2015 WSOP November Nine, Day 3: Kudos to Joe Cool

Don’t have a heckuva lot to add to last night’s finale at the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event where Joe McKeehen took care of things with little difficulty. Definitely enjoyed the show last night, although I’ll admit I was a little confused by ESPN’s “What to Look For” tips once they got to heads-up (wink).

Tomorrow I’ll share some nerdy stuff regarding the hands shown during the three nights’ worth of shows, but for today I just wanted to share one quick thought.

I was frankly pulling for McKeehen to win even back in July when Daniel Negreanu was still among those left in the sucker. It goes back to that WSOP Circuit event I covered in early 2013 in which McKeehen similarly entered the final day with the big chip lead and cruised to victory without much resistance, at the time the biggest cash for the Philadelphian.

From that event (at Caesars Atlantic City) I remembered a few things about McKeehen. One was the fact that he had an iPad at the table and was following our coverage, occasionally interacting with us as he reacted to some of the hands being reported. I remember getting the sense that he enjoyed especially whenever we’d include table talk or other details that went beyond the cards (in other words, the stuff I, too, tend to find more interesting a lot of the time).

I also recall how he arrived early for the last day, the first of the 19 players still left in the event to show up. As we didn’t have a photographer for the tournament, I got him to pose for a quick iPhone photo for us to use in the blog. He also did kind of a mock-muscle pose in his winner’s photo, I’m remembering, which produced some grins.

The main thing, though, that I remember about the tournament was how McKeehen seemed not just in control and especially cool at the table, but also how amiable he was with players who were clearly less confident and/or experienced. It wasn’t anything extraordinary, but it was something positive about the guy I ended up taking away from the event.

Watching three-handed last night -- and also some the night before -- you could occasionally see McKeehen being similarly friendly with Blumenfield sitting on his left, and really with everyone. Those exchanges reminded me of how I’d first encountered McKeehen, and like I say made me glad to see him do well this summer and then take it all down this week.

Saw just a few truly dumb responses over Twitter last night to McKeehen’s win and his short post-tourney interview (including a burst of bitter, embarrassingly unfunny heckling from the mostly dormant Wicked Chops Poker account). When asked about being poker’s “ambassador,” McKeehen very reasonably responded “we’ll see,” which to me went right along with his matter-of-fact demeanor and playing style.

All of which is to say I was glad to see McKeehen win, thought Josh Beckley and Blumenfield were pretty likable, too, and on the whole was both entertained, enthused, and even encouraged by the WSOP’s finale.

2015 WSOP November Nine, Day 2: McKeehen’s Still On Top

Watched every hand again last night as the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event final table played down from six players to three, with Joe McKeehen remaining in a dominant position going into three-handed play for tonight’s finish.

It’s reminding me once again of that WSOP Circuit final table from a couple of years ago that I’ve mentioned before, the one at Caesars Atlantic City I helped cover where McKeehen entered the final day with a big lead and never seemed to be challenged much at all on his way to the win.

Kind of remarkable, really, to think how easily things have gone for McKeehen at the final table thus far. Not only has he avoided making any bad decisions, he’s barely even taken that many risks at all even with decent hands in good spots. Both his opponents’ styles and the cards have dictated that result somewhat, but the overall impression has been that it’s hard to imagine how things could have gone much differently for McKeehen up to this point.

Easily the most interesting hand last night was the one that came relatively late when they were four-handed and Josh Beckley managed to three-bet and then fold pocket jacks to a reraise from the chip leader. We knew when watching that McKeehen had four-bet with pocket queens, which helped raise the eyebrows a little further when we saw Beckley avoid getting hooked by his two hooks.

The hand reminded me of one from the 2006 WSOP Main Event final table, something I brought up in another “what would you do?”-type PokerNews article today. I’m referring to a hand in which Richard Lee reraised all in with pocket jacks versus Jamie Gold’s queens and was knocked out in sixth.

Even though the two hands were similar, it’s funny to go back and think about how crazily different the play was at the ’06 final table -- where, it should be said, most of those there were amateurs, with Allen Cunningham being the exception. In fact in the hand Gold limped in with his queens, something that is hard to imagine happening today. So, too, have the 3x-and-above opening raises at that final table become a thing of the distant past.

Will be there ’til the end again tonight. While it’s hard to envision McKeehen in trouble, it sure would be interesting to watch should either Beckley or Neil Blumenfield manage to get in a position where they can present him some difficulty to complicate the conclusion.

2015 WSOP November Nine, Day 1: Having Fun Filling the Pauses

Sat up until 2 a.m. here last night until Pierre Neuville was eliminated in seventh and play was paused at the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event final table. The 72-year-old lasted 72 hands, as it happened. At least he didn’t go out with seven-deuce.

I was a little surprised at how tightly Neuville played for much of the night. Having seen him take chances and be bold in other tournaments before -- including online -- I knew he liked to play against the old-man image and mix things up. He and I talked about that very idea back in August, in fact, when I had a chance to interview him at EPT Barcelona.

But alas last night seemed to go in a different direction for the Belgian. Neuville was shown making some tight folds, then got a bit unlucky in a couple of spots including his last hand, although by then he was so short a double-up wouldn’t have helped him a lot, anyway.

