Chet in Wisconsin writes in wanting to know why the slowdown recently from Pokerati …
Is there some reason the most recent article is dated the 17th, 5 days ago?
There is a reason for that, and we may or may not tell you eventually. My apologies to the poker world for not letting other media know what they should be writing about taking a break.
It’s been a busy year for Pokerati — so much effed up poker news to chatter at, presumably at the expense of workplace productivity. Final year-end stats are in …
Unique visitors: 492,404
Visits: 1,119,809
Page views: 5,353,853
Avg. Visit: 7min 13sec
Bandwidth: 1.176 Terabytes
Damn, sounds like a lot … but fuggit, let’s double that shit for 2010; I don’t care how many terabytes it takes!
Shouts out to our top referrers in 2009. Our best friends of the year, in order, are:
Wicked Chops
2+2
Tao of Poker
Twitter
Poker Grump
LasVegasVegas
Facebook
Pocket Fives
Poker Road
Benjo
Hardboiled Poker
Youtube
Also, some notable newcomers, whom we hope to see still lurking around these parts of the internet even more in 2010:
Pokernews
Bluffmagazine
PoliticalWire
BigSoccer
Bartcop
And, of course, we wouldn’t want to forget our foreign-lingual pals … without whom we couldn’t spread our loose-aggressive reporting worldwide as if it might actually be fact:
http://www.pokeritieto.fi
http://tiltkontrolle.blogspot.com
http://www.pokerisivut.com
http://forum.pokerzysta.pl
http://poker.deluxe.hu
Good year. Go readers, skimmers, and clickers!
We got a pretty sophisticated audience at Pokerati. All you lawyers, execs, programmers, Congresspeople, and part-time rodeo clowns … I gotta say, the search engine traffic is pretty dull compared to what brings people to sites like this and this. But while most of our search traffic comes from blase matter-of-factoids like Pokerati, WSOP, deep stack tournaments, and Julie Schneider stack em up, we do get a few visitors looking for peculiar, perverted, and/or misinformed content:
tied up hands and feet
lesbian poker
naked fat chick
joe cada is a jew?
hogtied men
the novembrists
oliver tse
are maria and tiffany gay
are the poker girls amazing race gay
(and lots of variants of the above theme)
joe cada shirtless
pictures of amy calistri nude
mitch garber asshole
hot boys guy donkeys
hookers at the commerce casino
óòðî
chau giang rub titties
LOL. Seriously … who are you people? And were you able to find everything you’re looking for?
Hey, I coined a phrase!
http://wordlust.blogspot.com/2009/04/politi-dude.html
Glad to see that all these years of compensating for my limited vocabulary with hyphens has finally paid off. High on the glory and power of being recognized for my creative typing by non-poker strangers, expect many failed attempts to repeat myself to ensue.
In the meantime, enjoy all sorts of useful yet unScrabbleable words here.
Jon in Las Vegas sends along an iPhone pic from the Venetian poker room — voted Best in Vegas by you, the Pokerati readers, in 2008 — where big deep stacks action is getting underway:
Will they be able to hold on for 2009?
Ultimate COO Paul Leggett has given an update to the blog at Ultimate Bet about the Phil Hellmuth v DOUBLEBALLER hand that caused all sorts of controversy in the online community since Saturday morning, a portion of that comment is excerpted below:
As we explained in our press release, the incorrect payout was caused by a software malfunction. The software malfunction occurred when the winning player was disconnected from the hand at the precise millisecond the software was determining whom to award the prize. This in conjunction with the “player’s state” data being cleared from memory caused this extremely improbable incident to occur.
Originally we were unable to reproduce the error in our test environment, until we programatically forced a disconnect to happen at the precise millisecond the hand was being awarded.
We have never had an issue like this reported previously and we have reviewed all of our database and application logs for December and November and have been unable to find any historical occurrences. We are continuing to go back further into the historical data to ensure no hands from the past need to be corrected. Analyzing this data takes time but we will continue to go back further and further into our history to ensure no one else was affected.
Leggett’s entire statement can be found at the Ultimate Bet blog.
Tokwiro Enterprises, who own Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, issued their own statement on the matter, after the jump:
Seen last night outside the new cash game room at Binion’s:
The reason for this seeming disparity?
A. Bluff too deep and heavy for casual reading.
B. Bluff has superior distribution channels to keep its supply always well stocked.
C. National Finals Rodeo in town — not huge John Juanda fans.
D. First issue of Bluff with an article by Dan Michalski.
E. Rounder has a better rack.
I think so, as the document below just came in … indicating not only that Pokerati can dot its “i” with a little ® now, but also that … well, um … I think that’s all. But still, kinda exciting around these parts to know we now have more grounds to theoretically protect our intellectual property sue somebody for something!
This webspace is now the official home of all things Poker followed by an “ati”.
