PTI on the EPT

“And now to a little Texas hold’em up!”

That’s how Tony Kornheiser introduced a short segment on Monday’s “Pardon the Interruption” regarding the heist that occurred at the European Poker Tour Berlin Main Event last Saturday. After a brief summary of what happened, Kornheiser then opened up what would amount to a 90-second discussion of the story with his co-host Michael Wilbon by posing the following question:

“Wilbon, do you see this as a serious breach of the law, or an exciting new twist to televised poker coverage?!”

Kornheiser’s tone (and grin) made it clear he was being sarcastic, but bringing up the topic this way seemed to indicate the somewhat cynical view the hosts and other sports journalists have about poker butting its way onto ESPN and the sports section. And, as it turned out, Wilbon’s answer made it sound as though he understood the question somewhat seriously.

After starting with a joke asking about Norman Chad’s whereabouts at the time of the robbery, Wilbon described his thoughts when watching the video clip from EPT Live showing the tourney suddenly getting interrupted.

“Watching from afar, I’m like... this is like a wrestling promotion!” said Wilbon. “This was like a set-up to get more attention -- to get goofballs like you and me talking about this stuff -- and it seems like an exciting new development. Like a car chase on CNN!”

Kornheiser agreed it was exciting stuff, suggesting that the incident “will be a movie within a year.” The conversation quickly concluded after a couple of incredulous reactions at the level of security that allowed the theft to occur. (By the way, a tip of the fedora to Gary Wise for mentioning the PTI segment earlier this week in his ESPN column.)

I guess I can’t really blame Kornheiser or Wilbon for reacting this way. For those who have never participated in, covered, or attended a real live high-stakes poker tournament, there’s a lot of mystery about what goes on. In other words, I guess I am saying I am inclined to pardon “Pardon the Interruption” here. Though I ain’t necessarily congratulating them for any special insight, either.

Given poker’s storied history in the U.S. -- a history filled with cheats and thieves and other “hold’em up”-style scenes -- I can see how some hearing of the EPT Berlin robbery wouldn’t necessarily appreciate how uncommon an event it really was. (Heck, I remember the first time I went out to cover the WSOP getting asked about how I’d handle being around gangsters. No shinola!)

Obviously the robbery was not “a set-up” or some sort of promotional gimmick. (And, really, to think it was would require a heckuva lot of cynicism.) Not that the EPT or any of the other professional poker tours would even desire this sort of attention, or expect it to help stimulate their growth.

I had the chance to talk with one of the players who was still in the Main Event at the time of the robbery on Saturday -- Ilya Gorodetsky. In fact, he was seated at the feature table when the interruption occurred. In my interview with the Russian player, he told me how some initially thought it might have been some sort of joke. But it soon became clear it was not.

You can read the full interview over on Betfair, where it was posted this morning: “Fright at the Feature Table: EPT Berlin.” Big thanks again to Ilya for taking the time to talk with me.

Here’s to a less exciting weekend this time, eh?

TV or Not TV

As a child, I watched lots of television. Didn’t distinguish me much. We all did it, just about. Except for that new kid with the fussy parents who wouldn’t let you come in past the foyer when you went over to see if he could play. Word was they didn’t allow TV, for whatever reason. Or maybe it was just one hour a day. The rest of us, though, we watched and watched and watched.

I remember coming home from school and watching “All in the Family” and “Match Game” back-to-back. Both shows were filled with adult-themed references my elementary-school-sized brain couldn’t hope to follow. But I watched nonetheless. ’Cos, well, it was what was on. Then I watched the next show and the one that came after that. Did homework in there somewhere. Ate dinner. And somehow I became a reader, too, despite all the hours in front of the tube.

It really wasn’t until I got to college that I finally turned the TV off. Much, much more interesting things to do, it turned out. Gradually over the years since then I began watching again, but in the last couple of years or so TV has once more begun to fade away from the day-to-day. Vera and I have two sets, but weeks go by without the one upstairs being turned on. The downstairs set gets played a few times a week, though usually it is sports (my choice), home shows (hers), or “30 Rock” (both). And that’s about it.

All of which is to say, I’m almost never watching poker on TV anymore, despite the preponderance of shows available to watch. Sometimes I’ll go online to see an episode or three of “Poker After Dark” or “High Stakes Poker,” or perhaps to catch the latest “Poker2Nite,” but usually doing so is an afterthought -- i.e., not something I’m actively seeking out or for which I’m scheduling time.

I did happen to see some of the WSOP Europe coverage on ESPN (or ESPN2) the other day. Caught some of that “Caesars Cup” won by the Europeans against the Americans (and Canadian). The show was somewhat interesting to follow, although the poker was hardly compelling since the crazy-fast structure meant it was all-in-all-the-time. The “doubles” matches -- especially those “alternate bet” ones that had teammates taking turns street by street -- presented a couple of curious moments, but again the big, big blinds tended to mute whatever novel strategic questions might have been suggested by the format.

