2009 WSOP, Day 13: The Dollar Ain’t What It Used to Be

Was a good day off yesterday. Did not go to the Rio. Mostly just hung out at the home-away-from-home, doing some reading and writing. In the evening I went for dinner with the Poker Grump and Cardgrrl at the Grand Lux Café at the Venetian where we had a delicious meal and enjoyable conversation. Many topics arose, including the Grump’s upcoming shot at a WSOP event this Thursday.

Quick little anecdote about my trip over to the Venetian...

If yr gonna come to Vegas, you need to be ready to do a lot of tipping. And if yr short-stacked like me, you want one-dollar bills for that purpose, as five is too much for you to drop each time.

As I was leaving for dinner, I realized I didn’t have any singles and so went over to ask the fellow manning the hotel desk if he could change a five spot for me. As he was counting out the bills, I was uncrumpling my fiver to hand to him. Grabbed both ends, gave a little tug, and damned if the sucker didn’t tear right in half!

He handed me the bills and I sheepishly held out the two pieces to him. No problem. He had some scotch tape right there at the desk and quickly made the needed repair. As he did, I started to slip the ones in my wallet when I noticed one of them was damaged -- it was only about two-thirds what it should have been.

I laughingly handed the bill back to him for another. “Wow, the dollar sure isn’t as strong as it used to be,” I said as he fished out a fresh one for me. He wordlessly nodded. Not quite sure my little quip landed.

I drove over to the Venetian and as I was walking from the parking deck inside I noticed on the ground three one-dollar bills in the middle of the walkway. I looked around. No one in sight. So I scooped ’em up. I wondered how many people had passed by without even bothering to bend over and pick up the ones.

“An orphaned pot,” the Grump would say later when I related the story.

Cardgrrl asked me during dinner for my thoughts regarding turnouts thus far at the WSOP, and I realized I didn’t have much of a feel for how things were going in that area. I knew some tourneys, like that $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em “Stimulus Special,” had attracted the maximum (or more), but didn’t really know whether any larger trends had emerged as yet.

Exactly one-third of the 57 bracelet events have gotten underway by now, so I thought it would be semi-interesting to compare field sizes from 2008 and 2009 thus far.

Of the 19 events that have started, four are technically “new” events insofar as there was not an equivalent game/buy-in last year. Of the remaining 15 events, nine attracted fewer entrants, and six attracted more.

Some of what you see here is a bit skewed. For example, I’m comparing Event No. 7 to the first $1,500 NLHE event last year, which was at the start of the schedule last year. Obviously many of those who would’ve played in that one opted instead for the “Stimulus Special” this year. That column listing “projections” comes from the WSOP Staff Resource Guide -- they nailed some of the projections with uncanny accuracy, while others were off more than a little.

Not really enough here yet from which to draw conclusions, so I’ll keep tallying this as we go. I think overall, though, it is starting to shape up as many expected -- namely, not a lot of growth or decline, but a year in which the WSOP essentially holds steady.

Which I think, given all of the current economic woes, would be a definite triumph. As we poker players know, sometimes walking away even is a victory in and of itself.

I go back to the Rio today to help cover the second day of Event No. 19, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. Follow along over on PokerNews’ live reporting page.

2009 WSOP, Day 12: Chips Go Flying at the Speed of Sound

A whirlwind of a day covering the last stage of Event No. 13, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event won by Keven “Stamdogg” Stammen. There were 20 players returning, and the plan was to play it to the end. Thought I was in for another marathon, but we burned through the field in just seven-and-a-half hours (including a one-hour dinner break), and the sucker was over before 9 p.m.

Yesterday I worked again with Tom Bostic who has experience covering the WSOP in the past for CardPlayer as well as more recently helping cover tourneys for the World Poker Tour. He is Tom Terrific on the floor, so we decided he’d stick by the tables while I stuck by the laptop. Thus does the live blog inaccurately suggest I’m the only “author” of the day’s posts, but the fact is I was primarily interpreting and passing along what Tom gave me.

Indeed, only a small percentage of the posts I write on PokerNews are ever solely my own creation, as I am often working from field reporters’ notes or other sources of information. I have done a lot more of my own “field work” this summer already, such as was the case with that funny hand from Saturday when the player check-raised Carter King without having any cards. But really everything a person sees over at PN is produced by a team of reporters, bloggers, photographers, editors, and others behind the scenes helping managing it all.

From my vantage point, I was generally only 15-20 feet from the table(s), looking down on the players from my perch up above the floor. So I could hear table talk and witness other details (e.g., whether a player tanked before making a decision) that I could include in the posts. But I couldn’t see bet amounts or cards, and Tom was on top of all of that.

Was struggling for one small stretch with a couple of sort-of-similar player names -- wasn’t a matter of misidentifying players, just an eyes-to-brain-to-fingers thing -- and in fact was starting to think that after working 70-plus hours in five days I’d reached a kind of mental and/or physical limit beyond which I might not be able to function. Got a second wind, though, and the night ended well.

