2010 WSOP, Day 43: Following the Action

Yesterday was the first of two separate Day 2 flights at the World Series of Poker. A total of 2,412 players who made it through Days 1a and 1c came back yesterday to play eight more hours’ worth of poker. Actually not all of them played eight hours; in fact, only a little under half of that group (1,200 even) made it to the end of the night and will return on Monday for Day 3.

Eight hours -- even with a 90-minute dinner break stuck in there -- makes for a short day of work, relatively speaking. It was intense, of course, but there were many cool hands and incidents to report, making the day quite interesting.

Probably the most curious hand I reported on happened right as the dinner break had arrived.

I had spoken to B.J. Nemeth before the break about interviewing him for a future Betfair piece, and so was in no hurry to rush off once the break had come. I was stationed yesterday in the Media box over in the Red section of the Amazon, which curls around one of the “feature” tables. Carlos Mortensen had been playing at that table for much of the day, but following his bustout another WSOP Main Event champion, Chris Moneymaker, was brought over.

As the break began, I was writing up a hand involving Billy Kopp -- the last hand played before the break at his table -- and when I finished I noticed Moneymaker and another player, Bryan Pellegrino, left behind at their table playing out a hand. Looked like someone was making a big decision, so I checked it out.

The river had been dealt, Moneymaker had some chips before him as a bet, and Pellegrino sat motionless. It appeared as though Pellegrino was in the tank contemplating what to do. In fact, a tourney official came over at one point and asked me whose action it was, and I whispered to him it looked like it was on Pellegrino.

A full ten minutes passed. B.J. was there and had time to snap a number of pictures of both players as waited. (That is one of them above.) Moneymaker stood up and began pacing around a little, looking a bit agitated about how long things were taking. Finally -- and apologetically -- Moneymaker said he was going to have to call the clock.

That’s when Pellegrino said he had already declared himself all in, much to the surprise of Moneymaker, the dealer, and all watching. In fact, Pellegrino said he was about to call the clock on Moneymaker (which would have been something to see). Once the situation was understood, Moneymaker quickly called with just top pair, and Pellegrino instantly mucked his hand -- in fact, he may have mucked even before Moneymaker showed his. (Here is the write-up of that hand over at PokerNews.)

B.J. and I then spent the first part of the break hanging out with the All 360 Poker guys and eating some El Pollo Loco chicken. Then I interviewed B.J. -- primarily about his experiences photographing the WSOP -- and that was very interesting and should make for a neat piece next week.

There were some other interesting hands yesterday, including one near the end involving Annie Duke in which she made a straight flush. Things are starting to get a bit more exciting, and of course once the money bubble approaches, then bursts, then the field starts to shrink, that’s when the real excitement starts.

I get one last day off today, then another tomorrow as the entire Main Event is taking Sunday off to ready for the coming week. Got various things planned, including some visiting with friends and a couple of freeroll tourneys on Sunday. Meanwhile, I’ll be checking in some over at PokerNews’ live reporting today to see how Day 2b plays out.

Enjoy your weekend, all. The action is on you.

2010 WSOP, Day 42: Day 1d Anecdotes

Day 1d of the Main Event had a rhythm that I think mirrored that of the first three Day 1 flights. A very high energy for the first six hours of play -- both from players and from those of us covering them -- followed by a relatively slower pace during the three hours that followed the 90-minute dinner break.

From the reporting side, we’re finally finding ourselves in a situation where a 2,000-plus field is manageable, with many more of us working at once to write reports, keep track of counts, and so forth. And I don’t think anyone minds the relatively shorter work days during the Main Event, too.

There were a few interesting moments that came up yesterday, although nothing truly jawdropping. No one wins the Main Event on the first day. Some build big stacks but even that is not yet terribly notable. There is a long way to go.

Thought I would share a few of the more interesting moments along the way from Day 1d.

One occurred just after one of the breaks yesterday as I sat behind my laptop writing up another hand. Near the desk where I worked, tourney officials had positioned the rail in a way that spectators could edge out a little in front of where I sat, and I so I had a few occasionally ask me questions like “Where’s Phil Ivey?” and the like.

In this case a young Asian man for whom English is probably a second language leaned over and asked me a couple of questions about the prize pool. How many players would cash? How much was first place? This was the beginning of the second level, actually, and since registration hadn’t closed, those things had yet to be determined. But I gave him an estimate, saying there would probably be more than 7,000 players (there ended up being 7,319), and that usually the top 10% made the money, so 700-odd players should be cashing.

He then asked about the stack sizes. What was the average? I told him at that point, for those playing Day 1d, it was still probably not a lot more than the 30,000 with which they’d started.

He had more questions, and while I didn’t really have time to keep answering, there was something about his demeanor that made me want to help. He wanted to know what the average was of those who’d finished the first three days. Again, I didn’t have an exact figure, but knowing about 70% of those who started the previous Day 1 flights made it through to Day 2, I estimated the average stack was probably less than 45,000 still.

