2009 WSOP, Day 22: The Name Game

Yesterday I was writing about players happily broadcasting their progress to the world from the tables via their iPhones, Blackberries, and other such devices, thereby supplementing whatever coverage might otherwise be provided by those of us covering the events. Then I went back to the Rio to help cover Day 2 of Event No. 34 ($1,500 No-Limit Hold’em), and ended up dealing with what might be described as the opposite situation -- namely, a player who didn’t want his progress to be reported by anyone whatsoever.

What happened? Basically we had a player who simply did not want to tell us his name. And we tried. More than once. But for some reason -- be it personal, some sort of superstition, or whatever -- he just wouldn’t give it up. He hadn’t made any significant cashes previously, so no one knew him. And while some deductive work helped us narrow down the possibilities to about a dozen different possible names for the guy, there really wasn’t much way to confirm who the hell the dude was.

Guy wasn’t obligated to tell us anything, of course. You do have to give a name when registering for the events, and you are made to show a photo ID to get your chips. But you don’t have to tell anybody else nuthin’, if you don’t wanna.

This happens every once in a while -- a player refusing to reveal his name, thereby making it especially difficult to report anything specific about him (hands, chip counts). In some cases it is possible to find out a player’s name in other ways, particularly if the player has done anything at all in the past poker-wise and thus might be recognized by others or have a picture or two floating around the intertubes. Usually not knowing who one person is doesn’t really matter that much in the long run, but when the field begins to shrink, not having one player identified kind of causes other problems that can affect the coverage as a whole.

So that was one little fly in the ointment that caused a bit of irritation for us during the last few hours of play as the field shrunk from 50 to 40 to 30 to the 21 players that are returning today. Had one another sort of funny problem that had to do with player names yesterday, too.

Event No. 34 is one of those massive-field tourneys, with 2,095 players having entered and 216 scheduled to get paid. When the bubble burst yesterday afternoon, they had been playing hand for hand on 25 tables or so for about four or five hands’ worth. 217 players were left, and as it happened two busted on the same hand, meaning those two split the 216th place prize money. (That actually means both won less than the $1,500 buy-in.)

Now those of us covering the tourney would like to report who the “bubble boy” is -- or, in this case, who the two players were who went out there on that last hand, and thus were the first to cash. (The actual “bubble boy,” in fact, had gone out in 218th place, and was long gone by the time they actually made the money.)

Of course, during hand for hand play, no one is allowed between the ropes, including media. Thus the only possible way to report the actual bustout hand of the bubble boy is if it happens to occur on one of the outer tables, and there happens to be a reporter standing nearby, or if a reporter is able to get details of the hand second-hand from another player who saw the hand go down.

Again, not a big deal, really. But there’s also the issue of reporting the guy’s name. Or in this case, both of their names. Usually all of those who cash in a given event report to a desk there in the room where they were playing, get entered into the “system” (the big database Harrah’s keeps for all of its accounting), then go to the payouts office to get their cabbage. However, when two players are due to split the money as happened yesterday, the “system” cannot handle the entering of two names onto one line, and so those players’ names are not entered and instead their cases are handled “manually” (whatever that means).

We got one of the two players’ names who went out there on that hand -- the first one -- but not the second one. And it wasn’t until the very end of the night, after 3 a.m., that I went over to the payouts office to try to track down the name of the other fellow.

I won’t bore you even further with more trivia about my quest other than to say I failed to get the guy’s name. I talked to several friendly people as I got redirected around, finally talking to one woman whom I genuinely thought was going to be able to help me. That is, until she asked me the question “What was the player’s name?”

That’s what I’m trying to find out, I said. “We need to have the name to look him up, though,” she explained. I smiled, said thanks anyway, and shuffled out.

Walked back into the desolate Amazon Room, completely empty save the few cash games that were going over in the Red section, thinking about how much simpler this reporting thing would be if somehow player names weren’t sometimes made to be such a mysterious matter.

People occasionally want to compare the World Series of Poker or other poker tournaments to sporting events, with the coverage most resembling that done by sports reporters. It is very much like that, for sure. But is there any sport where the players aren’t readily identified for anyone who happens to be watching? Where the reporters have to either know who the players are already, or ask them who they are, or engage in other types of detective work to uncover what is really the most vital piece of information one can provide about those playing?

I know many poker players probably would object, but I’ve always thought having some sort of ID system in place at the WSOP would be especially beneficial, enhancing the coverage tremendously. I wouldn’t suggest players do something as fashionably-damaging as wear nametags -- hell, I wouldn’t like that either. But perhaps do something like assign each a number and, say, hang it on the backs of chairs while they play. (Or something else similarly inconspicuous.) But I know that’ll probably never happen. Or that some other change will take place that will render that idea obsolete.

In any event, we definitely know all 21 players’ names today, and so will be reporting on how each of them fare during today’s final day of action at Event No. 34. Come follow along.

2009 WSOP, Day 21: Land of 1000 Reporters

Last night while live blogging from the World Series of Poker’s Event No. 34, that $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event that got underway yesterday, I became increasingly aware of an interesting phenomenon related to the business of WSOP event reporting. Yeah, I’m talking about the Twitter thing again. Hear me out, though. And tell me what you think.

Aside from the many massage therapists, dealers, and tournament officials who constantly pass to and fro between the tables, yesterday there were relatively few of us there officially “covering” the event. That’s usually the case. PokerNews isn’t the only media outlet there covering WSOP tourneys, of course, but relatively speaking there aren’t a ton of people running around with notepads and cameras chronicling what’s going on. Which given the space limitations and the need to keep things comfortable for the players is probably a good thing.

