One Drop Drop

So the second installment of the $1,000,000 buy-in Big One for One Drop kicked off on Sunday, with 42 taking part.

That’s a smaller field than the first time the event was staged two years ago when they drew 48, thus meaning the $37,333,338 prize pool and the $15,306,668 first prize are both less than what we saw in 2012.

Seems strange to look at figures like those and regard them as thought they are somehow disappointing because they aren’t bigger, but such is the way of comparisons. And hype, too, as it certainly sounded like expectations were they’d be nearing or perhaps even hitting the 56-player cap for the event.

Besides being a smaller field, there are also a higher percentage of pros taking part this time around, as several of the amateur businessmen who played in 2012 likely viewed the event as a kind of one-shot deal and thus aren’t coming back for more. The relative toughness of the field increasing thus certainly prevented a few from playing.

Just glancing over the names of those involved, there only appear to be five or six who are not full-time pros with most of the others being part of the same group we’ve seen routinely taking part in the “high roller” and “super high roller” events over the last three-plus years.

Thomas Keeling (SrslySirius) interviewed Phil Hellmuth for BLUFF who sounded as though he was going to play, but was too slow to get his backing in order by the time late registration ended. Meanwhile Frank Op de Woerd spoke with Haralabos Voulgaris -- another of those who played the One Drop in 2012 but decided not to this time around -- and he provided some insight regarding why others might have chosen not to play this time.

As he’s bought significant pieces of several players, Voulgaris obviously has an interest in seeing who makes the final eight to cash and who wins the event. But he was noting on Twitter yesterday how in truth “nobody cares who wins,” which I think on one level is probably true, even if the poker world will get increasingly curious about how it concludes once they get to a final table tomorrow.

That is to say, while the charity element is of course significant, the spectacle is all. And as with most sequels, there’s necessarily going to be a decrease in the impact earlier enjoyed by the novelty of such an event.

I’ll still be following along though.

WSOP Stories Getting Big

The World Series of Poker seems to be building to a kind of crazy fever pitch at the moment. So many headlines and “big” events happening at once.

The $50K Poker Players Championship just concluded, normally a big highlight of the WSOP. Some interesting narratives came out of that one, including Melissa Burr becoming the first woman ever to cash in the nine-year history of the $50K (going back to its H.O.R.S.E. days) and winner John Hennigan cashing for a third straight year.

But really, the $50K is getting eclipsed by all of these other big stories building at the moment.

Today there’s the continuation of this crazily huge “Monster Stack” event that drew an amazing 7,864 players. That made the tournament the third-largest live event in history in terms of participants behind the 2006 WSOP Main Event (8,773) and this year’s “Millionaire Maker” (7,977). And it was the biggest ever for a tourney with just one starting day, although they split it up into a couple of flights on Thursday to make it physically possible to seat all of those runners.

Meanwhile the Ladies event gets going today, which usually draws a lot of headlines. Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu are both in the hunt with just 14 left in the $1,500 Eight-Game Mix (Event No. 50). And the “Big One for One Drop” is just around the corner, starting on Sunday.

And sheesh, the Main Event is almost here, too, starting just a week from tomorrow. The summer is flying by -- seems even faster, I think, than when I am out there, when the days always do zip by pretty quickly.

It’s going by so fast, it’s almost hard to stop and take stock of how it’s all going, and how the WSOP might be reflecting the overall health and growth of poker, a favorite topic each summer. Seems as though while some events are down in terms of numbers, overall the Series is clicking along at a similar pace to previous years and all will be considered another successful year in the desert.

Right now, though, it’s all kind of a blur. A big, big blur.

Goal Differences and Different Goals

Like everyone I’ll be watching the U.S.-Germany match today, intrigued not just to see how the American side responds against a favored opponent after Sunday’s emotion-packed draw but also by how all of the various scoring outcomes in both Group G matches can affect who advances should the U.S. lose today.

You’ve probably seen this grid, one that’s been passed around a lot this morning showing what would happen with a U.S. loss according to lots of different final scores in the two matches (click to embiggen). A quick glance shows a Portugal win over Ghana would be preferable, although even in that circumstance there are ways the U.S. misses advancing.

The grid makes me think of one of those how-to-play blackjack cards that spells out when to hit, stand, double down, or split according to your own cards and what the dealer is showing. For poker players, it perhaps also recalls either those starting hand charts considering hole cards and position that advise whether to fold, call, or raise, or the grids produced by those equity calculators comparing a hand or range versus an opponent’s hand or range.

Interesting how not only do the various scenarios for advancing alter with each completed match, but so, too, do the perceived goals for the teams involved. The U.S. started with modest expectations, but that first win versus Ghana swiftly changed expectations and then the prospect of a win during Sunday’s match changed it even more. While some may think a game without a lot of scoring suffers from a kind of stasis compared to other sports, the truth is nothing ever stays the same in the World Cup.