Seemed kind of stunning, really, how quickly it went. Tom was counting hands once we got down to 10 players, and it only took a total of 90 hands to go from 10 to 1. We weren’t counting hands before that, but in terms of minutes played, it took a lot less time to go from 20 to 10 -- something like a little over two hours of play compared to about twice that for the ten-handed final table to play out.

I’m going to estimate, then, that it took about 50-60 hands to go from 20 players to 10. Looking back to the end of the previous day, when we had three eliminations in the last two hands of the night, that means the last 22 players were eliminated in about 150 hands -- about one every seven hands or so. Or roughly 768 miles per hour. (Ha.)

From the reporting side, that’s about as hectic as it gets, since reporting late-game eliminations requires not just a formal post (usually including a picture), but adjustments to chip counts and payout pages, too. That is in addition, of course, to reporting non-bustout hands and keeping the counts updated and accurate, too.

But never mind the intensity of what I’m doing... let’s look briefly at what the players are facing. Could there some explanation in the blinds/antes structure for the rapid end to Event No. 13?

Looking at it strictly in terms of the average number of big blinds each player had during play yesterday, there does not appear to have been any huge jumps here at the end that would have ignited a lot of movement. However, we might point to at least three factors that would help explain why things went so quickly yesterday. (Note: There were actually 27 players left when Level 20 began late on Day 2, but I'm just picking up the analysis here at the end of the night when we were still in Level 20 and had gotten down to 23.)

First of all, the fast-rising antes here at the end probably shouldn’t be overlooked -- they definitely cut into the shorter stacks and got people moving as we progressed from level to level.

Secondly, with 23 players left at average stacks of just 30 BBs, we really were already past the point in the tourney where we should be expecting a lot of all-in shoves.

F-Train is much better than I am at estimating these things, having played in and reported on many more tournaments than I, and he has talked to me (and on his blog) about that 40 BB-mark that seems to be the range where the field starts thinning more quickly. As F-Train puts it, “at some point, the pressure from the blinds will catch up to the total number of chips in play and force players to bust out, no matter how many are left in the field. In my experience, the point that the number of chips in play catches up to the structure for a NLHE tournament is when the average stack is about 40 BBs.”

Before we started yesterday, I didn’t pay much attention at all to the fact that those 20 players coming back had an average of 30 BBs at the beginning of the day -- if I had, I probably should’ve expected the day to go much more quickly than I was dreading it might.

The third factor worth pointing out is the fact that the eventual winner, Keven Stammen, started to push out to a big chip lead once it got down to six or seven players, meaning the “Avg. BB” number for the table is a bit misleading, since the truth was all but Stammen (I think) had less than that.

Have some running around to do today, but I expect I will mostly be sticking close to the home-away-from-home here on my day off. Meanwhile, go over to PokerNews’ live reporting to see how those five ongoing events (Events No. 15-19) are playing out.

2009 WSOP, Day 11: A Hand Worth Remembering

As expected, I was at the Rio until about 3 a.m. last night, so yet another 13-plus hour day of scribbling, chip tallying, and other forms of data entry for your weary gumshoe. Gonna try not to make my increasing fatigue the theme of every post here, but it’s hard not to think about anything else when yr working about twice the hours that yr sleeping.

Today I go back for the “final table” of Event No. 13, that $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event I helped cover yesterday -- although we ended the night with 20 players still with chips. Meaning I cannot imagine getting done within 12 hours today, and it may well go on much longer than that. Thankfully I have Monday off to try to recharge a bit.

Did want to share with you a few items from yesterday’s live blog, the first of which might well have been one of the stranger hands of the WSOP thus far -- one which I just happened to have been at the table to witness.

The hand occurred early in the day, a little while before the cash bubble burst (at 117 players). I had gone over to Table #60 (in the Orange section) to see if I could catch Carter “ckingusc” King -- winner of last fall’s PokerStars’ WCOOP Main Event and also a Stars Sunday Million winner -- play a hand.

That’s often how it goes when the field is still more than a hundred players and of those there are some “notables” whom perhaps I haven’t reported on much yet. I have come to realize that I could feasibly report just about any hand I witness, as long as I have player names. There is literally always something interesting happening and potentially worth relating. Now that I’ve done this for a while, the mechanics -- i.e., figuring the bet amounts, following the sequence of action, recording the cards -- isn’t as much of a challenge as it was, say, when I was reporting my first live tourney at the start of last summer. Meaning I am able to see other, more interesting aspects of hands a little more clearly.

So I go down and wait a hand or two and then comes one in which King is involved. I know I’m probably going to be able to report it, no matter how mundane it turns out to be.

But I got lucky this time. Read what happened:

Talk About Betting With Air
Here’s one from the “Ever Heard of This?” file.

A player limped in middle position, and Carter “ckingusc” King limped as well from the button. The small blind thought a while, then decided to fold. Then the big blind player did something unusual, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

The flop came and it checked around to King who bet 3,100. The player in the big blind then slowly slid out three stacks of yellow chips -- a check-raise to 15,000.

