat 7: “Thanks.”
Seat 8: “Has it gotten darker in here?”
Dealer [tapping felt in front of seat 2]: “Big blind, please.”
Seat 3 [exhaling]: “Am . . . I . . . ever gonna get a hand?” [mucks cards]
Seat 4: “Waitress!” [Waves hand.]
Dealer: “On you, sir.”
Seat 4: “Ehhh . . . [mucks] . . . Somebody dim the lights . . . ?”
Seat 7: “I should have bet more on the end there.”
Seat 8 [shaking head]: “Nah.”
Seat 7: “You do call forty there.”
Seat 5: “Fifteen.”
Seat 6: “Call.”
Seat 8: “Not forty . . . .”
Seat 7: “Thirty?”
Dealer: “Fifteen to stay.”
Seat 7 [mucking hand, chuckling]: “Oh . . . you’d’ve called forty . . . ”
Seat 8: “I call.”
Seat 9 [mucking hand]: “I’m out.” [Stands up.]
Seat 10: “Mmm . . . [mucks]”
Seat 1: “It is darker in here . . . [mucks].”
Seat 2: “Call . . . now, c’mon dealer . . . do me right now . . . ”
Dealer: “Four to the flop.”
Seat 8: “I can’t see the board. Where are the lights?”
Dealer: “Nine of clubs, nine of hearts, ten of clubs.”
Seat 2: “Ten.”
Seat 1: “What’s that noise?”
Seat 5: “I raise . . . forty-five.”
Seat 6: [mucks]
Seat 3: “I been sitting here for three hours and I’ve seen exactly one pocket pair for three . . . Whaddya . . . what noise?”
Seat 4: “Gimmeya . . . Dos Equis. Please. Thanks . . . ”
Seat 2: “Sounds like a generator or something . . . what is that dealer?”
Seat 8: “Why would they turn the lights down . . . [mucks]”
Seat 1: “Call.”
Dealer: “I don’t know. Two to the turn.”
Seat 2: “Sounds like the air conditioning . . . ”
Dealer: “Jack of clubs.”
Seat 5: “Action card.”
Seat 7 [voice lowered]: “Folded a nine.”
Seat 7: “Dunno.”
Seat 1: [taps table]
Seat 5: “All in.”
Seat 3: “Lord, what is that smell?”
Seat 4: “Huh?”
Seat 3: “You smell that?”
Seat 1: “How much?”
Dealer: “One-twenty . . . twenty-five . . . thirty . . . . One-forty-two.”
Seat 8: “What’s that?”
Seat 7: “Jack. Clubs. He’s filled up.”
Seat 3: “Somebody hit the buffet . . . HARD.”
Seat 4: “Man, oh man . . . you’re right . . . ”
Seat 3 [voice lowered]: “Must’ve been . . . .” [Points thumb toward the empty seat 9.]
Seat 1: “A little quiet, please.”
Seat 5 [holding nose]: “Gawd . . . . Sorry.”
Seat 1 [turning head back from Seat 5]: “I call.”
Seat 5: “Boat?”
Seat 1: “Not yet . . . . Trips.”
Seat 5: “Club please.”
Seat 8: “What’s he got?”
Seat 7: “Club draw . . . and . . . there’s a shadow . . . ”
Dealer [taps table, burns, deals]: “Three of clubs . . . flush beats three of a kind . . . ”
Seat 1: “Cra-a-a-a-p.”
Seat 7: “That stinks.”
Seat 8: “What?”
Seat 7: “He got there.”
Seat 8: “Oh . . . right . . . . Why is it so dark in here?”
Seat 5: “Sorry, dude. That was nuts.”
Seat 2: “There is that sound again.”
Dealer [tapping felt in front of seat 3]: “Big blind, please.”
Seat 3: “Can I get a seat change . . . ?”

Television & Poker; or, the Search for a Happy Medium

Busy weekend, a lot of it spent in the car. Have been trying to visit various family and friends before my summer in Vegas. I’ll be leaving in just under two weeks to go help PokerNews cover the World Series of Poker.

Had the iPod-like device with me and ran through all of the several podcasts I had recently downloaded, many of which concerned the much-discussed decision by ESPN and Harrah’s to move the final table of the WSOP Main Event to November. Heard WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack interviewed on a few of the shows. Some were recorded prior to the announcement, such as the April 7 episode of WSOP Radio (posted April 8). In those Pollack remains reticent when asked about the “rumor” of a possible change. Others were recorded afterwards, such as the May 1 episode of Keep Flopping Aces in which Pollack jubilantly echoes all of the points he’d made earlier in the day during the WSOP presser.

