The gambling ramblings of Pauly -- a writer, traveler, and degenerate

 
WSOP Live Blog - 50K HORSE Final Table

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

This is one of the (last) busiest days at the WSOP, with the $50,000 HORSE Players Championship final table taking center stage and a handful of other bracelet events coming to a close. Not to mention there's the $5K Short-Handed which attracted a horde of international and online players, and let's not forget about the survivors playing on Day 2 of the Donkament and Triple Draw.

After a quaint breakfast with the lovely Change100 at the Bellagio, I spent the first few hours sprinting around the Rio and checking out all of the events. When everything was held inside the Amazon Ballroom (2005-06), it could take me a half hour to survey the entire room. With all of the spillover ballrooms in use, it took three hours. And I purposely avoided the circus in the hallways. It could have taken longer. I really need to hire interns for the Main Event.

Here's some numbers about the 50K HORSE final table:

Final Table Players:
Seat 1: Ville Wahlbeck - 645000
Seat 2: Erik Sagstrom - 3675000
Seat 3: John Hanson - 1700000
Seat 4: Huck Seed - 1380000
Seat 5: Vitaly Lunkin - 2490000
Seat 6: David Bach - 2345000
Seat 7: Erik Seidel - 965000
Seat 8: Chau Giang - 1075000

Final Table Payouts:
1st - $1,276,802
2nd - $789,199
3rd - $522,394
4th - $368,813
5th - $276,610
6th - $219,655
7th - $184,087
8th - $162,382

* * * * *

2:30pm... Germany Prevails

The German national anthem was played today in honor of Carsten Joh's bracelet victory. I gave Change100 some shit because she didn't stand or her Mohterland's anthem. But you know what, Joh? Talk about cold-blooded and stoic. The German barely blinked during the bracelet presentation. I can't explain why, but I'm craving Black Forest Chocolate Cake right now.

There was also a small WSOP-Europe PR fluff thingy with Annette15. The best female NL player in the world can't even play at the WSOP because she's not 21 yet. She was captain of Team Europe and announced her first round pick of Peter Eastgate. Danny Negreanu had the pick for North America and Phil Ivey trotted up on stage for thirty seconds. He flashed a crooked politicians smile, winked at a few cameras, and then exited stage left as fast as he could. Eastgate stopped and posed for a few pics with curious fans while his agent locked his arm and tugged him away. He had an interview to do with some important people. That's what happened when you're the World Champion.

As per usual, the final table for HORSE was delayed almost an hour as they set up for Bluff's online taping of the event.

Instead of the HORSE hoopla, I checked out the final two tables of Stud 8. Max Stern, Chad Brown, Vince Burggio, and Matt Savage were all alive. Savage barely advanced to the final day. He was super short at the end of Day 2 and somehow managed to scoop a couple of three-way pots to stay alive. Mike Sexton was on the rail for bit sweating the action.

I wandered all the over to Miranda where the Triple Draw event was being played down to a final table. The wife of the DonkeyBomber was still alive along with a handful of other pros such as Gobboboy and Billy Baxter.

FTrain told me that the final table for the 3K Triple Chance was moved from the secondary final table to a regular table in the far corner... Green #153. The players were pissed and demanded to see Jack Effel immediately and tell them in person why they were not allowed to play at the secondary table.

* * * * *
4:20pm... Seidel & Chau Out of HORSE; Down to 6

Danny Negreanu is still alive in the Triple Draw event. Somehow I overlooked him on the first pass. There's under 50 players to go and Danny Boy has a lot of work ahead of him if he expects to win another bracelet. I didn't see him because he's been two-tabling.

Matt Savage officially advanced to the final table of the Stud 8 event along with Max Stern and Chad Brown.

I watched 50K HORSE for about thirty minutes. Very disappointed with the turn out, or lack of turn out. More than 50% of the seats are empty. In years past, the 50K HORSE was standing room only. This year? The final tables are not as "crowd attracting" as in the past. There were more railbirds for the Limit Hold'em Shootout the other night. Kinda sad.

I caught Huck Seed drag a monsterpotten against Chau and Seidel in Stud 8.
Seidel was my HORSE in the fantasy pool until he busted out in 8th place, as Chau followed him in 7th almost instantly afterwards. Down to 6 in HORSE with Erik123 still out in front.

I spotted the infamous McLovin wandering around the area and I ran into Miami John in the hallway. And no, Michalski and his Pokerati paparazzi was not tailing behind snapping photos.

And of course, today's smoke break is brought to you by PokerStars...



* * * * *
5:20pm... Reverse Cooler

When I sweat the 50K HORSE, nothing happens. Still at 6 players. When I leave, people bust. After watching the final table from several different vantage points (including perched up in the beef jerky lounge - formerly the Beast Bar and Lounge that is now just an empty wasteland with a couple of tables for people who want to sit and discuss politics while chomping down on beef jerky). I sat in the crowd for a few hands nearby the lone supporter of Vitaly Lunkin. He was so bored he couldn't stop yawning. He had two New school Russian flags draped over him.

Ah, and Lunkin the Russian has taken over the chiplead from the Scandi Erik123.

I saw two chicks that dressed like hookers. I dismissed them as ladies of the night until they walked into the final table area for HORSE. They sat down and clapped when Huck Seed won a pot, so I had to assume both girls were with him. Shit. That's what happens when you're a WSOP former world champion and FT pro... you get not one, but two fine ass bitches to sweat you at final tables. Something for all you kids to look up to. Play online poker. Go to the WSOP. Make a final table. And have two scantily clad ladies of questionable repute sweat you.

There's one scary looking dude sitting in the crowd. He strategically placed himself in the camera shot so the people watching the feed at home could see the religious message stamped on his t-shirt.... Jesus Saves Sinners From Hell. He gave off some serious Travis Bickle vibes. He even sported a Mohawk haircut and scribbled down notes at a frantic pace. Who the hell knows what that guy's deal is.

* * * * *
6:08pm... Down to 5 in Stud 8

I'm not a cooler at 50K HORSE, but my cooler powers seem to work when I hover over the Stud 8 event. With5 to go, Matt Savage, Max Stern, and Chad Brown are still alive. However, Savage is incredibly short stacked. He might not make the final four unless he gets some help.

Over in the HORSE event, two out of the three Americans left are short. Huck Seed and David Bach both have under 1 million in chips. Vitaly Lunkin still leads in chips.

Daddy Bot continues to multi-table events. He has Chainsaw Kessler at his table in Triple Draw.

And yes, it appears that Otis has fallen for a cowgirl that may or may not be a transvestite. Life is not perfect, nor is true love inside a Las Vegas casino. Better make sure you do a cock check before you do anything else.

* * * * *
6:30pm... Savage & Brown Out

Matt Savage, TD extraordinaire, finished in 5th place. He busted as soon as I walked over to his table, which further proved that I was a cooler in Stud 8. T'was down to the final four in that event, until Chad Brown headed to the rail in 4th place after Max Stern took him out. A nice amount of Costa Ricans on the rail sweating Max Stern, including his lovely wife, Maria.

The Triple Draw event is down to the last 36 players. Danny Boy and Mrs. DonkeyBomber are all alive. Nam Le and John Pham are on life support.

* * * * *
9:00pm... Cowboy Up?

The cowboy tranny has had everyone in a tizzy. I caught a glimpse of the seven foot beats once. She was standing in front of the booth for Matusow's check-raising the devil. Change100 caught her walking into the ladies room, which makes me wonder, she obviously pees standing up, right?

Let me know if anyone captured a photo of this hallway phenomenon.

And over in the Triple Draw event Mrs. DonkeyBomber is still alive and among the top 10 in chips with 27 to go. She's apparently having a much better year than her husband. The former/part-time/some-time Pokerati contributor has been the source of Michalski's barbs this summer. DonkeyBomber was on the verge of an O-fer in the 2009 WSOP until he cashed in the Limit Shootout. He bubbled off the final table when he lost a heads up battle against eventual champion FBT Mueller. In DonkeyBomber's defense, he was playing against one of the hottest players at this year's WSOP.

* * * * *
10:00pm... Ville No Way

The 50K HORSE snoozefest is down to five players with the departure of the Finn Ville Wahlbeck.Russian Vitaly Lunkin and David Bach are at the top of the leaderboard with Huck Seed as the shortest stack.

Over in the 5K short-handed, Phil Hellmuth has the most railbirds. I heard plenty of funny chatter with one old lady even calling him an asshole. He didn't hear it of course. If he did. he might have hurled chair at the grandma type with a hearing aid. Her anti-Hellmuthism gave me a hearty chuckle.

* * * * *
11:14pm... Tuesday Night Lime Tossing Results

We had a full field again after an obstructed arena the night before. And once again, we pushed after whiffing on both throws. My first lime landed on the far end of a $20 grid but skidded out of bounds. Otis' first lime landed in the $200 grind and bounced out. So close for both of us. On ur second throws, we whiffed horribly. Otis was long and I threw short.

Round 4 - Lime Tossing Results: Pauly 0, Otis 0
Overall: Otis +20, Pauly -20

And right now, we're sweating Otis playing in the nightly 11pm late night $200 donkament. Felipe, my friend of Poker News, is sitting at the same table, and I just noticed that LJ is also at the same table. Rigged. So fuckin' rigged.

* * * *
11:31pm... Huckleberry Seed Out in 5th Place, Tom Sawyer Pissed; Final 4 in HORSE

If you had Vitaly Lunkin, David Bach, John Hanson, and Erik123 as your final four team, then you win $45,000. Can Vitaly really win the 40K and 50K? Will it come down to a Scandi vs. a Russian for the Player's Championship? Or will the American long-shot (Hanson or Bach) come from behind to take it down? As much as the final table has been a bit on the unexciting side, the drama is beginning to unfold.

Oh, and down in the Miranda Ballroom, the Triple Draw event finally broke the money bubble with 17 or so to go, Mrs. DonkeyBomber is still in the mix along with Danny Boy.

"I'm craving a milkshake," said MeanGene.

"If we had interns, that's the sort of thing they'd be doing for us," I said.

* * * * *
12:22am... After Midnight Edition

The Devil has been lurking around, which put Otis on slight tilt in his late night donkament.

Over in HORSE, there's four left. John Hanson jumped out to a significant lead and is up to 7M in chips. He almost has more than 50% of the chips in play as Russian Lunkin slipped to the short stack.

* * * *
1:11am... Tranny Cowboy Sighting

Everyone's favorite tranny cowboy was spotted by Julio playing 25/50 NL. High stakes cash games. Wow. Didn't know she had the bankroll. But does she have a cock?

HORSE is down to 3 players after Vitaly Lunkin busted out in 4th. John Hanson and Erik123 are similar in chips, while David Bach is super short.

* * * * *
1:59am.... Devil and Angry Julie

The Devil passed me in the hallway moments after I stood in the hallway chatting with a half-blind Michalski. The Iceman stopped, shook our hands (Michalksi first then me) before he said, "You guys look great." That's it. Nothing more after that.

Michalski was sweating Mrs. DonkeyBomber as she made a run in the Triple Draw event She's fifth in chips with 12 to go.

The HORSE is still three-handed. Bach made a comeback and doubled up a couple of times. This might take a while. 5am perhaps? That would suck. The Poker Kitchen just closed.

* * * * *
3:20am.... Erik123 Eliminated in 3rd Place; Heads Up Horse; Mrs. DonkeyBomber Advances

First of all, congrats to Julie Schneider aka Mrs. Donkeybomber for advancing to Day 3. She's among the final nine players in Triple Draw. She returns tomorrow to play out to a final table. Apparently, Michalski's cooler abilities took a day off. Although he should stay home on Wednesday.

We're finally heads up in HORSE after the Scandi Erik123 hit the rail in third place. The remaining two players? Americans David Bach and John Hanson. Here's what they are playing for...

1st = $1,276,802
2nd = $789,199

Yeah, the entire press box is empty save for me, Nolan Dalla, and Paul the WSOP intern.

And I'd like to say good morning to all of my East Coast readers who are waking up to go to work today. Thanks for tuning in first thing in the morning.

* * * * *
3:52am... Numbers

50K HORSE. 2 players left. 12 people in stands. 8 overall media. 1 dealer & 2 backups. 3 camera people (thanks to BJ for reminding me of the crane operator) & 1 producer & 1 tired announcer! Kudos to TD/announcer Robbie Thompson for sticking this out from the first hand.

There are vacuums blaring out in the hallways as the cleaning crews conduct their routine cleaning services. There are also 10 cash game tables running and one tired Flipchp. He said he's prepared for the long haul. Two or three more hours. I picked 5am. It's coming up on 4am and Hanson has a slight lead 8.1M to 6.1M.

The waiters are bringing out trays of Redbull in order to keep people awake. At this point, it's a nice gesture. Once sun comes up, then we should consider main-lining.

* * * * *
4:20am.... "Smoke 'em if you got 'em!"

Wow, you know it's a long night when you have TWO smoke breaks in a single live blogging session.

And yes, today's second smoke break is brought to you by PokerStars...



* * * * *
5:11am.... Good Morning, Good Afternoon, This Will Take a While

Thanks god for the time-released nature of Vicodin. That's the only thing keeping me going. I don't do cocaine nor do I advocate the ue of the illegal narcotic, but shit, I'd love to do a line or seventeen right now. It would wake me and everyone in the room right up.

So I discovered via Twitter than I have some followers in Europe who are hanging on every word. That's kinda cool that you might be in London or Paris or Munich killing time at work or checking out the Tao on your lunch break. I definitely appreciate the support.

Anyway, we're still heads up in 50K HORSE between John Hanson and David Bach. It was even for a bit until Hanson started to break away. Here's the thing... Hanson is obviously tired and irritable. I just wonder how long he can go before he gets overly fatigued and makes mistakes. Bach? He's locked in. Locked and loaded for "Gunslinger." I think he might be on some Focusum or something like that because he's like a fucking Scandi with his lack of emotion at the tables. I gotta say, I've been more than impressed with Bach's performance tonight.

And sadly, there are less than seven people in the audience. One of them is for Bach and three are for Hanson. The rest are bums, passed out drunks, or tweakers. Not one hooker in the crowd. What a let down.

* * * * *
5:49am... The Almost 6am Photo Dump

I took these less than five minutes ago...


The empty room


David 'Gunslinger' Bach


Passed out/Crunked/Faded

* * * * *
6:23am... Top O' the Morn to Ya

The sun has risen above the city of Las Vegas and the 50K HORSE is still in the middle of a heads-up battle. It's a break time and Bach is up 78.6M to Hanson's 65.45. This might never end with this blind structure. Bach was up over 10M at one point before Hanson fought back.

I thought BJ was a machine, a robot, whatever. He's not. I'm actually saw him take a nap during the last level. Folks are tired, which includes everyone involved, yet Change100 and TassieDevl continue live blogging this for Poker News.

Anyway, it's quiet in the Amazon Ballroom aside from a few chips clattering and a hearty drunken laughter from the cash game section. Seven tables are running. Not bad at all.

Wondering what time Starbucks opens? With these stacks and blind levels, we might be here until noon. At this point, I've been up for 24 hours. Weeeee.

Oh and at this point, there are three people in the crowd. One of them is a security guard. The other two? Tweakers.

* * * * *
7:06am... Collect the Rake

A dozen thick-necked security guards marched into the room and they are changing out all of the rake boxes in the cash game section. They're quick and efficient. All that rake on the graveyard shift. I always wondered how much they pulled in on any given night.

Anyway, just before 7am, both players pulled even in chips with 7.1M. Bach won a pot soon after to regain a minor lead. They're approaching 400 hands.

And sweet Jesus, sleep deprivation makes me hungry. I could also use a big ass iced tea right now. These are times when I wish I had an intern. Or perhaps I can wait until one of the Tao All Stars to wake up and take over live blogging for me. Until that happens, I'm sitting here and trying to evoke my cooler abilities.

Suffice to say, both players are very quiet. No drunken shenanigans like that Scotty Nguyen trainwreck last year.

* * * * *
7:42am... Almost?

Bach has Hanson on the ropes. An hour ago, they were almost even. Since then, Bach went on a mini-rush to open up the first significant lead of the match. Bach had Hanson all in, but Hanson made a timely double up.

There are two people in the crowd now. One of them is Hanson's girlfriend.

* * * * *
8:18am... Hanson Back in the Lead

John Hanson mounted a remarkable comeback. He was all in at one point and survived. Since then he's managed to chip away at Bach's lead and just before the break, he regained the lead. Just when it looked like Hanson was toast, he sprung back to life and seized momentum.

* * * * *
8:30am... Level 29

Chip Counts:
John Hanson - 7.53M
David Bach - 6.875M

Hold'em/Omaha 8: Blinds are 125K/250K with Betting Limits 250K/500K
Stud games: Antes 50K, Bring-in 70K, Betting Limits 250K/500K

Yeah, we're on Level 29 and it looks like we might be here until Noon. I've been up for over a day and I had my first ever non-psychedelic. I really thought that someone was walking behind me down the hallway on the last break. It wasn't even my shadow, but rather some sort of figure that was in my head and then quickly disappeared.

If you are in Las Vegas and reading this and have any Adderral, please stop by the Rio... ASAP.

* * * * *
9:00am... Even Steven, Pass the Meth

Just like clockwork, both players have pulled even in chips. Oh joy. I'm now hitting up the dealers in search of crystal meth.

There are people who work the day shift that have arrived to work already. Insane, huh?

* * * * *
9:19am... Robbie = God

Robbie Thompson, the TD and announcer is the true Ironman. He's been going strong rockin' the mic since this started. I'm also very impressed with a handful of media reps who stuck it out all night long (of course TassieDevil & Change100, bit also Flipchip, Ryan, Arthur, Lance, and that girl from Poker Pages who's name I don't know). They all earned huge checkmarks in my book, while everyone else is a bunch of poseurs, wankers, and poker scensters. Sorry kids, I'm just calling it like I see it. You can't claim to be a poker journalist, then skip out on the highest buy-in event at the WSOP. With the exception of Michalski who is going blind in one eye and has to go get a wad of semen removed from his retina.

And if you show up from this point on to cover the final table, I'm gonna kick you in the junk. No bullshit, unless you have some good drugs for me. If you're a chick, I'll get Change100 to kick you in the vag. Believe me, she's pretty tired and cranky right now and has no problems doing that.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent. There's poker to be played. I'm sort of a purist and feel that HORSE should be played at the final table, but at this point, I'd like to see a round of NL Hold'em right now. Or how about NL Razz? And PLO8? Anything. Please. Throw us a friggin' bone. I'm an insomniac and I'm struggling to keep my heavy eyelids open.

* * * * *
9:37am... The Hallucinations Stopped

But now, the chills won't stop. I'm having shaking fits from the cold air. But then I go outside and sweat by balls off.

Bach has requested random bathroom breaks. I wonder if he's blazing up in the bathroom? Or he's just dropping a deuce. Nothing is worse than having to take a shit while playing live poker. Seriously. If you play online poker, you can drag your laptop into the shitter with you and play on the bowel. But in live poker? Not so simple.

The boys are almost even. This is getting redunkulous.

Also, the ESPN/441 Productions crew showed up early to work and prep the TV tables for the upcoming Main Event. Most of them are eagerly waiting for the 50K HORSE final table to end before they continue on with their work.

At this point, the live blog is reaching 4,000 words. It takes the hombres at Wicked Chops Poker one year to write that many words.

* * * * *
9:55am... I Spoke Too Soon

The new announcer? Awful. He doesn't call out who is betting etc, which makes the action more confusing. He obviously does not do this and is hopefully spelling Robbie for a few minutes. Final table coverage are only as good as the quality of information that the announcer gives, which includes chip counts.

Anyway, in the last couple of hands in Omaha 8, Bach opened up a sizable lead once again. Hanson was left with under 2M after Bach dragged a hefty pot. They are now in a level of Razz and who knows what can happen.

* * * * *
10:00am... Winner! David Bach = 50K HORSE Champion

After marathon final table and a 6+ hour head sup battle, John Hanson was eliminated in 2nd place and collected $789,199. David Bach wins the $50K HORSE bracelet and a cool $1,276,802! Congrats to both players. We're finally done.

Thanks to everyone who followed along on Tao of Poker and Twitter. At this point, I've been at the Rio for 23 hours, one of the longest stints of my career. It's been a weird ride. Thanks for dealing with all of the odd tangents, bitchfests, and hallucinations.

I'm taking Wednesday off. Maybe Thursday too. I need to rest up for the Main Event. I'll be back on Friday with a live blog starting at noon for Day 1A of the WSOP Main Event Championship.

That's it and I'm outta here.......


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/30/2009 05:54:00 PM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 33: Gus Hansen Orgasm

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

A couple of days ago, I shuffled down the long hallway of my off-the-strip hotel/casino hybrid. I passed a two cleaning carts and gazed down at the hyperactive psychedelic patterns on the rug.

I'm not gonna lie. I got tracers. Lots of them. Perhaps it was the residual effects of all that liquid sunshine I ingested on Phish tour. Or just maybe, the visual distortion was directly caused by the effects of living in the desert, where the sun bakes your brains and all the casino oxygen sucks every drop of moisture out of your eyeballs, so you wander around completely dehydrated and with scratchy eyeballs.

That's when I heard the moaning. The first sound was short, but loud. As I approach the door, the moans grew louder and louder and trailed off into screaming. It was not even 10am and someone was getting plowed.

I stopped in my tracks and listened for a few seconds. At the same moment, one of the cleaning ladies popped her head out of the dirty room she was cleaning. I made eye contact with the cleaning lady as the woman inside the room reached peak orgasm. I shrugged my shoulders, as the cleaning lady shook her head, and I continued down the hall and side-stepped the remaining hallucinations, both visual and auditory.

Late on Day 4 of the $50,000 HORSE event, a frenzied mob gathered in the far corner of the room where the final two tables played out for guts and glory. By far, Gus Hansen was the most popular and most recognized player out of remaining players, as railbirds were forced to stand three and four deep on a triangular rail.

Gus Hansen is a type of guy who can't sit still when he's not getting a massage. He likes to walk around and observe other tables. He loves to chit-chat. Heck, he's Gus Fuckin' Hansen. At this point in his career, Hansen could have dropped his pants and took a shit on the table and 100 international media reps would write about his glorious bowel movement. For fuck's sake the biggest fanboy media rep would stand in line for an hour to interview Hansen's brown monument and then ask to take it home with him. Without fail some shyster would slap a Full Tilt patch on Hansen massive turd. And since we glorify everything pros do in poker, a brainwashed sunburned railbird would rush through the crowd to take a picture with Gus Hansen's feces sculpture.

I love poker. Rather, I love how fans react to the poker culture that I helped hype up by the thirty or forty publications that I have written for over the last half of a decade. We fluffed up shit so much that we have completely brainwashed the masses.

Take for instance the drunken tourist who lost her mud as Gus Hansen walked in front of her on the rail. Despite slurring her words, she managed to snag a picture and autograph of the player she considered the "hottest guy in poker."

Yes, Gus Hansen is a pretty man. Too pretty for my tastes, but the Great Dane happened to be in the woman's wheelhouse... so much so... that by Hansen's mere presence, he brought this woman to an intense bong-rattling orgasm... while she stood fully clothed and on the rail.

Hansen obliged for the photo op and then returned to his table. The woman instantly hyperventilated and unleashed a string of ear-piercing multiple orgasms. I was more than impressed. I was insanely jealous. I mean, Hansen is just another degenerate Scandi gambler who dropped 900K on a tennis match last month. His online bankroll fluctuates seven figures in the blink of an eye. It's not like he's one of the Beatles or the Jonas Brothers or something.

That did not matter to the enraptured woman. While in the middle of the third wave of excitement, as her clitoral muscles quivered, she managed to call up one of her friends and tell them that Gus Hansen got her off.

She also ripped a Full Tilt patch off of Gus' chest. She needed a piece of masturbilia (masturbation memorabilia) to rub over her nether regions for future climax sessions when she returned from her vacation.

That's not the last of the Gus Hansen story. Otis told me a funny bit about how a redneck male fan wandered up to Gus while he took a piss and touched him on the shoulder and stomach.

There's a line and he crossed it. You never ever touch another man while he's taking a piss. It's an unwritten rule in life, sort of the Guy's Code that we all abide by. But sometimes, poker pros are thrusted so high up on pedestals, that it makes people go a little crazy and guys start grabbing poker stars at the urinals and women snatches get so damn damp that an endless a river of love juice drenches the entire floor of the Amazon Ballroom.

On a positive note, the vaginal secretions washed away all the blood stains from the donkeys that were led to their slaughter hours earlier.

* * * * *
Don't forget, you can follow some of my WSOP hijinks over at Twitter. My feed is @taopauly.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/30/2009 11:11:00 AM | Permalink |

 
WSOP Live Blog - 50K HORSE Day 4 & 3K Triple Day 2

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

Today is a busy Monday at the WSOP. It's the final donkament of the series and the last bloddshed before the Main Event. The 50K HORSE is winding down towards the money and the final table.

And the 3K Triple Chance tournament is in the second day with 149 players remaining and a lot of familiar faces including Shaniac, Tony Dunst, Dale Pinchot, Rizen, Johnny Lodden, ApeStyles, Maria Ho, and Nordberg. Oh and that Jeff Lisandro fellow is still left in the mix and gunning for bracelet #4.

* * * * *
2:59pm... Oh, Canada

Owen was smiling. I had never seen that before. My fellow media rep from the Great White North is known as one of the more sullen writers (wait a sec, all writers are sullen and all WSOP reporters are morbidly depressed. By Day 33 of the WSOP, they have either contemplated or attempted suicide no less than 12 times). Anyway, Owen had a shit-eating grin because he had just heard the Canadian national anthem that was played after Greg Mueller was awarded his second bracelet this summer.

The area in front of the "bracelet stand" was a zoo. The bottlenecked area included media covering the ceremony, railbirds sweating the 50K HORSE, and random donkeys waiting to take their seat in the donkament after it had gone on break.

Scheduling. The WSOP has improved on many levels, but they always seem to get kicked in the junk with poor scheduling. The 3K re-start was delayed thirty minutes, then an hour in order to find enough tables to play. I guess the donks were not busting out as fast as the suits expected.

