In Extra Innings, Everyone is Short-Stacked

Like most sports fans, I spent much of the early and later part of last night flipping back and forth between the NBA games kicking off the 2015-16 regular season and the first game of the World Series between the New York Mets and Kansas City Royals.

Eventually my attention was exclusively on baseball, thanks to the fact that Game 1 lasted a marathon 14 innings. That tied the record for the World Series with games only ever having previously lasted that many innings twice before (in 1916 and 2005).

The game started with an ultra rare inside-the-park home run in the first inning, and crazily the 14-inning game back in 1916 also had a 1st-inning inside-the-parker, one of several examples of weirdness from the game. It finally ended around 1:30 a.m. my time, having lasted just over five hours.

Near the end, I tweeted that if the game went much longer both teams would be in “shove-or-fold” mode. Was a joking reference to increasing blinds at the end of a poker tournament, of course, but afterwards I realized that in a way the amount of “gamble” in the game truly was increasing the longer it went on, thereby also increasing the effect luck could potentially have on the outcome.

As a baseball game proceeds through multiple extra innings, options for managers lessen as fewer and fewer players are available for pitching or pinch-hitting. The fact that this was the first game of a best-of-seven series also meant neither team necessarily wanted to exhaust their entire pitching staffs if they could help it, although the Mets did end up using six pitchers and the Royals seven.

The same goes for other sports in which the games are close as the clock winds down, in particular when they enter into overtime, sudden death, penalty shots/kicks, and the like.

Poker players complain sometimes about tournament structures that force players to gamble more at the final table, increasing the chances that luck will have more to do with the outcome than skill. The lament goes that it is unfortunate for the game to be reduced to that “shove-or-fold” decision at a time when the stakes (the payouts) are literally highest.

But that’s how most other sports play out, too, if you think about it. If the game is close, each play or decision takes on added importance disproportionate to the many other decisions made prior to the endgame, thereby necessarily increasing the potential significance of a bad bounce, a judgment call, or any other possibly outcome-determining event.

In extra innings or during the final minutes of a close game, everyone really is short-stacked, relatively speaking.

WSOPE Fast Fade

I realized today that the World Series of Poker Europe played down to its conclusion over the weekend, and it never even crossed my mind to write a thing about it here yesterday. This is due to a couple of factors.

The relative lack of fanfare regarding the series from the WSOP, most poker news sites, and over Twitter meant it was hard ever to get into the sucker from afar. The time difference mattered somewhat, but in truth that never lessens my interest in the European Poker Tour events. Heck I was already tuning in today for a short while to watch coverage from Malta on EPT Live.

Another factor was that neither the WSOPE Main Event final table nor the WSOPE High Roller final table were streamed at all, the Twitching from Berlin having stopped last Thursday. In other words, just when most of us might have gotten interested, the shows stopped. (I believe that choice was made in order to facilitate shooting those final tables to be aired in edited versions later on.)

I was aware that Kevin MacPhee managed to win the Main Event, topping a field of 313 (down from the 375 who played the WSOPE ME in 2013). And Jonathan Duhamel’s victory in the High Roller -- his third career bracelet -- got more of my attention thanks to Twitter where the congratulations were coming frequently thereafter. Duhamel joins Phil Hellmuth as the only players to win both the WSOP Main Event and the WSOPE Main Event.

Like I say, though, Malta is already front-and-center for now, while the November Nine is now less than two weeks away. Meanwhile the WSOPE fade out happened fast, or at least it seemed that way from here.

The Hall Picks Up Another Pair

Results from this year’s Poker Hall of Fame voting were announced today, with John Juanda and Jennifer Harman the newest two members named.

I’ve written here before about how I had the privilege of being involved with the PHOF voting for a few years. I was one of the “poker media” picked to vote alongside the living Hall of Famers (always tend to want scare quotes around those two words, for a variety of reasons). We were all given 10 names (finalists) from which we could pick up to three to whom we doled out our allotment of 10 total points, then the top two points-getters would make it through.

I’ll point out again that having a PHOF vote only meant being able to pick from the 10 names the panel was given. I never could suggest nominees myself, although I believe the living PHOF members were able to do just that (which is how Brian “Sailor” Roberts got on the ballot, I believe).

That said, during the years I voted (2010-2013), I was essentially okay with the individuals who made it through to be named PHOFers. While I sometimes gave points to players who didn’t ultimately get inducted, I didn’t disagree too greatly with what the final results were.