Over on Wise Hand Poker, Gary Wise interviewed recently-hired WSOP Communications Director Seth Polanski (on his May 7 show). I’d heard Polanski on another Rounder’s Radio show back on April 2nd (Pumped on Poker), at which time he didn’t even hint at the possibility of the change. Polanski’s resumé includes performing similar roles for the NFL Network and Fox Sports. On Wise’s show, he explained he thought one of the reasons why he had been hired a couple of months ago by the WSOP was to help facilitate this very move, so he obviously knew something back in early April.

After his interview with Polanski, Wise spoke briefly about why he was in favor of the change. Wise referenced the recent decline in popularity of poker on television and how it suggests “the poker boom as passed.” Linking falling TV ratings to the game’s overall health, Wise stated that “the only way to sustain the growth of the community . . . is to keep poker as a televisable entity popular.”

Wise then mentioned the history of televised game shows, and how the most popular of them -- his examples included Twenty One and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire? -- were often short-lived, having too quickly exhausted their appeal. He pointed out how Twenty One was so popular (in the late 1950s), attendance at baseball games went down on those nights when it aired. However, theorized Wise, the “adrenaline rush” of the show quickly wore off. “Within two years of that kind of popularity, Twenty One was off the air, and without some serious adjustment, televised poker was facing the same kind of fate. That’s why a change is needed.”

Wise’s example here wasn’t the best chosen. Twenty One was not cancelled because of poor ratings. In fact, when it first aired in September 1956, it was not a hit initially. Only after the producers began manipulating the results (apparently at the insistence of the show’s advertiser, Geritol) and started feeding contestants answers and “scripting” a more exciting drama, did the show become a cultural phenomena worthy of the cover of Time. When an unhappy contestant who had been made to lose came forward with allegations of impropriety, a federal investigation ensued, and Twenty One was unceremoniously yanked from the airwaves in October 1958. (The scandal was dramatized with some embellishment in the 1994 film Quiz Show.)

So the show didn’t fail because people became tired of it. It failed because the game it was depicting had become unacceptably corrupt.

Once I ran out of podcasts, I turned on AM radio (something I rarely do these days). Landed on Sporting News radio, where Dave Harbison was hosting his SNR Pregame show. Apparently he was taking calls on any topic. The first call I heard was about the NHL playoffs. Then the second caller had the following question for Harbison:

“Where do these sports networks come off showing so much poker?”

I’m not making this up. This was just before noon yesterday.

Harbison answered the caller by explaining that the networks need programming, and while he himself didn’t watch poker, enough people apparently did for it to be an acceptable way to fill the time on the sports networks. The caller didn’t like that explanation, and said that since poker didn’t involve athletic ability, he didn’t consider it a sport. “Well, neither does a hot-dog eating contest,” Harbison replied. “But they show that, too.”

Harbison then offered a brief dissertation on media, in which he actually brought up Marshall McLuhan’s famous argument from Understanding Media (first published in 1964) that the “medium is the message.” Although he glossed over most of the particulars of McLuhan’s thesis, Harbison’s essentially seemed to be applying the idea correctly when he said that when in comes to, say, a network like ESPN, the medium itself is more important than the content. As McLuhan states -- I had to pull out my musty copy of Understanding Media to find the quote -- “it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action,” even if the “content” may once in while distract us from that fact.

After a couple of minutes, I sensed the sports talk show host becoming self-conscious about having unintentionally revealed his theoretical chops. He hastily ended the discussion by referring the caller to McLuhan’s book, then took a call about a recent list of the best baseball parks.

I switched off the radio and meditated a bit on what I’d been hearing. When it comes to televised poker, the decision to move the final table to November clearly indicates the relative importance of the “medium” and the “content.” (For more on this point, see Amy Calistri’s wistful post from yesterday, titled “The Way We Were: Computers and Final Tables.”) And while Wise might’ve picked a different example than Twenty One, his point still makes sense -- and perhaps is even more illustrative of this situation than he intended it to be.

Regardless of the content, the medium -- television -- introduces certain requirements in order to survive -- that is, in order to retain its ability to “shape” or “control the scale and form of human association and action.” I think Wise is correct to say the medium demands a certain element of “novelty” or “innovation” or “change” in order to keep viewers engaged. So the content, while relatively less meaningful in and of itself, must nevertheless be constantly manipulated and repackaged so as to keep the relationship between broadcaster and viewer alive.

Of course, as the example of Twenty One aptly demonstrates, it is possible to manipulate the content too much, corrupting it to the point where it is no longer viable for its given medium. Television audiences (and federal officials) could not tolerate an ethically-ambiguous, “scripted” game show in late 1958. Nor would they, I imagine tolerate similar shenanigans were they to happen with the WSOP. (Let’s all hope this change doesn’t invite anything along those lines.)

Then again, audiences won’t tolerate stasis, either. So those who create television shows have to keep changing the content in order to sustain themselves. I suppose there’s a middle ground in there somewhere, where the content continues to be revisited and altered but not to the point where it is no longer acceptable for its given medium.

One thing’s for sure, though. There’s no way to keep everyone happy.