I also caught the first episode of the new season of “High Stakes Poker” a couple of days ago, which remains a very entertaining and engaging show, I think. I had been prepared to come away with some sort of opinion about the decision to remove A.J. Benza as co-host and Gabe Kaplan’s straight man, and to introduce Kara Scott in a different role (not commentating but interviewing players). But I was too distracted by Phil Ivey and the others gobbling up Phil Hellmuth’s $200,000 stack of chips within the first half-hour. (I’ll try to watch a few more episodes, then come back down the road with some sort of review of the current season.)

I remember hearing the guys on the 2+2 Pokercast talk about how they almost felt sorry for Hellmuth there. I guess I understood what they meant -- was a pretty desperate stretch of hands for the Poker Brat -- though I can’t say I shared the sentiment.

No need to feel sorry for Hellmuth today, of course, as he is currently the chip leader with 27 players left at the World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Star event. Close behind are Hassan Habib (2nd) and Andy Seth (3rd), with Matt Keikoan (5th), Faraz Jaka (7th), and Chau Giang (9th) lurking. Jonathan Little and Scotty Nguyen still have chips, too.

Could make for a good TV final table down the road, I guess. I’ll watch, if there isn’t something else to do.

(Post title via the 1973 comedy LP by Phil Proctor and Peter Bergman, one of those Firesign Theatre side projects. “Give Up This Day” still cracks me up. “Good bless you, and God night, and please don't touch that dial...”)

Something Noteworthy: Duke Wins NBC Heads-Up

Was following that NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship over the weekend in which Annie Duke ended up surviving six heads-up matches, including winning two of three against Erik Seidel in the finals, to capture the $500,000 first prize. I said on Friday that despite the relatively fast, made-for-TV structures for most of the matches -- as well as the inherent luck involved in any given heads-up match -- “anyone who manages to win... will have accomplished something noteworthy.”

That Duke won will probably further fuel debates over the relative significance of the event in terms of its measure of poker skill. Of course, anything involving Duke tends further to fuel debates in the poker world.

The fact is, besides now being known by many as a reality TV star, Duke is a highly accomplished poker player. Just looking at her WSOP record, it’s kind of amazing. She has 38 total cashes for over $1.12 million (I think the WSOP site is missing one, her cash in the 1995 Main Event), 15 final tables, three runner-ups, and one bracelet (the $2,000 Omaha/8 event in 2004). All in open events, incidentally, and in a wide variety of games (no-limit hold’em, limit hold’em, Omaha/8, stud, stud/8, and pot-limit Omaha).

Of course, Duke’s biggest win in terms of career earnings was that $2 million score for winning the 2004 Tournament of Champions event, which, like the NBC Heads-Up event, was a tourney she was invited to play. In fact, only ten players were invited, and while Duke outlasted a genuinely tough field (Hellmuth, Lederer, Chan, Raymer, Brunson, Negreanu, Ivey, Cloutier, and Reese), some have downplayed the significance of her having so significantly boosted her total career tourney winnings in this single-table freeroll.

So I think there is probably a bit of prejudice already in place to downgrade Duke’s triumph this weekend. Interestingly, two articles turned up on Sunday -- before Duke had won -- that differently addressed the significance of the event. One was a piece over on Casino City Times by Gary Trask with the headline “NBC Heads-Up event held in high regard by poker pros.” The other was a blog post by Daniel Negreanu in which he rated the “World’s Top Ten Toughest Tournaments.”

At first glance, the articles may appear to share a common focus -- namely, to highlight those tourneys the top players hold in “high regard” as genuine achievements if one wins. Indeed, Negreanu’s article does provide a somewhat thorough ranking of tourneys’ “toughness” according to three primary criteria: strength of field, structure, and field size. While his list certainly invites debate -- e.g., ranking the WSOP Main Event as the sixth-toughest tourney and putting a couple of yet-to-be-played events at the top of his list -- it is clear Negreanu is focusing mainly on how well the events test players’ tourney skills.

The Casino City Times article rather focuses on other factors affecting players’ “high regard” -- namely the enjoyment they get from participating, the fun of competing (and earning bragging rights with friends/colleagues), and the intangible benefits of succeeding in a high-profile, televised event.

Trask quotes Phil Gordon noting how “we all want to play in it” and how “the fact that it’s a heads-up, one-on-one match really brings the whole ego thing into the equation.” However, Gordon recognizes how the tourney may rate lower on a “toughness” scale such as the one Negreanu put together. “[W]e all realize that when it comes right down to it, this is a crapshoot,” says Gordon. “There’s just so much luck involved in a one-time heads-up match.”

Negreanu does mention at the end of his list how the NBC Heads-Up event’s fast structure necessarily eliminates it from consideration as one of the “toughest” tourneys. But the question remains of how to rate the achievement of someone who does win the event. As an NBC Heads-Up champ, Duke joins a list of other highly accomplished players -- Hellmuth, Forrest, Wasicka, Ferguson, and Seed. Each enjoyed some good fortune along the way to win their titles, but such is true for all tourney winners to some degree.