Back in May, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy joined Team UB to much fanfare. A few minutes ago, he posted on 2+2 this message:
Just wanted you guys to know that you will no longer see me as a redlined pro in their lobbies, nor will you see me wearing their patches at live events any more.
That is all for now,
Bax
More updates when available, in the meantime Bax still appears as a pro bounty on their site.
Update: Bax’s staking partner Eric “Sheets” Haber added the following in the 2+2 thread:
The reason why Bax is no longer a UB pro is simply because UB renegged on its deal with him.
I was there for the phone conversation and can attest that this is the case.
They called him and openly renegged on their agreement without explanation and should be ashamed for doing so imo.
Ultimate Bet reneging on a promise? Say it isn’t so!
The day that the poker community has been waiting for has finally arrived, as the November Nine reunite to determine this year’s “World Champion”.
Has the 100+ day delay been a success? ESPN says ratings are the highest they’ve been in two years, but that was when Hellmuth and Matusow were heavily featured in the coverage. The hoped for mainstream coverage talked about when this all began never really came through, as Lou Krieger mentions.
Play is scheduled to start today at 10am PT at the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio in Las Vegas. For those that want to listen to the coverage, http://www.bluffmagazine.com/blufftvBluff Magazine and worldseriesofpoker.com will provide an audio stream along with constantly updated chip counts, using their Poker Tracker software. Nick Geber, Lacey Jones and a bunch of other guests will be in on the action. Jeffrey Pollack even writes a rare blog about tonight’s Hall of Fame ceremony, which will take place at about 7:15, just before play resumes from the dinner break. When heads-up play resumes Monday at 10pm PT, Erick Lindgren will receive his WSOP Player of the Year award (and whatever comes with that).
It was decided earlier last week that they will NOT redraw for seats, so here’s how they’ll be situated when cards go in the air (in case you forgot):
More…
Sorry I’ve been a little out of pocket in recent days weeks months. But I got kinda hooked on election coverage. Dammit, promised myself four years ago that I wouldn’t get caught up in the BS-laden pre-election horse race coverage, but instead ended up making the biggest prop bet of my life about a month ago — $1,000 on Barack Obama.
Since then, I’ve spent my days and nights flipping news channels and scouring YouTube for funny/insightful political vids to send to that great online Deuce-to-Seven player, luvgamble, aka Donkey Bomber, aka Tom the Plumber. My original offer was $500 +3 points, and when given the opportunity for better odds without the points, I had to double my wager. (That’s just smart gambling, right?) So when the pundits are saying there’s a lot at stake this election … they ain’t kidding!
Tom’s an Arizona homer for McCain who’s been mass-forwarding easily disprovable, often hypocritical right-wing propaganda for about a year-and-a-half now — the sort that screams, imho, “Holy shit, is America really gonna put Hillary Clinton a black guy in there!?!” To be clear: I’m not saying luvgamble nor any of his email distro cronies are racists or sexists. I’m just saying they’re white … and probably don’t own any Dr. Dre.
And that’s why I felt (and still feel) that I had a better read on the election than he did.
Just got back on the grid and playing electronic catch-up … here are some of the things that are making good browser viewing, but not quite stimulating a full-fledged post:
Jay Busbee (from Bluff) has a good State of the Poker Union address on ESPN.com, where he officially declares the poker boom dead. Also interesting to see ESPN, for the first time I remember in a long-long while, running (non-affiliate) PokerStars ads. [ESPN.com]
Poker Shrink Cranky Olde Coot has a good post wondering why FIDPA still hasn’t made the “new rules” they’ve long ballyhooed public. [PokerBlog.com]
Full Disclosure: FIDPA is one of my MySpace friends. [MySpace.com]
Liberal columnist Michael Kinsley shares a story about John McCain going on some extremely unpresidential tilt at the craps table. (The TJ Cloutier of Politics? Tons of success, a sometimes dangerous love of craps, and never quite able to win the Big One?) [The Daily Beast, via Huffington Post, via Short-Stacked Shamus]
Beyond the Table has a new home online. [Podcast.com]
I think Dr. Pauly’s starting to get a little miffed at me for not working out some production kinks and posting our re-constituted incarnation of Tao of Pokerati, but I think I can make him feel better by simply reading his blog. [Tao of Poker]
With all the talk of what really goes into a world-record endurance poker session, I forgot to send y’all to live-forum coverage of The Poker Den 3 — PartyPoker’s 36-hour high-stakes televised cash game. [MatchroomPoker.com]
Dutch Boyd apparently bought Steve Hall’s Pokerfolio in a semi-hostile takeover. Poor Steve … but he has found a new home for his poker updates/pictures of attractive Asian female dealers. [Pokerfolio.Spruz.com]
Also, the X-10 electronic table — a knock-off of the PokerTek PokerPro popping up in so many places — sharing the same name as a hidden camera used by so many pervy peeping toms before a few lawsuits encouraged them to re-market themselves as a security device. [SlipperyBrick.com]
And long overdue, here’s a great tale of a totally degenerate poker blogger/gambler rescuing his bankroll by poetically chasing/hitting the Station Casinos bad-beat jackpot. [TheTrooper97, via Up for Poker]
There’s more, too, coagulating in my bookmarks and inbox. News stories, forum threads, tourney results … Who knows … maybe I’ll get to them for your reading pleasure, but as is always the case from Head Slacker at this Little-Ole Poker Blog, no promises. It’s good to be back with you all.
