2008 WSOP, Day 25: More Clichés Than You Can Shake a Stick At

Vera is here. Slept very well last night. And late into the morning. Combination of the body recovering some lost hours (got up early yesterday to be at the airport) and Vera being here, I think.

Work continues, though I’ll have at least one and maybe two days off later in the week. Enjoyed covering with F-Train the first day of the $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Lowball (Limit) event yesterday (Event No. 40). Started with 238 runners who amazingly played down to just 30 by the end of the night. The plan today -- as is usually the case on Day Twos -- is to play down to the final table, so we aren’t too far from that already.

Toward the end of the evening, the eliminations were coming so quickly that F-Train and I started to notice how all of our posts were reporting yet another bustout. And as we were nine-plus hours into the proceedings, neither of us had the creative energy we had at the day’s start. Enter the clichés. He titled one “Close But No Cigar,” then I followed it with “Another One Bites the Dust.” In the waning moments of our shift, we somehow resisted the urge to continue in that direction and describe players buying the farm, throwing in towels, kicking buckets, and/or bring out fat ladies to sing for them.

I was also trying to figure out why exactly people were busting at such a high clip. I hadn’t really examined the schedule of play that closely before the day began. Looking back, I can see that when there were 85 players left, the average chip stack was 14,000. That was at the beginning of Level 7, when the blinds were 300/500, and the limits 500/1,000. There are four betting rounds in triple draw, and the size of the bets (in limit) works like in other limit games. So here, for example, we had bets of 500 before and after the first draw, and bets of 1,000 after the second and third draws.

I suppose that average stack was on short side, as someone should probably expect to put in five big bets or so (on average) to reach the end of a hand. I think another factor here might be that in draw games it seems much less likely for someone to fold a hand after deciding initially to play it. (At least it looked that way to me watching the action.) So, if you had an average stack there at the start of Level 7 and decided to play a couple of hands and neither worked out for you, you were pretty much toast. Or dead as a doornail.

The reporting presented a couple of other challenges as well. Unlike in flop games, where observers can see community cards, or stud games where players have upcards, in draw games everything is hidden until the end. I think it was tricky, sometimes, for our reporters to pick up on whether or not a hand was worth reporting until after it was over.

Also a little cumbersome simply to narrate a draw hand in a way that is interesting or compelling to read. You share what players drew and whether they bet or raised, but you can’t really say much more.

Much more interesting yesterday were the extracurricular shenanigans that seemed to run rampant. Players were both showing discards (regularly) and rabbit-hunting (occasionally), neither of which is technically allowed. And there was a lot of table talk, it seemed -- some friendly, some less so -- perhaps more than in any other tourney I’ve covered thus far. All of these things are somehow related to how draw games usually go, I think.

Then there was the “absurdist” (as we dubbed him), who appeared to think he was playing five card draw or some other poker variant. He once stood pat with queens and tens -- no shinola -- betting all of the way down. He ended up going out with a pair of aces, which he’d hung onto after discarding his other three cards. You don’t want aces in this game (they are always high), nor do you want pairs. Didn’t faze him, though. Upon being eliminated, he took another swig of his Guinness and announced “Rebuy!” (Not an option in this tourney, either.)

We’ll see how quickly things go today. With just 30 players left, the average stacks are now just under 40,000. The blinds will be 600/1,200 and limits 1,200/2,400 when we begin today, meaning again, we’re not too far from where we were at the start of Level 7. At that point players with average stacks had about 14 big bets; right now they have about 16 or 17.

And not to beat a dead horse, but do head over to PokerNews to follow all the action. I’m not just whistling Dixie. It’s the cat’s pajamas, I tell ya. The greatest thing since sliced bread.

2008 WSOP, Day 24: Lowball

Just about noon here. Event No. 40, the Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) event is about to get underway. F-Train and I are covering this one.

Went over to McCarran this morning and picked up the lovely Vera Valmore. Very nice to have her here. She’s currently wandering the Rio until we’ll reunite during the dinner break.

Did manage to get back over to the Gold Coast last night for some more bowling fun with California Jen, Karridy, SitNGo Steve, Ryan, Pokerati Dan, and Mean Gene. Karridy bowled the night’s best game, which started with strikes on four of the first five frames. I managed to squeeze out a spare in the tenth frame of the last game to establish a new personal high of 101 in the Pokerati Bowling Series.

I mentioned how I’d talked a bit with Tom Schneider about terminology for Deuce-to-Seven. The best hand in Deuce-to-Seven Lowball (also known as Kansas City lowball), is 7-5-4-3-2. That hand can, says Tom, be called a “wheel.” I know some reserve that term for A-2-3-4-5 (and use it in a variety of games), but that’s what a wheel is in 2-7 Lowball. Of course, A-2-3-4-5 is simply ace-high in 2-7 lowball, as aces are always high in this game. (Straights and flushes count against you, too.)

