I attended the Draw Party at Pure on Friday night and then met with my brother, who had flown into Vegas for Heads Up. I was under the impression that I was to play in the last bracket the next evening at around 8 pm. I was pulled over for speeding and refused a breathalyzer test as I have been instructed to do.  I have no idea why I was written a ticket for failing to yield to an emergency vehicle. There were no emergency vehicles around, besides the police car. A test, given by the Las Vegas PD, later revealed that I had a blood alcohol content of zero. I also took a blood test, as I have nothing to hide. I was held for the mandatory 6 hours and released. I always go out of my way to not drink and drive. I regret that I was not able to play in NBC Heads Up and hope to be invited next year to play in this prestigious event.

There’s little reason to doubt Layne Flack’s version of events at this point. Refusing a breathalyzer test isn’t that unusual, because the blood tests are more accurate. 

If his blood-alcohol level was really zero, then the DUI charges would likely be dropped. That leaves two other relatively minor charges (speeding and the failure to yield to an emergency vehicle), which means that Layne Flack could come out of this untimely little episode with nothing more than traffic tickets — and a missed opportunity at the NBC Heads-Up Championship.

Clarification 1: Layne Flack was not in a car accident. Some of the earliest reports of this situation came from a statement that Mori Eskandani gave to some reporters at the NBC Heads-Up Championship, saying that Flack had to withdraw because he had been in a car accident. He wasn’t. (11:00 am PT)

Clarification 2: Lara Miller has followed up to say that Flack claims he had just one drink at Pure that night. Also, Flack took the blood test to prove that he was not just alcohol-free, but drug-free as well. (11:30 am PT)

Update 1: Andrew “good2cu” Robl blogged that he “ended up getting quite drunk” with Layne Flack that night, taking shots of tequila. This side of it seems to be turning into a he said/he said situation, where the tie will ultimately go to the results of the blood test. (12:00 noon PT)

Update 2:  Andrew Robl has edited the Layne Flack story out of his blog without an explanation. (6:30 pm PT)

An excerpt: 

Whether or not poker interests you, the bad-beat story is a form to study; everyone needs to know how to tell one. It’s an especially useful genre during a recession. With its combination of numbers, magic, hunches and statistics, the bad-beat story furnishes a nice range of narrative devices to frame a lament about losing, while making it crystal clear that the loss wasn’t your fault.

The article is much more thorough than it appears at first, going from the start of online poker in the late ’90s to Chris Moneymaker to the recent scandals at Absolute and UltimateBet. It gives the Times Magazine readers a nice overview of online poker, with one big, notable exception — Heffernan never once mentions the UIGEA (or the fallout). The overall tone of the piece is that online poker is a normal, legal activity. 

While there’s no new information for Pokerati readers, it’s a well-written article worth reading just to see how the NY Times is presenting online poker to the masses this week. One more time, here’s the link:

“Flop,” by Virginia Heffernan, The Times Magazine

One thing I’ve noticed is that PokerStars is putting up a fair amount of commercials during the Olympics, at least here in the Atlanta market. (Can anyone watching the Olympics in other markets confirm that it’s national?) The two commercials I’ve noticed the most are from PokerStars — one with Daniel Negreanu (playing pool & playing poker) and one with Vanessa Rousso (bungee jumping & playing poker). Of the two, I think the Vanessa Rousso one stands out much more — more contrast between bungee jumping and poker compared to Daniel’s billiards commercial, and it also has a taste of those “extreme sports” that the young’uns seem to like.

Regardless of what you think of Vanessa as a poker player, I think this could actually be good for the game of poker. One of the things Barry Greenstein came away with during last year’s Congressional visit (to discuss the legality of online poker) was how impressed the congressmen were with the female players who showed up — Annie Duke and Vanessa Rousso. In their eyes, Vanessa is an attractive young woman with a degree from Duke University, and plenty of opportunities open to her. But she chose to play poker. That challenges their view of poker much more than seeing players like Greenstein or Doyle Brunson.

I highly doubt poker will see a post-Olympic bounce from these commercials, but if PokerStars is targeting an entirely new demographic of sports fans, I think they could do a lot worse than putting Vanessa Rousso out front and center.

I now have a list of six Olympian/WSOP competitors, but I don’t think I’ve found them all. So I’m asking for your help.