“What if you have 94,000? Is that good?” Yes, I said. That’s pretty good relative to the field. Then he asked me a question that completely took me by surprise, and kind of explained all of other questions, too.

“Should I play tight?”

Ha! This wasn’t just a curious fan on the rail asking about the machinations of the Main Event. He was a player! I asked and he said he’d played on Day 1a, and so he’ll be coming back for today’s Day 2a.

I didn’t have a straight answer to his last question, saying something about how it probably would depend on his table and what seemed right to do. He was curious about whether he’d be able to make the money with his current stack -- i.e., I suppose thinking about whether he’d already accumulated enough chips to fold his way to the cash. I told him I doubted that, since there’d still be more than 5,000 players left at the start of Day 2.

A memorable exchange, and one that kind of points up the fact that the Main Event, despite its $10,000 price tag, does attract many novices without a lot of tournament experience, including those who -- like my friend on the rail, most likely -- qualified via an inexpensive satellite.

The oldest player in WSOP history, 97-year-old Jack Ury, was in my section yesterday, and I watched him play a bit. Truly remarkable. Though a bit hard of hearing, Ury seems fully cognizant of just about everything going on around him at the table, and he did win some hands, sitting there with more than his starting stack for most of the day.

Another story that stood out a bit yesterday was of the fellow who returned from dinner break and could not remember where he sat. Apparently he was led around the Amazon Room for some time by a tourney official, much like someone who’d forgotten where he’d parked his car, in an effort to locate his seat. Ducky wrote up a post about the incident.

I did want to mention a couple of other more personal highlights from yesterday. One was finally meeting Chris Cosenza of the Ante Up! podcast and magazine.

I saw Chris during the dinner break in the halls interviewing Freddy Deeb, and we ended up speaking afterwards a bit. Was glad to get the chance to thank Chris for the many hours of entertainment he’d given me since the show’s debut way back in 2005, as well as for the chance to participate in that community of listeners that grew up around the show, especially during its first few years.

I also had a quick meeting with another player from Day 1d, a reader who came around right at the end of the dinner break to share some nice words about Hard-Boiled Poker. He mentioned some of the reasons why he liked the blog, which was very nice to hear and much appreciated.

And really, I saw added reason to value his opinion since he clearly knew better than to ask me whether or not he should play tight.

I mentioned yesterday I had a chance this week to interview WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla, and you can now read our conversation over at Betfair Poker. We talked about his getting started with the WSOP back in 2002, the 2010 WSOP so far, the Ladies Event, and the whole business of covering the WSOP. Nolan is a busy guy these days -- as you can imagine -- and I really enjoyed and appreciated our getting to spend some time talking with him about the game we love.

Meanwhile, it is back to the grind today, as I help collect more Main Event anecdotes for PokerNews. Check out the coverage of Day 2a over there today.

2010 WSOP, Day 41: Rejoining the World (Series)

Ten days ago I was writing about having a day off and finding it almost uncomfortable, the routine of working so much having made it strangely difficult to handle the sudden reward of leisure.

After another long stretch of consecutive work days, I was given that reward again here at the start of the Main Event, not assigned to begin helping with PokerNews’ coverage until today (Day 1d). That meant two straight days off -- something I don’t think I’ve had all summer.

Had no problem figuring out what to do on the first one. I slept. A lot.

Yesterday, though, I realized I needed to get out of the home away from home. Which, of course, is not a home at all, but a room, decorated (incidentally) entirely in blacks and dark grays. Sure, I’m a “noir” kind of guy (as the scheme of this blog indicates), but six straight weeks in the dark simply cannot be good for a person.

So I got up and wrote a little. Then I got out.

Did some walking around outside in the 100-plus degree heat which immediately had a positive effect on my mood. Then I met up with Pokerati Dan at a nearby sushi place for dinner. Some dishes were better than others, but overall it was good eats. The place was nearly empty save us and a group that included Shannon Elizabeth, Nick Binger, and a few other poker players to whom we said hello as we left.

Dan and I mostly talked about the WSOP and the many knotty issues connected with covering it, including that Pokerati op-ed on the subject by the “Anonymous Pro” from earlier in the summer that generated a lot of discussion (and heat). I always like talking with Dan about such things, both because he’s knowledgeable and connected, but also because he’s got some real insight into how this complicated game gets played.

Having given up my rental car a couple of days ago, I caught a ride with Dan to the Rio where I ended up sitting in on the latter part of Day 1c. I had a couple of purposes to going in on a day off like that. One was to get my autographed copy of Lost Vegas from Dr. Pauly, which I’ve already begun and am hooked.

As I told Pauly last night, a lot of us are as excited as he is to see the sucker finally available for public consumption. Lost Vegas is available over at Lulu. Where, by the way, you can also get my hard-boiled detective novel, Same Difference (which has nothing whatsoever to do with poker).