Alas, lots of named pros wandered around, some of them miffed at another tournament that failed to start on time. As I told them, "You're pros. You should know that shit never starts on time and slept in late."

* * * * *
4:00pm... Bubble Looms in HORSE

Todd Brunson was the first player to bust out of the 50K HORSE event. Brett Richey went out in 18th place. With 17 to go, action reached the bubble and the final three tables are playing hand-for-hand (and somewhat short-handed).

50K HORSE Payouts:
1. $1,276,802
2. $789,199
3. $522,394
4. $368,813
5. $276,610
6. $219,655
7. $184,087
8. $162,382
9-10. $123,895
11-12. $99,590
13-14. $83,630
15-16. $72,914

Whoever busts next is gonna lose $72,914. Jon Kabbaj is the short stack, wile David Bach captured the chiplead with around 1.5M.

* * * * *
4:20pm... Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Today's smoke break is brought to you by... PokerStars!



* * * * *
4:44pm... $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Frank Kassella = Bubble Boy in HORSE. He lost to Ray Dehkharghani, who slow-rolled Kassella. The two had been jawing all day and Dehkharghani unsportsmanship reared its ugly head.

Down to the final 16. Tony G cashed. That makes the G happy. Maybe he'll shower rose petals and food comps to bums panhandling underneath the I-15 underpass.

I'm still alive in the Aussie/PN fantasy pool. My horse is Seidel, while Change100 has David Chui. Gloria has the Finn, and Duckworth has Wattel.

* * * * *
5:45pm... Touch of Grey

I wandered by the Hooker Bar and Touch of Grey by the Grateful Dead was playing. Parts of the Rio have been lasting classic rock over the last few days. I overheard Tuesday's Gone while on the shitter the other day, and yesterday it was Day Tripper on the PA while I wandered through the casino.

A while a go, a large scream unleashed from the far corner. The Brazilians. Since I know it's not a nude beach or a soccer game, there must have been a big double up for one of their countrymen. They travel in hordes and sweat any other Brazilians that go deep in a tournament, especially the WSOP.

50K HORSE is down to 15 players after Jon Kabbaj busted out in 16th place. The G is one of the short stacks. Vitaly Lunkin leads the pack while Erik123 is not far behind in second place.

Over in the 3K Triple, Shaniac and Tony Dunst are still alive, but sadly, the lovely Maria Ho is no longer with us. She passed by the press box with a glum look on her face while she tweet'd her departure.

* * * * *
7:00pm... Down to 13

Mr. Smokey and former champion Freddy Deeb are both out of 50K HORSE as the field dwindled down to 13 players. Erik123 is back in the chiplead with 2.4M, while David Bach passed the 2M mark. The G is the shortstack and he's been hanging on the last couple of hours. If he doesn't chip himself up soon, he's gonna finish in unlucky 13th place.

* * * * *
7:57pm... The G = Busto; Gus Hansen Doles Out Orgasms on the Rail

The G is nevermoere after he busted out in 13th place. Down to 12 in the HORSE on the final two tables. Gus Hansen walked around the playing area and watched the other table. A drunken female fan on the rail asked Hansen for a photo and autograph. He obliged and she lost it. Literally. She unleashed an orgasmic shriek and could not stop. The Great Dane gave her a multiple orgasm.

* * * * *
9:30pm... 12 to Go

The HORSE is returning from dinner. David Chiu is super short and Erik123 opened up a commanding lead with 3.8M... almost 1M more than anyone else.

Over in 3K Triple, Tony justbusted but cashed. Shaniac moved up to 155K and ApeStyles is among the chipleaders.

* * * * *
10:00pm... Obstruction Lime Tossing

Otis and I headed out back for lime tossing and were bummed out to see a truck parked on half of our lime tossing field. What the fuck? We did what we could and played around the vehicle. Some of the bonus grids were out of play.

I went wide right by a few inches on my first throw. My second? Almost identical. Otis whiffed on both of his throws. His second toss hit the back tire of the truck, which we agreed was out of bounds. Otis went 0-2 and we pushed on this round. I blame the inaction on the truck.

Round 3 - Lime Tossing Results: Pauly 0, Otis 0
Overall: Otis +20, Pauly -20

* * * * *
10:10pm... 50K Final Table Bubble

While I was out back fuckin' around with degenerate citrus fruit tossing, three players busted out in a short amount time. The final table bubble is upon us after David Chui, Mike Wattel, and Ray Dehkharghani busted out. Gus Hansen is the short stack with Erik123 still way ahead out front.

* * * * *
10:30pm... Hansen = Final Table Bubble

Gus Hansen was short and hit the rail in 9th place. The final table of eight is set with Erik123 as the chipleader. Final table will start at 2pm on Tuesday. Here's the lineup...

Seat 1: Ville Wahlbeck
Seat 2: Erik Sagstrom
Seat 3: John Hanson
Seat 4: Huck Seed
Seat 5: Vitaly Lunkin
Seat 6: David Bach
Seat 7: Erik Seidel
Seat 8: Chau Giang

My horse, Seidel, is still alive. It's me or Gloria (she has Ville) to win the pool.

Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/29/2009 05:51:00 PM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 32: Undercover and What Does Benjo Think?

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

Chatter from the rail.

I love it because it's so absurdly stupid sometimes. There's a small and elite group of fans who know almost every pro, but on the other hand, there's a large percentage of fans from fly over states who don't have a clue.

I ducked into the crowd and mingled with the masses on the rail for the $50K HORSE. I wanted to blend in so I bought a bag of Twizzlers and a beer. I decided to stuff my face on the rail, drink like a frat boy on Spring Break, and take photos with flash like the majority of the citizen paparazzi. While embedded with the railbirds, I eavesdropped on a few conversations.

"Scandinavian players are some of the best in the world," one overweigguy said to two sorta clueless folks with fanny packs and gold visors. "I played against a few and they destroyed me."

The conversation got boring real fast and I moved down the rail and nearly stepped on Rene Angelli (aka Mr. Celine Dion). A guy with a French-Canadian accent blindsided Rene with a bad beat story that busted him from a satellite. At least, that what I think he said. Mon francais est tres mal. So, I don't have a fuckim' clue. He could have been pestering Rene for tickets to Bette Midler for all I know.

As I scribbled down a couple of snarky notes, I overheard someone in a southern accent ask, "Excuse me, where are all the players I'd know from TV? Like Jen Tilly and Shannon Elizabeth?"

A familiar voice answered and I looked up. Poor poor Otis was flagged down by a gaggle of redneck tourists because they saw his badge and thought he was a tour guide or some sort of authority figure. Otis is still fresh after arriving a couple of days ago and had yet to develop that thousand yard stare where you look past anything and everything in front of you. Otis gave a stern yet polite answer. I snickered and moved down the line.

"Who's the guy who looks like Jerry Seinfeld?" someone asked as they snapped a photo of Ralph Perry.

"Is that Johnny Chan?" asked a myopic retiree with a Golden Nugget hat who poked me in the ribs and pointed towards Chau Giang.

One guy in a John Franco NY Mets jersey nearly knocked me over as he grabbed a friend of his in front of me. The kid was in the middle of taking a photo of Gus Hansen, when his friend yelled, "Come over here to this side!" Franco pointed towards the other half of the Amazon Ballroom that included the $3K Triple Chance event. "There's more pros I know over here. Like that guy! Over there. With the green hat. I've seen him on TV before!"

After a couple of minutes on the rail, I decided to retreat before my cover was blown. I gathered enough material for a half-baked post and wanted to get the hell out of the tourist stampede before I got bombarded with stupid questions like, "Where's Bill Ivey?" and "Where's the Hooker Bar?"

The rail started to thin out after the biggest sharks were eliminated and quickly headed to a local juicy cash game or over to the internet. Day 3 of the 50K HORSE would determine the flow of the rest of the tournament. At the onset, I was skeptical if they could make it to the money (final 16) by the end of Day 3. However, by dinner break, the field had shrunk to 31 players which meant they were on pace to hit the bubble towards the end of the evening.

Among the early causalities on Day 3? Phil Ivey , David Benyamine, Barry Greenstein, Jesus, Erick Lindgren, Fabrice Soulier, PearlJammer, Boosted J, Doyle Brunson, and Alex Kravchenko.

When the night ended, only 19 remained with Russian bracelet winner Vitaly Lunkin as the chipleader, and Erik123, Freddy Deeb, and Ville Wahlbeck not too far behind. The top 16 players get paid which means the money bubble should break early on Day 4. Action resumes at 2pm local time.

* * * * *
Bouncin Round the Room on Day 32....

I popped in on Coach a few times over in the Stud 8 event. He played in Brasilia Room and sometimes that room is humming more than the Amazon Ballroom. Coach had a tough draw as is with Paul Darden at his table, but after Barry Greenstein busted, he bought into Stud 8 and took a seat to Coach's right. Coach held his own for most of the night and even took down a multi-way pot against the two sharks, Darden and Greenstein. He chipped up to 6.3K after he scooped Greenstein. Sadly, Coach did not advance to Day 2 and headed to the rail with about 200 players to go. His three pair was flushed out.

I wondered about my favorite Norwegian, Johnny Lodden. I had not seen the Team PokerStars Pro since my return to Las Vegas, and then all of a sudden... he magically appeared in the $3K Triple Chance event. He inspired a high stakes gambling event in London last September called What Does Johnny Lodden Think that was played among Phil Laak and some of his cronies.

I turned to Otis and said, "Let's gamble on something called What Does Benjo Think?" Otis thought it was a brilliant idea and we figured out ten questions to ask Benjo. We would each alternate and pick a question and then predict Benjo's answer....

What Does Benjo Think...

1. Who is the worst U.S. President?
Otis: Nixon
Pauly: W Bush

2. Who is the biggest influence on rock & roll in America?
Otis: Beatles
Pauly: Bob Dylan

3. Hottest chick in poker?
Otis: Alexia Portal
Pauly: Lacey Jones

4. The home state of the next American girl he hooks up with?
Otis: Arkansas
Pauly: Texas

5. How big is Tony G's bankroll?
Otis: $20 Million
Pauly: $17 Million

6. Between an enema, a vasectomy, and a punch in the nose... which one would you prefer to wake up to?
Otis: Enema
Pauly: Punch in the Nose

7. Who is your favorite character on the Sopranos (not including Tony Soprano)?
Otis: Paulie Walnuts
Pauly: Silvio

8. Who is the best looking male in poker?
Otis: Patrik Antonius
Pauly: Random Scandi

9. How many shots of Southern Comfort does it take to get AlCanthang drunk?
Otis: 7
Pauly: 14

10. Which sex tape of a poker couple would you like to see?
Otis: Benyamine/Schoenberg
Pauly: Harman/Traniello

Again, we're betting on what we think Benjo will say. The actual answers were surprising.

1. Who is the worst U.S. President?
Benjo said, "Nixon. Because I just watched Frost/Nixon."

2. Who is the biggest influence on rock & roll in America?
Benjo said, "It has to be a British band. Led Zeppelin. Because the Beatles is pop and Dylan is folk."

3. Hottest chick in poker?
Benjo snapped called with, "Lacey Jones"

4. The home state of the next American girl he hooks up with?
Benjo said, "California."

5. How big is Tony G's bankroll?
Benjo said, "$1.5 million."

6. Between an enema, a vasectomy, and a punch in the nose... which one would you prefer to wake up to?
Benjo said, "Punch in the nose."

7. Who is your favorite character on the Sopranos (not including Tony Soprano)?
Benjo looked up characters on the internet and then blurted out, "Johnny Sac."

8. Who is the best looking male in poker?
Benjo almost went for Patrik Antonius, before he refused to answer the question because we'd give him guff and unleash a round of 'gay' jokes. He picked Dan Harrington.

9. How many shots of Southern Comfort does it take to get AlCanthang drunk?
Benjo asked how big were the glasses of SoCo that Al drank. After we told him, he said, "27."

10. Which sex tape of a poker couple would you like to see?
Before I could complete the question, Benjo blurted out, "Benyamine. Anything he does? I'm interested in."

The final tally? Otis 2, Pauly 2 with 6 answers that we both whiffed on. Otis and I pushed our bet, but we found something to keep us entertained for the next few weeks.

* * * * *
Don't forget, you can follow some of my WSOP hijinks over at Twitter. My feed is @taopauly.

Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/29/2009 12:12:00 PM | Permalink |

 
The Kabbaj Regime

By Snoopy
Las Vegas, NV

"I keep hitting the crossbar," sighs John Kabaaj as we wait patiently at the baggage claim. "It's hard when you keep coming close, but you just have to keep plugging away. Poker's a tough game emotionally."

John collects his bag and exits the airport to rejoin his family back home and return to the grind of cash game poker. However, as he leaves, I sense a certain weariness in his voice, and one that is becoming frustrated with tournament poker and the variance it brings. I wonder if he indeed has what it takes to "keep plugging away" and whether or not he'll finally evade the woodwork and net that big win he's searching for.

For as long as I can remember, John has always been a respected figure in UK poker, but never a main attraction: never fronting magazines, ignored by media outlets, and simply left to his own devices. He passes under the radar, quietly plying his trade in the Vic cash games whilst taking the occasional stab at tournaments, in particular Pot Limit which remains his speciality. He's underrated by the ignorant, but admired by his peers. So much so that the Hendon Mob invited him to be their fifth member, yet he turned them down due to being a "one-man band." He's a loner of sorts, with no interest in publicity – he conceded sponsorship for that very reason – and thus a rare breed of player who is happy to just keep a low profile, knuckle down and earn enough to support his family. He's in it for the money, self-respect, and little else.

A few months on, and John is centre stage at the Rio and absorbing more attention than he can possibly muster. He holds the bracelet to his lips as the press queue in single file to capture his picture. "You can at least manage half a smile!" bellows Carlo Citrone from the rail. Despite his relief and elation, John forces a smile, but the limelight is clearly a foreign experience.

The following day, and John is back in the spotlight, but this time seems more at ease. The money is clearly paramount, but what the bracelet signifies seems to mean a lot – he was bracelet hungry and wanted to prove to himself that despite his lack of fame, he was good enough to earn an accolade that is so widely desired within the industry. The room is buzzing as John takes the stand in preparation for the official presentation, but to him, it wouldn't matter if he were the only man in the room. This moment is for him, for John to feel content about his own achievement after so many near misses. He's not here to show off or gloat about victory.

As a smattering of his fellow Late Night Poker veterans (John turned pro at 21, so is “veteran” according to experience rather than age) watch from the floor, Jeffrey Pollock presents the bracelet before signaling for the national anthem, a unique induction that has been well received in the Amazon Room. John stands upright, awaiting his moment of glory, a satisfied expression already etched on his face.

The anthem starts, yet is met with confused expressions. The less than dulcet tones of Johnny Rotten kick in and I look across to Pauly who smirks with approval, his rebellious nature pleased by the choice of song. I glance back up at the stage to see Jeffrey Pollack bobbing his head, and later giving the air a gentle fist-pump as he enjoys the Sex Pistol's infamous God Save the Queen. John, meanwhile, looks somewhat surprised, his eyebrows raised, but he goes along with it nonetheless.

As the track draws to a close, the mood changes in a hiccup. Two British players in Jon Shoreman and Dave Barnes approach the stage, fuming like petrol and locking Pollack in as their main target. I shrewdly position myself to pick up a few choice words which paint a clear picture: "disgusting," "insulting," and "disrespectful" – the small British contingent is not happy, especially as John confirms that he was oblivious to the choice of song. Before Shoreman and Barnes return to their game, Pollock apologises "on behalf of the World Series of Poker", his feathers uncharacteristically ruffled. For the Commish, a man who is someone people prefer to tiptoe around, to be confronted with such anger and venom is something I hadn't witnessed before.

After the incident, I ask Shoreman to fill in a few gaps that my eavesdropping had missed: "He [Pollack] told me that a few people had requested it after the last British ceremony. They then said that there was an occasion once where someone else sang the US anthem in a different style. 'You do know that it's a different song?' I asked, to which they replied, 'No.' That's just ignorance. It has phrases like, 'fascist regime,' and that's just the mild part. I can honestly believe that they thought it was the same song. I think the idea of the ceremony and its implementation is a good idea, but regardless of who made the request, the powers that be shouldn't have played it."

Dave Barnes, another experienced British player, joins the conversation: "I thought it was ridiculous. I remember at the Hatton fight there was a load of booing during the American national anthem and it was all around the papers and stuff. Then they go and do this to us. Imagine the reaction here if it had been the other way around and we'd played a song insulting their country."

It later emerges that Pollock had no idea that the Sex Pistols were going to be gracing the loudspeakers and assumed that John had been consulted. When he heard it, he went with it – what choice did he have? Later, and upon hearing the reaction, he pulls John aside to apologise and inform him that he will redo the ceremony the following day with the official national anthem included. John merely nods and shrugs his shoulders – he has more important matters at hand as the $50,000 HORSE event is about to start.

A couple of hours later, I catch up with John. I fully expect him to laugh it off, but he feels equally as besmirched as Shoreman. "Normally, I would have turned around and said, 'Hey, hold on,'" he explains, "but I was so surprised, I'd only just woken up and didn't realise what was going on. I didn't think it would bother me much, but I couldn't seem to get it out of my mind as I was playing the HORSE. They said they'd redo it and apologised, but what's an apology? It's a bit of a disgrace really."

This last sentiment probably explains why John was a no show come the following day. With all eyes focused on the podium, Pollock explains the situation, apologises, again, and the correct anthem is played. In Kabbaj's absence, the room stands respectfully to the more traditional choice and there's a gentle ripple of applause upon conclusion. However, it's a sad sight to see the stage void of the event's winner, and the man who should have been the target of that applause.

My initial view was that the reception of the song was merely dependent on whether you were pro or anti monarchy. Personally, I've never been a fan of the Royal Family beyond tourism. They litter the tabloids, make poor role models, and seem to do little beyond making public appearances and showcasing a luxurious way of life that the tax-payer funds. However, my views aren't the consensus, and the Royal Family are adored by many. I can't help but recall the backlash of Princess Diana's death which was considered a national tragedy and mourned by many who had never even met her. The Royal Family are like Marmite – you either love them or hate them.

With that in mind, it was possibly a poor decision to play a song that could potentially split your audience, especially if your main target, the recipient of the gesture, had not been informed or requested the change. After all, it's his moment, not anyone else's. However, I'm sure Harrah's were unaware of the offence that could be caused by playing a previously banned song (it still topped the charts), and one that includes lines such as "Our figurehead is not what she seems" and "She ain't no human being”, and I genuinely believe that they simply didn't realise there was anything controversial about the lyrics. If they were aware it was anti monarchy and establishment, then perhaps Pollock may have resisted that first-pump. But it was a genuine mistake, a behind the scenes slip-up, and one that was aimed at lightening the mood and showing the organisation's humerous side, which is sometimes concealed for the sake of formality – to suggest otherwise would be wayward.

And so, another storm-in-a teacup was concluded. The set-up is meant to emulate an Olympic ceremony, one in which the proud winner is put on a pedestal and his achievement honoured before a public audience. It's a strong tradition that is known worldwide, and to change the song inevitably alters the prestige of that moment. But whatever the song and the words they speak, whether it's the same song or not, the question remains – who cares? It was accidental, and as Gary 'The Whacker' Bush commented, "There are more important things to worry about than what version of the national anthem they play."


Kabbaj Wins Event #45 $10,000 PLH
Photo by Flipchip
As for John, he'll keep "plugging away" and return to the shadows that he has become so accustomed to. It's likely that those who once ignored him will now shower him with praise and invite him to appear on TV and radio, but I fully expect him to tell them where to go. As with the second ceremony, it's a similar case of too little too late. However, publicity will remain low on his list, and the slip-up that occurred here in Vegas will soon be forgotten. The important thing is that he's no longer hitting that crossbar, and can take a bracelet and $633,335 back to London, as well as the knowledge that he made his mark in poker history without letting his ego control his path. As John says himself, "Ego ruins people," and he really means it, man.


Snoopy is a writer from London, UK. You can read his stellar 2009 WSOP musings over at Black Belt Poker.

* * * * *
Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/29/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
50K HORSE Day 3 - WSOP Live Blog

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

There's one final table (Limit Shootout), two new events ($3K Triple KO and $1.5K Stud 8), the second day of the donkament, and the third day of 50K HORSE is upon us. This is the so-called moving day for the big boys when we find out who fades away into oblivion (and $50K poorer) and who's gearing up for a run at the coveted bracelet in the Player's Championship.

53 players began Day 3. The top 16 get paid prize money.

50K HORSE Payouts:
1. $1,276,802
2. $789,199
3. $522,394
4. $368,813
5. $276,610
6. $219,655
7. $184,087
8. $162,382
9-10. $123,895
11-12. $99,590
13-14. $83,630
15-16. $72,914

* * * * *
2:30pm... Schulman Down

52 players remain in the HORSE event after Nick Schulman became Day 3's first casualty, while Gus Hansen is back into the chip lead. The majority of railbirds in the Amazon Room are huddled on the rail in the far corner.

I have two horses left in HORSE.... Erik Seidel and Pearljammer. I also have a bet that Matt Glantz will win a bracelet, so I'm keeping an eye on his progress.

One member of the French press (I won't say his name, but it rhymes with Kenjo) was in the middle of an important business matter and did not stand during the national anthem that was played during Brandon Cantu's bracelet ceremony.

"If it weren't for that anthem, Frenchie, you'd be speaking German!"

I gave him a ton of guff even though most people only stand when their national anthem is played. Over in the HORSE event, action was not halted and played on during the anthem. To them, it was just background chatter and ambient noise.

* * * * *
3:23pm.... 44 to Go

The HORSE event lost a couple of big guns.... Ivey, Greenstein, and Benyamine. Also out are Steve Sung, Daniel Alaei, Jason Gray, and Alex Kravchenko. Oooops. Another Ruskie heads to the rail.

However, the Scandis are gearing up. Gus Hansen and Erik123 are floating near the top of the heap, bit they both trail of Ray Dehkharghani who is chasing the 1 million chip mark. I don't know too much about Ray aside from the fact that he plays cash games and has minimal tournament results (less than 500K for his career). He has cashed in every single WSOP since 2005 and nearly missed a final table at this year's WSOP.

I spotted Johnny Lodden playing in the 3K Triple Chance event. That inspired a new joint-gambling-venture between Otis and myself. Last year in London, Phil Laak and several pros played a game called, "What does Johnny Lodden think?" They would pick questions and gamble on his potential answers. In honor of Johnny Lodden, Otis and I decided to play a game in the press box called, "What Does Benjo Think?" Stay tuned for the results.

* * * * *
4:20pm... Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Today's smoke break is brought to you by... PokerStars!


And now, here's some Lou Reed with a good old fashioned 70s porn-funk intro to one of his classic songs...



* * * * *
4:44pm... 41 Remaining; Doyle & Erick Fuckin' Lindgren Busto

A couple of more hit the rail... Texas Dolly, Erick Lindgren, Fabrice Soulier, artin Vallo, and Boosted J.

The battle for the chiplead is among Erik Sagstrom, Gus Hansen, and Ray Dehkharghani. They're all in the 800K range and trying to be the first player to bust through to the 1M mark.

* * * * *
5:25pm... Jesus Hath Left the Building

After two levels of play today, the HORSE is down to 37 after the eliminations of Jesus, Jani Sointula, and David Grey. 21 more to go before the money bubble...

* * * * *
6:45pm... Dropping Like...

Flies? A few more bustouts... Pearl Jammer, Ralph Perry, Jerry Buss, and former WSOP champion Jim Bechtel. Down to 31 with Erik123 in command of the chiplead. The infamous Scandi online legend became the first player to pass 1M in chips.

The remaining 31 players are heading out to dinner break shortly.

* * * * *
8:43pm... The Coach Report: Tough Table

I stopped by the Brasilia Room to check in on Coach. If you're an old school Tao of Poker reader, you know that Coach has been a guest poster here on several occasions. We go way back to the Blue Parrot days, which was our regular home game in NYC hosted by Ferrari. I met a bunch of poker playing lawyers including Ugarte, F Train, and Dawn Summers. Good times and some of my favorite poker memories from New York.

Anyway, Coach was the best Stud 8 player in our group and he's in today's Stud 8 event. He drew a tough table that included Barry Greenstein and Paul Darden. They are both to his right, which is the good news. Greenstein busted out of the HORSE event and bougt into the Stud 8.

Coach slipped to 3.8K (starting stack was 4.5K). He said that he lost a pot to Darden.

* * * * *
10:15pm... Down to 26

A couple more bustouts in 50K HORSE including Snoopy's model friend Patrik Antonius, Matt Hawrilenko, John Monnette, Hasan Habib, and Scott Clements.

Erik123 continues to lead the field with over 1.3M. Freddy Deeb is the only other player over 1M in chips. The short stack is Matt Glantz with 26 to go. Top 16 get paid out.

* * * * *
11:11pm... Heads Up for a Multi-Bracelet

We're gonna have another multi-bracelet winner at this year's WSOP.... either Mark Naaldan or Greg FBT Mueller will collect their second. It's almost even in chips and I wandered over to sweat that final table where a massive crowd gathered. It might be the most crowded secondary final table I had seen this year. Half the crowd is there rooting on Mueller, while every single Dutch person in Nevada showed up to cheer on their fellow countryman. A festive crowd indeed as they're standing three and four deep in the rail as the two slug it out.

Over in HORSE, we're at the beginning of the final level of play. 23 players remain after a couple of more bustouts... Matt Glantz, John Hennigan, and Patrick Bueno. Erik123 still out in front.

* * * * *
11:32pm... Greg Mueller Wins Limit Shootout; Coach Chipping Up; No Repeat Champion

Dutchie Mark Naaldan finished in second place to Greg Mueller. This is definitely the Canuck's year after he collected his second bracelet.

Over in the Stud 8 event, Coach is almost back to his starting stack. He played a multi-way pot against Darden and Greenstein and took it down. He just scooped Greenstein ad is now sitting on a stack worth 6.3K. He's around average with 350 or so remaining.