QUALIFYING CRITERIA: I’m restricting the WSOP to bracelet events only; charity events don’t count (like the media event or Ante Up For Africa), but restricted bracelet events do count (ladies, seniors, casino employees). We’ll also include the WSOP Europe. For the Olympians, they had to actually compete in a medal event (no alternates, and no exhibition events). Preliminary rounds (like swimming or track prelims) do count. The Winter Olympics also qualify, but I have yet to find any winter athletes who have played in the WSOP.

In alphabetical order, the following six players have competed in both the Olympics and the World Series of Poker:

Charles Barkley
1992 Olympics (Barcelona) – Gold Medal in Basketball (USA)
1996 Olympics (Atlanta) – Gold Medal in Basketball (USA)
2006 WSOP Main Event

Tomas Brolin
1992 Olympics (Barcelona) – Football/Soccer (Sweden)
2007 WSOP Main Event

Jeff Fenech
1984 Olympics (Los Angeles) – Boxing (Australia)
2008 WSOP Main Event

Yevgeny Kafelnikov
2000 Olympics (Sydney) – Gold Medal in Tennis (Russia)
2005 WSOP – $1,500 Seven Card Stud (9th: $10,745)
2005 WSOP – $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout (14th: $7,535)
2005 WSOP – $2,500 No-Limit Hold’em (76th: $3,645)

Lennox Lewis
1984 Olympics (Los Angeles) – Boxing (Canada)
2006-2007 WSOP Main Event

Antonio Tarver
1996 Olympics (Atlanta) – Bronze Medal in Boxing (USA)
2006-2007 WSOP Main Event

If you have any information on other potential Olympian/WSOP competitors, please list them in the comments. I’ll add all confirmed entries to this post.

As you can see, Yevgeny Kafelnikov is the only Olympian to cash in a WSOP event, and just missed a final table (stud final tables only include eight players). Combined with his gold medal in tennis, he has come the closest to winning in both the Olympics and the WSOP.

Here are players who have already been researched, but came up short:

Jan Sorensen
12 WSOP cashes, 3 final tables, 2 bracelets
Played for Denmark’s National Football Team (1977-1980), but no Olympics

Boris Becker
Member of Team PokerStars, but has yet to play in a WSOP event
1992 Olympics (Barcelona) – Gold Medal in Tennis (Germany)

For 17 days, the Olympics will dominate NBC’s networks here in the United States, and fill up enough news coverage to finally give Americans a break from the seemingly endless presidential election. (Other countries are fortunate in the fact that they generally get less nationalistic — and often more interesting — coverage than NBC provides here in the U.S.)

During that time, I’ll be writing about some things the poker industry can learn from the Olympics. Not the game itself, or the silly notion that poker should be added to the Olympics. I’m mainly concerned with the media coverage, and what we as poker reporters can learn from it. 

No analogy is perfect, but the World Series of Poker has some interesting similarities to the Olympics. It’s a multi-week festival that comprises a lot of different events featuring thousands of competitors from around the world. And both the WSOP and the Olympics are much, much more than the sum of their parts. 

What do I mean by that? Well, the story of the Superbowl (NFL) or baseball’s World Series is ultimately the final score. The same goes for a major WPT or EPT event — it’s all about the players at the final table, and which one claims the title and the million-dollar prize. Sure there are other stories along the way, but they all feed into the overarching narrative of “Who wins?”

At the WSOP (like the Olympics), there are a lot of stories that aren’t tied to specific events, like multi-bracelet winners, the POY race, and Vinny Vinh. There are also threats of dealer strikes, stories of competing media outlets, and various poker press conferences — movie announcements (ex: “Lucky You”), lawsuits (ex: players vs. the WPT), and industry deals (ex: Full Tilt signing Patrik Antonius). You even have the Gaming Life Expo, with less eye candy than previous years because there are fewer hookers strippers female models in the booths. 

I’m not suggesting that we should change the WSOP to mirror the Olympics. But WSOP coverage has felt lacking in certain areas to me, and those who cover the Olympics face similar problems — multiple events going on simultaneously, unknown winners, and side stories that often have nothing to do with a specific event. 

I’ve competed in been to the Olympics twice, Atlanta in 1996 and Salt Lake City in 2002. Both times, I went all out, attending multiple events every day and spending as much time as possible in the thick of the crowds. Since 2004 I’ve been spending my summers at the WSOP, and I’ve observed some things that I think could be improved. That’s what I’ll be writing about here at Pokerati the next two weeks. Stay tuned. 