That said, it was interesting last night to observe how there was, in fact, a big crowd of reporters sending news to the world about what was happening at the Rio. Most of them were not wearing credentials attached to lanyards hung around their necks, but they were nevertheless there legitimately, getting the info out about hands, chip counts, and other matters in a timely fashion.

Who am I talking about? The players, of course.

There were 2,095 entered into Event No. 34, and it seemed like at least half of them were also reporting on the event, too, via their iPhones, Blackberries, and other electronic devices with which they were able to access the internet and send their missives to the outside world.

Now I’ve always been conscious of the fact that when I write the posts that appear on the PokerNews live blog, there are others writing accounts about the same thing -- even the exact same hands -- that appear on other sites, in the forums, and elsewhere. Last night was a little different, though.

On the PokerNews’ live reporting page for a given event, we have running alongside the live blog something called the “Shout Box” where registered users can comment. That was put on the site last summer. This year PN has added another feature, something called “Star Tweet Tracker” that runs in a third column on the right side of the page. That appears to work something like the “Twitter Updates” page over on PokerRoad site -- a compilation of various Twitter feeds from poker players that gets automatically updated whenever a player who has been included as a “Star” sends out another tweet.

I say I became especially conscious of this phenomenon last night because for one short stretch in the latter part of the evening, I noticed about four or five hands in a row that I reported that were simultaneously appearing not only in the “Star Tweet Tracker,” but in some cases in the “Shout Box,” too. (The reports in the Shout Box are mostly second-hand, I think, as the players aren’t themselves commenting there, but others are sometimes there forwarding along info they’ve gotten via the players’ messaging.)

It was kind of humorous, really. I’d report hands played by Phil Hellmuth, Vanessa Rousso, Jeff Madsen, David Chicotsky, and Allen Cunningham, and their own reports would appear alongside mine -- sometimes a minute or two before, sometimes afterwards. And every now and then there was some reporting happening in the Shoutbox, too, so we’d get three versions right there on the same page.

How do I feel about all the fact that there are “competing” versions of the story I’m reporting not only appearing elsewhere on the web, but on the very same page where I’m writing? Do I feel as though my role as a reporter is somehow being usurped? That what I’m doing is relatively less significant or vital because of the presence of all of these other reports?

Hardly. In fact, I think it’s pretty cool. Gonna try not to go too deep into it here, but I will mention a couple of reasons why I like the players’ reports getting out there along with my own.

One is how it helps on the accuracy front. We sometimes will find it necessary to ask players -- if it is feasible to do so without bothering them too greatly -- for details about hands we are trying to report. Players sending out tweets on their own function as answers to such questions (if we have them) without our having to ask them.

(Of course, there’s the other issue of players not always being thorough or even accurate when self-reporting hands, but we’ll just keep that point in mind and set it aside for now.)

I also think there are fairly significant differences, still, between tweeting and blogging. Obviously the length restriction (to 140 characters) for a tweet is significant. But that’s not the most important distinction between the two, I’d say. No, the bigger difference has to do with the relative “permanence” of each. Tweets go away, while the blog does not. One can, of course, go back and read old tweets, but that is rarely done. The fact is, Twitter is especially good at reporting the present, but doesn’t really have much to do with the past.

We’ve heard a lot about the disputed elections in Iran over the last few days, and how social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace have become primary sources for information about what is happening there. These “reports” that come via these avenues are being used by other media outlets attempting to tell the story. (Just turn on CNN and you’ll see what I’m talking about.)

But the “tweets” themselves aren’t sufficient on their own. Their brevity means they generally lack sufficient context. They are almost always strictly “first-hand” reports, i.e., they contain a level of subjectivity that has to be taken into account for those using them to fashion their own reports according to usual journalistic standards (which generally requires at least an attempt to be objective). And they aren’t written for the future, but for the present. They are transitory. They go away. They have to be rewritten in a way that will allow these messages to live beyond the moment in which they were first composed.

Future historians of the disputed elections in Iran will no doubt use the “tweets” and other source material to construct their accounts, just as historians in the past used interviews and other eyewitness accounts to write their histories. Poker reporting, too, will find more ways to use these player reports and incorporate them not only into “live” reports but into subsequently written historical accounts of events.

For now, though, I’m going to say that I think there’s definitely value in having all of these different perspectives, which in the end add a richness to the “story” of what is happening that may otherwise be missing.

Keep following the story (or stories) over on PokerNews’ live reporting page.

2009 WSOP, Day 20: Stranger in a Strange Land

“I thought you had the flush.” So said the player sitting to my left to the one on my right. I’d folded preflop, and had watched the hand play out on either side of me.

“I thought you had the flush,” said the player on my right, for whom the river card -- a third heart -- had made him a Broadway straight. “Until you just called.” They shared a chuckle.

“Yeah, well, he checked quad aces,” I interjected, pointing to the now vacant chair across the table. Both laughed. “That’s true!”

I’m not planning to bore you too much with meticulous details of my excursions to the low fixed limit tables this summer. But I will talk a little about this one particular hand I saw in which, believe it or not, a fellow did in fact check quad aces.

On my day off yesterday I was back playing again and had a longer session than usual (about three hours) from which I came away a small winner. Again, skill-wise, I faced a fairly narrow range of players -- mostly not too savvy -- although there was one player who’d routinely raise on the come. In fact, just routinely raising distinguished him from the rest of the passive pack. That guy actually limp-reraised me once preflop -- probably with ace-king (he ended up folding on the river to another player). So there was some occasionally interesting stuff going on.

