2008 WSOP, Day 31: Tell Everyone You Know and Duplicate

Another superlong shift for yr humble gumshoe last night. We started at 2 p.m. and got out of there at something like 4:30 a.m. Still beat poor Mean Gene and Change100 who were over covering the $50K H.O.R.S.E. final table when we left, though.

I actually managed to see exactly zero hands of that celebrated event, having been away from the Rio for the first two days of it, and utterly buried under the $1,500 no-limit hold’em events I’ve been covering for the last three. Was glad to see Scotty Nguyen took that one down. Hard not to like a guy who has pet monkeys (and loves to talk about ’em).

Our event, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em (Event No. 49), went fairly smoothly. We were in the Brasilia room, where I finally came up with effective signage to discourage the constant questions about satellites, registration, etc. The sign read “NO INFO ABOUT SATELLITES HERE (or much else) -- SORRY.” Several read the sign and laughed, and quite a few, including Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, stopped, read the sign, and with a smile would facetiously ask “So, do you have any info about the satellites?”

Fricke went on to suggest to me that the sign would invite even more interference, as many would stop to make that same joke. (Indeed, probably 15 people did before the night was through.) I answered that at least that was more fun than having to tell people over and over we didn’t have the info.

We played down from 215 to the final nine. Some interesting hands, and a few fun posts, but I have to admit I’m finding no-limit hold’em incredibly mundane at the moment. Was never a big fan before (it is the one game I almost never play), but writing up hundreds upon hundreds of hands is making me less and less enamored with each post.

Early in the day I was feeling particularly giddy, mainly because I had somehow rid myself of that 48-hour bug I’d picked up before. Almost got completely carried away with the puns in the post titles. Started right from the top when Young Phan had won a couple of early pots. I posted that he was getting active early, titling the post “Young and Restless.” That sent me down a dangerous road . . .

“Xiang It” -- Tingjian Xiang elimination hand.

“Merkow Not Enjoying the Vu” -- Gregg Merkow losing a big pot to Tommy Vu.

Then came the one for which I certainly secured a spot in one of the upper circles of hell:

“Nguyen-er Nguyen-er Chicken Dinner” -- Peter Nguyen wins a pot (following a post reporting Men Nguyen having won one).

Somehow no one came over to strangle me after that last one, and I managed to finish the evening/morning safely.

By the way, early on, the ever-entreprenurial Tommy Vu gave us his business card. It was for a “social networking-global commerce” website, of which he is the “founder.” By way of clarification, the card says the site is “a social site that pays you to use it and to tell others.” Sounds great, doesn’t it?

The card provides further guidance by telling the holder to follow three simple steps: (1) Call a long-distance number and listen to the message; (2) visit the website; and (3) “Tell everyone you know and Duplicate.”

I showed it to Pokerati Dan and he asked if he could have it. So if you start seeing posts over there about this neat new social site that pays you to use it and to tell others, you’ve been forewarned.

Repetition ≠ Truth

There is a term often used in advertising called the “truth effect.” The idea has been around for a long, long time, as long as advertising has existed, I’d imagine.

Academics in the fields of sociology, psychology, and marketing research have investigated the concept extensively from the late 1960s onward, producing numerous studies trying both to define it and explain what causes it. I’m not sure who actually coined the phrase “truth effect,” though a trio of researchers named Hasher, Goldstein, and Toppino are frequently credited with having first advanced the idea in an academic context back in 1977.

The idea isn’t that complicated. Basically, “truth effect” refers to the idea that repeated statements are more often believed than true statements.

That is the gist of it, anyway. There are other factors such as source credibility (i.e., the ethos or past reputation of the person delivering the statement) and source variability (i.e., whether the statement comes from different sources) that tend to matter here. But you get the general idea. People often believe something after hearing it repeated over and over and over again, regardless of the truth of the statement or other criteria by which we might otherwise choose to verify the statement’s validity.

