Matros Exceeds Expectations

Was listening yesterday to this week’s Two Plus Two Pokercast with Mike Johnson and Adam Schwartz, on which poker pro and author Matt Matros was one of the guests.

Matros recently won his third WSOP bracelet in three years in Event No. 16, the $1,500 short-handed no-limit hold’em event. He won his first in 2010 in a $1,500 NLHE event, then his second last year in the $2,500 mixed hold’em event.

I remember meeting Matros last summer and chatting with him briefly. He’s been one of those pros I’d felt like I knew even before meeting him, thanks both to his Card Player columns and his 2005 book The Making of a Poker Player.

It was right around the start of the Main Event -- just a couple of days after he’d won his second bracelet, I believe -- when we met. I jokingly said something to him about his WSOP “going okay” so far and I remember sharing a laugh over the understatement.

I also recall telling him I appreciated the column he had written just after Black Friday for The Washington Post, “After the Dept. of Justice shuts down online poker, a poker pro defends his game.” I wrote a little about that piece at the time in a post titled “Moving Forward (Not Starting Over).”

There Matros thoughtfully discussed the huge change in his life the sudden shutdown of the online game was going to mean for him. He also took the opportunity in the column to provide a argument in favor of poker as a pursuit that “teaches life skills.”

“The best players use logic, discipline, psychology, mathematics and personality to turn themselves into professionals,” Matros explained. He concluded the piece talking about a desire to work on a novel, something he thought may perhaps have more time to work on with online poker no longer available.

“I don’t know that what I’m writing is any good,” writes Matros. “But thanks to poker, I’m doing what I want to be doing. Isn’t that the American dream?”

It’s a persuasive column, perhaps made more so by that note of humility Matros includes with regard to himself and his own abilities as a writer and a poker player -- a couple of areas where he’s clearly gifted.

Matros was also humble after winning that third bracelet last week. On the podcast, Johnson brought up how Matros is now 50% as far as final tables go at the WSOP, having made six of them and won bracelets three times. Johnson also noted how Matros had been quoted saying he actually felt guilty about winning a third one in three years. “You didn’t feel guilty, come on,” chided Johnson with a chuckle.

“You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want,” responded Matros, who said he really did feel “a little bit guilty.” He then explained.

“I mean, you’re running so many sigmas [standard deviations] outside of what you would expect in terms of your normal course of results,” he said. “I think a really good player would win, I don’t know, a half or 0.6 or 0.7 bracelets if they are playing the kind of schedule that I play. And I’ve been lucky enough to win three in three years.”

What he’s saying makes perfect sense. One only has to look at the conspicuous example of Phil Ivey, who this summer has made three final tables already without yet grabbing for himself another bracelet.

“I don’t feel like what I have done is deserving of the financial rewards that have come with it,” said Matros. “So in that sense I do feel guilty.” He then went on to joke about unscrupulous, incompetent Wall Street hedge fund managers making millions and how thinking of them makes him feel less guilty about the rewards he’s earned.

You might say Matros’ attitude and understanding of his own abilities and the reality of tournament poker demonstrates a lot about his own “logic, discipline, psychology, mathematics and personality” -- those areas he identified as significant to the game itself.

And you gotta like his modesty, too. You might say such an attitude (and perspective) probably places him a few sigmas outside what you expect to find in poker.

Spot the Differences (Comparing 2011 & 2012 WSOPs)

Through yesterday (Day 17), a total of 26 events have gone off at the 2012 World Series of Poker, not quite half of the 61 that will ultimately be contested at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino this summer. Was following some of the chatter about turnouts and how they compared to last year, and so thought I’d look into it.

Every year when the WSOP issues structure sheets for events, the “reigning champion” is listed at the bottom of the sheet along with the number of entrants in the same event from the previous year. Kind of thing makes it easy to compare turnouts from one year to the next. If there wasn’t a corresponding event from the year before, the WSOP doesn’t list a past winner and instead describes the event as “new.”

Of the 26 events so far, six are described by the WSOP as “new,” although in truth one of them -- Event No. 2, the first $1,500 no-limit hold’em event -- most certainly has a parallel from last summer as there were no less than seven $1,500 NLHE events on the 2011 schedule. Meanwhile, Event No. 10, the $5,000 seven-card stud event won by John Monnette (that drew 145), is being likened on the structure sheet to the $10K version of the event from a year ago (that drew 126).

