November Nine – Naming Names (Ep 2) by taopokerati

Dan and Dr. Pauly discuss the November Nine players, or rather, Dan’s lack of care to learn who made the final table. But Dan has a cheat sheet — the live chip count list — that appears on a big screen adjacent to the stage. A nice improvement to the WSOP set-up.

Oh, plus Phil Ivey, Joe Cada, and Darvin Moon. And maybe a little Antoine Saout.

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Huff, Caldwell, Wise, Michalski, Nemeth, Stapleton
11/12/09

You know how you would see fans at a baseball game watching the game live and on TV, usually with headphones? The poker version of that is this guy, who is watching the final update and following live updates on PokerNews.com.

The Joe Cada Michigan fan contingent. Alas, Rio security soon made them put on a little more clothing, despite Las Vegas’ general fondness for body paint counting as non-nudity.

HAND NOTE: The crowd tends to go rather nuts anytime a coordinated flop is followed by a related turn card.

Hey, look, it’s Annette_15 — presumably taking a special interest in any youngin’ looking for a big-time bracelet. We love Annette_15! Favorite 21-year-old young lady Betfair blogger! (Sitting with a Poker Royalty agent, plausibly interestingly.)

Joe Navarro would tell me this means Darvin Moon has the goods. However, when Cada re-re-raised him here, Moon folded.

UPDATE: Cada just doubled up, as Moon failed to get there moving all-in with an open-ender … (Cada called with two-pair, the second being his alone) … Cada dodged 8 outs to rake in 108 million chips, to Moon’s now 86 million.

Fans taking in the action.

Somebody forgot to tell this guy that Allen Kessler did not make the November Nine.

Still looking for other great shots out there on the internet that maybe I’ve missed …

UPDATE: This is a pretty good one, too, from Wicked Chops … capturing the French fan contingent at an Antoine Saout double-up:

(NOTE: Ivey busted a few minutes after we finished recording this episode.)

Episode 6: Not-so-Last Call

Seat 1: Darvin Moon – 58,930,000
Seat 2: James Akenhead – 6,800,000
Seat 3: Phil Ivey – 9,765,000
Seat 4: Kevin Schaffel – 12,390,000
Seat 5: Steven Begleiter – 29,885,000
Seat 6: Eric Buchman – 34,800,000
Seat 7: Joe Cada – 13,215,000
Seat 8: Antoine Saout – 9,500,000
Seat 9: Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000

As some Twittered earlier this morning, the appearance of Phil Ivey at the final table caused much joy to the WSOP staff, ESPN, and the poker forum community. You’ve got the chip leader a good ol’ boy from Maryland who’s involved in the most dangerous job in the US (logging), meaning those who wonder what happens if someone in the November Nine passes away or is incapacitated may have their wish come true. You have Begleiter, a former executive at Bear Stearns, You’ve got two European players (Akenhead and Saout), you’ve got the lightning rod for the “bad for poker” audience in Shulman, who made statements that he would throw away the bracelet if he won, criticizing the WSOP’s stance on exclusivity in poker reporting. These stories and many others will be played out in the coming days, and Pokerati will be there to sift through them all, starting this afternoon on The Poker Beat over at www.pokerroad.com.

As the 2008 WSOP was coming to a close a few days ago, Pauly and I couldn’t help but notice that there seemed to be no new sponsors that weren’t already around for in the summer. Disappointing, sure — but maybe it’s just the general economy?

I began to speculate that WSOP marketing honcho Tye Stewart must be in BIG trouble, dude! couldn’t have been too happy that the most celebrated deal inked between July and November was an extended contract with Johnny Chan’s All In Energy Drink. About 10 minutes later, though, Jeffrey Pollack was speaking to the crowd, giving specific thanks and extreme kudos to Stewart as the successful, hard-working architect of the The November Nine vision. And indeed, we now know the broadcast returned some admirable TV numbers; and even as players got eliminated, there were lines of people in the Rio hallways to fill the Penn & Teller Theater’s 1,200 seats. So maybe now, with something definitive to sell potential backers in the future, what looked a little disappointing while riding up and down the escalators is actually a sign of better things to come?

Below is a pictorial look at some added value for official WSOP banners (and inflatables) in action:

Milwaukee’s Best Light’s been good to poker (and presumably vice-versa) but their contract is about to expire (if it hasn’t already). Will they re-up? Overall the beer is supposedly the lowest performer for the newly merged MillerCoors (despite having Phil Hellmuth’s picture on cans) yet the WSOP might be all that’s keeping it alive.

All In Energy will be the official mock-amphetamine beverage of the WSOP for at least a few (two?) more years.

As mentioned above … Planters: They go great with Milwaukee’s Best Light!

Capriotti’s is still the official sandwich of the WSOP. It really is pretty good grub, but I wonder how much they spent on that clever marketing phrase.

I still don’t know what Gamma-O is, but they have hot girls pushing some sort of testosterone supplement.

For legal and political reasons, Everest Poker is the lone(ly) little online poker sponsor of the WSOP.