For the most part, though, it was the usual limp-in-with-any-two folks taking up most of the seats around the table. For much of the time there was a beer-drinking, vacationing couple at the other end, the man in a tank top and outlandish cowboy hat. A dealer actually asked him at one point if he was chewing tobacco -- not allowed -- and his response was “Not right now.”

Like most of the others, he and his wife played every hand and would generally only bet with top pair or better, and always call with any unpaired ace or lower pair. Watched one hand in which the flop came down 10-7-4 rainbow and from middle position his wife checked-called the guy on my right. Check-called again after a jack came on the turn. Then when a deuce came on the end she bet out.

“The hammer,” I thought. Had to be. It was. My neighbor called to see it, then tossed his ace-ten to the dealer face up.

There was one older gentleman there for the first part of the session for whom English was not his native language, although he spoke so softly I never could quite pick up his accent. Always had to be told what to do when the action was on him, and generally would only check or call -- never raise, and rarely fold. Seemed to make more hands and drag more pots than the odds would dictate.

I’d been in one hand with him in which I held two black kings, and he called me down to the river when the board ultimately showed something awful like J-10-8-6-9 with a bunch of diamonds in there. I checked the end, and instead of checking behind he actually mucked -- not for any reason other than not knowing he could have seen a showdown.

So in the hand I alluded to earlier, the flop had come , scaring away all but two of the many players who’d limped in to see it. The player in Seat 1 had bet, and our non-native speaking gentleman had called. The turn was the , provoking a reaction from some of those out of the hand. Seat 1 bet again, and again the older fellow called.

The river was the . Seat 1 checked this time, and the old guy looked confused, then tapped the table as if imitating his opponent. The first player turned over Q-3 offsuit. “Queen-high,” said the dealer. That’s when the gentleman turned over his hand -- .

“Nice hand!” came the chorus from the other side of the table. No criticisms, just praise. In fact, no indications that anything strange had happened at all.

I guess, really, nothing strange had happened. Truthfully, I’m the oddball here for thinking otherwise. The old fellow departed soon after.

Will be back at the Rio this afternoon for Event No. 34, another of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em tourneys for which there will probably be another huge, 2,000-plus player field. Don’t expect to see anyone to check quad aces today, although there will certainly be some strange plays to report. Follow along over at PokerNews.

2009 WSOP, Day 19: The Meisner Technique

Probably the easiest of the 14 days I have worked thus far at the World Series of Poker yesterday, for a couple of reasons. One, the final day of Event No. 26 ($1,500 Limit Hold’em) only lasted into the sixth scheduled one-hour level of play, which means with breaks it was only about an eight-hour day -- by far the shortest I’ve had this summer. Also, I was teamed with Change100, whose experience at these things helps make everything easier for those working alongside her.

We went from 15 players to six in less than two levels, as the stakes had risen to the point where all of the short stacks really only had one big hand left in them. When we got to three players (Al Barbieri, Tomas Alenius, and Jason Tam), each had about the same amount of chips (around 900,000). With limits of 30,000/60,000, that meant each had about 15 big bets, which was the highest that average had been since Level 2, I think. Took a little while, then, for Barbieri to go out in third. After that it was probably 50-60 hands or so before Tam was finally eliminated in second. Had a big full house-over-flush hand there near the end that helped Alenius to victory.

I was writing yesterday about how even though this event had evolved into something of a card-catching contest, there was still a great deal of skill involved, as players had to make correct decisions over and over again, hand after hand. Surely it helped that Alenius caught some cards right at the end like that, but he’d successfully negotiated his way through something like 1,100-1,200 hands or so (I’d estimate) before getting there.

And after he got there, I got outta there, well before midnight for a change.

I have wheels here for my stay, though generally the only time I spend in the rental car is driving to and from the Rio. There’s a CD player in the car, but I have no discs, and so I’ve been listening to the radio during these quick trips. Such gawd-awful stuff up and down the dial, really. (Who else is sick of that Vocoder effect on every other pop song?) More often than not I end up listening to the NPR station where I heard an interesting interview a couple of days ago with the actor Sam Rockwell. He was talking about his experience filming this new movie called Moon that has just gone into limited release this week.

The movie is directed by Duncan Jones (a.k.a. Zowie Bowie, son of David). Sounds like an interesting flick, for sure, in which Rockwell plays a mine technician working on the moon in isolation, with a robot his only companion. Not entirely sure how the story goes, but I think Rockwell’s character is alone for most of the film, and Rockwell himself the only actor on screen for much of it. Rockwell’s character ends up suffering from some mental difficulties, and there are scenes in which he is alone but hallucinating (I think?), and appears to be interacting with others -- including himself.

In the interview, Rockwell talks about the challenge of the shoot, which was itself very isolating. In particular, he struggled with the scenes in which he was playing opposite himself -- scenes that had to be shot in sequence using the “green screen.” The big problem faced by Rockwell in those scenes was the fact that he had been trained in the Meisner technique -- a kind of acting that is primarily based on reacting to others’ behaviors, something that wasn’t really possible for Rockwell when shooting these scenes.

I asked Change about the Meisner technique a little bit yesterday. I knew she’d know more about it than I did, given her Hollyweird background. Is derived from Stanislavski and the whole “method acting” movement that has had such a profound influence on cinema over the last century. Named after the American Sanford Meisner (pictured).