While I’m not a huge soccer fan, I do watch occasionally and always follow the World Cup pretty closely, regardless of the U.S.’s involvement. A Spanish friend asked me the other day which teams I root for (besides the U.S.), and I replied that I’m mostly swayed to pull for teams from Europe and South America, mainly because I’ve traveled to both places a lot and am friends with people from the countries involved.

I was in France in 1998, actually, having lived there for a year and actually left just before the World Cup got started that summer. Was impossible not to get caught up in the lead-up while there, and of course followed closely upon returning to watch France earn the win.

Speaking of charts and grids and sorting out possibilities, I’ve always liked the World Cup’s method of working out how the 32 teams play down to a winner, with the three-game “regular season” among the four-team groups with its tie-breaker scenarios involving goal differences. The system creates a lot of satisfying symmetries while also working as a system that seems a fair way to balance the rewarding of skill while still allowing for the vagaries of chance.

There’s no guarantee, of course, that the best 16 teams advance from the 32 who start. But what would be the fun in that?

Enjoy today’s matches, all.

Couldn’t Have Played It Any Better, Mike

Heard that recent announcement that Mike Johnson, the longtime co-host of the Two Plus Two Pokercast and before that Rounders, the Poker Show, is going to be stepping away from the poker podcast game in mid-July following the end of festivities this summer at the WSOP. His co-host Adam Schwartz started an “Official Mike Johnson retiring from the Pokercast thread” over on 2+2 where many are chiming in with appreciations and other grins inspired by Johnson.

I can’t begin to count how many times I’ve written here about either the old Rounders show (which I began listening to shortly after it came on the air way back in April 2005) or the Pokercast (which started at the beginning of 2008). Those shows have inspired countless topics over the years that I’ve taken up here, with Mike and Adam both consistently presenting thoughtful, interesting takes on innumerable issues affecting the always interesting poker world.

Last year I had a chance to interview the two of them for Betfair Poker, and they shared a lot of great stories about the history of the show as well as thoughts about the place of it within our little idiosyncratic world of “poker reporting” (or whatever you want to call it).

I’ve also had the chance to meet Mike a few times at the WSOP over the years, including covering him occasionally when he played in events. The most memorable such instance of the latter concerned what was probably one of the more painful moments Mike ever endured at the WSOP.

It was 2011 and Mike was playing in the Main Event, and right near the end of one of the Day 1 flights he got involved in a big hand versus the Russian player Yury Gulyy. In the hand Mike successfully got Gulyy to commit his entire stack on the turn on a 10-high board, at which point Gulyy then turned over Q-Q and Mike showed his K-K.

It was a huge pot, one that would’ve placed Mike right near the chip leaders to end the day. But alas for him a queen came on the river, knocking him almost all of the way back to the starting stack.

“Did you see that, Shamus?” I remember Mike calling out to me that night, just after the hand had ended and the chips were being shipped to his opponent.

It was during the end-of-night scramble for counts and other loose-end-tying activities, and for some reason I just happened to have been passing through his section on my way to where I was stationed on the other side of the Amazon Room. That’s when he related the hand details to me, which I’d report for PokerNews and then write-up a more detailed story of later on Betfair. Regular listeners of the Pokercast might well recognize that hand, as it continues to come up from time to time.

As we talked about a little in that Betfair interview, I think Mike and Adam have provided an incredible service to the poker community over the last almost-decade. Sure, they’ve been doing something they love to do -- it’s obvious -- but while doing so they’ve given a valuable voice for players and everyone else who cares about the game with their reporting and interviewing. They’ve also kept us plenty entertained, too -- check that 2+2 thread for dozens of memorable instances proving that. That pic above, by the way, is a still from Bet Raise Fold containing a shot of Mike (left) and Adam (right) doing their show.

As someone who has stuck with them pretty much without interruption since the very beginning, I’ll miss Mike and what he’s given to us over the years, although as someone who has also been plugging away at discussing poker for nearly as long, I can definitely sympathize with wanting to take a break. It’s an endlessly fascinating game and subculture, but it can be exhausting, too -- it just never stops!

Anyhow, wanted to use some space here to wish Mike Johnson well and encourage everyone to tune in for these last few shows with one of the poker podcasting greats.

“Oh, I couldn’t have played it any better!” said an exasperated Mike after that painful Gulyy hand. Looking back at his long, consistently high-quality career helping create Rounders and the Pokercast, I’d have to say the same thing about that performance, too.

Following the $50K

Been following the $50,000 Poker Players Championship this week (Event No. 46).