Go Corum! They made a pretty cool looking bracelet this year. Not sure how well their high-end brand of wristwear looks on a grubby paw opening an aluminum can of Milwaukee’s Best Light, however.

Book 4: WSOP Final Table
Episode 4.13: Web Player Down! 4:53

The Craig Marquis bustout hand really was incredible … that woulda been a good time for ESPN to show the audience, not just the players … because really, the whole audience was on pins-and-needles. Even we cynical media types temporarily forgot about our jobs and became true fanboys, just waiting for that devestating river card. (To some extent, poker fans are a little bit like NASCAR viewers, not wanting to see but kinda sorta waiting for an amazing crash.)

Overall, I thought ESPN did a better job covering the whole of the World Series better than any year prior. But the final table was a little disappointing … I give it a B-. But hey, I’m always very forgiving the first go-round … you learn so much from doing something once. I look forward to seeing what they come up with next year.

A few more random thoughts about the whole experience:

• Penn & Teller Theater was an awesome venue. Woulda been a better experience, however, had the whole set-up been rotated 90 degrees, so the MBL Lounge wasn’t blocking so much of the view.
• ESPN seemed to have difficult lighting the crowd for such shots. I will give them my secret for free: set your cameras to “Auto”.
• Two hours was not long enough for the show. Had they made it three or four hours — or fuck, the whole shebang on pay-per-view — it woulda been more interesting and more of an event. The promotion woulda been easier, too, because it woulda stood out as something different … but two hours? That’s just an NBA game. What’s special about that?
• The heads-up was way over-edited. ESPN reduced it pretty much to the key hands, but these hands lost all their context because you didn’t see at least a few folds on bets after the flop (or even more importantly, on the turn) that gave the final heads-up some ebb and flow. For example, it really looked for a while like Ivan Demidov was shifting the momentum … but little did we know that Peter Eastgate was still in control.
• Where were the telling, colorful back stories? Not only had Demidov and Eastgate become friends during the main event … they also played a lot together on the EPT in the interim, and from what I understand really got to know each other’s play. This shoulda been a two or three-minute side story, as opposed to a two sentence explanation from Norman Chad.
• A reality-show lead-up might have worked nicely — akin to that Ultimate Fighter show that always culminates in a real match-up.
• The structure for the Obama infomercial also could really work well for poker … with some pre-recorded profile stuff of WSOPeople, flash to some recording of the action in the Amazon room, and then close with something very close to live. Naturally a slight delay to prevent cheating is more acceptable in poker than it is in politics.
• Another possible improvement would be to flip-flop the delay … what I mean is had the final table been delayed just two weeks, as opposed to four months … and the winner was crowned/shown then … well that might serve as good promotion for the season, as people tune in to see how these guys actually got there. Using one episode to promote 20 would probably work better than using 20 episodes to promote one.
• I really liked the new percentages they added — showing what percent of all the chips in play each player had. Really made Dennis Phillips’ falter and short stack more visible for what it really was.

The question I walk away from all this with really is: How many more years til we see truly live (with a slight delay, of course) tournament action? Golf manages to take a four-day event with almost no actual action — lots of walking and staring — and turn it into coverage that people tune into week after week. Though the logistics aren’t yet in place, there’s theoretically not much reason this shouldn’t be something worth working towards in the medium future.

Book 4: WSOP Final Table
Episode 4.3: Double Up! Double Up! 1:20

UPDATE: Kelly Kim just busted out in 8th place … $1.28 million. Nice job, nice guy.

There’s good happy poker stuff, too. After all, this $32 Million Sit-n-Go is a celebration:

This doesn’t look too different from the Amazon Room.

But on the other side, with the Showgirls and the hottie DJ, you can tell something’s a little different here.

Kelly Kim’s cheering section: “Double Up! Double Up!”

Ivan Demidov’s fans.

Arguably the largest poker crowd in history?

Peter Eastgate’s cheering section. I think “isser ships” means win, or something like that.

Darus Suharto’s peeps.

A long line to get in outside.

It extends quite a ways, as people line up past the gallery of WSOP champions.

Still going … as mentioned, at least one fan with a special player’s guest ticket was trying to scalp it.

More lineage.

More WSOP main event winners.

At first I thought Russ Hamilton’s banner was missing. But then I found it … they put it out of the way, behind the stairs. Duly noted: allegedly steal $15 million from other poker players via the company you run, and your banner will be semi-banished.

But do you recognize who else is hidden behind the stairwell? That’s 1990 champ Mansour Matloubi.

And interestingly enough, not only is he placed out of view and next to Russ Hamilton, but also his year is out of chronological order. I think it’s a tell. Very interesting. He looks really stressed, too. I wonder if anyone else is putting 2+2 together here?

[CORRECTION: Hamilton was the only one blatantly out of order. So maybe not so damning on Matloubi. Still, I'm suspicious.]

Book 4: WSOP Final Table
Episode 4.1: WSOPenn & Teller 2:04