As we pointed out a week or so ago, the WSOP is actively protecting their name as it pertains to all things paper … books, magazines, etc. … and now, though from what I understand all is normal with Bluff semi-contracted to produce the official WSOP programs again this year, Harrah’s filed an application two weeks ago for ownership of the phrase “World Series of Poker” as it pertains to “event programs”.
The Feds are reviewing the matter.
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My latest Bluff column is now up online … in this episode I call out the Scandis for potentially causing a violent international incident:
Without a doubt, for low stakes players MGM cash games can be a test of nerves…. Little did I know it would be a test of my sanity, not to mention my criminal intent.
The villain in this story is a slowroller, so I’m sure most will understand. Before the night was over he had an entire table plotting revenge. The plan was to gang-tackle him in an elevator, beat him senseless, take his money, then beat him some more, and then, just to let him know we weren’t really crooks, roll up the cash and wedge it in his facial orifices. Or at least that’s what one of us was thinking… that’ll teach him proper etiquette!
Pokerati’s own Dan Michalski took part in an “expert panel” for ESPN with Dr. Pauly, Chops of Wicked Chops Poker, Gary Wise, Bernard Lee, Lance Bradley of Bluff Magazine, and ESPN.com’s Andrew Feldman ranking the field of the NBC National Headsup Poker Championship, starting on Friday. Since I’m only able to write an article at one of these sites, let’s take a look at how Dan ranked the field:
Everyone’s hustlin’ gigs these days … and beyond status updates to my Facebook page, I’ve found two welcome homes for some non-Pokerati writing — at Bluff, and most recently What’s On … where I let the not-so-poker-geeky Vegas tourists know about happenings of interest from the LV poker scene, such as:
The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza (which I think ended yesterday or today!) and, coming up, Dream Team Poker.
You may recall a couple recent polls we’ve run inquiring who were the most influential people in poker for 2008, working either alone or as a group, for better or for worse. Bluff Magazine did something similar, and their “Poker Power 20″ is on newsstands now. Their results are listed below, but for comparison’s sake, here’re our collective results, as determined by you, the best damn websurfers in poker:
The Pokerati Team – 44
Jeffrey Pollack – 39
Russ Hamilton – 30
PokerStars – 29
WSOP/Harrah’s – 26
Daniel Negreanu – 23
The Batfaces – 21
Bloggers (Pauly, Wicked Chops, Nat Arem, et al.) – 16
American Government (DOJ, Congress, Kentucky, etc.) – 13
Barney Frank – 11
The PPA – 9
Phil Hellmuth – 9
TV Networks (ESPN, GSN, NBC, et al.) – 7
Forums (2+2, Neverwin, et al.) – 7
shronk – 7
AP/UB/Cereus – 6
The Kahnawake – 5
Russian Mob – 5
PokerNews – 4
Brian Balsbaugh (Poker Royalty) – 4
John Pappas (PPA) – 3
Howard Lederer – 3
Non-Poker Media (60 Min, Post, NYT, etc.) – 2
Bluff Media – 1
And here’s Bluff’s list, in reverse order:
20. Wicked Chops Poker
19. “The Backers”
18. Poker Players Alliance
17. CardRunners
16. Ivan Demidov
15. WSOP Players Advisory Council
14. Doyle Brunson
13. 2+2
12. PokerNews.com
11. World Poker Tour
10. Professional Poker Players
9. Bluff Media
8. Poker PROductions
7. Daniel Negreanu
6. Barney Frank
5. Poker Royalty
4. Full Tilt Poker
3. ESPN
2. PokerStars
1. World Series of Poker
Bluff Magazine has those dates listed for the 2009 WSOP, similiar to last year’s schedule. However, there are no tournaments listed yet, expect that to be known shortly.