I’ll stick to the idea that winning it is “something noteworthy,” though doubt Duke’s win will necessarily up the NBC Heads-Up event’s status as an especially “tough” test for players.

Live Poker: Palm Beach Kennel Club, West Palm Beach, FL

Last week I accompanied Vera Valmore to West Palm Beach, Florida in order to watch some top-level dressage at the Palm Beach Dressage Derby. And since Florida is one of those states that offers live poker, I thought I’d take the opportunity to play some while there.

As far as the Derby went, it was cold and windy the first day, but the weather turned quite pleasant afterwards, with highs in the low 70s. Thus did Vera and I enjoy relatively nice conditions for watching the rides, some by Olympians and others with high achievements in dressage on both the national and international level.

One very sad note -- a top rider, Courtney King-Dye, suffered a serious head injury while schooling one of her horses the day before the show began. The young horse she was riding apparently slipped, causing King-Dye -- who wasn’t wearing a helmet at the time -- to fall. She remains in a coma, though her condition is stable. The wearing of helmets either in practice rides or during competitions is a big issue in dressage, and the accident has brought new attention to the importance of taking safety precautions.

After that first day at Horse Park at White Fences Equestrian Estates in Loxahatchee, Florida, Vera and I decided to take a quick trip over to see the Palm Beach Kennel Club, located near the airport and not too far from the hotel where we were staying. I’d heard the guys on the Florida-based poker podcast Ante Up! refer to the PBKC frequently, and was curious to see just what they had to offer. It was early evening. If any limit hold’em tables were going, I would sit down for a short while, then we would try to find some place to eat.

The PBKC has a long history, with folks having come there to bet on the greyhounds since way back in the 1930s. The poker room -- actually two rooms, one larger one on the lower level, and a smaller room for tourneys upstairs -- came much, much later, probably in the late 1990s when parimutuel facilities were first allowed to offer poker. The club boasts that with the addition of the upstairs room a couple of years ago it now has the most tables (60 total) of any place in the entire state.

I knew through Ante Up! that live poker had experienced something of a resurgence in Florida over the last few years, thanks largely to a bill that went into effect in 2007 allowing for the addition of no-limit games (though with a $100-max. buy-in). The new terms also meant the maximum bet in limit games was raised -- but just to $5. Another bill was proposed last year that would remove the caps on buy-ins for NL games, take away maximum bet limits in limit games, and also allow for extended hours, although various machinations between the Florida legislature and the Seminole tribe have prevented that from being implemented just yet.

I spoke with Scott Long of Ante Up! (who co-hosts the show with Chris Cosenza) just to make sure I was clear on what the current laws were. Indeed, the $100 max-buy in remains in place for NL games, as does the $5 limit on bets in limit games. The maximum buy-in for tourneys is $800 or thereabouts (Long says some places have managed to find a way to finagle up to $1,000 buy-ins somehow). Long shared with me the comparison he and Cosenza often make when highlighting the present absurdity of the poker-gambling situation in Florida.

“I can go down to the Kennel Club and bet $50,000 on a dog running around the track, but can’t buy in for more than $100 to play poker,” explained Long. He added how the motorcycle-riding thrill-seeker Evel Knievel, who lived his latter years in Florida prior to his death a couple of years ago, apparently used to go place $10,000 bets on the greyhounds from time to time, screwing up the odds considerably when he did.

It does sound as though the law to remove caps and betting limits has a good chance of going through this summer, though, and so perhaps the situation will be different in Florida soon.

Vera and I found the PBKC without too much difficulty, although figuring out how to enter the place was less obvious. After a half-minute of wandering around the front, someone directed us to the turnstiles, through which we went and then entered the building from the back.

There appeared to be a lot of activity, with perhaps 20-25 tables going (of the 40 in the downstairs room). Most tables were spreading $1-$2 and $2-$5 NLHE, with three $2-$4 LHE games going. (Long told me that was what you mostly find as far as limit hold’em goes, with a few $1-$5 or $2-$5 spread limit games here and there.) I grabbed a seat at a LHE table, though I knew I wouldn’t be playing for long as there didn’t seem very much for Vera to do while she waited.

I took a seat at a full table, noticing a lot of trash underneath the table and unclaimed bottles and napkins everywhere. In the end, I’d probably play no more than 40 minutes or so -- like 20-25 hands at most -- and thanks to some ridiculously good cards walked away up a surprising $90. What happened? I caught cards, made hands, and got paid. Not too complicated.

After losing the first hand with pocket jacks, I began collecting chips in rapid fashion starting with a hand in which I got in the small blind, flopped two pair, then turned a boat. Followed that with another hand in which I limped in with the rest of the table with A-6-suited to see a flop come 8-6-6. Two of us made it to the river on that one, with my opponent angrily showing the case six (with a lesser kicker, presumably). He left soon afterwards, grumbling to a friend about his misfortune and/or the quality of play.