Also, like in Razz and other low games, you can refer to hand being “smooth” or “rough” hand, e.g., an 8-7-5-4-2 is a “rough eight” whereas an 8-5-4-3-2 is a “smooth eight.”

Tom also said the best hands are sometimes referred to more simply among the players, i.e., the best hand, the 7-5-4-3-2, is a “number one,” the second best, 7-6-4-3-2, a “two,” and the third best, 7-6-5-3-2, a “three.” Kind of reminds me of that story about the guys in prison passing around a joke book and after several years they’ve all memorized all of the numbered jokes. So every now and then a guy would just say “Seventy-Six” and everyone would laugh.

Doubt I’ll bother with the “one,” “two,” and “three” stuff, as that could simply confuse readers, I’d think. (Or me.) I have a feeling that with three draws and four rounds of fixed limit betting, this may well become a bit tedious to report in the usual fashion. But the event ought to draw a lot of name pros and interesting personalities, so I imagine there will still be a lot to write about.

As always, you can go follow along over at PokerNews.

2008 WSOP, Day 23: Sweat

Every day is well over 100 degrees. The wind is blowin’, but it’s a hot wind. Sort of like yr walking into a hair dryer.

Like most of us spending the summer in Vegas, I spend as little time as possible outside. When I first arrived I had considered forgoing renting a car. I’m staying reasonably close to the Rio -- not a long walk by any means. But I ditched that plan by the second day. Too hot, man. Too friggin’ hot.

Got this frankly silly-looking little silver Aveo. Looks like half a car from most angles. Had all kinds of trouble the first week or two finding the damned thing in the parking lot. Tim Peters, who’d worked the ’06 Series for CardPlayer, had actually warned me of this very phenomenon and had cautioned me to avoid it. I am referring to the where-the-hell-is-my-rental trek of shame.

There was one night around 3 a.m. that first week I actually ended up getting a ride from Security around the Rio parking lot just to locate the sucker. After a couple of loops I finally spotted the Aveo. “That’s one’s pretty car, ain’t it?” I quipped to the guard. He laughed. “Gets you from here to there -- that’s what matters,” he replied sagely. After that I began parking it in the same spot every day, somewhat distant from the Pavilion-side entrance but at least I always know where it is.

Got up today and made that very drive right about noon, even though it is my day off, ’cos I wanted to see if I could catch a glimpse of Karridy and SitNGo Steve playing in today’s Event No. 39, another one of those $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events. Only takes about five minutes to walk from my self-assigned parking spot to the Rio entrance. Still enough to start perspiring, which always makes that initial step inside the air-conditioning faintly pleasurable.

I knew Steve’s table and seat assignment (he’d registered yesterday), and so after chatting with Dr. Pauly a bit found him and wished him well. Thought I might be able to spot Karridy on my own, but there ended up being 2,720 entered in this one, scattered all over the Rio in the Amazon, the Brasilia, the Tropical, and at those tables set up in front of Buzio’s. Hopeless.

So I went back out into the noonday sun and took a winding drive over to the Mirage to get tickets to the Cirque du Soleil show “Love” for next week. As I mentioned, Vera arrives tomorrow, and that’s the one thing we knew we wanted to try to do while she’s here. The tickets were pricey. (Turns out money can buy me Love.) But that didn’t matter too much to me.

Actually, waiting in line there at the box office, I found myself surrounded by couples and suddenly got blind-sided by a pretty hard, unexpected wave of Lonely. Damn, four weeks. Tomorrow is coming just in time, I think.

Got back to the home-away-from-home about one o’clock and immediately got a text message from the K-man telling me where he was seated. So I ran back over to the Rio, and snuck into the Tropical Room for a look-see. Twenty-three tables. Allen Kessler, Joe Awada, Mimi Tran, and two hundred other people I don’t recognize. Oh, and there’s Karridy.

I hung out for twenty minutes or so. They were nearing the first break. Looked over a couple times at Karridy’s table and not too much seemed to be happening.

Ah, but what’s this? A hand was developing. And boom, he was out.

Bit of an unsettling surprise, that. But then again, as I type this 2,200 of those 2,720 who entered have already hit the rail as well.

The K-man was bummed, as you might imagine. But things turned up soon afterwards. We chatted a bit with SNG Steve and their buddy Ryan (both still in then, out now), then were kind of aimlessly walking back through the Rio toward the casino when we heard a voice.

