Kevmath 2.0

Kevmath

Kevin Mathers, the venerable 2+2 moderator and longtime blogger-editor at Pokerati, will not be posting here for the foreseeable future.

No joke … he has been relieved indefinitely from Pokerati blogging duties. Technically, we had to “let him go”. Sucks, but we just couldn’t afford the increasingly valuable services of the hottest independent info-tweeter in poker. Here is a copy of his termination papers:

Kevin, I saw your interview on TWIP. Good job. I also just read Can you send me relevant threads from 2+2?

Hey, so, you are fired. Sorry. Hard times.

I really wanted to believe you were a bot.

See you on Twitter or something?

Rumor is Kevmath is headed to the minor leagues Bluff, where he and Jess Welman would form quite the menacingly mighty poker-reportage duo. Of course without Kevmath, Pokerati will change … we’ve got Gahagan to work double time and some other changes in store, but we might have to cut back on some previously standard coverage elements, such as “facts”.

But @Kevmath did leave behnd a Pokerati farewell … after 30 months, 579 posts, and 1,642 comments, all of which helped make this a better place … seriously, how lucky were we to have him as long as we did? Glad the “for hire” media finally came around.

Check back to read what hopefully won’t be the last time we see @Kevmath around these parts.

More multimedia for your Friday … Team Pokerati got some good lovin’ on ESPN this week. Good thing, too, because The Big Randy would fail to deliver on his patch-wearing duties early on Day 4 when he happened to be sitting next to Michael Mizrachi … have a quick listen to step back in WSOP-time when Pauly and I seemed to have a certain prescience about both patches and Mizrachis starting to mean something:

Tao of Pokerati
Episode 64: Big Head Randy and the Min-Cashers – Dan and Pauly hang out at the Bad Beat bar and wonder if they are coolers? Or if the Big Randy had busted out because he was not wearing a Pokerati patch. Yes, the Big Randy busted before the money bubble. The discussion shifts to the bubble strategy for PokerStars qualifiers who also have a PCA package riding on the line along with the min-cash.

Fortunately, team captain Tom didn’t disappoint (anyone but himself and his family). Schneider showed up on ESPN this week, playing the main event on the outermost feature table, and for a surprisingly funny bit with him and fellow Team Pokerati-er Julie Schneider, as Norman Chad tries to learn about cooking and/or what makes a poker marriage work:

Be sure to check out Pauly’s post about this episode — scroll down to Day in the Life of the DonkeyBomber and Pancakes with Angry Julie — for some decidedly Tao take on Tom and his Loudmouth living.

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Really quickly, before today’s poker news starts streaming in and the main event at Detox Poker gets underway … below is the video from the Pokerati tournament earlier this week. It lasted into the wee hours, not unlike this year’s WSOP Final-10-to-November-Nine … yeah, pretty much exactly the same thing.

Perhaps strangely perhaps not, I have little experience on either side of the bustout interview … but the ever-belletristic Marco from QuadJacks was on hand and presumably half-awake to discuss the finale of Detox Event #11, which saw Lev Serzhenko beat yours truly to claim the $5,184 first prize befitting the newest Pokerati (NLH/PLO) Champion.

Final hand, btw: No-Limit Hold’em, outchipped about 4:1 … I check-raise all-in when my Ace pairs the flop … Lev calls semi-quickly with open-ended straight and flush draws, and makes runner-runner trips FTW! (Dammit.)

Yeee. A little giddy like a school girl here … registration is open at the Hard Rock Poker Lounge for Event #11 of Matt Savage’s Detox Poker Series:

$230 Pokerati NLH/PLO (with single $200 rebuy) – 5 pm

Registration will stay open until, I believe, 7 pm.

The winner, of course, will earn not just the lion’s share of whatever semi-phat prize pool coagulates, but also his or her place among this website’s honored, heralded, and sometimes ballyhooed victors.

Scroll down to see who already has earned their lifetime spot in this special stratum of Team Pokerati.

(It was a tough call, but the P-board decided a few years ago that no matter how grievous an offense… you are, and always will be, a Pokerati Champion — entitled to at least a fractional percentage of the rights and privileges bestowed therein. Seriously, lifetime … like emeritus. You could be a cracked-out porn star caught disemboweling an illegal immigrant or colluding online while being blown by Russ Hamilton … and you still retain the title!)