This is one that over the past few years I generally have spent at least a couple of days covering, although I don’t believe I ever covered the five-day event from start to finish. Always an intriguing one both because of the rotation of games -- they play it as an “8-game mix” tourney -- and the collection of big names who necessarily populate the field.

Just 102 took part this year, well down from the 132 who played a year ago. Donnie Peters wrote an article for PokerNews about the PPC this week, looking closely at who didn’t play -- including the usuals like Erik Seidel, Huck Seed, and Barry Greenstein -- while also talking to a few players about possible reasons for the drop-off in entries.

The cash games are cited as one reason, with some thoughts about the current state of the poker economy also considered. Seidel had a funny response when asked about not playing, noting “I don’t play triple draw so I thought I would save $48,500 and play this instead,” referring to a $1,500 event playing out this week, too.

The example of Seidel skipping the $50K makes me think also of the steep rise of “high roller” and “super high roller” events over the last three years in which he frequently plays. When the $50K H.O.R.S.E. event was first introduced back in 2006, the buy-in made it the biggest game in town, but nowadays there are two or three dozen events on the calendar with bigger price tags, not to mention that “Big One” coming up this weekend.

Still a compelling event, though, even without all the usual suspects being involved. Gonna check back over at PokerNews to see where it stands.

Slow Response

The ending of the United States-Portugal match was remarkable, no question, with an improbable race up the field over the last half-minute of action culminating in that crossing pass from Cristiano Ronaldo to Silvestre Varela who headed in the tying goal on what was essentially the last play of the match.

It was almost disorienting, actually, as I think the delayed reaction of U.S. fans shown afterwards seemed to attest. So tightly wound up for a stress-releasing celebration, the initial reaction was disbelief, as though the their eyes deceived them.

Then came the weird, also slow-to-occur acceptance of the result, with a draw -- itself a foreign concept to fans of the “big three” North American sports -- only adding further to that confused, unsatisfied feeling.

The game well exemplified the rapid reversal of emotions that will happen in poker when an all-in player goes from winning to losing on fifth street. The now famous clip of Carter Gill’s bust from last summer’s WSOP Main Event provides a ready example:

I had actually been thinking of this clip just yesterday after watching Frank Op de Woerd at this year’s WSOP interviewing Gill -- and bringing it up.

I had a chance to talk to Gill as well back in the spring at the LAPT Chile -- friendly, engaging guy who was happy to talk about anything, including that unfortunate hand. “I still think about that a lot, actually,” he’d said to me almost wistfully, although some significant tourney success during the intervening months -- including a victory at the LAPT Grand Final last year -- had done a lot to soften the sting.

The ending of the match was similar in that there had to be at least a 93% chance of victory for the U.S. before that final mad dash by Portugal (if not greater). Also, that seemingly-imminent victory had been unexpected -- just like David Paredes’s call of Gill’s all-in on the turn seemed like a pleasant surprise to Gill. Gill’s slowness to react and leave his seat following the unlucky river was likewise mirrored by the stunned feeling following the Portugal equalizer.

But the ending was different in a couple of ways. The result was a tie, not a loss and elimination. And while the U.S. might have outplayed Portugal prior to those final frenzied seconds, there was nothing lucky about Ronaldo’s pass, Varela’s finish, and the Americans’ slow response to both.

Still didn’t make it any easier to believe at the time.

The World Series of Poker Sweet Sixteen

Okay, guys.. . here is the complete heads-up bracket for the World Series of Poker, reflecting all of the remaining matches (click to embiggen).

Enjoy!

The Long-Distance Rail

They are approaching the halfway mark now of this year’s World Series of Poker. If I had followed the pattern of the last three years, this would have been right about the day I would have been flying out to Las Vegas to start another four-week stint in the desert helping cover the WSOP for PokerNews.

As I’ve mentioned here a few times, I’m sticking close to the farm this time around. A good thing, too, as there’s a lot to take care of around here and it wouldn’t have done very well to leave Vera to all of it.

Snapped that picture above the other day of one of our neighbors. The four-legged ones, I mean. Sticking her head right through the fence like it isn’t even there. They often will come over to the edge of our property for a snack, being very “grass is greener” that way.

I haven’t necessarily missed being away from home -- never really something I liked having to do for such extended periods -- although I do miss being there and hanging with all of the many cool cats (including a lot of good friends) who work and play in Las Vegas every summer. I feel very in tune with it all, however, thanks to keeping in close touch with a lot of those who are there.

I’ve also been writing up daily recaps and previews (among other tasks), which has led to my being a lot more aware at this point of the summer what has happened thus far in all of the events than I probably would’ve been otherwise.

Been kind of intrigued by all of these $10K events thus, particularly the non-hold’em ones.