The dealer then politely slid them back to the player. “You don't have a hand,” he explained. Apparently he had inadvertently mucked his hand rather than simply checking his option. The MP player folded, and the table had a good laugh, wondering whether or not he could’ve gotten the others to fold without cards.

King has about 99,000 at the moment.

It was truly hilarious, with all of the players laughing and saying how they’d never seen anything quite like it. Even the bettor had a sheepish smile, and added something afterwards about how maybe he avoided losing a lot of money on the hand. It looked at first like he might have wanted to challenge the dealer a bit, saying that the dealer had somehow pulled his hand into the muck against his wishes, but I think he realized that couldn’t have happened.

Was talking to Haley about it later in the day and she brought up a story T.J. Cloutier tells about winning a hand without cards by betting his opponent out after he’d mucked his hand. I remembered reading that somewhere. I’m pretty sure it appears in Warwick Dunnett’s Poker Wizards, though I’ll bet Cloutier tells the story (probably more than once) in his own books, too. It really appeared in this hand that the check-raiser was in good shape to take the hand until the dealer pushed his chips back his way. Nobody is going to be winning any hands after mucking their cards at the WSOP, I don’t think.

Still, fun to think about the possibility. And I kind of liked thinking about the whole idea of making a play without a hand -- not that unlike what I’ll do when reporting, sometimes, when I want to write up something without having much a hand on which to hang a post.

That was probably the highlight of the day. Later on, once we were down to four tables, a player named Andrew Einstein busted and I wrote a post describing his last hand:

34th Not Bad, Relatively Speaking
After taking that hit versus Matthew Lynn, Andrew Einstein pushed all in with A-8 and was up against Roland Isra’s A-Q. The board brought a couple of aces, but no eight, reducing the mass of Einstein’s chips to zero, meaning he had no more energy to continue. Einstein picks up $11,886 for his 34th place finish.

Isra now has 185,000 chips.

Obvious? Perhaps. Not as obvious as some crack about it doesn’t take an Einstein to see ace-eight is worse than ace-queen, though.

Right at the end of the night, during the last couple of hands played, in fact, Phil Ivey was sitting with an average stack -- about 250,000 or more -- and it looked like he would be returning today in good position to shoot for yet another bracelet. The large screen television back in that corner of the Amazon was tuned to a local channel, and Poker After Dark was playing with the sound down. Soon I noticed that Ivey was part of the episode -- kind of recalling, for me, that picture of our reporter Mickey counting the chips in a picture of him counting chips.

B.J. Nemeth was there getting photos for his photo blog on PokerRoad, so I let him know about it. I also told Flipchip, the PokerNews photog, know, too, and he got a picture of Ivey in the foreground and on the screen behind (see left).

Somewhat surprisingly, Ivey lost nearly his entire stack on a gamble with ace-ten on the night’s very last hand, and so returns with just 31,000 chips today -- 20th out of 20 players. Anybody wanting to take pictures of Ivey today will need to do so quickly, I’d think.

See y’all over at the PokerNews live blog for more. And remember, you got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold ‘em, and know when you didn’t hold’em and did fold’em.

2009 WSOP, Day 10: Life Passes By

Was around 2:30 a.m. last night when I found myself slowly shuffling down the long hallway that runs from the Amazon ballroom to the parking lot out back of the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino.

After about 13 hours after my event -- the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha (Event No. 10) -- had begun, we finally had a winner. Started the day with 18 players. Down to five by the dinner break, then it took ’em four hours or something to lose another. When five were left one fellow (Najib Bennani) was down to just 50,000 chips, then tripled up, doubled up a few times, and ended up managing to finish second (to Rami Boukai).

Thus ended my three days covering that event, which in the end totaled something close to 40 hours of work. And I’m back over there again today and tomorrow to finish out Event No. 13, a $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em affair. There are 175 players coming back today from their starting field of 1,088, so this looks like yet another event that is going to run up against that Rule No. 96 -- the one that says they’ll stop at 3 a.m. regardless of how many players are remaining.

Which means I’m looking at continuing my streak of 13-plus hour workdays through Sunday, then, thankfully, I’ll have Monday off to try and recharge.

It’s fun. And somewhat rewarding, still. A grind, for sure, though. And when all yr doing is writing up poker hands, eating here and there, and sleeping, it’s hard not to feel a little bit like life might be passing you by.

Like I say, I was shuffling slowly down the Rio hallway. Hands in pockets, media badge swinging from my neck, laptop over my shoulder. Half-formed poker hands flitting through my consciousness.

My partner, FerricRamsium, and I were taking turns last night filling the roles of reporter and blogger, with one of us watching the action and reporting to the other who’d enter hands, chip counts, and other items into the blog. Once they’d gotten down to five or so, I was writing down every single hand when it was my turn to stand over by the table (though we’d only report the more significant ones). Actually ended up writing the final hand on the cardboard back of the notepad, having gone through all of the sheets of yet another one.