Meanwhile the other older player, Neil Blumenfield (aged 61), made me think of Jerry Yang early on when he three-bet with Q-8-offsuit. He did well for himself to maintain a competitive stack all night, although leader Joe McKeehen -- now with over 91 million chips or nearly three times that of the chase pack that includes Ofer Zvi Stern and Blumenfield -- is going to be hard to catch.

Speaking of Stern, his lengthy tanking quickly became the foremost topic of conversation last night.

“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz….vi Stern. #November9,” tweeted Joe Stapleton. “Get it Ofer with,” was Remko Rinkema’s take. Meanwhile my constructive contributions included “At this rate, they won’t finish before Tanksgiving” and “Did I just hear a commercial saying if you have an erection lasting longer than four hands to call your physician?”

I saw Kevmath tweet something this morning about the action begin on Stern for something like 55 minutes or so out of the five-plus hours it took to play those 72 hands. All of the commercial breaks during the first two-and-a-half hours (during prime time) also helped lengthen things considerably.

Regarding the Stern commentary (pun intended) on Twitter last night, let me also shout out to D.J. MacKinnon and Jess Welman for a couple of Global Poker League-inspired thoughts. “Wonder how much more exciting this final table would be with a huge cube around it,” speculated MacKinnon, who then offered a laugh-out-loud artist's rendering as a follow-up. “You know what would make this final table so much better?” Jess then asked. “If everyone was standing up.”

That’s my cat, Sweetie, up above, by the way, mesmerized by another hand involving Stern.

Now, of course, the “shot clock” talk has begun again, although as has been the case when that has come up before, I can’t really get behind the idea. Players playing slowly is part of the game, and if other players have a problem they can call the clock to try to speed things up. Obviously Stern doesn’t have to play that way, but just as obviously he has every right to do so.

Phil Hellmuth tweeted something about him receiving a warning at one point, although it might have been the Stern warning (pun intended) was not for his slow pace of play. (Can’t really trust Hellmuth always to know what he’s tweeting about.) Will be curious to see if Stern is influenced at all into speeding up after no doubt getting feedback on what happened last night.

Have to say, though, I enjoyed the show last night, even with the sluggish pace. In part it was because I like watching how well McKeehen has been pushing around others by pushing his chips. But mostly it was because of the tweets, which were a fun way to fill all those pauses.

Fleeting Impressions

Following up on yesterday’s list, here are a few very hasty thoughts about some impressions left by the hands shown during ESPN’s WSOP Main Event coverage involving the November Niners:

Joe McKeehen: Smart and savvy, able to play quietly or match Negreanu’s table talk. Stepped up pressure considerably with big stack at end of Day 7. Especially cool (barely reacted when rivering four-outer to survive with 46 left).

Zvi Stern: Shown bluffing multiple times, giving him the appearance of one willing to take chances, make unorthodox plays.

Neil Blumenfield: Exhibited some characteristic amateur play, including some risky/rash all-ins (getting lucky a couple of times). However did manage to survive multiple hands in which many amateurs would’ve been eliminated (e.g., getting aces cracked).

Pierre Neuville: Often cautious, but more than willing to take chances and go against image with bluffs and/or aggression. Hands shown didn’t fully reveal his craftiness.

Max Steinberg: Along with McKeehen appears the most solid player of the nine. Likes big opening raises and was shown once making big overbet bluff, but obviously good at reading and decision-making postflop.

Tom Cannuli: Held his own during lots of feature table time (much with Negreanu). Has full range of moves available and seemingly good sense of what others are up to.

Josh Beckley: Often was short-stacked and thus without too many options, but was shown making big folds and trying multi-barrel bluffs more than once, too.

Patrick Chan: Barely made the coverage; barely made an impression.

Federico Butteroni: Got a lot of air time. Seemed to play some hands well, some less so.

This sort of thing reminds me of the story of the blind men and the elephant. You’ve heard of it, yes? Several blind men gather around an elephant, each touching a different part (the trunk, a leg, a tusk, etc.), then discuss what the animal was and discover they are in complete disagreement.

We saw only a tiny fraction of the hands played by these nine players. Even if we had seen all of them, we still would have imperfect knowledge of how each play. Still, it’s interesting to think about the impressions such imperfect chronicling has created, and whether or not such impressions could influence what happens once play resumes Sunday night.

(EDIT [added 11/8/15]: For more November Nine-related conjecture -- including from your humble scribbler -- check out the “PokerNews Staff Predictions for the World Series of Poker November Nine.”)

Compiling the November Niners’ Hands Shown on ESPN

Okay, folks... this is going to seem a little obsessive. But I took all these notes and ended up deciding not to use them for anything else, and so I’m going to share it all here rather than just keep them to myself.

A couple of days ago I mentioned again how I’d been watching the ESPN coverage of the WSOP Main Event fairly closely this year, pulling out interesting hands for “what-would-you-do?”-type strategy articles over on PokerNews. That meant I watched every hand from all 16 episodes, taking notes as I did.