George Danzer -- winner of Event No. 18, the $10,000 Razz Championship -- is going for a second bracelet today in another of the $10K events, the Seven-Card Hi-Low, and has jumped out in front in the WSOP Player of the Year race as well. Kind of glad to be seeing Danzer break through this year after having come close to bracelets many times before. Or not “seeing” I guess, but following from afar.

I remember covering one of his near-misses two years ago when the German took runner-up in the $2,500 Omaha/Stud Hi-Low event to Oleksii Kovalchuk of Ukraine. Every spring and fall he also routinely final tables (and sometimes wins) SCOOP and WCOOP events, so wasn’t surprised at all to see him going deep in events again.

As I write they’ve just gotten down to seven players and the official table of Event No. 38, the $10,000 Stud Hi-Low Championship, meaning out of 11 career WSOP cashes Danzer has made eight final tables.

Norman Chad finished 10th in this one earlier tonight, reminding me also of that same event from 2012 where he final tabled along with Danzer, going out in sixth. Was tweeting a couple of funny hand reports from that night earlier this week that involved Chad -- the “fortune cookie hand” and the “credit card hand” -- that are worth clicking through to read for some grins.

Speaking of the “credit card hand” (in which Chad jokingly tried to raise with his Visa), the Poker Grump contributed a good article to Learn.PokerNews recently that referred to it as well as part of his discussion of table stakes. Check it out: “No, You Can’t Bet Your Covered Wagon: Talking ‘Table Stakes.’”

Okay, gonna get back to the virtual railing. Would be fun to be there, but the grass is plenty green here, too.

A Beat More Rare Than a One-Outer (And No One Noticed)

Kind of an odd one from the WSOP yesterday. You might have heard about this.

Over in Event No. 37, the $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event, a player busted after dinner in one of those hands that was unique enough he felt inspired to snap a photo (pictured at left, click to embiggen).

After getting to the turn with the board showing , the player got all of his chips in the middle holding for top set plus the nut flush draw against an opponent holding for the second-best set.

Alas for the all-in player, a queen fell on the river to give his opponent quads, thus knocking out the player just shy of the money, and he took the picture just before departing.

Indeed, the one-outer was remarkable enough to inspire the player to post his picture on Facebook, then a friend looking closely at the picture discovered something to make the beat even worse.

That last queen... was the ! Just like the one that had fallen on the flop.

A fouled deck had produced a duplicate card, and the player ended up getting in touch with WSOP staff to see about possibly being refunded his buy-in.

It was still more bad news for him, unfortunately. As he told a friend who then posted the story on Two Plus Two, he “could not get any form of compensation since attention was called to right away despite the picture evidence.”

Curious stuff, and while posters are skeptical about everyone missing the duplicate card, such a collective oversight doesn’t seem too hard to accept. Weird things go unnoticed sometimes, like this Manu Ginobli pass in Game 1 of the NBA finals from a year ago:

The Return of the Champ

Joe Cada’s victory last night in Event No. 32, the $10,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship, marked the first time one of the last 12 WSOP Main Event winners -- dating back to 2002 champ Robert Varkonyi -- has been able to follow his ME title with another WSOP bracelet win.

Carlos Mortensen was the most recent champion to follow his ME title with a win in another bracelet event, having won his second (and so far only other) WSOP bracelet in 2003 in a $5K limit hold’em event.

That was a big year for former Main Event champs, actually, with no less than six different ME winners collecting bracelets in 2003. In addition to Mortensen, Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, and Johnny Chan each won two events apiece, while Doyle Brunson and Huck Seed won events as well. (Ferguson finished runner-up in another event that year, too.)

There hasn’t been as good a year for former ME winners at the WSOP since, not by a long shot. Chan and Brunson would each win bracelets in 2005 -- the last for both. Scotty Nguyen would win the $50K H.O.R.S.E. in 2008. And Phil Hellmuth won WSOP events in 2006, 2007, and 2012, while also winning the 2012 WSOP Europe Main Event.

The period since 2003 has seen fields expand dramatically, although the number of bracelet events has essentially doubled, too, since 2003. And while there have been a lot of ME winners playing a lot of events, getting all of the way back to the winner’s circle has proven difficult for nearly all of them.

Cada was a likely candidate to break through to get that second bracelet, having come close several times recently with two fourth-place finishes last year and a runner-up in 2012.

Greg Merson has cashed three times already this WSOP and seems capable of being the next WSOP ME winner to win a bracelet. I’d say Jonathan Duhamel probably would be a good choice, too, to win one, even though he’s off to a rough start at this summer’s Series.

Then again, Hellmuth is 11th of 38 in another event to start today (Event No. 36, $1,500 NL 2-7 Draw), and so perhaps he’ll be the next ME winner to grab more gold. Again.