If you have happened to listen to any episodes of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, you’ve heard glaring examples of advertisers relying on the “truth effect” in the old cigarette ads that pop up in just about every episode of those old radio shows. (Each episode of the HBPRS contains an entire old time radio show complete with the original commercials.) Probably even more obvious there, as it sounds quite jarring to our twenty-first century ears to hear someone earnestly professing over and again that doctors energetically recommend their brand of cigarette.

I sometimes get readers landing here at Hard-Boiled Poker after having searched for information about the “super-user” cheating scandal over on UltimateBet, simply because I’ve written several posts on the subject. I was glad to see that late last week John Caldwell of PokerNews interviewed Annie Duke, paid spokesperson for UltimateBet, specifically to get her take on what happened at UB. You can reach that interview here.

As I’ve been spending most of my waking hours at the Rio covering the WSOP the last three days, I only had the chance to watch the interview earlier this morning. Unfortunately, it reveals very little in the way of new information. For a terrific breakdown of the interview, go read the PokerGrump’s response. He smartly analyzes just about all of Duke’s responses and gives the online poker player a lot of food for thought regarding whether or not one should ever play at UltimateBet.

I’m about to head back over to the Rio again this afternoon, so I haven’t time myself to produce such a thoughtful analysis, though I will say a couple of points stood out for me on listening to the interview, both of which are related to the “truth effect.”

One, in responding to Caldwell’s questions about UB’s handling of the matter, Duke correctly points out that the site did issue two interim statements along the way and, as Duke puts it, “they both basically said the same thing: there’s a problem, we’re investigating it.”

Yep, that’s what happened. I’d add that their final statement on the matter pretty much amounted to a third instance of the same statement, only the tense had changed; i.e., there was a problem, and we investigated it. Not much in the way of concrete info, and a clear reliance on the “truth effect” to get the idea across that UB was doing what it should be doing.

Secondly, early in the interview Duke says she believes UltimateBet “handled this particular issue not only with grace and integrity, [but]... management stepped up to the plate in a way that they actually didn’t have to from... a legal standpoint.”

Anyone who has paid any attention at all to the UB matter and how it was handled will instinctively cringe at all three of these observations, as none of them -- “grace,” “integrity,” or “stepping up to the plate” -- seem to apply whatsover. The communications with customers were awkward and indirect, not graceful. The vagueness and non-responsiveness of UB throughout hardly bespoke integrity. And the entire “we’re completely new; it was the old guys who did this” routine certainly sounds more like disowning the problem, not “stepping up to the plate.”

In any event, at the very end of the interview Duke is asked once more about UltimateBet’s handling of the affair, and Duke’s response has a weirdly uncanny ring to it. She says there at the end that she thinks the scandal “was actually handled very gracefully... and with integrity, and they stepped up to the plate in a way much more than they really had to by any letter of the law.”

Again, the instinctive cringe. None of these observations are at all true. Not if measured by other criteria for determining validity.

But they are being repeated. And I assume we’ll be hearing them again and again. Like an advertisement.

Respond accordingly.

2008 WSOP, Day 31: Kafkaesque, It Was

First three hours were a breeze. Well, I shouldn’t say “breeze.” I was still feeling a bit unwell and was fatigued, but the bustouts were happening quickly and it looked like beddy-bye wasn’t going to be that far away.

By 5 p.m. -- after just 69 hands -- four of the six players who’d made the final table of Event No. 48, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, had already been eliminated. We began heads up with Joe Commisso enjoying a 2-to-1 chip advantage over the tricky-to-type Richard Lyndaker. Didn’t think heads up would go all that quickly, as Lyndaker had not shown a predilection for chancy play up to that point. And Commisso didn’t strike me as much of a thrillseeker either.

But I didn’t think it would go that long. Don’t believe anyone did.

They traded small pots for the first hour, then eventually Commisso had chipped up to about 6 million versus Lyndaker’s 2 million. After gaining a few more chips, Commisso finally pushed and Lyndaker called.

Here we go, I thought. Hello sleep.