The other reason why I went to the Rio was to interview Nolan Dalla, the WSOP Media Director, for a Betfair piece that’ll appear tomorrow.

I’ve gotten to know Nolan a bit over the last three summers and readily echo the praises of many in the media for the many, many ways he helps us do our jobs. He’s a writer, too, of course. Besides writing hundreds of articles and releases about poker for the WSOP, he also co-authored (with Peter Alson) the excellent biography of Stu Ungar, One of a Kind.

In the interview I asked him a few questions about how the Series has gone thus far and about some other things, including one about the coverage of the WSOP, generally speaking. I think it’ll turn out an interesting read -- I’ll remind you of it tomorrow once it goes up over at Betfair.

All in all, it was a good day, which included some visiting with Otis and Stephen (the PokerStars blog) and Reinaldo (Pokerstarsblog.la). A day mostly spent among writers, punctuated by a lot of interesting and useful discussions -- in many different contexts -- about writing.

As the day wound down, the mood in the Amazon Room seemed to me to be somewhat reserved. There were a few outbursts of excitement here and there, but all in all it looked like a fairly cautious, deep-stacked tourney in which a lot of patient poker was being played. Nor did the media seem overly frantic about things, having perhaps settled into this Day 1 groove now that they’d done it three times over.

I think things will be a little different today, though, as just about everyone I spoke to yesterday anticipates the largest group of any of the Day Ones to be there -- perhaps even as many as 3,000 players, which would mean filling up both the Amazon and a good portion of the Pavilion to start the day. Whatever the turnout, there’s little doubt at this point that the 2010 Main Event will be the second-largest ever (behind the 8,773 of 2006).

Back to the circus, then. I’m already reading the excited tweets by some players who will be there for Day 1d. I’ll admit I’m excited, too. Would be strange not to be.

See you over at the PokerNews’ live reporting page.

2010 WSOP, Day 40: A Few Calculations

Yesterday I spent my day off largely away from the Rio. I was there early on for a little business, right about the time the doors were opened and the crush of players and spectators were first allowed into the Amazon Room. Had thoughts of sticking around but I soon realized that after a week straight of working and sleeping 3-4 hours a night I was much too fatigued to do so. It was a day off, and I needed to be somewhere else.

Ended up spending the afternoon back at the home away from home following some of the coverage online, sort of watching a repeat of the Netherlands-Uruguay match, then falling unconscious for a surprising number of hours, starting around dinner time and lasting through mid-morning today.

I guess my body had done a few calculations, decided I had fallen way short of the needed hours of sleep over the past weeks, and finally took over.

The big story yesterday -- as it seemed to me during my waking hours -- was the fact that 1,489 players came out on Day 1b, a bump up from the 1,125 who played on Monday’s Day 1a. Many wanted to compare yesterday’s number to the 873 who played Day 1b last year, but of course that was the Fourth of July which surely affected the low turnout then.

Indications are that Day 1c will also see a large turnout -- i.e., something in that same 1,500-player range, at least, and perhaps a lot more -- and everyone still expects a massive group on Thursday for Day 1d. People continue to try to guess at a total number of entrants for the Main Event, and I’m hearing a lot predicting a total just above or below 7,000, which sounds like a fair estimate to me.

F-Train has been posting off and on this summer about the turnouts at the WSOP and how they’ve been comparing to last year. His first couple of posts on the subject (here and here) noted how numbers were down, but a later one from about halfway through the Series suggested things were turning around.

A couple of days ago we received a presser from the WSOP noting that the overall number of entrants for the 2010 WSOP had already exceeded last year’s total after 55 events, with 63,706 registrations total. There were 1,942 more who played Event No. 56 ($2,500 No-Limit Hold’em), so that’s 65,648 heading into the Main Event, meaning this year’s ultimate total will surely exceed 70,000 -- a significant increase, for sure.

Of course, it should be noted also that this year there were eight different $1,000 buy-in events (including the Ladies & Seniors), as opposed to just three in 2009. Those eight events alone attracted 24,946 entrants, nearly 38% of the total through the first 56 events. That said, the total prize money awarded in 2010 will probably be more than in 2009. Last year saw a total of $174,013,215 awarded, while this year the figure will probably end up right around the $180 million mark.

What’s it all mean? Well, for both the Main Event and the WSOP as a whole, I think the main story as far as numbers are concerned is that they’ve essentially held steady from last year. One could probably dive in deeper and discover other mini-trends or anomalies worth examining, but big picture-wise, we’re not really seeing a huge gain or loss at this year’s WSOP.

There was another storyline I found sort of intriguing from following the coverage yesterday -- actually more so from following my Twitter feed which includes a few of the players who happened to be playing Day 1b. I’m thinking in particular of Annette Obrestad’s tweets documenting her struggles yesterday.