I’ll close out this first Olympic-themed entry with a few basic stats:

2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing
Competitors:  10,500
Events:  302
Unique sports:  28
Total prizepool:  $0

2008 World Series of Poker
Competitors:  58,720
Events:  55
Unique games:  16
Total prizepool:  $180,676,248

Sports Illustrated/CNN have compiled a photo gallery representing the 13 biggest “Gambling Scandals in Sports.” (No, UB and Absolute didn’t make the list.)

The scandals date from the Black Sox of 1919 (when the Chicago White Sox famously threw the World Series) to the NBA referee (Tim Donaghy) who pleaded guilty to accepting money from a gambler. Basketball was the most offending sport, with six of the 13 spots on the list (46%). Boston College has the dubious honor of being listed twice (for basketball in the late ’70s and football in the mid ’90s).

The last item on the list (which appears to be in no particular order) is about former NHL player Rick Tocchet, who has played in a major poker tournament or two.

Check out the full list here. (Keep in mind that this list only includes gambling scandals, and not cheating scandals in general.)

I find it interesting that while individual players must live with the consequences for decades (Pete Rose, Shoeless Joe Jackson, etc.), the organizations that allowed such cheating to take place usually pay only a short-term penalty before returning to full respectability.

It’s not a perfect parallel to the UB/Absolute scandal, but I think it’s relevant. It’s possible that after a few years, this scandal may be nothing more than a footnote to those two companies. What do you think?

If you find sports scandals boring, you can always check out SI’s second-most popular gallery (at the moment): “The Best 1980s Swimsuits,” with a vintage Christie Brinkley SI cover in the leadoff spot. In middle school, I claimed that my initials stood for “Billy Joel,” and he was my uncle. He married Christie later that year, and my popularity soared. Wait … swimsuit photos? Am I blogging for Pokerati or Wicked Chops?

Then the comments will start. “Poker’s not a sport!” “Are chess and Monopoly sports, too?” “Next you’ll be telling us that sitting on the couch watching poker is a sport!”

I make my living with words, and I take them very seriously. No, poker is not a sport. To me (and many dictionaries), a sport requires two components: physical activity and competition. Poker is a competition without physical activity, so it’s not a sport. The same goes for carpentry, which is a physical activity without competition — again, not a sport.

But I’ll continue to call poker a sport, because the metaphor works.

Click the “more” button to find out why. Or you can click “Comments” to just go ahead and call me an idiot.

To the player at the table, poker is not a sport. But to those of us in the media, we cover it like one. As a tournament reporter, the closest analogy to my job description is that of a sports reporter. We report on the individual players (Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, etc.), the scores (chip counts), the million-dollar victors and the ten-thousand-dollar losers.

Fans watch poker like a sport. Some have their favorite players, fanatically following the progress of Phil Ivey or Daniel Negreanu. (Or even Allen “Chainsaw” Kessler.) Other, more casual fans, only tune in to ESPN for the biggest game of them all, the WSOP Main Event. But they still watch it in much the same way that they watch the Olympics. (More on that next week.) Others don’t even care about the players or the big prizes, because they’re more interested in the play itself. “How did this player correctly lay down middle set after a rainbow flop?”

When I refer to poker as a “sport” (and I will), I’m referring to high-profile, high-stakes tournaments that are usually televised — the WSOP, the WPT, the EPT, and a few select others. You can flame me in the comments, but I’ll continue to call poker a sport, if only metaphorically.

For those who don’t know me, my name is BJ Nemeth, and I’m a longtime poker tournament reporter. I won’t bore you with my resume, but I’ve been doing it for more than four years, and most people agree that I’m pretty good at my job. I’m currently the lead reporter for the World Poker Tour, which is a pretty sweet gig (lots of travel, nice casinos, and they let me freelance here at Pokerati on the side).

Now that I’m officially on the team, I’ll be writing actual Pokerati posts, instead of post-length comments. Expect me to offer well-researched commentary on the big news stories (the UB/Absolute scandal, the WSOP final table delay, and Tiffany Michelle’s UB decision) along with industry analysis on everything from Bluff vs. Card Player to the WPT vs. the EPT.

Metaphorically, poker is a sport. Deal with it, and commence comments.