Back in early September when this year’s finalists were announced, I guessed Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott would get picked with either Carlos Mortensen or Juanda getting the other spot. Was mainly just trying to predict what the current voters would do, and not suggesting who I thought should get in out of the 10 nominees.

I don’t disagree with either Juanda or Harman getting in, although Mortensen is certainly one that seems like he should get the nod sooner than later. In fact if I were to predict again I’d say next year it will probably be Mortensen and Phil Ivey, as Ivey turns 40 in February and so cannot be denied one of the two spots, unless they manage to change the process around somehow between now and then.

Which I suppose could happen, given some of the clamor that appears to have resulted from this year’s vote. It’s necessarily always going to be a flawed process, ultimately unsatisfactory to some if not the majority of those who care a lick about it.

For more on the topic, including some discussion of the lack of non-Americans in the PHOF, see Chris Tessaro's piece over at All In titled “Did the Poker Hall of Fame Pick the Right Inductees?”

(EDIT [added 10/29/15]: Yesterday European Poker Tour founder John Duthie added another op-ed regarding problems with the current nomination/voting process and the glaring lack of non-Americans in the Hall over at PokerNews -- check it out.)

Go Feed on These Good Reads

Today I wanted to sign off for the week by pointing you to a few interesting articles that recently turned up in the strategy section over at PokerNews. All three are genuinely interesting and present evidence of some impressive brain work by the authors, I think.

The first is from Monday, another one by our friend Robert Woolley, a.k.a. the “Poker Grump.” It is titled “‘Gut Feelings’ in Poker -- What Do They Mean?” and explains how there is actually a meaningful link between that tightness you sometimes get in your stomach at the poker tables and what’s happening in your head as you try to make a decision. It’s kind of a fascinating observation Robert is sharing.

A second article I very much liked came from Gareth Chantler, one called “Obsessed With Your ‘All-in EV’? It’s a Negative Freeroll.” Gareth talks about that stat available in tracking programs showing your “all-in expected value” that allows players to see whether they’ve been “running good” or “running bad” in all-in situations. It’s is an irresistible stat for many, but as Gareth points out it’s hardly helpful and in fact can be potentially harmful.

Finally, today Nikolai Yakovenko shared the first of what will be a three-part discussion of artificial intelligence systems and “bots” in poker titled “Artificial Intelligence and Hold’em, Part 1: Counter-Factual Regret Minimization.” He brings us up-to-date on how far researchers have gotten with their efforts to “solve” limit hold’em and start working on the much more difficult case of NLHE. It’s lengthy, but very readable and gives a great overview of where things stand at present. (Looking forward to the rest next week.)

If your stomach for interesting poker content is rumbling and you’re hungry for some food for thought, go feast on those links.

Fake Chips, Fake Dollars

Saw headlines today about that fellow Christian Lusardi, the one who introduced all of the fake chips into a preliminary event at the 2014 Borgata Winter Open that caused the tournament to be stopped with 27 players.

You might remember how Lusardi had added the phony chips to his stack, enabling him to make it all of the way into the money before he punted, then skedaddled. I remember a funny-in-retrospect live update from Day 2 of that event describing Lusardi's growing stack and how he had been “quietly adding another wing to his expansive chip castle.”

Ha! He’d done it so quietly, not only did others not remember him having to go to showdown, it was hard to recall him even playing a hand!

After busting the tourney, Lusardi then tried to flush around 500 of the fake discs down the toilet at the nearby Harrah’s where he was staying in AC. That led to the plumbing getting clogged, which in turn led to the discovery of the chips and their being linked to Lusardi. By then it was already known that the tournament had been compromised, and so it didn’t take long to nab the cheater.

Sounds like he’s getting five years for this one, plus has to repay the Borgata nearly half a milly (what it lost on the tourney), plus has to play Harrah’s another nine grand or so for damages to the plumbing! All that goes along with another five-year sentence Lusardi received back in the spring for having counterfeited and sold a bunch of DVDs.

That’s right. The dude has a thing about making fakes of round things. Probably has an apartment full of plastic cheese wheels, bogus clocks, and rubber pizzas.

Anyhow, I clicked through to read a few different articles about the sentencing. Like most poker players, I had to wince at repeated references to the “$800,000 in counterfeit chips” put into play in the tournament, as well as the “$2.7 million” worth of chips found in Harrah’s plumbing. Saw a couple of examples of this in the stories I read -- here’s one over at the Press of Atlantic City.