“Karridy! Shamus!”

Tom and Julie Schneider were lunching at the São Paulo Cafe, and we joined ’em for an hour or so. Tom’s a good friend and mentor for Karridy, and he and Julie both did a nice job reminding him he’s a good poker player and also giving him things to think about moving forward. Karridy had set up some sort of voice-messaging-update type deal to send updates to his many friends sweating him, and Tom made the call to report Karridy’s bustout, doing a hilarious bit about talking Karridy off a ledge as he did.

As I told Karridy afterwards, I ain’t playing in any events this summer, and it’s pretty up in the air whether I ever will. Might be fun to try one day, but I’ve a long way to go, I think, before I’d ever want to venture in myself. So I have a lot of respect for those who do take the plunge, and I have to say I’m getting a big kick out of experiencing this some vicariously through friends who are players.

We all parted. I’ll see Tom and Julie at tomorrow’s Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball event. And I might see Karridy again tonight before he takes off tomorrow.

It was about three o’clock when I stepped back out onto that hot plate of the Rio parking lot. Still seemed like noon, though, with that sun relentlessly enveloping everything around.

I wouldn’t be spending too much time in it, though. I knew where I was parked.

2008 WSOP, Day 22: Be the Ball

Last night’s final table of Event No. 34, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha w/rebuys event, was pretty much a blur for me. When the night began Marc and I decided I’d do hands and he’d take care of chip counts and color.

Next I knew, eight hours had passed.

We didn’t have to do every hand. Not generally expected to do so in Omaha events, because of the extra cards to track. But I realized after the first orbit or so it was easier for me just to do each one rather than try and decide on the fly which ones were more significant. So I did, typing incessantly with only a couple of twenty-minute breaks which I usually spent speed-reading back through what I had written.

A weird mental test, that. Got into a kind of zone where it was just me, the announcer's voice, the soundless ESPN360 broadcast projected above, the tourney clock, and my laptop upon which my fingers were flying. Had one little spell about three-and-half hours in when I suddenly couldn’t remember how to spell “Makowsky” (the eventual runner-up’s name), but that passed within seconds. Felt pretty good about how it all turned out by night’s end.

Layne Flack won the thing -- his sixth bracelet -- and was very impressive (in my view) in the way he pressured his opponents pretty much from the start of the final table. He played lots of pots early on, and almost always entered hands by open raising the pot, especially later once he’d started accumulating chips. Every now and then he’d flat call others’ raises (in or out of position), but then usually would be the one taking charge of hands after the flop.

Wrapped up relatively early (I think it was just after 10 p.m. or so) and met up with Karridy, SitNGo Steve, Tom Schneider, and Tom’s wife Julie for some bowling over at the Gold Coast. A very fun crowd. Tom crushed us all in the first game, then everyone other than Tom improved vastly in the second (won by Steve).

For me it was just a matter of concentrating, though a couple of tips from Karridy and Tom definitely helped me keep the ball between the gutters. I was particularly pleased to have cracked triple digits in game two, making an even hundred on my very last ball of the night. Karridy had mentioned something early on about the overall loser having to moonwalk out of the alley, but somehow everyone forgot about that and yr humble gumshoe was able to walk out face first like all the other humans.

All four of them are playing in WSOP events this weekend. Karridy and Sit-n-Go Steve are playing in the “donkament” today, i.e., the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event (Event No. 39), and Tom and Julie will both be in the $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball event (Event No. 40) tomorrow. I’m covering the latter one, and so asked Tom a bit about terminology for describing hands. I’ll be paired up with F-Train, who I imagine has some background with the game being the Razz fiend he is.

Day off today, though I’m gonna head over to the Rio anyway in just a bit to sweat the K-man (of whom I have a tiny piece) and SNG Steve. And tomorrow Vera arrives for a week-long visit. These last four weeks have flown by thanks to my having been kept so busy. But I’ve missed Vera a lot -- her not being here has been the only downside to this here entire adventure, really.

I have had some fun, to be sure, but I’ve been looking forward to June 22 for a month now. Can’t wait to see her.

2008 WSOP, Day 21: Tigers & Grizzlies

Was fairly smooth sailing yesterday back in the Brasilia room for Day 2 of Event No. 34, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha w/rebuys event. Ended up being about a ten-hour day at the office -- not bad at all. Some of the guys on ours had a prop bet going with the ones covering the Stud event (Event No. 35) regarding who would finish first, a bet our guys won by about an hour-and-a-half.

Today’s final table is scheduled for the main stage (and will be broadcast over ESPN360). Two name pros made it -- Layne Flack and Ted Forrest. Forrest is the one I’d look out for, although among the others current chip leader Kyle Kloeckner and Michael Guzzardi look tough, as does Dario Alioto who took down the PLO event at the WSOPE last fall.