It’s been too long … but not-so-incidentally, 2010′s $230 NLH/PLO w/1×200 Rebuy winner will be the first Pokerati Champion crowned outside of Texas, and the first to be recognized for something other than just Texas Hold’em.

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Though not so sure it’s the sexiest table ever, guess I’m glad to see the Hard Rock design team moving away from Ed Hardy styles in favor of something akin to … um, an Excel spreadsheet?

Still, fancy lines aside … as something of a new guy in the attaching-blog-names-to-Nevada-tournaments racket, kinda cool to leave one’s mark at least in a small way on the fabric of licensed-and-regulated corporately overseen real-money Vegas.

Tomorrow is the second guarantee @DetoxPoker … $50k assured, for a $230 buy-in with a single $200 rebuy. That makes the math pretty hard to do for how many runnin’ rebuyers they need to avoid putting up an overlay … and potentially having one of the new suits chopping heads from the Poker Lounge staff willy-nilly. But gotta think they’ll make that small one.

Of course the real event everyone’s talking I’m thinkin’ about is tomorrow’s big Pokerati event at 5 pm. While there’s no guarantee in play beyond good times, lots of action, and a little PLO tourney experience — and its still unclear how CardPlayer intends to interpret their own rules for POY points — Event #11 is the one tournament at Detox offering a true World Championship.

I know this because I declared it so myself … and I’m pretty sure that’s how it works in poker! So as of right now, until someone declares otherwise, tomorrow’s late Detox event will be the 2010 Pokerati NLH/PLO Championshi … check that … make it the 2010 NLH/PLO World Championship!

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Everybody seems to want more of him … especially in Europe, where he’s arguably the most famous faceless person in poker since Isildur1/Viktor Blom.

The Dutch contingent of PokerNews Radio tracked down Kevmath — the great Googler from 2+2, Pokerati, and PokerStarsBlog — to discuss the latest in the ongoing UB Scandal (as per the recent feature from Wicked Chops).

Always providing reader-service … for those who may not have more than a few minutes to get caught up on the scandal they long got too confused about to follow … Kevmath gives the quick essentials of the current situation as seen through his insightful culling of the internet.

Check him out with @webjoker and @happyfreaked:

And if you haven’t seen it already, while listening be sure to check out the lol-laden thread on 2+2, Who/What is Kevmath?

The Detox Poker Series is right around the corner, starting Friday Aug. 13 with a $100k Guarantee for a $350 buy-in with two day ones, re-entry allowed. The spankin’-new small-stakes/big-action festival comes at a whispery time around the home room to the Pokerati NLH/PLO game … with a new crew of top-level casino brass combing through the Hard Rock’s books while walking through various gaming areas with tape measures … raising uncomfortable questions about the fate of the $12 million, two-year-old poker lounge that has seen its ups and downs without yet fully realizing its potential.

Of course that’s kinda the point of bringing in an internationally renowned tourney director. Or at least it was initially. Kinda still works, but for different reasons …

First things first … Savage has guaranteed the guarantees — $350k worth. This is despite a misleading tweet just two weeks ago from @hardrockpoker saying there’d be $1 million in guaranteed prize pools. [/shaking head] It coulda just been a hyperbolic typo, but an amusingly ironic one then considering the Hard Rock’s image problems after a few overpromises that these tourneys were to help put to rest. But according to Matt himself on 2+2, he’s got the $350k locked up by contract no matter how few players show.

Beyond that … expect an extra-partytime atmosphere around typical Savage series stuff (deep structures, quality dealers, friendly intelligent floor, good internet coverage, etc.) to liven up the joint: He’s in charge of providing ultra-improved tournament action while the Hard Rock promises to provide good music and a guaranteed flow of nipple-friendly eye-candy stumbling past the poker room.

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The Poker Beat’s Huff-honcho was away crafting his life and future … so I somehow, as a third- or fourth-stringer, commandeered the hosting chair. Think I can now lay claim to being the Glen Carano of poker podcasting!