One-time Pokerati contributor (and my hunting coach) Nick in Dallas writes in with a request for some charity theatrical poker tourney assistance:
Hey Dan,
So some friends and I are going to throw a poker tournament in February here in Dallas as a fundraiser for a theater production company that we started this fall (www.UpstartTheater.com). Blue Mesa Grill is going to host the games (free appetizers and happy-hour-priced drinks) and we are going to have a $20 per player donation buyin with rebuys. I was wondering if you had any advice/suggestions:
– How often should we up the blinds so that a game starting around 3 on a Sunday will be over by 8 or 9 at the latest?
– Do you know any poker company/group willing to lend/donate us enough chips and cards for 100 people or so?
– Do you know any poker company/group that would be interested in donating a prize?
– Do you know any poker company/group that would be interested in financially sponsoring the event (we’re tax deductible) in exchange for publicity on our event fliers, website, and performance playbills?
– Do you know ways to publicize this to the Dallas poker-playing community?
– Anything else you think would be helpful?thanks a lot,
Nick
Nick, as always, good to hear from you. One of these days you will find purpose in your life and ditch the restaurant-service/medical-technology career combo, as well as your passion for the arts and philanthropy, to discover your true calling as a poker blogger. Either that, or you are clearly nothing without Markus and Andy.
In the meantime, click below for answers to your questions:
When Tom “durrrr” Dwan wanted to play poker with stakes higher than you can find in your average poker room, he simply issued a challenge to players everywhere. The magic of the big ol’ internet allowed him to get the word out, and he found some takers for his $1.5 million wager. Of course he did. In this economy where people are losing their jobs and houses, cutting back on expenses, and crunching numbers to make sure the basic bills are paid, people like Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, and Patrik Antonius have the ability to play poker for millions of dollars.
Bluff Magazine originally reported that Dwan was ready for some high stakes action, except against friend and fellow online pro Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. He wanted to play 50,000 hands of $200/$400 PLO or NLHE on four tables. (Multi-tabling must mean this challenge pertains to online poker only, I assume.)
In addition to money won, if the player who has the cajones and bankroll to take up the challenge is even $1 up after rake, he wins $1.5m. If durrrr is up after the 50k hands, he wins $500k. For those who aren’t mathematically inclined, that means Dwan is offering 3-1 odds to any player in the world.
Well, he’s got takers, most vocally Phil Ivey, who announced on his “Tuesdays With Ivey” show on PokerRoad that he accepted the challenge. No word, however, on when the heads-up matches will begin, as those details are likely being worked out.
Others who have expressed an interest in Dwan’s challenge are David Benyamine and Patrik Antonius.
Bluff also has their 2008 Reader’s Choice Awards ballots up online, where they’re naming “Bests” in 20 categories — asking your favorite online sites, broadcasters, poker rooms, forums, podcasts, etc. Pokerati is one of 10 finalists in the blog category. Sweet-ish!
Cast your ballot accordingly. To encourage your willingness to spend your valuable click-time with Bluff, all respondents go into a drawing for WSOP Academy seats and a one-year subscription(?) to thepokerdb … which is already free, but still.
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.
Poker pros, poker media, WSOP execs, agents, and interns convened a couple days ago at the Sapphire Club for the Bluff Magazine party — a delightfully rancorous fête celebrating the end of regular WSOP season and kicking off the main event playoffs … and of course, Tao of Pokerati was there. In this episode, Pauly gets a lapdance, I miss my days in the strip-club biz, and Otis tries to arrange a $1,000 beer pong game with Doyle Brunson. All in all, the poker field trip to the industry’s favorite Vegas titty bar leads to lower-midstakes ballin’ at its most pathetic finest.
Episode 19: Topless Beer Pong (feat. Otis)
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Methinks it is out of control.