A few hands later I picked up pocket treys in late position and limped along with about six others. Flop 6-3-3. Whoa. Some nice cards they be dealing here, I thought. Afterwards I thought of Mike Fasso, who used to appear on Ante Up! now and then as a guest host, and one time when he memorably exclaimed “I never flopped quads in my life.... IN MY LIFE!”

Well, I’d done it. And even better, there was a bet and call before it got to me. I called, as did two more. The turn brought another six. It checked to me, I bet, and two just called. Couldn’t quite figure why neither would raise there (assuming at least one had to have had a six). River was a face card, I bet again, and just the older fellow called. Indeed, he had a six, and was just calling down his sixes full.

The ridiculous run good continued, as the very next hand I picked up two black aces. There was a raise before me, I three-bet, and ultimately there were two callers. Flop . It checked to me, I bet, and both called. Turn was the . This time the preflop raiser bet, I raised, and the early position player called the two bets, which signaled he probably couldn’t have the straight. The preflop raiser -- whom I thought might have K-K or Q-Q -- called as well. The river brought the , and when the preflop raiser again bet I just called, a little wary the EP player might have chased down his flush. But he just called, too, and we showed our cards.

The early position player had pocket sevens -- he’d flopped a lesser set. And the preflop raiser had -- he’d flopped two pair. Definitely a cooler for both, although it could’ve been even worse for them had the turn and river not coordinated the board like that.

Thus the big win. Much more luck than skill, for sure. I cashed out, grabbed Vera, and we were out of there. As I said, there wasn’t really much for Vera to do there. I mentioned the trash laying about. The felt on the table was worn down, too, adding a little to the sordid atmosphere. The dealers were competent and friendly, though, and aside from the one grumbler the players were cordial, too. After my quads hand, the dealer had passed me a slip to fill out to enter the high-hand jackpot, to be awarded on Saturday.

I ended up returning on Saturday for another session and to see if I might have won the jackpot. There were multiple drawings throughout the day, starting at 1 p.m. (when the place opened). Got there early and explored the place a little more, checking out the theater-style seating upstairs from which to view the races as well as wandering outside at the track a bit. Many folks -- including a lot of old-timers -- were there early studying the day’s races and settling on their picks. A line formed outside the poker room, too, which opened at 12:30 p.m. Probably 30 tables were filled with players by the time the first hands of the day were dealt.

The early drawings were for $1,000, and one had to be present to win. While there I again played, this time for an hour-and-a-half or so. As I (mostly) folded hands, I listened hopefully for my name to be called. Alas, it was not, although I would pick up another $49 before I left. Wasn’t so much good cards this time as bad, loose, passive play by others. If I had stuck around until the evening, I’d have learned if I’d won the larger $5,000 jackpot, but I wasn’t going to be spending the entire day and night there.

Again, I’ll say the dealers were fine and all of the staff with whom I interacted were pleasant. Getting a cocktail waitress did appear to be a bit of a struggle for others at times. I cashed out, grabbed a copy of Ante Up! magazine, and made my way back around the building and out to the rental car. Vera and I ended up that night in City Place -- a nice, pedestrian-friendly downtown area in West Palm Beach with lots of stores, restaurants, and live music. All made extra fun by my being able to pay our way with poker profits.

Will be interesting to see what happens in Florida once the caps and limits are lifted and places like the Palm Beach Kennel Club possibly become more of a targeted destination for serious poker players. Imposing those limits doesn’t much affect a recreational type like me, but I know many are anxious to see “real” poker start to be offered.

I’d had no time at all to play while covering the NAPT Venetian the week before, so it was good to get to play, even for just a couple of short sessions. And especially good to flop quads, even at $2/$4.

An Unscheduled Break: Bedlam in Berlin

Was gonna write today about my having played a couple of sessions recently at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Also might’ve written something about Annie Duke taking down the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship last night, defeating Erik Seidel in the finals. But we had some breaking news over the weekend, so I’ll save those topics for now.

And when I say breaking news, I really mean it. Tables, equipment, cashiers’ boxes. And order, custom, routine -- all breaking, in dramatic fashion.

Like a lot of us poker people here in the States, we awoke Saturday morning to learn something unexpected had happened at the European Poker Tour Main Event in Berlin. “There has been an unscheduled break in the action,” reported Danafish over on PokerNews. Understated, that.

Soon we’d discover an armed robbery had taken place. I read through numerous tweets from colleagues and friends reporting it had happened, and while it was quickly evident no one was seriously hurt, the news was nevertheless mighty troubling to read.

I had just worked with a number of those same folks at the NAPT Venetian a week before, and have myself had the opportunity to work an EPT event during this sixth season of the tour -- the opener in Kyiv, Ukraine last August. I could quickly imagine the strangeness and uncanny feeling of a carefully planned and smoothly run poker tournament suddenly being interrupted by shouting, running, and other types of chaos. I could also imagine the fright of being around people with guns who were not there to preserve the order, but to disrupt it.