And in the HORSE? Scotty Nguyen was the latest casualty. Ville Wahlbeck has snagged the chip lead for the first time tonight. Erik123 is not far behind in second place. Down to 21 players.

* * * * *
12:14am... Day 3 Complete; 19 Remain

The third day of 50K HORSE has come to a close. There are 19 players left with Vitaly Lunkin taking the lead late into Level 5. Only a handful of players have over 1M in chips and that includes Erik123, Freddy Deeb, and Ville Wahlbeck.

Also advancing to Day 4? David Bach, Frank Kassela, Gus Hansen, John Kabbaj, John Hanson, Mike Wattel, Steve Billirakis, Huck Seed, Tony G, Chau Giang, David Chiu, Brett Richey, Erik Seidel, Ray Dehkharghani, and Todd Brunson.

The final 19 will return on Monday at 2pm and play down to a final table of 8. The top 16 players win prize money which means the bubble will break sometime on Monday afternoon.

* * * * *
12:31am... Coach Avoids an Elimination

Coach was almost all in and chopped a pot against some hipster from LA who took Paul Darden;s seat. Coach dragged the low while his opponent won with Aces Up.

* * * * *
1:33am... Coach = Nevermore

Coach had taken a couple of hits and slipped under 2K. He cold not recover and busted with about 200 to go.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/28/2009 05:02:00 PM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 31: Horses, Deuces, and DonkeyBombers

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I spotted the first donkey lingering around 11pm on Friday night. The morbid beast had wandered into the Amazon Ballroom not knowing that it had stepped onto the well documented killing floor. In less than twelve hours it would be among the thousands of other clueless animals led to their merciless slaughter. Some of their carcasses were left out to bake in the hot Nevada sun, only to be transformed into beef jerky. And the rest? Mixed with kangaroo meat and grinded into burger patties.

And to think, those donks actually paid for that sadistic abuse. Shit, if you want to be humiliated, I know a couple of seasoned working girls down on Fremont Street that will drop a deuce on your chest and/or shove a nail into your scrotum for $150. It's much cheaper than a price tag for a donkament.

Around Midnight on Friday, I saw another donkey trotting down in the hallway in a jovial daze, and another gawking at Scotty Nguyen when he passed by with a couple of kilograms of Buddhist bling around his neck.

The night before a Saturday donkament attracted the weekend warriors who arrived fresh off a plane from McCarran airport. The first timers were easy to spot. They actually stopped and took a photo of the "Welcome to the WSOP" banner.

Don't be embarrassed. I did the same thing at the start of the 2005 WSOP. I was so fresh and so full of life. Such a cherry and newbie. I really thought that the sky was blue and that every pro I saw on TV was so fuckin' rich that they could wipe their asses with $100 bills. Indeed, I was true WSOP virgin.

Saturday included the second day of the slimmed down 50K HORSE event, the sold-out donkament, Day 2 of the Limit Shootout, and the PLO 8 final table. Brandon Cantu finished second in the last donkament and he picked up an iota of redemption when he beat Lee Watkinson heads up for a bracelet in PLO8. That bracelet victory was the second of Cantu's career.

After dinner break, I headed over to the Brasilia Room with Michalski. He was semi-sweating the DonkeyBomber, who struggled this summer. DonkeyBomber was something like 0-18. Yeah, zero cashes. He finally ended that horrendous streak when he cashed in the Limit Shootout and hoped that his bad luck this year would turn around.

DonkeyBomber was on the verge of advancing to a final table and only Greg FBT Mueller stood in his way. At one point, DonkeyBomber opened up a three to one advantage on Mueller, who had one of the hottest masseuses working on his back. Mueller had won a bracelet earlier in the year and he caught up, before he eventually took the lead. Michalski ended up the ultimate cooler and even touched DonkeyBomber on the shoulder which helped transfer all that bad mojo.

"He must have felt icicles run down his spine," said Mean Gene.

Alas, the DonkeyBomber was never more. Without fail, Michalski walked over to say hello to a good friend from Dallas. As soon as he showed up, the guy busted.

Yeah, Michalski's cooler abilities are in full effect. I'm gonna start extorting pros, especially ones at the final table. I must get 50% of their winnings, otherwise, I'm gonna send Michalski over to sweat your table.

* * * * *
Bouncin' Round the Room on Day 31....

I showed up to the bracelet ceremony on Saturday afternoon. The first part was a do-over for John Kabbaj where they played the proper national anthem of Great Britain. Kabbaj was a no show which sums up his thoughts on the matter.

The second bracelet was awarded to Bahador Ahmadi and they played the national anthem of Iran. A handful of folks in the media wore green in support of citizens of Iran who are embroiled in fight for democracy against hardliners in their country.

For the second night in a row, Otis and I engaged in degenerate citrus fruit tossing out back as the multi-colored lights of the Strip flickered in the background. On Friday night,, Otis took a $40 lead after I whiffed on my two tosses.

On Saturday night, our contest was delayed for an hour due to a medical emergency. Security guards blocked the area off. Since lime tossing is a non-sanctioned citrus fruit activity, we were forced to wait it out. When the playing area was finally clear of security guards and medical personnel, we continued with the second match. I fared much better and would have taken an overall lead, but Otis nailed a clutch shot. I was up $120 after I dropped two limes into $60 grids, but on his last shot of the night, Otis lofted his lime into a $100 grid. He saved face and only lost $20 for the round. Overall, he's up $20. Fucker.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/28/2009 11:11:00 AM | Permalink |

 
50K HORSE Day 2 - WSOP Live Blog

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

The second day of the HORSE event was pushed back to 4pm. Due to the donkament, the staff wanted to make sure that they had available space for the HORSE re-start. They are also trimming one level off the event and they will play five ninety-minute levels instead of the originally scheduled six.

I feel bad for the four lost souls of HORSE who busted out on Day 1... Dan Shak, David Singer, Alexander Kostritsyn, and Steve Z. Kostritsyn's elimination was particularly rough for me because I had him on a couple of fantasy teams and in my overall pick against Benjo and the Frenchies.

91 players remain. Day 2's chipleaders are... Hasan Habib 387K, Martin Vallo 347K, and Matt Glantz 300K.

Stay tuned for more live updates of the 50K HORSE...

* * * * *
4:50pm... 88 and Counting

A couple of early bustouts to start Day 2 including Ali Eslami, and Bryan Colin, and Greg Mascio. It's odd to see all the donkeys being led to the slaughter and milling about in front the biggest butchers in poker.

And over in the sold out donkament, over 1,100 players have already been slaughtered, dried, and turned into beef jerky.

* * * * *
5:20pm... Mr. Kotter Busto; Hasan = 420K

The current chipleader is Hasan Habib and he's smoking the field with around 420K in chips.

2009 WSOP bracelet winner James Van Alstyne has hit the rail, along with Alex Jung, Mr. Kotter, and Jen Harman. The eliminations are flowing at a steady pace today. Down to 84 right now. So far, 7 in the first level, but John Juanda, Eli Elezra, and Pat Pezzin are on life support. They all have under 50K in chips.

I'm guesstimating that they'll get around 45 or so by the end of Day 2. Yes, this is a five-day event and there has been rumors that they might eliminate an entire day of play depending on how many players bust out today and tomorrow.

* * * *
6:06pm.... New Episodes of Tao of Pokerati!


Michalski and I taped two new episodes late last night as Day 1 of HORSE came to a close. The 50K HORSE numbers and wacky conspiracy theories were discussed.

Episode 11.24: Running Numbers (3:30)
Episode 11.25: Tinfoil HORSE (3:52)

* * * * *
6:42pm.... Raymer Busto; Gunslinger Slinging Something

Greg Raymer busted out a few minutes ago. He sat down at an empty table and it appeared he was talking into a voice recorder. A couple of fans on the rail took photos of him from a far. One guy snuck underneath the rope and shook his hand. Another woman asked Raymer for a photo. As he always does, Raymer accommodated the requests before he finished up his own documentation of the 50K HORSE, before he was snagged by a member of the Dutch media for a video interview.

Hasan Habib is no longer in the top spot after David 'Gunslinger' Bach jumped into the top spot with... 420K in chips. I wish I as making this stuff up. Then again, I can't count chips. All I do is eyeball a stack and just make up numbers. I've been doing this for five years and haven't been caught yet. Suckers.

Anyway, Bach looks like he should play bass in Blues Traveler. Seriously, the guy looks like he should be at a jamband concert and not playing in the WSOP. I think I might have scored a bag of shrooms off him in the lot of a Phish show back in Chula Vista, CA in September of 1999. They boys busted out a 23 minute version of Stevie Wonder's Boogie On Reggae Woman to start set two and the left side of my brain melted.

* * * * *
7:20pm... Chow Time

Recent bustouts? John Juanda, Max Pescatori, Justin Bonomo, and Pat Pezzin.

78 players are heading out to a one-hour dinner break. See you at 8:20pm local time.

* * * * *
9:20pm... Hallways

On my way out to dinner break, two players were talking. One bitched about playing against French players, "They have no concept of laying down a hand."

Once play resumed, I taped a couple of episodes on Tao of Pokerati in the back hallway. A dealer goosed Michalski as she walked by, and then Johnny Chan turned the corner and bolted out a side door towards the parking lot. I assumed that he busted out.

What the hell happened to his third-rate sugar water that used to make my pee turn muted shades of orange? The Amazon Room offers up All In water bottles, but the energy drink is non-existent. Instead, Red Bull is readily available.

It turned out that Chau Giang busted Johnny Chan. Also out are... Cory Zeidman and Eli Elezra.

Down to 75. Hasan & Bach are hovering around 500K.

* * * * *
10:10pm... DonkeyBomber and Brazil

I decided to check out the Brasilia Room. To be honest, the action in the HORSE was less than stimulating. I get more excited watching rats eat lizards in the employees parking lot.

I heard that Michalski was in the Brasilia Room and trying to keep an eye on DonkeyBomber without him knowing because everyone knows that Michalski is a cooler.Anyway, DonkeyBomber was heads up against Greg Mueller. The winner advances to the final table of the shootout. DonkeyBomber held a 3-1 chip lead.

I also bumped into a colleague from Brazil. We originally crossed paths in Mexico while covering the LAPT. I greeted him with the few Portuguese words that I knew. He quickly assumed I speak Portuguese and that's all he spoke to me during my adventures covering the LAPT, even though I tried to explain to him in English and broken Spanish that I did not speak his language. That still did not deter him. I seriously have no idea what this crazy guy says. All I know is that he runs around taking pics of hot chicks on the rail.

Anyway, the crazy Brazilian stopped me in the press box and of course, he launched into some chit chat in Portuguese. I just nodded my head and smiled.

* * * * *
11:20pm... 69 Dude!

The HORSE event is down to 69 players. Recent bustouts included.... Danny Negreanu, David Oppenheim, Jeff Lisandro, Andy Bloch, Chad Brown, Yuval Bronshtein, Joe Cassidy, Zac Fellows, and Mike Matusow.

And over in the Brasilia Room, DonkeyBomber lost the chiplead to FBT and all of a sudden he's gone from the hunter to the hunted. Sadly, he busted shortly after, which proved that Michalski was indeed, a cooler.

A thought to ponder... I miss the Tilted Kilt sometimes, but I definitely drink less during the day since it ceased to exist. Instead, I have to huff paint behind a palm tree near the valet with a couple of the old ladies in housekeeping. They have access to all those crazy chemicals that warps your world so much, that you only see one color... blue and different shades of blue (like light purple and sea blue and midnight blue and smurf blue.)

* * * * *
1:11am.... Late Nite Lime Tossing

For a second a night in a row, we headed out back for a round of lime tossing Two throws a piece. I stepped up and nailed a $60 grid. Otis whiffed on is first attempt. On my second toss, I hit another $60 grid to take a $120 lead. That's when Otis stepped up and drilled a $100 grid to almost erase my lead.

Round 2 - Lime Tossing Results: Pauly +120, Otis +100
Overall: Otis +20, Pauly -20

* * * * *
1:40am... Day 2 Complete

The second day of 50K HORSE has come to a close. Gus Hansen will end up as one of the chipleaders after a major surge during an 0maha 8 round. The overall leader is Ray Dehkharghani who has well over 600K.

Eliminations during the last level included... Annie Duke, Farzad Bonyadi, Andy Black, Nikolay Evdakov, Abe Mosseri, Matthew Grapenthien, Michael Saltzburg, Howard Lederer, Allen Kessler, Bruno Fitoussi, Yoshio Nakano, and Yan Chen.

53 players advance to Day 3, which will re-start at 2pm on Sunday. They will play 6 levels on Day 3. I doubt they'll make the money at 18, but they should easily get down to the final 3 tables.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/27/2009 06:14:00 PM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 30: Dying HORSE and Never Mind the Pollocks, Here Come the Sex Pistols

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

95.

That's the total number of runners for the $50,000 HORSE and much lower than the 148 runners from last year and the year before. 95 runners represented less than 50% of the total entrants in the $40,000 NL anniversary special, and only 67% of last year's numbers.

Before the WSOP began, I figured that 300 combined runners would buy into the 40K and 50K. I wanted to hold off until I saw the 40K numbers before I placed prop bets on the HORSE. So when 201 players showed up for the 40K, I set my HORSE number around 100. The bulk of my bets were in the 100-120 range.

Since word got out about the 40K anniversary event, there was plenty of speculation on the total number of entrants in HORSE. Unlike the $1,000 Donkulus, the suits at Harrah's (er, Caesar's Entertainment) kept the price tag for HORSE at $50,000 instead of reducing the buy-in by 33%.

The economy is shit (albeit with minor rumblings of some improvement depending on who you talk to, but then again these "financial wizards" were completely oblivious to credit default swaps, so why should we trust their expert opinion?) but the biggest obstacle for pros to overcome is this fact... pros are forking over $50,000 to play against some of the best mixed game pros in the world on a non-televised table.

Yeah, the granddaddy of all events, the 50K HORSE, will not be aired on ESPN as it had been in the previous three years. The ESPN suits offered to televise the HORSE event if the final table format was switched to NL, just like during the inaugural year when Chip Reese won in that marathon heads-up match against Andy Bloch. Some of the members on the Players Committee were against the NL suggestion and preferred to maintain the purity of the HORSE event. (And even a handful of players wanted to switch the format out tright and make the Players Championship a 8-game mixed format.) ESPN argued that their numbers for non-hold'em events like HORSE were significantly down, and that NL was the only way to spice up the final table. However, the players balked. The result? ESPN chose not to tape the event.

The domino result? Only 95 runners.

Some of the online poker rooms chose not to pony up $50,000 to their sponsored players to play in a non-TV event. Although 25% of the field were Full Tilt players, the majority of the financial responsibility of the buy-in fell upon the players.

Yeah, the 95 runners is a fairly accurate number when you look at the overall state of the poker economy, decreased staking syndicates, and the fact the final table will not be on ESPN. That all accounts for a 33% drop off.

There were far less Russians in the event than I anticipated, although several of the top pros from Mother Russia were in the mix with Alex Kostritsyn, Alex Kravchenko, Vitaly Lunkin, Mikail Tulchinsky, and Nikolay Evadakov. I had bet Benjo that I'd put together a team of Russians against his fellow Frenchman in an overall last longer. One of them is gonna make the final table. Just wait and see.

The event did not start without any controversy and was delayed by one hour late in a weak-ass attempt to boost numbers by extending registration. Only 35 pros had signed up with less than 15 minutes to go before the noon start time. According to Commissioner Pollack, they did not have enough players to start and that was the cause of the delay since the majority of pros took advantage of the "late registration" and decided to show up as late as possible testing the elasticity of the rules.

A couple of pros welcomed the late start time while several pros who showed up on time were miffed. Mike Matusow wandered inside the ropes at exactly noon and he was furious when he discovered the delay. Expletives flew all around. The Mouth was not happy.

Phil Ivey might have been the most pissed off. According to the Poker Shrink, Ivey was playing in a private heads-up game with 5K/10K blinds. He was supposedly destroying his opponent and left his juicy game to play in the 50K HORSE, only to find out about an hour delay. Ivey definitely vented his frustration with as many suits as he could find.

The significant drop off in entrants in the 50K HORSE was almost overshadowed by a Sex Pistols song. Everyday around 2:20pm or so, there's a bracelet presentation for the previous night's winners, who are awarded their bracelet and the national anthem of their home country is played out loud. At Friday's bracelet ceremony, John Kabbaj from the UK collected his bracelet for winning the 10K PLH event. As we all awaited a rendition the national anthem for the UK, Snoopy, one of my favorite British scribes, wandered by and I joked, "Are you here to hear God Saves the Queen?"

"Believe it or not, we don't care that much for the monarchy," he explained.

At that moment, Commissioner Pollack cued the music for the national anthem. An alternate version of God Saves the Queen by the Sex Pistols blasted on the PA system.

Moments after the ceremony ended, one British player vehemently objected to the version. John Shoreman, a well-known industry figure in the UK poker scene, had words with the Commish.

"Absolutely disgusting!" he said as he gave a handful of guff to WSOP execs.

Apparently, a few British players had requested the Sex Pistols version for the next victory by a UK player. The gang at the WSOP took a risk and played the Sex Pistols' version instead of the standard dry orchestra version. I thought that moment have been one of the cooler things I had seen (and heard) so far at the WSOP, which really demonstrated that the WSOP execs had a sense of humor.

"It was one of the funniest things this year," said Foiled Coup, and ex-pat from the UK and someone who was around the British music scene many moons ago.

I asked Snoopy if he was offended and he said, "It didn't bother me one bit."

"It was perfect," explained Homer, another British writer, "It was a moment of pure confusion as everyone stood up in silence."

A few people were miffed, so much so that the Commissioner quickly apologized for the misunderstanding and "communication error." He also decided to have a second and (more proper) bracelet ceremony for Kabbaj on Saturday.

It turned out that they never asked Kabbaj's permission to play the Sex Pistols, and he was not pleased with their decision. At this point, everyone involved knew that the proper course of action would have been to clear it with Kabbaj first. Alas, I think this will be the first and last time that the WSOP folks deviate from the traditional national anthems.

The one time the WSOP attempted to do something fun and cheeky, a few rotten spoil sports decided to ruin it. Boo to those blowhards! Thumbs up to the Commish and company for busting out a little anarchy-fueled punk rock with Sex Pistols.

Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten would be proud. As one of my favorite (and legendary) British writers Tony Holden said it best in his very proper accent, "They can play the Sex Pistols as far as I'm concerned."

The Poker Shrink was the lone voice of reason in a sea of torrid waters. "People, people," he wrote on Twitter, "A tournament starts late and they play an alternative version a song and this is what gets your panties in a bunch?"

* * * * *
Bouncin' Round the Room on Day 30...

The Iranian National Anthem will be played tomorrow after Bahador Ahmadi won a bracelet in the Mixed Event. He outlasted a final table that included Barry Greenstein and Ylon Schwartz. I know that the suits will be extra cautious. And there's no way in hell that they'll play Eminem's rendition of the Soroud. Otherwise, we might have a bloody fatwah on our hands.


Bahador Ahmadi
Photo by Flipchip
I almost got run over by TJ Cloutier on his scooter. Poor TJ was unable to pull together enough scratch to play in the HORSE event. At one point he was wandering around the tournament and Change100 joked that he was looking to borrow money to lose at the craps tables.

I can't stress enough... put your bankroll in the safe BEFORE you fuck the hooker. According to LasVegasVegas, David Sklansky was the victim of a home invasion the other night. He got robbed at gunpoint. Insert your own rolled by a hooker joke here _______.

Speaking of hookers, while on a late night run to the gift shop to buy cookies, I spotted a gaggle of hookers congregating by the elevators of the Ipanema towers. At closer inspection, I recognized one as the infamous Tela.

Back by popular demand...

Last 5 Pros I Pissed Next To...
1. Teddy "Ice Man" Monroe
2. Minh Ly
3. Robert Goldfarb
4. Bryan Devonshire
5. BoostedJ

Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/27/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
50K HORSE Day 1 - WSOP Live Blog

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

Today is the prestigious HORSE event with a staggering $50,000 buy-in. There has been plenty of speculation on the total number of entrants. In previous years it's been 143, 148, and 148. We've been wondering and betting on the 2009 final number for several months.

Will the non-televised aspect of this year's event negatively affect numbers? Did the 40K NL special event siphon off some of the high stakes players? Or will there be a boost in numbers from a contingency of Russians? Stay tuned to find out.

It's been a while since we had a live blog from the WSOP, so let's get to it....

* * * * *
11:11am... New Tao of Pokerati Episodes!


Check out two brand spanking new episodes of Tao of Pokerati where we discuss the upcoming HORSE event. For a slight change of pace, Michalski and I get a little serious (which means less than 5% schtick)...

Episode 11.21: HORSE Hunting (4:09)
Episode 11.22: The Satellite Economy (5:06)

* * * * *
12:02pm... Delay

"This is bullshit!" screamed Mike Matusow as he entered the empty playing section of the Amazon Ballroom. At 11:50am, Jimmy Sommerfeld announced to the press box that the start time for HORSE would be pushed back an hour since less than 35 players had registered. Yep, we already have a mini-controversy brewing. Stay tuned for more info. Cards will go in the air at 1pm.

* * * * *
12:51pm... Waiting for the Man

Matusow calmed down after he signed 50 of his books in the hallway. "Mike's reaction to any change in his life is negative," explained the Poker Shrink.

As Matusow hacked his books, several players headed to the VIP lounge and played Chinese Poker. The game was so popular due to the delay that it played seven-handed.

According to the chatter on Twitter, a lot of the internet kids are playing the 2K at the Venetian instead of pooling together some money to play in HORSE event.

60 runners and counting... if you have $50,000 and want a shot at bracelet, there's plenty of open seats. If you have UNDER 100 in any sort of prop bet, you're looking good. If you have OVER 100, now's the time to start offering up buy-outs.

* * * * *
1:05pm... And They're Off....

Commissioner Pollack apologized to the fans on the rail before the start. They had been camped out for a few hours. The diehards and fanatics were out in droves. They knew that the HORSE event was their best chance to catch a glimpse of their favorite pros. Several of them were staked out int he hallways or near the VIP lounge. They did their homework.

Last year's booze-riddled champion Scotty Nguyen uttered the famous words, "Shuffle Up and Deal!"

62 players and counting...

* * * * *
1:39pm... A Paler Shade of Dolly

70 players and counting. Registration is open to the end of Level 2. Since levels are ninety minutes in length, that means you have until 4:20pm to buy in... if you have $50,000.

Since it's HORSE almost every table is stacked. The most interesting is one table featuring the defending champion Scotty Nguyen. He has Daniel Alaei, Fabrice Soulier, Farzad Bonyadi, David Benyamine, and David Singer at his starting table. That's important for me because I have a Russia vs. France last longer bet with Benjo. Two of his fellow countrymen are at opposite ends of the table.

I'm also in a last longer with a couple of Aussies; Tassie Devil and Tim Duckworth. I drafted Erik Seidel, Jon Turner, and Alex Kostritsyn.

And yeah, there's a little spring in my step because I'm on the verge of winning several UNDER bets. Oh, by the way, in the time it took me to write this update, one more person bought in.

Doyle's not looking too good. Earlier in the day, he mentioned that he was withdrawing from the event for health reasons. Old Dolly has had a tough time keeping food down, yet he managed to suck it up and make the trek to the Rio. He's a trooper and also looking to fade a small sized field to win his 11th bracelet. I've seen Dolly at some down points over the last few years, but those times were at the tail end of 20 hour day.

71 players and counting...

* * * * *
2:35pm... 78 at the Break

Several players arrived late into the first level including Huck Seed, Annie Duke, and Max Pescatori. The number of entrants slowly rose to 78 with a few big pros still absent. Hellmuth, Lederer, and Bloch are expected to arrive sometime before the next level ends.

As players headed out on their first break, Texas Dolly whizzed by on his scooter. Andy Black asked Mike Matusow about his terrible table.

"Yeah it's terrible, but I fuckin' won every pot."

A few minutes into the event, as photographers circled around the tournament area, someone from FullTilt snuck up behind Andy Black and tapped him on the shoulder. The guy slapped a patch on his jacket and quietly left.

"This is a fuckin' joke," lamented one of my fellow scribes from Canada. "How can this be billed as a player's championship when there are no fuckin' players?"

* * * * *
3:09pm... God Save the Queen?

I wandered by the podium for the bracelet ceremony and John Kabbaj from the UK was about to receive his bracelet. Snoopy wandered by and I joked, "Are you here to hear 'God Saves the Queen'?"

"Believe it ot not, most Brits don't care for the monarchy," he explained.

At that moment, Commissioner Pollack cued the music for the national anthem. God Saves the Queen by the Sex Pistols blasted on the PA system. Initially, I thought that it was a mix-up... and then figured it was a nice little joke and that the actual anthem would follow after a few seconds of the Sex Pistols.

When the ceremony was over, one British player vehemently objected to the version. John Shoreman, a well-known industry figure in the UK poker scene, had words with the Commish.

"Absolutely disgusting!" was what I overheard.

Apparently, a few British players had requested the Sex Pistols version for the next victory by a UK player. The gang at the WSOP took a risk and played that version. I thought that might have been one of the cooler things I had seen so far at the WSOP. It really demonstrated that they had a sense of humor.

"It was one of the funniest things this year," said Foiled Coup, and ex-pat from the UK and someone who was around the British music scene many moons ago.

I asked Snoopy if he was offended and he said, "It didn't bother me one bit."

But a few people were miffed. So much so that the Commissioner decided to apologize for the misunderstanding. He also decided to have a second and (more proper) bracelet ceremony for Kabbaj tomorrow.

The one time the WSOP attempted to do something fun and cheeky, a few rotten spoil sports decided to ruin it. Boo to those blowhards. Thumbs up to the Commish and company for busting out some Sex Pistols.

Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten would be proud.



* * * * *
5:22pm... 95?

Well, the second level has come and gone and it looks like we have about 95 runners for HORSE. Some folks are not pleased with the numbers, but I think it's fairly accurate when you look at the poker economy, decreased staking syndicates, and the fact the final table will not be on ESPN. That all accounts for a 33% drop off.