To compare apples to apples (sorta kinda), then, let’s toss the $5K stud event, add in that first $1,500 NLHE one, and see how turnouts for these other 20 events of the 2012 WSOP compare to those with corresponding games/buy-ins from the past. I did something like this last summer and so with some of these can reach back a bit further to 2008.



(As always, any errors are all mine here.)

For Event Nos. 19 ($1,000 no-limit hold’em) and 21 ($1,500 no-limit hold’em), I used the same 2011 events that the WSOP is referring to on its schedule sheets. However, in the first case the comparison is actually being made to the second $1K event from last year (the first having drawn 4,178), while in the second one the comparison is being made to the first $1,500 NLHE of 2011. (As mentioned, the WSOP is calling Event No. 2 a “new” event, but I’m not.)

You can see at a glance how numbers for most events are down thus far -- in some cases considerably so -- while in a few events the turnouts have gone up a little. Kind of interesting as well to see how certain events like the $1,500 limit hold’em shootout have declined over the last few years, with less than half as many participants this year as was the case in 2008.

Hard to say, but it looks possible that the WSOP’s run of always besting the previous year’s total number of entrants for all events might come to an end in 2012. Last year’s record for total prize money awarded ($192,008,868) appears as though it might not be broken, either, although there’s still a ways to go. (Also, there are extra events this year -- 61 rather than 58.)

Many have noted how we might be witnessing a kind of delayed response to Black Friday with turnouts dipping at the WSOP this year, and that certainly seems at least a partial explanation. What do you think the numbers are telling us thus far?

(By the way, if you hadn’t already guessed, I’m playing a game up above with that picture I snapped at last year’s WSOP. Can you spot the five differences?)

A Momentary Loss of Focus

Had a nice, relaxing day yesterday, made even nicer by all of the friendly birthday tweets I received. (Thanks again, all.) Yeah, it was my birthday, which I didn’t mention here but did note on Twitter when I decided to host a “Birthday Bash” home game over on PokerStars.

By the way, if you have a PokerStars account and want to join my “Hard-Boiled Poker” home game in which the games are for play money (and pride), the Club ID is 530631 and the invitation code is noshinola. I’ll probably crank up another couple of tourneys this week, which I’ll announce over Twitter (@hardboiledpoker).

Am thinking it might be fun to set up some sort of weekly tourney or league at some point, probably after I return from the WSOP in mid-July. Anyone with suggestions and/or preferences for times, tourney types, structures, etc., feel free to send them along.

Mostly rode out the big day at home, although I did go out at one point for some errands, including a needed visit to the eye doctor.

I’ve worn eyeglasses for most of my adult life, and not long ago got a new prescription and had the lenses replaced in the frame I’ve had for a few years. Unfortunately that old frame finally gave out and broke -- on my Uruguay trip, actually -- and so I had to go in to see about that.

Anyway, I relate this mundane bit of trivia to you mainly because of a funny moment that came up along the way. Before heading over to the eye doctor, I fished around to see if perhaps I had any old glasses lying around. I found a pair, put them on, and was kind of floored by the fact that the world appeared an indecipherable, blurry mess when I looked through them.

Wow, I thought. I didn’t realize my new prescription was that different.

It was my birthday, mind you. And perhaps as a result, ideas of getting older and bodies failing and all the other existential applesauce that sometimes accompany such momentous occasions surfaced even more quickly than usual.

I indulged for a few minutes in a probably predictable bit of brooding, then found more immediate distractions to keep such thoughts at bay. You know, like usual. What our lives mostly consist of, right? Staying in motion. Keeping busy. Looking at what’s just ahead.

Eventually Vera got home and at some point we got around to discussing my quest for a new pair of spectacles. Something in my story sounded a little off to her, and quickly she set it right after pointing out where I’d gone wrong.

That old pair of glasses I’d tried on weren’t mine. They were hers. No wonder I couldn’t see a thing through them.

In my defense, Vera’s glasses do look very similar to mine, with the same small oval lenses. Even to people who can see clearly. Her prescription is much, much different, though. And really, if I’d thought about it for more than a few seconds, I’d have realized there was no way those lenses were at any point in time ever correct for me.