Obviously the tourney chips weren’t worth the millions in cash such articles suggest. It’s an easy mistake to make -- indeed, many non-players who casually tune into poker tournaments on television believe a player “raising to 1 million” to be betting actual dollars, not just tourney chips. Still, in articles reporting fine amounts and including other real-money references, it’s a little careless not to get this right.

Makes me think of the first time I played a play money tournament on PokerStars. I wondered why there was a dollar sign in front of the number designating how many chips I had in my stack. I think somewhere along the way the site stopped doing that, although in real money tournaments they still do put the dollar signs in front of chip amounts.

I decided it was there to add a little bit of excitement, even if the “$” really didn’t mean anything at all. You know, not the real excitement of vying for actual cash. Like, uh... a counterfeit.

Reporting from the “Anybody But the Cubs” Camp

I feel like I’ve said something here on the blog before about my uncle Wally, the baseball fan, although a quick search doesn’t turn up the post I am remembering.

Wally is nearly 80 now. He grew up in Downer’s Grove, still lives in Illinois on a farm in the southern part of the state, and hates hates hates the Chicago Cubs. I believe he was originally a White Sox fan, and at some point became a St. Louis Cardinals supporter (I’m not sure of all the details). But he always disliked the Cubs, a feeling that dates all of the way back to when he was nine years old -- the last time the Cubbies won the National League pennant (in 1945).

That means while most of those following the Major League Baseball playoffs without a specific rooting interest are pulling for the Cubs finally to break through this year and make it to the fall classic, Wally is most definitely not. He’s pulling for the Mets, and as they are up 3-0 and have already taken a big lead early in game 4 tonight, it’s looking pretty good for Wally. (I say he’s pulling for the Mets, but in truth he could care less who is playing against the Cubs -- that’s the team he’d be supporting.)

There is also that whole Back to the Future Part II thing with the Cubs and this particular date (October 21, 2015). That might have been worrisome a few days ago for Wally, but not so much right now.

As a UNC-Chapel Hill grad with a similarly irrational dislike of Duke, I fully understand Wally’s position. Last year’s NCAA playoffs were miserable, not because the Heels lost, but because the Devils won.

I talked with Wally before the NLCS began, and we again laughed over his unflinching anti-Cub position. He made a good point about it, actually -- one I hadn’t necessarily thought about before.

“When your team loses, you can always say ‘we’ll get ‘em next year,’” he explained. “But this thing with the Cubs, if they win... it’s all over!”

He’s right. It’s a little like the difference between losing hands early in a tournament but still having chips with which to continue the fight and losing that one where you’re all in and at risk. There’s no “next time” then.

Like I say, it’s 6-0 Mets right now and looking pretty good for Wally and others like him in the A-B-C camp (Anybody But the Cubs). Chicago has a lot of long-suffering fans, some even older than Wally. But they also have a young team.

They can try again next year.

Watching the 2015 WSOP: Those “In Between” Hands

Am continuing to follow the coverage on ESPN of the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event, spending another two-and-a-half hours with it this week as they showed the latter part of Day 6 when they played down from 45 players to 27.

That makes six weeks’ worth of Main Event shows totaling 13-and-a-half hours so far, all of which have focused on Days 5 and 6 (which in reality lasted a little over 19 hours of actual poker). Looking at what’s to come, there will be two more weeks of shows, again in two-and-a-half-hour blocks, all of which will be about Day 7 when they played from 27 to 9. Obviously the drama surrounding the last bustouts -- in particular Daniel Negreanu’s in 11th -- will highlight those episodes.

Then for three straight nights (Nov. 8-10) there will come the “live” coverage (with a delay) of the entire final table.

As I was mentioning here a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been watching with an eye toward selecting interesting hands to highlight in strategy articles over on PokerNews. In other words, preflop all-ins aren’t really registering with me very much, as those hands often feature only a couple of relatively simple decisions that aren’t so interesting to explore in any detail. Meanwhile longer hands that involve more postflop play -- especially those that make it all of the way to a showdown -- stand out as more engaging.

As it turns out, very few of these hands actually end in eliminations. Those who have played a lot of tournament poker know that shouldn’t be too surprising. The hand you go out on is typically not the one in which you made your most important decision of the tournament. In fact sometimes it isn’t even in the top five or ten... or for a tournament like the WSOP Main Event, the top 100.