Not a lot of chance to relax yr mental faculties in that situation, although I did have the pleasure at one juncture of visiting some with bellatrix who came by after playing in Event No. 14 (the $2,500 Limit Hold’em event). After our visit, she’d headed over to see what was happening in the cash games in the front right quadrant of the Rio. When my day was done I wandered over but didn’t spot her. She’d either left, or the dense fog that had settled in my brain had made it too difficult for me to see clearly anymore.

But I did find the ballroom exit okay, and so made my way out and down the hall. Was nearing the doors leading to the parking lot on the left when suddenly I hear a faint whirring sound behind me. Was just about to turn around to look when the sound careened past on my right.

I looked up somewhat woozily as the cowboy hat-wearing man on the scooter roared past, moving at what seemed to my dazed self the speed of thought itself.

Might ought to look into getting one of those.

2009 WSOP, Day 9: Count On It

Another 14 hours or so in the Rio yesterday, live blogging for PokerNews the second day of Event No. 10, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha. Day started with 99 players, and the idea had been to play down to the final nine. But we knew we wouldn’t be getting there by 3 a.m. -- the time beyond which according to Rule No. 96 no non-televised Day 2 will extend.

(Actually, the final table of Event No. 10 is on the schedule to be streamed live over on Bluff today, but I’m not sure if that will be the case or not.)

We started at 2 p.m. yesterday. After two levels (by 4:30 p.m.), we were down to 66. Took four more levels, with an hour-long dinner break in between, to get to 33. That was about 10 p.m. A couple of levels later we were at 20, and at 1:30 a.m. we were down to 18. Then we didn’t have a single bustout after that.

So there will be 18 playing down to one today. Just as we were counting on a long one yesterday, we’ll be doing the same today. Barring some decision to carry this sucker onto a fourth day (doubtful), this one is bound to last into the wee hours, for sure.

Not sure how many were following our coverage last night, as I’m guessing most were more frequently checking in on Phil Ivey’s successful quest to win his sixth WSOP bracelet over in Event No. 8, the $2,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball. We were occasionally looking in on that one, too, often checking the live blog as well as Bluff’s streaming of the event once it got down to heads up between Ivey and John Monnette.

Those who did follow our coverage of Event No. 10 were able to track the event very closely, as we had a couple of bloggers (FerricRamsium and myself), and three solid field reporters (Mickey, Neil, and Mark) -- plenty of eyes to capture much of the action. Mickey has a particular ability and predilection for chip counting, and so we were able to keep those figures accurately updated throughout the night.

At one point in the evening, Mickey was asking me about where he could see B.J. Nemeth’s WSOP photo blog over on PokerRoad. Someone had told him there was a picture of him on there, and he wanted to see it. I told him where to go -- just click on the “PokerRoad Nation” tab on the site’s main page and go to “Photo Blog” -- and soon he found his picture.

As Mickey was looking at the picture of himself counting chips during a break at the final table of Event No. 6, the $10,000 World Championship Seven-Card Stud event, I noticed him lean forward with his pen and again start counting the chips on the screen. Couldn’t help but smile at the sight of him going back over his work.

I quickly tapped the shoulder of FerricRamsium, an excellent photographer as well as blogger, who was sitting on my other side. I told him he had to get a picture of Mickey, and he obliged.

We got a good laugh out of the pic. As I told Pokerati Dan, who wandered over to our corner of media row somewhere around 2 a.m., it’s a conceptual piece.

“What do you mean?” asked Dan, a bit incredulously.

“It depicts the postmodern condition,” I explained. “We are watching ourselves -- or trying to, anyway. Mickey’s double-checking of his work is an emblem of our constant uncertainty, our need to reestablish meaning for our lives and our inability not to second-guess...”

Dan shook his head. “Someone has been working too long,” he responded. I persisted. “The conceptual depth of this picture is so extensive I cannot possibly explain it in... in... in 140 characters.”

Dan laughed and went back up to his spot on the other end of media row.

I was just kidding around, but I thought again of that maddening question Twitter keeps asking us, over and over and over again: “What are you doing?” And the empty box that appears underneath. How do we fill it up?

Hopefully with something fun and meaningful. I know that’s how I filled it last night.

See how I answer the question today by following our coverage of the final two tables over on PokerNews.

2009 WSOP, Day 8: Isolation

It was a long, somewhat arduous night-slash-morning for yr humble gumshoe. As I mentioned yesterday, there were seven different World Series of Poker events going on at the Rio, and I was assigned to the last one of the day, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot Limit Omaha (Event No. 10).

My event started a little after five o’clock in the afternoon, and it was past 3 a.m. by the time we were done. The tourney was tucked way back in the far right quadrant of the Brasilia room. I had just one reporter with me (Matt, who was terrific), so we were feeling pretty isolated back there, particularly during the very last level when all of the other events had already wrapped up.

Right near my station, Daniel Negreanu was seated at a table that didn’t break for the entire eight levels, so I basically got to witness fairly closely his play and all of his table talk for most of the evening. Also frequently got to experience a bit of claustrophobia as throngs of spectators intermittently gathered near Negreanu’s table. Had one elderly lady ask me if I had a piece of paper that she could take and get him to sign. Then she asked if I had a pen. Then if I had a book or something upon which he could write. I think I supplied a piece of scrap paper, but no other materials with which to bother the poker player while he was trying to play. But she succeeded in her quest, nonetheless, and Negreanu happily obliged her with an autograph.

