Casino Planet Cash

Today my review of Paul “Dr. Pauly” McGuire’s Lost Vegas appeared over on the Betfair Poker site. For those of you who haven’t picked up a copy yet, check out the review to learn what the book covers and my overall take.

Book reviews are always a bit challenging to write, for a variety of reasons. One problem I always end up facing is having to choose between several different points I want to make about the book. That is, I can’t reasonably share every little response or observation I might have had while reading the sucker, so I have to be selective and often end up setting aside certain points in order to keep the review at a manageable length.

One point about Pauly’s book I had written down but didn’t end up including in the review regarded his account of the 2005 WSOP, in particular his description of Binion’s Horseshoe where the Main Event was concluded — the last time the WSOP was played there.

As is the case throughout Lost Vegas, Pauly doesn’t shy away from telling it like it is when it comes to describing Binion’s, noting how the place had deteriorated by then into a less than desirable destination for anyone traveling to Vegas, let alone for the WSOP.

However, as Pauly notes, “What Binion’s lacked in class, it made up for in character.” Here Pauly ends up writing a nifty little elegy to the Horseshoe, a tribute of sorts to the birthplace of the WSOP focusing on the moment the WSOP left it for good. Rather than go on at length here, I’ll let those of you who have picked up the book read what Pauly has to say about how “Benny’s Bullpen was a post-modern version of the Roman Coliseum where gladiators fought to the death.”

Like I say, I ended up leaving that comment about Pauly’s discussion of Binion’s out of my review. I was thinking about it again this morning, though, as I read some of the rumors about Harrah’s having finally sold the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino.

Some are saying the deal has been done, and thus the WSOP will necessarily be looking for a new home in 2011. Pokerati’s short blurb about the sale a couple of days ago appears to have gotten the rumor mill churning in earnest this week. However, the official word from the WSOP appears to be that as far as its concerned the Rio remains a Harrah’s property and thus plans for the 2011 WSOP — at the Rio — continue to proceed.

Actually, rumors about the WSOP leaving the Rio began back in the spring, and there was a lot of talk this summer about where it might possibly go. When I interviewed Nolan Dalla, the WSOP Media Director, for Betfair last month, I asked him about the rumors, knowing full well that even if he knew anything he wouldn’t be able to tell me one way or the other what was up.

Dalla’s answer to me was nevertheless forthright. He said to me that “anybody who thinks they know the answer to that question [then, in early July] doesn’t know what they are talking about.” He added that the issue would be examined by Harrah’s soon after the WSOP concluded, but that “those discussions really haven’t started that much yet.”

Whatever happens with the WSOP in 2011, I think it is interesting to compare what people are saying about the WSOP perhaps leaving the Rio with the often nostalgia-tinged sentiments expressed back in 2005 when the Series left Binion’s.

Of course, for me the WSOP and the Rio will always be closely associated, given that I’ve never had the chance to see it played anywhere else. I haven’t any particular fondness for the place, but it has seemed to me a suitable enough location to accommodate the spectacle the WSOP has currently become.

Will be curious, though, to see what happens next for the WSOP. And — if it does leave the Rio — what sort of “elegies” (if any) will be written about the WSOP during the Rio years.

Had a fun weekend with Vera Valmore at a horse show. It was a lot of fun to get away and be off the “grid” for a couple of days.

I’ve written before about how Vera competes in dressage, that equestrian sport that involves training a horse to perform various gaits and movements — e.g., walk, trot, canter, passage, piaffe, pirouette, etc. Sometimes dressage gets referred to as “horse ballet” or compared to gymnastics, although the judging (in my opinion), while necessarily subjective, is much more heavily technique-based. (That’s a diagram of a dressage ring, by the way.)

Vera had a couple of nice rides this weekend, although her competitiveness and drive necessarily caused her to think she could have done better. We were at the show with some other riders, one of whom did particularly well in her two rides, netting a couple of high scores and first-place finishes in her classes. After her first ride, our friend came away expressing surprise that she had scored so well.