Here’s a quick sample:

@Annette_15: Not a great start

@Annette_15: Back from break. 10k. Lots of small pots gone wrong

@Annette_15: 100-200. Cant believe im this short already

@Annette_15: 25k. Why do ppl hate flops so much? Makes me rly sad. 3 betting shouldn’t b allowed lol

@Annette_15: This table is fkn crazy and theyre all randoms except for one guy whos by online definition old and hes crushing

@Annette_15: Man theyre rly making it hard for me in my first main event…. Where r all these so called donkeys i keep hearing so much about???

Obrestad’s phone would eventually run out of juice, just before she ran out of chips, in fact, and so it would be some hours later before she’d report “Oh I busted btw.”

A lot of players use Twitter to report their progress in tourneys, and a great many sometimes will use it as a means to “vent” a little or at least remark on the reasons why they might be struggling. I’ve singled out Obrestad’s messages here, but I’ve gotten the sense over the last couple of days -- and really over the course of the entire Series -- that a lot of pros and top-level players who’ve had much success in the past have had experiences very similar to Obrestad’s this time around.

In other words, having expected to encounter fields full of predictable and/or passive players, they’ve been met with more and more difficult opponents (i.e., players who know not to limp, who do not continually give up on small pots, etc.). Tom Schneider was kind of getting at this, too, in some of his comments to me a few days ago, though he additionally observed that the poor economy has probably contributed to this toughening up of the player pool, too.

It’s a bit of a hasty generalization, perhaps, but it does seem like while the numbers are holding steady, the percentage of truly weak players (“dead money”) has declined, perhaps markedly. A lot more “thinkers” around the table -- that is, calculating players capable of moves and of successfully countering others’.

One other trend I was seeing on Twitter over the last couple of days was how some were referring to the play as being “boring” to watch. There could be a lot of reasons for why this was the case, but I wonder if one of the factors causing the play to be less than scintillating to observers was that there were more skilled players competing? The fact is, when one can’t see the players’ hole cards, good, solid poker can be a bit tedious to watch and report on (especially if one doesn’t have back stories or other information about the players to help contextualize what one is seeing).

I’m off again today, but will be back in the thick of it tomorrow for Day 1d. Last year saw 2,809 show up for that last of the Day Ones, with hundreds more reportedly being shut out. I think I saw somewhere that they are ready to accommodate as many as 3,700 players this time around -- one hopes they’ve calculated properly this time!

2010 WSOP, Day 39: From Where I’m Sitting

I spent most of Day 39 of the 2010 World Series of Poker not in the Amazon Room -- where just about all of Day 1a of the Main Event took place -- but in the Pavilion Room, huddled near the final table of Event No. 54, the last of the open-field, $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em events that I was helping cover.

Our set up was a little awkward, but actually worked out well despite a huge, sometimes boisterous rail for both our final table and the Event No. 56 final table which happened right beside ours. That there is a picture taken from our reporting location. The Event No. 56 FT is in the foreground, and ours is behind it. You can see the big crowd there on the right-hand side. It looks a little tight, but my partner Bruno and I were able to get back and forth from the table to our laptops relatively easily, and the day was not difficult at all from a reporting standpoint.

One factor that helped make the day relatively stress-free was that our final table went very quickly. The short stacks were knocked out right away -- in fact, there was one hand in which the eventual winner Marcel Vonk knocked out two at once -- and including a one-hour dinner break, the sucker was decided in less than seven hours.

Vonk is a Dutch player who (as we discovered during the course of the day) has a Ph.D. in physics and has produced a number of important studies in string theory, including a book on the subject. (Here’s his website -- in Dutch -- that includes his extensive curriculum vitae.) He beat out David “dpeters17” Peters of Toledo, Ohio, a successful online player who led for much of the day and had a 9-to-2 advantage during the heads-up portion. But it basically just took three hands -- a couple of double-ups for Vonk and the finisher -- for it all to turn around.

Once all was done I ambled over to the Amazon to see who was around. They had one more hour of play to go, the first half of the two-hour Level 5. (It was decided early yesterday they would play four-and-a-half levels, rather than just four.) They were on break when I got over there, so I didn’t see people like Otis, Mean Gene, and others whom I know have arrived.

I did chat with Dr. Pauly a bit about his long-ass day of travel as well as his coverage to that point of Day 1a. Pauly spent the day live blogging the Main Event, compiling stories and other out-of-the-way items as he has done in the past. Indeed, if you want to read about hands played, get an idea about how chip stacks went up and down, and other play-by-play from Day 1a, you can check PokerNews’ live reporting. But if you want additional color and a broader perspective on what the day was like, go read Tao of Poker, too.

When I talked to Pauly he was a bit hot because apparently someone had complained that he was posting too frequently yesterday and he had been asked not to do so. For those who don’t know, credentialed media are given a set of guidelines to follow, including one rule about “Tournament Access” that says “media organizations can only post Top 10 chip counts once per hour.” That guideline applies to everyone except PokerNews, to whom Harrah’s/WSOP has granted unrestricted access and thus allows to post chip counts continuously. There is some clarification of the “once per hour” rule in the guidelines that says updates cannot be posted until an hour after an event begins, and then subsequent posts can’t come until an hour has passed since the last one.