He also was quite sociable with some of the more inebriated fans who occasionally wanted to engage him in conversation, coming over and posing for pictures with a couple of liquored-up ladies at one point. I remember somewhere in there as they were praising him one of them hollering “Hellmuth is such a douchebag!” to which Negreanu laughed loudly. “How many of those have you had tonight?” he asked. “Just five,” was the reply.

I reported a couple of Negreanu’s hands, but didn’t overdo it as I didn’t want the blog to become All Danny All the Time. As his Twitter followers know, he had a good day, chipping up past 80,000 (from the starting stack of 7,500), but slipping at the end back to around 50,000.

Incidentally, that Rule No. 88 -- the “Approved Electronic Device Rule” -- is not being enforced whatsoever at the WSOP. Not as it is written, anyway. The rule says players can use electronic devices as long as they cannot access the internet, send text messages, or have any sort of external communication. The rule also states (in bold, no less) that “iPhones, iTouch, Treos, Blackberrys, and other similar devices will not be allowed at any time.”

In other words, it does not say the devices can be used when the player is not in the hand. It says the devices “will not be allowed at any time.” But like I say, no one is enforcing this rule at all. And if I had to estimate, I’d say at each table probably seven or eight of the nine players will pull out their iPhones or Blackberrys at some point after they have folded a hand, with some keeping them out constantly -- even, in some cases (it appears), when they are in hands, too.

I reported on one hand last night in which Chris “Jesus” Ferguson let David “Chino” Rheem steal his big blind, all the while studying his iPhone as the hand took place. After he mucked, Andy Bloch asked Ferguson what game he was playing. “Chinese,” said Ferguson. I walked behind him and took a peek over the long-haired, hat-wearing player’s shoulder, and sure enough he was assembling hands on some Chinese poker application for the iPhone. Not sure if he was playing against others or not, but I’m going to guess he was.

I actually don’t feel that strongly one way or the other about players using these devices at the tables, as long as it doesn’t obviously affect the actual play or give anybody an unfair advantage. As a reporter, I have no problem at all with people following their favorite players on Twitter in addition to (or even instead of) my reports on PokerNews. Especially on a Day 1, when we aren’t always going to be tracking chip counts for the entire field the way we will try to do from Day 2 onward, it’s pretty cool for fans to be able to follow their faves that way.

I do have a couple of issues, though, with the non-enforcement of Rule No. 88. One is simply the hypocrisy of having the rule and not implementing it. Why include it at all if you aren’t going to stick to it? The only part of the rule that I’ve seen enforced is the part where it says once players reach the money they have to put all of the devices away (even the iPods and non-internet-accessing devices). Otherwise, it’s just a bunch of words. And having a rule and not enforcing it just undermines the significance of all of the other rules, too.

The other issue I have is less poker-specific and more an observation about our culture, generally speaking. I got me an iPhone a week or so before coming out to Vegas this summer, and I definitely like being in constant contact with Vera and other family and friends. But I generally keep the sucker in my pocket. Especially if I’m with others.

Seems like everybody everywhere is no longer looking at each other, talking to each other, experiencing each other’s presence. Instead, everyone is walking around with head down, busily jabbing at these little machines. Connecting with others, I guess, but not the ones right before them.

Be nice if people would look at each other now and then. Hey, we’re playing poker here! It’s a game -- we’re competing against each other. Let’s pretend we exist in the same time and place for a while. Let’s acknowledge each other’s existence. Let’s get together, people.

World can be too damn lonely a place otherwise.

2009 WSOP, Day 7: Arm Yourself, Bomb

Tuesday was the first day of the WSOP that I did not stick my fedora into the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino. Instead, I mostly just hung out at the home-away-from-home, catching up on some reading and writing, and heading out just to grab a few groceries at the Food4Less. Oh, I did run on the treadmill, too. Am keeping that up, having only missed one day thus far (Monday) in favor of that cheeseburger discussed in yesterday’s post.

Tried to stay up a little later last night than usual, since my workday won’t be starting until later this afternoon when I begin covering the first day of Event No. 10, the $2,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha event. Probably looking at working at least until 3 a.m., so it’ll be a late one for yr humble gumshoe.

In order to stay awake, I hopped online a little after midnight looking for a movie. Actually considered David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977), which I last saw at a midnight movie screening some two decades ago (or more). (Available here.) Watched the first five minutes and decided maybe I wasn’t quite in the mood for the little chickens that you cut up just like regular chickens, the lady in the radiator, the baby (shudder), and the rest.

Instead I opted for Dark Star (1974), John Carpenter’s hilarious sci-fi comedy which can be seen online over at AMCTV. Seen it a hundred times before, of course, but it still cracks me up. Was weirdly identifying with the characters, too, stuck in space all alone, away from family and friends, performing their tasks. Might’ve also been identifying with Bomb #20 there at the end a little, too, who ultimately decides “the only thing that exists is myself.”