“It’s such a crapshoot,” she said, although I think she was being mostly humble.

Like I say, the scoring is somewhat subjective — it has to be, to some extent. But I do think that since the scoring is so carefully managed by a detailed score sheet on which judges mark the quality of every prescribed movement in a given ride, it really isn’t as much of a “crapshoot” as is the case in other kinds of competition.

That said, like in poker, there is definitely a “chance” element that can have something to do with how riders end up doing. At this particular event, one of the rings in which riders rode was unfortunately close to a nearby highway. Thus would the passing of a loud truck or some other traffic noise potentially startle the horses, and thus perhaps negatively affect a ride. Even just a stray rock stepped on by the horse during a ride can upset things in a significant way.

We were all talking at the show at one point when someone mentioned poker. I had brought some cards and a chip set, and eventually had fun teaching one of the other husbands there how to play no-limit hold’em. Without knowing what I’ve been up to this summer or over the last few years, the woman who had had the good rides then mentioned how her employer had gone to Las Vegas recently.

“Yeah, he played in this… what was it? World Series or something? World Series of Poker?”

I laughed and nodded. Did he play in the Main Event, I asked? She wasn’t sure. Was it a $10,000 buy-in event? Yes, it was. Indeed, he’d played in the ME, busting on one of the Day Ones.

I told her how I’d been there reporting on the Series, and while I didn’t recognize her employer’s name from the thousands who’d played the ME, I told her how he and I may very well have crossed paths at some point when he was there.

She went on to say how her understanding was that he is a very good player, although his credentials primarily consisted of his being a card counter. “He was even banned from one of the casinos because he was so good,” she said. I didn’t explain how card counting wasn’t so relevant in poker, but assumed that indeed the fellow probably had at least some acumen when it came to poker.

“Small world,” I thought, additionally considering how people from all sorts of backgrounds and locations go to Las Vegas each summer expressly to compete in the WSOP Main Event.

On the way home, I chatted some with the fellow to whom I had taught hold’em this weekend about how the ME worked. He was surprised to learn that only the top 10% of finishers got paid.

“Kind of like buying a lottery ticket, huh?” he asked, and I had to agree that in some respects it was. Though I did go on to explain that while one did probably have to get lucky to get all of the way to the final table and the millions of dollars waiting there, like with dressage, it wasn’t quite right to call it a complete “crapshoot.”

Then again, I guess just about anything — especially any competitive endeavor — could be regarded as a “crapshoot,” depending on one’s perspective.

“Injured Tiger Woods Withdraws From Players Championship.” Early on Sunday, Tiger Woods withdrew from the Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla complaining of neck pain. Later reports suggest that Woods suffered a bulging disk. Tiger Woods was not in contention for victory at the Players Championship after he played a disappointing round on Saturday. I believe Woods returned too soon to the PGA after a self imposed prolong absents because of family issues kept him away from golf for several months. Hopefully, Tiger will be OK and will now take some extra time before he comes back full-time to the PGA tour.

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2010 Stanley Cup Final Schedule. The National Hockey League announced today the schedule for the 2010 Stanley Cup Final between the Western Conference champion Chicago Blackhawks and the Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia Flyers.

Yesterday I helped cover Day 1a of the last of the $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em events (Event No. 54), an event I’ll be sticking with all of the way through the final table. Was kind of a fun day for me. As has happened with the other $1K buy-in events, I ended up having a lot of interactions with players — more so than occurs with other events — including meeting some new ones and also getting to meet a few folks whom I’d known previously but had never met in person.

A total of 2,340 registered to play in the event yesterday, and 331 were left when play was suspended halfway through Level 9. They do that now, after learning their lesson with the first of these “Grand Games” back in late May.