Tim “Tmay420” West is also there. This is his second final table this summer, and I also covered his other one (the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em shootout). He’s the short stack going in today, but I’m hoping he gets some chips together and makes a run. West is a super friendly guy and a hell of a player to boot.

Had a few interesting, extracurricular moments yesterday while covering the event. Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad stopped by for a visit. My partner, Marc, has worked with Betfair in the past, and so Obrestad came in to say hello to him. She seemed a little bummed at not being able to play -- she is still only 19 years old, and in fact won’t be able to play until the 2010 WSOP as her birthday is in September. There was talk of her getting in on some cash games, though that can’t possibly happen either unless they are side games. Seemed like a friendly, smart person, and I can imagine how the contrast of her sweet image and terrorizing style of play can give her opponents fits.

Layne Flack was bouncing off the walls, pumped up on All In energy drinks and/or his natural hyperactive tendencies. He frequently came over to our station to chat, usually when Tiffany Michelle and Amanda Leatherman were sitting nearby. Flack once scampered over to engage them in a debate over who had the sexiest name. I joked about putting that into the blog, but refrained.

We did include some of the players’ banter in the blog, including a couple of posts about a several-hour-long debate the players were having about the relative difficulty of killing a tiger versus a grizzly bear. Here is the first one:

Pick Your Battles
Play is tightening up even more as we near the cash bubble. As players pass small stacks of chips back and forth, the table talk is increasing.

Just passed Table No. 63, where the following was overheard: “I'd rather fight a tiger with a knife than a grizzly with a gun.”

Not sure of context, but it sounds like the subject of choosing one's battles carefully is on everyone's mind with just four to go before the money.

Then, a good six hours later:

Beasts of Prey
The discussion about weapons of choice when trying to kill tigers and/or grizzly bears, begun earlier this afternoon, has lingered on into the night.

“I mean, think about this,” said Ted Forrest to Nathan Hagens, wishing to draw a distinction. “The Siegfried and Roy show... They carry a 300-lb. tiger on their back. You're not gonna carry a grizzly bear on your back....”

“No fun the first time I did it!” yelled Layne Flack from the other table.

Bill Chen was in this event, having been knocked out on Day 1. He was there sweating his co-author Jerrod Ankenman, who ended up cashing yesterday, when he came over to our table and asked if he could set up his laptop next to us. Of course, we said. Chen proceeded to log on and play a PokerStars freeroll, something he’s obligated to do from time to time as a PS-sponsored pro.

Terrence Chan was nearby and he and Chen occasionally discussed his progress in the freeroll, laughing and clearly having a good time. I’ve read a good deal of Mathematics of Poker, so it was definitely amusing to see the scholarly Chen joking around in defiance of the professorial persona one might assume from the book. One player who cashed brought a copy of the book for Chen to sign, which he did and then got Ankenman -- still alive in the tourney at the time -- to sign as well.

Should be an interesting final table today. Am hoping afterwards or perhaps tomorrow (my day off) to connect with the Beyond the Table guys, as all three -- Karridy, Dan, and Tom Schneider -- are in Vegas at the moment. Of course, Tom is busy cashing in event after event (he’s made the money five times already). Have a feeling I’ll be seeing the Donkey Bomber at the next event I cover, the Deuce-to-Seven Triple Lowball (Limit) event.

As always, head over to PokerNews to follow it all.

2008 WSOP, Day 21: No Expectations

Amid discussing the last event I covered, I remember babbling something on here prior to my Day 2 that it could well be a short day. Turned out to be the longest I’ve worked yet, extending well into dawn of the next. Ain’t gonna be so bold this time around. (I did read Mean Gene’s recent discussion of jinx protocol.) So I’ll just share the facts of the case and let you decide.

There are 48 players left in Event No. 34, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha with rebuys event. The top 36 spots pay, so we weren’t that far from playing down to the money on Day 1. The plan today, as is usually the case on Day 2s, is to whittle the field down to the final nine. The final table for this one looks to be scheduled as another one of those ESPN360 live presentations -- I’m hearing good things about those, by the way, for the lucky ones getting to watch -- so I wouldn’t expect any audibles to be called with regard to the plan to play down to nine.

There were a lot of rebuys in this one. The 320 entrants rebought a total of 1,350 times, making the prize pool over $2.4 million. That means we have over 4.8 million chips play. With 48 players left, the math is easy -- average stack is about 100,000 heading into Day 2.