When covering this last event, I was thinking a lot about this Meisner technique by which an actor primarily responds to others’ cues. Just observing a tableful of players, one can readily see that some of the players seem to be responding more to their opponents’ behaviors and actions than others. In fact, I’m starting to become more and more convinced that this may well be the most valuable skill in poker -- that is, being able to fashion one’s own “acting” according to how others are performing their “roles” -- and that generally the game’s elite is primarily made up of players who’ve been able to master that very skill.

Maybe it’s just another way of stating an obvious truth about poker -- that being able to read one’s opponents is of foremost importance, and one’s own “style” necessarily must be shaped according to the styles of the players one is up against. I think it’s interesting, and maybe even helpful, to consider this activity as a kind of “method acting” which requires (and can be improved by) conscious, thorough training.

A lot easier said than done, though.

Am off today, then back on tomorrow to cover another of those big field, $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em events, Event No. 34. (Wow, are we up to 34 already?) To follow today’s action, including the finale of that World Championship Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em (Event No. 29), go over to PokerNews’ live reporting page for all the skinny.

2009 WSOP, Day 18: Poker Is a Skill Game

Phil Ivey has passed through some of the five World Series of Poker events I have helped cover thus far this summer at PokerNews. He did make a relatively deep run in one of them, finishing 18th in Event No. 13, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em, but that’s the farthest I’ve seen him go. So I haven’t been able to watch first-hand his most obvious successes at this summer’s Series.

Last night Ivey claimed his second bracelet of the 2009 WSOP, winning Event No. 25, the $2,500 Omaha/Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo after earlier winning Event No. 8, the $2,500 No-Limit 2-7 Draw Lowball. That makes seven WSOP bracelets altogether for Ivey, all in non-hold’em games.

Ivey bested a field of 376 to win the event last night, including a number of tough competitors like Ming Lee (whom he beat heads up), Carlos Mortensen, Dutch Boyd, Jon “PearlJammer” Tuner, Steve Wong, Blair Rodman, Chad Brown, Raymond Davis, Gavin Smith, Chau Giang, Hoyt Corkins, and the Black Widow of Poker herself, CK, who finished 39th in Event No. 25. (Way to go, CK!)

There were 147 entered into Event No. 8, which also included some very tough opponents like John Monnette (who fought Ivey well heads up), Yan Chen, Eric Kesselman, Layne Flack, Tony G, David Grey, Freddy Deeb, Vanessa Rousso, Barry Greenstein, Erick Lindgren, and Archie Karas.

That’s just mentioning the names of some of those who cashed in these two events -- there were a number of top level players (Alaie, Seidel, Juanda, Matusow, Lisandro, Mizrachi, Mercier, Clements, etc.) who played in these events but didn't make the money.

Some react with seeming astonishment, their jaws dropping at the news that Ivey has won two bracelets already this summer, and that now two players (Ivey and Brock Parker) have achieved the feat of winning multiple bracelets in a single Series. But it shouldn’t be that amazing. While there is certainly always going to be an element of chance, no matter which game we’re talking about, poker is a skill game. And Ivey has mad skills.

What I heard from those who watched Ivey’s final table last night was an overwhelming sense that once he managed to get off the short stack and get a few chips, it seemed inevitable that he’d eventually win, strictly because of how well he was able to control the action.

Had a similar feeling the other night when I watched Brock Parker win his second bracelet, especially once it had gotten to heads up. Like watching a basketball game with ten players on the court, one of whom is just obviously a step ahead of everyone else.

I’ve witnessed this phenomenon time and time again at the several final tables I have gotten to cover at the WSOP over the last two years. I’m thinking in particular of players like Phil Galfond, J.C. Tran, and Layne Flack and how they won their bracelets last summer. Nine guys sat down, but one obviously had something on the other eight. Same was the case for Vanessa Selbst at her final table last summer, that PLO event she won, although her dominance in that event seemed to begin well before the final nine, as she emerged as the clear favorite with probably 50 or more players left.

No, it shouldn’t surprise us too much to see the same players back at these final tables, and the same players taking them down. When I got home early this morning (about 3 a.m.), I did as I normally do and turned on the teevee for a while as I tried to wind down mentally from the long day of scribblin’ and chip-tallyin’. Watched ESPN and saw highlights of Albert Pujols hitting two home runs for the Cardinals yesterday, and Torii Hunter hitting three homers for the L.A. Angels.

When we watch a baseball game and see a player hit that second (or third) home run, our initial response is always to be a little awe-struck. Man, oh man -- he did it again! But it shouldn’t surprise us. These guys are good, they have skills. And they’re playing well, seeing the ball, timing their swing just right. Of course he did it again.

That’s where Phil Ivey is at right now. And Brock Parker (still alive in the round of 64 of Event No. 29, the $10,000 World Championship Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em event). And a few dozen others playing every day over at the Rio this month.

Even this limit hold’em event I’m presently covering -- which, to be honest, has evolved into a little bit of a card-catching contest here in the latter stages -- is nevertheless a clear test of good decision-making and players’ ability to outwit one another.

The structure of this LHE event has been kind of interesting to watch play out. Players began with 4,500 chips and stakes of 50/100, meaning everybody had 45 big bets with which to start. By the start of Level 3, we’d only lost a handful of the 643 who began the tournament, so when that level began (with 100/200 stakes), the average was around 20 big bets each.