Regardless, the hundred or so players in the event represent some of the best old school pros, former world champions (Chan, Jesus, Scotty, Doyle, Bechtel), internet young guns, and the top mixed cash game players in the world. Oh and how could I forget a celeb or too.

That list includes... Patrik Antonius, MrSmokey1, Andy Black, ZeeJustin, Yuval Bronshtein, Chad Brown, Jerry Buss, Chau Giang, Bill Chen, David Chiu, Scott Clements, Freddy Deeb, Danny Negreanu, Johnny World, Eli Elezra, Jen Harman, Matt Glantz, Tony G, Thor Hansen, Erik123, Greg Raymer, Nick Schulman, Hanson, Phil Ivey, Max Pescatori, Erik Lederer, Gabe Kaplan, and Gus Hansen.

Barry Greenstein is two-tabling and still alive at the final table of the Mixed Event.

Not as many Russians as I thought... but several strong players in Alex Kostritsyn, Alex Kravchenko, Vitaly Lunkin, Mikail Tulchinsky, and Nikolay Evadakov.

* * * * *
6:20pm.... Dinner Break

The HORSE players are on a ninety minute dinner break.

* * * * *
8:00pm... Back from Dinner; Two More Levels

95 players is the official number and nobody has busted out yet. There are a couple of players with less than 100K (Starting stacks at 150K) and one short stack under 50K (Yan Chen... yeah, I'm thinking the same thing... Yan who? But Yan made two final tables at the WSOP this year. At least, I think it's that same Yan Chen).

Last year 8 players out of 148 busted on Day 1. At dinner break, I told Change100 that I expected less than 5 eliminations to today.

Change100 compiled a list of last year's players who are not playing in the 2009 50K Horse event. That included... second place finisher Michael DeMichele, Phil Hellmuth, Lyle Berman (who final tabled the event last year), durrrr, Dario Minieri, DonkeyBomber, The Grinder, Brandon Adams, Kirill Gerasimov, Amnon Filippi, David Williams, Isabelle Mercier, Ted Forrest, Billy "The Croc" Argyros, Allen Cunningham, Marcel Luske, and Robert Williamson III.

* * * * *
9:01pm... Payouts

Usually the top 10% get paid in poker tournaments. That would mean 9.5 players would get paid out of this event. This year, they are paying out the final two tables. 16 places pay with almost $1.3 million awarded to the winner.

1. $1,276,802
2. $789,199
3. $522,394
4. $368,813
5. $276,610
6. $219,655
7. $184,087
8. $162,382
9-10. $123,895
11-12. $99,590
13-14. $83,630
15-16. $72,914

10:47pm.... Steve Z First to Bust

It had to be someone. This year the first unlucky player to head to the rail first? Steve Z. There are now 94 players remaining. David Singer is one of the short stacks (under 50K), while Hassan Habib has almost doubled his starting stack and closing in on 300K.

Who's getting a massage? Gus Hansen, Erik Seidel, Dan Shak, and John Juanda. Talk about the good life.

* * * * *
12:22am... The Return of Lime Tossing

At Midnight, Otis and I headed out back for our first round of Lime Tossing for the 2009 WSOP. We crafted a playing field including lines that I had to draw using a piece of chalk that I scored from the guys in the valet. Anyway, we were up for high stakes lime tossing where at the end of any given round, we can go +/- $400. We expect to play a round a night (two tosses a round) for the next 20 days.

On the first every round? I fell short twice. The first instance, I came very close to the $100 grid. Otis whiffed on his first throw but nailed the $40 grid with his second toss.

Round 1 - Lime Tossing Results: Otis +40, Pauly -40

* * * * *
1:00am.... Day 1 Complete

91 players are left according to the big board. They will return tomorrow at 4pm (instead of 2pm) to play out Day 2. Due to Saturday's donkament, tables are in high demand, so the start time for HORSE was pushed back two hours. Day 2 will last only five levels instead of six. Due to the reduction in entrants, tournament officials have been discussing the possibility of eliminating one day of play (in this five day event). It appears that they decided to shave off one level on Day 2 in order to spread out the play.

Anyway, that's it. See ya tomorrow. HORSE re-starts at 4pm. Donkey blood will be shed at noon. Thanks for tuning in. Signing off from the Rio...


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/26/2009 11:55:00 AM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 29: Jeff Goldblum Is Not Dead

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I'd hate to say this, but the biggest chatter at the 2009 WSOP on Day 29? The death of Michael Jackson.

And the biggest story that most poker media were busy researching? Did Jeff Goldblum really die?

I was in Las Vegas in 7-7-05. If you don't know the significance of that date, well let me share an excerpt from my upcoming book Lost Vegas that described that day...

7 July 2005

I woke up hungover and dehydrated after I drank until the wee hours with AlCantHang, Otis, and Grubby celebrating my final table appearance in the Celebrity/Media event. AlCantHang had crashed on my couch and was already awake when I woke up.

"They bombed the London subways," he said and pointed to the TV.

CNN flashed various images of the carnage in London as the citizens of Great Britain suffered their own version of 9/11. For Brits, the tube bombings would always be known as 7/7. We were glued to the TV all morning as 9/11 flashbacks haunted me. I lived in New York City during 9/11 and the London bombings brought back unwanted memories of confusion and anxiety.

When you heard tragic news in a vacation destination such as Las Vegas, it did not affect you in the same way as if you heard it in your hometown. Once you stepped foot inside a casino, you tuned out the rest of the world, therefore any tragic events failed to anchor roots into your sentimental side. Visitors had not watched CNN, checked the internet, or read a newspaper in days or even weeks while feeding their gambling addictions.

Most of the people that I spoke to that morning had no idea that there was a terrorist attack in London. They could tell you which baseball teams won the night before but had no clue about the bombings. They really didn’t care. It wasn’t personal, that’s just how things were in Las Vegas.

Kids dying in Africa? Who cares? Hit me.

Another IAD killed two marines in Iraq? Who cares? I’m all in.

Earthquake toppled towns in China? Who cares? Let it ride!

Yes, it's true. The majority of current events often cease to exist in a black hole of a city like Las Vegas. Degenerate gamblers could care less about the tragic stories on the alphabet news networks, which included the London Bombings in 2005 and the shenanigans in the Iran Election in 2009.

However, the moment that word got out about Michael Jackson's death on Thursday afternoon, the news spread faster that a case of the clap in a Manila whorehouse. Within minutes, it was the only anything anyone was taking about. And that's not just at the WSOP. Some Twitter geek figured out that at one point 30% of all tweets on Thursday involved Michael Jackson.

But it seemed like everyone was talking about Michael Jackson... at the tables, in the press box, in the hallways, and even pros via Twitter. Heck, Annie Duke wrote a blog post about it and Melissa Hayden was in near tears when I saw her.

Some of the table banter among players was more of the heartfelt "RIP" type as Michael Jackson fans paid remembrance to their hero, while others lashed out at the absurdity of honoring the death of a pedophile freak show. Plenty of old and newer jokes were passed back and forth.... "little boys pants half off".... "choked on 12 year old nuts."

I offered up a prop bet to Homer. Brits are always cheeky with their puns and I bet him that he couldn't get away with posting five different headlines using Michael Jackson songs. And I promptly lost. I now owe him In-N-Out Burger.

As we were still processing the news of Michael Jackson's passing, I got the first message about the death of Jeff Goldblum. There was not any info on the news/entertainment/Hollywood gossip rags. Deaths comes in sets of three. Farrah Fawcett passed away earlier and MJ was second. Was Jeff Goldblum third?

I called a friend of mine, Joe Speaker, who happens to specialize in obituaries at the L.A. Times. He told me that they have thousands and thousands of pre-written obits for almost every notable celebrity. The older celebs or ill ones are ready to be published within seconds of their expiration. He even said they have obits written for the young Hollywood types who live super fast such as Lindsey Lohan, just in case they happen to OD on a speedball at a resort in Palm Springs.

My source could not confirm Jeff Goldblum. My friends in the poker media were running into dead ends with Google searches. After an hour or so, it became apparent that the Jeff Goldblum death news was simply a hoax. Once I started reading about Harrison Ford dying, I knew it was a load of horse shit. Why? Because like his character in the Blade Runner, Harrison Ford is a replicant.

Oh, in case you were wondering... Miami John, Eskimo Clark, Vinny Vinh, and Doyle Brunson are all still alive. At least, they were at the time of this posting.

Alas, in the side show carnival that is the World Series of Poker, the strangest of the strange could not help but talk about the Greatest Freak Who Ever Lived.

* * * * * *
Bouncin Round the Room....

We're on the cusp of the 50K HORSE event and I watched some of the $2,250 mega satellite. They ran it on the four tables in front of the press box. I spotted Bill Chen, Allen Kessler, Amnon Filippi, The Grinder, Nicky Frangos, Michael Binger, and Neal Freits. They were all trying to win a 50K seat on the cheap.

Lot's of rumors and speculation on the final numbers for 50K HORSE. Since it's NOT a televised event on ESPN, that might persuade pros to skip it. In addition, some of the younger guns who bought into the 40K NL event at the start of the WSOP will skip the pricey HORSE event after a piss poor WSOP.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if Comrade X (big time Russian backer) will put in 20-30 Russian horses into the HORSE event, not to mention a couple of other Russian staking syndicates. If that's the case, bet on a Ruskie to win this bracelet.

On May 1st, I listed some predictions...

Pauly's 2009 WSOP Predictions:
40K NL - 188
50K HORSE - 145
Main Event - 7,100

I was off with the 40K and that number of entrants ended up at 201. The 50K HORSE? I have a feeling that my initial prediction was off. So much so, that I bet Otis the UNDER at 132. I also have a high stakes pool with four other scribes, which is sort of like the The Price Is Right rules where it's the closest bidder without going over.

Otis: 132
AlCantHang: 140
Michalski: 126
Change100: 142
Pauly: 1

Yeah, I went for the old $1 trick. Which means, I'm thinking about 125 and under for HORSE.

FYI, 50K HORSE begins on Friday at noon. Perhaps it's time for the return of live blogging updates on Tao of Poker?

Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/26/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 28: Lisandro's Hat Trick

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I've covered enough tournaments to know that even with two tables to go, no one is a lock for a victory. But I've also covered enough tournaments to know that when you're running good.... you can run through brick walls with ease and not pick up a single scratch.

Say what you want about Jeff Lisandro, but the Godfather is en fuego. Or perhaps he made a couple of dealers an offer they couldn't refuse?

The Aussie via Salerno, Sicily became the first player to win three bracelets in a single WSOP since Phil Ivey did it in 2002. Jeff Lisandro also became only the fifth player in WSOP history to win three bracelets. And how about this stat... Lisandro is a heavy favorite to win the WSOP Player of the Year.

Only four other men besides Lisandro won three bracelets in a single year...

Puggy Pearson (1973): $4,000 Limit 7 Card Stud, $1,000 No Limit Hold'em, $10,000 Main Event
Phil Helmuth (1993): $5,000 Limit Hold'em, $2,500 No Limit Hold'em, $5,000 Limit Hold'em
Ted Forrest (1993): $5,000 Seven-Card Stud, $1,500 Omaha 8, $1,500 Seven-Card Razz
Phil Ivey (2002): $2,000 S.H.O.E., $2,500 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, $1,500 7 Card Stud

Puggy's stats are skewed due to the small number of entrants during the infancy of the WSOP. He had to fade 12 other players to win the Main Event, while the 1K NL event was winner-take-all, and they only paid out two spots in the Stud event. Essentially Puggy won a couple of SNGs.

Hellmuth's trifecta in 1993 all featured wins in hold'em events. The same year was a highwater mark for Ted Forrest, although his three bracelets were spread out in different events.

Ivey's hat trick in 2002 stands out because his victories were on the cusp of the poker boom. Moneymaker was still a year away from his epic victory, but 2002 was the year when Ivey established himself as one of the best twenty-somethings on the circuit, especially in non-hold'em games.

I never would have picked Jeff Lisandro to win two bracelets this year, let alone have a shot at three bracelets. Sometimes, when you run hot... you run hot.


Lisandro moments after winning his second bracelet of the 2009 WSOP (third overall hence the three sign)
Photo by Flipchip
Before the 2007 began, Jeff Lisandro was on a short list of best international pros who never won a bracelet. 2007 was an interesting year for Lisandro because he finally won his first bracelet and had a shot at a second one but fell short of the mark with a runner-up performance to Allen Cunningham in the $5K PLH event.

At the 2008 WSOP, Lisandro posted another runner-up finish when he lost heads up to Mike Matusow in the $5,000 NL 2-7 Draw Lowball event. A few months later, Lisandro final tabled the £2,500 HORSE event at the WSOP-Europe. However, it was Lisandro's invovlement in the Tiffany Michelle/Tony G saga at last year's Main Event that garnered the most attention. Lisandro was one of the original backers and collected one-third of Tiffany's $330K payday. But unlike the other parties involved, Lisandro decided to keep mum on the topic.

Lisandro put forth an individual performance that has not been seen since the poker boom. Winning multiple bracelets in a single summer is a remarkable feat, however winning three? Near impossible. Well not that impossible, after all, Lisandro did it with a handful of events to go including the WSOP-Europe. Can he continue his hot streak and become the first player to win four bracelets in a single year?

Moments after Lisandro's victory, I recorded an episode of Tao of Pokerati with special guest BJ Nemeth. Of course, Michalski was nowhere to be found at the time, so I grabbed the most competent member of the poker media to discuss the significance of Lisandro's third bracelet at the 2009 WSOP. Listen in here...

Tao of Pokerati with Pauly & BJ Nemeth - Episode 11.19: Lisandropalooza (3:49)

BJ and both agreed that Lisandro's three bracelets in variants of Stud games (Stud, Stud 8, and Razz) makes him the clear cut favorite to lay claim to "the best Stud player in the world."

I feel a tad bad about Michael Craig. His runner-up performance will be overlooked and overshadowed by Lisandro's third bracelet this summer. The author of "The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King" had a banner year in 2007 when he made two final tables. Although he cashed in his first event in the 2008 WSOP, he had played twenty-five consecutive WSOP events without cashing. He finally cracked that streak.

Late on Day 2, Craig's stack took a hit with three tables to go. He found himself one of the hunted as a short stack. Somehow, he managed to avoid elimination and advance to Day 3 as one of the final 13 players.

Craig made it to the final table and with six to go, it appeared that an eventual showdown between Craig and Lisandro was inevitable. That match up eventually transpired, but when Craig found himself heads up, he was at a substantial chip disadvantage (almost 10-1) against a world class pro. According to Michael Craig's latest blog entry...

"Hats of to Jeff Lisandro. The guy had a giant stack, started the final table with more than double the next biggest stack, and just BULLDOZED. Yes, he ran great, but he took control of the action and, for the most part, put on a fantastic clinic on how to dominate with a big stack."

Craig collected $116,405 for second place which is three times as much the average salary of a poker scribe. Congrats to Michael Craig for making a run at the gold, and kudos to Jeff Lisandro for a brilliant performance.

And in the immortal words of Don Corleone... "I refused to be a fool dancing on the strings held by all of those big shots."


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/25/2009 03:23:00 AM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 27: The Weigh In and the Miami John Incident

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I wandered into the Rio shortly after Midnight on early Tuesday morning. Instead of making a beeline for the Amazon Ballroom, I found myself standing at the front desk of the Rio as a customer and checked in for an indefinite amount of nights. After 20 nights on the road, I was looking forward to returning to a familiar bed and waking up next to my girlfriend who I missed dearly. Instead, I returned to a sweltering apartment with a broken AC and empty promises to get it fixed. The result? I spent less than ten minutes in our apartment after arriving at McCarran airport. I emptied my backpack with dirty road clothes and packed a fresh batch of work clothes. I grabbed my media badge and a couple of empty moleskin notebooks and took off. This is something I'm used to since I've been living out of my backpack since 2005.

After I checked into my room at the Rio, I peered out into the darkness of night. We got a remarkable view of the Gold Coast parking lot and the Redneck Riviera somewhere in the distant shows. As bad as that joint was during my initial foray into the WSOP, the AC always worked. Sure, I constantly worried about a meth lab blowing up in a building next door, but my room was always cold when I returned from a long day at the grind.

Alas, my supposedly high end condo south of the Strip was nothing more than a piece of shit and a perfect example of the shotty construction and sleazy realtor practices that cluttered the Las Vegas Valley. Piss poor wiring. Incompetent building managers. Lazy maintenance workers. What a nice little clusterfuck to return home to. However, that's the WSOP in a nutshell. At any given moment, something can go completely wrong.

I wandered down to the Amazon Ballroom and it felt like I was seeing the WSOP for the first time. The vibrant colors. The escalating sounds and clattering of chips. The immediate flashbacks.

The Senior's event neared the end of the evening and I snuck up into an empty press box. I dusted off my old seat and sat down for the first time in almost three weeks. So much time had passed since I left Las Vegas, and in that span, I visited twenty different states and embarked on a journey while I embedded myself with hippies... Las Vegas > New York City > Jones Beach, NY > Providence, RI > Mansfield, MA > Providence, RI > New York City > Camden, NJ > Alexandria, VA > G-Vegas, SC > Asheville, NC > Gatlinburg, TN > Knoxville, TN > Manchester, TN (Bonnaroo) > Nashville, TN > Louisville, KY > Cincinnati, OH > Covington, KY > Cincinnati, OH > Burgettstown, PA > Weirton, WV > Noblesville, IN > Lake Delavan, WI > Alpine Valley, WI > Milwaukee, WI > Las Vegas.

All of that seemed like a distant dream because I was back to the trenches, like a GI who got pulled out of the shit for a few days for a little R&R befoe he returned to the front lines. And on my first day back, there was plenty of drama unfolding.

* * * * *
The Weigh In

There's a cat fight brewing between Liv Boeree and Melissa Castello. The two are scheduled to fight in an unsanctioned boxing match on July 1st inside Wanderlei Silva's gym. Poker Battle is sponsoring the event (along with UB and PokerNews) where $1K will go to the winner's charity while $500 goes to the runner-up.

Boeree has been the poster girl for UB and a subject of numerous photo dumps by the hombres at Wicked Chops Poker. Castello is most known for her video work with Poker News. I had the pleasure of working an assignment with her in Argentina. I also crossed paths back in January in the Bahamas at the PCA. It was late night at the bar and as I slurped down a Kalik, she blindsided me with a crushing blow to my bicep. I was sort of surprised that someone that small could pack a punch. She unloaded on me a second time. And you know what? It fuckin' hurt. That chick can pack a punch, so much so, that I wagered a few hundred on her impending victory.

Castello is from the rough and tumble streets of Chicago. I heard that she once fended off three crackheads on Chicago's South Side with nothing more than a broken beer bottle and her wits. In addition, she was rumored to have started a riot at a club in Manila.

"I've broken my fist and broken my nose in a fight before," commented Castello as she prattled off the numerous injuries she incurred in various brawls over the years.

On the other hand, according to her agent, Boeree completed a stint in a British prison where she became adept at close quarters hand-to-hand fighting.

I headed to the press conference and official weigh in in the hallway. It was scheduled at 4pm and didn't go off until 4:15 which cut into valuable weed smoking time. Joe Stapleton handled emcee duties as he introduced both contestants.

"I have nothing to worry about," explained a cool and confident Boeree.

I have been hearing rumbling around the legality of the match. Supposedly, the Nevada Boxing Commission isn't thrilled about the unsanctioned event and might prevent the cat fight bewteen Boeree and Castello from taking place.

For now, it's still on and scheduled for July 1st. Here's some pics of the weigh in...


Melissa Castello


Liz Boeree


Thanks to MeanGene for the stellar photos of the press conference and weigh in.

* * * * *
The Miami John Incident

I stood outside with Michalski while catching up on my recent misadventures, when I got an urgent text message from Change100. She covered Day 2 of the $2,5000 Razz event where Miami John Cernuto stopped breathing. I rushed over to the Brasilia Room and noticed that everyone from the event was milling around in the hallway. As I entered the room, the entire playing area was empty as four security guards hovered over Miami John while they waited for the paramedics to arrive.

Michael Craig played in the event and told me that he was in the middle of raking the pot at an adjacent table when the incident unfolded.

"He looked dead," said Craig as Miami John's lifeless body slumped in his chair.

They put him on the floor and it was obvious that he was not breathing. After several seconds of inactivity, Miami John moved a limb. Steve Diano was also in the Razz event and had an oxygen tank to assist him with breathing. Someone grabbed the tank and helped administer oxygen to Miami John while there was a frantic scramble to call 911. Daniel Negreanu had tweeted that Miami John had a heart attack while members of the media holed up in the press room or press box quickly descended upon Brasilia.

Dan Michalski grabbed his camera and snapped a few photos of Miami John. He got plenty of guff from his fellow media reps for taking photos of potential dead bodies, but his journalistic instincts took over. Miami John's health incident affected the tournament. The clock was stopped while he was being attended to by the Rio's staff and the paramedics who eventually burst through the back door of the Brasilia Room.

A run-in with security ensued as Michalski was told to stop shooting pictures. One of the suits in charge threatened to evict him from the property in addition to revoking his credentials. I never saw Michalski so angry before as one of the security guards kept busting his balls.

Moments after the Miami John incident, we recorded a brand spanking new episode of Tao of Pokerati. Listen here...

Episode 11.18: The Angry Michalski Episode (5:00)

Miami John was taken out of the Brasilia Room on a stretcher. He was given an ovation from the remaining players while I spotted him talking on his cell phone as he was whisked away by paramedics.

A couple of Miami John's colleagues mentioned that he had some health problems specifically with diabetes. His weight had fluctuated over the years and everyone knows that poker players are not the fittest bunch.

Nolan Dalla got word late on Tuesday that Miami John was being held overnight for tests. Apparently, he suffered from internal bleeding. Although there is no current medical explanation for his serious condition, I'm going to go out on a limb and state the obvious...

Razz almost killed Miami John Cernuto.

Razz is such an evil game, that I'm not surprised that a player almost died while playing it. Miami John must have gotten kicked in the junk so many times by Razz that it caused internal bleeding and eventually caused him to pass out at the table.

Remember that Eskimo Clark incident in 2007? It also happened during Razz. Coincidence? Or is the reality of Razz finally bubbling to the surface? It's a twisted for demented souls.

The Nevada Gaming Commission should ban Razz immediately before it harms any more poker players. The New Jersey Gaming Commission outlawed Razz in their casinos. That's why there's no HORSE events at the Borgata and only HOSE mixed games. The folks in New Jersey know what's up. Razz kills.

One media rep mentioned this amazing prop bet... which event will most likely have a person die while playing? Razz or the Senior's NL event?

That's an awesome fuckin' proposition bet. The initial choice is the Senior's event because it's for players 50 and older, many of which have serious health problems. However, the logical choice is Razz, mainly because a game like Razz is for pure sadists who take pleasure in pain.

"There's no other game like Razz, where you can start off four to the nuts, then brick up, and end up with toilet paper for a hand," explained F-Train who went deep in last year's Razz event.

Maybe someone might not die directly from playing Razz at the table, but Razz tilt is severe enough that it might send a player on a suicidal binge where they off themselves after a horrible session of Razz.

Brick. Brick. Brick. Brick.
* * * * *
Bouncin' Round the Room on Day 27

Jimmy Fricke went deep in $2,500 Mixed Game. I had some money on him to make a final table. He started Day 3 as one of the short stacks but doubled up early on. He jumped up to third in chips before slipping back into one of the shorties. He finished in 9th place and bubbled off the final table. Gobbomom was in attendance today. I spoke to her a bit on the rail. She had flown out to Las Vegas the night before to spend time with her son. She randomly picked vacation days on the same day as he went deep. Jerrod Ankenman ended up winning that event and he collected his first bracelet.

Early on in the Razz event, I sweated Archie Karas, Shirley Rosario & Mickey Doft. They each busted early on Day 2 and as action raced towards the money bubble, I kept a keen eye on Greg 'Flash in the Pan' Pappas and Michael Craig. Craig had played in almost 25 straight WSOP events without cashing. That streak ended when he was among the final three tables and guaranteed a cash. The final 13 return to the Rio on Wednesday and play down to a bracelet. Jeff Lisandro is the chip leader and seeking bracelet number three for this summer. Michael Craig is in the middle of the pack and still alive.

I'm staying at the Rio and a former bracelet winner is also staying on my floor. We made some chit chat as I saw him leave his room this morning. Anyway, as I walked by a few hours ago, a room service attendant was delivering him some food but a working girl in a bathrobe answered the door. That's how bracelet winners roll in Vegas.... you get your food and sex delivered to your front door.

Since the actual title of this segment is based upon the name of a Phish song, you should head over to Coventry for an index of reviews that I wrote over the last two weeks.

God damn. I love French existentialism. The quote of the day had to be by Benjo.... "The only whores I respect are the ones who are actual whores."

Don't forget you can follow me on Twitter because that where I've been providing random updates throughout the day.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/24/2009 06:35:00 AM | Permalink |

 
The Index of All Stars

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I'd like to thank my close friends who made up the Tao of Poker All Stars. They all did a marvelous job reporting on the WSOP in my absence. In case you missed some of their coverage, here's an index of their pieces...

The Tragedy of Mr. Nice Guy by Benjo

The WSOP Fashion Report - Week 1: The Year of the Makeover by Change100

The BJ Report: Just Another Day in the Office... Phil Ivey Wins His Sixth Bracelet -- and $12 Million by BJ Nemeth

Mean Gene's WSOP Photo Dump, Volume 1 by Mean Gene

All That Glitters by Snoopy

The BJ Report: A Look Back at the First 19 Events by BJ Nemeth

Ladies of the Night: WSOP Version by Poker Shrink

The New Kid in Town by Snoopy

Flipchip WSOP Photo Dump by Flipchip

The BJ Report: A Look Back at the First 31 Events by BJ Nemeth

Fringe: Jeffrey Pollack and the Fine Line by Brad 'Otis' Willis

WSOP Fashion Report, Week 2&3: The Douche-O-Meter by Change100

World Series of Penny by Poker Shrink

Mean Gene WSOP Photo Dump Volume 2 by Mean Gene

Expect a few more pieces from your favorite guest scribes over the final three weeks of the WSOP.

