We’re starting to get a glimpse of what the 2010 November Nine will look like. And as of now, it looks to be rather Euro-heavy. Of the 18 remaining players, four of them are non-Americans. And those four happen to be atop the leaderboard — 1st, 2nd, and 4th in chips all from Canada, and 5th from Italy. The top 2 are Quebecois … which adds a whole new element of fun/possible separatism.

Amongst the Americans, we’ve got:

California – 5
Florida – 3
Washington State – 2
Minnesota – 1
Kansas – 1
Texas – 1
Wisconsin – 1

Nevada – 0

That last number is particularly interesting to me. Though haven’t added up the total cash won in the main event, Nevadans got so shut out of the big money it’s almost weird. Only one player — Robert Pisano from Las Vegas — made the starting 27 today, but is already out having finished 23rd.

UPDATE: 17 left, as Scott Clements from Mt. Vernon, WA just went out.

Jon Katkin

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The Poker Economy

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OP-ED

Brand names serve an important purpose in our society. For consumers, they offer a simple shorthand that let’s you know about a product’s quality – or lack thereof – while at the same time providing a quick way to flaunt your status or hipness to the unwashed masses in our burgeoning consumer culture.

For businesses, brand names are just as important. Let your quality slip or make your product too ubiquitous and your value – both real and perceived – begins to slip. Make your product trendy or limit its availability and you’ll have customers clamoring at your door to get their hands on it.

With 57 events on the calendar, the WSOP is hardly as elitist as it was in the past, but that’s OK with the folks at Harrah’s because when it comes to poker, there is no substitute for a gold bracelet. Win an event and you join a still exclusive club that includes some of the greatest players in the world. Play your cards right, and the WSOP is a golden ticket to the top of the poker food chain. Bust out before the final table and you’ll still leave town with a great story for your friends.

For $1,500 you can play one WSOP tournament and take your chances against a single field of 3,000, or for the same money you can play five Venetian Deep Stack events against a combined field of about 2,400.

And that’s what makes the WSOP the brand when it comes to tournament poker. Win or lose, playing a WSOP event carries with it an inherent coolness that other poker players innately understand and respect. But if you’re a serious low-stakes player looking for a big summertime score in Vegas, there are actually much better options to consider outside the Rio.

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We had lots of fun in our special Tuesday running of “the ‘Ati game” (as called by a few locals who seldom read this site) … even though the well-bankrolled blogger drunks never even made it! Lesson learned … you can’t rely on the Drinky when it comes to making specific, time-based plans. Fortunately there were Poker Beat listeners who we’re ready to take their seats and jump into the fray. Game on again tonight, starting at 8 pm.

“At every [World] Series, you know you’re eventually going to get at least one great run of cards. After three weeks of grinding, mine finally came playing 1/2 in Dan’s stupid Pokerati game at the Hard Rock.”

– Donkeybomber,
on the importance of looking snazzy when you happen to start running good

We also got a special guest (the kind I can get a comp dinner) in DonkeyBomber … who decided to try to turn his WSOP around by playing a little low-stakes, drinks-flowing half-and-half … out of position against yours truly. I had him, too, in his first big hand, having flopped a set of Aces (playing them differently than he taught me), turned full-of-jacks (setting up a nice trap), only to see the one-outer on the river giving him quads. Asshole, why don’t you stick to your own damn games, Mr. “High Stakes” Pro with the Pants.

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PLO can be a wicked temptress and a sexy bitch.

Supposedly the Pokerati Game made on its own this past Tuesday around midnight, with @MattCWaldron duking it out into the wee hours with an unusually drinky Rex the Bald PLOcal. Not sure how the stacks ended up, but from what I hear it was some of the most vigorous song-game action the room had seen in a long time. (The Hard Rock background music tends to shift to nuevo-hip hop and variety metal during late hours, and then late-late pre-sunrise it’s a lot of classic rock.)

At last week’s game, I was pretty unhappy because things were going well until I put myself in my first difficult spot of the night. After I failed to hit my 4-outer running it twice, @JaKatkin tweeted:

And @pokerati’s implosion has begun.
10:47 PM May 6th via TweetDeck

Asshole! Katkin clearly had a read on me, as he sat to my left watching my stack dwindle post-tweet to zero, at which point I rebought and re-lost yet again. (How did he know!?!)

That was also the first week we played with officially published rules. However my one copy I had at the table got ruined when a drunk (but good player … think he mighta been a Mavenite) spilled my glass of champagne all over the nicely printed document en route to his seat in the game.

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Looks to be yet another fun night of 1/2 NLH/PLO round of each at the Hard Rock this evening. The Maven has been showing up on Thursdays with a few students lately. Apparently they think the Pokerati tables are easy pickins a ripe training ground or something? Though aggressive, the Mavenites aren’t really a threat once you figure out the whole of his poker training is basically push and re-push with any two cards. (Jk David … you’d never do that with Queens or better, right?)

The Pokerati Game — which started off mostly as a bunch of media donks and an uber-tight dude named Jackson — also seems to be becoming (as I’d like it to be) something of a must-play for out-of-towners … awesome 1/2 action that you simply can’t find anywhere else in Vegas. Seriously. Go ahead and try. It’s not the same game … And that doesn’t even get into all the promotional perks the Hard Rock has been feeding us.

Three tourists I know today are already gonna be there, which of course draws the vulturey locals who claim to “make a living” playing 1/2, but haven’t yet found enough success to be playing 2/5 or bigger. These Vegas grinders, I gotta say, are an interesting group … they don’t say much other than to call floor, appear to live for comps and free coffee, and may or may not have rent riding on an all-in with top set against the nut flush draw and a wrap … Run it twice!

Anyhow, after playing sporadically beta testing @HardRockPoker for about six months, and running into / working through all the nitty situational question marks that spring up, we’ve finalized and formalized the rules. So now, anytime the game gets going — as it did on its own Tuesday around midnight! — everyone can be on the same page about how we play Pokerati half-and-half at the Hard Rock.

Click here for an updated PDF of Pokerati Game rules suitable for posting on your bedroom wall. Or click below to see more immediately how we play it:

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We don’t necessarily talk much strategy here at Pokerati, but I’m gonna make an effort to occasionally chronicle my own errors at the table with the goal of not repeating them (often). I had a pretty good session of Pokerati 1/2 (no-limit hold’em/PLO round of each) at the Hard Rock. In for $400, I had made a nice come back from about $80, rebuilding my stack to about $800+change — thanks to Katikin-on-tilt — when I got 6d 8c 9c Jd in the small blind. With about four limpers I threw in the buck.

The flop: 6-7-10 rainbow.

I tossed in $6 … had to build something. The cut-off, a solid player and the other big stack at the table with about $700, also mostly from @JaKatkin, called.

I know better than to bet the non-nuts in Omaha … and my instincts were screaming, “That Ace is not a bad card for him!” But I convinced myself it might also have given him something like A-10, which he likely wouldn’t bet, but might call with.

The turn came another 7, to put two hearts on the now-paired board. He bets $20. I pot it for $82. Alarm bells go off for my opponent but he calls. I start thinking about the boats he might have. Not pocket 10s. 6-7 was a possibility, but I think he woulda raised me on the flop. Pocket 6s was a threat, but not a big one, because I had one. 7-10 was scarier, but same thing … I think he woulda popped me on the flop with either of those hands.

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