Lyndaker showed . Commisso showed . Okay, c’mon diamonds. The board blanked out, and we were still playing.

That set the pattern, with Commisso slowly chipping up then giving it back in a big chunk after Lyndaker survived yet another all in. In most cases, Lyndaker had Commisso crushed going in (e.g., Q-J vs. Q-6). The night wore on. We reached 50 hands of heads up. Then 100. Then 150.

People started talking about longevity records. By the time I had typed “Joe Commisso raised from the button, and Richard Lyndaker folded” for the 20th time, I was starting to believe this bewildering mental exercise might be causing some permanent damage to the ol’ cerbral cortex. Lyndaker became Lydanker became Lynkander became Linklater. Joe Commisso was turning into Lewis Black, then Eraserhead.

Three hours. Four hours. Five hours. Then the players appeared to crack and the all ins started coming faster, with Lyndaker surviving again and again and again -- usually coming from behind to do so, now. Commisso actually lost the advantage at one point and had to suck out a straight to survive.

How did I get here? What crime did I commit? Is this my punishment, or is something worse awaiting me? Just call me Shamus K.

Finally, on the 209th friggin’ hand of heads-up, around 11:30 p.m., Commisso took the last of Lyndaker’s chips and we were all free. He played well and certainly deserved it. Sheesh did it take a while, though.

I pumped out a quick wrap-up post and Vera carried me back to the home-away-from home. Vera had watched the whole thing, actually, finding it very entertaining. It was, in fact, a compelling final table. But I was just too damn tired to enjoy it.

Slept very well last night and came back into the Rio today to help cover Day 2 of Event No. 49, another of the “donkaments” -- i.e., a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event. Started the day with 215 players and we have to play down to nine, so I’m expecting to be here ’til sunrise. Am feeling much, much better though, and not at all bummed about being here. Am still really enjoying the whole WSOP experience.

Vera heads home today. Was a terrific week with her here. Her coming here in the middle of the adventure has really made the whole thing more doable, I think.

I haven’t gotten to see any of the $50K H.O.R.S.E. I hear they are down to five. Remember you can follow that one, or this here Event No. 49 on which I am reporting, over at PokerNews.

2008 WSOP, Day 30: Long Night’s Journey Into Day

Was up until 5:30 a.m. or so working Event No. 46, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. Kind of an exhausting day, made worse by the fact that somehow I picked up some sort of bug that enveloped me in one of those my-whole-body-hurts kind of illnesses right toward the end of the shift. Digestion, everything all out of whack. I blamed the salad I ate at the Poker Kitchen earlier in the night, though to be honest I don’t know what the culprit was.

As a result, I had a very restless six hours this morning before having to get up and truck back over to the Rio for today’s final table. Have made it through the first couple of levels of the FT without too much trouble, though. Three of the six players have already managed to find the exit, despite the super-deep stacks all enjoyed going in. Am sincerely hoping big time two more decide to gamble it up here and I can get back to bed in short order.

All of which is to say, no time or energy today for a full-fledged post. But I’ll be back, no worries.

Be sure to follow the coverage over on PokerNews.

2008 WSOP, Day 29: Love

Well, the Love show didn’t disappoint. Definitely one of the more entertaining spectacles of the many from which to choose here in Las Vegas.

Have written here before in praise of the Beatles. Grew up listening to them. Learned to play guitar from a Beatles songbook. Long ago committed all two hundred-plus of those tunes to memory. (Like a lot of folks, I imagine.) Also had someone pass me the Love soundtrack a couple of years ago when it first came out, so I was additionally aware of how for the show the songs had been recombined, sometimes quite ingeniously, so I wasn’t necessarily surprised by any of that at the performance.

The show’s form resembled that of the previous Cirque du Soleil show Vera and I had seen, O. Lots of high-flying gymnastics-slash-modern dance supplemented throughout by various, clever machinations to redistribute the set design. There were a few dozen “characters,” none of whom perfectly corresponded to the ones inhabiting the Beatles songbook (to me, anyway). Although one could argue they were all suggested in an indirect way -- e.g., the lovelorn, flower-carrying shy guy, Teddy boys, the mustachioed British bobbies, Liverpudlian kiddies, etc.