When the movie was done, I checked in once more over on Poker News’ Live Reporting page to see how the WSOP was going without me. Kind of a weird day over at the Rio, schedule-wise, in that there were five events going on, but no final tables. Indeed, we’ve completed a full week of play (seven days), but only three bracelets have been awarded.

And today the big pile-up occurs. I remember noting a few weeks ago how June 3rd looked like an especially crazy day, with seven different events scheduled, including three final tables. Apparently somewhere along the way the plan was revised to try to finish Event No. 4, that $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em “Stimulus Special” event, yesterday, but it was already 10 p.m. or so when they reached the final nine there, so they are going to do that one today.

Two other final tables will play out today as well -- Event No. 5, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha, and Event No. 6, the $10,000 World Championship Seven-Card Stud. The plan had been to do the live streaming of the final tables for both Event No. 4 and Event No. 5, but I don’t think they’ll be able to do that, since both of those final tables are set to begin at 2 p.m. this afternoon. Gotta believe they’ll go with the hold’em event and thus the PLO guys are SOL.

The stud final table was never going to be televised anyway, so they actually stopped with 11 players remaining in that one. They get going again at 1 p.m. today and will play it to the conclusion.

Meanwhile, four other events will be playing, too. Both Event No. 7, a $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event, and Event No. 8, the $2,500 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Lowball event, will start their second days today. They both appear set to begin at 2 p.m. as well. Event No. 9, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, begins its first day of action at noon. And as I mentioned, my event starts at 5 p.m., Event No. 10, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha event. Or, as some call it, “HA.”

“HA” might be what we’re saying later today when contemplating where the hell to put all of these players (never mind the reporters). Seems to me we’re looking at a 99%-plus probability that the Series is going to deviate from its normal orbit and spiral toward the sun, causing an eventual supernova.

All very intriguing. I wish I had more time to discuss this matter before I detonate.

The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, Episode 16: Burns and Allen

A new installment of The Hard-Boiled Radio Show has been posted over on the show’s blog. This one primarily features an old episode of The Burns and Allen Show, starring George Burns and Gracie Allen. This particular show, called “The Poker Game,” is from 1944 and guest stars Alan Ladd. You can trip over to the show’s blog to get it, or just get to it here.

I was having some trouble over in iTunes the last couple of weeks after having done as instructed and allowed the Google blob to devour my Feedburner account. Some of the more recent shows weren’t turning up over in iTunes once I’d done that, but all 16 HBPRS episodes are now back. So if yr an iTunes sort of person, you can subscribe to the show or download eps over there just fine.

For those who haven’t heard the podcast before, it is a little different from most poker podcasts. No news of the day or interviews with current poker celebs. Rather, the show mainly focuses on storytelling, with the stories usually having something to do with poker or at least gambling.

Many of the shows feature excerpts being read (and sometimes even dramatized a little) from works of fiction or nonfiction. I’ll have guests on occasionally to tell their stories or make other contributions. Sometimes I’ll throw a poker-themed song in there. And every Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show contains a “feature presentation” -- namely, a full-length episode of an old time radio show. Most of these come from the 1940s and 1950s, and I’ll go back and forth between dramas, detective-type mysteries, horror, and comedy.

One other thing about the podcast -- since none of the shows feature current news topics, they aren’t particularly “time-bound,” meaning you can go back and listen to old ones (or listen to them out of order) and they’ll still make sense and (hopefully) be as entertaining as when they were first posted. Here are links to all 16 entries for episodes over on the show’s blog, each with show notes giving you an idea what you’ll find once you download a show:

1. Dead Man’s Deal
2. The Killer Cards
3. Duffy’s Tavern
4. Hitchhike Poker
5. Aces and Eights
6. The Ambassador of Poker
7. Fibber McGee and Molly
8. Aces and Eights
9. The Case of the Poker Murders
10. Come, Fill My Cup
11. Poker Chip Draw
12. Gunsmoke, The Gambler
13. The Life of Riley
14. The Hot Hundred Grand Caper
15. The Lacework Kid
16. Burns and Allen

All feedback is welcome. And suggestions, too, for future shows. Send that stuff to shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com. Probably won’t be doing another new one until after the World Series of Poker is done, but I might try to do a couple of short interviews or something like that while I’m here to include in future episodes.

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Gonna come back on here in a little while with a regular WSOP post, but I wanted to announce the new podcast and also note how this here entry makes a total of 800 posts on Hard-Boiled Poker. As I’ve said before on these here centennial posts, that’s a damn lot of scribblin’! Thanks as always for comin’ back.

And I’ll be comin’ back here shortly to talk about yesterday a bit and look forward to today, when I finally get back to work helping cover the WSOP for PokerNews. Looks like they couldn’t quite finish that Event No. 4 (the “Stimulus Special”) after all, so if I'm not mistaken it appears there really will be seven different events going on during the course of the day-slash-night-slash-morning. Yikes.