LATE ADDITIONS:
Lacey Jones is getting ready for her co-hosting duties of Real Deal, the pokery interactive musical at The Venetian, which kicks off next week. [PokerListings.com via LasVegasAdvisor.com]
She also hosted an interesting event at Cathouse (as simply Lacey J) where women showed up for a seductive-attire contest where the winner got a boob job. [Photobucket.com]
Meanwhile, there was a hardcore SWAT-team poker raid in Fayetteville, NC. A firsthand account as well as some non-poker media coverage here and here. [Triangle Poker Journal]
It feels good to run good … and because it’s important to know whom you’re up against, here are six players you may wanna congratulate/look out for at the tables live and online, as their most recent noteworthy successes suggest they are running particularly well.
Mary Joe Belcore-Zogman
Heartland Poker Tour’s “The Grand Series”
Onamia, MinnesotaBested 201 players to take down $85,723 — making her the second woman to win an HPT event, and part of the first husband-wife team to both win on the Heartland Poker Tour. Dan Zogman won $220k in Gary, IN, last year. The Zogmans hail from McHenry, IL, about 60 miles outside of Chicago.
More details about her win at HeartlandPokerTour.com
Phil Ivey
Full Tilt Million Dollar Cash Game
LondonMade a stab at his 6th bracelet in the £2,500 HORSE at WSOP-Europe (banking more than US$25k for 6th place), and while overseas was the big winner in the million-dollar cash game against his fellow Full Tilt pros and other highest-stakes players. Finished +$536,400, dominating the competition for the second time in the event’s 3-year history.
Live-blog coverage from Michael Craig (relevant posts start in the #520s)
Brian the commenter down below inquired about whether or not you could have charity tourneys with money prizes in Texas, and whether or not you could advertise and promote them. The answer, of course, is … hard to say.
But I definitely have noticed a change back to the older, better ways. Back in the day, tourneys like La Riata used to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars by throwing a terrible-blind-structure event with lots of overpriced rebuys as wealthy Dallasites (and a few Batfaces) competed for a prize that generally consisted of a seat to the WSOP main event. But then the TABC (Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission) started threatening event hosts with liquor license gankage if they gave away a prize with any money value to the tournament winner — only a raffle was allowed, they said … and this of course was coming at the same time TABC was arresting drunk people in bars.
Anyhow, all this — which really, was fueled by some shady business practices of non-underground tournament operators, not any clear interpretation of the law — led to the bigger events to remove any competition for a prize … Dale Hansen canceled his huge fundraiser at Lone Star Park, Phil Hellmuth had to cancel an event in Houston that stood to raise at least a quarter-mil for the Susan B. Komen Foundation, and big charity events that carried on, like La Riata, basically had to take away every incentive for rebuys, which crippled fundraising efforts.
But after laying low for a couple years, charity events and the lawyers counseling their organizers seemed to re-reinterpreting Texas charity laws, hosting (and promoting) their poker-for-good-causes nonetheless — with real prizes! The Boys & Girls Clubs, Bea’s Kids … they all went off without a hitch. And earlier this summer, probably the biggest such event took place in San Antonio, with Tony and Eva Parker hosting a star-studded red-carpet charity tourney (emceed by Phil Hellmuth, of course) — resetting a standard that suggests it is indeed OK to give away a $10k+ prize package to raise hundreds of k.
For those that have forgotten, an article today on msnbc.com brings up the scandal yet again. Mike Brunker ties in a $80m (Canadian) claim against the former owner of UB –Excapsa Software Inc. of Toronto by Blast-Off Ltd. of Malta (the current UB owner).
It goes over the details of the two scandals, including mentions of NioNio, Russ Hamilton’s alleged involvement, 2+2 posters help in breaking the scandal, among other items, definitely worth reading.