It is a given that Harrah’s is always open for sponsors to buy their way into some Rio Convention Center space and a spot on the ESPN stage. That is the nature of business and the corporate world. Therefore, the 2008 WSOP has sponsors/partners like CardRunners, Bluff, and PokerNews, which are obvious choices. Everest Poker squeaked in there to get its name on every table felt and around the inner ring of the ESPN final table. There are even others like Hertz rental cars, Planters nuts, and Gamma-O testosterone booster. *chuckle*
The booth for All In Energy Drinks was not a surprise, and their push to sell their drinks in exchange for a “freeroll†tournament was nothing out of the ordinary, though questionable in its possibility for financial success. But a few weeks into the WSOP, the cocktail servers inside the tournament area began donning red All In shirts. And they were serving All In bottled water and energy drinks. Wonder how much it cost to take over the servers?
And the final table of the $50K HORSE surprised even me. At first, those final table players – competing center stage for a couple mil – were told that they couldn’t have anything but All In drinks during play because they were on camera. Huh? At the obvious protest of Scotty Nguyen, who wanted/needed his Michelob bottles, the staff finally agreed to bring him his drink of choice but to plaster tape around the labels so it looked like some generic, unlabeled brand. Really? Of course, I understand sponsorships, but it seemed like they tried to take it too far.
With that said, I’m headed to the All In Energy Drink party tonight at the Palms. Yep, color me a hypocrite if you like, except that I have nothing against the drinks or the company, only with their attempt to monopolize the drinking public at the WSOP. Dan, on the other hand, may be looking to buy stock in the company, if his newfound All In root beer addiction is any indication.
Tom is was the chip leader in the $2k Omaha Hi-Lo. That’s pretty cool.
UPDATE: Tom is out. Not cool.
And that limit event he busted out of yesterday … Erick Lindgren just missed the final table, which is now set with some interesting players, including Teddy Munroe, Ali Eslami, and Vinny Vinh. (Teddy and I go way back — last year I’d be typing outside and “The Iceman” would fill me in on the $100-$200 cash action while taking a piss on the tournament tent air conditioners. “Makin’ money, baby!” he’d say before shaking himself dry and heading back to the table.)
Even the $10k 7-Stud World Championship is getting interesting … with Doyle still alive and both Bob and Maureen Feduniak with the potential to become the first ever husband-wife presumably non-collusive team at the final table. Never mind. Since typing this, all the above-mentioned have been eliminated.
I learned about this 7-Stud shape-up from the a WSOP-TV vid. And though I tend to detest any lack of imbeddability, I gotta say I like a lot of what this ESPN/WSOP/Bluff (?) crew has got going here. For example, Harmonie Krieger does a basic feature video interview set on the different jobs people come to the WSOP from. Nice enough, right? — but very real when one of the guys she talks with is Jay Columbo, who ran the legendary Mayfair and Playstation poker clubs in New York City, legally questionable status notwithstanding.
And then, perhaps most shocking to me, I enjoyed Jean-Robert Bellande’s “Surviving the WSOP” — where the young, aspiring Eskimo Clark chronicles his ups and downs at the World Series while his video-podcast editors comment Pop-up Video-style — follow along as he hustles high-rollers for buy-ins.
Even learned something from Phil Ivey’s less exciting V-log … and that is that he’s playing so many big-field, low-buy-in donkfests because he has a lot of side action pending on whether or not he’ll win a bracelet this year. We’ll see if we can’t find out more about this.
Speaking of donkfests, the Ladies Event has already lost 2/3 of its starting field, and of those still remaining, at least three of them are Pokerati MySpace friends: Lacey Jones, Kathy Liebert, and Mandy Baker are looking strong and pretty much representing the spectrum of all that is good about women. Go girls! I mean chicks … er babes .. uh bitches?
UPDATE: Lacey is nursing a short stack. Poker Roadie Amanda Leatherman has come on strong, however, and picked up the aggressive pace. Michele Lewis, Tiffany Michele, and PokerNews editrix Haley Hintze are all out.