I had helped cover the first $1,000 NLHE event (Event No. 3) and so had been there at the end of Day 1b when that potential crisis arose (mentioned briefly here). In that one they had played 10 full levels on Day 1a, with 276 players surviving. They then began Day 1b, and after registration closed the payouts were determined and the top 441 players would cash.

They were moving into Level 10 on Day 1b of Event No. 3 when it started to look like enough players might be eliminated that they could possibly reach the money bubble before the end of Day 1b, which obviously wouldn’t be fair to those who played Day 1a. Fortunately that didn’t happen, but they set up a plan then to stop play short on Day 1a of these events if the field shrunk to a certain percentage. Which is why we had a shorter day yesterday, and will again today, since they’ll again stop things at the same point in Level 9 for the Day 1b group.

Anyhow, like I say I got a chance to meet a few players during the day. Some of my friends played in the event, including Marc Convey and Tim “Timtern” Fiorvanti, and it was fun seeing them at the tables.

I also met some new folks, too, including one player named Joe Singer who was involved in a weird hand in which a mistake caused him to get all of his chips in with against two other players. Luckily for him, it worked out and he survived.

In the hand, Singer had failed to hear a player announce an all in before him and he had called thinking he was only calling a prior (smaller) raise when in fact he was committing nearly his entire stack. Then another player behind him shoved over the top and he was forced to put the rest in, too. But he very fortunately ended up making a straight and instead of getting knocked out essentially tripled up. He was a good sport about the whole thing, and glad to have the story of the hand included in the blog.

I was able to meet the player Jena Delk yesterday, someone with whom I have a lot of mutual friends. She arrived at the start of the day with boxes of donuts for AlCantHang, and was asking me where he was and what he looked like. I didn’t realize it was Jena until after, and so when I tweeted about her coming by I got a lot of responses clueing me in. I was glad to see her make it through Day 2.

I finally met Kara Scott in person yesterday as well, as she, too, played the event (and also made it through to Day 2). I interviewed Kara a couple of months ago for Betfair (via phone). Ended up reporting on one somewhat intriguing hand of hers during the day.

At night’s end Lynn Gilmartin of PokerNews came around to interview Kara. Lynn asked me if she’d been involved in anything interesting during the day, and I told her about the hand, which Lynn said she’d then ask Kara about. Am intrigued to know what Scott might have had on the hand (she won it without showing), and so am keeping an eye out for that video on PokerNews to see if Kara told Lynn what she had.

At the very end of the night I also got to say hello to Mike Johnson, co-host of the Two Plus Two PokerCast, and tell him how much I’ve enjoyed both that show and the old Rounders show that preceded it. Mike also played the event and survived to Day 2, and when play ended he was running over to the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout (Event No. 53) to sweat both Dan Idema — his co-host Adam Schwartz’s brother who has made two WSOP final tables this summer — and Terrence Chan. Of those two, Chan did make it to today’s Event No. 53 final table.

Yesterday was also highlighted by an enjoyable dinner with Tom Schneider over at the Sports Deli. Tom busted from the event late in the afternoon, getting his aces cracked by pocket jacks in a hand I happened to see (and report on). Tom and I discussed a wide range of poker-related topics, including the current state of the “poker economy,” various personalities and characters in poker, what the future holds for poker in general and the WSOP in particular, and more.

I might share a bit of what Tom and I talked about in tomorrow’s post. Meanwhile, I’ll be curious to see who comes out today for Day 1b. If yr curious, too, check out the live reporting on PokerNews today and see what’s happening.

“People are playing for their lives.”

Poker pro Tom Schneider said this to me over Sports Deli burgers at the Rio a couple of nights back. I first met Tom three years ago, just before he went on to win two WSOP bracelets and earn the WSOP Player of the Year title in 2007. He’s one of a growing number of players whom I’ve gotten to know over the last few years. Tom’s a funny, thoughtful guy whose book Oops! I Won Too Much Money is a good introduction both to his sense of humor and his insight.