Of course, I didn’t have to use my imagination for long, as clips of the robbery soon surfaced online. I got a chance to view some of those vids before they were taken down. Here is a PokerNews report that includes what it looked like on EPT Live when the interruption occurred, as well as an interview with an investigating officer:



Kevmath quickly compiled more information over on Pokerati in a series of posts, some of which were additionally accompanied by more video and photos. Click on through for more interviews of eyewitnesses and other unsettling reportage:

EPT Berlin halted by robbery attempt (3/6/10)
EPT Berlin armed robbery attempt (3/6/10)
EPT Berlin final table (3/7/10)

I suppose ever since The Blair Witch Project and various “reality” TV shows we’ve grown somewhat accustomed to viewing shaky cameras and unedited, raw footage. But when it’s really real... well, it’s no fun at all. Especially when guns and machetes are involved.

A lot of misreporting, apparently, regarding what exactly happened, including some exaggeration of the booty -- called a “jackpot” in some places (like on MSNBC) -- as being as much as €1,000,000. Also some loose talk of machine guns and other what not, when that apparently wasn’t true, either.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that four men, armed with pistols and a machete, made off with “more than €100,000 ($136,000)” following the Saturday afternoon heist, and that they remain at large. The article reports that eight people were injured amid all of the running around.

Detectives are now on the case, looking at the various videos and photos taken, and having obtained fingerprints of one of the robbers. And while the robbers were wearing masks -- making identifications more difficult -- Michael Gassen, speaking for the investigators, says “I am confident we will solve the case.”

I’ve reported from tourneys in American casinos, where I’ve generally felt especially safe thanks to all of the surveillance cameras and security everywhere you turn. When I went to Ukraine last summer, the event took place at the Kyiv Sport Palace -- not a regular casino -- and while there was security present I’ll admit to having wondered a little about just how secure the place was.

The event at EPT Berlin was not at a casino, either, but in a ballroom at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. There were security guards present, though they were not armed. Most accounts suggest these guys acted heroically, despite the threats of physical harm to themselves. That picture at left (from the Berlin news site B.Z.), shows one of the guards temporarily subduing a suspect. Apparently the guard forced him to relinquish some of the money before the suspect was able to flee.

The WSJ article quotes Kirsty Thompson, an EPT spokesperson, saying how the tour “works closely with all its venues to ensure that appropriate security is in place” and that they “will continue to do so going forward, and step up efforts even further after this incident.”

After a delay of three hours or so, the Main Event was continued and played down to a winner on Sunday. I’m glad it was completed as scheduled, and especially glad the players and reporters all made it through in relatively good shape.

Like I say, something uncanny about a poker tournament, so carefully managed with rules of play, precise timing, and incessant order (or, at least, the effort to maintain such) being so brazenly disrupted. Then again, poker players and reporters are somewhat seasoned to expect the unexpected, which might explain why most seemed to have taken the incident in stride.

Tom McEvoy once characterized no-limit hold’em as “hours of boredom and moments of sheer terror.” He was of course speaking of surprise check-raises or awaiting a response to one’s all-in bluff -- not uninvited, armed thugs suddenly forcing themselves into the game.

Even so, poker does encourage those who play to be able to adapt to unforeseen occurrences, including potentially violent ones. (Open up Doyle Brunson’s memoir, The Godfather of Poker, to just about any page for examples.) I’m guessing that skill served some or most of those who were forced to endure the 15 minutes or so of “terror” Saturday afternoon.

Even so, let’s hope no one will need to demonstrate that sort of adaptive ability on the circuit again anytime soon.

(EDIT [added 3/10/10]: A New York Times piece from yesterday notes that the thieves made off with “240,000 euros ($320,000) in cash” and that police are now searching for the four robbers plus a fifth suspect who tipped them off that the money was unsecured. The piece also reports that there had been an “attempt to leave with more than 690,000 euros ($930,000) in cash,” but security guards succeeded in wrestling away a bag containing much of the loot.)

Heads Up! 2010 NBC Heads-Up Tourney Is Here

Well, it looks as though I might have overshot the 2010 Mastodon Weekend by about, oh, 675 miles or something. While others degen it up in G-Vegas, I am spending the weekend in West Palm Beach with Vera Valmore, attending with her a dressage competition. Will be, I imagine, a marginally less intense time these next couple of days here in southern Florida, although I have to say I’m very glad to be able to get away with Vera like this.

So far Florida is not the sunny, pleasant place we were hoping to find, but rather chilly and uncomfortably windy. Vera is getting to see some excellent rides, though, including some by Olympians and other top competitors in the sport.

Meanwhile, since I have found myself in a state that actually has live poker, I have already taken the opportunity to play a bit.

