The Last Day of the Summer in the Middle of July

The best part of the summer ending at the World Series of Poker when it does is that there’s still half the summer to go.

Today marks the final day of play at the 2014 WSOP until November as the Main Event will be playing down from 27 to a final table before once again -- as they’ve done every year since 2008 -- pausing the tournament for nearly four months before finishing things out.

That “November Nine”-era exactly encompasses my own reporting on the WSOP, as 2008 was the first time I went out to Las Vegas to help PokerNews report on the Series. I continued going out every summer since until this one, this time instead staying close to the farm while I helped out the team with articles and in other ways from afar.

Today, for example, I’ve written a preview of Day 7 mentioning all 27 of the players and highlighting a few of the more interesting storylines. Check it out: “WSOP What to Watch For: Main Event Day 7 Preview -- From 27 to the November Nine.”

After doing essentially the same thing for six years, this year following the action and writing about it from home has been different, for sure. I was saying late last week that now’s the time I probably miss being out there the most, with this day -- the day they play down to nine -- has always been the “finale” (so to speak) for me when it comes to the WSOP.

It does make for a fairly exciting finish, although still -- after seven years of it -- I still think the day is anticlimactic and the delay not preferable. But after writing thousands and thousands of words about the WSOP this summer, I suppose I’m more or less ready for the “end” -- of sorts -- to come.

Last year we reported 633 hands total on Day 7 (i.e., all of them). Check the PokerNews live updates today for hand-for-hand reports all of the way from 27 players down to nine.

Poker and “The Truth”

Now’s the time -- probably the only time all summer -- that I’m genuinely missing being out in Las Vegas.

The first days of the Main Event are always intriguing, in particular because they are often the only time all summer you see a certain category of recreational player well represented in the field -- amateurs taking big shots, the “bucket list” guys, and so on -- and as I was saying yesterday I think ESPN has dropped the ball somewhat by ignoring that part of the tournament (especially this year as they are skipping all of the way ahead to Day 4 in their coverage).

That said, it’s true that when the money gets closer, the bubble bursts, and then the last few days play out that things get really fun, even for those of us just watching. Again, part of the enjoyment comes from the fact that some of those amateurs are still in the sucker, their lives being affected in significant ways with every hour that goes by. But the pros rise up, too, and the poker gets more and more intriguing to follow.

And, of course, there’s that hard-to-explain feeling of coming to the end of a long journey with everyone involved -- players, staff, colleagues -- that makes the last days of the WSOP so special each summer. So I’m missing that.

I am enjoying the coverage, though, and in particular got a big kick out of the interview Rich Ryan and Eric Danis got to do yesterday with NBA player Paul Pierce for PokerNews/GPI. Pierce would be an example of that sort of player I’m describing -- the amateur kind of taking a shot, even if for “The Truth” (Pierce’s nick) the bankroll pressure isn’t quite the same as it would be for most.

I loved Pierce’s enthusiasm when talking about why he likes poker (the competitive aspect unsurprisingly is the game’s biggest draw for him). I wrote a little summary of the visit while embedding the video over on Learn.PokerNews -- it’s worth a look if you’re a basketball fan, or even if you just like seeing somebody who enjoys poker talk about why he does.

Click over and watch it, if you are curious: “‘It’s a Beautiful Game’: NBA Star Paul Pierce Talks Poker at the WSOP.”

I was saying something similar here last Friday. I enjoy hearing these positive messages about poker, but I think I also just enjoy watching/hearing people enjoy themselves, no matter what they are doing.

Pierce would bust before the end of the night, but was smiling ear to ear even as he left. ’Cos the truth is, poker really is a beautiful game.

Ivey in Front

You’ve no doubt noticed how out of 1,864 players left in the World Series of Poker Main Event to begin Day 3, the one with the most chips of any of them is none other than Phil Ivey with 505,000.

Amid my work this summer I’ve been writing up WSOP recaps and previews for PokerNews, and over the last couple of days for those I’ve been doing a little digging around regarding recent Main Event history.