Despite the fact that players began to be eliminated at a very fast clip thereafter, the blinds/stakes rose rapidly enough to make the average about 11-12 big bets per stack by dinner time on Day 1. Most of last night the average had dipped down to 9 big bets and below, and when they begin play today the average will be just a little over 8 big bets per player. Which means about half of the 15 players who return today are really only good for one big hand (if that).

Even so, there’s still skill involved here. It isn’t strictly a card-catching contest. Each player’s decisions, relative to those of his opponents, will determine how the sucker is going to go. It remains fascinating to watch in such close proximity people playing poker at such a high level. We see our share of poor play, no doubt, but there’s a lot to admire going on here, too.

Back at it again this afternoon, as I help Change100 see Event No. 26 through to its conclusion. Unless Ivey is winning another bracelet in some other event -- in which case you might well want to follow that -- come on over to PokerNews’ live reporting page and see it through with us.

2009 WSOP, Day 17: It Was Fun

Yesterday I helped cover the first day of Event No. 26, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em event. I like LHE, of course, and so didn’t mind drawing the event. In fact, I’m starting to think when the day comes that I do take my shot and sit down at one of these suckers, it will probably be in this very event.

But I understand why some players (and reporters) subscribe to the idea that the game -- as Barry Greenstein says in Ace on the River -- is like watching paint dry.

It was certainly a relatively more sedate scene over there in the Blue section where Event No. 26 was being played than it was on the other side of the Amazon Room last night. There were two final tables yesterday -- the $1,500 No-Limit Shootout (Event No. 22) and the $10,000 World Championship 2-7 Draw (Event No. 23) -- and both had attracted some raucous fans making lots of noise, particularly as we reached midnight and beyond, making the limit hold’em lot seem even more serene. Every few minutes a huge roar would erupt to punctuate a big hand over at the main feature table, causing the limit players to stop and look up before returning to their hands.

Partly out of necessity because of staffing, for some of the events PokerNews has scaled back coverage of Day Ones, meaning we don’t necessarily try to track all players’ chip counts, bustouts, and so forth from the very start, but focus on that more once we get to Day Two and the money. Not the case for all of the events, but for some of the lesser-profile ones -- like the $1,500 LHE -- that’s the strategy.

Even if it weren’t a matter of necessity, staffing-wise, I think it is a good call to be a little more selective early on in a tournament and try to report on items of interest rather than aim for some sort of pseudo-comprehensive coverage. Which truth be told, ain’t really feasible even if you had a dozen or more reporters assigned to the event.

So there were just a couple of us -- me and Neil, a terrific field reporter -- and we did our best to give some idea of what was happening, selecting mini-stories along the way to share and report.

One phenomenon I noticed early on was the fact that there seemed to be a lot more women in the tournament than in a typical WSOP event. I mentioned the fact a couple of times in the live blog, but tried not to make too much of it. In the blog, I suggested that of the 643 entrants, at least 60 were women. In fact, the number might have been even higher, which meant more than 10% of the field were women. That’s at least one per table, and indeed there were a few tables with two or three women playing.

In most open WSOP events, one finds less than 5% of the players are women. Indeed, in certain of the higher buy-in events with fewer players, relatively speaking, there will sometimes only be two or three women in the entire field. Even in the lower buy-in events one generally only sees a woman every three or four tables or so, if that.

I remember that $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event I covered last summer (Event No. 19), won by Vanessa Selbst. There were 759 entered in that one, and I’m pretty sure of that number there weren’t more than six or seven women there at the start. Selbst was the chip leader for a lot of the latter part of that tourney, when it got down under 100 players, and I think Kathy Leibert was the only other woman still in the tourney at that point (she finished 72nd).

Like I say, in the live blog I reported on this aspect of the tourney, but didn’t editorialize, as it ain’t really the place for such. I think it is probably an interesting issue to explore, and there’s probably some points to be made about the reasons why the fixed limit game might appeal more to women than does a no-limit or pot-limit game. (And, by the same token, how many men seem to prefer the no-limit games to LHE.)

I also found myself wondering as the night wore on how the presence of relatively more women in the field might have affected the overall atmosphere of the tournament, especially at those tables where there were two or three women seated. I said above that the LHE crowd was “relatively more sedate,” but that doesn’t mean they weren’t expressive or having fun. And, in fact, at some tables having fun seemed to be the main focus, with a lot of laughing and camaraderie, especially as we reached the last levels of the night.

You might have played in these kinds of games before -- I know I have. Low-limit poker where the players kind of seem to pull for each other to make their hands, as if it were blackjack or some other game where they weren’t playing against each other but against the house. I guess I shouldn’t assume the presence of the women helped create this atmosphere -- indeed, it could possibly be explained as more a function of the game itself. But it might have had something to do with it.

For most of the night I was seated within a few feet of a table where Shannon Elizabeth was playing, and much of the time there were one or two other women at her table as well. Lots of laughing and smiling going on there all night, and I don’t think it was all due to the men being spellbound by the attractive actress (although that’s certainly possible). Hard to explain it, but sitting a few feet away I could sense the whole night developing into this meaningful, shared experience for the players that was going to be a fond memory for them, regardless of how they finished the tournament.

That’s not to say people weren’t playing to win -- of course, they were. But unlike most tourneys, where you’re often looking at a collection of non-communicative individuals in constant conflict with each other, one had more of a sense of small “groups” genuinely relating to one another and enjoying themselves. Indeed, on more than one occasion I overheard players telling their tablemates with sincerity “it was fun” as they were busted from the tournament, and receiving similarly sincere well wishes in return.