The production definitely emphasized the more surreal-leaning, latter era of the Beatles repetoire, both in the song selections and the René Magritte-meets-Barnum & Bailey aesthetic. Lots of fun moments, perhaps the most fun being when a bed appeared in the center of the stage and its linens rapidly extended outward, enveloping the stage and then, to everyone’s delight, the entire audience as well. Vera said it reminded her of games with parachutes in elementary school.

As was the case with O, the show never moved too far away from the land of spectacle and into something more meaningful. That is to say, lots of moving around, but nothing too terribly moving. Still, that message of love that so indelibly informs the Beatles’ music was consistently delivered. One never hears in Love the Fab Four’s most profound lyric “the love you take is equal to the love you make,” though the idea is successfully implied throughout. Everybody, including Vera and me, had smiles on as we filed out of the theater.

As we walked out we passed the poker room at the Mirage, and hearing somebody telling his buddy about finally hitting quads quickly recalled to me the purpose of my being here. Back to poker today, as I return to the Rio to help cover Event No. 46, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. Looks like 805 signed up for that one yesterday, and they played all of the way down to 96 today. Might take a good while for those 96 to turn into just six for tomorrow’s final table, I imagine.

Meanwhile the $50K H.O.R.S.E. (Event No. 45) moves into its third of five days, with over half the field gone. Just 67 of the original 148 remain. Many the big names are over there, with Greenstein, Lindgren, Negreanu, and Doyle Brunson near the top of the chip counts at present.

Oh, by the way, I couldn’t let it go unnoticed here that Dan LaCourse, the winner of Event No. 42, the $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em World Championship, is a retired police detective. According to LaCourse, his training as a detective came in handy at the poker table, as “people reveal themselves through subtle gestures and mannerisms within three seconds of being of being confronted with a question or decision.”

Interesting stuff. Of course, you probably knew that already -- that in the end, the info you take is equal to the profit you make.

2008 WSOP, Day 28: Horsin’ Around

All eyes on the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event (Event No. 45) which kicked off yesterday.

Like you, I read the reports about how tourney staff had removed tables, creating more space for extra media there in the front left corner of the Amazon Room. When everyone finally registered, there were 148 runners total -- exactly the number who entered last year. Kind of jibes with how the entire Series has gone thus far, with numbers mostly mirroring last year’s in most events (aside from those Omaha events, which have uniformly attracted more entrants).

Also noticed how PokerNews had assigned extra bloggers and reporters to cover this one, which combined with a smaller field means more comprehensive coverage. I liked seeing all 148 players in the chip counts right off the bat. (I’m guessing media was provided with a list for this one, although PokerNews might’ve been able to identify everyone anyhow.) That’s something that isn’t really feasible with most events. Take the last one I covered, the Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw event that had 238 enter (Event No. 40). Even with several reporters we were only ultimately able to identify a little over a third of the field by the end of Day 1.

Thanks to the slow structure, almost all of the 148 are coming back today. Just eight fell out, including Phil Hellmuth, David Williams, Amnon Filippi, Shun Uchida (who finished runner-up in Event No. 40), and Jamie Pickering (who was runner-up to Vanessa Selbst in Event No. 19).

I’m off again today (Thursday), but will be back in the Rio on Friday where I’ll join Don Peters to help cover Event No. 46, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Short-Handed event. So I’ll be around to catch some of the buzz as the H.O.R.S.E. plays out the last three days of its scheduled five.

Yesterday was a fun day with Vera. We started off having brunch with the PokerGrump over at a place called Hash House a-Go Go. It’s just a couple of miles off the strip and all three of us definitely recommend it for some good eats. Vera and I then spent the afternoon goofing around the Mandalay Bay-Luxor end of the strip.