In the meantime, primarily because it is awesomely embeddable, check out the debut episode of The Degenerate Report, from Neverwin Poker:
I’m about to head over to the Rio — I think I might actually play a bit today — but before I shut my computer lid (about as difficult for me as stepping away from a table when I’m still up) I wanted to share with you some blogs other than Pauly, LVV, and Wicked Chops that make for good reading during the WSOP. Most of these folks have real jobs here in the poker media, but that doesn’t mean they still don’t have interesting things to say:
Poker Shrink — he runs the show now at my old PokerBlog stomping grounds, and though I haven’t yet seen his shiny orb around these parts, he always has something informative to say, and a cutting way to say it.
Change100 — A friend with weed is a friend indeed … and this PokerNews reporter always has the good Hollywood insight to share.
Benjo — aka the Angry Frenchman; I have no idea what his blog says, but it’s often fun to read the Google translation of it.
Gary Wise — Gary knows everything about poker (just ask him) … but really, the Bluff/ESPN correspondo does know a lot, and has better player connections than anyone else in media row.
Snoopy — This limey mate has a great take on the game, and new hair to boot — capable of fourth-level thinking and comes up with hedlines like “Throw Juanda down the Well.”
Michele Lewis — Wicked Chops probably got the best of it in our trade of Fresh Princess and a blogger to be named later for, um, nothing … but that doesn’t mean we don’t still love her sassy-mom takes on the game.
Pokerfolio — Steve Hall doesn’t need a big camera to scope out the WSOP hotties, but he may need a new webhost.
Spaceman – Jason Kirk can’t seem to leave the poker world no matter how hard he tries, and while he’s not blogging for PokerListings this year, he occasionally keeps us posted on real life.
Hardboiled Poker – Short-stacked Shamus is an absolute must-read; he’s a rookie on the PokerNews WSOP reporting scene, but as he’s proved with his own blog since getting on the blogging train late in the game, sometimes new=fresh, and he gives more to really think about per word than just about anyone else out there.
Haley – The managing editrix of PokerNews is 0-and-1 on prop bets with Dan this year, but that doesn’t mean she’s still not a smartaholic; heck, she even knows who The Batfaces are.
Mean Gene — The most celebrated poker blogger in all of Pittsburgh makes the annual pilgrimage to the WSOP again, and nobody knows how to have more All-American fun while doing a top-quality job than this PokerNews tourney reporter.
I’m sure I’m missing a few — apologize for that — so send me an email and I will update accordingly. But these are the ones I have been checking out with the most semi-regularity, and often giving thought to.
And for a list of players who are also blogging their experiences, check out Up for Poker’s WSOP blog-guide.
That’s all for now. I’ll be back eventually. But this should keep you informed/entertained/busy for at least a little while.
I can already tell one of the top-quality media sources during the WSOP will be RawVegas.TV.
Check out how their red-carpet vid of a Bluff Magazine pre-WSOP kickoff party at Tao (the nightclub, not “of Poker“) gets a better interview about poker and the fun side of poker lifestyles than anything you see shot in the Amazon room hallways, and even probably what will end up on ESPN:
In this vid not only will guys like Ed get to see a boppity, cleavacious Jennifer Tilly talk about how and why poker players talk about quitting but don’t really mean it, but also they get to hear about Phil Laak’s freak-of-naturely impressive sperm count and how that may or may not lead to strategy-based pillow talk with a cougar.
I’ll also be interested in following RV’s WSOP video blogs from Patrik Antonius, David Williams, Phil Hellmuth, and Daniel Negreanu. These sorts of things have been tried before with moderate success (Negreanu’s were always good), and now that there’s one place where you can find a handful of them regularly with a little party-hearty mixed in — in high-quality video that always seems to work — how could this channel not become Must-See Internet for any serious poker geek following the World Series every summer? [via Wicked Chops]
Watched Game of Thrones, now I am playing Sensible Soccer on the 360, for some reason. #Monday
@apokerplayer betting patterns, eyes, posture. the combos were all there, and spot on.
Great crAAKKer post by @Grange95: http://t.co/KcaobMfP) I wish I could write like Michael. Maybe someday. #poker #onlinegaming