In fact, after a bit more searching I did find an older pair of mine from a few years back, and after putting them on realized my vision hasn’t weakened all that much over the last few years.

Thought it was funny, though, how quickly and easily self-doubt can come. Happens in poker all the time, even in a single hand. We make a decision on an early street about an opponent’s possible holdings, then something happens later to make us doubt that earlier read.

“Man, did I see things badly before,” we think. Then come to find out we were seeing just fine earlier, it was later we started misread the situation. Not to mention misread our own judgment -- our ability to see -- as well.

Everyone Following the Phils

Had a relaxing weekend visiting family and taking advantage of what is for me a last bit of quiet time before I head out to Las Vegas next week. I’ll then be out there for the rest of the WSOP, helping cover a few preliminary events and the Main Event for PokerNews.

Was following a couple of tournaments yesterday, even “multi-tabling” the WSOP.com live streams on both by laptop and desktop in order to see the final tables of Event No. 17 ($10,000 pot-limit hold’em) and Event No. 18 ($2,500 razz).

Both were of particular interest, of course, thanks to the presence of the two Phils -- Ivey and Hellmuth. Ivey had made his second final table of this year’s WSOP, ultimately finishing second to Andy Frankenberger in the $10K PLH. And as you no doubt have read somewhere else by now, Hellmuth managed to win the razz event, outlasting a final table that included Barry Greenstein, Scott Fischman, and Brandon Cantu to earn his record-extending 12th WSOP bracelet.

Interestingly, Ivey -- who has eight bracelets -- was going for his first hold’em bracelet last night. Ivey’s others have been won in pot-limit Omaha (twice), seven-card stud hi-low, seven-card stud, Omaha/stud hi-low, 2-7 NL draw, S.H.O.E., and H.O.R.S.E. Meanwhile, Hellmuth was winning his first non-hold’em bracelet after having won 11 in either limit hold’em (three times), pot-limit hold’em (once), or no-limit hold’em (seven times).

Here’s Lynn Gilmartin interviewing Hellmuth after his win for PokerNews:



The Poker Brat sounds almost humble at times, mentioning his own good play -- and in particular, his patience -- although also noting how some good fortune played a role in his victory, too. He frequently compliments his opponents as well, especially Don Zewin who gave him a tough battle heads-up. Zewin is a long-time player who has tangled with Hellmuth often in the past, including finishing third at the 1989 WSOP Main Event that Hellmuth won. Kind of an amazing reprise for those two, if you think about it.

Lynn also asked Hellmuth to comment on Ivey’s simultaneous second-place finish, and Hellmuth noted how the way the night played out caused a “big swing in the bracelet race,” with Hellmuth now four ahead of Ivey. Of course, if Ivey had won and Hellmuth come up short, the gap would be two. Referring to Ivey, Hellmuth says to Gilmartin that “I know he wants to race me to 25.”

In between Hellmuth (12) and Ivey (8) on the WSOP bracelet leaderboard are Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan with 10 bracelets each, and Johnny Moss with nine. Like Ivey, Erik Seidel has eight. Hellmuth has already cashed four times this summer, Ivey three times. Have to imagine both will be adding still more deep runs to their respective WSOP résumés before this year is through.

Fun stuff for poker fans. And with Hellmuth and Ivey doing well, people like Frankenberger and Matt Matros winning bracelets again, and other consistent winners like Andy Bloch, John Monnette, and Brian Hastings all doing well and winning, the results appear to be confirming over and again the importance of skill in tournament poker.

Will be enjoying this last quiet week, for sure, before heading west. Still, such performances and the accompanying stories are definitely making me look forward to going out, too.

Good Job, Good Effort (No, Really)

If you’ve been following the NBA playoffs at all, you probably heard something about the “good job, good effort” kid. That’s the young Miami Heat fan who at the end of Game 5 between Miami and Boston was heard yelling “Good job! Good effort!” to his beloved Miami team as they left the court following a disappointing loss.

Miami came back to win Game 6 last night and even the Eastern Conference Finals series 3-3, largely thanks to an outstanding performance by LeBron James who scored 45 points, gathered 15 rebounds, and dished 5 assists to lead the team to a decisive 19-point victory. Way more than a good job and effort, there.