I had an idea this week that it might be interesting to pull out the hands involving the November Niners -- Joseph McKeehen, Zvi Stern, Neil Blumenfield, Pierre Neuville, Max Steinberg, Tom Cannuli, Josh Beckley, Patrick Chan, and Federico Butteroni -- and find out what perhaps could be gleaned from the hands that were shown. I already had notes from each episode which to work, and so initially thought it might be a reasonable task, but eventually I got kind of bogged down with it all and the idea got aborted.

There were 284 hands (including partial hands) shown in the coverage. Of those about half of them involved November Niners, although about 20 or so of those hands were just them folding preflop. Still that left 121 hands in which we could actually talk about meaningful strategic decisions involving these players. These would be the hands, I’d imagine, that the players themselves focused on if they chose to study the ESPN shows at all when preparing for the final table.

Like I say, I didn’t want to do all of this and just toss it in the circular file, so I’m going to leave it here if only to remind me not to give myself such a ridiculous task again. What follows are short-hand notes of those 121 hands -- my actual notes for each hand are much, much more detailed, but they are also very messy and inconsistent. That’s not to say what appears below isn’t also messy and inconsistent, but at least the entries are short and easy enough to scan.

The numbers represent the episode (1 through 16) and the hand on that episode, so “1.10” means show #1, hand #10. An asterisk before the number means a November Niner was at risk of elimination in the hand. Most of them were shown in that spot at least once (including McKeehen with 46 left), Chan was twice, Butteroni three times, Blumenfield five times, and Beckley six times. In fact the only remaining player not shown all in and at risk at least once is Pierre Neuville.

McKeehen unsurprisingly got the most exposure in these hands among the nine (30 hands total, I believe), while Chan got the least by far (just five hands).

Tomorrow I’ll come back with a short post summarizing some thoughts about what I got from these hands insofar as they suggest anything meaningful about each player. Meanwhile I hope the list is understandable enough, for those who are curious.

1.10 McKeehen -- 535 left, gets Costello to make bad river call (knocks out Costello)

2.11 Butteroni -- 428 left, successfully bluffs Ron Ilani

4.13 Beckley -- ~285 left, successfully bluffs Schwartz

5.13 Steinberg -- 186 left, wins three-way hand with Bonomo (overcalls)
5.16 Steinberg -- 171 left, wins J-J vs. A-Q to knock out Jae Kim
5.19 Blumenfield -- 168 left, wins A-A vs. K-K to knock out Esfandiari

6.1 McKeehen -- 162 left, wins A-K vs. Q-Q to knock out Racener
6.6 McKeehen-Stern -- ~160 left, Stern bluffs river with air vs. McKeehen’s full house
6.8 Butteroni -- 138 left, wins A-A vs. 8-8 to knock out Lily Newhouse

7.3 Neuville -- 109 left, gets shoved on river, calls w/flush, knocks out Divella
7.10 Blumenfield -- ~100 left, wins with A-A w/o showdown vs. De Silva
7.11 Steinberg -- ~100 left, wins w/K-K w/o a showdown (gets value) vs. Bonomo (A-K)
7.15 Blumenfield -- ~100 left, wins multi-way hand calling down with flopped top pair
*7.20 Stern -- ~100 left, luckily survives AI Ac-9c vs. Diveglia’s Qs-Qc (rivers straight)
*7.21 Butteroni -- ~90 left, wins AI with K-K vs. Bonomo’s 10-10

8.1 Neuville -- ~90 left, wins with A-A vs. K-Q, knocks out Barabino
8.3 Blumenfield -- ~85 left, loses with J-J vs. Negreanu’s A-A (perhaps lucky to survive)
8.7 Neuville -- ~85 left, wins w/Q-7 vs. Morgenstern’s J-9 latter double-barrels, folds
8.8 Cannuli -- 83 left, wins with A-A vs. A-10, knocks out Diana Svensk
8.16 Blumenfield -- ~80 left, loses big (73% stack) w/K-K vs. Jarvis’s 6-6 (set)

*9.3 Beckley -- 69 left, gets AI after flopping set (three-way hand), survives
*9.4 Blumenfield -- ~69 left, luckily survives with K-J vs. Hastings’s A-3
9.6 Cannuli -- 63 left, wins A-K vs. KK, knocks out Mackoff
9.7 Steinberg -- ~63 left, 3-way vs. Negreanu/Anand; flops middle pair, c-r, wins
9.10 Beckley -- ~60 left, gets value vs. Jarvis calling down, then rivering flush
9.15 Butteroni-Neuville -- ~60 left, b-v.-b hand, Butteroni turns two pair, gets value
9.16 Cannuli -- ~60 left, wins smallish hand vs. Toole (and Berman who folds flop)
9.18 Beckley -- 58 left, tries to bluff Morfe and Morfe calls him down
*9.19 Blumenfield -- 58 left, AI on turn w/queen-high, luckily draws out vs. Hastings
9.20 Neuville-Butteroni -- ~58 left, 3-way hand, Neuville successfully bluffs pot
9.21 Cannuli-Steinberg -- ~58 left, four-way hand, smallish pot
9.25 Cannuli -- ~57 left, 3-way small hand with Minkin and Negreanu