While Jen was slaving away covering the WCOOP on the PokerStarsBlog this weekend, I was extremely busy playing in a $1,000 freeroll on PokerStars (12 players max). I’m sure it won’t make her extra-happy to know that I overslept for this special-invite tourney and logged in with an M < 1. But that's what it took to make the final table -- playing tighter than ever. My stats en route to finishing 9th:
During current Hold’em session you were dealt 122 hands and saw flop:
- 0 out of 21 times while in big blind (0%)
- 0 out of 22 times while in small blind (0%)
- 2 out of 79 times in other positions (2%)
- a total of 2 out of 122 (1%)
Pots won at showdown – 1 of 2 (50%)
Pots won without showdown – 0
The series of events is called The Run Good Challenge — mad props to our friends at PokerListings for putting it on. 10 independent typists and two professional bloggers from Listings … duking it out in a game of online hungry-hungry hippo for real American cash:
Event 1: NLHE, regular Stars Structure (Sept 6)
Event 2: NLHE, turbo structure (Sept 13)
Event 3: NLHE/PLO, regular structure (Sept 20)
Grand Final: NLHE Deep Stack structure (Sept 27)For the three prelims the top three spots will pay: $600, $300, $100. Grand final will consist of top five performers from external bloggers plus best of Dan or myself and will pay all six spots: $1,000, $650, $400, $200, $150, $100.
Sweet, no? Be sure to click below for “live” chatlog coverage from the feature table — kinda interesting to see how entertaining poker can be when you eliminate the hands. (And gives you disturbing insight into the sick minds of bloggers competing in a tournament that couldn’t happen at the WSOP without the entire final table being sent to the penalty box.)
One of the guys speaking last night in Denver (and so few seemed to be listening) was none other than Former Rep. Jim Leach (R-IO). We hate him! He’s pretty much the architect of the UIGEA, having written the defeated house bill that would be repackaged in the Senate and passed by Bill Frist.
But apparently, since being ousted, he’s had a change of political heart and is abandoning the Republican right wing in favor of the Obamawagon.
Here’s what the 2+2 kids have been saying about his transformation, and whether or not this makes him the Justin Bonomo of politics. And here’s what non-poker forums (do they really exist?) are saying.
I’m not so sure I trust this guy, but some of the things he said that caught my attention:
Yet what frustrates so many citizens is … the way today’s Republican Party has broken with its conservative heritage.
The party that once emphasized individual rights has gravitated in recent years toward regulating values. … And the party historically anchored in fiscal restraint has nearly doubled the national debt, squandering our precious resources in an undisciplined and unprecedented effort to finance a war with tax cuts.
Interestingly enough, Leach’s speech was followed by the commercial below, starring Matt Damon, the poker-friendly star of Rounders, for One.org:
Alas, no mention of poker on that site, either, as their special interest is apparently in ending global poverty. Hmmm … not sure how we can tailor the poker message to tie in with their worthy cause. But hey, we do know that Matt Damon is, um, “doing things” to Sarah Silverman, who will be playing in the PPA charity tourney tonight. So the connection between ending global poverty and allowing people all over the world to bet tens of thousands of dollars on a flush draw could be closer than we think!
Two others who made it through include SodaSara and Josh Evans. Don’t know what their starting chip counts are or if they are still alive. But happy to see both of them at least cashed in El Norte, the land of poker opportunity (for Texas players).
UPDATE: SodaSara finished 10th place … $60k or 2 percent (depending on which column(s) of the promised prize distributions WinStar stays true to).
Sara (right) is pretty bummed right now about just missing the final table. But soon she’ll realize she just booked her biggest poker score to date — finishing in the top 1 percent of a tough field — and presumably be feeling much better.
The PR people at Hard Rock are trying to keep a tight lid on the unveiling of their new “Poker Lounge”, which opens to the public tomorrow — they don’t want any bad pictures getting out that fail to capture the venue in all its glory, nor any inaccurate information being spread widely for many to misconstrue. Er … ok, but that’s kinda what we do, ya know?
I’ve heard two numbers about how costly this new construction was — $12 million and $30 million. While there’s a big difference between the two, and at least one of them is probably wrong, either way, you get the picture … it’s a really nice place — built from the ground up and the inside out. Brian from the Poker Atlas and I swung by yesterday, where they were busily at work in their final stages of preparation, and we got a little tour from the Director of Poker Operations, Houston Waldie, who was brought to HRH after his success turning the Golden Nugget’s rinky-dink room into arguably the best game downtown. No cameras allowed as he pointed out features he was most proud of, but I did manage to sneak a few pics from behind the ropes to give you a sense of the space we’re talking about here.
I gotta say … Fuckin’ A …
Go Hard Rock. (General info and future reviews here; official site here.)
The luxe tables, couches, chairs, flatscreens, etc. were all expected, maybe a tad nicer. But the art, the architecture, the vibe — all created specifically to be a poker room, the most well thought out and well funded since the Venetian — make me miss living on the east side of town, where the Hard Rock was the most convenient casino to my old pad. And though I suspect it may take some time to build up a player base (perhaps when the new hotel rooms at the Hard Rock open?) that should make it one of the premiere poker destinations in LV, at least the set-up for the action seems pretty sweet. Here are a few tidbits I picked up without the benefit of tape recorder or notepad:
So many of you have been saying it was bound to happen … and indeed, having come close to making the move my past two computers, this time I finally did it: have switched teams. I had to! My Dell Inspiron m700 was a muscle machine two years ago, but having filled it up to the max, it was running so hot, so slow, making strange clicking noises, and whenever I sat with it on my lap I started growing a third testicle on my inner thigh.