Poker at the (Dinner) Table

Has been nearly forty-eight hours without any sort of pokery whatsoever. Well, sort of. Let me explain.

Yesterday was filled with all sorts of can’t-miss-appointments and other applesauce, though the day culminated nicely with an enjoyable evening with the lovely Vera Valmore. After the long day I had driven two-and-a-half hours to join her at a banquet, part of an academics-related conference she had been attending. Made it just in time, too, missing the salad but arriving just ahead of the shrimp entrée she had ordered for me. (I lied. I didn’t miss the salad one bit.)

After a bit of small talk about traffic and the weather with others around the table, I found myself in conversation with a fellow sitting on my right whom Vera had introduced to me as a “professor of storytelling.” He was actually part of an information and library science program, but did, in fact, teach a class or two about storytelling. An interesting fellow.

After we had talked for awhile, the professor and I discovered one mutual acquaintance, a person I had known long ago who was now a colleague of his. “Yes, I know him,” he said excitedly. “We play poker every other Wednesday.”

Vera and I exchanged looks. I might have raised an eyebrow.

I resisted revealing my poker side to him. It wasn’t exactly the right context in which to introduce my own interest in (obsession with?) the game -- never mind try to explain who “Shamus” is.

I asked him about the games they played. A lot of old timers in the game, so lots of stud games. All nickel-dime-quarter. “If I lose five or ten bucks for the night, that’s a big loss,” he explained. I told him it sounded like a lot of fun.

He said he’d been playing in the game for three or four years, and said something about how he especially liked getting to hear all of his colleagues (most of whom were much older than he) tell stories about the school and other faculty. In other words, while he enjoyed the competition, he was much more enamored with the way poker provided a setting for socializing, and in particular the exchange of stories.

Of course, I didn’t need a professor to tell me that.

Speaking of poker and stories, let me remind you again about the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, where the focus is on stories about poker and/or gambling. And in the most recent episode (Episode No. 2 -- The Killer Cards), Tim Peters offers a thoughtful discussion of the relationship between poker and storytelling. No promises, but I’m thinking I’ll probably go ahead and crank out Episode No. 3 sometime next week.

Meanwhile, have a good weekend at the tables, all. Bring back some stories.

Hammett's Op & the Perils of Stirring Things Up

Was looking back through a volume of Dashiell Hammett stories, all of which feature that nameless private eye who is an operative of the Continental Detective Agency in San Francisco -- a character usually referred to as the “Continental Op.” Hammett started his career writing stories about the Continental Op, the earliest of which appeared in Black Mask way back in the early 1920s. Would end up writing over thirty stories featuring the savvy, hardened detective, some of which got compiled and refashioned as his first novels, Red Harvest and The Dain Curse.

Anyhow, was reading one particular story titled “The House on Turk Street” and was reminded of a situation that comes up now and again at the poker table. In fact, it recalled a particular hand of pot limit Omaha ($25 max. buy-in) I’d played earlier in the week.

In the story, the Op has been assigned the task of tracking down a particular person -- we’re not told why -- and so has been going door-to-door on a particular block of Turk Street with a fabricated tale designed to uncover the man’s whereabouts. After several unsuccessful visits, the Op finds himself having been invited into an elderly couple’s home for a cup of tea. The trio chat aimlessly, then with one sentence the light mood turns swiftly dark:

“Something cold touched the nape of my neck.”

It’s a gun, all right. Turns out the house is the hideout of a gang who has just pulled a bank heist in Los Angeles (they’ve paid the old couple to cover for them). Completely unrelated to the job for which the Op had been originally assigned. Before long, the Op is tied to a chair wondering how he’s gonna get out of the house on Turk Street alive. I won’t go through the rest of the plot, but eventually the Op succeeds in getting the gang members to turn against each other, thereby managing to wiggle himself free of a tricky spot.

What’s familiar here is that situation where you find yourself trying “to stir things up” (a favorite phrase of the Continental Op), then get into an entirely unexpected jam that forces you to find a completely new strategy in order to survive. You aren’t innocent, here. Like the Op, you were trying to get something from others and were using a bit of subterfuge to accomplish that task. But suddenly you feel something cold on the back of your neck and yr caught in an entirely different imbroglio than the one into which you thought you were entering. (Or creating.)

Here’s the hand. I was sitting in late position with 9-8-7-6 unsuited and it folded to me. I raised it up, as I’ll sometimes do with these rundown-type hands, and ended up getting two callers. The pot was around three bucks. (Sorry, don’t have the hand history.)

The flop wasn’t so hot -- . Really only three viable outs for me there. The early position player thought a sec and bet two dollars, and the guy in between us calls. What do we have here? Coupla draws? I ended up calling. Not so hot, I know. That’s the moment where the entire situation had changed. Like the Continental Op, I started out thinking I was in charge of the proceedings, but now I’d found myself tied to a chair, wondering what exactly I’d gotten myself into.