Gonna save the live poker report until Monday. I have made one quick (and happily profitable) trip to the Palm Beach Kennel Club thus far. May or may not get to play again -- we’ll see. Was an interesting session, though, that included a couple of semi-interesting and/or memorable hands. So, like I say, I will share a bit about it early next week.

Setting that aside, though, since poker-wise we’re all mostly preoccupied with that NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship that kicks off this afternoon. Last night a draw was held to determine the brackets. Funny to read all of the tweets from all of the players, each of whom seems to have responded to his or her draw the same way: “Tough match!”

Here is how that draw wound up:



















Clicking the image gets you to a better look. Or just go over to the NBC site and download it yrself.

Even with all of the special invites and other funny business surrounding the selection of folks to play, all four brackets look pretty tough. Once again, anyone who manages to win six matches -- even with the relatively fast structures -- will have accomplished something noteworthy, I think.

I wrote a preview of the event appearing over on Betfair today. I believe F-Train and the PokerNews folks will be providing coverage, so check that out if you’re interested (here is their live reporting page). Episodes will start airing later next month on NBC, continuing for six straight Sundays until the end of May.

Sheesh. That’ll be just in time for the start of this year’s WSOP. Already?

Enjoy the weekend, all.

For Four-Color?

A new issue of Bluff Magazine arrived in my mailbox this week (March 2010), containing an article by Mike Caro in which he shares what he calls “My Least Popular Poker Opinions.” As we all know, Caro has had a lot of opinions over the years regarding not just poker strategy, but the rules and functioning of the game, too. And being the iconoclast he is, his ideas generally tend to illustrate genuine attempts at rethinking traditional approaches -- one reason why I always find Caro one of the more interesting poker writers.

One of the ideas Caro briefly discusses in the article was his campaign back in the 1990s to introduce a four-color deck -- i.e., a deck featuring blue diamonds and green clubs to go along with the red hearts and black spades. The piece notes how players immediately objected to the attempted innovation, thus forcing him to add it to his list of “failed” ideas.

The story of Caro’s campaign has been told many times in many places over the years. Apparently it was at the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods in 1992 that Caro first successfully persuaded tourney organizers to employ the four-color deck, the colors of which had been determined following a vote among students at one of his seminars. Incidentally, Caro has insisted that he didn’t “invent” the four-color deck -- in fact, he believes the two-color deck was itself an “innovation” of sorts, borne from a desire to save money on printing costs.

In any event, the new deck was not appreciated at Foxwoods, partly due to the fact that the colors hadn’t been properly shaded, causing some confusion to go along with the general opposition to change. By the second day of the tourney, the decks were removed and the traditional two-color decks restored.

In the Bluff piece, Caro makes reference to a later attempt to introduce the four-color deck, a story that Diane McHaffie describes in more detail in a 2006 article in Poker Player Magazine. There McHaffie tells how Caro tried once more to introduce the four-color deck in early 1995, getting 65 different cardrooms to employ the decks on a single day -- dubbed “C-Day” (or “Color Day”) by the Mad Genius of Poker.

“Although most players seemed impressed,” writes McHaffie, “some were indifferent and then there were those who voiced their discontent rather loudly.” And, in predictable fashion, losing players “took this opportunity to blame their misfortune on the color change” of the decks.

McHaffie quotes Caro explaining how he’d “spent years lobbying, cajoling, and publicizing an event [C-Day] that was intended to change the very nature of playing cards forever and it just resulted in two hours of agony.” The decks were thrown out, and thus ended the experiment. In live poker, anyway. Online poker -- which allows players to modify the playing experience individually in numerous ways -- makes the four-color deck an option which I would venture to guess most players choose to take.

I have trouble coming up with a good reason not to use four-color decks in live play, though I assume some have objections that go beyond the uncritical appeal to tradition. I suppose one could argue that poker is a game that rewards attention to detail, and thus requiring players to make the extra mental effort of distinguishing hearts from diamonds and clubs from spades is yet another way to test that skill. Then again, one could find ways to make the cards even more difficult to read (remember those “Poker Peek” cards from the 2007 WSOP?), providing an even greater challenge -- something no one could rationally argue for, I wouldn’t think.

Printing costs probably remain a factor here, although probably less a factor than in the past. So what other reasons might there be not to use the four-color deck?

Poker and Stereotyping

Earlier this week I had an opportunity to attend a talk by Gloria Steinem, the feminist and political activist whose name is synonymous with the women’s liberation movement of the ’60s and ’70s.

Younger folks don’t necessarily recognize Steinem’s name or her once iconic cultural status the way those of us of a certain age do. Ask those who were around a few decades back, and we’ll instantly associate Steinem with women’s lib, Ms. Magazine (which she founded in the early ’70s), N.O.W. (the National Organization of Women), her support of “reproductive freedom,” and the (ultimately unsuccessful) fight for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.