The young Miami fan heard calling out to his heroes at the end of Game 5 was nine-year-old Jack Meyer of Coral Gables, Florida. Within moments after airing, a video clip of his supportive words got quickly passed around the web, with a lot of the initial reaction taking Jack’s words as being sarcastic, given how the loss appeared to result from what some felt wasn’t a “good effort” at all.

In other words, many took what Jack was saying as a hilarious bit of trolling, not a genuine verbal pat-on-the-back to the players for having tried their best but come up short. But Jack was dead serious with his shouts of encouragement, as he explained to NBC Miami when they interviewed him afterwards.

In the interview, Jack notes how one player -- Terrell Harris -- heard him and gave him a thumbs up as he passed. Jack also explains how he appreciated the way “LeBron James was fighting so hard” in the game as well as other players’ efforts, and how he believes “you can’t give up” and “you know there’s always got to be a second chance for you.”

I laughed like everyone else when I first heard the kid calling out “good job, good effort” to the Heat players, primarily because his words seemed to represent the exact opposite of what the Heat probably wanted to hear at the time. I also saw that @goodjobkid account quickly pop up on Twitter, an admittedly funny extension of the whole gag with more talk of “hustle points” and “trying super hard” and so on.

Of course, I knew right away it was probably most likely the case that the kid was being earnest. Then yesterday I was glad to read the article confirming that he indeed meant what he said. Entirely.

I’m going to guess Jack was echoing the same kind of encouragement he himself has gotten from parents, coaches, or teachers thus far in his young life. The video of his interview -- from which comes that pic above -- shows him shooting hoops with his Pop.

The message reminds me a lot of how my parents always talked to me about such matters -- like grades, or doing well in sports, or anything, really -- and how the most important thing was to try my best.

We hear this same sort of idea being expressed in poker all the time, how we shouldn’t be “results oriented” and get too caught up in how the cards fall. Rather should we focus on making the best decisions, taking favorable risks with our chips, and being content with doing our best to win and avoiding getting discouraged when we don’t.

But we’re not kids anymore. It’s hard for us to accept losing, or anything that might be viewed by others as failure. We know how the world works. We are conscious of being judged by others, and how even if we know we did a good job and gave our best effort, others aren’t always going to appreciate that.

Still, as Jack wisely points out, you can’t give up. And as he implies, doing your best is really all that matters.

Looking for a Game

Have to say I’ve all but given up on online poker at the moment. Still have those small rolls on a couple of Merge sites (Hero and Carbon), but a recent “upgrade” of the Merge network has introduced so many issues that playing anything has become quite a struggle.

Two days ago I thought I’d try a sit-n-go on Hero, but couldn’t get past the initial tourney lobbies to get a seat. Then yesterday I did manage to register for one, but when the SNG began the table never opened. When I tried to open the table manually, I encountered the above image.

None more black, as Nigel Tufnel would say.

I tweeted that picture yesterday, in response to which Kevmath quipped: “That picture's still loading, what's supposed to happen? #CWIDT.” I told him it was reminding me of the old Full Tilt Poker promise “You're just a few seconds away from playing the most exciting poker games anywhere online” we used to stare at when the client wouldn’t load.

Was kind of funny, actually, as the tourney lobby continued to reflect the SNG going on as usual, with the levels going up and the stack sizes changing, ostensibly because blinds were being won. At one point I was weirdly leading the SNG, then just as strangely two-thirds of my stack disappeared and I was last. I can’t figure how that could happen without someone actually playing my stack, but who knows?

In any case, after about 40 minutes or so the SNG was finally shut down and the entry fees refunded. Meanwhile, I did manage to get a cash table to load, and everyone there was complaining in the chat box about various problems they were encountering with the site, including difficulties related to cashing out.

Speaking of, players on Lock Poker -- which recently broke away from Merge to join up with Cake Poker to form their own network, called Revolution Gaming -- apparently have encountered some examples of credit card fraud related to the cards they’ve used on that site. Players on Carbon Poker (still with Merge) have encountered similar issues, as PokerFuse reported yesterday.