The turn was the and both players checked to me. This is one of those situations where it is probably better to be up against two players than one. They’re worried about each other, perhaps more so than about me. I checked as well, though I was starting to see a way out of this pickle.

The river brought the , a card that completed no draws. Both checked to me again. I quickly made something like a two-thirds-pot-sized bet into the $9 pot, and both folded instantly.

Doesn’t always work out for me the way it tends to do for Hammett’s Op. Sometimes in that spot a player who flopped bottom set -- or who is sitting there with K-Q-x-x -- will look me up there, and I’m cooked . . . .

The Op usually winds up in the clear, though. Not conscience-wise, necessarily. But breathing-wise.

ESPN’s 2008 WSOP Schedule -- The Main Event (Mainly)

B.J. Nemeth has posted a smart “Comprehensive Look at the WSOP Final Table Delay” in two parts over on PokerNews (Part 1 & Part 2). The experienced tourney reporter does a nice job explaining some of the rationale behind the decision, as well as expounding upon some of the details of what is being planned for the “November Nine” (a phrase coined by a Harrah’s source to describe the final tablists).

You’ve read several editorials on the matter by now, and while Nemeth does opine a bit in the articles he is really more interested in providing clarity. After discussing the ME schedule in full and speculating about what life will likely be like for the “November Nine” between July 14th and November 9th, Nemeth outlines how officials plan to address potential problems (e.g., collusion, a player not being able to appear, etc.) and explains the logistics behind the “plausibly live” presentation of the final table planned for November 11th.

Nemeth smartly concludes with a discussion of how “the Main Event is not what it once was,” having forever changed following Moneymaker’s 2003 triumph. His point here isn’t that far from the one I was making on Monday about the ME having evolved into something very different from what it had been when Benny Binion first invited his high-stakes playing buddies to the Horseshoe back in the early 1970s.

Yes, the hole card cameras and ESPN’s newly-extended coverage helped turn the ME into a different kind of spectacle. But it was the increase in entrants (a by-product of the increased coverage, of course) that more than anything turned the ME into something far different from the sort of competition it had been from 1970-2003. As Nemeth points out, since 2004 “the fish have outnumbered the sharks by about 10-to-1,” thereby making it especially “unlikely that the winner of the Main Event will ever again be respected as the best player in the world.”

ESPN’s 2008 WSOP Schedule

Shortly after festivities wrap up on July 14th, we’ll all go back home and for the rest of the summer and early fall spend our Tuesday nights watching ESPN air the following:

July 22, 8:00-10:00 p.m. -- Event 1: $10,000 pot-limit hold ’em

July 29, 8:00-10:00 p.m. -- Event 2: $1,500 no-limit hold ’em

Aug. 5, 8:00-10:00 p.m. -- Event 3: $1,500 pot-limit hold ’em or Event 4: $5,000 mixed hold ’em

Aug. 12, 8:00-10:00 p.m. -- Event 5: $1,000 no-limit hold ’em with rebuys

Aug. 19, 8:00-10:00 p.m. -- Event 45: $50,000 H.O.R.S.E.

Aug. 26, 8:00-10:00 p.m. -- Event 50: $10,000 pot-limit Omaha

Sept. 2 to Oct. 28, 8:00-10:00 p.m. -- Event 54: $10,000 no-limit hold ’em main event

Nov. 4, 10:00-11:00 p.m. -- Event 54: WSOP main event final table preview show

Nov. 11, 9:00-11:00 p.m. -- Event 54: WSOP main event final table

Heavy on the hold ’em (we non-HE folks all immediately notice). Has to be that way, I suppose. Am glad the PLO “World Championship” got left in there, of course. What stands out the most, though, is that the Main Event has become the primary focus of ESPN’s coverage, taking up 21 of the 33 hours of total coverage.

Think about it. Twenty-one hours on the Main Event alone. How does that compare to what we’ve seen previously?

WSOP Coverage, 1970-2007

For the first 33 years of the WSOP, televised coverage of the ME event consisted of either one hour or nothing at all.

Then in 2003, ESPN gave us seven one-hour shows, all devoted to the Main Event.

In 2004, ESPN produced 13 one-hour shows documenting various preliminary events (including Stud, PLO, 2-7 Draw, and even Razz), then nine one-hour shows on the ME. A total of 22 hours of coverage.

In 2005, ESPN started out showing six hours’ worth of WSOP Circuit events, then showed one-hour shows from 14 different preliminary events, most of which were hold ’em events (two PLOs and one Stud). Then there were 12 one-hour shows covering the Main Event. A total of 32 hours of coverage.

In 2006, ESPN again started out showing various WSOP Circuit events, providing 10 one-hour shows. They then aired their Main Event coverage first, with 12 one-hour shows. That was followed by 10 one-hour shows documenting 10 different preliminary events, all hold ’em except for one PLO show and one on the new $50K H.O.R.S.E. event. A total of 32 hours of coverage. (This was also the first year of the pay per view broadcast of the final table.)