We had considered visiting the Shark Reef Aquarium, but decided against. Instead on a lark we ended up on this Imax motion simulator thingy in the Luxor. Was a little like spending 15 minutes inside a bad Mystery Science Theater 3000 film.

Our group included just us and a family of five, and the kids’ mostly whiny comments were the funniest thing about the whole ride. There was some sort of nonsensical narrative associated with the “adventure” -- something to do with finding a much-cherished obelisk. A couple of minor thrills but mostly a bunch of applesauce. Aside from the hokey “plot,” the thing felt pretty damn dated from a technology standpoint. Indeed, looking it up online I see the whole production was put together fifteen years ago.

“I don’t get it,” said one of the kids as we walked out. Dad couldn’t really explain it either.

We had thought about going back out later, but ended up just taking it easy, creating our own simulator of home life here at the apartment (eating in, watching some tube). We were both a bit fatigued, Vera from the time change, and me from having worked the three previous days.

We’re rested up now, though, and are looking forward to heading over to the Mirage for dinner and the Love show tonight. Meanwhile, you can head on over to PokerNews for yr H.O.R.S.E updates.

The UIGEA Lives; H.R. 5767 Dies in Committee

A somewhat significant day on Wednesday in the ongoing sordid tale of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. Bottom line: the beast that is the UIGEA has survived to torment us further.

We last left off this one back in April when House Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) jointly proposed H.R. 5767, a tersely-worded bill solely designed to prohibit the Federal Reserve and Treasury Dept. from finalizing and implementing the UIGEA regulations.

H.R. 5767 was proposed in the immediate wake of that April 2 hearing before the Subcommittee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy, Trade, and Technology, a subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee. At that hearing, a couple of representatives from the Federal Reserve testified at length regarding the difficulties faced with actually enforcing the UIGEA. Several others from the American banking system likewise testified as to the impracticality of following the law’s directives. (Full summary of the April 2 hearing here.)

At the present moment, the UIGEA is technically an impotent law, although there does remain the potential for regulations to be finalized, thus introducing all sorts of new problems for online poker players. I say “technically” because the UIGEA has had a lot of influence on how Americans gamble online, despite never being enforced a single time. That April 2 hearing and swift proposal of H.R. 5767 provided hope to those of us wishing to make the UIGEA’s impotency permanent in a legal sense. And it would -- if passed, H.R. 5767 would make it impossible for the UIGEA ever to be enforced, since the feds would no longer be allowed to finalize the regs and pass them onto the banks.

So on Wednesday the House Financial Services Committee had a hearing regarding a few different bills, including H.R. 5767. This is how the legislative process works. A bill gets proposed, perhaps attracts co-sponsors, then gets considered by a House committee. If the committee gets behind it, then the bill gets forwarded along to the entire House, and if enough momentum is gathered it might be brought for a vote. If the House passes the bill, it goes to the Senate, and if they in turn pass it, the president has to sign it, too, and it becomes a law.

The purpose of the hearing (which can be viewed online here), then, was to get the committee to go ahead and vote on these bills, meaning if enough members were in favor of H.R. 5767, it would proceed on to the entire House of Representatives.

The Hearing

Frank began the part of the hearing devoted to H.R. 5767 with a brief overview of the political wrangling that resulted in the UIGEA being written and becoming law. He then referred back to that April 2 hearing and the feds’ testimony regarding the law’s inconsistencies and lack of feasibility. Alluding to the words of Louise Roseman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Frank said that while she “was very respectful, but as she honestly answered the questions it became clear that she thought that she had a job that was undoable.”

Rep. Jim Bachus (R-AL), a senior ranking member of the committee, then took ten minutes to pursue his thesis that “the fastest growing addiction in America is not drugs, it’s gambling.” Bachus referred to a study -- he offered no specific details regarding who conducted it -- that states “problem gambling doubles within ten miles of a gambling faciility,” using that alleged truism to support his argument that online gambling must be outlawed.