/i am now a Mac guy. So scary yet feels so good. So far the only problem I am having with it is hitting the slash instead of the shift key. But I am sure I can retrain my fingers, and if not, we’ll just make it a new writing thing.
Shame on me. On August 5, I was wishing the best to my good friends at PartyPoker, who turned 7 years old last week. But I forgot about Pauly – a presumably better friend and fellow blogger and my personal podcast partner and guy whom I speak with regularly and read sometimes as much — whose poker blog, Tao of Poker, celebrated its 5th birthday on that very same day.
(Yeow Yao, sorry dude, I’m not too good with birthdays unless MySpace reminders are involved.) But yo, happy B-day, man … and thanks for all the weed inspiration, ass-kickings, and entertainment you’ve provided all these years.
While I don’t think any of the poker-blogging “old dogs” ever thought when they started that they’d still be around after five — we gotta still be in single digits for the electronic scribes in this niche who have reached that milestone — I’m sure now his fear is that he will still be around when Tao turns 15.
UPDATE: Also happy birthdays to Jennicide (Aug. 10)
and Marco Traniello (Aug. 14).
This one will make Dan smile.
The first annual “All In for CP” charity poker tournament was held at Hollywood Park Casino in L.A. this past Sunday and is being hailed as a total success. More than $44,000 was raised for Jacob Zalewski’s One Step Closer Foundation, which helps ease the lives of those afflicted with cerebral palsy, as well as researchers seeking a cure.
Numerous celebrities and poker pros attended to make the event a success, names like Montel Williams, Shannon Elizabeth, Miguel Nunez, Jamie Gold, and Barry Greenstein. And in the end, it was The Simpsons creator and Hollywood writer/producer Dan’s man crush Sam Simon who won the tournament and donated all of the winnings back to the charity. Awww!
Congrats to Jacob for hosting his first charity tournament! Sorry I missed it, as I heard it was great fun, but hope to catch the next one…
I meant to put this picture up (or at least its predecessor) about 10 months ago to make fun of Tom, who was being told, sorry, there just aren’t any sponsorship deals out there for fat, balding middle-aged white American pros. So either someone was lying to Tom and/or he’s simply no Shawn Rice, because clearly Ultimate Bet wasn’t shying away from a certain marketably questionable ilk. Anyhow, the guys pictured here are the colonels in the “UB Army” Tiffany Michelle just joined. They are all supposedly really nice guys and seem happy to help market Ultimate Bet in exchange for buy-ins and free hats. Is that so bad?
In fact, I had forgotten … they even added another bald white guy to their mix recently — Scott Ian, the guitarist for Anthrax! Dude, Anthrax rocks! The guy Ian replaced in the pic (via Photoshop, apparently) was Jim Worth (aka KrazyKanuck). Not sure if Worth left the team on his own accord/principles, a la Eric Lynch (Rizen) or if he just couldn’t keep up with the “gripping lifestyles” (UB’s phrase, not mine) of Rice, Mark Kroon (P0kerH0), and Gary DeBernardi (Debo34). But regardless, you’ll notice Ian isn’t wearing any Ultimate Bet logotry in this official UB pic, but he is proudly displaying a Satanic pentagram from what we can only assume was a previous long-term patch deal with the devil.
Let’s get this out of the way up front. Now that I’m joining the Pokerati team (Do I get a jersey? Is number 17 available?), you’re going to see me writing about the “sport” of poker.
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.
It’s been nice knowin’ ya, but I’m outta here. Will be away from Pokerati for more than a week — yikes, that will be the longest I’ve been away from the controls ever. We’re not shuttin’er down or anything. I’m just taking my first real vacation since deciding to give up on the whole “job” thing back in ‘01. (Yeah, I know I work for Thrillist, too, but that’s not really a job, it’s a gig eating and drinking.) And it’s not even a vacation at that … I’m doing important poker research on the nuances of 40th Anniversary celebrations — you know, in preparation for the 2009 WSOP. Heading out with the entire family to the Caribbean — the folks, sisters, bro-in-laws, nephews, Grandma — for mom and dad’s 40th, but I won’t be bringing my computer (lie), so emails, comments, phone calls, etc. ain’t happening. Awesome Sorry.