The rule as written specifically refers to the reporting of chip counts, but has been applied to other kinds of updating, too. I have seen it happen this year that some non-PokerNews sites have been warned about posting too frequently -- not just about chip counts, but any kind of reporting -- and apparently Dr. Pauly received a similar warning yesterday.

Go read Pauly’s Day 1a blog for more about what happened. I ain’t gonna comment too much further on it here, although I’d be interested to hear what others think about the subject of so-called “exclusive” rights with regard to reporting on the WSOP. I will repeat what I say above, though, and say that in my opinion those hungry for information and stories from the WSOP are especially well served by visiting Tao of Poker (as well as a number of other sites) in addition to PokerNews.

After six straight days of reporting, I’m off the next two. I will be at the Rio some today, however, where I’ll be trying again to catch up with some of those other writerly types who have finally arrived.

Let me end with a thank you to Pete from Canada who came by to say hello to me at the end of my day yesterday. Pete shared some kind words about Hard-Boiled Poker which I really appreciated, and his visit was a nice way to end the day of work. Thanks, Pete!

And thanks everyone else, too, for spending time here now and then. I know that as far as the WSOP is concerned, you can certainly go elsewhere for the big picture, whereas here you’re mostly just gonna get the relatively narrow view of yr humble gumshoe. So thanks for occasionally finding some value in hearing about what one guy on the ground happens to see from where he is sitting.

2010 WSOP, Day 38: The Last of the Preliminaries

Yesterday I helped cover Day 3 of Event No. 54, the last of the open-field, $1,000 buy-in, no-limit hold’em events, and one of the last of the preliminary bracelet events. They played from 47 players down to the final nine, a process which took only eight hours or so there in a relatively quiet section of the Amazon Room.

When we arrived yesterday, there were only a couple of players some folks might have known before who were left in the field. Jesse Rockowitz, who just last week won Event No. 45 ($1,500 No-Limit Hold’em), was still with chips, but he busted in 33rd.

And Alex Jacob was still in. Of the field, Jacob was the only guy who’d had any serious screen time before, having won the U.S. Poker Championship in 2006 which was televised and come third in a 2007 WSOP preliminary event which was also aired on the tube, I believe. He additionally had a runner-up in a 2006 WPT event, too, and his wild hair makes him somewhat memorable.

But Jacob busted in 27th, meaning there weren’t really any familiar faces among the field from that point forward.

They became familiar to us, though, as the day wore on, and it will be interesting today to see how the final nine fare. The final table is actually scheduled to be played over in the Pavilion Room -- perhaps the only time all summer that a tournament will be completed somewhere other than in the Amazon Room. (The final table of Event No. 56, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event, will also be in the Pavilion today.) I hope the table is situated in a place where I’ll have reasonable access to report on it. I’ve been told I might actually be alone on this one, if it is decided to pull Bruno, my blogging partner, off of the event to go help with the Main Event coverage.

More than that, though, I hope the table is located in a spot where players’ family and friends can root them on. This is a big deal to them, and I’d like to see them accommodated somewhat, if possible.

There was a moment yesterday when I was watching the last two tables and I noticed the two dozen or so people leaning over the ropes to see the action. They were positively enthralled, and in my mind I ran through possible reasons for their excitement.

I wondered if maybe that guy with the kind of spellbound look was the brother of one of the players, watching as the kid with whom he grew up and loved was edging towards a possible $500,000-plus payday in a friggin’ poker tournament. The players all seemed pretty cool and collected, but for those on the rail every hand appeared to trigger all sorts of emotions.

I got our photographer to snap a photo of the rail and included a brief post in the blog making reference to them. Nothing too profound, but I wanted to make that part of the story if I could. I know few people are caring much about this Event No. 54, but I want to do what I can to make the coverage of it something worthwhile.

As I say, today I’ll be back on the final table for this one while the poker world’s attention will be focused over on Event No. 57, the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship, a.k.a. the Main Event, Day 1a of which gets started in just about half an hour.

I guess I do feel a bit like I’d rather be right there in the thick of things as the ME kicks off. But one can only play the hand one is dealt. And I’ll join the ME coverage eventually, being there for much of the latter part of it.

Incidentally, I have no real inside dope regarding ME numbers as yet, so no idea as yet how many players will be at the Rio for this first starting day of the ME. I have heard more than 1,000 were registered by the morning hours. Last year the number for Day 1a was 1,116 and I guess I’d be somewhat surprised if there were considerably more than that there today.

One schedule change this year has players who survive Day 1a and Day 1c coming back for Day 2a (on Friday, July 9th), and those who make it through Day 1b and Day 1d coming back for Day 2b (on Saturday, July 10th). That’s different from the past when those playing the first two starting days and surviving would play the first of the two Day Twos, and those lasting through Days 1c and 1d would play Day 2b.