In 2007, ESPN decided not to cover any WSOP Circuit events. They began their presentation of preliminary events even before the Main Event had concluded in July. They aired 10 one-hour shows covering eight different preliminary events, then devoted 16 one-hour shows to the ME, then followed that with six more one-hour shows on the H.O.R.S.E. event. Again, a total of 32 hours of coverage. (There was a PPV broadcast of the ME FT last year as well.)

Just looking at the last three years (and ahead to 2008), ESPN has aired/will air 32 or 33 hours’ worth of WSOP-related shows each year, with coverage of the Main Event increasing from 9 to 12 to 16 to 21 hours of that total.

While some have speculated the move to delay the final table might actually prevent a certain number of players from entering the event, I have to think the increased TV coverage is going to attract a lot of players -- especially the pros -- to stick around for the Main Event. Whether one makes it to the “November Nine” or not, seems like this year that playing in the ME is going to be the best opportunity for players to get any face time.

Report on UltimateBet Cheating “Scheme” Due Soon

In a post appearing on Two Plus Two this morning, one finds Nat Arem, a key figure in exposing the Absolute Poker “super-user” cheating scandal last fall, providing an update on the current status of Ultimate Bet’s internal investigation into allegations of a similar cheating “scheme” having occurred on its site.

Some may recall that the online poker site issued an “interim statement” back on March 6th in which UB announced it had “launched an extensive inquiry involving an independent third-party expert” to investigate the abnormally high win rate of a user named “NioNio.” The statement appeared to confirm that some sort of cheating “scheme” had been perpetrated, and the site promised to examine closely hand histories involving the then-deleted NioNio account as well as any other accounts that may have been involved in the scheme.

Arem, who is in contact with the “guy who is, basically, leading the investigation at UB,” says “there is significant evidence that there were superusers on Ultimate Bet as well as Absolute Poker. The evidence comes from around the same time period as the AP cheating.”

Arem expresses confidence that the current management team at UB has “done a very thorough investigation and they’re committing some very significant resources to make sure that it never happens again at AP or UB.” That being said, Arem says “If I were you, I probably wouldn’t play at UB or AP right now.”

Even if the sites both successfully clean up their acts, Arem still understands why some players may well choose never to play on either site ever again. “Make no mistake about it,” writes Arem, “there was blatant cheating on both AP and UB in 2007 and if the players never spoke up, nothing would have ever gotten refunded or fixed.”

Annie Duke, one of Ultimate Bet’s paid pros, has also weighed in on the matter this morning. It was recently announced that Duke had taken on a larger role with UB, overseeing the site’s tournament schedule and helping further promote the brand.

In a post over on Pocket Fives (from about an hour ago), Duke says she’s “satisfied with both the intent of the management team to deal honestly with the allegations, as well as with the integrity of the management team itself.” She hopes that the team will “make its findings public within the month,” or perhaps even “within two to three weeks.”

Still amazes me how little has been reported on this entire spectacle over the past two months. While much depends on what the report says, my sense is it will do little damage, relatively speaking, to Ultimate Bet.

Meanwhile, 60 Minutes apparently continues to pull together its story on the Absolute Poker scandal. (I heard Gary Wise reporting on his podcast last month he had been interviewed for the segment.) Remains to be seen whether that story will touch on the cheating that has occurred at Ultimate Bet or not. (The company that owns Absolute Poker [Blast Off Limited] bought out the company that owned Ultimate Bet [Excapsa] back in October 2006.)

In any event, as I’ve already made clear here several times, none of these reports is going to affect my relationship with either AP or UB. ’Cos I ain’t going back, no way no how.

(EDIT [added 5/7/08]: In other eyebrow-raising news, this morning the Poker King reports that yesterday's Bad Beat Jackpot winner on Ultimate Bet, a player named “dhc2lovr,” also won the BBJ back in March. The player picked up over $448K for yesterday's jackpot, and over $171K two months ago.)

Is PLO the “Game of the Future”?

Recently listened to online whiz Brian “sbrugby” Townsend interviewed on the 4/29 episode of PokerRoad’s Cash Plays. During the last part of the interview, host Bart Hanson asks Townsend some questions about pot limit Omaha, and the discussion is a good one. Definitely worth hearing, if you’re a PLO fan, I think.

The pair address a number of PLO-related topics, including playing aces, short-stacking (how to play & how to combat against), deep-stacked play, bluff-raising, full ring vs. 6-max play, folding after flopping the nuts, freerolling, and even PLO/8. They also touch on that myth about PLO being a game of coin flips. Regarding the latter, Townsend sounds as though he agrees with Jeff Hwang’s observation in Pot-Limit Omaha: The Big Play Strategy that PLO “is not a 50-50 game” and that “it is a pure fallacy that you have to be in a gambling situation when the money goes in.”