2009 WSOP, Day 6: Shamus Swindles Poker Lesson for Price of Cheeseburger

Day off yesterday, although I did end up in the Rio anyhow, where I met poker author and coach Tommy Angelo (Elements of Poker). Angelo is in town this week to do some business, including meeting with some of his clients, at least three of whom -- Jay Rosenkrantz, Phil Galfond, and David Benefield -- were in that $40K event I just finished helping cover.

Angelo and I met for dinner over at the São Paulo Café. Yeah, I know -- not everyone is a big fan of the service over at São Paulo, but we had no problems. The food was fine, too (cheeseburger and fries for me; the salmon for Angelo). And it tends to be a relatively serene place -- compared to other Rio eateries -- to have a conversation. Afterwards we ran over to the Amazon to check out the scene as the World Series of Poker continued on without me. (I’ll be back at work tomorrow, covering Event No. 10, the $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha event.)

Some of you know Angelo’s book, or perhaps have heard him appear as a guest on some of the podcasts. For those that don’t, he has a website where you can learn more about him, his poker coaching program, and Elements of Poker. He keeps a very entertaining blog over there, too, where he shares anecdotes from his life and from his experiences at the tables.

On the phone Angelo told me to look for the fellow in the olive cap. I told him to look for the skinny guy with glasses. “Good description,” was his greeting, as we spotted each other there in the Rio hallway.

Had a great time discussing all sorts of topics related to poker and writing. Besides his book, Angelo has written numerous articles for Bluff, the old Poker Digest, and other outlets, and also has been a frequent contributor over on the Two Plus Two forums.

Amid our discussion of the challenge and purpose of book reviews, generally speaking, we talked some about my review of Elements that appeared here back in December. The book continues to do well, Angelo reports, with sales remaining at a steady level from month to month.

We also talked about that post from February in which I commented on a thread about the book that appeared on Two Plus Two earlier in the year. In the post I made a distinction between Angelo’s response to life’s many problems -- including those we face at the poker tables -- and that of others like Mason Malmuth. I said there how in my view Angelo’s approach is generally to keep the discussion going, that is, to investigate questions and seek answers, but remain open-minded enough to accept further possibilities even after we’ve drawn our conclusions. By contrast, the approach of Malmuth (and others like him) most often seems to be to find a single “correct” answer, then do whatever is necessary to curtail further debate.

There are other ways of distinguishing the two mindsets -- if yr curious, you can read that post to see where I went with all of that.

During dinner, I readily saw why guys like Galfond and his other clients speak so highly of Angelo’s coaching. Think back to your school days and that one teacher who somehow managed to cut through all of the crap and really speak to you clearly -- who actually managed to open yr mind up and make you realize you wanted to learn something. That’s Angelo.

It was still early evening when we parted. Having seen the many cash games going there in the Amazon Room, Angelo had an itch to sit down and play, and so I left him intending at first just to go back to the home-away-from-home and do some reading. I’d caught the bug, however, and so decided to play some myself, again checking in over the MGM Grand for some low limit hold’em.

Just 2/4 again -- they had a list for 3/6 but it never materialized. (I promise I’ll play some higher games and maybe even take a seat at one of the many, many 1/2 NLHE tables before I leave this summer.) Had an especially good session, winning several big pots and coming away almost exactly a hundy ahead in just a little over an hour.

I did catch some cards, natch, but also was the only player at the table who was regularly folding hands preflop. I also was the only one who raised just about every time when entering pots. There were a couple of others who raised now and then, but as often happens in these games, I saw players limping in with pocket jacks, ace-king suited, etc. “Seven players,” was the usual announcement from the dealer when readying for the flop.

Nothing that exciting, strategy-wise, to report from the 50 hands or so I played, but I’ll relate one hand nonetheless. It was one of those six- or seven-way hands. From middle position I limped in with . Flop came . Checked to me, I bet, got one caller on my left, then a raise. Lots of cold-calls back to me, and my neighbor and I both called, too. Turn the . We all checked to the raiser who bet, and we all called. River the , and when I bet three or four of the remaining players called once again. Final pot probably around $70, to which I contributed just $14.

Saw one fellow show two pair (kings and nines), as he mucked. As Tommy would say, my opponents were very flushstraighted.

Might’ve stayed, but I’d been tired even when I sat down and so once I’d nearly doubled my stack I decided to skedaddle and get some rest. “Walking away is easy,” Angelo says. “The hard part is standing up.” Of course, it’s much, much easier to stand up when your purpose for doing so is to go grab another rack in which to collect yr chips. I cashed out and drove back to the home-away-from-home.

Breathing in, I took the elevator back up to the room and settled in for the night. Breathing out, I kidded myself that it wasn’t just dinner I’d had with Tommy. Breathing in, I decided he must’ve been coaching me for that hour-and-a-half.

Breathing out, I chuckled.

2009 WSOP, Day 5: Taking Off

“It’s like we’re getting ready for takeoff.”

Said yr humble gumshoe to Change100 yesterday afternoon as we got ourselves situated on press row, readying for the final table of Event No. 2, the $40,000 buy-in “Special 40th Annual No-Limit Hold’em” event.