I mentioned before how after running into initial difficulty when attempting to deposit on sites following Black Friday, I essentially gave up trying. Eventually I won some cabbage in freerolls on both Hero and Carbon, and that’s the money with which I’ve played on those sites. I have never tried to withdraw from either (not that there’s much there to take out).

My friend Bob, the Poker Grump, had similar difficulties with Merge yesterday. Bob has been more adventurous than I with online poker of late. Just the other day he wrote an informative post updating his current experiences with various sites, including Bovada, Black Chip Poker (a Merge site), Luvin Poker (an Everleaf site), the Winning Poker Network (formerly known as Doyle’s Room), and Cake Poker. The post provides good overview of the post-apocalyptic-wasteland-like-scene we currently have here in the U.S. as far as online poker is concerned.

Meanwhile, play money games on PokerStars work beautifully. I always liked Stars’ software much better than FTP’s, actually, and don’t really get it when people keep repeating the line that FTP had the best software at the time of its demise.

I started a Hard-Boiled Poker “Home Game” several months months ago, and at the end of the Punta del Este trip I finally invited some of my buddies to join and we played a few SNGs. Gave me the idea to crank up the sucker for real, perhaps eventually hosting some sort of weekly tourney for readers of the blog.

If anyone with a PokerStars account wants to join my Home Game, the Club ID is 530631 and the invitation code is noshinola. (Here’s an overview of what PS Home Games are and how they work, in case you aren’t up on them.) I’ll probably wait a bit to see if the club fills up with folks, and if it does I’ll start scheduling some tourneys for us. Will announce tourneys via Twitter (@hardboiledpoker) and perhaps write about them here, too.

Might be fun. Something to do, anyway, while this other game is still loading.

Ante Up Magazine Announces 2012 Ante Awards

The guys at Ante Up magazine are marking their seventh anniversary of covering poker soon. June 15 will mark the occasion. Once again I’m shaking my head to discover another reminder I’ve been doing this here poker thing for a long time.

Long time readers here remember I used to write about the Ante Up podcast fairly frequently back in the day. Along with Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio and Rounders, the Poker Show (later to become the Two Plus Two Pokercast), Ante Up was one of the few poker podcasts around during those early days. And it would often happen that listening to those old shows would inspire various musings here.

Like the Lord Admirals, Scott Long and Chris Cosenza catered their show to the amateur/recreational player. I loved tuning in every week and eventually becoming part of the community of listeners chatting to each other about the show and other poker-related matters on the podcast’s message board, as well as playing online in the Ante Up Intercontinental Poker Series (AIPS).

For the first three years the podcast was run in association with the St. Petersburg Times, then in the summer of 2008 the pair broke out on their own to continue the podcast while also starting a monthly poker magazine. I believe at the outset they kind of narrowed their focus to Florida poker, primarily. However, after nearly four years they’ve expanded their coverage and reach nationally, with the magazine now turning up in card rooms all over the U.S.

I got to meet Scott and Chris at the WSOP a few times over the years, and continue to stay in touch. Not long ago Chris and I exchanged some messages about poker on the television show M*A*S*H after I’d written a “Pop Poker” piece on the topic for Poker Listings. As it happens, Chris had been mentioning M*A*S*H on the show, but as I’d fallen behind on the podcast I’d missed those references.

In association with the upcoming anniversary, Ante Up is conducting a poll -- what they are calling the “2012 Ante Awards” -- in which among the several questions being asked is “What is your favorite poker blog?” The guys have included Hard-Boiled Poker among the possible answers to the question, along with Shaniac’s great blog, the one Daniel Negreanu regularly keeps over at Full Contact Poker, Phil Galfond’s smart blog (which I was writing about just a couple of weeks ago), and the always-worth-reading one kept by our friend Bob, the Poker Grump.

Some pretty decent company, blog-wise. Click here to get to the survey.

Voting requires entering an email address. Having been on the mailing list for Ante Up for a good while now, I imagine this will mean receiving a monthly update from the guys when a new issue of the magazine comes out. You can win some prizes, too, by taking the survey, including various poker gear, a copy of All In: The Poker Movie, or lunch and a poker lesson with Chris Moneymaker.