When we start play today, we’ll be at Level 11, with blinds of 1,000/2,000. I don’t believe Harrington’s “M” applies to pot-limit Omaha the same way it does to no-limit hold’em, so it really doesn’t mean much to say the players have an average “M” of 33 or whatever. The pots in PLO tend to balloon rather quickly. An opening preflop raise with these blinds can range from 4,000 to 7,000. Say a guy in the cutoff opens by betting pot (which happens a fair amount), and then the button reraises pot. Suddenly you’ve got over 30,000 in the middle. One more raise and folks with average stacks will be pot committed.

Even so, I think there’s a lot about PLO that tends to thwart strict mathematical analyses. People talk about playing by “feel” and whatnot, but that’s not what I’m referring to here. There’s a weird kind of momentum that takes place in PLO tourneys whereby players feed off of each other’s desire (or lack of desire) to gamble it up. (By the way, if you didn’t read Dr. Pauly’s elegy to PLO from a couple of days ago, it’s worth it. He does a nice job there trying to characterize the “action game.”)

Fact is, PLO doesn’t always live up to its maniacal, flying-without-a-net reputation, particularly if you get a table of clear-headed individuals who realize their stacks are deep enough to allow them to be choosy when it comes to picking spots to put their chips in the middle.

Like I say, no expectations here about how long today is going to take. Just gonna play the cards I’m dealt here.

Speaking of jinxes, I have to add that after I got back last night I was too wired to sleep (as usual) and fired up some more o’ that 1/2 Razz. And simply killed. I’ll refrain from saying how much I made at this relatively low limit, but it was a nice little session (by my short-stacked standards). I’ve probably done enough damage crowing this much.

I mentioned before how F-Train’s nice run in the Razz event had inspired such experimentation. Have also been discussing Razz hands with the Poker Grump. And last night I ended up chatting with one of our reporters, Mickey, about Razz, which is a favorite game of his. Mickey routinely plays 3/6 and 5/10 online and is doing well, so I paid attention to what he had to say. A little bit of strategy goes a long way in Razz, especially when up against players who aren’t exercising sound reasoning in their betting decisions. (As always -- with any poker game -- the best formula for success is to find the bad players.)

There’s a lot to be said for playing different games. Definitely keeps the interest up. One reason why I’m intrigued about the event I’m next scheduled to cover after this one -- Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball.

As has been the case most days over the last couple of weeks, there are six different WSOP events going on today. So head on over to PokerNews for all the latest.

On Covering the WSOP

Blogs can go a variety of ways.

For some, the blog is an intensely personal, utterly truthful record of the author’s existence, with autobiographical accuracy representing its goal and purpose. Others will mix fact with fiction, creating characters (so to speak) through which to communicate their thoughts, beliefs, and/or opinions with the world.

Still others use their blogs to discuss everything other than themselves, perhaps focusing on a favorite area of interest like politics, culture, religion . . . or poker.

I suppose all of those potential blog varieties have informed Hard-Boiled Poker from time to time. Even though the focus is mostly personal, I’ve always tended to approach the blog as a journalist might. As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve had some experience with print media (columns and book reviews), and thus am aware of the various guidelines and ethics one generally follows in that realm. And even though I write under a pseudonym here, I’ve nonetheless always followed those procedures here. In other words, I never misreport or spread false info -- about myself or others -- and when it comes to editorializing I always aim to be constructive and balanced.

Helping cover the WSOP for PokerNews this summer has got me thinking a lot about the so-called “poker media.” When I report on those tourneys over at PN, there’s no question, it’s Journalism with a capital J. The goal is accuracy, first and foremost. Keeping the reader’s interest is also high up on the list, and there are a variety of ways that can be achieved (without forsaking accuracy, of course). A little creativity here and there, if only to help minimize the soul-crushing repetitiveness of yet another “they-got-it-all-in-before-the-flop” march to the showdown, goes a long way (for both reader and writer, I’d imagine).

I’ve expressed a lot of cynicism here in the past about the poker media, particularly the way its efforts are usually hopelessly blinkered by unseemly allegiances to advertisers. With PokerNews that actually is not so much the case. Sure, they heavily rely on revenue from online sites. But when it comes to reporting on the poker world, including the WSOP, the coverage is only minimally affected by such affiliations. Some players are designated by their sponsoring sites in the chip counts, but other than that there really is no discernable slant in any particular direction other than what is suggested by the usual standards of “journalistic ethics” -- i.e., a “bias” in favor of being truthful, impartial, and fair.

But what about the prejudice in favor of name pros? Surely that exists, doesn’t it?