Most would say Schneider has had a successful WSOP in 2010, having cashed four times in preliminary events. But Schneider knows that hasn’t been enough. For most pros like him who play lots of events, it really takes more than just earning a few relatively small cashes to offset buy-ins and expenses. “Have a bad WSOP and you really have a bad year,” he explained to me, highlighting the importance of these many tournaments piled on top of one another over the last five weeks.

Schneider could be forgiven for having been a little down about poker during our dinner. Just a couple of hours before, he’d been eliminated from the event I was covering, the last of the $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em tourneys (Event No. 54). I’d actually had just happened to see his bustout hand from beginning to end, and had thus been able to report it over at PokerNews.

They had reached Level 5, the last level before the antes kick in, and Schneider was sitting on a little less than the starting stack. He had opened with a raise from middle position, and the player on the button reraised. I stood off to the side — in fact Tom told me he didn’t even realize I’d been there — and watched as it folded back to him. He paused a beat and said he was all in, exhaling the announcement in a way that made it seem like he wasn’t too happy to be getting his chips in here, but that he didn’t see he had any alternative available to him.

His opponent snap-called, and Schneider flipped over two black aces, getting a small reaction from the rest of the table. His opponent had two red jacks. But then the dealer delivered four hearts among the community cards, giving Schneider’s opponent a flush and sending him out of the event.

“That’s kind of how the whole Series has been for me,” said Schneider of the hand afterwards. He has a favorite saying he sometimes uses which seemed to apply here quite readily: “No good deed goes unpunished.”

Poker is hard enough, but the chance element further challenges those who play the game well yet find themselves not being rewarded for doing so. Which happens. A lot. And in fact, there are more and more players playing well these days, much more than even just three years ago when Schneider won his bracelets and the WSOP POY.

But that general increase in the number of skilled players isn’t what Schneider was referring to when he said players were “playing for their lives.” He was referring to the poorer economy and the fact that many players are essentially now playing with their “case money” with no margin for error. Gone (for the most part) are the rich whales playing for fun and without much care about losing their buy-ins. The relative “stakes” are higher for everyone, it seems, whether the buy-in is $1,000 or $10,000.

I was back on Event No. 54 last night for Day 1b where I had an interesting interaction with one of the players which kind of reminded me of what Tom had said. We were getting close to the end of play, and he wanted to know both where he stood chip-wise versus the field as well as what the payouts were.

I showed him what those making the final table stood to make (from $570,960 for first down to $45,286 for ninth). Then I showed him what the minimum cash was ($1,868). Then he wanted to me to scroll back up to the range where he said he “needed” to finish. We got back up to the top 54 and that was where he said he had to get.

I looked at him and he confessed why it was he needed to come away from this $1,000 buy-in event with at least a $9,000 score. “I have to offset what I lost at craps,” he said with a mischievous grin.

Schneider doesn’t have that craps problem to add stress to his efforts at the WSOP. But he is struggling to break even here, as are so many other players. Indeed, for many the idea of breaking even has long been essentially abandoned, with only a deep Main Event run making that even possible.

Schneider did just that last summer, finishing 52nd in the ME and thereby making up for an otherwise not-so-hot WSOP (he’d just one small cash prior to the Main Event last year). I’ll be pulling for him and a lot of other folks next week when The Big One finally gets underway. Though I know it’ll be tough for all, given that everyone is fighting so hard. And the way good deeds (or plays) tend to get punished now and then.

Meanwhile, I’ll be back on Day 2 of Event No. 54 today, when the cash bubble will burst and the fight for bigger rewards will continue. Follow that one as well as the other final preliminary bracelet events (plus the Ante Up for Africa charity tourney) over at PokerNews’ live reporting.

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Having started to cover tourneys in a variety of places, I can say that we are especially well provided for in terms of our working conditions in the Atlantic City Casino, where I am this week helping cover LAPT Lima. And I’m not just talking about those helpful signs above our work stations.