Even if you don’t take the survey, check out the magazine (which you can read online) and/or the podcast, both of which continue to entertain and inform. Was just checking out the latest few shows, including one not long ago in which the pair talked about the best poker scenes in non-poker movies (5/17/12). Then the last couple of shows saw Scott taking a hiatus, but the always hilarious Mike Fasso stepped in as co-host for one (5/24/12), and friend of the show/magazine (and myself) Lee Childs was on for the other (5/31/12).

Big thanks to the fellas for including HBP in the poll.

Six-Bet Shove Surprise, Redux

Was watching that live stream yesterday of the final heads-up match that concluded 2012 World Series of Poker Event No. 6, the $5,000 no-limit hold’em “mixed max” event in which Aubin Cazals of Malta won. Cazals survived that crazy marathon match on Sunday with Warwick Mirzikinian, the one that went nine-and-a-half hours or so to become the longest heads-up match in WSOP history. Then Cazals beat Joseph “subiime” Cheong in their match yesterday to take the bracelet.

The “mixed max” event featured the unique format wherein it began as a nine-handed tourney (Day 1), then went to six-handed (Day 2), then became a heads-up tournament thereafter. The idea was to stop at 32 players at the end of the second day, create a bracket with seeding based on chip counts, then begin the heads-up portion on Day 3. However, two players were eliminated right at the end of the second day to leave just 31 going forward, meaning the chip leader at the time -- Mirzikinian -- got a first-round bye to start the third day.

Because players carried their stacks forward from match to match, that’s what led to the crazy-long semifinal match between Cazals and Mirzikinian. Both began with around 1.5 million chips in that one, with the blinds starting at just 2,500/5,000. Actually Cheong and his semifinal opponent, Hugo Lemaire, had similarly large stacks to begin their match, too, although Cheong would fairly quickly push out to a big lead, then finish off Lemaire within just three hours or so after flopping a flush.

Meanwhile, Cazals and Mirzikinian would take the whole day Sunday to complete their match, which led to an extra fifth day being added to the event on Monday. Cazals and Cheong each brought stacks of more than 3 million to the finals, with the blinds starting there at just 4,000/8,000 (with one-hour levels). With both players more than 375 BBs deep, some were predicting that record set in Sunday’s match might be broken yesterday.

The scenario kind of reminded me of covering the finish of that $10K heads-up event at the WSOP back in 2010, the one that went on and on and on until dawn and still hadn’t finished, an experience partly chronicled here in a post called “The Match Without End.”

For the first four-plus hours it appeared Cheong and Cazals weren’t in any hurry to put their deep stacks at risk, and in fact the match was almost dead even with the blinds still just 10,000/20,000. That’s about when a crazy hand erupted in which the pair began raising back and forth, with Cazals making what was the very first five-bet of the match.

Cheong responded with an all-in reraise for 2.936 million, and Cazals -- who had him barely covered -- only took a few seconds before calling. Cazals had a hand one would expect in such a situation, . Meanwhile Cheong showed .

Was hard not to think back to the 2010 WSOP Main Event and the hand that proved Cheong’s undoing there. You remember, the three-handed, six-bet shove for around 75 BBs with that was called by Jonathan Duhamel who held ? Wrote about that here, too, in a post titled “Cheong Strong? Or Just Wrong?”

Just as Cheong didn’t get lucky and hit an ace in that hand versus Duhamel, he wasn’t saved by the community cards yesterday, either, as the flop brought a king, Cazals filled up on the turn, and the match was abruptly concluded.

Unsurprisingly, it took mere minutes for a thread to appear on Two Plus Two, titled “subiime donks off another bracelet !!” -- the “another” of course alluding to the 2010 ME hand versus Duhamel.

In fact, David Tuchman and Bart Hanson who were providing commentary had mentioned that hand earlier in the broadcast, noting the super deep stacks and how the formula for the same sort of attempted “leveling” was present once more. And if I recall correctly, Hanson said he didn’t believe Cheong would try anything similar yesterday.

I wouldn’t pretend to try to analyze Cheong’s thinking in this particular hand, certainly affected by a host of factors most of us wouldn’t be privy to merely watching from afar. Cheong is obviously a highly-skilled player whom I’ve always found fascinating to follow, and I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see him break through at some point to grab that first bracelet, perhaps even this summer.