What that means is everyone picking a starting day now has a couple of choices to consider. One is your preferred day, but the other is how many days off you’d like to have between your first two days of play (two, three, or four days).

All eyes, of course, will be on that Day 1d and whether or not the WSOP has successfully managed things so as to avoid last year’s fiasco when hundreds came to play and were shut out of the Main Event. (I will be blogging on that day, which should be an especially interesting one to cover.)

I hope everyone had a fun Fourth of July. And that perhaps you’re enjoying a day off today to relax, read blogs, and check the WSOP coverage over at PokerNews.

2010 WSOP, Day 37: Feeling Gravity’s Pull

Early this summer I dialed up R.E.M.’s 1985 LP Fables of the Reconstruction on the music player and have found myself putting it on pretty much every day since.

Fables was one of those records I listened to quite a bit way back when, and have continued to go back to it off and on over the years. I remember at the time it came out the Athens-based band actually spoke badly of the record, complaining about having gone to London to record it with Joe Boyd (producer of the late Nick Drake) and saying it didn’t compare well to their two previous ones (Murmur and Reckoning).

But I always liked it, and felt like the subsequent LPs were a bit of a drop off for R.E.M. I paid attention for a few more records (through Green), but once they became megapop stars I kind of lost the thread. (Now I see a 25th-anniversary edition of Fables is coming out in a week or so, and guitarist Peter Buck now calls the LP a “personal favorite.”)

Anyhow, listening to a record again and again like this means the songs tend to settle in your consciousness even when not listening. And so it wasn’t surprising that last night when I got to the end of an especially exhausting 14 hours or so of helping cover Day 2 of the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event (Event No. 54), certain phrases from the mostly abstract, even surreal lyrics from the album’s songs began to occur to me…

“I felt gravity pull onto my eyes…”

“Driver 8, take a break, we’ve been on this shift too long…”

“When the world is a monster, bad to swallow you whole…”

“Home is a long way away…”

Of all five different events going on at the Rio yesterday, my Event No. 54 was way down at the bottom of list as far as interest and/or priorities went.

The Ante Up for Africa charity event took up most of folks’ attention, with a crush of stargazers filling the halls in search of a glimpse of Matt Damon, et al. A lot of eyes were on the final table of Event No. 52 as well -- the $25,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event -- eventually won by Dan “djk123” Kelly.

Event No. 55, the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship was supposed to finish yesterday, but when it took them until after 11 p.m. to reach the final nine, they decided to come back and complete that one today. Same problem is happening with Event No. 56, the $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em event which was supposed to be finished today, but they still had 75 players left when they quit at 3 a.m., so they’ll need to continue through to Monday to finish that one now.

Then there was the WSOP Tournament of Champions, of which not one hand was played yesterday, but which had everyone running back and forth constantly as it seemed at any moment they may try to get that one going again. (They didn’t.)

Anyhow, with all that going on around us, our humble little $1K tourney chugged along in relative isolation through the afternoon and evening. Ours was actually the first one to start yesterday, but thanks to various factors -- on-the-fly scheduling changes with the other events, extra delays because of some computer snafus with the payouts, etc. -- our tournament somehow was the last one to finish.

So I didn’t leave the Amazon Room until 3:45 a.m. or so, at which time the entire, spacious ballroom was almost completely empty save a couple of security guards and a couple of members of the media still stuck behind laptops.

And like most everybody right now -- players, media, staff -- I was feeling gravity’s pull. Tired. A little lonely. And maybe a little unsure about the point of all these “fables” we are pulling together -- these hastily-compiled “reconstructions” of what is happening at the World Series of Poker.

But I’ll save fretting about that later, when I’ve some perspective.

’Cos “time and distance are out of place here…”

2010 WSOP, Day 36: On the Schneid

“People are playing for their lives.”

Poker pro Tom Schneider said this to me over Sports Deli burgers at the Rio a couple of nights back. I first met Tom three years ago, just before he went on to win two WSOP bracelets and earn the WSOP Player of the Year title in 2007. He’s one of a growing number of players whom I’ve gotten to know over the last few years. Tom’s a funny, thoughtful guy whose book Oops! I Won Too Much Money is a good introduction both to his sense of humor and his insight.

Most would say Schneider has had a successful WSOP in 2010, having cashed four times in preliminary events. But Schneider knows that hasn’t been enough. For most pros like him who play lots of events, it really takes more than just earning a few relatively small cashes to offset buy-ins and expenses. “Have a bad WSOP and you really have a bad year,” he explained to me, highlighting the importance of these many tournaments piled on top of one another over the last five weeks.

Schneider could be forgiven for having been a little down about poker during our dinner. Just a couple of hours before, he’d been eliminated from the event I was covering, the last of the $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tourneys (Event No. 54). I’d actually had just happened to see his bustout hand from beginning to end, and had thus been able to report it over at PokerNews.