First off, the LAPT, PokerStars, and Atlantic City Casino folks are all extremely supportive and looking out for us at every step. The wireless network by which we access the internet is very fast and reliable, too. And we enjoyed what I thought was a fairly incredible meal at the casino buffet during one of our breaks. Another one of those sample-dozens-of-things-without-necessarily-noting-what-they-were type affairs, with just about everything being equally tasty.

The running of the tournament has gone well thus far, too. There were 40 tables set up for play yesterday — 20 filling the main poker room, and 20 more taking up most of the outer area there on the second floor of the casino. They were ready for 400 players, maximum, and ended up seating 384, which came close to breaking the record (398) for entries in an LAPT event.

At one point during the day I went through to see where everyone was from, and counted 33 different countries being represented. Probably two-thirds or more are from South America, but there are a number from the U.S., Europe, and even a couple from Asia.

As was the case at the start of the EPT event in Kyiv, it was a bit of a challenge early on identifying folks. There were a few familiar faces — particularly the PokerStars pros who were there — though there were many with whom I was previously unfamiliar.

Of course, we had a lot of fun with one particular PokerStars pro, Maria “Maridu” Mayrinck, who for a short while early in the afternoon was wearing a disguise. But being a shamus, I was able to see through it, and so got our photographer, Carlos, to snap some pics.

Eventually we learned several new names and had a lot to report. Working alongside Reinaldo (writing for the Stars Spanish language site) and Sergio (writing for the Portuguese site) helped, as did working together with the PokerNews guys, Marc and Rick.

Speaking of PokerNews, Lynn Gilmartin was there yesterday, having arrived Vegas with a story about being delayed in Houston. Like me, she’d had an extra six hours or so added to her trip and hadn’t gotten to Lima until five a.m. or so. It was the first of a few coincidences that marked the day.

The other two happened about the same time, about halfway through the day’s play. Just as the fifth (of eight levels) began, I got messages of support regarding a tournament I was apparently playing against Vicky Coren. She had tweeted that she was “Heads up! Just me and Seamus the blogger left” in a Stars tourney. Shortly after, she tweeted that Seamus had won.

Alas, it was a fellow named Seamus McCauley — also a blogger — and not me who took down the sucker.

It was right about then we heard the news that a Dutch man named Joran van der Sloot, once a suspect in that 2005 case in which the U.S. teenager Natalee Holloway had disappeared in Aruba, was now suspected of killing a woman in Lima.

Adding to the weirdness of it all, the woman had been killed on May 30 — the five-year anniversary of Hollaway’s disappearance. Not only that, van der Sloot and the victim apparently met at the Atlantic City Casino, and some of these reports were saying he was in Lima for the LAPT event. Last I heard yesterday, he had fled to Chile and a manhunt was on.

We were knee deep in covering the tourney and so couldn’t really devote much attention to tracking down further details about van der Sloot or the murder. Kind of reminded me of a plane trip Vera and I had taken back in June 1994. We had changed planes in Chicago, then later learned we were there at the same time O.J. Simpson had been. (Recall Simpson had flown to Chicago the night of the murders.)

I imagine we’ll hear a bit more today about the van der Sloot situation, but again I anticipate being occupied with much else. Will certainly be a long day, as the plan is to play down to 24 before we stop. Check in over at the PokerStars blog to follow along.

An especially long one yesterday — about a 16-hour workday, all told. Still a little tired this morning, but ready to get back over to the Atlantic City Casino to see how the story of LAPT Lima continues to unfold.

There were 197 players returning for Day 2 of the $2,700 buy-in Main Event. The plan was to play down to 24. (That picture to the left shows the main feature table starting to be constructed at the far end of the poker room.) After ten one-hour levels there was talk of just stopping things after two more levels (at the end of Level 20), regardless of how many players were left. As it happened, the elimination of Costa Rican player Luis Jaikel in 25th place happened just a few minutes before the end of that level, and so we’ll have the three eight-handed tables as planned when play restarts today.