With @JessWelman, @BJNemeth, and new-to-twitter @GaryWise1 providing analysis and reality checks, we got into Israel’s sudden crackdown on online gambling, the WSOP-Circuit revamp, and of course, the latter stages of the 2010 WSOP Main Event … along with the WPT Season 9 overhaul, which happened to be getting underway across the highway at Bellagio, in rather star-powered fashion.

July 15, 2010

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Yesterday was the beginning of the real tournament, with all players converged into a single field, just with different starting stacks determining how hard a fight they might face, and how much bad-beat insurance they were carrying.

Today is the money bubble day, arguably the most intense day of big-field poker you can find. 7,319 started last week, 1,203 remain … 747 make the money. Tomorrow it will be about who gets to play for “real money”.

Here’s everyone who still has a dream, some more desperate than others, sortable by name, chip count, or table assignment:

2010 WSOP Main Event Day 4 Seat Assignments, Chip Counts

Lots of people worth watching … tons of big-name pros, plenty of rising stars, but the only not-so-pokery celeb being Hank Azaria, of The Simpsons and the voices of Chief Wiggum, Moe, and Apu. Follow the action throughout the day here.

Team Pokerati has just one remaining player, The Big Randy, who went out last year three hands into Day 4, before getting a chance to fight through the money bubble.

• The average chip count should be about 182,500
• Brown has 140,100
• That puts him at 632nd out of the 1,203 remaining players, and 4th out of 4 remaining Browns
• Blinds start tomorrow at 1200/2400 + 300
• That leaves our player with 58 big blinds and an M=22

TBR’s starting table tomorrow has a fellow Texan from Arlington and the shortest-stacked of all remaining Mizrachis. Next to the Grinder is Chris Bjorn … overall looks to be not a bad seat draw, with the biggest stack (5th overall in the tournament) two to TBR’s right:

Table 277, by seat

1. Brian Fite (Arlington, TX) — 151,600
2. John Brown (Dallas, TX) — 140,100
3. James Czarnecki (Edgewater, MD) – 88,400
4. Jan Boye (Harrow, GB) — 213,600
5. Chris Bjorin (London, GB) — 132,200
6. Michael Mizrachi (Miami, FL) — 91,700
7. Samuel Edwards (Las Vegas, NV) — 131,000
8. Jose Tavares (Commerce, CA) — 48,300
9. Max Casal (Burbank, CA) — 687,200

As much as I’ve noted Team Pokerati’s struggles on the felt this summer, it’s not like our players don’t know their way to the WSOP payout window. Here’s a rundown of the team’s representative real-money scores so far:

(Click below for the Team Chauhan comparative results.)

Tom to La, after Team Pokerati’s first and only FT of 2010: “Congrats, you really played great. If I don’t bink a tourney soon, think you might be able to float me some scratch?”

Tom Schneider
$4,348 – 128th – $1.5k NLH
$22,085 – 14th – $1k NLH/Seniors
$3,352 – 52nd – $1.5k PLH
$6,128 – 32nd – $1.5k Omaha Hi/Lo

La Sengphet
$22,728 – 7th -$1k NLH/Ladies

Pat Poels
$13,232 – 10th – $2.5k Limit 2-7 3x

Robert Goldfarb
$6,128 – 29th – $1.5k Omaha Hi/Lo

The Big Randy
$3,428 – 196th – $1.5k NLH

Toothless Bob
$3,080 – 2nd place – $150 NLH (Binion’s Poker Classic)
$1,240 – 1st place – $65 NLH (Sahara nightly)
$355 – 4th place – $65 NLH (Sahara nightly)

John Harris (85Nutz)
TBD – first 2010 WSOP day 2 – $1k NLH

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Will La Sengphet be the only player to have repped the upside-down spade at a final table this year?

Though we’ve had a handful of cashes and a couple deep scores (in non-open events), Pokerati’s crew of patch-wearing competitors have admittedly struggled. Now, more than a month into the 2010 WSOP, we know it’s not gonna be about who can rack up the most bracelets (and pieces of Pokerati) in pursuit of Player of the Year, but who can pull out a big save … preferably before the main event!