10.3 Steinberg -- ~55 left, 3-way, Steinberg folds top pair to Schwartz turn bluff
*10.5 Beckley-Chan -- huge 3-way hand in which both Beckley & Chan AI, Chan wins
10.6 Beckley -- 53 left, knocks out Lewis after making tough call on turn
10.7 Cannuli -- ~52 left, 3-bets Schwartz from BB w/Q-7, flops two pair/folds to S flush
10.8 Steinberg -- ~50 left, wins small pot with J-J
10.12 Cannuli -- 49 left, wins one vs. Schwartz after drawing out two pair
10.15 Stern -- ~49 left, raises river w/second pair after Power’s bluff, gets fold
*10.16 Beckley -- ~46 left, 4 limp, Beckley r BB w/A-A, wins vs. Buckenmayer AI w/K-Q

*11.1 McKeehen-Beckley -- 46 left, M luckily wins AI A-Q vs. B’s A-K; rivers straight
11.4 Butteroni -- 44 left, loses hand to Clinger
11.5 Cannuli -- 43 left, raises over Steinberg/Schwartz limp w/Q-J, flops straight
11.8 Steinberg-Cannuli -- 41 left, multi-way pot; Cannuli loses to Negreanu w/trip J
11.9 Butteroni -- ~40 left, raises, then folds 9-9 after Turyansky AI
11.10 Chan-McKeehen -- 39 left, 3-way, M AI Q-Q, Chan f A-Q, Buckenmayer out A-K
11.13 Cannuli-Blumenfield -- 36 left, C raises K-6, Blum calls BB 10-9; Blum wins
11.15 Cannuli -- 35 left, loses small three-way pot
*11.17 Butteroni -- 34 left, luckily doubles with 6-6 vs. Brand’s 10-10 (flops quads)
11.18 Steinberg-Cannuli -- 34 left, S r K-K, C calls 9-9; C folds flop, S KOs Toole
11.20 Blumenfield -- ~34 left, makes ballsy AI bluff w/queen-high on river v. Ahmar
11.21 Stern -- 33 left, folds pocket nines after raise, call, reraise

12.2 Steinberg -- 31 left, opens w/9-9 and ends up getting value vs. Ahmar
12.3 Blumenfield -- 31 left, loses big to DNegs w/A-K vs. DN 6-3 (DN better str8)
12.4 Neuville -- 31 left, raises 5-5 then folds to a three-bet
12.5 Beckley-Neuville -- 31 left, Beckley triple-barrels, gets PN to fold better
12.8 Blumenfield -- 31 left, raises with J-J, AI on six-high flop, wins
12.9 Steinberg-Blumenfield -- 31 left, 3-way, Blum calls raise, wins decent pot (DN)
12.11 Blumenfield-Steinberg -- 31 left, Blum folds 9-9 to AI, Stein calls/loses w/7-7
12.14 Blumenfield -- 30 left, Blum calls BB w/Q-9, lets Schwartz bluff him out
12.15 Stern -- ~30 left, four-bets with 10-10, then folds to a big shove
12.16 Cannuli-Steinberg -- 30 left, C calls r w/J-J, S calls w/K-7, DN rr, both fold
12.17 Butteroni -- 29 left, limps SB with Q-10, flops trip 10s and knocks out Minkin
12.19 McKeehen -- 28 left, wins with A-Q vs. A-10, knocks out Moreno

*13.2 Butteroni -- 27 left, luckily wins with Q-Q vs. A-K, ace on flop, queen on turn
13.5 Butteroni -- 27 left, calls raise w/A-5, bluffs at flop, gives up on river (vs. DN)
13.4 Blumenfield -- 27 left, ends up earning some value vs. a bluffy Morgenstern
13.5 Neuville-Beckley -- 27 left, B flops top pair, but N runner-runner deuces
*13.6 Steinberg -- 27 left, doubles up with A-A vs. Negreanu’s 8-8
13.7 Neuville -- 27 left, calls raise with 5-4 suited, then folds to an all-in
*13.8 Chan-Beckley -- 27 left, Beckley (J-J) doubles through Chan (6-6)
13.12 Cannuli -- 24 left, wins with 10-8 vs. 3-3 to knock out Brand
13.13 Cannuli -- 23 left, DN raises, B folds 6-6, C reraises A-K, DN calls; C wins
13.16 Blumenfield -- 23 left, loses a lot with A-A vs. Hinds who rivers nut flush
13.17 McKeehen -- 23 left, wins big pot with K-K vs. Kearney’s 10-10, takes lead again
*13.18 Beckley -- 22 left, triples up with K-K (Neuville c/f K-Q pre)
13.19 Butteroni-Steinberg -- 22 left, table talk, Stein bluffs Butteroni out on river
*13.20 Blumenfield -- 21 left, AI with K-K and doubles through Hinds’s A-K
*13.21 Blumenfield -- 21 left, very next hand AI w/A-A, doubles through Hinds’s 10-10
13.22 Neuville -- 21 left, knocks out Sequiera in very interesting K-6 vs. Q-Q hand