I know some people feel like these sort of pleasantries aren’t really part of poker -- that the idea isn’t to socialize or “have fun,” but to win at all costs. I get that. But being surrounded by people who are making an effort to be friendly and engage one another in this way does make it a little more agreeable for those of us assigned to hang around them for 13-14 hours and report on what they’re doing.

I’ll be back for Day 2 later today. There are 124 players left (including a short-stacked Elizabeth and seven other women). Greenstein is still there, too, despite that thing he said about LHE and paint drying.

The plan, as usual, will be to play down to the final nine, or to stop at 3 a.m., whichever comes first. The blinds/limits are pretty high -- indeed, they have been since about the fifth level, in relative terms, with the average stack being only 10-12 big bets -- so I’m going to guess we lose a lot of folks fairly quickly, though I don’t know if we’ll get all of the way to nine today.

Follow along and find out over on PokerNews.

2009 WSOP, Day 16: Does Humor Belong in Poker Tournament Reporting?

I assume Julius Goat and perhaps a few others recognize who I’m paraphrasing in that post title.

I had thought yesterday that I might deliver a thesis on the purpose and significance of puns and/or wordplay -- specifically with regard to their use in the context of poker tournament reporting -- but have decided against such. After all, nothing is less funny than to explain a joke.

Of course, while puns are certainly jokey and perhaps rightly regarded as a particularly facile form of humor, they aren’t strictly that. They serve a purpose beyond just causing a momentary chuckle -- or groan -- for the reader. Or can, anyway. And so maybe I will say just a word or two about ’em.

When I alluded to the subject of puns a couple of days ago, the Poker Grump pointed me to a recent New York Times piece on the subject which includes a lot of famous quotes about puns. There the author, Joseph Tartakovsky, starts off quoting John Dryden, the Restoration poet, playwright, and critic, saying that a pun is the “lowest and most groveling kind of wit.” Tartakovsky also alludes to the 18th-century essayist and dictionary-writer Dr. Samuel Johnson’s hatred of puns, although points out that Johnson -- a well-regarded conversationalist -- would himself indulge in puns in his interactions with others.

Tartakovsky also mentions Shakespeare -- who, of course, puns all the time, even in his tragedies -- but doesn’t specifically talk about Johnson’s criticism of Shakespeare’s punning.

In his famous Preface to an edition of Shakespeare’s plays, Johnson talks about how puns (or “quibbles,” as the original Dr. J. calls ’em) are “to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures, it is sure to lead him out of his way, and sure to engulf him in the mire. It has some malignant power over his mind, and its fascinations are irresistible.”

For Johnson, the biggest issue is how the presence of a pun tends to distract the reader or audience, especially when it undercuts the necessary sobriety of a tragedy. At the very beginning of Hamlet, for example, the prince comes onto the stage and speaks with his uncle, Claudius, who (we will eventually learn) has murdered Hamlet’s father, the king of Denmark, and not only taken the throne but married Hamlet’s mother. Here Claudius calls Hamlet “son,” then asks him why he’s so gloomy: “How is it that the clouds still hang on you?” Hamlet responds by saying facetiously “Not so, my lord. I am too much i’ the sun.”

It’s a bit of wordplay that allows Hamlet to answer Claudius’ question by saying, in effect, stop calling me “son.” But Johnson regards such puns as evidence of some “malignant power” taking over Shakespeare’s mind, as if his love of wordplay is like some sort of mental disorder that causes him to forget his primary purpose. Johnson goes on (with some hyperbole) to say that for Shakespeare a pun was a “golden apple for which he will always turn aside from his career, or stoop from his elevation,” something which “gave him such delight, that he was content to purchase it, by the sacrifice of reason, propriety and truth.”

Johnson is right to criticize the unseemly, gratuitous use of puns or wordplay that distracts the reader or audience from what is really important about a character or scene. However, in the case of Hamlet, his constant joking around -- as evidenced by his frequent puns and witty utterances -- is a big part of who he is, a young man who isn’t convinced that life isn’t an absurd jest. There are other places in Shakespeare where the “quibbles” are less integral, but there’s often a purpose to them, too, that makes it easier to defend Shakespeare’s use of them.

Which brings us back to poker and tourney reporting, in particular the use of puns in post titles when live blogging events. As far as I’m concerned, the occasional bit of wordplay or pun in a post title can be a plus as long as it doesn’t inordinately get in the way of the primary purpose of the blog -- namely, to report the action in a way that makes readers want to stay on the site and follow along.

There are a few ways to achieve that purpose of keeping the audience engaged -- to be accurate, to be clear, and to be interesting. If the blog failed too greatly in any of these ways, readers would (and should) stop reading.

So, when a player named Adam Fyshe wins a hand in which his flop bet causes another player to think so long the clock has to be called before he folds, a headline “Fyshe Makes Opponent Tank” should be acceptable because, well, it’s accurate, it’s clear, and it’s interesting.

But is it funny? Maybe for a moment. According to Tartakovsky, “Puns are the feeblest species of humor because they are ephemeral: whatever comic force they possess never outlasts the split second it takes to resolve the semantic confusion.” He’s probably right.

Okay, even if it is funny (a little), the question remains: Does humor -- even of the most fleeting variety -- belong in poker tournament reporting? I mean, these guys are playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars after all -- it is serious business. And for 85-90% of the players who fail to cash, and even for those who do cash but come up short of the ultimate goal of winning the sucker, the tourneys do play out like “tragedies,” at least in the technical sense of failing to have happy endings.