As I noted yesterday, Ivey has cashed four times before in the Main Event, and in fact when making the money has never finished lower than 23rd. His best finish was of course his seventh-place showing in 2009, the last time he made the money.

Then today I spent a little time seeing how other start-of-Day-3 leaders have done in the WSOP over recent years, and doing so produced a kind of interesting list of players and results. Probably the most interesting Day 3 chip leader among the list (going back to 2000) was Sammy Farha who was on top after two days of the 2001 WSOP Main Event, then in fact didn’t last through Day 3 and missed the money altogether.

Last year Mark Kroon was on top heading into Day 3, but he’d crash in 458th relatively early on Day 4. But the previous two years saw deep runs from those players, as Gaelle Baumann would finish 10th and Ben Lamb third. None of those start-of-day-3 leaders ever won the Main Event (since 2000, anyway), but Julian Gardner did finish second in 2002 after having led after the first two days.

Ivey’s fast start certainly gives some focus to the early 2014 WSOP Main Event narratives. I heard that ESPN isn’t even going to pick up its coverage this year until Day 4, however, which is kind of a bummer. We’ll see if Ivey continues to be headlining once the event gets to that point.

Stirring Things Up

I’ve written here before -- although it’s been a while -- about Dashiel Hammett’s unnamed detective the Continental Op who appears in about two dozen stories and a couple of novels by the hard-boiled writer.

Most of the stories follow a similar trajectory in which the Op is given some sort of assignment that often seems relatively simple, then discovers early on the particulars are more complicated than had been earlier suggested. From there, a favorite response by the Op is to introduce some further, often creative complication -- kind of like putting in a surprising check-raise -- to see how others will react and thus perhaps reveal their motives. Or crimes.

The Op often benignly describes this strategy as “stirring things up.” For example, “The House in Turk Street” (1924) is a weird little story in which the Op finds himself accidentally holed up with a gang of bank robbers whom he notices gradually starting to turn on each other. Despite being their prisoner and tied to a chair, he nurtures their growing conflict himself at one point -- in fact, he uses a poker analogy when he refers to having “led my ace” with one false statement, something which he subsequently refers to as “my little lie that was meant to stir things up.”

When I brought up the phrase here before, in was in the context of talking about poker strategy, referring to the choice “to stir things up” with a bet or raise or anything that takes one out of one’s typical style or approach. Doing so can sometimes be worthwhile, a means to improve one’s game and prevent falling into predictable patterns that others can exploit.

Over the last week or so I have been thinking of the phrase in a different way, though, as there have been a lot of examples of people “stirring things up” in the poker world, with several different debates flying about concerning a host of topics.

I’m thinking of course about the recent brouhaha following Daniel Colman’s victory in the “Big One for One Drop” and his subsequent decision not to go through the usual picture-taking and interviewing, with various op-eds popping up in response, then Colman’s own provoking “I don’t owe poker a single thing” explanation.

Also from this week I’m thinking about the back-and-forthing instigated by Greg Merson regarding the World Poker Tour scheduling a low buy-in event at the Aria during the WSOP Main Event. Jeff Walsh summarizes that one at F5 Poker, covering most of the discussion except for a few WPT-directed blasts fired by WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart along the way.

Then yesterday came another quasi-tempest when Earl Burton wrote an op-ed complaining about Kevin “Kevmath” Mathers of Bluff getting bought into the Main Event by some poker pros wishing to give something back to Kev after he’s given so much to the community for several years. Haley Hintze does a good job explaining that one and responding to it, too, over at Flushdraw.

There are real issues at the heart of all of these conversations, involving poker as it played, organized, and reported upon and discussed. Not to be too elusive about my own positions on all of these matters, but I’m finding myself almost more interested to observe how others are responding to the “stirring up” that to be inspired to respond myself, with some in a few cases revealing themselves like characters in Hammett’s stories.

To tip my hand a little... Colman certainly overlooks most of the positives about poker, while others have overlooked some of the negatives. Those running competing poker tours and series should feel free to compete with each other, but should also find ways to communicate and respect each other, too. And the indefatigable Kevmath more than deserves whatever the poker community wishes to give him by way of gratitude, while most discussions of “journalistic ethics” in poker reporting tend to forget that most of it doesn’t really qualify as journalism, anyway.