I will be playing a little poker, mind you. Apparently the Carnival Imagination has a tourney or series of tourneys played on PokerPro electronic tables (neato!) and one of my “goals” for the vacation is to follow in the footsteps of this familiar face and win the whole dang thing:
In the meantime, California Jen (editorial) and Ed (technical) will be in charge … so please, bug them to keep you informed/entertained. KevMath, Goldfarb, and maybe even BJ Nemeth will be joining them to pick up the Danslack, which as we all know isn’t really that much.
Bon Voyage, suckers!
It’s been fun keeping track of the 2008 WSOP by city-nation-state … taught me a lot about something — what exactly, I’m not yet sure. But I did get a clearer picture of just how significant the main event really is compared to all other poker tourneys. Just a little more than a week ago, I wrote:
Unless something really funky happens in the main event, it looks like Nevada has the edge on California when it comes to home base for the best poker players in the world.
Well I guess something funky did happen, because even with the biggest prize-pool distributions TBD, California poker players absolutely dominated in the 2008 main event (93 cashes, 2 final tableists)… while the Nevadans (mostly Las Vegas-based, of course) seemed to be napping, or perhaps just resting on their laurels (49 cashes, 0 final tableists). Regardless, looking at the 55 events that comprised the 2008 WSOP, I think it’s clear that the visitors can stake their claim: California is the Poker Capitol of the World … at least for now.
GREAT DANES: Another big surprise (to me) — apparently the Scandis aren’t so overrated after all. Denmark in particular showed up at the main event ready to play, and not only did they get one of their own on the final table, but also they performed so well in the latter events that they scooched past a bunch of other supposed Europoker powerhouses in the money won. The best non-American players, according to these results, in order: Canadians, Brits, and then the Danes … who actually could move past the Brits come November … and if you add the Danish in with the rest of the Scandis, it’s clear that Scandinavia and the UK are like the California and Nevada of European poker.
What’s happening as the countdown is underway for the November Nine:
Now that we know who the November Nine are, who do people root for?
Is it the chip leader from St. Louis?
Is it the quiet Russian?
Will it be the grinder from Los Angeles?
Can it be the player with 10 BB’s, has two female first names, and is on a virtual freeroll from this point forward?
Will the Canadians have their first Main Event winner?
Will the FIDE Master from New York follow through on his threat to be invisible until November?
Can the only player from Texas bring the holdem title back to the Lone Star State?
Will the Danish player do what Gus Hansen was unable to do in the Series?
Only 117 days until we start finding out…
These shots were taken on Day 2, and they show the player sitting to Pat Poels’ left trying to sneak a peak at his hole cards. I told Pat about this, btw, and like Tommy Grand or Joey Greco, I showed him the surveillance footage of the disappointing truth.
“It’s better that you know,” I told him.
But Pat reassured me that it’s OK, his opponent didn’t see anything, because “I’m very good at looking at my cards,” he said with a straight face as if he were being totally serious about a practiced skill. “Just ask Robert, he’s told me before when trying to sweat me he can’t see my cards.”
Pat is currently on break in Day 4 of the main event — 450k in chips with 350 players remaining, one of whom is not the guy at right.
Phil Gordon is still alive and well in the main event — and because he clearly doesn’t have his podcast priorities straight, I got to sit in for him on ESPN’s The Poker Edge. This was new poker podcast territory for me, as co-host Andrew Feldman made me talk about actual poker players and chips — as if we were tracking some sort of athletic competition or something. But in doing so, we actually get down to the brass tax of it all, and break down what this field size, blind structure, and remaining-player make-up means for various stack sizes going into Day 3.
Click here to have a download/listen.
36:40
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Oh, by the way, ESPN also honors Raj Kattamuri as the 2008 WSOP Main Event-Day 2B Player of the Day. Go Dallas poker!
As action gets underway on day 2B, we’ve got a few players you may or may not know that we’ll be paying a little extra attention to. Be sure to check in with CSR for some chip reports from and about:
Whit Blanton — He’s a wannabe semi-pro from Dallas, who’s almost made enough money in poker to quit his job. He sat at the same table as Pokerati teammate (P-mates?) Tom Schneider on Day 1, and took a little extra pleasure in reclaiming the chips that Tom had given to Mark Newhouse … particularly doing so by cracking Newhizzle’s aces with a skillfully played 68s. Whit starts the day in strong chip position with 101,450. The question to him on Day 2 is how he will wield it, especially when fueled by the boost of confidence a near-double-up at the end of Day 1 provided.
Pat Poels — He’s a two-time bracelet-winner and host at Casino Arizona who’s had an “OK” WSOP. He’s made more money than most of his buddies this year, but hasn’t yet had the big score to make his 2008 WSOP highly profitable. He had some stretches of really good cards in Day 1, which forced him to make some really big/frustrating/difficult laydowns. He goes into Day 2 with 64,650 chips.
