Casino Planet Cash

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.

Robbie Savage may not be everyone’s cup of tea as a person or as a player but he’s one heck of an analyst and saw Wigan’s most unlikely of comebacks coming. The Perfect Punter stresses the importance of deciding who is worth listening to ahead of the World Cup.

The Brit Oval on June 8 could be the stage for a remarkable comeback if Surrey can manage to lure Brian Lara out of retirement, writes Frank Gregan. But should punters expect a glorious return or a stain on the reputation of one of cricket’s greats?

Wigan Athletic staged one of the biggest comebacks in Premier League history to leave the Gunners’ season in tatters. Meanwhile, Pompey go down fighting again…

As Easter is the season of resurrection and with Tiger Woods due to return to action at Augusta next week, Eliot Pollack thought it was high time we had a close look at the sporting (and spiritual) icons who have made successful comebacks…

As Roma aim to complete the most unlikely of title-challenging comebacks, they travel to Bari this weekend in a match where their attacking trident of Totti/Toni/Vucinic is almost certain to produce goals. Dave Farrar talks us through all the action this weekend.

Sometime last year my friend Tim Peters sent me a very thoughtful gift — an original edition of Webster’s Poker Book (published in 1925).

The condition of the book is not mint by a long shot, with the worn edges, broken spine, and yellowing pages attesting to the book’s age. Still, a rarity of sorts, and I get a kick out of pulling it out now and then and mulling over its various advice and illustrations.

The book could be regarded as a primer of sorts for poker — one does learn rules, some strategy, odds, and other information of value to players. Mostly, though, it seems aimed at entertaining readers, a goal which it achieves throughout.

A short note at the front of the book explains that “IF YOU HAVE NEVER PLAYED POKER… This book will doubtless stimulate you to learn America’s favorite game.” Five-card draw is the game of choice here, with just about all of the discussion centering around that variant.

In addition to the instruction, there are also numerous anecdotes, funny stories, a history of poker, and other ephemera scattered throughout, the most famous of which being the illustrations by the famous American cartoonist Harold Tucker Webster, better known as “H.T.” Indeed, you have probably seen some of these before reprinted in other poker books — a total of fifty different one-page cartoons, many of which graphically depict common and/or humorous situations discussed in the text.

Above is the cover, and here is the title page which lists all of Webster’s collaborators, too:

You see reference there to “a compartment containing a set of poker chips and a pad of I.O.U. forms embellished by Webster, ready for instant use.” The book actually does contain a little shelf inside the back cover which can be pulled out. The chips were long gone, but there are still some of the I.O.U. forms, designed for use at the end of the night at the home game. Here’s one of those:

There were also some postcards in there, the front of which featured advertisements for the book and the back a form which could be filled out before sending to your poker buddies. That picture at the bottom of the front side gives you an idea how the little shelf that slides out of the back cover works.

By the way, if you look back at that title page you might notice around the border images of the four suits plus what appear to be swastikas. Webster’s Poker Book appeared right about when the Nazi Party had first adopted the swastika (the first volume of Mein Kampf was also published in 1925, actually), a time when the symbol had yet to take on the connotations which we instantly associate with it. Indeed, before its appropriation by the Nazis, it was often considered a symbol of good luck, which I’m guessing had to be the reason why it was included here.

As I say, the cartoons are the main reason why this book is remembered, and so I wanted to share a few of them with you. All of them evoke ideas and concepts that are familiar to just about anybody who has played poker. A lot of grins to be found among ’em, too.

Here’s one that evokes a common theme in the book — the eternal struggle between husbands and wives over poker playing:

Here’s another that reminds us of something we’ve all felt after starting a session badly, then finding ourselves vainly trying to dig out of the hole:

And here’s one more suggesting one of the benefits of buying in for the maximum:

You can read more about H.T. Webster over on Wikipedia as well as in this sketch about him on the American Heritage site. And here’s another blog with a post about Webster that features a small sampling of the 16,000-plus cartoons he drew.

Thanks again, Tim, for a neat collector’s item!

By the way, I’m working on creating complete archive pages for the five sections of the blog — “On the Street,” “The Rumble,” “Shots in the Dark,” “High Society,” and “By the Book.” I’ve only finished one so far — “By the Book,” the section where I talk about poker books as well as hard-boiled fiction (though always try to relate things back to poker). So if you are interested in reading other book talk, check out that page and click around.

Not bad, but probably not good enough to remind people that he was the same guy who dominated this sport for years.

The 2010 F1 season finally kicked off and the sport definitely has a lot of things going for it this year. You have a new phenom in Sebastian Vettel trying to take over the sport, you have a former double world champion in Fernando Alonso who was finally awarded with the machine that could get him back on top of Formula One, and then you have the returning Michael Schumacher who is out to prove how good he can still be at 41.

So how did Michael Schumacher’s first race back to Formula One go? Well, it wasn’t the typical Schumacher dominance we’ve been accustomed to in the past but still, a 6^th place finish at 41 years old isn’t bad, not bad at all.

That’s right, Michael Schumacher, starting 7^th in the grid, finished 6^th to kick off the season in Bahrain. That’s a good start if you ask me and if Schumi at 41 years old can still keep them good finishes coming for his new teammates from Mercedes GP, then we definitely have one intriguing season ahead for sure.

Schumi spoke a day after the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix and he was understandably happy about the way his first race back turned out.

”Still today, a day after my comeback race, I feel extremely well,” Mercedes GP driver Michael Schumacher told his official website. ”With regards to the fitness, this race was not at all difficult for me and I was not exhausted at all. This is partly due to…”

We still don’t know when Tiger will make his comeback but the whispers get ever louder and he trades at just [1.15] to play in the Masters. Now, therefore, is the time to back the world’s greatest golfer to make the majors his own, says Paul Krishnamurty

Who says Golf is getting boring? I like Dustin Johnson, I think that he’s a great guy! He seems like a genuine chap. I’m happy he won, despite a seriously awkward ending…? ;p How about that hot & steamy awards presentation where Clint Eastwood and Du-Jo shared the stage;) David Duval making a comeback isn’t too shabby to watch either… Nice…