Two rather distinct views of the World Series, a third of the way through the show, from @JeffreyPollack and Micon, both discussing their party animal ways:
For all J-Pollack V-logs, click here.
For the original Degen Update from the pseudo-media dude with revoked credentials (supposedly related to his video of a player smoking meth) and a tale of violence around a rule dispute in a $65 satellite, click here.
We knew it was only a matter of time, right? TJ Cloutier reportedly had quite the emphatic conversation with Jeffrey Pollack while the two were watching Phil Ivey’s final table — about a recurring rule violation that may or may not be getting out of control. The issue: Twittering at the table.
TJ’s beef (as told to me secondhand) was that even when players are not in a hand, they are violating tournament rules when they are texting under the table, in their laps.
Here’s the rule in question:
87. Cell Phone Rule: All cell phones and other voice-enabled and “ringing” electronic devices must be silenced during Tournament play. A player who wants to use a cell phone to talk, text, or email must step away from their assigned table or be subject to penalty. Any player using a cellular phone while in a hand with no action pending (player has gone all-in) will receive a missed hand penalty to be assessed on the next hand. No cell phones or other electronic communication device can be placed on a poker table.
Hmm, I dunno. I think it’s subject to interpretation — and frankly, imho, these are the problems with rules written (or approved) by lawyers, as opposed to writer-players. But what really surprises me in the above-described situation is that @JeffreyPollack didn’t twitter about it.
Just remember, whether you’re breaking a rule or not, you can follow all the peeps we’re following in the Pokerati Twitterverse here.
Benjo is back, just in time for the first ever “brasslet” ceremony, which raises a burning new question of poker etiquette that players never before had to consider: To stand or not to stand for the national anthem when you’re in the middle of a hand? Pauly and the Angry Frenchman also speculate on which will be the first non-American nation to book a WSOP win. I show up for the night shift, of course — just in time for hand-for-hand in the $40k — only to have Pauly fill me in on everything I missed between my arrival and my last reading of the Tao.
Tao of Pokerati at the 40th WSOP
Las Vegas, NVEpisode 11.5: Star-Spangled Hammer
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Episode 11.6: Night Shift
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More from @JustinBonomo (who is one of 89 out of 201 players remaining in the $40k NLH):
Oh man. Same thing if you fold out of turn. Even if its an accident, automatic 1 hand penalty. Wsop always makes the craziest new rules.
The $40k NLH is movin’ along … 111 left out of 201. One of the guys near the top in chips, @JustinBonomo, says:
Just broke 500k, but can’t believe new rule. Any card ACCIDENTALLY exposed is a 1 hand penalty. Dealers are instructed to always enforce it.
I tend not to like the absoluteness in the hands of a dealer, but then again, it is just one hand.
Click below to see who’s still alive and who’s busted:
(Chris Moneymaker is winning.)
Why are there different rules at a WSOP Circuit event than the actual WSOP? Late entry to WSOP=full stack, WSOP-C your missed blinds are taken.
The World Series of Poker has released the rules for their 2009 event. There’s a couple of interesting changes from last year that will be interesting to see how they are enforced.
36. Harrah’s prohibits the use of obscene or foul language in any public area of the casino at any time. Any player who uses such language or makes a foul, profane, obscene or vulgar statement, or speaks abusively or in an intimidating manner to another player, a dealer or a Tournament staff member, will be penalized. These penalties will be levied based on Rules 31, 52 and 53.
Doh, I gave away the secret in the title!
It seems that all one needs to do is be Phil Hellmuth, and no penalty will be given to you during a World Series of Poker tournament. And if the staff mistakenly decides to hold you to the same rules as they do every other player on the planet, if you argue that you are Phil Hellmuth, they will rescind it.
It seems that the WSOP and Harrah’s staff has learned that lesson. At the summer WSOP in Las Vegas, they attempted to give Hellmuth a penalty for berating a player, but when play resumed the next day, they took it back. It was noted that penalties are intended to correct inappropriate behavior, and WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack said at the time, “Phil has now been warned and put on notice in a way that he never has been.”
Oh, really? Following the coverage of the second day of the WSOPE HORSE event in London tonight, it seems that a certain organization has forgotten about said notice. According to official reports, Hellmuth continuously berated opponents and the dealer (making one of them cry), and threw his cards at the dealer. Reports described him as “furious” and “livid,” even going so far as to get a warning from the tournament director. *Oooooh*
Since rules don’t apply to Hellmuth, it seems that karma does. He was eliminated in 12th place.
Click below to see the live reports chronicling the final two hours of Hellmuth tirades.
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.)
Funny, I didn’t get the FIDPA release Jen did, but I did get an email from Jesse Jones to members of the WPA (I’m one of the few who somehow paid twice) … and it seems these two ops are finding their distinct paths. FIDPA, I know, is all about the rules. In fact, I heard about a month ago from both ML’s that their rules were in affect at the Bellagio for the big WPT event last week. Have not confirmed that, however supposedly when Jack McClelland made the Daniel Negreanu rule change mid-tourney at the WPT Championship, you couldn’t get a written version of that rule, because it didn’t exist — no written tourney rules at Bellagio — so apparently they were happy to finally get something on paper.
(And the way the FIDPA 80 work … they leave room for adjustments, so theoretically you could go to a tourney and the TD woulds say, “We’re using FIDPA rules today, except for #47, where we’re going to let you blah blah blah” or “… and we have one extra rule of our own: no coughing.”)