My buddy Cadmunkey alerted me to an interesting thread over on Two Plus Two about all of the “year of the pro” talk which I addressed a few days ago and which Dr. Pauly also wrote about over on PokerNews earlier in the week. Actually it was one post in particular, by someone named MinxKitten, which was interesting. MinxKitten pointed out how WSOP reporting often tends to emphasize the exploits of established, recognizable pros, thus, according to Minx’s reasoning, “tilt[ing] the coverage” in their favor, and, perhaps, unduly fueling them “year of the pro” arguments.

MinxKitten makes a mostly astute observation, I think. (Doesn’t have much to do with the “year of the pro” argument, really, but still brings up a good point.) I wrote about something similar earlier this year, actually, in a post titled “Playing Favorites.” Of course the famous ones get more coverage. Hell, we start each event with posts listing them, often titled something like “Some Familiar Faces.” And, yes, if yr last name is Ferguson, Hellmuth, or Brunson, we’re gonna start tracking ya right away.

But as soon as folks start accumulating chips, we start asking them who the hell they are. And start reporting on them. And by Day 2 everyone is there.

And here’s another little phenomenon of the coverage of which I doubt too many who read along are aware. Sometimes a player -- usually not a “famous” one -- will ask a reporter to include him or her in the chip counts. Last night this happened. A fellow came around and said, hey, I’ve got some buddies back home who’d like to know how I’m doing, can you stick me in there?

“Of course!” we replied. We even ended up reporting a couple of his hands as well -- something that’s much, much easier to do when we know a person’s name.

Frankly, I’d be all for WSOP entrants sporting nametags, or perhaps hanging an sign on the back of their chairs saying who they were. Stuff like that is hard to sell, though, among players and/or those who run tourneys. The fact is, we don’t always want to bother ’em for names because, well, these guys are trying to play poker. And we’re trying to give ’em some distance to do their thing.

Anyhow, I do hope people are enjoying and getting something from the coverage over on PokerNews. It ain’t perfect, I know. But it’s pretty damn good (I think), and is done with an earnestness and sincerity that makes me feel very good about being able to contribute. (And I’m not even referring here to the professionalism of all my colleagues -- also a big plus for yr humble gumshoe.)

And even though all of this is coming to you via this here character I’ve created, I hope my own earnestness and sincerity is coming through as well.

2008 WSOP, Days 19-20: Catching Kings, Z’s, then a Break

Day 19 of the WSOP was a quiet one for me, spent almost entirely at the home-away-from-home as I rested up between events.

Encouraged by the exploits of F-Train, I found myself playing a bit of 1/2 Razz online. Was running particularly well for a couple of hours, to the point where I was starting to become slightly deluded about how “easy” Razz was. Was only playing good starters (other than the obvious steal opportunities), and the right cards just kept coming. Was up over 30 big bets without encountering much strife at all. Then came the run of terrible cards. Either paint or a pair every hand, it seemed.

Finally, I picked up 6-3-2 which looked pretty sweet after such a long dry stretch. A player with an ace showing completed, and I went ahead and raised. Just the two of us left for fourth street.

You can guess how it went.

Razz is such a heartbreak. Ended up losing most of what I’d made before. Was ahead just a few bucks when I finally packed it in and called it a night.

Somehow ended up sleeping 13 solid hours, waking up much later than I’d hoped to this morning. Thus Day 20 of the WSOP began with me rushing over to the Rio for the noon start of today’s Event No. 34, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha w/Rebuys event. Grabbed a coffee at the hallway stand on my way in, and three hours of rebuying frenzy later finally caught my breath.

Thought maybe I’d grab me another coffee, but when I stood up and reached in my pocket I realized I no longer had my wallet. Criminy. This could be much worse than catching kings on fourth and fifth.

I went back to the coffee stand, really the only possible place I could have left it. The cashier, Mary, recognized me immediately. She had turned the wallet over to Security. I spent the break dashing all over the Rio, finally recovering my wallet up at the Security podium in the Casino (a half-mile away from the Amazon).

A stone-faced officer spread out all of my credit cards and cash to see if it jibed with what was supposed to be there. “What, no one doubled my money?” I said, eliciting a suprising chuckle from the uniformed guard.

On my way back, I grabbed another coffee, tipping Mary a five spot for saving me a huge headache. Raced back to my perch here at the Amazon for seven more levels of PLO fun. More later.

2008 WSOP, Day 18: Bluffs & Boasts

Bit of an anticlimax last night at that final table of Event No. 28, the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha with Rebuys event. After a couple of hours of cautious play, Hellmuth, Negreanu, and Juanda all went out within a single orbit. Then Chan, who at one point had the chip lead, mangled a couple of hands to lose most of his stack and finish a disappointing fourth. Benyamine held on to finish third, although he never had the chips to make too much noise.