Thanks again to the All Stars. They admirably held down the fort while I was gone. Now that I'm back in Las Vegas, I have a lot of diligent work ahead of me if I expect to match the sensational output from the guest writers on Tao of Poker.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/23/2009 04:20:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Mean Gene WSOP Photo Dump #2

By Mean Gene
Las Vegas, NV

As Pauly returns from his long sojourn with the wookies and phans and Christ who else he crossed paths with the last few weeks, I got some pics for my Tao of Poker All-Stars photo post....












Mean Gene is a writer from Pittsburgh, PA.

* * * * *

Original content written provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/23/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
World Series of Penny

By Poker Shrink
Las Vegas, NV

I swear that every single piece of this story is true. Whether they stitch together into this particular storyline, well it’s part of a writer’s job to entertain you and spin a fascinating tale. Reality can be so boring; sometimes it needs a good director and some big red props. But Penny is real and Phil Ivey really didn’t have a tournament seat. Sorry about skipping over the girl-on-girl action but sometimes I do write for a PG audience.

It was the World Series of 2006, a small bunch of third string poker players and others of us were in a bar as the night dwindled down. As usual, as I was the permanent designated driver or I wouldn’t have been there at all. Our crew began to shrink as House of Cards van departed but then one of our extras noticed a couple of girls in another rag-tag group across the bar and our two smaller parties came together like drops of rain on a duck’s butt. That was how I met Penny.

As introductions were made, Penny’s was followed by a question: “You still having your boob job?” It seems that Penny was a dancer, which meant she still thought she could get a gig in one of the Vegas floorshows and she was not ready to strip for a living. So, new boobs were on the agenda. The rest of the intros lead to someone mentioning my Poker Shrink column and before long I got the oft-heard question: “You really a shrink?” It was Penny asking the question.

We can skip over the standard and boring conversation. Penny was having doubts about the breast augmentation, Penny was having doubts about her relationship with Doug, and the even more obvious: Penny was having doubts about her doubts. She told her semi-drunken story and I put on the ‘I am listening face’ and then gave her some compost pile of Freud-Jung-Dr. Laura counsel.

* * *
A couple of days later back at the Rio, I ran into Penny again at the WSOP Life-Expo. She was sober and in that condition, a lot more coherent and interesting. She thanked me for my advice and when I suggested that she was too drunk to remember it, she surprised me.

“No, I don’t remember a word of what you said, but I know you were telling me to think about what I was doing with my life. The next morning I canceled the surgery and dumped Doug.”

Well, this was an interesting lady. And no, before you go there. Penny is at least 30 years younger than me, so no we did not and never have. But we had lunch and kept up a casual email friendship and got together often when the poker circuit brought us into the same city. It turns out Penny was a fair poker player and her group of buddies included a house full of online superstars. I guess she was the equivalent of a poker groupie, which leads to Act II of my story.

* * *

One night during the doldrums of the World Series ’06, most of the poker boys were back at the house they were sharing for the summer. A beer pong tournament broke out, even though at least three of the players had their laptops fired up in various online events. Early in the first pong qualifier, a loud “Fuck Me!” was heard and Marcus tossed his HP onto the sofa and mumbled about some donkey call by some Internet moron.

“He busted you?”

“Almost but I got no chips left.”

“You just going to dump it?” Penny asked.

“Go ahead and play it out if you want, anything you win is yours.”

So Penny and Cheryl, the other house ummmm, lady? Picked up the discarded computer and starting playing the short stack. I happened to be at the house that night doing an interview with a couple of the Internet phenoms, so to this point I can verify the story. At one point, I remember Penny squealing after a double up and asking what they were playing for.

“Probably some cash but first place is a seat at the EPT Barcelona.”

At that point I checked the laptop and Penny had indeed doubled up twice and was now 798th out of 850 remaining players. About an hour later, while the beer pong was really heating up Penny and Cheryl went to bed.

One of the poker boys watched them head off to their bedroom and said: “You know we may have our priorities a bit screwed up, when those two cute chicks are living here but sleeping with each other.” They all laughed and went right back to the beer pong and I headed back to the sanity of my condo.

* * *

The next day I hear this scene retold a couple of times. About 4 AM, Cheryl came out of the bedroom and walked out to the hot tub where the beer pong combatants had now gathered. Her only words were: “Penny won the tournament.”

“What tournament?”

“You mean the seat!’

“Are you sure….”

Everyone rushed into the Penny’s bedroom and there on the screen was the frozen final table with only one player still seated. Penny had won a trip to Barcelona.

Marcus, who had gone to bed an hour or so earlier, stumbled into the room and after he got the gist of what had happened, he said:

“Enjoy Barcelona.”

“Wait, don’t you want to go, maybe send someone with a real shot?”

“Hey, Penny won the seat. She’s going.”

Which leads to Act III.

* * *

Now before you go running off to the Hendon Mob database looking for Penny in the money list – don’t, you won’t find her. But there is more to the story. Penny got some advice from a wise and well traveled someone -- that would be me. What I told her was simple. Book your flight to Barcelona to arrive a full day before the tournament but book your return flight for two weeks after the tournament. This was a chance to see some of Europe and that should be the prize she should focus on. Sure she got lots of poker advice from the boys too but her odds of doing it again where slim but her presence in Europe was guaranteed.

So, here is the final scene. Penny arrives in Barcelona and heads down to check out the tournament set-up. She soon discovers that the tournament is sold out and has been for awhile. For those who remember, back in 2006 the EPT was just getting started and they just didn’t have the venues, tables and dealers for all comers. So the field was closed up tight. No more tables, no alternates.

Just then Penny ran into a pro see knew, who wondered what she was doing in Barcelona.

“I won a seat online.”

“Are you going to play it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well they are sold out and you can sell you seat for cash and a piece of the player who buys it.”

“Anyone good looking for a seat?”

“How about me?” Penny heard from behind her and she turned to look at Phil Ivey.

So Penny sold her seat to Phil for cash and 10% of his action. Now you can check the Mob database and see that Phil placed second for roughly $440,000. Penny walked away with over $50,000 and a much longer and much higher class of vacation through Europe.


The Poker Shrink recently co-authored (with Amy Calistri) the Mike Matusow autobiography titled Check-Raising the Devil.

* * * * *
Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/22/2009 04:20:00 PM | Permalink |

 
WSOP Fashion Report, Week 2&3: The Douche-O-Meter

By Change100
Las Vegas, NV

I know you're all disappointed. This year, I neither played nor covered the Ladies Event, which is typically the fashion Super Bowl of the poker world, but I just couldn't stomach all the perfume and squealing. Lucky for you, I have spies with cameras who were able to capture some of the style atrocities going on in the Amazon Room that day.

Like this one. Typically quite the style maven, complete with a Hermes bag and diamond jewelry, Beth Shak is now apparently considering trading in her status as a Full Tilt pro to become something of a latter-day Fly Girl. Behold, the Shak-band.


A big part of the reason that my fashion reports now enjoy the benefits of the Tao's expansive audience is because of this woman (pictured below), who rounded up a group of her peers to send hate mail to one of my editors and, get this, even put out some idle threats of a slander lawsuit over some painfully obvious comments I made about her eye makeup. Talk about not getting the joke (or, perhaps, owning a mirror). In this photo, it's not so much Nancy Todd Tyner's eye makeup, but the scary orange nails and the prom dress from 1984 she decided to have turned into a jacket. So thanks, Nancy.




Change100 is a writer from Los Angeles, CA.

* * * * *Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/21/2009 04:20:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Fringe: Jeffrey Pollack and the Fine Line

By Brad 'Otis' Willis
G-Vegas, SC

Editor's Note: I'd like to introduce my good friend and highly respected colleague to the mix. You might know him as Otis. And he has a little story to share with y'all.

The Hooker Bar has six semi-private seats. They sit at the open ends of the dubious horseshoe and give drinkers the best possible chance of not getting molested by the most honest whores in the Rio. It was nearly 5am and the woman next to me was waiting on a call from Johnny Chan.

She was blonde, voluptuous, and had hands strong enough to kill my fellow blogger Dan Michalski. There was the slightest chance I could see it happen. Michalski was several Tuacas deep and his journalist mind was as turned on as his libido. He was asking as many questions as the blonde could give answers. It was another interview that would never see the light of day.

Someone how Dan and I had saddled ourselves next to the private massage therapist to poker's stars. Name a big poker pro, any card-slinging hero, and this woman likely had a story about him. It was cocaine this, girlfriends that, and secrets even the great Andy Glazer could not have pulled from the world's biggest poker celebrities—and if he had, he would've had the gentleman's discretion to keep them out of print.

The woman had another drink and punched randomly at the video poker machines. She told a story of fending off a poker player's wife at Binion's because the player's girlfriend was still in the room.

"I don't judge people," the woman told us. "They trust me."

At 4:55am, the woman's phone rang. It was the Orient Express and he was ready for his rubdown.

We sat there, our addled minds simply ready to be finished with another World Series. We tried to resolve in our heads how the woman—this woman with so many sick and wonderful stories—could both be the confidante and rubdown artist for so many famous people and simultaneously be telling the lurid tales to two drunk former journos. Freud told us that no one can keep a secret, that, even if they can keep their mouth shut, "betrayal oozes out of... every pore."

The only excuse—no matter whether her stories were fact or fiction—was that Dan and I were part of poker community, too. She could have rightly assumed that we had as much at stake in preserving poker's reputation as she did. To spread the stories she told would be tantamount to killing the golden goose. If poker were as important as Hollywood, or baseball, or Paris Hilton's current screw toy, we could've made a mint just telling these stories in gossip rags. Instead, we raised our eyebrows, raised our glasses, and called it another night at the Hooker Bar.

It may not have been betrayal on the ooze that night. It may have just been the ramblings of a drunk and lonely woman. But, when she left, I believed she was going to massage Johnny Fuckin' Chan.

This was, for better or worse, the World Series of Poker.

Dan, for his part, got the woman's phone number

***

Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack and his people have nearly completed the Herculean task of moving the World Series of Poker into the mainstream. It's something that few people could've conceived, and even fewer people could've done without turning the Series into something as base and redundant as reality television.

Just a few days ago, Pollack used his Twitter account to reveal he's not ready to quit.

“Just finished my strategy memo on how 2 better inject the WSOP brand in2 mainstream pop culture. Now headed back 2 the floor for some poker!” he wrote.

Benny Binion didn't live to see Twitter, but don't think he wouldn't have used it for all it was worth. Remember, the WSOP wasn't just an excuse for the world's biggest gamblers to get together. Binion saw a promotional opportunity in the WSOP and he pounced on it in an effort to make Binion's famous. He moved the poker tables out where everybody could see them and catered to the crowds. Before long, Amarillo Slim started showing up on the Tonight Show. The one-time champion did the show eleven times before the child molestation charges ruined his life.

And that is where we reach the ah-ha moment—Jeffrey Pollack's biggest challenge. It's not finding the next big corporate sponsor, creating the perfect made-for-TV tournament, or making sure there is decent Chinese food in the Poker Kitchen.

Pollack has a big league "My Fair Lady" job to do on the World Series and he has to make sure it sticks. He's working with a world that polite society doesn't want to admit exists and he has to put enough makeup on it to make sure it can handle the occasional smeared mascara. And he has to do all of it without painting the WSOP into a whore.

***

"I was his poker wife," the dealer told me.

She didn't mean she was the big name pro's bored poker widow, sitting at home minding the kids while the man went on the road to gamble and cavort with loose women. No, she was one of the loose women. She was the other woman, his travel wife, the marital equivalent of a collapsible toothbrush—essential, portable, and easy to set aside when it's time to go home.

I was 31 years old before I heard the term "poker wife" and the ease with which the phrase was delivered was my first indication I was about to live in a world that would never appear on ESPN. Norm Chad would not be making no jokes like, "I feel sorry for this guy. He's going to have to get divorced twice." The Nuts segment would not feature the chip leader hoovering blow out of a hooker's navel. This world played—and without shame—by its own set of rules.

Nearly five years later, I go to the World Series every year thinking I've seen it all, that my new normal can't be altered.

I am always wrong, and that's why the able Commissioner has to tread so lightly.

What I believe Pollack understands is how careful he has to be about bringing the two worlds together. Poker and its people have lived for a very long time and happily on society's fringe. They have created their own heroes in this insular world, but they haven't had to answer to the masses.

Games like baseball and football have a long and proud tradition. Poker—especially as it exists today—is still in relative infancy. Big sport's longstanding reputation can help it absorb a sex or drug scandal. Poker doesn't have a good reputation on which to trade…yet. That's Pollack's job. He has to understand the mainstream believes its traditional athletes are heroes as much as it believes the poker world is made up of a bunch of sharps and con men.

He also has to understand there exists a subset of people who wish the mainstream courting never had to happen. Those who wallow in the romance of good times gone by will say Pollack et al are homogenizing the World Series, that they are selling it out in favor of a buck. Those people should remember, if there hadn't been a buck in it for Benny Binion, there probably wouldn't be a World Series today.

That's the line Pollack has to walk. He has to push his brand as far as he can into the mainstream without setting fire to either apple cart. He has to cast a fine a light on poker as he can, but avoid shining one so bright the cockroaches don't have anywhere to scatter.

***

If poker people lived among the washed, there wouldn't be room in the bath for the creative banking and walking tax shelters. There would be active discussion on SportsCenter about testing for Adderal and other performance enhancing drugs. The suicide of a young burnout would be all over the tabloids.

As it is right now, the poker world—the real part that doesn't get reported by the exclusive media outlets or on the corporate sponsored blogs—is populated with people for whom you would be afraid to open your door in the middle of a sunny day.

Like Fuck Man.

Fuck Man was always saying, "fuck." He said it at the tables, he said it beside the table while he was sitting out for penalties, he said it when he was discussing how he planned to spend his night.

"Has anybody ever spent the night in the fucking Clark County Jail?" he asked a table full of people one night. "Is it nice?" He was drunk and thinking about driving home from the Rio, or whatever was qualifying as home that year.

Forty-something and swarthy, he was an olive-skinned fireplug and a frequent face around the Amazon Room. He looked like he would stab you as sure as he would throw up on you. One night, he busted off a cash game table, stumbled into the hallway, and stole a couple of things from under the curtain of an empty vendor booth—just a petty thief in a world full of people who hustle for a living. Fuck Man is the most common, but most insignificant of the dirt in the room. He and his kind were everywhere, like dust that never settles long enough to wipe it up. Thieves, con men, small time hustlers looking to get a little piece.

There is bigger dirt, to be sure, bigger hustlers, professional parasites that live for these seven summer week. They feed on the misery that bubbles up underneath the bracelet-winning celebrations and million-dollar wins. They are sports-bettors, tax-shelters, underground businessmen who know how much money is in the room and know they can get a piece if they hustle just right.

Pollack has to decide how much of that world he wants to keep on the periphery. Mainstream life means mainstream attention. He actually has to ask himself, what would a big sports commissioner do? How would Roger Goodell handle one of his players trading in sex for entry into the big leagues, or a young player spinning up and burning out all over the tabloids, or one of his stars—one of his champions—getting busted for cheating the league on one of the biggest and most damaging ways possible?

Pandora has always been a bitch, but when she brings her box to Vegas, it's sometimes best just to leave her alone.

Pollack does not have that luxury.

***

There is a guy with a big afro who has hung around the World Series for years. He shoves online poker giveaway caps down over his hair and drinks liquor from a snifter. He rarely if ever plays, but he is always there.

One night outside the Poker Kitchen, he turned to me and said, apropos of nothing, "If you don't like a song, don't listen to it." For some reason, that's always stuck with me.

He's right, after all.

We take our kids to the carnival and let them see what happens on the midway, but we hold their hands tight and don't let them walk behind the rides. We know what's happening back there. We know it is dangerous and dirty. We know the song and we choose to ignore it. The carnies it takes to make a carnival happen are not the song we want our child to remember.

The World Series is the same way. It is greater and better than the sum of its parts. It's ugly and sometimes downright scary on its fringe, but when put together as a whole, it's one of America's greatest events.

Jeffrey Pollack has one of America's toughest jobs. He must take that carnival, make sure the carnies stay far enough from the midway, and give the mainstream a song to which it can dance. It's not impossible, but it's a dog, and if Pollack can make it happen, his name will be mentioned alongside Binion and Moneymaker as one of the people who saved the World Series of Poker.

Brad 'Otis' Willis is a writer from G-Vegas, SC.

* * * * *
Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/19/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
The BJ Report: A Look Back at the First 31 Events

By BJ Nemeth
Las Vegas, NV

Since my last update here at the Tao of Poker, another 12 events have been completed, and the big stories just keep on coming. Here are the top seven:

1. Phil Ivey Wins His Sixth -- No, Make that Seventh -- WSOP Bracelet

Phil Ivey is the best poker player in the world. Period.

In the poker media, we're used to saying things like "arguably the best player" or "one of the best players," but I've decided to stop using qualifiers when it comes to Ivey after watching him this Series. There are a lot of young online guys who might have the potential to be as great as Ivey, but check back in 10 years to see if they can match the results of Mr. I-Don't-Want-To-Talk-To-The-Media.

Ivey had a disappointing WSOP last year after betting big on himself to win his sixth bracelet. He increased the bets on himself this year, which turned out to be a good investment. Ivey told PokerNews that he scooped all his bets after winning the second bracelet. (At least one player bought out of the bet.) The amount of money he won in side action is still up for debate, and I've heard reliable numbers ranging from $6 million to $12 million. (Remember that Ivey wasn't betting at even odds, so he didn't have to risk that much himself.) Regardless of the real number, it's clear that Ivey is the big winner of this WSOP, both in terms of dollars, prestige, and legendary status.

The entire story of Ivey winning his second bracelet of the WSOP is too long to include here, and they say a picture is worth a thousand words -- so here comes my commercial interruption. I got some kick-ass photos of Ivey, with captions that take you through the ups and downs of his day. Here's the link.

FYI, there are rumors that Ivey wants to bet that he'll win three bracelets in two years, starting in 2010. But it may be tough to find people willing to bet against him.

Speaking of three bracelets, Ivey still has more than 20 events left this year to win his eighth, which would tie Erik Seidel on the all-time list. When was the last time a player won more than two bracelets in a single WSOP? In 2002, when a young pro became a star by winning three events. His name was Phil Ivey.


2. James Van Alstyne's Quinella in H.O.R.S.E.

James Van Alstyne got heads-up in Event #21 ($3,000 H.O.R.S.E.) but finished second behind Zac Fellows. No problem. Van Alstyne made another final table last night in Event #31 ($1,500 H.O.R.S.E.), and he improved his finish by one spot to win the bracelet.

Combined with his final table in Event #12 ($10,000 World Championship Mixed Event), Van Alstyne has proven himself to be a hell of a mixed-games player, and this often-overlooked pro is suddenly in the race for WSOP Player of the Year.

There is only one mixed-games event left on the schedule, and it's the Big One -- Event #49 ($50,000 World Championship H.O.R.S.E.). Will Van Alstyne pony up the cash for the event (he could parlay his earlier winnings), and if so, will he make his fourth final table?

(For those who aren't familiar with the term "quinella," it's the bet where you pick the 1st- and 2nd-place finishers in a horse race.)


3. Steve Sung, Ville Wahlbeck, and Pete Vilandos Barely Miss the Multi-Bracelet Club

Both Brock Parker and Phil Ivey have won multiple bracelets this year, and we came as close as possible to having a third (and a fourth) in that category.

With three players left in Event #23 ($10,000 World Championship No-Limit Deuce to Seven Draw), two of them had already won bracelets this year -- Steve Sung and Ville Wahlbeck. Ultimately, neither was able to overcome young pro Nick Schulman, but they came as close as you can without winning wrist jewelry.

Pete "The Greek" Vilandos finished as the runner-up to Steve Sung in Event #4 ($1,000 "Stimulus Special" No-Limit Hold'em), before coming back to win his second career bracelet in Event #24 ($1,500 No-Limit Hold'em). If just a few cards fall differently, we could have four multiple bracelet winners, something that hasn't happened since the 2003 WSOP (when a record six players -- yes, six -- won multiple bracelets in just 36 events).


4. Ville Wahlbeck is a World Championship Cashing Machine

Speaking of Ville Wahlbeck, he is kicking ass in another category -- $10,000 buy-in events.

Wahlbeck cashed in the first four $10,000 events, each labeled as a "World Championship." Not only that, but he final tabled three of them, finishing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. As $10K events, these are nothing like the $1,500 donkaments that award bracelets once or twice a week -- these $10K events have relatively small but stacked fields with nothing but pros in each seat.

Wahlbeck skipped Event #29 ($10,000 World Championship Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em), so an argument could be made that his streak was unbroken. But Wahlbeck did enter Event #33 ($10,000 World Championship Limit Hold'em), and even though he made it past the dinner break on Day 2, he failed to reach the money.

For the record, Wahlbeck isn't hell-bent on playing as many events as possible -- he has only entered five or six events so far. It's an amazing achievement that ranks as one of the most impressive in recent WSOP history.


5. Where Are the Women?

Statistically, we should expect one female bracelet winner per year with 50+ events. (Not counting the ladies' event, of course.) To this point, only three women have even reached a final table, finishing 8th, 5th, and 3rd. The women will have to step up their collective game if one of them wants to claim an open bracelet in 2009.

Actually, it appears they might be on the verge of doing just that. Blogger Lana "LJ" Maier just missed the final table in Event #31 ($1,500 H.O.R.S.E), finishing 10th, and both Jennifer Harman and Maria Ho are still alive with 12 players left in Event #33 ($10,000 World Championship Limit Hold'em).

UPDATE at 2:15 pm: The women will need better luck next time; In the $10,000 Limit Hold'em event, Jen Harman busted 12th, and Maria Ho finished 11th. Still only three final tables for the fairer sex.


6. "Lingreanu" vs. "Greensandro"

PokerRoad Radio interim host Joe Stapleton coined these combined names on an episode of "The Poker Beat," representing the two teams in one of the more interesting prop bets of the WSOP -- which pair will accumulate more POY points? The current standings:

Greenstein/Lisandro: 185 pts
Negreanu/Lindgren: 175 pts

Negreanu has cooled off from his early hot streak, and hasn't cashed since Event #18. Meanwhile, last year's WSOP Player of the Year Erick Lindgren needs to step it up -- he has only earned 20 points so far. But it's still anybody's race, and all four of these guys are capable of winning any event they enter.

For the sake of the fans (and the media), I hope this race stays close until the end. If they are separated by 5 or 10 points when the Main Event starts, that'll add an interesting level of drama to reaching the money in the biggest event of the year. If there is more than 10 points between the two teams, the race would effectively be over -- to earn more than 5 points in the Main Event, you need to reach the final three tables. Even for players of this caliber, that's next to impossible.


7. Hockey Day at the WSOP

The National Hockey League (NHL) will be invading the WSOP today (Wednesday). The NHL Commissioner, Gary Bettman, is half-brother to our own WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. (They have the same mother.) Expect Bettman to be side-by-side with Pollack for today's "Shuffle up and deal" announcement, and there may be a special appearance by the one and only Stanley Cup, possibly at the bracelet ceremony. (Pollack has already compared the two awards on Twitter, calling the WSOP bracelet "The Stanley Cup of Poker.")

There will also be a charity tournament involving NHL players on ESPN's main stage, which was refurbished on Tuesday to replicate a hockey rink, complete with a goal, hockey-style boards in front of the fans, and the felt on the table looks like hockey ice. There will be plenty of photos around the web (including my own Photo Blog), and it looks much cooler than it sounds.

Why ice hockey in the middle of the summer? Aside from Pollack's family connection, the NHL Awards Ceremony will be held at the Palms Casino (right across the street from the Rio) on Thursday.

* * * * *

STATS FROM THE 2009 WSOP (Through Event #31):

Players w/ 2 Bracelets: Brock Parker, Phil Ivey

Players w/ 3 Final Tables:
Ville Wahlbeck - 1st, 2nd, 3rd
James Van Alstyne - 1st, 2nd, 6th
John Juanda - 4th, 5th, 9th

Players w/ 2 Final Tables:
Brock Parker - 1st, 1st
Phil Ivey - 1st, 1st
Pete "The Greek" Vilandos - 1st, 2nd
Steve Sung - 1st, 3rd
Rami Boukai - 1st, 6th
Scott Clements - 2nd, 3rd
Daniel Negreanu - 2nd, 4th
John Monnette - 2nd, 5th
Jim Geary - 3rd, 7th
Mitch Schock - 3rd, 8th
Thomas Koral - 7th, 7th

5 Cashes: (5 Players) Brock Parker, David Baker, Fabrice Soulier, Tony Cousineau, Darryll Fish

4 Cashes: (16 Players) Ville Wahlbeck, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Roland De Wolfe, Jason Mercier, Jesse Rios, Mitch Schock, Clark Hamagami, Neil Channing, John Racener, David Fox, Motoyuki Mabuchi, Mats Gavatin, Howard Boyd, Barry Greenstein, Robert Mason

3 Cashes: 68 Players

2 Cashes: 329 Players

Most Money Earned:
1. Vitaly Lunkin - $1,907,661
2. Isaac Haxton - $1,171,871
3. Pete "The Greek" Vilandos - $1,080,538
4. Steve Sung - $883,380
5. Ville Wahlbeck - $849,785
6. Brock Parker - $802,514
7. Greg Raymer - $774,927
8. Brian Lemke - $710,645
9. Travis Johnson - $666,853
10. Mike Eise - $639,331

Women at Open Final Tables (3):
Ming "Joy" Reslock - 3rd place, Event #3 ($1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Split)
Like Gerasimova - 5th place, Event #15 ($5,000 No-Limit Hold'em)
Annie Duke - 8th place, Event #18 ($10,000 World Championship Omaha Hi-Lo)

WSOP Player of the Year Points:
1. Ville Wahlbeck - 255 pts
2. Phil Ivey - 225 pts
Tie-3. Brock Parker - 220 pts
Tie-3. James Van Alstyne - 220 pts
5. Pete Vilandos - 175 pts
6. Steve Sung - 160 pts
7. Daniel Negreanu - 155 pts
Tie-8. Jeffrey Lisandro - 150 pts
Tie-8. Rami Boukai - 150 pts
10. Jason Mercier - 147 pts

You can find stats in some of these categories updated daily at the WSOP's official site.