Jerry Randack — Jerry’s a well-rounded player who burst onto the scene with a strong 2nd-place finish in the 2007 Pokerati Invitational, and has since found much success at the small-tourney tables. He cashed in a NLH event at the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge III, took 2nd in Triple-Draw Lowball in the Oklahoma State Poker Championship, and final tabled earlier this summer in a Binion’s Poker Classic PLO event. We’ll find out how he handles the Day 2 pressure of a short-ish stack — 29,700 — with blinds beginning to rise.
The Big Randy – TBR played comfortably throughout Day 1, and though he starts with a below-average stack — 27,100 — the self-proclaimed top-ranked all-around Batface (cash-game and tournament results) really likes the structure and recognizes the deep-stack nature of this tourney is still in play. “Feels like ‘05,” he says, referring to his first main event where he nursed a much shorter stack for four day before cashing for $40k.
Robert Goldfarb – After “Goldfarbing” his way into the main event, he sits with 21,025 chips and has just been playing his game … though the cards haven’t yet come and he hasn’t yet gained any real traction. How the start of Day 2 goes for him, I think will be critical.
Let me start out by saying that the Ante Up for Africa tournament is a stellar effort to raise money for Darfur refugees and awareness of the mass atrocities taking place in Africa and around the world. The ENOUGH and Not On Our Watch projects are doing wonderful things, and I hope this tournament raises a great deal of money for the causes.
The tournament was held in the Brasilia room here at the Rio. That’s all I know. How many players? Didn’t have time to count because the media was given 15 minutes for photos before we were kicked out. Names of all the celebrities and poker pros? Again, not enough time to write them down. Hopefully, a press release will be issued with all of the information at some point.
Good news? Mekhi Phifer was playing in the tournament.
Bad news? I’m not sure where to begin.
Blanket statement: The media aspect of this day was handled poorly. Very poorly.
Anthropologists and homicide detectives alike know you can tell a lot about a person based on the contents of their trash … yikes, a little scary to see what’s in the rubbish bin at Pokerati’s non-Rio Las Vegas headquarters:
Seriously, that can’t be healthy, can it?
John Bonetti died in Houston this week at age 80. The three-time WSOP bracelet winner was loved by players, hated by dealers, and according to his good friend Phil Hellmuth (via PokerNews), “[He would have been] a huge star if the cameras had come five years earlier.” Bonetti was an old-time player who found continued success at the tables even against a younger generation of players in a new poker era — all the way through 2006 when his health began to decline.
Recapping the Friday action and a preview for today:
The $1,500 7 Card Stud winner turned out to be Mike Rocco, who endured the barbs of Al Barbieri to take down his first bracelet and about $135,000.
The $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better World Championship stopped play with 18 left, they get to return at 3pm to determine their winner. The final two tables have plenty of notable names remaining, which consist of:
Table 14
1 Danny Dang 257,000
2 Stuart Paterson 96,000
3 Eugene Katchalov 252,000
4 Chau Giang 384,000
5 Shun Uchida 134,000
6 Pat Pezzin 65,000
7 David Benyamine 378,000
8 Ram Vaswani 569,000
9 Toto Leonidas 269,000
Table 15
1 Brent Carter 114,000
2 Jason Gray 347,000
3 Berry Johnston 338,000
4 Mike Matusow 396,000
5 David Chiu 372,000
6 Greg Jamison 208,000
7 Hieu “Tony” Ma 319,000
8 Ray Dehkharghani 149,000
9 William McMahan 76,000
The ESPN360 final table for today on the next page…
A common question I’m getting these days: “So are you playing much? How’s it going?”
In a nutshell, at the tables, not particularly well. (Especially compared to last year, whence I shocked myself by making more money playing during the WSOP than actually working during the WSOP.) I’ll see if we can’t whip up a visually compelling WSOP bankroll chart/graph … but in the meantime, it’s not like you have to be able to read music to get a sense of what the following — which is all the poker I have played over the past two weeks — would look like:
Day 2, 2/5 NL, Rio, 3 hours:
-$300
Day 6, 2/5 NL, Rio, 2 hours:
-$300
Day 12, 1/3 NL, Rio, 3.5 hours:
-$187
Rick in Greenville, TX writes in with what would count as a major beef in a bizzarro poker world:
Hey Dan o,I have been a loyal DAILY Pokerati reader for 3 years now. We (myself and 13 other Pokerati readers from Greenville, Texas) will be heading out to the WSOP next week.
I met you for the first time at the Rio last year and you introduced me to The Donkey Bombers wife. She even let me touch Toms newly acquired bracelet. Woo Hoo…
Keep up the good blogging, bowling, drinking, losing….it makes for great reading
Rick
Pokerati-zen
Rick, thanks for the prizzops, but you clearly haven’t been reading us, because we clearly haven’t even started working yet.