14.1 Cannuli -- 19 left, battles with DNegs over small pot
14.2 Steinberg -- 19 left, a nothing hand
14.3 Butteroni -- 19 left, has J-J, to river w/Schwartz before S bluffs him out
14.7 McKeehen -- 18 left, battles with DNegs
14.8 Steinberg -- 18 left, wins with A-K vs. A-Q, knocks out Kramer
14.10 McKeehen -- 16 left, has A-A and five-bets DNegs who tank-folds A-K
14.11 McKeehen -- 16 left, calls Guan raise w/6-6, makes set, then quads, value
14.12 Neuville -- 16 left, wins with 8-8 vs. A-K, knocks out Stefanski
*14.13 Neuville-Cannuli -- 15 left, Cannuli (A-K) doubles through Neuville (A-9)

*15.1 Beckley -- 15 left, B calls BB 10-8 flops str8, AI flop/doubles thru Turyansky
15.2 McKeehen-Butteroni -- 15 left, both battle DNegs for pot, McKeehen wins
15.3 Cannuli -- 15 left, wins with A-10 vs. Q-Q, knocks out Kearney
15.4 Butteroni -- 14 left, calls BB w/8-5 suited, c-r flop w/mid-pair, Schwartz folds
15.5 McKeehen -- 14 left, set over set to knock out Schwartz
15.6 McKeehen -- 13 left, K-K gets value vs. DNegs with Q-J and top pair on flop
15.7 Cannuli-Chan -- 13 left, Cannuli 4-bets AI w/Q-Q, Chan folds J-7 after 3-bet
15.8 Cannuli-Stern -- 13 left, C (7-6) beats Stern (A-K); turns trips, Stern kings
15.9 Cannuli-Neuville -- 13 left, C raises with 10-5, bluffs N off hand on turn
15.10 McKeehen -- 13 left, DNegs doubles through with 4-4 vs. M’s A-7
15.11 Steinberg-Stern -- 13 left, Stein wins w/K-J vs. Stern A-Q; Stern b-f river
15.12 McKeehen-Beckley -- small hand
*15.13 Chan-Neuville -- 13 left, Chan survives with A-Q v. N’s J-J (flops flush)
15.14 Stern-Cannuli -- 13 left, Stern r/c 3-bet (A-K) w/Q-8; raise flop w/air, wins
15.16 McKeehen-Butteroni -- 13 left, w/Turyansky... Butteroni wins
15.17 McKeehen -- 13 left, raises with 8-7, then folds to a DNegs AI
15.18 McKeehen-Butteroni -- Butteroni wins with A-A vs. Q-Q, KOs Guan out 13th
15.19 Stern -- 12 left, raises w/10s8s, 4-bets AI, wins vs. Q-Q, McDonald 12th

16.1 McKeehen-Beckley -- 11 left, McK raise 6-6, Beck 3-bets A-J, McKeehen fold
16.2 McKeehen -- 11 left, raises/folds to a DN AI
16.3 Blumenfield-Stern -- 11 left, Stern AI on turn w/air v. Blum flush/doubles
16.4 Beckley-McKeehen-Butteroni -- 11 left, M 3-bets 7-6, Bu folds 8-8; Be folds pair
16.5 McKeehen -- 11 left, loses small one to DNegs
16.6 McKeehen -- 11 left, loses another small one to DNegs
16.7 McKeehen-Beckley -- 11 left, M rivers straight, goes AI, Beckley folds top pair
16.9 McKeehen -- 11 left, KOs DN after raising with J-3, DN just call BB w/A-4
16.10 Steinberg-McKeehen -- 10 left, S raise A-K, M 3-bets w/7-6, S 4-bets, M folds
*16.11 Beckley-McKeehen -- 10 left, B doubles w/A-Q vs. M’s 9-9 (Cannuli folded 9-9)
16.12 McKeehen -- 10 left, Turyansky luckily survives with A-J vs. M’s A-K
16.13 McKeehen-Neuville -- 10 left, Neuville flops set with J-J & wins big one vs. McK
16.14 Blumenfield-Neuville -- 10 left, Neuv wins 9-9 vs. Blum’s 8-8, Blum folds river
16.15 McKeehen -- 10 left, wins with Q-Q vs. A-K, knocks out Turyansky in 10th

Short-Handed, Short-Stacked, and Short-Changed

Have a postscript to share regarding yesterday’s discussion of the last part of Day 7 of the World Series of Poker Main Event (and ESPN’s coverage of it). Has to do with the short-handed play and a problem faced by some of the short stacks -- I’ll keep it short.

The episodes this week showed them play down from 15 players to nine, with Daniel Negreanu dramatically lasting as far as 11th place. While watching I was reminded of the significant faux pas made by the WSOP not to go to hand-for-hand play immediately after George McDonald’s knockout in 12th place. This issue wasn’t brought up at all on ESPN. It might have been, because it involved a mistake in judgment that affected who of the final 11 ultimately were able to make it to the final table.

After McDonald’s ouster, there were two short-handed tables, with the feature table being the shorter one with just five players. That’s where leader Joe McKeehen sat with a monstrous stack that dwarfed those of the other four players, including Negreanu.