Finally, another pitch for my WSOP Photo Blog at Poker Road. It takes a long time to shoot, sort, process, upload, and caption the best possible photos to tell the story of each day of the World Series. But it only takes five minutes to check them out each day, and it's much more enjoyable than reading the standard text recaps you can find at the mainstream sites. Here's the link to the main page with one image from each day; click the photos to see the rest from that day.

BJ Nemeth is originally from Atlanta, GA. He's the lead tournament reporter for the World Poker Tour. He's also a key contributor over at Poker Road. Check out his WSOP photos.

* * * * *
Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/18/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
The Middle Road

By Pauly
Cincinnati, OH

I will be back in Las Vegas in less than one week to finish out the WSOP on a strong note. I'm actually jonesin' to return to the mix, but I don't miss all the horrible things that you have to endure while working a grueling seven-week assignment.

The third week of the WSOP is where I develop the thousand yard stare and shuffle around the Rio like a zombie cranking out sentences that were nothing more than derivative themes that I had beaten to death over the four previous WSOPs. The middle weeks drain the life force out of me and the Vegas demons suck the bone marrow out of my body. Plus, my writing gets stale and I can't stand to look at another chip count without throwing up in my mouth.

I'm always left flying on vapors for the Main Event. Over the last few years I desperately tried to figure out how to maintain my stamina for the Main Event and allow my writing to peak at that specific moment. Sadly, there was no possible way for that to happen aside from one alternative solution... skip the middle weeks. Over the previous four summers, that was impossible to do. I was a one-man show. But this year? I made a risky decision.

When Phish announced their summer tour, I was irked that it fell smack in the middle of the WSOP. The band is the subject of my next non-fiction book and the source of amusement for dozens and dozens of friends that I had not hung out with in a very long time. Upon closer inspection of the WSOP schedule, I realized that I could have the best of both worlds. I figured out a way to have fun, see my non-poker friends, conduct necessary research, and cover the WSOP without killing myself. Luckily, the Tao of Poker All Stars stepped up and helped provide coverage of the WSOP during my absence.

Yes, I missed out on some stories like Shronk's cousin winning a bracelet, Brock Parker snagging two bracelets, Phil Ivey also winning two bracelets, and Roland "Hungry Like" de Wolfe completed the elusive Triple Crown of poker. But if history is correct, there will be plenty of drama and story lines to write about once the Main Event rolls around.

The time away from the grind will be beneficial once I hit the ground in Las Vegas in less than a week's time. I'll be fresh and more importantly, I'll have a burning desire to write about poker... when it counts the most... on the cusp of the $50K HORSE and the prestigious Main Event.

I'm always miserable in June. But this year? I have acquired a rare semblance of happiness and a porn mustache. Yes, I miss my friends in Las Vegas, especially my girlfriend, but sometimes you have to go against the grain to achieve an artistic goal.

Thanks for your patience and understanding and allowing me to deviate from the path to embark on my own journey. I shall return.

* * * * *
Here's a music related link dump...

If you have no idea what Phish is all about, you must read Otis' astute observation of the band and fans and community after experiencing his first show. Check out... Phirst Time.

And yes, Bruce Springsteen sat in with Phish at Bonnaroo and played three songs on Sunday night. I would have preferred David Byrne from the Talking Heads for a sit in, but the Boss did not disappoint. Click here to download that entire show. Click here to view the video of Phish with the Boss.

I went to Bonnaroo music festival last weekend in a caravan that included two RVs and two cars. We were 20 people strong. Here's a pic of our RV crew.

Are you a Lost fan? Check our our group costume.

We covered Phish tour and Bonnaroo over at Coventry Music Blog and on Coventry's Twitter feed. If you want to follow my adventures over the next few days, check out those places.

If you want a good laugh about my friends' narco/sexual hijinks, read the "Best Of" tweets from Bonnaroo.

I posted several videos of our adventures. Click here for a highlight reel of Bonnaroo.

I also uploaded several pics of my recent road travels. Check out... Bonnaroo & Phish Summer Tour photo gallery.

And if you want to read a brief recap of my experiences, check out.... Wake Up and Rage.

Here are some of the highlights from Bonnaroo, including a pistachio eating contest....


* * * * *
And before I go, here's poker-related link dump...

Congrats to LJ for going deep, way deep, into the $1,500 HORSE event. She finished in 10th place (so close to a final table) and I gotta say that I was refreshing Change100 and Katkin's F-Train & Don Peter's coverage of the event. LJ took my empty seat in media row when I left. I wonder if I'll get it back after she quits her gig at Card Runners and goes pro.

Also, Congrats to Marty Derbyshire. That fuckin' Canuck slayed a few donks along the way en route to a 29th place out of 2506. Nice catch, sir.

Some of the better writing about the 2009 WSOP has come from Shamus. Check out Hard Boiled Poker. Sensational stuff. If he wasn't so swamped with other assignments, I would have hired him for the Tao of Poker All Stars.

The Poker Shrink has a running series called Poker Mind In Depth featuring Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Mike Matusow. Check it out.

And I can't get enough of BJ's photos at Poker Road.

Yes, it's true. I met the elusive Julius Goat in the parking lot of a Phish show in Camden, NJ. He is indeed real. I haven't figured out if he's human or some sort of alien hybrid. Alas, it was awesome to cross paths.

Oh, and the new issue of Truckin' has been published. It's the birthday issue. Truckin' turns 7 years old this month!


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/17/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
WSOP Photos: Flipchip Photo Dump

By Pauly
Louisville, KY

Hello gang. I'm still alive and survived four days and nights of debauchery at the Bonnaroo music festival. I will be back in Las Vegas shortly. Until then, I want to share with you a couple of photographs from Flipchip.

If you don't know, Flipchip has been photographing Las Vegas and the poker scene since before any of you were born. Here are some of his favorites from this year's WSOP...











Thanks to Flipchip for sharing his stellar photos. If you'd like to see more, visit LasVegasVegas.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/16/2009 10:40:00 AM | Permalink |

 
The New Kid in Town

By Snoopy
Las Vegas, NV

Editor's Note: Snoopy landed an exclusive interview with the first Brit to win a bracelet in two years. Enjoy!

As "God Save the Queen" belted out of the loudspeakers, I was still unsure. Perhaps I'd imagined it all, maybe it was another one of my bizarre dreams induced by the free-flowing alcohol at the Alligator Bar. After all, a few days prior they had mistakenly played the national anthem of Sweden to a somewhat disgruntled Finn. Even with Jeffrey Pollock announcing that this was the UK's first bracelet in two years, I remained unconvinced.

Then, as I neared, there he was, the UK's latest hero, toothy grinned and armed with a posture that appeared unsure as to how to react to both the collective stare of the Amazon Room and the musical notes that are usually saved for Olympic gold medallists. Perhaps given a second chance, he'd stand upright with his hand over his heart, a patriotic tear in his eye before giving a mighty salute to his ruler.

And so, it was confirmed, JP (John-Paul when he's in trouble with his parents) Kelly was the winner of Event #20's $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em Freezeout and the latest recipient of a shiny, gold bracelet, the last Brit to do so since The Hendon Mob's Ram Vaswani took down the $1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout in 2007.

Despite his baby-faced looks, JP has been kicking around the scene for a few years now. Naturally, he was a product of the poker boom and one of many to have been enticed into the cardrooms by Late Night Poker, yet he is probably more experienced at the live felt than one might expect. Hailing from Aylesbury, England, a 16-year old JP began thinking obsessively about the game, and would rise at 7am, a hunger in his eyes, to fit in a couple of hours online before heading off to school. Upon turning 18, he quickly ambushed the now defunct Grosvenor Casino in Luton, causing havoc with the stubborn veterans as he unleashed a relentlessly aggressive style that was perhaps ahead of his time.

A year or two earlier I made my debut at the Gala Casino, Nottingham whilst (supposedly) studying for a degree at the nearby University. During that time, few young players dared to enter a cardroom. The poker boom had hissed, but not quite exploded, and the cardroom was still dominated by old timers, many of whom considered it to be their turf, and no place for a cocky, young teenager. Now and then, I used to travel to other venues, one of which was Luton. One day I arrived, braced for the £50 rebuy, and all I could hear was mutterings of a "new kid in town" a "young 18-year old prodigy that was winning every comp in sight" – I soon learned that this player was none other than JP Kelly, and while many admired his talents, there were those who begrudged them, as if envious that such a fresh-faced "child" could out-think them in a game that they'd been playing for decades.

As I shared tables with some of the room's more regular players, the mutterings continued, some calling him a "genius" whilst others simply labelled him "lucky." For me, JP was a precursor of the Internet pro that would, in the UK at least, come to dominate the game and overthrow so many of the veterans who had made their local cardroom their home. Most players simply came to play tight, to apply a safe, solid game and hope the cards ran their way. The casino was little more than an escape from their daily life, and a win was merely an added bonus that they often didn't expect. JP's goal, however, was solely to win, and he took the game to another level by playing more aggressively than anyone in the building, pouncing when he smelt weakness and making moves that no one else dared to make.

"I went to Luton with a couple of mates," he says. "I used to take it a bit more seriously than everyone else did. I was the one that started first, so I was the ringleader, and I had the most success early on. I was only 18 at the time. Looking back now, I had no idea how I played. If I thought someone was bluffing or weak, I just bet or raised - it wasn't very well thought out, but it worked."

Of course, it wasn't long before JP was translating his success into bigger bucks, taking on the local festivals and winning side events with considerable ease. A top three finish became the norm – he played for first, nothing else – and before long he was nicknamed JP 'Wonderkid' Kelly by his fellow players, all of whom had acknowledged his natural gift for the game and believed him to be a future star of the felt.

Eventually, JP's bankroll grew substantially enough that he could start playing bigger events, and in April, 2006, he won his first main event when he toppled Luke Patten at the Luton Springfest for a £45,000 payday, an event, incidentally, that I managed to cash in for the monstrous sum of £1,500 (aka my money back). This win triggered a lot of interest, and soon JP was donning the colours of Blue Square Poker as one of their sponsored players and making appearances in some of the earlier EPT seasons.

But then, at the tail end of 2006 and after becoming such a star of the live felt, he stopped playing live. His sponsorship deal with Blue Square came to an end, and despite a GUKPT that was fast building pace, adding a lot of value to events and creating some of the country's first six figure prizes, JP was no where to be seen. This was surely the perfect platform for him to start making an even bigger name for himself and showcase his incredible talents, but live poker now seemed of little interest to him.

"Well, I moved to Brighton, and sometimes you don't want be traveling around all the time," he confesses. "I just wanted a break from it all. I played a lot online too, and I enjoyed it. I like playing live still, but it's time consuming, you have to put a lot of hours in, so if I do go somewhere, it's because I like going to that place and playing there." Obviously, it would appear, the exotic locations of Luton, Bolton and Walsall were no longer an attractive prospect, and who could blame him?

But despite his live prowess, JP was clearly a talented poker player period, and perhaps online shores were to prove a more efficient choice for a budding poker pro. If anything, he certainly teamed up with a formidable crew: "One reason why you didn't see much of me was because I went to Australia for four months around the time of the Aussie Millions. I stayed with [Chris] Moorman, Geefore [David Gent], Pab [Paul Foltyn] and Stevie [Devlin], and they're all really good players, so I learned a lot from then on how to play online tournaments. Playing these things, it helps, it's all about decisions and situations, so I could talk to them about that, and I started thinking about tournaments in a different way than I had been. I was used to playing live, and you need to be more fundamentally sound online, so I had to adjust my game."

The company he kept must have reaped rewards, as over recent years, and playing under the monikers MavFish and JP 5-time (the latter, I can reveal, derives from the catchphrase of former WWE wrestler Booker T), JP managed to accrue an impressive set of results, including second in a 2008 Omaha FTOPS event for $60,505.50 and a win in a $150,000 guaranteed event on Ultimate Bet last February for $53,560. He's by no means on a par with moorman1, but he's not too far behind and he's shown that he can adapt to both the live and online format with considerable ease.


Photo by Flipchip
Back in Vegas, and JP is being surrounded by media, all mustard keen to grab a few words with the latest bracelet winner. Despite his hangover after a raucous celebration the night prior, JP is as fresh-faced as ever (and equally baby-faced as when I first met him), and wooing the female members of the press with his amicable demeanour and cheeky smile. Before long, it's my turn, and I can't wait to ask him how he feels about winning a bracelet. Unsurprisingly, he's as laid back and nonchalant as he was when his Luton opponents were labelling him 'Wonderkid' and worshipping his every move.

"I wasn't dreaming of the bracelet when I woke up for the final," he claims. "I'd played really well on Day Two – didn't lose any focus; made perhaps just one mistake which wasn't even that bad – and was just concentrating on doing everything I'd done the day before. Even heads-up I was just focused on winning the tournament. When the bracelet was put on the table, I didn't even look at it. I didn't know what the prizes were and I had no interest in laddering up, I just played it like a normal tournament and went for the win, regardless of the bracelet."

Hoping to lure out his crazy side, I asked him how he was going to celebrate, and what he was going to spend his money on:

"I went to MGM last night, had dinner at a really nice steak house, bought lots and lots of drinks, and returned today pretty worse for wear. There was no Cristal involved, just had some beers and a bit of wine. I certainly won't waste the money buying loads of luxuries. I celebrated yesterday, and was happy to do that, and was really glad that everyone came."

This, for me, is what sets JP apart from the rest, and why he is far from one of the many "one hit wonders" that have littered the World Series over the years. Even back in Luton, it didn't take long for people to realise that this wasn't your average young pro, getting starry-eyed after some early successes and thinking he's God's gift to poker. Somehow, he's always had his feet firmly planted on the ground. It was this self-awareness that allowed him to reform his online game and translate his live successes onto the virtual felt, and it's because of this that I wouldn't count him out for a second bracelet in the future.

There's no doubt that he's a talented player, perhaps one of the best the UK has produced, but what makes him even more dangerous is that he doesn't possess an ego, and won't fall down that hole that other big winners have stumbled upon in the past. Whilst others have splashed their winnings on overpriced luxuries and regularly buying into $10,000 events, JP will most likely take the more sensible approach, and return next year with his bankroll in tact, and his game most likely twice what it was the year prior.

As he says himself: "I'm looking forward to the reception when I get home, but it won't change me. I won't get big headed or anything like some players do after a big win. Each time I come to the World Series I do better than the last, and I really feel like I gain in experience every year."

We're only a third of the way through the Series, and JP has his sights set on further gold. With a host of bracelet events pencilled into his schedule, Brock Parker better not get too comfy at the top of that leader board, because as was once the case in Luton, here in Vegas, there's a new kid in town.

Snoopy is a writer from London, UK, most known for his stellar reporting at Blonde Poker.. You can read his 2009 WSOP musings over at Black Belt Poker.

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Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/15/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Ladies of the Night: WSOP Version

By Poker Shrink
Las Vegas,NV

Editor's Note: To be frank, the main reason I've been absent the last week has been due to doctor's orders! The Poker Shrink suggested that I take some time off and have fun before the 50K Horse and Main Event rolls around and I sleep one hour per day. I'm following his astute advice. In the meantime, I'm lucky to have him contribute to the Tao of Poker All Stars. Enjoy!

First, I gotta thank Pauly for this outlet for my dark side. You see as the reputable Poker Shrink but also a resident of Las Vegas, I witness a lot of 'moments' that I never write about. Dr. Pauly, on the other hand, writes about all of those seedy, late-night, undersides of life. So I figure what better place to get all of those dark, festering memories out than right here on the Tao.

I call this my "Worldly Moments from Series Past" or "Life in Los Vegas Stories that I never told Pauly."

Escalating the Insanity: Very early one morning, during the '07 Series, I was leaving the Planet Hollywood poker room after a very profitable session. The two fish just kept drinking and re-buying so I stayed well past my bedtime. PH like so many of the Strip casinos has parking way in the back of the property, so you have to walk out through the shoppes and restaurants, which are all closed at 4 AM.

When I got back to where the valet parking is located, the escalator was blocked by two pairs of "ladies" who were obviously drunk and screaming at one another. Standing there watching them was a security guard. I walked up to him and said:

"You think you can just get them away from the escalator, I am parked downstairs in the valet."

He frowned but said: "Well, I can try." He stepped forward: "Ladies would you mind taking this outside?"

Bad mistake. The two nearest banshees turned on the guard and were actually going to attack him. Since I had gotten the guard into this, instead of just finding the stairs, I stepped up beside with the guard and began to consider just how hard I would be justified in popping a very drunk and very high woman.

Just then, the other two ladies decided this was their opportunity to seize the advantage and they rushed the first two. Now I know that images of hair pulling, torn clothing and exposed body parts is what is clearly called for at this point, however, the security guard turned to me with a big grin and said: "Sir, I believe your escalator is now available."

Sure enough the cat fight had cleared my path to the down escalator. Taking the long, safe path around the girlie scrum, I did see several boobs freed of their spandex confines and I picked up a tip I hope you never need but I will pass it along: In a cat-fight, a good grip on a thong can create what appeared to be a painful camel toe. That's all I got, the security guard reinforcements arrived and the show was over.

* * * * *
Ransom for a Pair. I left the Rio one night after a final table in '08 and got a ride to New York, New York because my car was parked at MGM from the previous day (that's another story). Why NY-NY you ask, why not get a ride to MGM. Well they are across the Strip from each other and it's easier for me to walk across the pedestrian bridge then for my ride to navigate the Strip U-turn to the MGM valet. So I walked up one flight to the second level of the NY-NY casino where I spotted Denise, a lady I had written a story about in the past. Hadn't seen her in at least a couple of years, so I stopped to chat. Denise was a working lady and it seems she had branched out and had three other girls working for her. They used the New York-New York to MGM pedestrian bridge as their home turf, apparently under the protection of the night shift security guards.

After a short conversation, Denise had to get back on the job and we agreed to catch up via phone the next day. As I was about to leave, she took my arm and said: "You sure you have to get home?" She turned me in the direction of a truly spectacular young vision in white.

"Her name is Tiffany, you should say hello on your way out."

I did say hi to Tiffany as I headed towards the MGM. She has young, very young. She was thin, pale, dressed all in white with a white sparkled boa and well she was just the vision of innocence.

I said something like: "Hi Tiffany. Stick with Denise, she'll keep you safe."

As I walked towards MGM twenty feet above the Strip, I wondered just how erotic an hour with Tiffany might be. I was lost considering that possibility when I heard a too loud and too slurred - "It's the Poker Shrink! Right here in Vegas. The Poker Shrink!"

There was Dave, one of my old buddies from Minnesota, standing in the middle of the bridge. We did several: "What are you doing here?" and "What are you doing here?" again because Dave was a bit drunk and clearly cruising on what I discovered was ecstasy. So after three or four minutes of more "What are you doing here?" He changed his answer to: "I am looking for a hooker!"

I was about to say: "Maybe, you shouldn't actually shout that too loud, Dave." When off to my left I see Tiffany, the vision in white.

"Where are you staying Dave?"

"Right here." Pointing back at the MGM.

I asked him how much money he had. "Three hundred."

I waived Tiffany over and introduce her to Dave. I quietly pointed out to her that I could vouch for Dave and that she could see he was not going to be much trouble to well -- satisfy.

"I got three hundred," Dave blurted.

In good, tried and true fashion, Tiffany said: "The price is $400."

"But I only got three."

"Hang on," I said. I took out a hundred and put it in Dave's shirt pocket. Gave Tiffany and wink and helped her get Dave as far as the elevator.

"You're on your own now," I said to Dave, but I knew Tiffany was the one in charge.

Around four the next afternoon, I got a call from Dave. He asked me to come over to his hotel room; he had some questions about the previous night. When I arrived, Dave seemed to remember us talking on a bridge over a dark river somewhere. There apparently were a lot of fast boats with lots of lights. He also remembered a very white woman. But other than that all he had to show for the evening was a headache and a note that read: "You can ransom your shoes for the hundred bucks you owe me."

I got Dave to find his shirt from last night and sure enough the hundred-dollar bill I had given him was still in the pocket. I phoned Denise and we went by her place to ransom Dave's shoes. Tiffany was there. Dressed in black and looking much older and much wiser than the night before.

Thanks again Pauly, I gotta get out more.


The Poker Shrink recently co-authored (with Amy Calistri) the Mike Matusow autobiography titled Check-Raising the Devil.

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Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/14/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
The BJ Report: A Look Back at the First 19 Events

By BJ Nemeth
Las Vegas, NV

Editor's Note: Greetings from Bonnaroo. While I'm off covering an amazing music festival, thankfully BJ Nemeth and the All Stars are providing coverage of the WSOP. Enjoy!

The WSOP is already two weeks old, and one-third of the 57 bracelet events are complete (plus the non-bracelet Champions Invitational). Before we get to the stats, let's take a quick look at the eight most interesting/surprising stories so far.

1. Phil Ivey Wins His Sixth WSOP Bracelet

I wrote about Phil Ivey's victory in Event #8 ($2,500 No-Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw) on Tao of Poker last week, and ever since, I've been receiving "corrections" on how much Ivey earned from his side action. Everyone claims to know for certain, yet the numbers are never the same. It sounds like Ivey may have earned a straight $3-4 million just for winning the bracelet, with millions more pending on whether Ivey's fellow prop bettors can tie him by winning their own WSOP bracelets this year.

I took some great photos of Ivey at the final table for my WSOP Photo Blog, and you can see them here.


2. Brock Parker Goes Back-to-Back

Sunday night, Brock Parker (online name: "TSoprano") defeated Daniel Negreanu heads up in Event #14 ($2,500 Six-Handed Limit Hold'em) to win the first WSOP bracelet of his career. The next day, he entered Event #19 ($2,500 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em) -- and won that bracelet too. Think he knows how to play short-handed? It was Parker's WSOP-leading fourth cash, giving him a total of $784,527. As you'd expect, Parker also leads the WSOP Player of the Year standings, though the race is far from over.

Parker's two victories extends the WSOP's streak of at least one multiple-bracelet winner per year to ten straight years, dating back to 2000 when Chris "Jesus" Ferguson won two (including the Main Event).


3. Brian Lemke Wins One For Justin Shronk

In the feel-good story of the Series, Brian Lemke, first cousin to the late, great Justin Shronk, overcame an extremely tough field to win Event #15 ($5,000 No-Limit Hold'em). Shronk had been an integral part of the poker media since he was a Card Player intern at the 2006 WSOP, but he died unexpectedly at the age of 27 in April with a severe case of Pancreatitis. I first met Lemke the night of the Shronk Tribute Episode of PokerRoad Radio back in April -- Lemke was there in the Fontana Lounge with us as we recorded. At this WSOP final table, Lemke wore a "Got Shronk?" t-shirt that had a tribute to Justin (written by yours truly) printed on the back.


Photo by Flipchip
If you didn't know Justin Shronk, this is a nice, touching story. But if you knew Shronk, Lemke's victory borders on the unbelievable. I was there, witnessed it with my own eyes, and yet I still find it difficult to grasp.

More details on Lemke's victory, along with some kick-ass photos, can be found in my Photo Blog for WSOP Day 13 here.


4. Thang Luu Defends His Omaha Hi-Lo Title

Nobody has ever defended a major poker title with field sizes larger than 500 players until Thang Luu won the bracelet in $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Split for the second year in a row, overcoming fields of 833 and 918 players. Luu was one spot away from a three-peat, finishing second in a similar WSOP event ($2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Split) in 2007. With 87% of his lifetime winnings coming in those three events, some have suggested that Luu should take the rest of the year off, returning to the WSOP each summer to play a single low-buy-in Omaha Hi-Lo Split event.


5. Steve Sung Wins the "Stimulus Special" $1,000 NL

We all knew that Event #4 ($1,000 No-Limit Hold'em) -- the "Stimulus Event" -- would attract the largest prelim field in WSOP history, with two starting days. But few expected it to sell out at 6,000 entrants before Day 1a even started. (Official number: 6,012 entrants, making it the fourth-largest live tournament field in poker history.)

As hard as it has been for a pro to win the Main Event in recent years, this might have been even more difficult, with fewer starting chips and a faster blind structure that favors the lucky over the skilled. Steve Sung may not be on the same level as his close friends J.C. Tran and Nam Le, but he is still a top, recognizable professional player -- and an extremely nice guy. Sung deserves full credit for dodging the biggest minefield of the 2009 WSOP, and winning a super-large-field donkament for the pros.

I don't want to pimp my Photo Blog too much, but the photos from the final table of the Stimulus Special were pretty damn good. Here's the link.


6. Negreanu & Lindgren vs. Greenstein & Lisandro

Aside from Ivey's huge bets on himself, the most interesting prop bets may revolve around WSOP Player of the Year points. One of the high-profile bets is between Daniel Negreanu/Erick Lindgren and Barry Greenstein/Jeffrey Lisandro. Whichever of those two teams accumulates the most POY points will win the bet. Lisandro and Greenstein have two cashes each, while Negreanu has four and Lindgren has three. Negreanu also has two final tables to Lisandro's one, but Lisandro is the only one with a bracelet. The current team standings:

Negreanu/Lindgren: 175 points
Greenstein/Lisandro: 155 points

Keep in mind that both groups trail my newly-formed team of Brock Parker and myself -- combined, we have 210 points.

While this bet only directly affects these four players, it does provide a running storyline throughout the entire Series for fans and the media to follow. As I mentioned before, I've never seen these players so excited to reach the money before (and add to their POY points total).


7. Two Bad Beats for ESPN

ESPN scheduled only four events to be televised this year: two bracelet events (the Main Event and $40,000 No-Limit Hold'em) and two special events (the Champions Invitational and the Ante Up For Africa charity event). The oh-so-promising Champions Invitational turned into a ratings dud, with a final three of Dan Harrington, Robert Varkonyi, and Tom McEvoy. (And the best player of those three -- Harrington -- busted in third place.) The day before, the $40,000 No-Limit Hold'em was won by a relatively unknown Russian player in a fanny pack that doesn't speak English (Vitaly Lunkin). Don't be surprised if ESPN producers sacrifice a live chicken or virgins or something before the Main Event.