Near the end, Hanson asks Townsend what he thinks about the notion that “PLO is the game of the future.” This is an idea that Bob Ciaffone was suggesting way back in the early 80s shortly after the game was first formulated at the Golden Nugget by Robert “Chip Burner” Turner and -- as Ciaffone tells it in Omaha Poker -- that “Oriental lady from the Seattle area named Gwen” (nicknamed the “Dragon Lady”).

Hanson, of course, is referring more directly to recent buzz surrounding PLO, with new interest in the game being perhaps most directly influenced by all of those ongoing high-stakes ($200/$400) games occurring on Full Tilt Poker. (That photo above shows Townsend taking down a $430K pot in one of those games vs. David Benyamine and Tom “Durrrr” Dwan.)

“I think PLO is a beautiful game,” is Townsend’s reply to Hanson’s question. Hanson chuckles in response. “It’s a lot more interesting that no limit Hold ’em,” he adds.

“Really?” says Hanson, a bit incredulous sounding.

Townsend goes on to explain that in his opinion, “no limit Hold ’em really needs antes,” especially online. He notes that one finds such games in live play quite often, and that it adds an extra layer of strategy that makes the game much more fun for him. He doesn’t elaborate, but I think he also is implying that antes would force people to play more (and different) hands in different positions, thereby adding some of those “nuances and subtleties” to NLHE that Townsend was remarking upon earlier in the interview as characteristic of PLO.

“PLO doesn’t need antes because it has that deceptive factor that you think you can play so many hands when in all actuality you can’t.” It is, as Ciaffone dubbed it long ago, the “action game.”

Funny how the “deceptive factor” to which Townsend refers (if I understand him correctly) in fact concerns how one can deceive oneself more easily in PLO than in other games, not to the strategy of trying to deceive others. Although that’s a big part of the game, too.

Dunno if PLO is the “game of the future” or not, but anecdotally-speaking I do believe it has risen in popularity over the last few months, as I am routinely seeing more PLO tables running when I go online these days.

Which is good for me. ’Cos I do like the action.

The WSOP Main Event: Birth, Build Up, Boom . . . Bastardized?

Still brooding a bit about the decision to delay the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event final table to November. Have been reading through several thoughtful responses to the decision on various blogs, including those of Michael Craig (Part I & Part II), Luckbox and Otis (taking the pro & con), Haley, Andrew “Foucault” Brokos (here, here, and here), Mean Gene, Craig Cunningham, among others. Have also continued to follow the debates on the forums, where it appears as though posters are mostly (say, 3-to-1?) against.

Not that it matters, of course. As a colleague of mine likes to say, the toothpaste is already out of the tube.

My sense is there’s an unreconcilable tension here between a lot of folks’ ideas of what tournament poker should be and what the WSOP Main Event has become. Sometimes it is hard to remember what the Series was like before the Moneymaker “boom” changed everything, but when one looks back, one sees pretty clearly that what we’ve been watching for the last few years only barely resembles what went before it.

The WSOP Main Event: Birth

Back in 1970, Benny Binion invited a group of high-stakes, poker-playing buddies to the Horseshoe to play five different cash games. Thirty-eight players competed, then seven of them (Crandell Addington, Doyle Brunson, Carl Cannon, Johnny Moss, Puggy Pearson, “Amarillo Slim” Preston, and Brian “Sailor” Roberts) voted Moss that year’s winner. They gave him a silver cup.

The next year was the first in which a freeze-out tournament was used to determine the champion. In 1969, something called the “Texas Gamblers Convention” had been held at a Holiday Inn in Reno. (In fact, this gathering directly inspired Binion to create the WSOP the following year.) A tourney was held at the Reno convention, and some believe this to have been the first high-stakes poker tournament of any magnitude.

Back at Binion’s, in 1971 there were four preliminary events (Seven Card Stud, Five Card Stud, Razz, and Ace-to-Five Draw), followed by the Main Event, a $5,000 buy-in, winner-take-all No Limit Hold ’em tournament. Only six entered, and the story goes that Moss had to stage a huge comeback to take the $30,000 prize.

As Benny Binion’s son Jack told Gary Wise on the 4/16 episode of Wise Hand Poker, soon afterwards two reporters came out to Vegas from the Cleveland Plain Dealer to do a story on the WSOP. Seeing the chance to create some publicity -- both for the WSOP and his casino -- Binion got Jimmy “the Greek” Snyder to help further increase buzz for the event.

Indeed, just about every major change that has been made to the WSOP has been motivated by a desire to make the event more popular (both for players and fans). In other words, the media has been heavily involved pretty much from the beginning of the WSOP’s history, helping to shape (either indirectly or directly) what the series of tournaments would become.