The talk was thought-provoking. Actually Steinem herself was suffering from laryngitis and so a younger woman delivered the speech while Steinem (now in her 70s) sat next to the podium. There were a few observations made in the lecture regarding cultural attitudes toward the older generation -- thus did those points about ageism sound a little funny being delivered by a woman in her 20s. Steinem did step up to the mic for the Q&A afterwards, though, and gamely answered questions for at least half an hour despite her ailment. In both the lecture and her answers to questions, Steinem was highly engaging, witty, smart, and even occasionally inspiring.

Steinem is a controversial figure, of course, who has been and who continues to be opposed by many for her views. Not being fully acquainted with all of her writings or positions, I’m not ready to endorse her without qualification, although I will say I respond well to her general message to avoid prejudging people on the basis of categories like sex, race, class, age, or faith.

Listening to Steinem got me thinking a bit about that piece I wrote recently for Woman Poker Player. I mentioned last week how I’d written half of a “He Said/She Said” column with Jennifer Newell in which we discussed the issue of women and online poker site sponsorships. I believe the plan is to write more of those columns going forward. Here are links to those again -- He Said: Women and Sponsorships / She Said: Women and Sponsorships.

Writing that caused me to think more specifically about stereotyping in poker -- both in terms of the way men and women poker players are differently treated and judged in the media (and thus in the sometimes mysterious world of online site sponsorships) as well as how a person’s sex potentially is given a certain significance at the poker table. Indeed, while many of us instinctively resist stereotyping others -- or at least try not to and/or are aware that it is wrong to do so -- at the poker table such stereotyping is not only understood as acceptable but some would argue essential.

Those who play a lot of live poker develop certain ideas about, say, women players, or those of a certain race or ethnicity, or older people, and so forth. Such ideas are difficult to resist, and in some cases prove useful when up against a new opponent for whom one has little or no information about his or her playing style.

When this topic comes up, I can’t help but think about a book like Play Poker, Quit Work and Sleep Till Noon! by John Fox, originally published in 1977, in which Fox includes a chapter early on about game selection. (Click here for more about this historically significant poker book.) Amid his advice about picking tables at which to play, Fox unashamedly delivers his “general rules for identifying weak players,” many of which involve stereotyping.

In the list of “desirable opponents” that comes at the end of the chapter, Fox includes some benign-sounding categories like “drinkers,” “nervous opponents,” and “players who expose cards.” However, many of his categories directly evoke -- in a decidedly pre-PC way -- the categories of sex, race, class, age, and even faith as useful indicators. Thus does his list include “rich people,” “young players,” “people displaying religious symbols,” and “ghetto residents.” And women? Important enough to list twice, with both “beautiful women” and “women in general” being desirable opponents for Fox.

Times change, and the significance of these categories evolve. Seems to me, though, that while we might think differently today about categories like sex, race, class, age, or faith, thereby assigning each different meanings to them than we might have back in the ’70s or earlier, we humans still nevertheless find it hard to resist prejudging others, with our prejudgments often affected by whatever ideas we possess about these categories.

Away from the poker table, many of us make a conscious effort to resist such stereotyping. However, at the poker table -- where we meet strangers in order to compete with them -- it’s a different story.

WPT vs. NAPT, Round 1

They’ve completed four days of play at the World Poker Tour L.A. Poker Classic. Going into today’s play, there are 22 players left from the original field of 745 players, with 2001 WSOP Main Event champion Carlos “The Matador” Mortensen on top followed by Mark “Newhizzle” Newhouse.

I was impressed to hear that the $10,000 buy-in event attracted that many entrants -- up from last year’s 696 (won by Cornel Cimpan). There was a lot of wondering whether or not the NAPT Venetian Main Event, which concluded last Wednesday (Feb. 24) would perhaps hurt the turnout for the WPT L.A. Poker Classic, which began last Friday (Feb. 26). There might have been a few folks who decided to skip the latter after playing the former, but in terms of the overall turnout there doesn’t seem to have been a major effect.

It would be interesting to see just how many of the 872 who played in the NAPT Venetian event then made the trip over to L.A. for the WPT event. I don’t have a list of all of the WPT entrants, and so cannot say for certain how many played in both.

A total of 128 players cashed at the NAPT Venetian, while the top 72 spots pay at the WPT L.A. Poker Classic. Looks like none of the remaining 22 players at the WPT made the money at the Venetian, although looking down the list I see six players who cashed in both events. They are:

Steven Goosen: NAPT, 127th, $7,232; WPT, 40th, $33,614

Steven Karp: NAPT, 93rd, $9,643; WPT, 27th, $45,773

Lauren Kling: NAPT, 104th, $8,839; WPT, 63rd, $23,602

Brett Richey: NAPT, 95th, $9,643; WPT, 26th, $45,773

Vanessa Rousso: NAPT, 25th, $18,080; WPT, 59th, 23,602

Jon “PearlJammer” Turner: NAPT, 126th, $7,232; WPT, 67th, $18,595.