Bachus went on to refer to other arguments, including one of a colleague who had quoted a University of Illinois professor who believes “the internet is crack cocaine for gamblers. There are no needle marks. There is no alcohol on the breath. You just click the mouse and lose your house.” He concluded with a reference to another mind-boggling argument suggesting one-third of college students who have gambled on the internet have attempted suicide.

As Bachus has routinely done in all of this hearings, he spoke not in dialogue with others but simply broadcast his own moral arguments regarding online gambling. Indeed, H.R. 5767 has nothing whatsoever to do with the moral question; that law solely addresses the impracticality of having financial transaction providers monitor all clients’ transactions and forbid those with online sites deemed unlawful.

Indeed, I believe that in his heart of hearts Bachus is probably ambivalent over whether the UIGEA regulations ever get finalized and the law actually enforced. He triumphantly cited a University of Pennsylvania study that suggests the UIGEA has effectively reduced both “compulsive and problem gambling,” even though the law hasn’t ever been enforced a single time. “The 2006 law has had its intended effect,” said Bachus. And clearly, he wishes for it to continue to curb online gambling in the U.S., regardless of whether it ever actually gets enforced.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) then came on to explain his proposed amendment to H.R. 5767, which he described as “not a gambling amendment, but a banking amendment.” As King explained, “we are requiring the banking community not just to enforce the law, but in effect to define what the terms of that law are.” Therefore, King’s amendment “withdraws those regulations and . . . calls for the Treasury and the Federal Reserve in consultation with the Department of Justice to jointly develop regulations to define the term ‘unlawful internet gambling.’”

In practical terms, King’s amendment appears nothing more than a directive to legislators to try again. Sure, says King, let’s pass H.R. 5767 and stop the process of finalizing the UIGEA regulations, but let’s not let it drop there. Though a much more coherent speaker and thinker than Bachus, King is likewise no fan of internet gambling. So he wants the feds to keep at it and define unlawful internet gambling and even to compile a list of forbidden sites, so down the road a UIGEA-like law could be passed and really (legally) enforced.

Frank came back on to clarify for the umpteenth time that this issue here isn’t the moral question, it is the practical one concerning legislators asking banks to do something they cannot do. Frank claimed that H.R. 5767 would not, in fact, do away with UIGEA -- technically true, but a bit disingenuous, I’d suggest.

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) then spoke briefly, reiterating his libertarian view that “individuals have a right to spend their money the way they want.” Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) spoke in support of King’s amendment, saying it would give “the regulators an opportunity to go through a methodical process” and revisit the issue of defining unlawful internet gambling.

Finally, Bachus came back on to suggest that despite Frank’s protestations to the contrary, H.R. 5767 would in fact halt the process that began with the UIGEA’s passage into law in 2006. He pointed out that it isn’t unusual for Congress to pass a law, then have it take “eight or nine years” for that law to ever be enforced. “What we’re doing,” argued Bachus, “is stopping and starting all over again and that’s a bad thing.” Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) added his opinion that the bill being proposed by Frank and Paul was, in his view, “an attempt to gut the process.”

The Vote

Those members of the House Financial Services Committee who voted on Rep. King’s amendment to H.R. 5767 were evenly divided, with 32 voting for it and 32 against it. Not enough for the amendment to be added, and so the bill was then voted on in its original state.

That vote was conducted verbally, and this time a large majority voted against it. H.R. 5767 is no more.

As much as I disagree with Bachus and others waging the moral crusade against online gambling, it is easy to see in retrospect that H.R. 5767 had little chance of making it out of committee. The fact is, Frank and Paul’s bill was a much more overt example of the same sort of legislative short cut that got the UIGEA passed in the first place.

Might have worked had it been added to some other must-pass legislation just as Congress was closing shop for the winter. But a bill negating a previously passed law -- no matter how poorly-constructed that law might be -- couldn’t get that far on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of the summer. That would mean getting legislators to admit in broad daylight they were once wrong. Sort of stuff just don’t happen.