It’s a funny world, the one surrounding poker. To be in it sometimes feels like sitting among a mob on the run, listening to them argue back and forth about what their next step will be.

The Partial Information Game

Was just following the coverage of the start of Day 2a/2b of the World Series of Poker Main Event and was distracted momentarily by all of the tweets reporting how WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart got things going with a request that all first-time Main Event players stand up to be recognized.

I’m guessing it was a heart-in-the-right-place kind of request, one designed to highlight just how many new players came to participate in poker’s most prestigious event this year. But the rapid-fire responses highlighted a perhaps obvious consequence of the first-timers identifying themselves in such a way.

“The @WSOP has all the first times stand up, all the pros be very thankful. #WillAllTheFishPleaseStandUp #WSOP” tweeted Remko Rinkema. “The fish actually tagged themselves this time,” said AlCantHang, while Chris Tessaro added “No word if they then applied bulls eyes.”

A couple of pros chimed in amid my timeline. “Thank you @WSOP for getting all the first timers to stand up and identify themselves,” said Mizzi. “Now I know who to punish #3barrelbluffs.” Steve O’Dwyer, meanwhile, looked at the situation from the first-timers’ point of view. “How much equity did @wsopSUITd [Stewart] just cost the WSOP first timers by asking them to stand and identify themselves?” he wondered.

As I read the tweets I began to think about the possibility of experienced players standing as a kind of early “bluff” suggesting to their opponents they were less savvy than they actually were. Then Bluff’s Lance Bradley articulated the same thought: “Wonder how many non-first timers, local regs stood up to purposely misidentify themselves as first timers. #LevelsOnLevels.”

Another worthwhile point made by several was to note that just because a player was in the Main Event for the first time, that didn’t necessarily make the player a novice.

Still, interesting to consider just how the players who remained seated interpreted the situation when watching their tablemates stand up before play began today.

On Starting Flights; or, The Main Event Takes Off

So the Main Event is on and it sounds like today’s final Day 1 flight is going to be huge. Like mechagodzilla huge.

They’ve drawn 2,915 players so far through the first two of three Day 1 flights. The WSOP tweeted last night that the Day 1c field will be bigger than both Day 1a and 1b combined, while WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart earlier tweeted that they were preparing for “our biggest Main Event start ever.”

The largest ever starting day for a Main Event was last year’s Day 1c when 3,467 players came out. If they top that today, that’ll carry the overall total field size over the 6,352 who played the 2013 Main Event. Before the WSOP started I was asked to predict the total for this year’s ME and guessed 7,039, thinking that added satellites, a few WSOP.com qualifiers, and that big $10 milly first prize might help boost the total. Will be kind of a reach to get there today, but we’ll see.

All this about Day 1 flights and field sizes got me thinking about the last decade’s worth of WSOP Main Events and the history of the multiple Day 1s. There had always only been a single Day 1 until 2004, the year Binion’s Horseshoe was overrun with players wanting to follow Chris Moneymaker’s footsteps to fame and fortune.

Some that year had been predicting an increase in the number of participants from the 839 who played the Main Event in 2003, although few were guessing the jump would be so dramatic. As the preliminary events played out in 2004, predictions of an increase were bandied about, but few it seemed had an idea what was about to happen.

In their history of the WSOP, All In: The (Almost) Entirely True Story of the World Series of Poker, Jonathan Grotenstein and Storms Reback talk about how Amarillo Slim Preston made a couple of $50K bets during the days leading up to the 2004 ME starting -- one that the field would break 1,000, then another that it would exceed 1,200.

As they got closer to the first scheduled day of play, it became obvious Preston would be winning both of those bets easily. PokerPages’ Day 1 report from the 2004 WSOP Main Event talks about how “projections were raised upwards to ‘1800’ then ‘1900,’” then eventually “tournament executives and organizers began preparing for a near mythical number -- two thousand players.”