That said, it is still a game -- a form of play. And so keeping it light (within reason) is probably the right instinct, generally speaking.

The headline last night on ESPN for the story reporting the Lakers’ victory over the Magic was “Fisher King,” alluding simultaneously to those big shots Laker guard Derek Fisher hit at the end of the game as well as to that figure who turns up in stories of King Arthur whose purpose is to take care of the Holy Grail. At first, the allusion might seem meaningless, but think about how the sports championships are often referred to as the “Holy Grail” and you see there’s something appropriate to the pun’s use. (It’s also accurate, clear, and interesting.)

There’s no denying puns make us groan, though. And I agree that they shouldn’t be overdone to the point that they get in the way of communicating accurately and clearly and keeping the reader engaged. In other words, it’s okay to cause a bit of eye-rolling, but you don’t want the eyes to roll away from your words altogether.

So roll on over to PokerNews’ live reporting page to follow the coverage as the WSOP continues. Five different events on the sked today, including the one I’ll be covering -- Event No. 26, the $1,500 Limit Hold’em. See you there.

2009 WSOP, Day 15: Live from the Rio, Part II (The Event No. 19 Final Table)

Last night’s final table of Event No. 19, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event won by Brock Parker -- his second WSOP bracelet in four days! -- was fun to cover for a few reasons.

For one, since the FT was six-handed, and since those six players all stuck around for the first couple of hours of play, we got a chance to become somewhat familiar with all of the players and thus perhaps get a little more invested in what was happening than we might have otherwise. During those first couple of levels, I was writing up posts that included short little bios of all six. So besides getting to know their playing styles, the personalities of the players started to diverge a bit, too, at least from where I was sitting.

Two of the six who made the FT are roommates, actually -- Clayton Newman and Alex Wilson. They are sharing a house with some other poker players in their early 20s this summer. Newman was short-stacked and ended up going out in sixth. Wilson seemed an especially confident player, although after we returned from the break, he’d push what was still a decent-sized stack with K-Q, got called by Joe Serock who held A-J, and thus hit the rail in fifth.

Serock was the chip leader for most of the final table. He had an interesting demeanor -- very stoic, responding with a sleepy, heavy-lidded look whenever the action was on him. He was the aggressor in terms of betting for much of the day yesterday, but when players began playing back at him he seemed to become somewhat tentative.

On the little bio sheet that tourney officials have the players fill out when they reach final tables, they are asked to list other interests and hobbies. In the space provided, Serock (who is 21 years old) wrote “I just play poker.”

As I was incorporating these little biographical tidbits in the live blog, I thought about how so many of these guys -- aged 21, 22, 23 -- seem not to have much else to report about themselves beyond the fact that they play poker (mostly online). Of course, how lengthy or interesting of an autobiography could any of us written when we were in our early 20s? What sort of memoir could you have written for yourself at that age?

The diminutive Russell Crane appeared to play a solid game from beginning to end, and I sensed the other players were always wary whenever he entered a pot. Was perhaps more often than not on the conservative side, but was doing an excellent job pushing his stack whenever he dipped into that range where he was too short-stacked to play after the flop, but not so much that he didn’t have fold equity. He played a gritty game to make it to third place last night.

Crane had some other hobbies listed on his sheet -- skateboarding, golf -- and I liked how he seemed in an indirect way to be expressing some enthusiasm when writing about himself. The table’s only 30-plus-year old player, Jesse Rios, also took advantage of the space provided to share some personal details. In that section he mentioned raising his two daughters, his enthusiasm for that endeavor clearly communicated with exclamation points.

Rios had the most expressive personality at the table, by far. He was really the only one at the table who would ever try to engage the others in any banter. At final tables played at the main feature table this summer, we are seeing waitresses come around every couple of hours with bags of Jack Link’s beef jerky for the players -- kind of a silly sight to witness being repeated night after night. Last night all of the players declined the offer except for Rios, who took several bags, then threw them to spectators with a big grin on his face. Definitely made the guy endearing.

Rios limped into several pots and would passively call a lot, especially when his big blind was raised. There was one hand in particular when Parker raised to 90,000 from the cutoff (the blinds were 20,000/40,000), and it folded to Rios who just called from the big blind. The flop came , and Rios led out with a more than pot-sized bet of 300,000. Parker didn’t think too long before folding, at which point Rios showed his pocket jacks. (Rios ended up going out in fourth.)

It was five-handed at that point, and what was most interesting was how after the hand all four of the other players looked up at Rios with wide eyes, and continued to study him as the next hand was being dealt. You could sense how all four were suddenly thinking “those chips are gonna be mine.”

That said, I was still identifying somewhat with Rios and his scared-seeming play. ’Cos that Brock Parker... he’s definitely not a guy I’d want to play much from out of position. Or in position, for that matter.

Parker, with bald head and full beard and mustache, is a bit of an imposing presence, and he gave absolutely nothing away all night in terms of physical tells. No emotion whatsoever. There was one hand heads up when I caught him stifling a yawn, and I even mentioned it in the blog, it was so unusual to see.

Once it got to heads up, Serock had a 2-to-1 chip advantage over Parker. But Parker seemed to have control pretty much the entire way, chipping up, taking the lead, and eventually receiving the good fortune of being dealt pocket queens on the same hand Serock got pocket tens. Interestingly, while heads up lasted quite a while (a couple of hours), I only remember three or four hands being shown down, including the last one. Would love to know what Parker’s cards were. Was pretty clear Serock wasn’t picking up much in the way of good hands, but there was no way of knowing whether or not Parker did.