It should be added that Brett Richey also won his first round table at the $25,000 Bounty Shootout event at the NAPT Venetian, going on to finish sixth at the final table there. With the bounties, Richey ultimately earned $90,000 at that event. Also, Hoyt Corkins, who also won his first table at the $25K and ended up finishing runner-up at the final table (earning $100,000 total), additionally cashed at the WPT Main Event this week, finishing 60th ($23,602).

No surprise to see the proven Turner show up at the cashier’s cage again. While I was gone last week, I received a copy of Jon Turner’s new book in the mail, Winning Poker Tournaments One Hand at a Time: Volume 2, co-authored with Eric “Rizen” Lynch and Jon “Apestyles” Van Fleet. I very much liked the first volume, which was well written and nicely laid out, and full of clear explanations of particular tourney hands. So I’m looking forward to this second one which concentrates on how to play once you’ve reached the money, final table play, heads-up play, among other topics.

I think Rousso’s double-cash also further proves her mettle in no-limit hold’em tourneys. Last year could be considered a breakthrough year for her, finishing second in the NBC National Heads-Up Championship in March, then winning the €25,000 High Roller Championship at EPT Monte Carlo in May. Those wins helped her claim over $1.3 million in tourney winnings last year, the most of any woman player. It appears 2010 has begun relatively well, too, for the Team PokerStars pro.

Will be following how it all plays out at the L.A. Poker Classic over the next couple of days. Check the WPT site for your updates. The question of whether the circuit can handle both the NAPT and WPT seems to have been answered for now following this first pairing of events. Once the NAPT adds more events, though, it will be interesting to see how well the circuit can sustain two major tours here in the U.S.

Persona Problems

Was a busy end of February here at Hard-Boiled Poker, highlighted by that trip to help cover the NAPT Venetian. Spent the weekend catching up on various things, including reading through emails and listening to a few poker podcasts.

Among the latter was that highly disappointing 2/25/10 episode of PokerRoad Radio in which the “B-Team” (Jimmy Fricke, Bryan Devonshire, and Court Harrington) kicked off the show by offering a mostly misleading, unfocused criticism of some of the reporting done from the NAPT Venetian.

Am not gonna rehearse all of the details of what was said, nor explain the obvious irony of trying to support a charge of unprofessionalism with misquotes, misattributions, and profanity. (Also, I’m probably a little too close to the situation here to be entirely objective about it, anyway.) Read here for details, and see the comments, too, for further reaction/apologies/etc.

Speaking of misfires, there was another one among the items I found when going back through my email box. Again, others have commented on this one at length and so I’m not planning to do much more than just mention it here -- that recent “special invite” to bloggers from PokerStars to write some posts about the upcoming Spring Championship of Online Poker in exchange for a ticket to play in an event. (By the way, click here to see the newly-revised schedule of SCOOP events, which takes place May 2-16.)

I’d noticed this email in passing last week, but only read it more carefully after the Poker Grump told me more about it when I saw him at the Venetian. The title of the Grump’s explanation and response -- “Thanks but no thanks” -- gives an idea of what he thinks of the promotion. Readers of this blog have no doubt already read the reactions of other poker bloggers, too, to the invitation to write not one but five separate posts containing particular phrases (with links) in return for a $22 SCOOP ticket.

Most of those who have written about the offer appear to have concluded the invite didn’t seem to represent a fair exchange -- i.e., less than $5 per post (and we’re not even talking about actual money, but a non-transferable tourney ticket). Some additionally pointed out how the offer implies a kind of disregard for poker blogs’ editorial integrity -- as though these were just so many words fired off into the intertubes, the primary purpose of which is to affect search engines or attract click-throughs and not to communicate actual thoughts or ideas.

Again, as with the PokerRoad incident, my instinct here is both to be disappointed and to recognize that having come into the debate a little late, I’m not seeing a lot of point in participating further in the piling on.

There is one common theme in both items, though, that might be worth pointing out. Something to do with that weird disconnect that occurs when people communicate online -- via blogs, emails, podcasts, news sites, what have you. This is going to be hard to put into words, I think, but I’ll try nonetheless.

When we read or hear something online, it often seems like it takes a conscious, extra effort to appreciate the “reality” of the person communicating those words and ideas. That is to say, our instinctive response is not the same as occurs in more direct forms of interaction, but rather to take what we are reading or hearing as the product of a “persona” or “character” or something not necessarily fully human but mediated in some fashion that necessarily affects how we react.

I fully realize, by the way, that I am trying to communicate this idea to you via a persona (Shamus). Bear with me, though, and believe that what I’m saying represents a real idea thought up by a real human being.

Because of this “ethos displacement effect” or whatever you want to call it, people are much more willing to criticize or fail to appreciate the significance of a real live human “author” whose thoughts and ideas are represented by the words. The same effect tends to fuel the flame wars in forums, or cause chat box crack-ups. Not believing you’re communicating with a real live human tends to lessen the urgency to be humane.

Seems to me both of the examples of less-than-ideal-communication listed above could be said to have demonstrated this phenomenon in different ways.