Toothless Bob is still alive, btw — I mean in life, not any tournament — for those who were concerned. Turns out he just lost his phone and needed to wander aimlessly for a few days to shake off his early departure from the Seniors event after reportedly flopping Aces-full and running into flopped quads.

And Tom hasn’t gone totally broke yet — though he might be coming to believe those high buy-in mixed-game events (you know, the ones where every table has multiple world-class pros) might not be the best use of bankroll compared to low-cost no-limit events.

For Harris, a former WSOP dealer now working as both dealer and floor guy at the Venetian, it’s been all about low-cost no-limit events … and so far he’s gone 0-for-3. And while that’s just mathematically how these donkuli sometimes work, I’m not so sure @85Nutz was necessarily expecting the ill effects of regularly repeated run-bad on a not-yet super-accomplished player’s psyche.

It’s the kinda thing that can really shake a player’s confidence in his game. However, this weekend, armed with pre-game leak advice from The Maven (who happened to play at his table in a previous $1k) and a poker counseling session with DonkeyBomber on big-field strategy, Team Pokerati’s weekend warrior made his first Day 2 of 2010 … not necessarily in great shape, but a successful grind to get him to a point from where he’s propelled himself to a final table before.

Here’s the note he sent his WSOP backers, who are all petulantly waiting for a return on their money enthusiastically cheering him on:

I’m sorry for the late update, my phone died right as we finished for the night. Here are the stats going into tomorrow.

Total Entries: 3128
Players Left: 446
My Chip Count: 12,425
Avg Chip Count: 21,040
Blinds: Level 9 – 300/600 w75 ante (15 minutes left in level 9)
Places in Money: 324
324th: $1,886
1st: $485,642

We restart tomorrow at 2:30 Vegas time. We will be moving into the famous Amazon Room to table 334, seat 6. I’m off to get some rest after a long day.

You can follow the run-up to cash in the latest weekly $1k and other events here. Many Pokeratizens know Richard Ferro; he goes into Day 2 fourth in chips.

Other notables positioning themselves to avoid and/or absorb bad beats as the field races toward the bubble and beyond include Jeff Madsen (23rd, 42k) and Chris Moneymaker (24th, 41k).

Mickey Appleman, David Levi, David Sklansky, Terrence Chan, Lyle Berman, Antonio Esfandiari, and JJ Liu all have slightly above average stacks.

A few updates … team captain Tom Schneider is off to a solid start, with a mid-cash and a min cash after four events … playing now in NL 2-7. Still tabulating results from Goldfarb, Ms. Schneider, Noam the Enforcer and a few yet-to-be introduced’s. Harris gives the $1k a second go tomorrow. And even Toothless Bob, bankroll-fortified by his B-squad Vegas alt-tourney wins, played his first ever hands of live PLO in Thursday’s Hard Rock game … and cashed out a small winner.

Fans swarmed all around as the 2-7 triple-draw got to its final two tables, and Pat Poels began to think about his first bracelet in a non-split event.

But so far, getting closest to the WSOP hardware has been Pat Poels, the other 2-bracelet holder on Team Pokerati … who finished 10th in Event #7, $2,500 2-7 Triple-draw for a $13k+ payday. The Casino Arizona host knows he can play, but comes to the 2010 WSOP with cashouts meaning more than they have in previous years and a desire to prove to himself that there’s still room for a player like him to earn a respectable living by outplaying the competition in a wide variety of games.

He says to his Pokerati fans and manager:

My plans are to induce pain, and to collect buy-ins. Bio? Well, I like warm bubble baths and long walks on the beach, and mean people and taxes turn me off. And I’ve had a 3-year gap since my last bracelet. Time to fix that.

Shirt size XL.

A little self-promotion … check out the latest issue of Southwest Spirit magazine. The cover story is a feature on cruises. Scroll about 4/5 down the page; yours truly speaks as an expert on all things gambling … and give my tips to cruisers on how to enjoy the most bang for their ocean-gambling buck at not just Texas Hold’em, but also slots, blackjack, and roulette.

LOL, if only they really knew …

Pick up a copy in a Southwest Airlines seat back near you.

UPDATE: Cruisers beware of pirates.