Parker’s achievement this week is quite remarkable -- two WSOP bracelets in four days, in the two consecutive events in which he registered. Both were in six-max tourneys, one limit hold’em and the other no-limit HE. The field was 367 in the first one, 1,068 in the second. The dude has game.

Like I say, a fun final table to cover, both because of the hands and players, but also because of the fun of working with Homer, my live blogging partner last night. We decided not to do hand-for-hand, though still ended up reporting probably 75% of the FT hands played. It was a good decision, I think, as it made for a much more interesting blog to read.

Back later.

2009 WSOP, Day 15: Live from the Rio

Yesterday’s final day of Event No. 19, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event, was one of the more intriguing ones, poker-wise, I think I have covered this summer. Particularly the final six-handed table, where there were several interesting hands and moments along the way. Amazingly, Brock Parker, who won his first WSOP bracelet last Sunday in a short-handed limit event (Event No. 14), won this one, too.

I wanted to share a few thoughts about that final table here, both about the play and my helping cover it for PokerNews. I also wanted to write something today about the subject of puns (as I alluded to in yesterday’s post). I am off today, and so I think I might come back on here more than once this afternoon to write about these topics in separate posts. Wanted to pass along a couple of messages first, though.

During a break yesterday I appeared as a guest on the Hardcore Poker Show (the 6/10/09 episode) to talk for a short while from the Rio about the WSOP. That show goes out live on Sirius radio, then is made available as a podcast.

If yr curious to hear me, click here to get to the segment on which I appear. This is the first half of the show, and I’m on there right at the end for the last five minutes or so. Thanks to hosts Chris Tessaro and Rob Pizzo for having me on -- it was a blast.

Incidentally, when I told my blogging partner, Homer, last night that I was going to be on the show and explained that it appears on the Sirius network, you can guess what his response was.

“Oh, that’s the network where they never make any jokes, right?”

Like I say, more on puns later.

Finally, I want to send good vibes to my friend the Poker Grump who is taking a seat in today’s Event No. 24, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event that starts up in just a little while at noon today. That picture to the left is a live action shot of him running good in the PokerListings’ Run Good Challenge 3: WSOP Edition last month where he won his seat in today’s event. We’ll all get to read about his experience on his excellent blog later on.

Back in a while.

2009 WSOP, Day 14: Insert Clever Post Title Here (Wordplay Optional)

As planned, I yesterday worked that Day 2 of Event No. 19, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed event. We were down one field reporter, making it a bit strenuous early on when the field was 135. But once we got down under 50 we had a fighting chance to identify everyone, follow their rapidly changing chip stacks, and report most of the important hands.

Ended up with just 11 when the night concluded, a little shy of 3 a.m. And cards go back in the air at noon today, which means I barely managed to score about five hours of sleep before getting up again to down some java, shower, shave, and get my weary carcass back over to the Rio to cover this final day. Oh, and write a little something here.

Apparently once this one gets down to the six-handed final table we will be on the feature table where ESPN360.com will be streaming it live. I still don’t personally know anybody who actually has access to ESPN360, but I know there must be a few out there who do.

Was writing alongside Homer last night, a good guy whose predilection for puns probably exceeds my own. Perhaps feeling vaguely threatened, I found myself titling a post describing a big Men Nguyen double up hand last night as “It’s Reigning Men.” (Groan!) I think I might say a little something tomorrow -- when I have more time and a clearer head -- about the relative worth of puns, that form of humor about which Edgar Allan Poe once noted “those most dislike who are least able to utter them.”

Not much time for anything this morning, so let me quickly point you to three other places to go to try to satisfy yr WSOP cravings.

Ran into Homer’s fellow countryman Snoopy (also an Englander) the other day. Snoopy was a live blogger for PokerNews last summer, and while we never worked the same tourney together I always enjoyed reading his posts (many of which also included some wordplay to go along with the reporting). And I’d been a close follower of his blog, too, Snoopy System, where he also wrote almost every day last summer. Once the WSOP ended last year, Snoopy decided he’d had enough of the blogging thing for a while and stopped cold turkey writing the Snoopy System. In his final post over there last July, he noted how time-consuming the blog had become and how he needed a rest, and so he took one.

Good news. Not only is Snoopy back in Vegas, but back writing about poker again, keeping a daily blog over at Black Belt Poker. See if you can’t fit Snoopy back into your regular reading this summer, as I’m sure you’ll enjoy his take on poker’s annual circus.

Secondly, I think everyone reading Hard-Boiled Poker probably already reads Pokerati, but if somehow you don’t, then you should get over there PDQ. Or at least ASAP.

When you do get over there, you will find lots of posts every day covering all things WSOP, including a good deal of behind-the-scenes stuff that some us aren’t as able (or willing) to share.

Finally, let me join the chorus of others praising this excellent video history of the World Series of Poker produced for PokerNews by a coupla cool cats, Tom Kinsman and Gloria Balding. Its called 40 Years of WSOP and this is the first of three planned parts, focusing on the early years. Good stuff.



See you over at the PokerNews’ live reporting page today, and back here tomorrow perhaps to deal with that issue of whether there’s a place for puns in poker tourney reporting. The fact of the matter is, I do understand -- and even agree with -- the point of view that puns can be over the top sometimes.

That being said, we all know it doesn’t matter how much you push the envelope, it will still be stationery.