A lot of us WSOP media veterans (this will be Pokerati’s 5th year in attendance, which I think is longer than any other blog) see the World Series as Christmas season for poker. Think about it … right now we’re at about Thanksgiving, and a month from now, the hardcore holidays begin — with the Gaming Expo and main event … and then time to celebrate a new poker year. (Will be a bit different this year, however, without a new champion to ring it in.) It really is pretty impressive when you realize that the WSOP is just another poker brand … and yet poker players all over the world get excited about it. The clicks and shuffles of chips begin this week, and that ever-pokery rattle and hum in the Amazon room won’t stop for nearly 1,100 hours.
What’s new for Pokerati this go-round is that we’re already here. Usually about this time, my personal scramble to get out of Dallas is just beginning, and I’m hoping to arrive before Event #10 while steering clear of the New Mexico and Arizona Highway 5-0. But having crossed the Hoover Dam nearly six months ago … I’m here … yippee. Not sure what to do with myself. I guess I’ll start by reading the official WSOP preview press release — which you can do, too, by clicking below:
Bluffing hasn’t gone well for me lately … just curious if anyone would believe me if I told them I lost a big shirts vs. skins prop bet to Pauly:
exciting, i know. but he is leading his group after 16. all the winners of their day 1 groups get their buyins back and move to day 2 to fight for the real money.
Just checking out the World Series of Golf at Paiute. Phil Ivey got ko’d on the first hole. Tom Schneider went out on #7. “very hard to do,” says tom.
more TK
//danm via mobile
As you may be noticing, Pokerati has lost a little weight … and gotten a new haircut. The haircut part might take a couple weeks to grow into. The rest of it should be all good, though we may need to buy new pants.
Anyhow, stay tuned as we continue to roll out Pokerati 4.0, and feel free to use this post here to leave comments about anything that isn’t working/looking right for you. Overall, you should find the site faster, easier to read, and generally more engaging. And if you do the right combination of clicks, Ronaldinho will get super-powers and be able to score from anywhere on the page.
Hmm … apparently our big Pokerati sign at the top of this page has fallen down. Yikes, normally I would call on TFG to fix it, but you know … a long time ago I lived in an apartment that got really dirty. My roommate and I made some sincere efforts to clean it up, but eventually just moving became the more logical solution …
NOTE TO DISPLACED ADVERTISERS: We haven’t forgotten about you! Send duct tape!.
UPDATE: Header is back. Advertisers, you are next. I owe many of you a beer.
Not sure if you noticed, but Pokerati was down for the past 24 hours. Oh, sure, it didn’t appear down — which kinda made matters worse — but none of us had the ability to write a post, edit anything, leave a comment, etc. Very frustrating/scary … at a time when all sorts of good things were going on.
These situations usually spring up once or twice a year, at which point I call The Fat Guy in an absolute panic, and he stops whatever he’s doing and tells me not to cry. Then, usually, he calls me a few hours later and everything’s fixed. But this time was different. With the site totally paralyzed, he was telling me he couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was wrong. (Gulp.) He even had one of his uber-tech-geek buddies take a look, but he too couldn’t solve the problem, let alone identify it. And to make matters ironically worse, this was all going down on the 172nd anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto. Probably serves us right for temporarily forgetting the Alamo.
Anyhow, blah blah blah, now Pokerati is back in action and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. Turned out to be my bad, as you can see below.
Note to advertisers: Oops, sorry we deleted your stuff. We’ll have it back up within 36 hours before week’s end, and of course be crediting you with extra days, paying back the down time at 2:1 3:2.
Four years ago today — on the glorious holiday that is 4-20 — Pokerati went live. Our first post was about a new online poker site that also just went live called Full Tilt. Prediction at the time: “I suspect this site will fare well.”
Boo-yah! Right on target … that’s how prescient Pokerati can be! Granted, we also said the online poker room market was also probably saturated in April 2004 … hey, you can’t hit a home run every time, right?
We’ve gone through lots of changes over the years, and more TK for sure. Personally, I can’t believe I’ve stuck to anything for four years … but it’s amazing what the burning desire to not work ever will do for you. Anyhow, thanks for reading us once or twice during that time. Kiss off, I don’t need you! We couldn’t have done it without you. So thanks again, happy blog-birthday to me. Maybe next year Full Tilt and Pokerati should have their party together.
All In magazine is no CardPlayer … (seriously, I don’t think anyone would disagree) …
Rumor has it that they have bestowed Pokerati’s own Donkey Bomber with the Bobby Brady Award for being the best Tom Schneider he could be. Assuming it’s true — no confirmation yet from the All In website — big congrats, Tom! You definitely deserve the 2007 AIM MIPOY, and you couldn’t have done it if you didn’t play so bad a few years ago when poker was booming work so hard!
Or at least I am drinking it (8 percent variety) … as I finish up my day and get ready for the night:
Not bad.