Watching televised poker this way is a little like the inverse of NFL’s RedZone channel where they constantly race back and forth between live games to show touchdowns, turnovers, and other “action” plays affecting scores and outcomes. Instead I’m looking more intently what’s happening in between. Like plays affecting field position and down-and-distance (that set up the “action” plays), I’m scrutinizing the ones in which chips stacks changed, table images were sharpened, and circumstances evolved to influence subsequent shoves and knockouts.

There were 40 hands shown during the two-and-a-half hours this week (which in truth translates to a bit less than two hours, subtracting the commercials). Exactly half of them -- 20 -- were double-ups, knockouts, or uncalled all-ins.

Some of those 20 were not uninteresting, strategy-wise. For example Neil Blumenfield (who made the Nov. Nine) was shown pushing his short stack in multiple times after the flop and not getting called, sometimes in what appeared dicey spots to do so. And some of the other 20 weren’t that compelling either, but provided more exposure to the Nov. Niners and/or some interesting table talk.

All in all, though, I continue to find the shows enjoyable -- perhaps in part because for the first time in years I didn’t read every single live update as things were happening.

(EDIT [added 10/21/15]: If you’re curious about the hands I highlighted for this week’s “what would you do?”-style article, click here.)

DFS Now Listed as DTD

It was only three months ago that we learned Amaya Gaming had acquired the small but established fantasy sports site Victiv, which they then rebranded as StarsDraft.

StarsDraft quickly showed up in the PokerStars client, and we U.S. players were able to play on the site right away. I’ll admit I got a kick out of seeing that, reminding me faintly of how things used to be some four-and-a-half years ago.

I never deposited any money on StarsDraft, only playing a few freerolls and one of the free “Bankroll Builders” games they offered. (Indeed, I’ve never deposited on any DFS sites, having only played with money won in freerolls on a few of them.)

All of which is to say, if being able to play something for real money on PokerStars (even if I weren’t doing so) represented a dim echo of my experience playing on the site before, receiving the news of suddenly not being able to do so (again) wasn’t similar at all.

Amaya sent out a presser today saying they were choosing to limit their DFS games to just four U.S. states for now -- New Jersey, Massachusetts, Kansas, and Maryland -- meaning my state (NC) is now on the no-play list.

Those four states are ones described in the release as having “favorable existing daily fantasy sports guidance.” In other words, they’ve either passed legislation or otherwise made explicit that legally speaking things are relatively hunky dory for DFS within their borders.

Last week we were hearing about Florida becoming an uninviting place for DFS sites, then late Thursday the Nevada Gaming Commission made its announcement declaring DFS to be gambling and thus subject to licensure, a move which likewise drove the sites out. This amid reports of legislators’ calls for inquiries, the FBI taking an interest, and other clamoring about the sites’ business models and legal status.

While federal regulation may well come for DFS (and possibly sooner than later), it could go the other way. The whole thing feels at present like a player listed as “DTD” (day-to-day) -- i.e., making him a less-than-recommended play.

2015 WSOP Europe So Far

The 2015 World Series of Poker Europe festival has been rolling along at the Spielbank Casino in Berlin for more than a week -- no shinola. They are now eight events into the 10-event schedule, with only the €10,450 Main Event and the €25,600 High Roller left to get going.

Aside from the €550 buy-in “Oktoberfest” tournament (Event No. 2), the turnouts have seemed modest-sized so far. Even so, there have been more entries and more euros at stake in Berlin than was the case at the last WSOPE that took place at the Casino Barrière in Enghien-les-Bains, France in October 2013.

Here’s a look at the turnouts and prize pools from the first six bracelet events at the 2013 WSOPE (all but the Main and High Roller):

No. 1: €1,100 Ladies NLHE -- 65 entries, €62,400 prize pool

No. 2: €1,100 NLHE Re-Entry -- 659 entries, €632,640

No. 3: €5,300 Mixed Max NLHE -- 140 entries, €672,000

No. 4: €1,650 PLO -- 184 entries, €270,480

No. 5: €2,200 NLHE -- 337 entries, €647,040

No. 6: €3,250 Mixed Max PLO -- 127 entries, €373,380

Here’s what’s happened so far through the first seven events at the 2015 WSOP (Event No. 8 has another starting flight on Saturday):