In fact, for much of the sequence that followed, McKeehen was in first while the others were 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th in the counts. He also was opening practically every hand and keeping the pressure on constantly (as he should have). Too bad for the short stacks, for sure, but that’s the luck of the seat draw and subsequent table-balancing.

What wasn’t fair, though, was the fact that at the five-handed table they were playing nearly twice as fast as at the outer six-handed table. Over the next hour-and-a-half, they played 48 hands at the feature table (with McKeehen winning 26 of them), while they only played 26 hands at the six-handed table.

Not incidentally, when McKeehen had the button, Negreanu was in the big blind, and we saw several hands in the coverage involving those two. Looking back through the live updates again, Negreanu was in the big blind 10 times during the non-H4H portion when there were 11 left. Meanwhile Patrick Chan -- who became the short stack on the outer table after Neil Blumenfield doubled up soon after McDonald’s ouster -- was in the big blind exactly five times during the same hour-and-a-half.

The WSOP finally decided to go to hand-for-hand once they reached the next level break, well after the many criticisms for not doing so had been fired over Twitter and across other social media. It then only took four hands more for Negreanu’s bust to come (in one last button-versus-big blind hand with McKeehen).

There were some strange pay jumps in play here, too, you might recall. Here’s how the top 11 spots of the WSOP Main Event pay:

1st: $7,683,346
2nd: $4,470,896
3rd: $3,398,298
4th: $2,615,361
5th: $1,911,423
6th: $1,426,283
7th: $1,203,293
8th: $1,097,056
9th: $1,001,020
10th: $756,897
11th: $526,778

This payout schedule also represented something that might have been done otherwise, and once it was announced during the early part of the Main Event many suggested problems with it and possible corrections.

Notice how the jumps between 11th and 10th ($230,119) and 10th and 9th ($244,123) are both much greater than the ones between 9th-8th, 8th-7th, and 7th-6th. Not that anyone is going to be less than cautious with 11 players in the WSOP Main Event, but those big jumps could obviously encourage players to play less quickly, especially if they saw short stacks at the other table being threatened by the chip leader.

The fact that the WSOP did finally exercise their judgment and go to hand-for-hand some 90 minutes after they should have shows they could have done it as soon as they got to 11 players. As I wrote about here back in July, the fact that they didn’t represented a serious mistake, one made more conspicuous (if not more significant) by the fact that Negreanu was among the players directly affected.

2015 WSOP Main Event: The Finale, Finally

The last of ESPN’s pre-November Nine episodes from the 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event have now aired, and now everyone’s attention turns to the final table -- finally! -- which will begin this coming Sunday.

I ended up watching all 16 of the episodes which altogether added up to 19-and-a-half hours’ worth of shows on the ESPN networks. That counts commercials, of course, which I skipped through like most. I didn’t watch a single one of these shows live, choosing the NFL instead (usually) as just about every one of the premieres went up against football.

The coverage started with the beginning of Day 4 (after the money bubble had already burst on Day 3) and carried through the end of Day 7, taking viewers from 661 players down to nine. I enjoyed most of the shows, especially from Day 7. Daniel Negreanu’s deep run definitely helped -- he was a huge part of all of the episodes right up until the last half-hour of the last one.

It’s been at least a couple of years, perhaps three or four, since I actually sat down and watched every episode of ESPN’s WSOP Main Event coverage like this. Again, I can’t say they have done too much to alter the formula, which is probably on the whole a good thing even if one would like to think there are better ways of doing this sort of thing.

Seven years later, the final table delay still irks me. Negreanu’s desperate hanging on with the short stack before finally getting knocked out in 11th -- on a river card, too -- would have been utterly electric to watch live (or on a slight delay). But seeing it three-and-a-half months later was nowhere close to as exciting. (Even a far cry from the “Twitter rail” from that night in July.)

That other World Series wrapping up earlier this week got me thinking about how I experienced baseball as a kid. The first World Series I can remember watching was in 1977 when the Yankees beat the Dodgers in six games and Reggie Jackson hit five home runs -- three in the final game. What a thrilling series that was between two incredible teams full of characters and stars. And many of the games and plays remain etched in my memory, even decades later.

Meanwhile I was a Cincinnati Reds fan as a kid, and so I only indirectly was able to enjoy the Big Red Machine’s two wins in ’75 and ’76 after the fact via highlights, reading books and magazine articles, and so on. While I obviously can recall the image of Carlton Fisk urging his game-winner in Game 6 in ’75 to stay fair, I don’t remember much of anything else from those two series given the indirect way I originally “experienced” them.

It’s this latter way that we now experience nearly all of the World Series of Poker Main Event, save the final table. It’s a highlight show, and with such a huge distance between it happening and our getting to see anything it tends to pack the same, generally weak punch of seeing a few plays the morning after on SportsCenter. If that.

That said, I’ll confess watching all the shows definitely has me ready for Sunday night. I might even have to turn off the football for once.

By the way, if you want to play along with my series of "what-would-you-do?"-type strategy articles over on PokerNews stemming from the ESPN coverage (with poll questions about decision points), here are all of them:

“Watching Phil Hellmuth or ‘The Master at Work’”

”Daniel Negreanu Turns the Nuts -- Call or Reraise?”