The stars were all gone, as were most of the fans who had filled the stands in the mini-arena where the final table was being staged. Heads up was between Adam Hourani and Phil Galfond, a couple of online pros. Couldn’t have been more different from that crazy final table for my last event, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event (No. 19) in which Jamie Pickering began raising pot (and cups of beer) without looking at his cards. This one tediously dragged on for several sedate hours, with Galfond enjoying a huge chip lead for most of the battle. Not terribly compelling, although there was one hand in there near the end that totally mystified me.

Hourani had been playing very tightly most of the night, which was one reason why he made it to heads up. Also why heads up was lasting so long, as he kept folding hands and only occasionally check-raising pot whenever he’d connected with the flop. Galfond thus would nickel-and-dime Hourani down, Hourani would get part of it back, then the chipping away would start anew.

Finally we had reached a point where Galfond had about 5 million to Hourani’s 1.2 million. Galfond raised to 200,000 before the flop (from the small blind/button) and Hourani called. The flop came and both checked. The turn was the . Hourani bet 250,000 and Galfond called fairly quickly. Then the river brought the . Hourani thought for a little bit, then pushed a stack of green 25,000 chips forward -- a bet of 475,000.

Galfond took a long time to respond, perhaps as much as five minutes. Enough time for me to speculate with Change100 what each player had. I’d pegged a couple of hands earlier in the evening. There was one where Kirill Gerasimov had raised pot preflop from out of position and Hourani had called. The flop brought a king and Gerasimov immediately grimaced, then bet about half the pot. Hourani then came over the top, and when Gerasimov didn’t react right away, it seemed pretty clear he had A-A-x-x and Hourani K-K-x-x. And it turned out that was the case.

Not a very hard hand to call, but I’d nevertheless started to develop a little hubris about knowing what players were holding. So in a whisper I offered my ideas to Change here. I figured Hourani for the club flush, as he’d seemed to have liked that turn card. Betting out of position there without a flush (or at least a set) seemed out of character for Hourani. I read the river bet, then, as representing his belief (or hope) that Galfond didn’t make a boat. And when Galfond didn’t respond right away, I didn’t think he had a boat either. Rather, I thought he might have two pair and perhaps a smaller flush, or maybe even a queen and was wondering whether trips were good here.

In any event, I thought Hourani was somewhat strong and Galfond perhaps moderately so. Definitely thought each had made decent hands here.

Galfond finally did make the call, and showed A-10-8-7. No queen, no clubs. Just that pair of tens. And Hourani mucked! “Really no clubs?” I asked the tourney director/announcer afterwards. (From our location, we were relying on him to report the cards.) “Nope, just the tens -- pure bluff,” he replied, referring to Hourani’s bet. “All he could beat,” I said, shaking my head.

Of course, by that point they’d played over a hundred hands of heads up, so Galfond clearly saw something that told him Hourani was betting with air. (Definitely humbling for yrs truly, how off I was with my reads.) That hand knocked Hourani down to his last 450,000, and it was over soon after that.

One other semi-interesting tidbit from last night involving the Poker Brat. Hellmuth had come in on the short stack and nursed it long enough to limp to eighth place. So while he was around for a couple of hours, he wasn’t terribly animated during the time he was there (relatively speaking), as he had to focus more of his energy on finding a spot to double up and get back into a position where he could compete.

There was one odd moment, though, when he got up and strutted around, peacock-like, saying something about “playing above the rim” and being like Tiger Woods hitting “three straight 30-foot putts” or the like. I think he was referring to the fact that he’d managed to stay alive for three-and-a-half levels with practically no chips.

Suddenly I realized amid the chatter that Hellmuth was looking in my direction, addressing this applesauce directly to me. I was sitting there on press row, behind my laptop with the “PokerNews” sticker I’d slapped on it earlier in the Series. And Hellmuth was hoping, I believe, that these lines would find their way into our coverage.

The fact was, what he was saying didn’t really fit that well into the narrative of the final table, and neither Change nor I had any inclination to include his little self-directed encomium in the blog. We’d given him plenty of play during the first two days of the tourney, and there was a lot else to write about last night than to pass along more “Hellmuthisms” (as Change dubbed ’em previously).

I thought about it afterwards. Hellmuth’s playing style -- a mostly-tight, cautious approach that is all about minimizing risk and carefully picking his spots -- couldn’t be more different from his approach to self-promotion, which involves throwing as much out there as possible and hoping something lands. When it comes to playing the media, it’s like he’s playing every single hand, often bluffing with little or nothing.