The WSOP Main Event: Build Up

In 1972, Benny Binion added $5,000 of his own money for each entrant into the Main Event, thus doubling the prize pool. Eight entered that year, and “Amarillo Slim” Preston took the trophy. That’s right. There would be no bracelets per se until 1976 -- another change introduced to increase the WSOP’s prestige.

Preston, of course, helped make the WSOP a nationally-known entity following his victory, appearing on Johnny Carson’s The Tonight Show 11 times, being featured in a 60 Minutes segment, Tom Snyder’s The Tomorrow Show, Good Morning America, and doing a cameo in Robert Altman’s 1974 film California Split (reviewed here). He even addressed the U.S. Senate on one occasion. (I have no idea why, or what he might have told them.)

Besides increasing Preston’s own profile, the publicity tour got people interested in Binion’s Horseshoe and the WSOP. Of his appearance on The Tomorrow Show -- in which Preston appeared along with Benny Binion and Joe Bernstein (a Vegas gambler) -- Preston said it was like “an hour’s commercial for the Horseshoe.”

According to Jonathan Grotenstein and Storms Reback in All In: the (Almost) Entirely True Story of the World Series of Poker, “The Press flocked to the 1973 World Series -- beginning what would become for many of them an annual pilgrimage. They note that a couple of books -- including David Spanier’s Total Poker (1977) (discussed here) -- devoted entire chapters the event, “as did seven thousand newspaper and magazine articles.” One other major change in the way the event was covered happened in 1973 as well: “Television cameras also appeared for the first time as a crew from CBS News filmed a documentary narrated by Jimmy the Greek.”

That year there were six preliminary events and 13 entrants in the Main Event, each of whom paid the full $10,000 to enter. In 1974, there were 16 entrants. And so forth. In 1980, the year Stu Ungar won his first Main Event, there were 11 preliminary events and 73 who ponied up the $10K for the Main Event. In 1990, the year Mansour Matloubi become the first European to win the big one, there were 14 preliminary events and 194 Main Event entrants. In 2000, the year Chris “Jesus” Ferguson caught that nine on the river to beat T.J. Cloutier, there were 23 preliminary events and 512 players in the Main Event.

CBS produced a few more one-hour documentaries about the WSOP during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Then ESPN took it over in the late 1980s, producing a show most years through 2002. (There were no shows in 1996, 1999, 2000, or 2001.) Steve Lipscomb helped make a documentary of the 1999 WSOP for the Discovery Channel, a program that would provide the spark for the World Poker Tour. Then came the hole card cameras, a variation on the under-the-table cameras first introduced on the U.K.’s Late Night Poker in 1999. Lipscomb’s WPT made its first season debut on March 30, 2003. Then, later that summer, ESPN showed those seven episodes chronicling Chris Moneymaker outlasting 838 competitors to win the 2003 WSOP Main Event.

And the World Series of Poker was never the same.

The WSOP Main Event: Boom

The number of players entering the Main Event suddenly vaulted into the thousands: 2,576 in 2004; 5,619 in 2005; 8,773 in 2006; 6,358 in 2007. The number of preliminary events has also increased over that period from thirty-some to the current 54. Several of those early events have also begun attracting thousands of entrants; for example, last year’s initial $1,500 No Limit Hold ’em event (Event No. 3) had 2,998 runners.

A lot of us -- myself included -- have an idea about what tournament poker should be. While any given tournament will necessarily involve a higher degree of variance than will a long sequence of cash games, a lot of us like to believe that these tourneys -- including the Main Event -- do somehow reward players with above-average skill thanks to time-tested structures and well-planned payouts.

When the WSOP Main Event began attracting more than two thousand entrants in 2004, we “purists” could no longer pretend to think the tournament resembled what Addington, Brunson, Cannon, Pearson, Preston, and Roberts got together to do back on May 10, 1971. Or even what Moneymaker, et al. did in May 2003.

In 2004, because of space limitations, “Day One” had to be split into two days to fit everyone into Binion’s Horseshoe. (Aside from the 2005 ME final table, this would be the last year for the WSOP at Binion’s.) That year the tournament was played in a week, with no days off (other than if you happened to have played in the first Day One).

In 2005, the tourney was completed in eight days, again with no scheduled days off. In 2006, with four “Day Ones,” two “Day Twos,” and an off-day before the final table, the tournament took 14 days to complete. Last year, following a similar schedule (with a couple thousand fewer entrants), the tourney took 12 days.

Like I say, the tourney barely resembles what it looked like even five years ago, but I think there has always been an effort to make it at least appear to be a unified event genuinely testing each individual poker player’s skill at the tables. That’s out the window, now. This year the Main Event will begin on July 3rd and conclude on November 11th -- a 132-day span.

The WSOP Main Event: Bastardized?