The UIGEA lives, folks. And if those regulations ever do get finalized, we’re all going to be dealing with overblocking and a number of other headaches for a long time, I’m sure of it.

2008 WSOP, Day 27: Cheers

Finished up last night’s final table for Event No. 40, the $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) event, around 11:30 p.m. A long day (ten hours), but I ain’t complaining. The table was fairly riveting from beginning to end, what with the constant confrontations between eventual champ John Phan and Gioi Luong. Definitely enjoyed covering the event with F-Train.

Aside from the bickering between Phan and Luong, the play didn’t become all that compelling until Phan ordered ten cups of Corona, each with a lime wedge bobbing near the surface. The waiter carefully lined them up on the table next to the one on which they were playing, creating a kind of weird symmetry with the long, gaudy row of yellow chips Phan had lined up in front of him. One was the cause of the other, I think, as it was precisely when Phan had assumed over half of the chips in play (with three players left) when he ordered the beers.

He gave a couple away to friends on the rail, but appeared to suck down several on his own. Right as he took the first sip, he lost a decent-sized pot to Shun Uchida. Then he lost another one to Luong. Within twenty minutes, he was the short stack. Phan’s buzz was getting killed as quickly as he’d established it. I thought I was about to witness some sort of tragic play unfolding, but he pulled it together enough to get to the dinner break. After that, he played the best poker, I thought, and deserved the bracelet -- his second this summer.

After wrapping things up at the Rio, Vera and I ran over to the Gold Coast for a couple of hours to cheer on the large crowd of folks bowling in the latest installment of the Pokerati Bowling Series, including CK, F-train, Dr. Pauly, Change100, Haley, Spaceman, Tuscaloosa John, Cali Jen and Dan, Benjo, and several other cool cats. And to enjoy a couple of beers, though nothing close to what Phan had (and probably was having).

The big $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship cranks up today (Event No. 45). That one and the Main Event will get a lot more attention than these prelims we’ve been covering.

As I’ve mentioned, I’m off both today and tomorrow, and will be spending most of the time away from poker, doing some sight-seeing and running around LV with Vera. So you go follow the H.O.R.S.E. over at PokerNews and I’ll hook up with ya later.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 5: The Queen of Spades

Posted a new episode of the show yesterday. I see it has already turned up over in iTunes.

This one begins with the Poker Grump regaling us with some humorous stories about drunks at the table. Then there’s an old Robert Johnson song with a poker theme. Finally, the feature presentation is an episode of Mystery in the Air called “The Queen of Spades” starring Peter Lorre, an adaptation of an Alexander Pushkin short story. The game of faro is central to the story, and at the end of the episode I come on and talk about the game a bit and how you can play it online.

That makes five episodes so far. Won’t be producing any new ones until I get back home from Vegas in mid-July.

If you haven’t heard any of the older episodes, you can always go back. Have had a couple of people here in Vegas who have heard the show tell me it reminds them a little of This American Life. That is probably because unlike other podcasts which focus on news, interviews, or strategy, this one mainly presents stories and examples of “audio theater.” And I suppose we are always pursuing a theme (like they do on This American Life), namely poker and/or gambling. So if you like poker and are at all into old time radio and/or storytelling, check it out!

And if you have any feedback, you can leave comments here or over on the show’s blog.

2008 WSOP, Day 26: Cowboy Hats, Cigars, and Draw Poker

“Hello?”

Heard from the neighboring stall in the men’s room. Is someone trying to communicate with me somehow? If so, I’m not answering.

“Still in. Yea there’s like five hunnerd still in outta two thousand two hunnerd. They ain’t updated it in a while. Last it says is six-oh-two. But there’s less than that there’s five hunnerd I know it is.”

Ah. The seniors are on dinner break. “I dunno if those guys from Texas er still in or what. Gonna be callin’ Hot Rod in a minute to find out if he still is. I got eighteen hunnerd, six times what I started.”

(Apologies to Dr. Pauly for reporting from the Rio bathrooms. I should probably insert a joke here about him marking that territory.)