As the day wore on, I began more and more to notice differences in the way the players interacted and what might be called the “culture” of the LAPT event when compared to, say, the World Series of Poker or U.S.-based tourneys.

As happens at the WSOP, there have been occasional displays of emotion as players react to various situations, most often during the all-ins when a player’s tourney life is on the line. And there have been a couple of dust-ups about rulings and such, but nothing terribly out of the ordinary.

I’ve found it interesting, however, to witness what seems like a lot of genuine human interaction at the tables as well, with much conversation and smiling. You’ll see that at the WSOP, too, now and then, but not with as much frequency as I have here, I don’t think.

For example, another player from Costa Rica, Steven Thompson, is one of the 24 coming back today. He has been kind of a gregarious type, talking and laughing quite a bit. And his tablemates seem often to be following suit. Even a simple blind-vs.-blind hand between Thompson and another player in which one bets the other out of a pot seemed always to elicit a lot of grins and good-natured back-and-forthing.

There was one particularly funny moment yesterday when there were just 51 players remaining. The top 48 spots paid, and so the tension had risen somewhat (and play slowed down a lot). Suddenly I noticed a player at Thompson’s table — Leandro Csome of Argentina — standing up with a piece of paper. He had written the number “48” on the paper, and with a huge grin was holding it up over the “51” on the electronic board indicating players remaining.

Csome let out a cheer, and Thompson immediately joined in the celebration, hugging Csome and drawing huge laughs all around. A very funny moment. Felt bad for Csome when he in fact went out soon after, just missing the cash, but he still had a smile on his face as he left.

There were other interesting stories yesterday. American player Martin Mathis started the day with 20,075 chips — just 75 more than the starting stack for the tourney — but survived multiple all-ins early on, then showed a lot of savvy to make it into the money before getting knocked out in 42nd.

There were a couple of other huge comebacks yesterday, too. Probably the most remarkable was that of U.S. player Ben Barrows. Sporting a t-shirt that said “Dazed and Confused,” Barrows started the day with just a little over 18,000, but is still in the sucker, currently in 11th place.

Also — and this is kind of a wild one — the last woman in the event, Pamela Espinosa of Chile, went out in 31st place, and was followed in 30th place by her husband, Mauricio Zeman! Not quite the Mizrachi brothers both making the final table of the $50K Player’s Championship at the WSOP, but remarkable nonetheless.

The big story as we ended the night — told by my blogging partner Brad “Otis” Willis over on the PokerStars blog — is the fact that the two previous winners of this season of the LAPT are first and second in chips heading into Day 3.

Amer Sulaiman, the chip leader, ran especially well during the last hours of play on Day 2, picking up pocket aces at least twice, and seemingly always having the goods when short-stacked players were pushing all in against him. The Canadian Sulaiman won the LAPT Playa Conchal event in Costa Rica last November which kicked off this Season 3 of the LAPT.

And Team PokerStars pro Jose “Nacho” Barbero of Argentina is second in chips. Barbero is an especially tricky player whom I remember covering at last summer’s WSOP when he made a final table in the $1,500 limit hold’em shootout (won by Greg Mueller). Barbero won LAPT Punta del Este in Uruguay this past February.

Both Sulaiman and Barbero had vocal supporters on the rail yesterday, and indeed the scene was pretty raucous at times with a lot of cheering and singing as more than 100 spectators crowded the action.

Incidentally, there wasn’t too much talk yesterday about the Joran van der Sloot situation. We heard he’d been arrested in Chile, but that was about it.

The only other evidence of the story was the fact that a couple of times during the day there were news crews — not covering the tourney — shooting segments there near and in the poker room. On the left is a picture of one such segment being shot as I walked in early yesterday.

We expect there will be more excitement today as they play down to the final eight. Check in on the PokerStars blog to see the next chapter of the story.