They had reached Level 5, the last level before the antes kick in, and Schneider was sitting on a little less than the starting stack. He had opened with a raise from middle position, and the player on the button reraised. I stood off to the side -- in fact Tom told me he didn’t even realize I’d been there -- and watched as it folded back to him. He paused a beat and said he was all in, exhaling the announcement in a way that made it seem like he wasn’t too happy to be getting his chips in here, but that he didn’t see he had any alternative available to him.

His opponent snap-called, and Schneider flipped over two black aces, getting a small reaction from the rest of the table. His opponent had two red jacks. But then the dealer delivered four hearts among the community cards, giving Schneider’s opponent a flush and sending him out of the event.

“That’s kind of how the whole Series has been for me,” said Schneider of the hand afterwards. He has a favorite saying he sometimes uses which seemed to apply here quite readily: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Poker is hard enough, but the chance element further challenges those who play the game well yet find themselves not being rewarded for doing so. Which happens. A lot. And in fact, there are more and more players playing well these days, much more than even just three years ago when Schneider won his bracelets and the WSOP POY.

But that general increase in the number of skilled players isn’t what Schneider was referring to when he said players were “playing for their lives.” He was referring to the poorer economy and the fact that many players are essentially now playing with their “case money” with no margin for error. Gone (for the most part) are the rich whales playing for fun and without much care about losing their buy-ins. The relative “stakes” are higher for everyone, it seems, whether the buy-in is $1,000 or $10,000.

I was back on Event No. 54 last night for Day 1b where I had an interesting interaction with one of the players which kind of reminded me of what Tom had said. We were getting close to the end of play, and he wanted to know both where he stood chip-wise versus the field as well as what the payouts were.

I showed him what those making the final table stood to make (from $570,960 for first down to $45,286 for ninth). Then I showed him what the minimum cash was ($1,868). Then he wanted to me to scroll back up to the range where he said he “needed” to finish. We got back up to the top 54 and that was where he said he had to get.

I looked at him and he confessed why it was he needed to come away from this $1,000 buy-in event with at least a $9,000 score. “I have to offset what I lost at craps,” he said with a mischievous grin.

Schneider doesn’t have that craps problem to add stress to his efforts at the WSOP. But he is struggling to break even here, as are so many other players. Indeed, for many the idea of breaking even has long been essentially abandoned, with only a deep Main Event run making that even possible.

Schneider did just that last summer, finishing 52nd in the ME and thereby making up for an otherwise not-so-hot WSOP (he’d just one small cash prior to the Main Event last year). I’ll be pulling for him and a lot of other folks next week when The Big One finally gets underway. Though I know it’ll be tough for all, given that everyone is fighting so hard. And the way good deeds (or plays) tend to get punished now and then.

Meanwhile, I’ll be back on Day 2 of Event No. 54 today, when the cash bubble will burst and the fight for bigger rewards will continue. Follow that one as well as the other final preliminary bracelet events (plus the Ante Up for Africa charity tourney) over at PokerNews’ live reporting.

2010 WSOP, Day 35: In Person

Yesterday I helped cover Day 1a of the last of the $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em events (Event No. 54), an event I’ll be sticking with all of the way through the final table. Was kind of a fun day for me. As has happened with the other $1K buy-in events, I ended up having a lot of interactions with players -- more so than occurs with other events -- including meeting some new ones and also getting to meet a few folks whom I’d known previously but had never met in person.

A total of 2,340 registered to play in the event yesterday, and 331 were left when play was suspended halfway through Level 9. They do that now, after learning their lesson with the first of these “Grand Games” back in late May.

I had helped cover the first $1,000 NLHE event (Event No. 3) and so had been there at the end of Day 1b when that potential crisis arose (mentioned briefly here). In that one they had played 10 full levels on Day 1a, with 276 players surviving. They then began Day 1b, and after registration closed the payouts were determined and the top 441 players would cash.

They were moving into Level 10 on Day 1b of Event No. 3 when it started to look like enough players might be eliminated that they could possibly reach the money bubble before the end of Day 1b, which obviously wouldn’t be fair to those who played Day 1a. Fortunately that didn’t happen, but they set up a plan then to stop play short on Day 1a of these events if the field shrunk to a certain percentage. Which is why we had a shorter day yesterday, and will again today, since they’ll again stop things at the same point in Level 9 for the Day 1b group.

Anyhow, like I say I got a chance to meet a few players during the day. Some of my friends played in the event, including Marc Convey and Tim “Timtern” Fiorvanti, and it was fun seeing them at the tables.

I also met some new folks, too, including one player named Joe Singer who was involved in a weird hand in which a mistake caused him to get all of his chips in with against two other players. Luckily for him, it worked out and he survived.