No. 1: €2,200 NLHE -- 197 entries, €382,180 prize pool

No. 2: €550 NLHE “Oktoberfest” -- 2,144 entries, €1,039,840

No. 3: €3,250 PLO 8-Max -- 161 entries, €468,510

No. 4: €1,650 NLHE “Monster Stack” -- 580 entries, €843,900

No. 5: €2,200 8-Game Mixed -- 113 entries, €219,220

No. 6: €3,250 NLHE -- 256 entries, €744,960

No. 7: €550 PLO -- 503 entries; €243,955

The offerings from each festival don’t exactly parallel each other, so it’s hard to compare individual events. Just adding up prize pools, the first six events of the 2013 WSOPE (all but the Main and HR) totaled €2,657,940 in prize pools. Meanwhile the first seven of the 2015 WSOPE have added up to €3,942,565 (boosted significantly by the big “Oktoberfest” crowd).

Meanwhile there were 1,512 total entries for those first six 2013 WSOP prelims. Setting aside the “Oktoberfest,” there have been 1,810 total entries for the other prelims so far in Berlin (3,954 with the “Oktoberfest”).

The Main Event and High Roller will earn most of the attention in Berlin -- indeed, that’ll probably be the first time a lot of folks bother to see what’s going on at the WSOPE. Thus will more comparisons be made between the turnouts at the Spielbank Casino and what was the case two years ago when 375 played the 2013 WSOPE Main Event (for a €3.6 million prize pool) and 80 played the High Roller (for a €1.92 million prize pool).

Honestly, I have barely tuned in at all to any of the streams on Twitch. Perhaps it is my connection or browser, but Twitch very often gives me trouble with freezing, buffering, and cutting out, making it less than ideal for me. And I’m thinking the Main and High Roller may not be featured over there, anyway (I have to check). If not, I’ll try to fight it and watch some, or at least look in on the updates.

The Cincinnati Kid Turns 50

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the premiere of the film I still consider the best of all poker movies, The Cincinnati Kid.

I guess Daniel Negreanu or “Kid Poker” is in his 40s now, so it isn't that odd to note The Cincinnati Kid is 50. Heck, Steve McQueen (aged 35 when he portrayed the title character) always did seem a little old for the part.

When the film debuted in 1965, initial reviews were lukewarm. It was frequently likened to The Hustler (1961), an obvious influence, with many viewing it a lesser attempt to tell a similar story. I tend to agree that The Hustler is greater cinematic achievement, although Kid has a lot going for it, too.

I’ve mentioned my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class here many times before. Every time I’ve taught the course I’ve included The Cincinnati Kid, and every time I’ve enjoyed seeing the students’ overwhelmingly positive response.

Many who are college-aged don’t bother much with films made three decades before they were born. Indeed, I seem to remember one or two of my students confessing to me it was the oldest movie they’d ever seen (if you can believe that). But a lot of them are surprised when they find it not just entertaining but thought-provoking as well. A very high percentage of them are surprised by the ending, too -- I’ve had many of them every semester tell me how they fully expected the Kid to win in the end.

The film gives the class a lot of great themes to explore, with the “coming of age” story at the heart of it, a theme connoted pretty transparently by “the Kid” and his duel with “the Man.” There are also a lot of interesting “existential” ideas in play, plus other commentary about human nature, gender roles, and other topics that make for some great discussions.

Way back in early 2007 (not that long after I started the blog) I wrote a series of posts about The Cincinnati Kid (both the film and the Richard Jessup book on which it is based). I’d probably put things differently today, but I can still link to those posts without too much embarrassment:

Commentary on the Commentary: The Cincinnati Kid

Richard Jessup’s The Cincinnati Kid

Poker Review: The Cincinnati Kid

The Last Hand of The Cincinnati Kid: Differences Between the Novel and the Film

Wrote a couple more posts since then, too, on the film -- “Does the Kid Know Jack?” and “The Cincinnati Kid and Looking Back” -- which contain still more thoughts about it. Meanwhile today over on PokerNews I wrote something exploring the final hand in particular which for many represents a deficit for the film given its odds-defying improbability. That article is titled “Hand Histories: 50 Years of Debate Over the Last Hand of ‘The Cincinnati Kid,’” if you’re curious.

A half-century on, I’m keeping Kid at the top of my list of favorite poker films. Where does it rank on yours?