Of course, they’d end up with a total field of 2,576, a number well above what Binion’s could reasonably accommodate, and so a decision was made on the fly to divide that group into two Day 1 flights. After a lot of digging around I couldn’t put my finger on the exact number of entrants on each of those two Day 1s, although anecdotal accounts suggest there were more seated on the second day than the first.

Totals for the Day 1 starting flights from subsequent WSOP Main Events were a little easier to pinpoint, although some of the info is scattered pretty widely, especially when looking back more than five years ago. But I think I found the answers in all cases, and so decided to compile it all here to have it in one place.

2004: 2,576 total entrants (1,108 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- approx. 1,200
Day 1b -- approx. 1,350

2005: 5,619 total entrants (1,864 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 1,885
Day 1b -- 1,857
Day 1c -- 1,877

2006: 8,773 total entrants (3,373 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 2,138
Day 1b -- 2,176
Day 1c -- 2,160
Day 1d -- 2,299

2007: 6,358 total entrants (2,235 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 1,287
Day 1b -- 1,545
Day 1c -- 1,743
Day 1d -- 1,783

2008: 6,844 total entrants (3,629 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 1,297
Day 1b -- 1,158
Day 1c -- 1,928
Day 1d -- 2,461

2009: 6,494 total entrants (4,398 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 1,116
Day 1b -- 873
Day 1c -- 1,696
Day 1d -- 2,809

2010: 7,319 total entrants (5,146 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 1,125
Day 1b -- 1,489
Day 1c -- 2,314
Day 1d -- 2,391

2011: 6,865 total entrants (4,521 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 897
Day 1b -- 978
Day 1c -- 2,181
Day 1d -- 2,809

2012: 6,598 total entrants (4,344 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 1,066
Day 1b -- 2,114
Day 1c -- 3,418

2013: 6,352 total entrants (4,186 made Day 2)
Day 1a -- 943
Day 1b -- 1,942
Day 1c -- 3,467

2014
Day 1a -- 771
Day 1b -- 2,144
Day 1c -- ???

I additionally tracked down the number of survivors from each individual Day 1 flight, although in a couple of cases I wasn’t too confident in the accuracy of the numbers and so decided not to include them here.

Looking back over these totals, a couple of things stick out. One is how the fields for the Day 1 starting flights were approximately even back when the idea was first introduced. I seem to remember that players weren’t necessarily able to choose their starting days back then, which is how the WSOP was able to keep the fields roughly the same from flight to flight.

Once players were able to select their preferred starting day, you see how the last starting day traditionally saw the largest field come out. Of those figures the 2,809 who played on Day 1d in 2009 stands out most starkly, as that was the year hundreds of players were actually turned away from the Main Event because of a lack of space.

I remember that day well and the fallout afterwards, writing about it here at the time. (Day 1b that year fell on the Fourth of July, which helps explain the relatively small turnout that day.)

It sounds possible they could run into a space issue today. During the small Day 1a, WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel told BLUFF “I’m confident that I won’t shut anybody out” from a packed Day 1c today. But WSOP VP of Corporate Communications Seth Palansky added “I have some doubts that we can accommodate everyone.”

So how many do you think will be playing Day 1c today?

For the Fourth

Not too much time today as Vera and I are off to a Fourth of July get-together tonight where I understand a certain, significant number of pounds’ worth of fireworks may be involved. I did, though, want to point you to a couple of posts over on Learn.PokerNews from today, one of which is mine.

Was watching the WSOP live stream of the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud Championship final table last night where 90-year-old Henry Orenstein finished eighth, then spent about 20 minutes in the booth with David Tuchman to talk about his life, poker, and other things.

Orenstein, of course, is a Poker Hall of Famer who was inducted in 2008 primarily for his having patented the hole card camera a few years before the “boom” hit and the popularity of televised poker helped expand the game considerably about a decade ago. He’s also a Holocaust survivor, toymaker, inventor, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and a WSOP bracelet holder (having won a stud event in 1996).