8. O! Say Does That Star-Spangled Banner Yet Wave...

This was supposed to be the Year of the Euro, with the UIGEA and the bad economy suppressing poker in the U.S. while it continues to grow in Europe. But someone forgot to tell the players. Through the first 19 events, only two Europeans (Vitaly Lunkin from Russia and Ville Wahlbeck from Finland) and one other non-American (Jeffrey Lisandro from Australia) have won bracelets. Nearly 85% of the events have been won by Americans, meaning the 2:20 pm bracelet ceremonies have featured recurring renditions of "The Star-Spangled Banner." (Like the Olympics, the winner's national anthem is played during the ceremony.)

* * * * *

STATS FROM THE 2009 WSOP (Through Event #19)

Multiple Bracelets: Brock Parker (2)

Players w/Multiple Final Tables:
Brock Parker - 1st, 1st
Ville Wahlbeck - 1st, 3rd
Daniel Negreanu - 2nd, 4th
John Monnette - 2nd, 5th
Jim Geary - 3rd, 7th

Most Cashes:
Darryll Fish, 4
Daniel Negreanu, 4
Brock Parker, 4
Fabrice Soulier, 4
19 Players Tied, 3

Most Money Earned:
1. Vitaly Lunkin - $1,907,661
2. Isaac Haxton - $1,171,871
3. Brock Parker - $784,527
4. Greg Raymer - $774,927
5. Steve Sung - $771,338
6. Brian Lemke - $692,658
7. Ville Wahlbeck - $676,921
8. Travis Johnson - $666,853
9. Anthony Harb - $571,472
10. Dani Stern - $548,315

Women at Open Final Tables:
Ming "Joy" Reslock (Event #3, $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Split)
Lika Gerasimova (Event #15, $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em)

WSOP Player of the Year Points:
1. Brock Parker - 210 pts
2. Ville Wahlbeck - 180 pts
3. Daniel Negreanu - 155 pts
Tie-4. Jeffrey Lisandro - 130 pts
Tie-4. John Monnette - 130 pts
6. Jason Mercier - 125 pts
7. Phil Ivey - 120 pts
Tie-8. Daniel Alaei - 110 pts
Tie-8. Vitaly Lunkin - 110 pts
Tie-10. Rami Boukai - 105 pts
Tie-10. Anthony Harb - 105 pts

Full Tilt Pros Who Won Bracelets: Vitaly Lunkin, Phil Ivey (2)

Players w/ Poker Road Patches Who Won Bracelets: Steve Sung, Phil Ivey, Brian Lemke (3)

I couldn't resist including those last two categories. But it's surprising that through the first 15 events, one-fifth of the bracelet winners were wearing Poker Road patches.

You can find stats in most of these categories updated daily at the WSOP's official site.

Finally, one more pitch for my WSOP Photo Blog at Poker Road. It takes a long time to shoot, sort, process, upload, and caption the best possible photos to tell the story of each day of the World Series. But it only takes about five minutes to check them out each day, and it's much more enjoyable than reading the standard text recaps you can find at most sites. Here's the link to the main page with one image from each day; click the photos to see the rest from that day.


BJ Nemeth is originally from Atlanta, GA. He's the lead tournament reporter for the World Poker Tour. He's also a key contributor over at Poker Road. Check out his WSOP photos.

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Original content provided by Pauly Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/12/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
All That Glitters

By Snoopy
Las Vegas, NV

Editor's Note: I'm excited to introduce one of my favorite poker scribes and one of my all time favorite British writers. You might know him as... Snoopy. Anyway, Snoopy is on the ground in Las Vegas and he whipped up a gem for you. Enjoy!

It's WSOP time again, and, as always, I'm a mixture of excitement and dread over what will be a long, but entertaining six weeks. What will help serve as a welcome break is being able to write for Pauly and the Tao of Poker. I'm often regarded as "a bit of a joker" or just someone who pens the odd pun for the PokerNews updates, so to be recognised as a writer and pooled with such a talented cast is a genuine honour, and for that I am grateful. Then, I went online and read Benjo's opening piece. "FML," as the online masses would type dejectedly into the chat box. For someone whose first language isn't English, he makes a mockery of the level of journalism in my homeland, and it's an enviable achievement that he was able to produce such a high level of content so effortlessly. Since then, the standard hasn't dropped.

However, I like a challenge, and despite being depicted as faceless on the "All Star" line-up photo (honestly, it doesn't do us justice; we're a handsome bunch and our overall aesthetic beauty should be marvelled and worshipped, not hidden), I decided I would write a piece on something that has remained at the forefront of every players' desires for a number of decades... drum roll please... the World Series of Poker gold bracelet.

Every year I am astonished by the lengths people go to to get their mitts on a bracelet. Since working alongside UK pro and serial staker Neil Channing, I've learned that to most players, the Kelly Criterion is "that girl who won American Idol" and that bankroll management is nothing more than a job title at Barclays. As Phil Laak said to me a couple of weeks ago, "I've seen so many people go broke because they got bored of getting rich slower. I want people to know that these players exist, building it up to massive amounts, then losing it all in a very small period of time."

It is no myth that many of the players here at the World Series can't afford to play, and a large percentage include top name pros who you may have recently watched on a high profile poker show, swanning around as if they have all the money in the world. The truth is that many are broke, without a penny to their name, and get through poker by begging, being backed and using their profile to survive. Poker players can be a sensitive, vain bunch, and image is of the utmost importance, so to not show up at the World Series or join the rest of the "big names" in the $40,000 freezeout is a definite no-no, and paramount to wearing a sign around their head reading "busto."

With that in mind, why is Jeffrey Pollack the pied piper of poker, luring thousands to Vegas despite a massive recession on both sides of the Atlantic? There's a line that circulates the UK circuit with a nervous laugh – "nobody can afford to play" – and on the whole, it's true, so amid these torrid times, why do we still make the journey to the desert to spend what little we have left? Surely this is a time to be sensible and to finally apply a little Kelly into our lives? Appealingly not, as all those UK players who I know are nearing the felt, have cropped up here at the Rio with their sights firmly set on gold.

This then begs another question: why, with such a limited bankroll, do they play a $1,500 donkament, in which you have to get lucky to survive the fast opening level before attempting to conquer a field of 2,000, rather than taking a stab at a deep stack event elsewhere in which their superior skills have more chance of prevailing? Of course, the answer is the bracelet, and it's amazing how important this shiny piece of wrist jewelry has become since its induction into poker. Like scoring the winning goal in the FA Cup final (a field goal and the Superbowl for my American friends), it's what all players are dreaming about and they'll do anything to get hold of one.

I recently heard that a survey reported that 65 percent of pros would rather have the bracelet than the money, a quite remarkable revelation in my eyes. Initially surprised by the proposed figure, I soon came around as I thought about some of the things I'd witnessed. Last year, James Akenhead finished second to Grant Hinkle in a $1,500 event when his A-K was outdrawn by T-4 all in preflop. When I bumped into him the day after, he looked like a broken man, despite having pocketed $520,219. It was clear that heads-up, the money had little meaning, and that all he could think about was emulating the efforts of his fellow Hit Squad member Praz Bansi by bringing a bracelet back home to Blighty.

"I didn't even know what second place money was when it was finished because I was so focused on winning the bracelet," he later reported. "Of course, I'm a professional poker player, it's my living, so the money is really important, but I wanted that bracelet. It was weird, when I knew I'd won half a million I felt good, but then I started getting angry again when I thought about how close I'd come to winning."

People regard the bracelet as a badge of honour, and players from each end of the age spectrum will proudly display it whenever the opportunity arises. The Internet kids seems to be the most prevalent wearers, often rolling up their sleeves casually in order to reveal their bling and hope their aghast neighbour will compliment them on their achievement. Even veteran Alan Smurfit will bring his bracelet to every event and spread it across the felt before his cards, a smug, but understandably content smile forever cemented on his face. Recently, I witnessed Smurfit's fellow countryman Marty Smyth showcase his Pot Limit Omaha bracelet to 50 upcoming young players, and their faces were in awe of what was, essentially, just a strap of metal. "Wow," some said, "I've never held one of these before."

These are the experiences that second place miss out on, but to me, they're little more than ego massagers, and a way of reminding yourself that you did it, you fulfilled the dream, and that you are a good player, despite not having won anything since. It's very much a way of self-comforting yourself in times of uncertainty, and, in its simplest form, a method for making yourself feel good. Oftentimes I'll be speaking to players and they'll somehow slip their bracelet win into the conversation. Even the other day I was at the Rio lost and found, and was introduced to a now unrecognisable Thomas Keller. Although pleased to have lost so much weight and somehow avoided the common weight loss infliction of saggy skin, he seemed a little dejected that people didn't recognise him anymore, and he was quick to tell me that his moniker was 'Thunder', that he'd been on TV a number of times, and that he'd won a bracelet in 2004. I didn't prise these details out of him, he forced them into our brief exchange, and it was then that I realised that being known as a "bracelet winner" was something that people held in very high esteem and an achievement that they wanted people to be able to visually relate them to.

"The bracelet was really important to me," confessed two-time winner Max Pescatori when questioned about his 2006 victory. "It was my first, and it meant a lot in terms of prestige. It got me a lot of respect." But why does first place garner so much more respect than second, who consequently becomes a forgotten man. After all, it's only one place out of thousands, and is there really that much difference between how first place performed compared to second? Does that one rung up the ladder suddenly make him a better player overall and thus warrant the respect of his peers.

I personally understood the notion of Pescatori's confession, but not the logic. Variance is so high in poker that it's possible for you to play your best game for a lifetime and never win a bracelet, and, similarly, a bad player can have the luckiest day ever and still come first. Irish legend Donacha O'Dea mistakenly has the words 'Pot Luck' instead of 'Pot Limit' inscribed on his bracelet, and although in Donnacha's case, he's a top class player, that inscription could be a rather accurate description of some of the bracelet wins of recent years. Surely respect comes from elsewhere, from your peers giving you respect through your abilities as a player, being able to beat the cash games over a long period of time and never going broke. As Chip Reese once said when questioned about the talents of an upcoming star, "Ask me again 30 years." With fields of this size, then surely respect comes when you win multiple bracelets, or emulate the performances of Dan Harrington or Thang Luu. One bracelet win, therefore, is not necessarily an affirmation of a good poker player as appears to be the general, but perhaps distorted consensus.

One question that I pondered this year was whether or not the bracelet, and the desire to win one, was losing its value. Although a win nowadays is proof of overcoming a room of thousands rather than the one-man-and-his-dog field of yesteryear, the fact there are so many events subsequently creates a lot of bracelet winners, perhaps making it less unique of an achievement. Also, only three events are being televised this year (a change that unsurprisingly was announced with less than a bellow and allowed to slip under the radar somewhat unnoticed), and while this could have a detrimental effect on sponsorship, it also takes some of the shine off a bracelet win. When I arrived a few days ago, I was surprised to see two young players, albeit unknowns, battling it out for a bracelet in front of an empty stand and some passing tumbleweed. The announcer was performing lack-lustre at best, while the lack of cameras meant this could have been heads-up for a fiver and a plastic ring from a Christmas cracker and no one would have known the difference. This depleted sense of atmosphere and razzmatazz, again, took away something from the bracelet, and perhaps made it less desirable.

The terrible irony of it all is that as I was writing this piece, I began dreaming of a bracelet win. I'm penciled in to play two $1,500 events, and each and every time I typed in the word “bracelet”, I tilted my head slightly and began thinking of what it would feel like to be the sole survivor of that field, to have my ugly mug infest the inbox of every poker media outlet across the globe, to return home like a war hero with my bracelet held aloft, being congratulated by every Tom, Dick and Harry as I intentionally enter my local cardrooms without any particular desire to play, to then have recognition, the respect, and the ability to pass on my supposed knowledge of the game through forum posts and magazine articles. I would have a trophy for my mantelpiece, something that no one could ever take away from me, and an iconic representation of something in my life that I actually achieved.

All of this is nothing more than self-satisfaction, it's desirable, but it's merely a reflection of human behaviour – there are few who can resist its power. The bracelet thus holds a mystical power over us all, even cynics like me, and it is because of this power that players are lured to the Rio every year to take their stab at glory, despite the recession. They may not be able to afford it, but it's worth the risk. That Prince dude got it wrong: in poker, at least, all that glitters is gold, and I want one of those god damn bracelets!

Snoopy is a writer from London, UK, most known for his stellar reporting at Blonde Poker.. You can read his 2009 WSOP musings over at Black Belt Poker.

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Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/11/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
New Episodes of Tao of Pokerati: Pauly Becomes An Agent, Donkaments, Beef Jerky & Early Exits

By Pauly
Greenville, SC

We recorded a few episodes before I left Las Vegas and when I was gone, Benjo, subbed for me. Listen in to the shortest poker podcast on the intertubes.

Episode 11.11: Donkey Agents (5:05) - In true Michalski fashion, he was at home sleeping when his good buddy and friend of Pokerati, Cliff Fisher, went deep in the Donkulus. Since I was on the rail sweating Cliff, we bonded and I offered up my consulting advice on both life and poker. Part of that assistance included me taking over as his "poker agent." First order of business? Shakedown Michalski.

Episode 11.12: Donkey Shows (2:01) - Michalski and I discuss the squeamish term donkament and he goes on mini-Tiffany Michelle-tilt when she says hello to me and not him.

Episode 11.13: Big Game Jack (3:56) - As the $40,000 NL played down to the final table, Michalski was on party tilt while we got busted sitting in Wicked Chops Poker's seats. Eventually, our podcast turned into an infomercial about Jack Link's Beef Jerky.

Episode 11.14: Early Exits featuring Benjo (5:00) - Description from Michalski... "As you may or may not know, Dr. Pauly skipped town for a few days to go 'see a band' (WTF?)... That left Benjo and me to report on the final table of the Champions Invitational: Tom McEvoy beats Dan Harrington and Robert Varkonyi to win himself a Corvette and, of course, the plausibly coveted Binion Cup ... providing him sellable items should he ever need a little bankroll stimulus. And we hear about Phil Hellmuth's oddly graceful 10:1 hands-shaken to hands-played ratio as he, like Pauly, makes an early but not-so-unexpected exit at the WSOP... temporarily derailing an Angry Frenchman's plans to stage a potentially violent coup."

For more episodes of the shortest poker podcast on the intertubes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/09/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
WSOP Videos: 40 Years at the WSOP

By Pauly
Greenville, SC

The gang at Poker News (aka Tom & Gloria) worked around the clock for a video called 40 Years at the WSOP. This is one of the cooler things I have seen in a very long time in poker. Check out the video...




Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/08/2009 04:20:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Extended Stay

By Pauly
Somewhere in North Carolina

I was originally scheduled to return to Las Vegas on Sunday night or Monday morning after a quick trip to the East Coast. That is obviously not happening. Since I left Las Vegas, I have been in New York City > Jones Beach > Providence, Rhode Island > Great Woods, MA > New York City > Camden, NJ > Alexandria, VA. Four Phish concerts, three of them sober. And right now, we're driving somewhere in North Carolina. I'm riding shotgun and somehow my air card works.

There are several contributing factors to my absence...

1. Tao of Poker All Stars have been doing an amazing job. And you know what? A few of them have still not yet made their debut! Because they're kick ass professionals and the best in the business, I can take off for a few more days knowing that the WSOP will still be covered.

2. I'm on the trail of a huge story about the Phish reunion which will be the subject of my next non-fiction book (I'll write it sometime in early 2011). I can't pull away just yet until I get an interview with one of the band members. I'm collecting as much info as I can for a series of YouTube videos and conducting research for the book. In the meantime, I'm embedded with a small group of space kids, wookies, and other neo-hippie types who make up the roving circus.

3. I'm having too much fun with non-poker friends that I have not seen in years. I'm gonna stay out and play for a little while longer.

You can read about some of our exploits over at Coventry Music Blog. I penned concert reviews of the four shows I attended. And in a small world kinda things, it took just four Phish shows before I was spotted by a Tao of Poker reader. Shout out to Socrates from NoVa. He even recognized Professional Keno Player Neil Fontenot who tagged along with us to the Camden, NJ show.

And yes, I forgot about AlCantHang's TOC for a shot at a Main Event seat on Sunday night. I thought it was scheduled for tonight instead of Sunday. Oh well. I bumped into Julius Goat in the parking lot of the Camden show and he reminded me that I was supposed to be playing at the same time Phish too the stage. It was an easy call for me to make.

Anyway, stay tuned for more guest posts from the Tao of Poker All Stars. And I'll be back in Las Vegas before you know it.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/08/2009 02:42:00 PM | Permalink |

 
Mean Gene's WSOP Photo Dump, Volume 1

By Mean Gene
Las Vegas, NV

Editor's Note: I'd like to introduce Mean Gene to the mix. You already saw some of his photos appear during week one. Here's an expanded gallery of photos he shot over the first two weeks of the 2009 WSOP. So Mean Gene... welcome to the Tao of Poker All Stars. Thanks for tuning in. I can't believe that I'm publishing this post while sitting in the parking lot of a Phish show. I'll see everyone very shortly, Pauly.


Matusow signing copies of his new book Check-Raising the Devil


The Scandi and the Russian


The Commish


The Champions


Varkonyi will always be one step behind Moneymaker


Gene 'Mean Gene' Bromberg is a writer from Pittsburgh, PA. You can view more of his photos here.

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Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/07/2009 04:20:00 PM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 10: Just Another Day in the Office: Phil Ivey Wins His Sixth Bracelet -- and $12 Million

By BJ Nemeth
Las Vegas, NV

Editor's Note: Hey kids. I'm still on the road. Will be back to Vegas shortly. For now, I'd like to introduce someone that really needs no introduction. BJ Nemeth is one of the best in the business at poker reporting. If I had to start a Hall of Fame of poker writers, BJ Nemeth would get the first nod (along with Andy Glazer and Mike Paulle).

These are the nights that you never forget. These are the nights that wind up in a book like "Lost Vegas." This was the night that Phil Ivey won his sixth WSOP bracelet -- and untold millions in side bets.

There was an unusual vibe in the ESPN final table arena, partially because ESPN wasn't there. Fortunately for fans around the world, Bluff had cameras set up to stream the final table online, and they made the risky -- but genius -- decision to *not* use any commentators. They just let the cameras run with whatever sound came from the table. With a game like deuce-to-seven draw, there's not really a lot to talk about anyway.

Unlike no-limit hold'em, deuce-to-seven isn't a fan-friendly game; there's no board for the audience to look at and only two rounds of betting. Some players consider it to be one of the most pure forms of poker you'll ever play; with so little information, reads become that much more important. Any donkey can figure out and play hold'em, and get lucky and win. Those donkeys would be completely lost in deuce-to-seven.

The final table area was reasonably full of fans, but there were some empty seats available. Most in the audience were confused, unsure of the game they were watching, but they felt compelled to be there. The audience was quiet even when Ivey would win a pot, and the only time there was a crowd reaction was after an all-in situation -- resulting in either a double up or a bustout.

Surprisingly, there were only one or two pros in attendance. The night before, when Steve Sung won the Stimulus Event ($1,000 No-Limit Hold'em), the stands were packed with players like Erick Lindgren, J.C. Tran, Nam Le, and about a dozen others. Steve Sung is a great guy, but let's face it, he's no Ivey. Yet the only two players I saw in the stands were Paul Darden and Allen Cunningham (and his photographer girlfriend Melissa Hayden).

Why weren't any of the other big pros there? A simple reason -- they didn't want Ivey to win.


Photo by Flipchip
You may have heard that Ivey bet a lot of money on himself to win a bracelet at last year's WSOP, and he came up short. (His best finish was 9th.) Rumors swirled that he increased the action on himself this year in a wider variety of bets. There were the standard bets on whether or not he would win a bracelet, and he also has several head-to-head bets with players like Erick Lindgren to see who could win more bracelets. (So those players still have a chance to tie Ivey by winning a bracelet of their own this year -- which could save them hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.)

For the record, Allen Cunningham was in the stands because he's a friend and he didn't bet against Ivey. Again, Cunningham proves he's one of the smartest poker players in the world.

So the fans were confused and the pros weren't there -- sounds like a pretty lackluster crowd. But Media Row was *electric.* WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack was there, of course, as was one of the non-player bigwigs from Full Tilt. Joe Sebok and Amanda Leatherman were there, with Amanda sending out the official Twitter messages for Ivey. (If you see something from @PhilIvey, and it's signed by "Team Ivey," then it's likely from Amanda.) Bluff's top brass showed up, excited that this final table was being streamed on their website and not on ESPN 360. And a variety of other reporters were there in standing room only, taking advantage of their press passes to witness history.

Media Row was packed because unlike the audience, we all knew the stakes. Officially, first prize in this event was a paltry $96,361 -- at least, that's what it would have been for the other guys. But poker insiders knew Ivey could potentially make 100x that much -- around $10 million.

You'll hear a lot of numbers thrown around about how much Phil Ivey won in side bets. The number I heard most often was $10 million. The number Melissa Hayden confidently gave me was $5 million, but she may not have known about all the action he had on himself. I have a reliable source (one that Pauly uses as well) that heard Phil Ivey say last night that it was $12 million. So that's the number I'm going with until I hear it from the man himself.

Whatever the final number, this ultimately turned out to be the biggest tournament score in poker history. And there are now rumors that Ivey is betting on himself to win another bracelet this year at increased odds. (Not sure who would take those odds, but there are probably some players eager to recover their losses from this bracelet.)

With one bracelet already under his belt this year, and big money being bet on a second, Ivey is the early favorite in the WSOP Player of the Year race. While few people paid much attention to POY points in the past, that won't be the case this year -- some of the biggest prop bets among the top players (particularly Daniel Negreanu and Erick Lindgren) are based on who scores the most POY points.

By betting POY points instead of just bracelets, it changes the entire dynamics of what these guys are playing for -- I've never seen Daniel Negreanu celebrate the money bubble bursting until a few days ago in the $10,000 Seven Card Stud event. It was surreal to say the least, as he was as excited as a midwestern donkey cashing in his first WSOP event.

I won't get into the full details of the POY points bets until my next Tao of Poker blog, which will be a recap of the first dozen days of the WSOP. But that's just around the corner, so stay tuned.

BJ Nemeth is originally from Atlanta, GA. He's the lead tournament reporter for the World Poker Tour. He's also a key contributor over at Poker Road. Check out his sensational WSOP photos.

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Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/06/2009 04:20:00 PM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 9: The WSOP Fashion Report - Week 1: The Year of the Makeover

By Change100
Las Vegas, NV

Editor's Note: I'd like to welcome the lovely Change100, a member of the Tao of Poker All Stars who will be our fashion reporter for the duration of the WSOP.

Some are already calling 2009 the "Year of the Russian" after one Russkie in a fanny pack took down the $40,000 No-Limit Event. Those basement-dwellers on 2+2 have their panties in a wad as they pray for the "Year of the Online Pro" while Benjo and his fellow chain-smoking Frenchies are putting their hopes on their boy ElkY to make it the "Year of the sequined hoodie-wearing baguette lovers." Well, you're all wrong. 2009 is the Year of the Makeover and during our first week in the Amazon Room, several new looks were revealed among the pokerati. Though there were a few notable successes, most of them were abject failures of massive proportions.



I can't believe that only a few weeks ago, I put Michael DeMichele on my "Top 10 Fashionistas in Poker" list. I feel so dirty and ashamed. The adorable, baby-faced kid in the sweater vest that we met last summer is gone, and has been replaced by this spiky-haired trainwreck pictured above. I had people wailing at me in the PokerNews shoutbox on Day 1 of the $40K no-limit, claiming that it wasn't really him in the photo. It took a good several hours of coaxing to get the fanboys to believe that this visored monstrosity was indeed their man.

DeMichele has taken the worst elements of poker fashion and combined them all to arrive at his latest look. Only Euros can pull scarves off at the table without looking like a total poseur and even when they do, well, they're Euros, so it's OK. The facial hair pattern here may be the biggest tragedy. Is it a beard? A goatee? To me it looks like he just arrived at an arbitrary spot to stop shaving.

Please, please, please I beg of you, bring back the old Michael DeMichele. Seriously, man-- are you actively trying to look like a douchebag?

For those of you confused about the finer aspects of the "douchebag look," here's a textbook reference point for all of you to work from.


I nearly fainted when I saw what last year's WSOP Main Event runner-up Ivan Demidov had done to his hair. Last fall, I declared the Russian dish the player whose junk I'd most like to grab among the November Nine, but not with these tragic cornrows. Thank God the hairdo was only the consequences of a lost prop bet.

When I last saw Andy Black at the WSOP-Europe he actually looked quite dapper. He was clean-shaven, wearing a suit, and his Eminem T-shirt was temporarily retired. However, the new look he's sporting was best summarized by a quip from Mike Matusow when Black took his seat in the $40K no-limit.

"Andy Black! They roll you out of a cave in Pakistan?"

"Haven't heard that one yet," replied Black.

"Did you decide that you won't shave until you win a tourney? In four years your beard will be on the ground. I'm going to buy you a razor at the break!" he bellowed with a laugh.

"How about I let you play with it instead?" was Black's retort.


I'm a somewhat vertically challenged blonde-girl with little upper-body strength and zero training in hand-to-hand combat, so I'll let this photo of Jeff Lisandro's latest fashion statement speak for itself. The shirt was far more reflective in person than in this photo.


All right, enough with the bad makeovers. My eyes are bleeding. Let's give some kudos where kudos are due. Like the perpetually adorable Jennifer Harman, who grew her hair out and is so fucking cute I want to grab her cheeks and squeeze them like an annoying aunt.


Props also go to Isaac Haxton for ditching the latter-day John Lennon look for a cleaned-up haircut and some fierce shades. I suspected a woman was involved with this fashion overhaul and my thoughts were all but confirmed last night when I saw him walking to his car with an attractive blonde after making his runner-up finish in the $40K no-limit.

I'll be back next week with more poker fashion do's and don'ts, but until then, don't be like this dude...


(All photos courtesy of PokerNews.com. Thanks to Jon, Felipe, and Flipchip!)