Was back in the Brasilia yesterday for Day 2 of Event No. 40, the $2,500 Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) event. Our last thirty players were lined up on the front row of the room, while most of the other sixty or so tables were filled with those playing in Event No. 42, the $1,000 Seniors No-Limit Hold’em World Championship. Unlike our event, which began with just 30 players on five tables, the Seniors event began with 2,218 entrants, sent all over the Rio. (They played all of the way down to 220 before quitting last night.)

A semi-curious scene, seeing all those old guys coming and going from our station in the front corner of the Brasilia. Lots of cowboy hats and unlit cigars. Seemed like a good number of them weren’t there alone, but with a buddy or maybe five. Have to guess the Seniors Event is a kind of vacation destination for a lot of retirees. The wives go shopping, the old fellers play the tourney, and in between some of the husbands call their wives from bathroom stalls.

I heard over in the Amazon they did a “stand-up-if-yr-over-this-many” to find out who was the oldest to have entered. A 91-year-old fella was the last man standing. I know some want to argue away events like the Seniors event, but there seem to me to be a lot of reasons to keep the sucker.

Our event dragged on a bit longer than we’d hoped, though we were outta there by 10:30 p.m. -- a very short day by our usual standards -- so I surely ain’t complainin’. The coverage was fairly comprehensive (I thought). We had extra reporters on hand and thus more eyes to keep track of hands and the ever-fluctuating chip counts. Kind of liked seeing Billy Baxter, a guy who’s been eligible for the Seniors Event for at least a couple of decades, surge from practically nothing to the chip lead early in the day.

Baxter has a whopping seven WSOP bracelets dating back to the mid-70s, every single one of which came in lowball games (deuce-to-seven, ace-to-five, and razz). At one point during the day we came around to count his chips and Greg Raymer quipped that we should just add up all the chips in play and give them to Baxter, ’cos he was going to be getting them eventually anyway.

On another occasion earlier on, I was standing there with the reporter and kind of idly looking at Baxter’s chips, doing a little mental arithmetic. He caught my eye, and said “Seventy-seven” (he had 77,000 at that point). I gave him a thumbs up in thanks.

Sitting at our table yesterday, F-Train and I experienced that phenomenon I described to you last week when Change100 and I were at that front table in the Brasilia Room. Somehow everyone seems to think whoever is stationed there is a provider of information for all manner of activities in the Rio. F-Train made the sign this time: “ALL QUESTIONS: $20.” Actually elicited a lot of laughs, though no cabbage.

Final table should be interesting enough. Baxter didn’t make it, but David Sklansky did (barely). I’m sure we won’t be on the main stage. The WSOP has already made it clear that in their view “draw poker of any kind is a difficult sell for both viewers and spectators.”

That’s what was stated in their press release from two weeks ago when addressing the mini-controversy surrounding the decision not to televise or even have played on the main stage the star-studded final table of Event No. 18, the $5,000 Deuce-to-Seven Single Draw w/rebuys event. You remember, the one with Jeff Lisandro, Mike Matusow, Tom Schneider, Erick Lindgren, Barry Greenstein, Tony G, and David Benyamine.

I ain’t gonna weigh in on the pros and cons here too deeply. Draw is a different animal, no doubt, though I frankly don’t see why they couldn’t show it on ESPN360, where only the poker junkies are watching anyhow. Could really be interesting for that crowd with a Daniel Negreanu or Mike Caro or some other draw-poker-playin’ pro offering some words of wisdom along the way. Hell, they could get Billy Baxter, now. He’d be terrific, I’d bet.

Am getting two whole days off after today, thanks to some very thoughtful, very cool schedule-jugglin’ by the PokerNews guys. Not really sure what Vera and I will do Wednesday, but whatever it is it will be fun. Then on Thursday is the Love show.

By the way, the plan right now is to try to post Episode No. 5 of the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show later on today. Will keep you updated.

And I promise not to do so during my next bathroom break.