”How Would You Respond to Negreanu’s Check-Raises?”

”Flopping Huge Versus Fedor -- Play Fast or Slow?”

”Pick Your Spots and Play Along with Max Steinberg”

”Negreanu and November Niners Playing Trouble Hands”

”Nearing the November Nine, What Would You Do?”

”Leader Joe McKeehen Pressures, How Do You Respond?”

After Eight Laterals, Some Want to Keep Going Back

On Saturday night I was up watching the World Series when I saw a score for the Miami-Duke college football game. It was late in the fourth quarter, and Miami had a 24-19 lead.

I’m not much of a college football fan, actually, and only have an occasional interest in rooting on my alma mater, UNC-Chapel Hill. (Am much more into college b-ball, although even there I tend to prefer the NBA.) Aware that the Heels and Duke are battling for the top spot in the Coastal Division, I nonetheless decided to switch over to see the end of the game.

I got to see Duke conduct what appeared to be a fairly strange drive that went 80 yards in less than two minutes, conspicuously marked by three defensive pass interference calls including a couple in which the flags were thrown very late. Inside the last half-minute there was some strangeness from the refs having to do with adding time to the clock. Then the final play -- a one-yard QB sneak for a score -- didn’t even appear to be a touchdown although there were no decent replays available to confirm one way or another.

I’ll fully admit to being a biased observer, rooting against Duke and feeling fairly dismayed to see them grab the lead -- unfairly, it seemed! -- with just six seconds left, then add a two-point conversion to go up 27-24. Then came the play which you’ve all heard about by now, the truly manic, eight-lateral kickoff return ending in a Miami score to win the game for the Hurricanes, 30-27.

Was kind of nutty to watch happen live, especially after those many backward passes had carried Miami all the way back inside their own five-yard line before the dramatic, rumbling rush down the sideline finally commenced. Of course the whole while I was holding my breath, frankly expecting a flag to be thrown to break the spell and snuff out the result. I didn’t find out until later Miami had been penalized an incredible 23 times (to just five for Duke), but somehow they escaped getting nabbed a 24th time.

There was about a 10-minute long review of the play, causing suspense regarding it to linger still further, with the ref committing his own false start of an explanation once before coming back to clarify the ruling. From there Miami’s team and fans rejoiced, and the immersive investigation of all facets of the final play commenced over social media with Zapruder-like scrutiny until several violations were identified, including multiple missed penalties and a moment when a player might have been declared down.

It was all highly entertaining for this Duke antagonist. Yesterday the ACC suspended the officiating crew over their uncertain handling of the game’s ending. And now several armchair pundits are asking “Should there be a way to overturn Miami-Duke result?” or suggesting “The ACC needs to overturn Miami’s crazy, controversial win over Duke” or arguing the “Hurricanes should do the right thing and voluntarily forfeit.”

Funny thing is, if Miami had not scored on that final play, they would be the ones complaining about the refs giving the game away, perhaps even calling for the result to be overturned should a well-timed goal line iPhone photo of Duke’s questionable go-ahead TD emerge.

I’m not sure if a team can forfeit a game after it has been played or not. I know the NCAA has a rule that once a game has finished, there’s no going back and changing the outcome. All of it makes me think of the so-called “ocean” card in hold’em, a “sixth street” community card that players who miss their draws on the river wish for but never receive.

I’ve written here before about football having turned into a game of “do-overs and didn’t-counts.” The same is true of other aspects of our unrelentingly-litigious culture, where nothing ever seems to be final and a post-result appeal always seems to be an option.

I guess that’s one way of not being results oriented -- not acknowledging a result to be valid at all.

Ryan In, But Don’t Get Hoppe Up

There’s a new Speaker of the House, the 45-year-old Paul Ryan who was Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential candidate in 2012. He takes over for John Boehner who held the position for nearly five years before recently announcing his decision to step down.

Boehner made his announcement in late September, engendering a few weeks’ worth of speculation and a bit of jockeying among the Republicans over who would be the successor. For a few days in there young Jason Chaffetz of Utah was expressing his desire to be the new Speaker, but his mini-campaign didn’t gain a lot of momentum and eventually Ryan became the chosen one.

Those of us with an interest in online poker recognize Chaffetz as one of the members of Congress responsible for advancing that draconian bill misleadingly called the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (or RAWA). I say “misleadingly” because RAWA isn’t really “restoring” the 1961 federal law but rather rewriting it altogether, this time to prohibit nearly all forms of online gambling.

Chaffetz sponsored the current version of RAWA in the House (Lindsey Graham of SC sponsored it in the Senate). I’ve written about the bill some here, including after a hearing back in March where Chaffetz made an obnoxious (and brief) appearance in which he dismissed out of hand the idea that geolocation could enable a state to restrict those outside of its borders to gamble on an online site (i.e., technology that has already been shown to work reasonably well).

By sponsoring RAWA, both Graham and Chaffetz are working directly for Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire who has been campaigning against online gambling ever since his own attempts to get in the game for several years during the 2000s failed. Indeed, The Hill has said an Adelson lobbyist authored an early draft of RAWA.