The WPA meanwhile, seems to have moved their rules agenda to the backburner, focusing instead on tournament rake — pushing for more sponsorship/commercial money to be added to major event prize pools, a la the PGA:
It’s a disgrace that tournament poker players for the most part do not share the revenue generated by their participation in events (e.g. television, sponsorship, etc). In most or all events players put in all of the prize money via the buy-in, have 6-10% of their money taken out, and only a small number of participants make a payday. Any revenue generated by sponsors or other means is not shared with you the players.This is something we must change.
This is the WPA’s principal focus. This is why you joined the WPA. This is why we need your support.
Yeow! I’m not so sure I agree with the not-shared part … those waters they put on the table ain’t free, ya know! But the All In Energy Drink is!
Though I suppose both operations ultimately wanna become the FIFA of poker, it looks like their going about it in two kinda different ways
Though it’s not unusual for pros to show up late for WSOP tourneys, something was amiss during one of the last 1500s when Scotty Nguyen didn’t show up til well into the 100/200 level …
Apparently Scotty lost one of his capuchin monkeys. The fire department was still trying to get the the pesky little primate out of a tree when Scotty decided he just had to go. Not sure what the status is of said monkey, but one thing that is interesting is how the floor handled his depleted stack.
Naturally, Scotty was unhappy about that and asked the dealer why he didn’t have 3K. But at the WSOP, only late registrations get their full 3K chips (and get seated in Seat 10); everyone else gets a regular seat and then gets blinded off if they’re late, which is normal. Scotty, though, obviously didn’t like the idea of starting out with a 9 bet stack, said “I’m not playing”, and went off to find the tournament director. I think he just wanted to be allowed to unregister, but instead, a couple of minutes later, the floor showed up with a full stack and gave it to him. On the one hand, this is pretty much blatant cheating – it’s a free 1200 chips that nobody not named Scotty Nguyen would ever get;
Murmur?
(Thanks, Shamus, for the link.)
A player in a hand against Kathy Liebert made a royal flush on the turn … he claims he didn’t realize it, which seems believable when he was last to act and checked on the river.
The player was issued a warning, because at the WSOP it’s against the rules to check the nuts when you’re last to act on the river.
(This rule is new to me … makes sense-ish. But am curious what happens if, say, I have the nuts, am first to act, bet, the next guy raises, and I just call. Will see if I can find out the answer to this in the next half hour month.)
Found this vid, shot at the EPT Championship last month in Monte Carlo … where Daniel Negreanu pwns a Scandi reporter (new word for me!), or maybe it’s the other way around:
There’s question whether or not it was staged. In Las Vegas I am pretty sure his shove would be considered assault, but maybe not so in Monaco? Either way, my experience at the tables tells me that 2 in 12 to 14 Scandis are slowrollers … so that suggests it’s statistically possible it was an authentic provocation.
At the moment my background music is Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith on Spike the main event of the 2007 WSOP (Episode 4, part 2 of 5 according to YouTube):
It’s actually the first time I’ve seen this episode — if that tells you anything about the immediacy or lack thereof attached to current WSOP broadcasts … and it prominently features/follows Jamie Gold. Pretty impressed with how ESPN handled his storyline, and Gold does a pretty good job explaining the Crispin Leyser lawsuit … well enough that I start empathize for just a moment until Norman Chad follows up with a reminder of why he may not have had many supporters regardless.
(About 2:00 in.)
I wrote this post right after the 2007 WSOP, but I hadn’t pressed publish yet. With all the talk about structural changes and travel plans for the upcoming WSOP, now seem’s a good time for us to think about our (poker players’) behavior for the upcoming WSOP:
I have a request for all poker players. Anyone that wants to complain at the WSOP 2008, please STAY HOME! I don’t care how much dead money you bring to the tables, I don’t want to hear the yakking when I’m taking a leak.
At the 2007 WSOP, bitching was the theme. Here are just a few of the complaints that I heard.
• Harrah’s is making too much money. Have you seen how much juice they are taking out?
• The food is horrible
• The dealers are making too many mistakes
• It’s cold
• It’s hot
• The lines are too long
• The structures are too fast, too slow, too medium
• The walk is too long to the tournament area
• There are too many tournaments
• The cocktail service is bad.
Is that enough or should I keep going?
I loved being a tournament director — training dealers was particularly fun at the Lodge, and I can think of no truer example of getting to be a benevolent dictator. You have some basic big rules to follow, and then lots of little rules that you can interpret in any number of arguable ways … but the ultimate determination is left to a supreme court of one — and there are no appeals, unless, of course, you decide to change your mind.
Bellagio tourney director Jack McLelland introduced a little democracy to the WPT today — responding to some complaints on Daniel Negreanu’s blog* — by putting his show-one-show-both rule to a vote among the remaining players, who overwhelmingly supported this seemingly sensible mid-tourney change. The short-stack lobby, however, was unsuccessful in persuading the Bellagio’s Dear Tourney Leader to lower the blinds.
From the WPT Live Updates:
Rule Change!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008 12:15 PM PDTBefore the start of play, Daniel Negreanu and Jack McClelland stood up on the stage next to the featured table to make an announcement.
McClelland talked about Negreanu’s blog, stating that Negreanu’s complaints about the show one card, show both rule may be valid, and that he would like to put it to a vote.
So he asked the room if they would be opposed to a rule change. The response was overwhelming to say the least. Nearly every person in the room voted to change the rule.
McClelland responded with, “In the words of Steve Lipscomb, “Ahh…. F#%K it,”" and just like that the rule was changed.
Players are still not allowed to flash a card in the middle of the hand, however. The rule only allows you to flash a card after the hand is over.
After McClelland gave himself a 20-minute penalty [for language], he did warn the players that he has been training the dealers for three years to turn both cards over, and that they should be patient with them as they learn the new rule all over again.
*NOTE: Still looking for a direct link to the post McClelland was referring to. If anyone has it, please pass along. Thanks.