I have to think his making the final table of the $10K Stud event has to represent a record for the oldest ever WSOP final tablist, although I haven’t seen that noted anywhere as yet. In any case, some of Orenstein’s comments on the live stream about having learned poker as a child and continuing to play it as a nonagenarian inspired the article “Ask Orenstein: Poker is a Great Game for Both Young and Old.”

I like Orenstein’s positive message about poker, particularly during this week when there’s been so much talk -- some worthwhile, some frustratingly short-sighted -- about the “dark side” of the game.

Also posted today on Learn is a neat one from Tommy Angelo titled “The World Series of Pain” in which he talks about playing in the cash games at the WSOP -- amid “the ocean of pain” that is the Rio at this time of year -- and finding a way to remain at peace. It’s another cool, funny story from Tommy with genuinely useful advice... check it out.

Meanwhile, I’m off to enjoy a hot dog or two and appreciate loud noises and flashing colors. Have a good weekend, all.

Thirteen Bracelets, Thirteen Quotes

I was skimming the updates this morning for Event No. 61, the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud Championship where just nine players remain for today’s final day.

Todd Brunson has a big chip lead, while 90-year-old Henry Orenstein -- the Poker Hall of Famer who patented the hole card camera that subsequently became so important to televised poker -- is also still in there with one of the shorter stacks. Brunson has one bracelet (in Omaha/8), while Orenstein also won a stud bracelet before back in 1996.

There are others left who should make today’s final table interesting to follow, including Ben Yu, James Obst, and Jesse Martin. But of course it’s Phil Hellmuth (pictured above via PokerNews) -- currently third in chips -- who’ll be the focus as long as he sticks around as to gun for his 14th career bracelet.

The updates from last night are kind of hilarious to read through, given Hellmuth’s constant commentary, as usual demonstrating that familiar mix of witless hubris and comical petulance the Poker Brat has by now honed into a kind of performance art.

For those who missed it, a sampling of Hellmuth’s late night stud table talk:

To the always well-attired Yu: “Why you so dressed up, kid?”

To chip leader Brunson: “The internet said you had over 700,000.”

To Brunson again: “I just hope when I have the ace burgers that you don’t get there with the king-jack-ten!”

To Obst, just before correctly identify his hand: “Give it up, kid”

To anyone who’ll listen: “Todd... he’s a genius. He just turns his hands into miracles!”

When having to fold a hand on third street: “F***!”

When that same hand ended with Obst showing a winner: “That’s legit.”

To the PokerNews reporters, in reference to himself: “No whining... it’s been six days! Six days! Report it!”

To Steve Landfish after folding to him on seventh: “You’re an interesting player.”

To Matt Grapenthien who’d forgotten to ante: “I see everything. Trust me, I see everything.”

To Yu after he mimicked Beth Shak’s infamous “I got ‘em” dance with aces: “Dang it, that’s just so good! You’re so clever.”

To Matt Grapenthien after he’d won a hand: “Buddy, you better not show up light again or they’ll barbecue you!”

After Brunson drew a flush to beat his straight: “I can’t f***ing believe it.”

Chad Brown (1961-2014)

It’s been a tough week. The death of German poker pro Johannes Strassmann at age 29 hit many hard, with stories of his generous personality and friendship signifying how much he’ll be missed. Then overnight came the news that Chad Brown, another much beloved figure in the poker community, had passed away at 52 after battling gamely against a rare form of cancer.

While I didn’t ever get a chance to meet Strassmann, I did have the opportunity on many occasions to interact with Chad, especially over the last couple of years. I feel very fortunate to have done so.

Before meeting him, I had always been kind of fascinated by Chad, primarily because of all the things he’d done before emerging about a decade ago as a “notable” in the poker world thanks to his deep runs in WSOP events. His introduction to most of us came when finishing runner-up in a seven-card stud event in 2004 that was part of ESPN’s comprehensive coverage of that year’s Series.

But Chad had already been notable before that. He might have pursued a professional baseball career, in fact, but as a young man he took a different path to become a model and actor. During his 20s he landed various roles including a couple in low-grade horror flicks, neither of which I saw back then -- when as a teen my interest in low-grade horror flicks was at its zenith -- but did get to catch later on.