But Chaffetz is out and Ryan is in. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean good news for those who would oppose RAWA or anything else Adelson might get his big bucks behind.

That’s because earlier this week Ryan hired J. David Hoppe to be his chief of staff. In the past Hoppe has served as an adviser to various Republican congressmen while also working as a lobbyist in D.C. Also from Wisconsin, Hoppe has been friends with Ryan for more than two decades as he’s lobbied for a number of different conservative groups.

Among those Hoppe has been lobbying for lately is the Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling -- that’s right, the group launched by Adelson in early 2014. ThinkProgress reports that Hoppe has received $180,000 from the coaltion since July.

All of which is not to say RAWA necessarily has any greater chance of gaining momentum thanks to Ryan’s new position and his connection with Hoppe. But it seems safe to assume Ryan isn’t necessarily any better than Chaffetz would have been for those harboring hope for the online gambling cause, federally-speaking.

Remember a Day, Before the UIGEA

Fantasy sports actually came up as a topic during last night’s debate among Republican presidential candidates, although only long enough for one candidate (Jeb Bush) to make a weak joke about his own fantasy football team then add a generic reference to the need for regulation, and another (Chris Christie) to complain about it being a trivial issue then add a generic reference to the need for the federal government to leave fantasy sports alone.

It reminded me a little of people in poker back in the day sometimes wondering -- usually in a humorous way -- if online poker was going to come up in debates or speeches. Of course the topic never would, being so tangential, so it was kind of remarkable to think that daily fantasy sports (DFS) had made its way far enough into the cultural center to get that mention last night.

Of course, it took a few weeks worth of drama including lots of legislators on both the state and federal level wanting to examine DFS for that to happen. Against that backdrop, ESPN shared an interesting article yesterday titled “The true Congressional origin of daily fantasy sports” that provides some historical perspective on the legality of fantasy sports, in particular looking at the years preceding the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 which some have argued made the DFS industry possible, even if the bill’s authors never quite envisioned what that industry has become.

After looking into that history for several weeks, ESPN points out how the inclusion of fantasy sports as a so-called “carve out” in the UIGEA wasn’t actually the result of lobbying by the NFL or other sports leagues (as many have stated). About a month back I posted a list of UIGEA-related items here without comment that perhaps suggested as much, but according to ESPN this really wasn’t the case.

In that post I quoted the line from the UIGEA stating how “the term ‘bet or wager’... does not include... participation in any fantasy or simulation sports game or educational game or contest in which (if the game or contest involves a team or teams) no fantasy or simulation sports team is based on the current membership of an actual team that is a member of an amateur or professional sports organization.” Remember the UIGEA prohibits businesses from facilitating the funding of “unlawful Internet gambling” which refers to placing, receiving, or transmitting a “bet or wager” online, so saying fantasy sports doesn’t involve bets or wagers means funding online fantasy sports is not prohibited.

The whole idea for what eventually became the UIGEA arose in response to the growth of the internet in the 1990s and the initial appearance of gambling sites, including both poker and sports betting sites. But as the ESPN article points out -- and as many others have been explaining, too, especially over recent weeks -- the “fantasy sports” being exempted back in the late 1990s when legislators first began sharing early versions of online gambling-related legislation wasn’t at all like DFS.

There are references in the article from various folks (including legislators) characterizing those earlier fantasy leagues as being similar to friendly home games in poker -- that is, mostly between friends and for small stakes. There’s also a distinction made between longer (e.g., season-long) fantasy sports contests and shorter ones such as what has become the daily or weekly games. Only one brief exchange between former Arizona senator Jon Kyl (one of those often called an orginal “architect” of the UIGEA) and an attorney alludes to the possibility of shorter-interval fantasy sports contests, and that’s only in passing (and without any subsequent effect on how the law was ultimately worded).

Interestingly, the Department of Justice offered an opinion in 1999 that there should be no fantasy sports exemption in any federal legislation regarding online gambling. Then the topic wasn’t revisited at all over the next several years, making it seem as though the language relating to fantasy sports just kind of lingered there to be quietly included in the final version of the bill that was passed into law.

“There was no evidence in the Congressional Record that the final version of the UIGEA was openly debated in the lead-up to the Sept. 29, 2006 vote,” reports ESPN (a vote that technically didn’t finish until after midnight that night, thus 9/30/06). A lot of us well remember that part of the story. After it passed some legislators complained about the carve outs (including for fantasy sports), and of course there followed the ultimately unsuccessful efforts of Barney Frank and others to pass new legislation regarding online gambling. But the UIGEA remains the law of the land as far as federal legislation focused on online gambling goes, despite its abundant ambiguities.

The article concludes with some forward-looking thoughts about how things might proceed from here when it comes to this reconsideration of DFS’s legal standing. Included are quotes from current major sports leagues commissioners on the subject.

It’s obvious that DFS is almost entirely different from what “fantasy sports” was intended to signify in the UIGEA, which I suppose will be a central part of the debate among legislators going forward. In any event, today I’m lamenting we didn’t think to start calling online poker a “simulation sports game” at some point prior to October 2006.