Is fascinating as well, however, to think how the last hand of Event No. 6 echoed that one near the end of Cheong’s 2010 ME run.

(EDIT [added 3 p.m.]: Cheong weighed in with his own post in the 2+2 thread mentioned above, noting with humility -- and perhaps a little tongue in cheek -- how he’d believed he’d picked up a “kgb oreo tell” on Cazals in the final hand.)

WSOP Weekend: Beefs, Blunders, and Bloch

Had the chance over the weekend to start following the World Series of Poker in earnest and take in all of the various coverage. Just two weeks and I’ll be back in a plane -- not American Airlines, thankfully -- to join the crowd at the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino to see it all first-hand.

So yeah, I followed the various drama from afar the last couple of days.

Almost a month ago I wrote a short post about the 2012 WSOP rules, noting how a “rule that will likely get some pushback from players is one requiring those at televised feature tables to announce their action verbally.”

Sure enough, there was a lot of that following the first non-glitchy example of a live streamed final table (Event No. 3), with Jon Aguiar in particular taking to Twitter to voice his displeasure. Then, as you might’ve heard, a misguided retweet from the @WSOP account added further fuel to the fire.

If you missed any of that and really want to explore it all, QuadJacks interviewed Aguiar and then later talked to WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky (the latter having lots of audio problems/technical difficulty).

Actually, the Palansky interview primarily focused on the other controversy of the weekend involving that Event No. 9 “re-entry” tournament in which a few players managed to register more than once on a single day. That was not part of the plan for that event, which was only to allow players busting on Day 1a (Saturday) to buy in a second time on 1b (Sunday).

Knew right away when folks started tweeting yesterday about Will Failla having entered a second time on Sunday that he had to have done so with the mistaken impression that he was allowed to -- after all, the folks at registration clearly weren’t up on things, either. Gonna guess the other instances of players buying back in when they weren’t supposed to were also the result of being unaware of the rules, but who knows, really? Click here to read a full rundown of that snafu over at Bluff.

Rather than delve into either of those controversies, though, I thought I’d write a little today about Andy Bloch breaking through to win his first bracelet in Event No. 7, the $1,500 seven-card stud event, outlasting Barry Greenstein heads-up to win. Found that finish interesting, as it made me think back to having some time ago interviewed both Bloch and Greenstein for PokerNews.

I spoke to Bloch about three years ago, and among the topics we discussed were his two near misses at the WSOP in which he finished runner-up to Chip Reese in the 2006 $50K H.O.R.S.E. and then took second again in the $10K PLH event in 2008 won by Nenad Medic.

I asked Bloch the not-so-original question about what it would mean to him to win one, and after we laughed about it meaning he would stop having to answer the question, he pointed out how he didn’t really feel a lot of pressure in that regard. He pointed out how a lot of his peers were surprised whenever they learned he didn’t have a bracelet already, which suggested to him he already had their respect (since they assumed he’d won one).

Bloch’s WSOP résumé is kind of remarkable, really, what with his having made final tables in seven different games (no-limit hold’em, limit hold’em, pot-limit hold’em, seven-card stud, razz, pot-limit Omaha, and H.O.R.S.E.), just missed final tables in a couple of others (2-7 triple draw and 2-7 NL draw), and now earned over $2.3 million in WSOP cashes.

Talking to CardPlayer after winning his bracelet, Bloch called it a “bittersweet win” given all that has happened post-Black Friday, in particular with the site which he once represented as a member of Team Full Tilt.

Bloch acknowledges “the pain of what a lot of people have gone through this past year,” noting how many have “gone through absolute hell” when it comes to the inaccessibility of funds on FTP. All appropriate to say, I thought, and much better than not commenting at all. Bloch added he hoped there would be “some kind of announcement during the Series” regarding Full Tilt’s future, though was unsure whether or not that would happen.

Like I say, I interviewed Greenstein for PN as well -- also about three years ago -- that one being conducted at the Bellagio in Bobby’s Room while Ivey, Elezra, Brunson, and others were playing at a nearby table. As was the case with Bloch, Greenstein was incredibly generous with his time and we ended up splitting the long interview into two parts: Part One & Part Two.