Now I don’t oppose change per se, but this one is different, representing an utter break from what went before. Some, like Shane “Shaniac” Schleger, believe the change has “bastardized and twisted around” the format of traditional tournament poker as it has developed and become established over the last forty years. Others, like Michael Craig, think the change will give poker (generally speaking) a much need “shot in the arm” and help with the business of “building the brand” of the WSOP.

At the end of his thoughtful post on the matter, Up for Poker’s Otis (who opposes the change) eloquently states “As we move forward, we should always be asking ourselves what is more important . . . the integrity or growth of the game? Moreover, is there ever a time we should put the latter before the former?” Otis doesn’t think there is.

Of course, looking back at the history of the WSOP Main Event -- in particular the last five years -- I think it is clear that for all its symbolic value, the Main Event has evolved into something very different than an indicator of poker’s integrity.

Indeed, the decision to move its conclusion months and months away from the rest of the Series is itself appropriately symbolic, signifying the utter separation of the Main Event from what a lot of us believe “real” poker to be.

“If it’s buzz they were looking for, mission accomplished”

Been trolling through the ever-growing Two Plus Two thread regarding the announcement by ESPN and Harrah’s that the final table of this year’s WSOP Main Event will be delayed until November. Lotta hysteria there, as one would expect. A few interesting nuggets along the way, though. So you don’t have to read through all 567 posts, I thought I’d pull out five excerpts I found particularly interesting:

1. Two-time WPT champ Alan Goehring weighed in early on to voice his displeasure at the decision. “I love the WSOP ME (well, at least until now),” writes Goehring, “but if FT players’ participation in a reality show is required to play in the event, I will probably not play the event.”

Shortly afterward, responding to an earlier poster’s comment that “the real business here is not poker, it’s show business,” Goehring added the following: “My problem is I enjoy playing poker, but I don’t care about show business. What should I do?”

2. Tourney reporter B.J. Nemeth came on a little while later to respond to the many negative comments as well as point out some of the inaccuracies regarding the proposal that were being passed around. Nemeth has already outlined his support on the idea on Tao of Poker and elsewhere.

Nemeth predicts that “some of you will just be clinging to your initial negative reactions long after the potential benefits become clear.” He also says he’d “love for everyone to reread this thread in 18 months, after this ‘experiment’ has happened twice (the 2008 and 2009 WSOP).” Nemeth thinks that then “most people will laugh at all the negativity and misinformation in this thread.”

3. About 180 posts into the thread, Oliver Tse, a well-known poker player agent, shares some thoughts similar to those he’d previously aired over in the Pokerati comment section a few weeks ago. Tse notes the abysmal ratings for WPT’s Week 1 premiere over on GSN and the NBC Heads-Up Poker Championship, concluding that “the WSOP organization had NO CHOICE but to announce the ‘plausibly live’ WSOP ME FT presentation as soon as possible in order to put a stop to the negative sentiment surrounding the televised poker industry in the U.S. market.” In other words, says Tse, the poor ratings “forced Jeffrey Pollack’s hand.”

Tse goes on to clarify just how high the stakes are here, in his opinion: “If the ‘plausibly live’ implementation were to make no difference in the ratings, then the whole idea of televised poker as a rights fee TV property with multiple product sponsorships would break down completely. Televised poker would then be nothing more than infomercials for casinos and online poker websites. Dozens of people, including myself, will then be looking for new careers outside poker.”

4. Professional player Shane “Shaniac” Schleger has made several contributions to the thread voicing his profound displeasure with the plan. He makes several different points throughout the discussion, one of the more convincing (to me) concerning how the four-month delay utterly changes the whole concept of tournament poker.

“How are we supposed to keep the integrity of the game and the safety of the players intact under this new ‘experiment,’” asks Schleger. “Please tell me why poker players should be content to see the format of their beloved poker game bastardized and twisted around in order to (maybe) generate more tv ratings.”

5. Finally, Daniel Negreanu, a proponent of the move, chimed with Post No. 440 in the thread. “Judging by the length of this thread,” he says, “if it's buzz they were looking for, mission accomplished. It appears the majority of the buzz is negative, but buzz is buzz.”

He then goes on to say that he thinks “what most people are missing is that this change will effect less than 1% of the entrants. Getting hot and bothered about a change that will likely have no negative impact on you in your lifetime seems to be a bit unnecessary.” A curious observation, actually, since I think we can all agree -- no matter how we feel about the decision to delay the final table -- the change most certainly affects more than nine people.

He then points out that what we’re having here is a one-time trial which will be abandoned if it doesn’t work out. He says the final nine “will all get a minimum of a million dollars” (not quite sure that’s true, actually). After making a couple of other points, Negreanu concludes by saying how good he thinks the change will be for televised poker. “Reality TV is very powerful and draws in a wide spectrum of viewers,” says Negreanu. “Giving the main event a bit of a boost by copying a formula that clearly works with viewers in the U.S. is worth the risks of delaying the final table, IMO.”