Has worked out well for him, so I can’t say I begrudge him for it. Doesn’t always, though. Sometimes the media doesn’t respond the way Hellmuth wants them to, letting him run ’em over and have his way.

A little like what Galfond demonstrated when he called Hourani’s bluff, I suppose. From time to time you are gonna run into those who refuse to lay down.

2008 WSOP, Day 17: Brasilia

Covering one of these three-day WSOP events from start to finish is unlike just about any other experience I’ve ever had.

I’ve done some traveling abroad, and I suppose I might liken the experience to finding oneself in a foreign country, far away from family and friends, interacting with a culture much different from the one to which one is accustomed. An utterly social experience, yet one is also always alone, too.

And there’s really no stepping away from it, even just for a moment in the hopes of catching some clarifying glimpse to help determine what it “means” or where it all fits into the “big picture” or the like. That’ll come later, perhaps, after one has returned home and resumed that other life, the so-called “real” one filled with familiar faces, routines, and/or modes of communication.

Was feeling that weird sense of being utterly enveloped in this other, strange world last night as we were off in the Brasilia room covering Day 2 of Event No. 28, the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha w/rebuys event. The Brasilia room is down the hall and around the corner from the Amazon room where I had been every other day I’d worked thus far. Whereas the Amazon contains something like 165 tables, plus that mini-arena over in the corner (where I’ll be for tonight’s final table), the Brasilia room has perhaps a third of that number. Still a lot of people coming and going -- some asking about satellites and/or napkins -- but relatively speaking yr fairly well tucked away from the main thoroughfare of poker playing and watching.

Had a few exchanges last night with visitors inquiring about the WSOP and what was taking place there in the Brasilia, and I could sense their amazement when I told them who was playing over there in the middle of the room. Yes, that’s right. Chris Ferguson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, John Juanda, and David Benyamine are all over there. Yeah, I know it looks like just any other cash game, but that’s them, battling for a bracelet.

We went deep into the night-slash-morning, my first real marathon of a day (ended up working about 14 hours, total). If I were given to hyperbole (which I ain’t), I’d almost describe the scene at 4 a.m. as surreal. Didn’t seem right, somehow, for all of this to be going down so peacefully. Shouldn’t there be music? A laser show? Norman Chad?

The six above-named pros, all regulars on televised poker and unquestioned celebrities in our little poker world, were at that last ten-handed table being dealt the last hands of pot-limit Omaha of the night. Standing around the table were perhaps 20 people total inside the ropes, only a very small handful of whom were charged with the duty of reporting on what was taking place. There were some fans there, too, though not too many. Due to the late hour and the relative obscurity of our location, I’m guessing few had any idea what was happening.

Hellmuth, incessant craver of attention, would occasionally pipe up to remind everyone he was there. He had to, as his short stack of chips didn’t allow him to make any noise otherwise. Negreanu was quick and alert as always, constantly engaging others in strategy talk and post-hand analyses. Benyamine exuded confidence and competence, once defending his play against a half-baked criticism from the Poker Brat, but essentially remaining focused on the cards.

Chan chimed in at one point after dragging a pot with a fairly weak hand. With a king in his hand and one on the board, he’d offered from early position at a small pot and had a couple of takers. All checked the turn, then another king on the river prompted Chan to bet again. All folded, and Chan showed his king (and not much else) as he dragged the pot. Some ribbing about the lucky river ensued, but Chan defended his play through infectious laughter.

Juanda remained silent throughout those final hands, and in fact seemed almost to be hiding behind the dealer over in Seat 1. That’s Juanda’s style, constantly flying under the radar. He’d only appeared in a couple of our posts last night, despite having the chip lead at one point during the night. You just don’t see him over there for some reason, and he certainly does little to draw attention to himself.

I was standing behind Ferguson, and so didn’t see his expressions or reactions during those final hands last night. Didn’t have to, though, as we all know how little he varies his countenance and behavior at the table. After the hand in which he was eliminated, the player who knocked him out, Brian Rast, shook his hand, saying “Sorry, Chris.” Ferguson was utterly gracious, taking a moment to congratulate everyone for having made the final table before sauntering off into the sunrise.

And after spending some time helping chronicle those last moments over at PokerNews, I, too, made my exit. It was daylight again, the only evidence of the evening being the still-turned-on headlights of a few of the vehicles on the road with me as I made my way back to the home-away-from-home.

Another stacked final table tonight. As I said, we’ll be back in the Amazon, over in the staging area, with the cameras and an announcer and fans in the stands. Will seem more like a spectacle today than that quiet, serene scene from early this morning.

Which, in an odd way, may make it all seem a little less strange to yr humble observer.