In the hand, Singer had failed to hear a player announce an all in before him and he had called thinking he was only calling a prior (smaller) raise when in fact he was committing nearly his entire stack. Then another player behind him shoved over the top and he was forced to put the rest in, too. But he very fortunately ended up making a straight and instead of getting knocked out essentially tripled up. He was a good sport about the whole thing, and glad to have the story of the hand included in the blog.

I was able to meet the player Jena Delk yesterday, someone with whom I have a lot of mutual friends. She arrived at the start of the day with boxes of donuts for AlCantHang, and was asking me where he was and what he looked like. I didn’t realize it was Jena until after, and so when I tweeted about her coming by I got a lot of responses clueing me in. I was glad to see her make it through Day 2.

I finally met Kara Scott in person yesterday as well, as she, too, played the event (and also made it through to Day 2). I interviewed Kara a couple of months ago for Betfair (via phone). Ended up reporting on one somewhat intriguing hand of hers during the day.

At night’s end Lynn Gilmartin of PokerNews came around to interview Kara. Lynn asked me if she’d been involved in anything interesting during the day, and I told her about the hand, which Lynn said she’d then ask Kara about. Am intrigued to know what Scott might have had on the hand (she won it without showing), and so am keeping an eye out for that video on PokerNews to see if Kara told Lynn what she had.

At the very end of the night I also got to say hello to Mike Johnson, co-host of the Two Plus Two PokerCast, and tell him how much I’ve enjoyed both that show and the old Rounders show that preceded it. Mike also played the event and survived to Day 2, and when play ended he was running over to the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout (Event No. 53) to sweat both Dan Idema -- his co-host Adam Schwartz’s brother who has made two WSOP final tables this summer -- and Terrence Chan. Of those two, Chan did make it to today’s Event No. 53 final table.

Yesterday was also highlighted by an enjoyable dinner with Tom Schneider over at the Sports Deli. Tom busted from the event late in the afternoon, getting his aces cracked by pocket jacks in a hand I happened to see (and report on). Tom and I discussed a wide range of poker-related topics, including the current state of the “poker economy,” various personalities and characters in poker, what the future holds for poker in general and the WSOP in particular, and more.

I might share a bit of what Tom and I talked about in tomorrow’s post. Meanwhile, I’ll be curious to see who comes out today for Day 1b. If yr curious, too, check out the live reporting on PokerNews today and see what’s happening.

2010 WSOP, Day 34: Hard to Deny, Must Be July

July? Really? Well, hello there.

For the duration of the WSOP, most of us here working tend to lose track of much going on outside of the Rio. You know, the headlines of the day, what is going on in politics, sports, entertainment, and so forth.

There was an ongoing conversation yesterday among some of the media who were half-jokingly asking each other what the hell this “Eclipse” thing was people seemed to be talking about. Some thought maybe they should head out to the parking lot, as there might be something to see. Everyone was too busy, though, to take the time to head out there to find out.

Even the day of the week becomes hard to call up sometimes, never mind the date. We operate without the weekday-weekend distinction, instead organizing our lives in terms of “Day Ones,” “Day Twos,” “Day Threes,” and the like. We think in terms of three- or four- or five-day periods (associated with particular events), with those periods constantly overlapping as we march through the calendar.

“Is it really Sunday?” is not an uncommon question to hear. “I have no idea” is a standard reply. A couple of weeks ago some of us were genuinely debating the topic of whether or not it was, in fact, as had been rumored, Sunday.

Some were quite insistent about it. But I refused to believe it, needing more tangible proof than was being provided.

But now it is July and, well, that’s hard to deny. A month has passed, and clearly there is now less of the WSOP to go than has already been played out. For those who live elsewhere -- that is, for most of us -- July is when we leave the WSOP and Las Vegas. We forgot about that or at least weren’t terribly conscious of it for much of the last few weeks, but today we’re reminded.

I helped cover the final table of Event No. 47 ($1,000 No-Limit Hold’em) last night, and in fact we ended a little before midnight, just as June was coming to a close. Was an exciting, up-and-down final table in which the two chip leaders to start the day went out eighth and ninth, and the eventual winner had a large, loud crowd of supporters there to share in his victory -- something that is always nice to see (in my opinion).

Event No. 52 -- the $25,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event -- got started yesterday, and most eyes will remain on that one for the next couple of days given the fact that most of the “name” pros are playing in that event, and a good number of them survived the first day of play with above-average stacks.

I’ll move over to Event No. 54 today, the last of those $1,000 buy-in NLHE events, which I’ll be sticking with right through to its final table, currently scheduled for next Monday (i.e., the first day of the Main Event). It could happen, I think, that they try to play this one out on Sunday, although most are anticipating an especially large field for this last of the “Grand Games,” meaning it may well require that extra day of play.

We’ll see what happens there. Meanwhile... hello, July. Glad you made it. I’ve heard nothing but good things and am really looking forward to our working together. And maybe at some point later on we can take some time off and relax.