He always played cards, too, though, and as he moved further into adulthood he became a serious poker player -- and seriously successful. At the WSOP alone he’d pick up nearly 40 cashes and over $1.2 million in winnings, including two more second-place finishes in 2005 and 2007. He’d become a Team PokerStars Pro, too, and in that role served as an able ambassador for the game.

As I say, I got a chance to know Chad over the last couple of years, talking to him about a wide variety of subjects, including those horror movies, other stories from his acting and modeling days, baseball, and, of course, poker. We’d exchange emails occasionally, too, just to touch base.

Last November I went down to Florida to help cover the WPT bestbet Jacksonville Fall Poker Scramble, and I remember him telling me to deliver well wishes to the folks at bestbet who had hosted a “Chad Brown event” there in the past. “We love Chad,” was the response I got, which as you’ve been reading over Twitter and elsewhere over the last several days is a common theme coming from just about anyone who ever interacted with him.

Things took a troubling turn for Chad earlier this year, and he updated everyone about his health in a brave post for the PokerStars blog. There he spoke of viewing his situation as being like a poker hand and being content with the knowledge that he was playing the hand the best he way he knew how, not worrying too greatly about the results. It sounded very much like how I’d heard him talk about those three runner-ups in WSOP events, where in each case he’d done his best and played well, but in the end the cards just didn’t fall his way.

My favorite part of that post comes when Chad explains how he was able to face a life-threatening illness without letting it get him down. “We all have a choice when it comes to how we want to feel about what's going on in our lives,” he explained. “If you want to feel like a victim, that’s your choice. I choose not to. I don’t feel like a victim. I feel very blessed with the life that I’ve had, regardless of what happens. I've never been depressed about this at all.”

A little over a week ago after a flurry of Twitter messages indicating that things had become more grave for Chad, I sent him a note just to let him know I was thinking about him, and he wrote back right away to thank me and give a quick update.

“I am doing fine spiritually,” he said. I already knew he was, but I was glad to hear it again.

Then this week came the honorary bracelet from the WSOP and all of those premature announcements of his passing, all of which kind of helped steel a lot of us against the news we woke up to this morning that indeed he’d left us. As had his own resolve.

Chad was definitely dealt some rough hands, but he was always quick to point out he’d had his share of “run good” as well, and in the end he was well prepared to accept the role chance plays in our lives. More than most.

As I say -- speaking of luck -- I’m glad I had the good fortune to have known him.

Eight Players Chasing Eight Figures

Following them Big One for One Drop updates this evening, where Daniel Negreanu keeps knocking out players and looks as though he’s got a good chance of possibly winning the sucker. If he does -- or if he finishes runner-up, even -- he’ll zoom past Antonio Esfandiari on that mostly-out-of-whack all-time tournament earnings list.

Poor Tom Hall busted right away today, leaving the final eight players to share the $37,333,338 prize pool and gun for the $15,306,668 up top.

With all of the “high rollers” and “super high rollers,” as well as the One Drops and WSOP Main Events, that list has long become a difficult one to parse.

The debates over what the list really signifies have always been around, with the observation that it shouldn’t be mistaken for some kind of unambiguous indicator of poker ability an obvious one. But now there’s a pretty stark division between those in the top two dozen spots or so and the rest, with all of the seven-figure scores (and eight-figure ones in the One Drops) creating a different tier of results.

Kind of reminds me a little of how the statistics in baseball got all screwy during the height of the steriod era in the 1990s, especially with regard to home runs. Even now with the policing of PEDs being much more vigilant, it’s hard to take some of the numbers as seriously anymore or be tempted to pursue hard-to-make comparisons across eras.

Still, I’ll admit to being a little fascinated by all of those millions, even if most of the players are only playing for a tenth of themselves.

Was disappointed at the lack of a live stream for this event -- not the WSOP’s decision, but one dictated by ESPN -- as this event was probably the only one all summer that casual poker fans might have wanted to watch. And while I know ESPN will be packaging the event quickly to start airing an edited version in late July, I can say right now I won’t be all that intrigued to see it then after knowing the outcome.