Greenstein would do another interview with PN earlier this year in which he addressed that awkward situation of his having borrowed $400,000 from Full Tilt Poker as well as his disinclination to pay the money back amid the still-ongoing negotiations between FTP, Groupe Bernard Tapie, and the U.S. Department of Justice. (As we know, that deal -- seemingly doomed from the start -- ultimately fell through about six weeks ago.)

Looking back on those interviews, three years seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? So much has changed. Still appreciate both Bloch and Greenstein having given me the time, and certainly found it intriguing to see the pair heads-up at the end of Event No. 7.

So much drama, and only one week in. Wonder how the next two weeks will go before I finally get out there.

The Big One for One Drop One Month Away

Am settling in after the big trip, looking to relax a bit here over the next two-and-a-half weeks before heading Vegasward. Was able yesterday to catch up with some of the World Series of Poker coverage going on, including checking out updates on PokerNews.

Last night I had a chance to join Lou Krieger and Shari Geller on their podcast, Keep Flopping Aces, which has recently moved over to the newly-relaunched Hold’em Radio network. We talked some about my trip to Uruguay, but mostly about the WSOP. The show is being replayed all week and will be available for download.

I also last night had a chance to enjoy some of the live streaming from the WSOP.com site I mentioned last post. Saw a bit of the end of Event No. 3, the $3,000 Heads-Up NLHE/PLO event won by Leif Force, plus a good stretch of Event No. 4, the $1,500 Seven-Card Stud Hi-Low event won by Cory Zeidman. Couldn’t stay up for the end of the latter as it went until after 3:30 a.m. or so Vegas time, dawn here on the east coast.

After some glitches early on, the live streams appeared to be in working order. David Tuchman led the commentary on Event No. 3, with Steve Gross and Doc Sands helping out. The other feed had no commentary, but the cards and bets were announced well enough to follow the action.

Here’s that page again for the live streams. The next one starts at 2 p.m. today, I believe, as that stacked final table of Event No. 5 gets underway, the $1,500 pot-limit hold’em event with Bryan Pellegrino, Jon Aguiar, Tommy Vedes, John Eames, and Daniel Negreanu among the last nine.

For those looking for daily recaps and highlights from the WSOP, let me recommend “The WSOP Daily Shuffle” that WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla is putting out each day. You can find those on the “News” page on the site amid other articles, including Dalla’s initial wraps from each event. For more then go over to the individual pages for each tourney and find Nolan’s “Official Report” from each event for all sorts of facts about each.

By the way, the WSOP made another good move this week by hiring Jess Welman as the new Managing Editor of the website. As we’ve come to know via her work with various other outlets, Jess makes everyone with whom she works better, and it’s great to see her teaming up with Nolan and the rest of the WSOP folks in this way.

One of the stories Dalla, Welman, and others are going to be reporting on more and more as the Series goes will be the $1,000,000 buy-in tournament scheduled to begin one month from today (July 1st), a.k.a., “The Big One for One Drop” (Event No. 55).

It is sounding more and more like the field for that one may exceed 40 entrants, perhaps even reaching the announced “cap” of 48. At present at least 30 have confirmed they’ll play, and when I spoke to Seth Palansky not too long ago he sounded confident they’ll get several more.

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve had some nice email exchanges with some of those involved with promoting both the event and the One Drop charity, and agreed to make Hard-Boiled Poker a “media partner” for All in for One Drop. There’s a website with lots of information about the tournament and One Drop, now the official charity of the WSOP.

Unlike some charities with dubious organization and/or handling of resources, the One Drop charity, initiated by Guy Laliberté in 2007, seems especially well run and devoted to an unmistakably worthwhile cause to increase access to clean drinking water in countries presently lacking such a basic need to sustain health and life. If 40-plus do participate, with $111,111.11 taken from each entry for One Drop, that’ll translate to around $4.5 million or perhaps $5 million raised.

Was glad to get involved when asked, happy to help folks like 2010 WSOP ME champ Jonathan Duhamel (pictured above with Laliberté) and others looking to promote the tournament and the charity. Besides, I’m as intrigued as anyone by the prospect of a poker tournament with a $1 million buy-in... and, perhaps, a first prize of more than $15 million (or even more than $17 million).

A ton happening at the WSOP between now and then, of course. Looking forward to a little time to enjoy being a fan before heading out to help report on it all.