Change100 is a writer from Los Angeles, CA. Her "Bird on the Rail" gossip column appears in Bluff Magazine.

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Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/05/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 8: The Tragedy of Mr. Nice Guy

By Benjo
Las Vegas, NV

Editor's Note: Allow me to introduce the first Tao of Poker All Star... Benjo! The kid is a legend because even though French is his native language, he writes better in English than 75% of the American media. Anyway, welcome to the Tao of Poker, Benjo. Enjoy his piece. See ya soon, Pauly

It's half after midnight at the Rio on a Wednesday night. Most of the tournaments are over for the night, and only the ever busy cash-games are providing some buzz in the Amazon Room. The usual sounds and rhythms of the poker flow can be heard across the football field-sized room: clatter of chips and half-hearted conversations. The graveyard shift is in full swing. Chip-runners, floor managers and cocktails waitresses. Lots of money to be made in there, I say to myself while passing by the $2/$5 tables on my way to the secondary ESPN podium.

There on the stage, two old guys are playing an old boring game. This is the final duel of the World Championship Stud event. The biggest Stud tournament of the year and, for all intends and purposes, the only stud tournament of the year, cause this game is fucking dead. Earlier during the week, when the event started, jokes were flying within the media corps.

"Hey Pauly, what's the average age of a Stud player? Answer: deceased."

Yeah, I know, this is an old Jack McClelland joke, and he was reffering to Deuce to Seven, not Stud. But still. Something rings true in the statement. Nobody plays Stud anymore.

And yet, on this quiet Wednesday night, the sight of two old guys playing an old dying game is still attracting a decent crowd. And a crowd that includes many notable people at that. More than a few recognizable faces are making an appearance around the bean-shaped feature table, some of whom has been sitting there on the sideline for hours. There's two-time World Champion Johnny Chan, intensely sweating the action. There's Pamela Brunson, daughter of the almighty Doyle, waving and cheering from the rail in direction of one of the players. There's Carlos Mortensen and Brad Daugherty, two other World Champions, and there's David Sklansky, Steve Zolotow, and many others, passing by and stopping to watch the action unfold. And there's many faces that I don't recognize. Older faces. Bald spots and gray beards all over the place. A crowd that goes back ages. Back to the Binion's era, where it all started. What is happening there that is attracting all these people at that time of the night?

"This is a heads-up match for history," a voice pipes behind me. I turn over. The short, bald man with glasses resting on the tip of his nose introduces himself. "I'm Mori Eskandari."

A familiar name. The TV producer of successful poker shows such as Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker. Mori looks towards the table. "And the guy over here playing is my business partner."

Of course I know who's the guy he's pointing at, a tall, lanky figure in his sixties – but looking much younger, with long gray hair coming straight out of the Rubber Soul cover shot - currently playing for a championship bracelet.


Eric Drache
(Photo by Benjo)
Eric Drache has been one of the most influential people in the poker business over the last thirty years. A shadow guy, the kind most people wouldn't recognize when he walks into any cardroom, even the die hard fans. And yet, he's the reason why so many important people showed up tonight. Eric Drache changed the game we love in many ways most people wouldn't even imagine. Heck, he's the guy who has invented the concept of satellites tournaments in the late seventies, years and years before Chris Moneymaker and thousands of other donkeys would regularly qualify for the WSOP playing online. He's the guy who ran the world championship for seventeen years at the Binion's, under Jack Binion's wing. He's the guy who created the Poker Hall of Fame. He's the guy who successfully ran the Golden Nugget, then the Mirage cardrooms for years, turning them into unmissable spots for any respectable poker player. How's that for a resume?

Since he rarely shows up to play tournaments, I never met Eric Drache in person, but I read all the stories about him in those great books wrote by Al Alvarez, Antony Holden, Jim McManus, Michael Craig and so on. The most well-known quote about Eric Drache? It comes from Doyle Brunson, "Eric is the eight best stud player in the world. Problem is, he only plays with the seven best."

Yet most people never heard of Eric Drache cause, despite being an exceptional poker player, he's been staying in the shadows all along, quietly working his ass off day and night, turning the game of poker into the well-ran competition we know now. Cause back in the days, it wasn't all shiny like it is now. It's because of guys like Eric Drache that there are rules, etiquette and such things nowadays. It's because of guys like him that now, newcomers are expected to receive the same treatment as the regulars. It's guys like him that helped getting rid of all the Far West shenanigans that were going on in the Vegas cardrooms on a regular basis in the seventies.

Now retired from the cardroom business, Eric is still rocking and rolling the poker universe, being the guy behind such shows as High Stakes Poker, the show that set the standard for high-quality televised poker, raising the bar above the tired all-in fests such as the World Poker. High Stakes Poker. A program revered by every fucking online grinder on the planet. And yet, as I'm watching the Stud action unfolding from the sidelines of the ESPN stage, the two high-stakes online players sipping cocktails next to me have no fucking idea who Eric Drache is.

There's a reason why.

"Eric probably played only two tournaments in the last twenty-one years," says Thor Hansen. The legendary Norwegian, two-time bracelet winner, is also sweating the game, out of respect for the man who first made him come over to the United States twenty-two years ago. "Eric had flew to Europe for the Scandinavian Championship in 1987, with the intention of inviting the winner to the Golden Nugget Grand Prix he was setting up. I ended up winning the tournament, and there I was, on my way to the US and Las Vegas for the first time, all expenses paid. Eric has been my friend ever since, and during all those years, I never heard him have a bad word about anyone."

Thor Hansen, now an U.S. resident for one and a half decade, has a lot of memories to share about his old friend, and I'm more than happy to listen.

"When Eric ran the Golden Nugget and the Mirage, there was never a seat open in the cardroom. Every game was filled. Cause he treated everyone equally, whether they were broke, or millionaires. He comped everyone way over the limit he was allowed by his brass, paying out of his pocket for restaurants and shows. Everyone got the royal treatment. At the World Series, it was lobster and steak every day. Even the media like you were spoiled. A Binion's limo would pick them up at McCarran, and they would get a free suite for the duration of the Series."

I can only dream about getting such treatment, having covered my first WSOP well into the 21st century

"And he was taking care of the people working for him, too," continued Thor. "One Christmas, he was short of money to pay the dealers their bonuses. He knew those people were like any other people and had been gambling, or doing whatever else they were doing. They were short of money, and he didn't want to leave them broke for Christmas. So what did he do ? He went on the street, and borrowed several dozens of thousands of loan-shark money to give to them. He had to pay juice for months after that, but it didn't matter. Cause he made his people happy for Christmas."


Heads-up between Freddie and Eric
(Photo by Benjo)
The guy Eric is facing at the table tonight is an interesting character, too. Hailing from Brooklyn, Freddie Ellis is a frail, diminutive figure. A contender for being one of the rare African-American WSOP winners in recent years, and also the oldest player to win a bracelet since Johnny Moss received his last piece of hardware in 1988, at the age of 81. The biography sheet every player had to fill at the start of the final table says Freddie is 67, but the regulars sweating the game knows better.

"He's 74," says one of them. "Don't know why he felt compelled to lie about his age. Maybe a joke on his part."

Old Freddie is looking tired, but sharp, not missing a beat while calling and raising Eric's bets. But still, he's not the favorite to win tonight.

"Freddie is the oldest regular at the biggest stud game in Atlantic City," says a famous player who shall remain anonymous. "He's been playing this game since it started. A losing player. Retired from real estate. Worth more than $250 million, some of those having been lost at the poker table over the last decades."

Yet Freddie has a crowd of supporters of his own, thanks to his gentle, demeaning, happy-go-lucky attitude at the table. The reporters from PokerNews, not usually the ones to take sides cause of the official nature of their work, have been naming Freddie as their favorite since Day One of the event.

So, tournament director extraordinaire Eric Drache has the upper hand in this game.

"It's about time Eric collects a share of the shine light," says another old railbird.

"Let him take a bracelet home, for Christ sake!" cries another.

Eric is clearly the most aggressive player in this heads-up match. And I can see that he's playing well, despite my limited knowledge of the game. Starting with a King of clubs as the door card, Eric raises. Freddie calls. Eric catches a Jack of the same suit, and bets again. Freddie calls, and Eric gets another club, an Ace. He bets again, and gets called again. Now Eric's board looks like K-J-A-J with three clubs, and yet he checks, then quickly folds after Freddie's bet, giving up the pot to his weaker opponent.

"Eric had nothing but the pair of Jacks, and was betting on the strength of his exposed cards," explains Thor, giving me a quick yet welcomed Stud lesson. "He gave up on 6th street, cause he knew Freddie wouldn't call him with nothing less than three of a kind. He knows he was beat."

The antes are high, and there's no more than thirty big bets on the table. Anything can happen.

"But this tournament had a good structure," says Thor, still reminiscing, much to my delight. "Back in the days, everyone had a five big-blind average stack at the final table, and no one was complaining."

On the rail, the nostalgia continues. "Hey, Thor," pipes someone next to us. "Remember those crazy props bets with Doyle and Chip at the Binion's? You had to throw those five thousand dollar chips in a hat laid on the floor in the middle of the room. Eighteen times in a row you did it, and every damn chip you collected."

Thor shakes his head, and I'm not sure if it's because he doesn't remember the episode, or because the story never happened this way.

The hours goes by, and the game continues. We're now well into the wee hours of the morning, and Eric lost his chip-lead. Old Freddie is getting more and more tired, but he's collecting the chips.

"Aces-up," he says in a quiet voice after the last bet has been put into a monster pot.

Eric Drache slowly nods, forfeiting the pot. The eight best stud player in the world is crippled, victim of a seventy year old fish.

Moments after, Eric is forced to put his last chips into the pot. He doubles up, but it's not enough, and soon, Freddie Ellis is crowned a champion. Eric Drache has to settle for second place. He looks exhausted, but not that much frustrated for someone who just finished one step below the ultimate prize. I don't know Eric and have never spoke to him, yet I feel compelled to shake his hand and say a few words, cause I wanted him to win badly. I can only think of what a great fucking story it would have been if Nice Guy Eric Drache had won, finally collecting his due after thirty years of service to the poker community.


Freddie Ellis Wins Event #6 - $10K Stud
(Photo by Benjo)
While Freddie poses for the winner's picture, I share my lamentations with Nolan Dalla, the hard-working media director of the WSOP, who just arrived on stage to collect some press release material and quotes from the winner. He's as bummed as me, cause Eric and him has been friends for years. As ever, Nolan gets to utter the final word.

"Maybe the story is better this way," he muses. "Here it is, the tragedy of Eric Drache."

Yes indeed. Always second. Always hiding in the shadows. Tonight, after collecting his second-place money, Eric will drive back home, and go back to anonymity. And maybe it's better this way. Or not. But it's still a great story.


Benjamin 'Benjo' Gallen is a writer originally from Lille, France. He's currently the voice of PokerStars.com EPT Live in French. Benjo currently writes the blog for Team Winamax.

* * * * *
Original content provided by Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/04/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
Gone Phishin'

By Pauly
New York City

Yes, it's true. I'm currently in New York conducting research for my next non-fiction book about a band from Vermont called Phish. I have to step away from my duties at the WSOP for a few days while I become embedded with a group of neo-hippies for a few days during a couple of concerts at Jones Beach and just outside of Boston. You can always follow along with my off the felt hijinks via Twitter.

I'm also covering the concerts over at Coventry. If you are a music freak, you can check out Coventry's Twitter feed.

No worries, I shall return sooner than you think. When? Soon come.

In the meantime, this is the perfect opportunity to introduce the Tao of Poker All Stars who will be filling in during my brief absence. Stay tuned for Benjo's debut (in English) along with the highly anticipated return ofChange100's infamous WSOP fashion report...

See ya soon,
Pauly

P.S. Check out this extended trailer of a documentary that a friend of mine shot called... Maybe So Maybe Not. I make a cameo at the end.



Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/03/2009 11:24:00 PM | Permalink |

 
New Episodes of Tao of Pokerati: Russian Anthems and Scooter Races

By Pauly
New York City

Episode 11.9: Ruskies Win featuring Benjo (2:50) - Get used to hearing the Russian National Anthem. Vitaly Lunkin was awarded his bracelet in a ceremony that included a performance of his home country's anthem. Pauly and Benjo have some snarky commentary and Benjo reveals his true political leanings.

Episode 11.10: Scooter Race Action (3:19) - Since Michalski missed out on the Scooter Races, I clued him in on the hijinks between Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim.

For more episodes of the shortest poker podcast on the intertubes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/03/2009 10:50:00 AM | Permalink |

 
2009 WSOP Day 6: Scooter Races and Fading the Great Dane

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

I spotted the mob that congregated in front of the business center.

Cameras. People. Buzz. And we weren't even inside the casino or in the Amazon Ballroom.

Random pros like Mike Sexton and Kathy Liebert mingled in the hallway. I recognized media director Nolan Dalla and made a beeline for him as he stood behind Doyle Brunson, who slumped in his scooter. An ESPN camera crew and several photographers snapped photos of Amarillo Slim on a different scooter. A couple of Harrah's interns held back the surging and curious crowd. The citizen journalists took out their cell phone cameras and snapped away.

I looked down the hall and noticed a series of orange cones in the rotunda.

"They have to go around the cones twice," said Nolan.

That's when I realized that I stumbled into... scooter races between Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim.

Senior citizen degens. Sometimes, I fuckin' love Las Vegas.

Slim has been lurking around the last few days in green cowboy boots and played in the Champions Invitational but did not make the final table. There was a time when Slim was exiled from the poker community over the last few years, but all of that seems to be water under the bridge. He was received with open arms.

Doyle Brunson and Amarillo Slim were racing for for anywhere from $2,000 to $50,000. I keep hearing different rumors. Anyway, they raced individually. Slim was set to go first and practiced starts as the camera crew got into position.

"Slim's scooter is much faster," said Nolan. "Plus Doyle is much heavier. Slim is gonna win. Do you know anyone who would want action against us?"

"Michalski?" I blurted out.

Slim took off and sped down the hallway as he made whipping motion, like a jockey whipping a horse. The crowd laughed as slim headed towards the rotunda. Slim circled the cones twice and chugged towards the finish line.

"50.28 seconds," shouted one of the ESN producers who timed Slim's performance.

Brunson was up next. "No way he breaks a minute," I said to Nolan.

Brunson flashed his trademarked smile and took off. He circled the cones with ease but the last stretch was up hill. Doyle's weight (about 300? 320?) slowed him down and he lost several valuable seconds on the final stretch. Doyle reached the finish line at 55 seconds on the nose. Slim won by less than five seconds. Seth said that he had Slim and was giving four seconds. Nice catch, sir.

Jack Binion congratulated Slim for winning the race and the undisclosed amount of money.

By the way, I'm a little bummed out because I always wanted to take on Otis in Scooter races. Starting at the Amazon Ballroom, we'd race to the Hooker Bar and down a Jager Bomb and then head back to the Amazon Ballroom. Alas, our grandiose idea for the greatest prop bet of all time was foiled.

Congrats to Slim.

Check out the RawVegas video here...

* * * * *
Bouncin' Round the Room on Day 6....

Yeah it's true. There was a big upset in French Open tennis. Rafael Nadal's lost to Robin Soderling, who happened to be a Scandi. If rumors are true, Gus Hansen just pissed away $900K. Last year, Ivey dropped $2 million on the Lakers. This year, it was Gus taking a bad beat at Roland Garros. Here's a suggestion... next time a big time poker pro makes a significant wager on a big sporting event... fade their pick. If you had done that the last two years? You'd be up $1 million.

I love listening to the chatter in the hallways... "Dude, if I win this satellite, we're gonna get an 8-ball," said one player in cargo shorts and flip flops to his friend who's eyes jumped out of his skull. "Take it down!" he screamed.

I checked out the Donkulus bubble with Benjo. We had no clue that we stood near the entrance/exit for the cocktail servers. Benjo quickly turned around and banged into a server with an entire tray of drinks. Bottles of water and Red Bull scattered all over the crowd. I couldn't stop laughing as Benjo turned beet red. Poor kid was embarrassed.

"Can you get that guy in the lime-green shirt a drink?" asked a sunburned guy on the rail.

He pointed to a guy a couple of tables away inside the ropes of the Brasilia Ballroom. He waved a $5 bill and one of the cocktail servers quickly snatched it up.

"Grey Goose and tonic," he happily requested. "Make it stiff and strong. He's been waiting two long days for a drink."

The guy in the lime-green shirt was his father who played in his first ever WSOP event. He usually drinks at the table when playing poker for fun with friends. This weekend was a serious event for him and he decided to abstain from drinking until he made the money. That is.... if he made the money.

There were 623 players left at that point with the top 621 players slated to win prize money in the $1K Stimulus Package concocted by Harrah's brass to give the everyday players an opportunity at opportunity at a WSOP bracelet. Two players busted on the same hand and the guy in the lime-green shirt got his stiff cocktail after he guaranteed a cash.

I'm still shocked at the rapid pace of donkey liquidation. Five every minute at one point. Efficient. The Germans would be proud. If there's anything to be learned from this event, is that the reduced buy-in (Bracelets for 33% off!) is highly popular and successful. It was like printing money. I suggest that they reduce every single $1,500 donkament to a $1,000 donkulus for the rest of the year until the economy improves. Think about it.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/02/2009 04:20:00 AM | Permalink |

 
WSOP Day 5: Vitaly Lunkin Who?

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV

Quiz time.

Which Russian has won two bracelets in the last two years?

A. Ivan Demidov
B. Vitaly Lunkin
C. Alex Kravchenko
D. Teddy KGB
E. Pavel Chekov

OK, this was sort of a softball quiz. For all of you Trekkies out there, you know that Chekov was part of the crew on the Enterprise. And Teddy KGB doesn't really exists and simply part of the imagination of Brian Koppleman, the screenwriter from the Citizen Kane of poker flicks... Rounders.

So it's really a three part question. Demidov and Kravchenko are top Russians pros, but it was Vitaly Lunkin who emerged as the first Russian to win multiple bracelets at the WSOP.

I warned the poker world shortly after the November Nine about the Russians....

The shift in poker power in Europe is being played out at the final table in Las Vegas. The Scandis are the old guard but right now we're seeing a migration of power towards Eastern Europe led by a Russian offensive. As poker gains more and more popularity in that part of the world, we're going to see more top notch players emerge from the ruins of Eastern Europe. The Russians are coming whether you like it are not...

Wow, I actually sounded like I knew what I was talking about. But yes, the Russians are coming.


Photo by Flipchip
But I gotta say, that I completely dropped the ball with Vitaly Lunkin. I had no idea who he was. His name was in red on Full Tilt, but these days, that doesn't mean as much as it used to.

Sure, he was a bracelet winner, but his victory in a $1,500 Donkament went unnoticed by the majority of the poker world, mostly because it was just one of a handful of bracelets won that week at a final table that contained several unknown players. In addition, Lunkin does not speak very good English and he wasn't a highly sought after interview. Perhaps the language barrier is a contributing factor to why we don't know too much about him.

I had the sense that he wasn't part of the Russian syndicate, but then again, maybe he was one of the horses from behind the Iron Curtain. Over the last year or so, a mysterious wealthy Russian, let's call hi Comrade X, has been staking young Russian internet pros (Ivan Demidov, Stanislav Alekhin, and Alexander Kostritsin) and older established veterans (Alex Kravchenko). I'll let you draw your own conclusions to how Comrade X acquired his wealth to emerge as largest poker horse owner in the former Soviet Union. Oil money? Running cigarettes in the Balkans? Caviar smuggling in the Caspian sea? Who knows. But the bottom line is that as the major staking syndicates in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia have been putting less money on the street in previous years, the Russian money has been dramatically increasing. Which means, bet that another Russian will win a bracelet this year. I dunno who it's gonna be, but that's where the money backing the horses is originating from. Mother Russia.

Vitaly Lunkin. I guess he officially earned his red name on Full Tilt. He has more bracelets than Erik Lindgren and Phil Gordon combined. Should we anoint Lunkin a saint for winning both a donkament (last summer) and the largest ever buy-in NL event? (Then again do we count the 50K HORSE from 2006 when they played NL at the final table because it made for "good TV"? Nope. HORSE doesn't count so Lunkin deserves all the credit for being the biggest swinging dick in the Amazon Ballroom right now.)

That's an impressive feat... winning one of the lowest buy-in events at the WSOP and the next year taking home a bracelet in one of the highest buy-in events.

Did Lunkin luck box his way to the bracelet? Maybe his first one was facilitated by some good fortune bestowed upon him from the poker gods. You can't fade a field of 2,706 donks without catching cards, running good, and sucking out left and right.

But how about Lunkin's victory in $40K NL? The field was much smaller, but the players were significantly better and was a fair representation of the top 100 NL tournament players in the world. Let's face it, if you're one of the best, you're gonna be in that event regardless of bankroll.

For the most part, he had rarely showed down any hands for the majority of the final table until it got short-handed. Most of the other players got out of Lunkin's way when he did play a pot. Perhaps it was his tight-aggressive image? Yeah, much like Alex Kravchenko, Lunkin had alligator blood in his veins and managed to have so much stoic discipline to not get involved in bad situations. Ah, that's something quite the opposite compared to the hyper-aggressive lagtard Scandis that I'm used to seeing on the European Poker Tour.

Lunkin came into the final table second in chips behind Isaac Haxton, who was most known as the guy who had 800K stuck in Neteller when the federales froze everyone's account if they were from America. Haxton eventually got his money back (sans interest, of course) and he was on the verge of erasing that memory and becoming the kid who won the $40K bracelet.

The chip lead changed hands too many times to count over the duration at the final table. Ted Forrest and Noah Schwartz were short stacked and couldn't double up early to make any noise. Dani 'Ansky' Stern was also on the short side to begin with but he dug in deep and managed to avoid early elimination and finished in 4th place. Zee Justin, who many online pros felt was the best player at the final table, ran into an unfortunate hand when his Jacks lost to Haxton's Aces. Greg Raymer took the top spot at one point but he could not hold it together long enough to make a run at the final two.

Haxton and Lunkin had two contrasting styles, with Haxton playing more aggressive to Lunkin's subdued demeanor. At one point, both heads-up players were deep stacked and everyone from the ESPN crew to Change100 covering the final table hand-for-hand were expecting for a very late night. But the two traded significant pots where Lunkin took the largest lead of the heads-up battle. It was over shortly afterwords.

And over on the other side of the room, most of the railbirds flocked to watch the Champions Invitational which featured Main Event champions in a non-bracelet-made-for-TV event where they played out for a little red Corvette and the first ever Binion's Cup. But sadly, the masses missed a bit of poker history happening right under their noses.

Thang Luu. Who?


Photo by Flipchip
Thang Luu might be the best low-limit O8 player in the world. He won his second bracelet on Sunday night when he took down the largest-ever $1,500 Omaha 8 tournament at the WSOP. Last year, Luu won the same event. Back-to-back victories is very impressive, but then add the fact that Luu took second place in a similar O8 event ($2,000 O8) at the 2007 WSOP when he lost heads up to Frankie O'Dell. I think Change100 covered that event and she knew O'Dell's reputation around the L.A. card rooms for being a degen-broke-dick. He had so many people on the rail waiting to get paid back the money that O'Dell had borrowed from them over the years. Anyway, if O'Dell was on a mission to pay off his debts, then we'd be submitting Thang Luu's name for poker saint hood.

First. First. Second. Thang Luu is an Omaha 8 god among hobbits.

* * * * *
Boucnin' Round the Room on Day 5....

"Can you stake me in a Venetian event?" one dealer asked me. I shrugged it off because I don't back players anymore. In the hallway, I overheard another dealer try to solicit backing in a similar Venetian event. "Are you interested in buying one-third of my action?" he pleaded into his cell phone.

The cash games on Sunday night were the busiest that I had seen all summer. All those donks who busted out of the Donkulus needed something to do before they went home. The cash games are generally contained to the red tables but shortly before Midnight, the staff expanded cash games into the orange area. They almost filled tables as far as up to the press box. Lots of rake was generated the last two nights. With over 6,000 entrants in the Donkulus, there was a high demand for cash games. I also tell my friends that they should skip playing in those $1,500 donkaments and take the money to play in cash games instead. Those are far more profitable.

Kudos to Change100 and Shamus for their stellar coverage of the $40K final table. I'm amazed at Change100's focus for hand-for-hand. It's not easy and she does it better than me. With the exception of BJ Nemeth, no one in the business does that sort of coverage better. And I was also impressed with Shamus' color commentary. I'm glad that he finally got a chance to showcase his writing ability. If he wasn't already cranking out content for Hard Boiled Poker, I'd add him to the Tao of Poker All Stars!

For WSOP photos? Check out BJ's stellar WSOP photography over at Poker Road and don't forget about Flipchip.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/01/2009 03:06:00 PM | Permalink |

 
New Episodes of Tao of Pokerati: Anthems, Night Shifts, Bubbles, and Table Dances

By Pauly
Las Vegas, NV


The shortest poker podcast on the interubes is back with four new episodes. This batch is special because Benjo makes his triumphant return as our international sidekick. Yes, everyone's favorite malcontent chain-smoking Frenchman appears in not one, but three episodes.

Episode 11.5: Star-Spangled Hammer with Benjo (3:08) - Pauly and Benjo discuss the new twist of playing the national anthem of the home country of bracelet winners during the winner's ceremony.

Episode 11.6: Night Shift (2:47) - Michalski arrives a little late and Pauly gives him guff during the $40K event.

Episode 11.7: Bubble Party with Benjo (4:01) - Benjo joins Michalski and Pauly in a little banter as the money bubble broke in the $40K event. They scrambled to find out the name of the Bubble Boy and talk about a Vinny Vinh sighting. Oh, and the always quiet Shamus even gives the slightest of cameo performances.

Episode 11.8: $40K Final Table Dance with Benjo (4:25) - Pauly and Benjo give a quick run down of the final table players and Benjo discusses the strip club habits of his fellow French pros.

To listen to older episodes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives.


Original content written and provided by Pauly from Tao of Poker at www.taopoker.com. All rights reserved. RSS feeds are for non-commercial use only.
posted by Pauly at 6/01/2009 05:57:00 AM | Permalink |