We were squeezing into our spots there at the left-most end of the row, having gotten our laptops fired up and online. Not a lot of room to maneuver, really, what with all the monitors and cords and other folks also trying to occupy the relatively scant space available to those us covering the sucker. Felt a little like we were on a plane, our items all safely stowed at our feet, our seat backs and tray tables in their upright and locked positions.

Experienced just a little bit of turbulence during the ascent when the site went down momentarily about 20 hands in. But for the most part the flight was smooth and without incident, and we landed safely sometime after 1 a.m., some 12 hours or so after departure. Change100 expertly handled the hand-for-hand reporting, while I did some color and kept the chip counts up to date. The latter task was made much easier by the presence of Mickey, our terrific field reporter, who was there entering hands into the hand simulator along the way. On his day off, too! (Mickey rocks.)

All in all, anyone following that final table on PokerNews should have gotten a fairly close idea what was going on, I’d think.

What was going on? A lot of solid play from Vitaly Lunkin (left), the Russian who ended up winning the thing after surviving three hours’ worth of heads up with Isaac Haxton. Haxton played well, too, although perhaps gambled a couple of times near the end when he didn’t need to. Greg Raymer also made what seemed like an unnecessarily risky play during three-handed that resulted in his getting ousted in third. Tell me what you think.

There was a moment there right after Dani “Ansky” Stern had busted in fourth when Raymer, Haxton, and Lunkin all had almost exactly 8,000,000 chips -- kind of amazing, really, how close they were (like within 40,000 of each other or something). With the blinds 80,000/160,000 (with 20,000 antes), that meant each player had almost exactly 50 big blinds when Raymer raised to 400,000 from the button. Lunkin folded from the small blind, then Haxton reraised to 1.25 million. I don’t recall exactly, but I don’t think Raymer took more than about 10 seconds to push all in over the top. Haxton took a little longer before deciding to make the call.

Haxton turned over pocket nines, and Raymer pocket fives. Haxton’s higher pair held, and since he had Raymer barely outchipped, the Fossilman was out. The flop on that one turned out to be , so you’d have to think had they seen the flop before getting it all in (say, if Raymer just called the Haxton reraise), it is doubtful the hand would have resulted in a 16 million-chip pot.

I’m thinking Raymer was looking to gamble, having decided Haxton and Lunkin were too tough to outplay. He’d even said something about how “it doesn’t get any easier” right after Stern’s bustout. Still, as one of several there pulling for Raymer to seal the deal, it looked at the time like he could’ve found a better spot.

Easy for me to say, of course. I’m not the one piloting the plane.

Didn’t pay too much attention to what was going on elsewhere in the Amazon yesterday. The second Day One of the “Stimulus Special” played out. They ended up with a whopping 6,012 players for that one (more than I’d expected). I’m hearing the numbers are up for the upcoming no-limit hold’em events as well, so the WSOP appears to be sufficiently stimulated at the moment.

I did wander over during the dinner break to sneak a peek at the WSOP Champions Invitational. Only 20 of the WSOP Main Event champs ended up coming out for that one. Some snickers were heard when it got around that the first three bustouts were Jamie Gold, Chris Moneymaker, and Jerry Yang. (Hey, at least Robert Varkonyi still has chips.) Haley is covering that one for PokerNews, so you can follow the updates on today’s final table here.

Two new events get going today, then two more new ones tomorrow. Finally, after starting just four events in five days, the WSOP really picks it up.

At noon today is the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha (Event No. 5), and at 5 p.m. is the $10,000 World Championship Seven-Card Stud (Event No. 6). Gonna have to get over on Full Tilt and make some more Fantasy Poker picks for those two this morning. Speaking of, three of my horses ended cashing for me in Event No. 2 (Justin Bonomo, Brian Townsend, and Sorel Mizzi). Only one of my 15 (Eli Elezra) cashed in Event No. 3, the $1,500 Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better.

By the way, let me congratulate Julie Schneider, wife of 2007 WSOP Player of the Year Tom “DonkeyBomber” Schneider, who outlasted Tom (one of my picks in the Omaha/8 event, actually) and cashed in Event No. 3. Pic comes from B.J. Nemeth’s WSOP Photo Blog. Go over there and see his pics as they’re intended.

A quirk in the scheduling means I’m taking off both today and tomorrow. (Very doubtful I’ll be seeing back-to-back days off again for a long time, if at all.) I’ll come back on Wednesday to pick up Event No. 10, the $2,500 Pot Limit Hold’em/Omaha event, from which I’ll be reporting for all three days. Between now and then, I plan to relax some, do some reading and a little writing, and make a return trip to the grocery store. Might try to play some cards in here somewhere. Also, this evening I’m getting together with Tommy Angelo, author of Elements of Poker, which should be a lot of fun. Will likely report back here about that later.

Meanwhile, let’s all get some rest. Need a blanket? A pillow? Just let the flight attendant know and we’ll get you taken care of. And thanks once again for flying HBP.