Casino Planet Cash

“And now to a little Texas hold’em up!”

That’s how Tony Kornheiser introduced a short segment on Monday’s “Pardon the Interruption” regarding the heist that occurred at the European Poker Tour Berlin Main Event last Saturday. After a brief summary of what happened, Kornheiser then opened up what would amount to a 90-second discussion of the story with his co-host Michael Wilbon by posing the following question:

“Wilbon, do you see this as a serious breach of the law, or an exciting new twist to televised poker coverage?!”

Kornheiser’s tone (and grin) made it clear he was being sarcastic, but bringing up the topic this way seemed to indicate the somewhat cynical view the hosts and other sports journalists have about poker butting its way onto ESPN and the sports section. And, as it turned out, Wilbon’s answer made it sound as though he understood the question somewhat seriously.

After starting with a joke asking about Norman Chad’s whereabouts at the time of the robbery, Wilbon described his thoughts when watching the video clip from EPT Live showing the tourney suddenly getting interrupted.

“Watching from afar, I’m like… this is like a wrestling promotion!” said Wilbon. “This was like a set-up to get more attention — to get goofballs like you and me talking about this stuff — and it seems like an exciting new development. Like a car chase on CNN!”

Kornheiser agreed it was exciting stuff, suggesting that the incident “will be a movie within a year.” The conversation quickly concluded after a couple of incredulous reactions at the level of security that allowed the theft to occur. (By the way, a tip of the fedora to Gary Wise for mentioning the PTI segment earlier this week in his ESPN column.)

I guess I can’t really blame Kornheiser or Wilbon for reacting this way. For those who have never participated in, covered, or attended a real live high-stakes poker tournament, there’s a lot of mystery about what goes on. In other words, I guess I am saying I am inclined to pardon “Pardon the Interruption” here. Though I ain’t necessarily congratulating them for any special insight, either.

Given poker’s storied history in the U.S. — a history filled with cheats and thieves and other “hold’em up”-style scenes — I can see how some hearing of the EPT Berlin robbery wouldn’t necessarily appreciate how uncommon an event it really was. (Heck, I remember the first time I went out to cover the WSOP getting asked about how I’d handle being around gangsters. No shinola!)

Obviously the robbery was not “a set-up” or some sort of promotional gimmick. (And, really, to think it was would require a heckuva lot of cynicism.) Not that the EPT or any of the other professional poker tours would even desire this sort of attention, or expect it to help stimulate their growth.

I had the chance to talk with one of the players who was still in the Main Event at the time of the robbery on Saturday — Ilya Gorodetsky. In fact, he was seated at the feature table when the interruption occurred. In my interview with the Russian player, he told me how some initially thought it might have been some sort of joke. But it soon became clear it was not.

You can read the full interview over on Betfair, where it was posted this morning: “Fright at the Feature Table: EPT Berlin.” Big thanks again to Ilya for taking the time to talk with me.

Here’s to a less exciting weekend this time, eh?

Cool first day at the Venetian yesterday for the start of the NAPT event. My sense at day’s end was that most everyone — players, tourney organizers, media — felt it more than met expectations.

As you’ve probably read elsewhere, the turnout was huge, with 872 players altogether, making the prize pool somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million. That meant 89 tables to start out. The Venetian Poker Room is already quite large, but only holds has room for about 40 tables, so there were tables set up all around the perimeter, filling every space there between the Poker Room and the Race & Sports Book, Noodle Asia, and the Casino.

I made it down early to get acclimated, and was glad to see Mad Harper (whom I last saw about 6,000 miles away in Kyiv, Ukraine) who helped get me oriented, as she helps everyone do at these things. Also glad to meet up with Garry Gates soon afterwards, with whom I’d worked the last two summers at the WSOP.

Brad, California Jen, and Joe (our photographer) had ourselves a nice spot from which to work, and once we got set up we were on our feet a lot, making the long circuit in and out of the tables. Had some more fun reunions while making that trek, including with Benjo, Gary Wise, F-Train, and Donnie Peters (who, by the way, final tabled one of the preliminary events at the Venetian).

Incidentally, those jokes the last couple of posts about my new computer were partially true — I am now writing on a MacBook Air which so far has worked like a charm. Still getting used to the basics, but as other Mac users have said time and again, the sucker is set up in a way that it generally isn’t too hard to figure out how to do what you want to do. The fast start ups and shut downs are pretty cool, too.

There was a little bit of talk here and there before things got going about the absent Team Full Tilt folks, but not a lot of attention to that story once the cards were in the air. Fact was there were plenty of big names there — including a lot Full Tilt pros, just none of the toppermost guys (and gal). Much more interesting to focus on who was there than who was not.

For a quick overview of Day 1, you can check out Brad’s wrap-up post which also has links to the live blog. Also check out the PokerNews’ reports for further details of the day.

The stacks were — as the “Deep Stack Extravaganza” name suggests — mighty deep, starting at 30,000 with 50/100 blinds and with a very gradual schedule of increases. So aside from a few bits of drama early on (e.g., Daniel Negreanu doubled up on one of the day’s first hands), it was slow going poker-wise for the first couple of hours. But things soon picked up and by day’s end the field was down 510. The plan is to be down to 24 by the end of Day 3 (Monday), though, so we’re anticipating a couple of long ones today and tomorrow.

Phil Hellmuth arrived at the start of Level 5 — the last possible moment, I believe — and was soon gone after somewhat stubbornly running his pocket queens into Eric Levesque’s pocket aces. Enjoyed hearing about that hand from Kathy Liebert (who was at the Poker Brat’s table), although Cali Jen had already been there to report it on the PS blog.

Speaking of Liebert, Jen and I have begun a new “He Said/She Said” column over at Woman Poker Player, and in the first one we separately discussed the issue of women and sponsorships in poker. The idea was partly suggested by some recent debates about the issue in the poker media, debates which invariably involve Liebert, the most successful no-limit hold’em player among women who doesn’t currently have a sponsorship. We’ve both been getting some nice feedback on those articles — here they are, if you are interested: He Said & She Said

Like I say, a nice start, and it’s only going to get more exciting as the tourney progresses. And I’m glad once again to be working with and alongside a bunch of talented and smart folks. Follow along over on the PokerStars blog for all of the latest.

Busy days. Seems like I have a half-dozen things I’m supposed to be doing right now, one of which includes readying to go help cover the North American Poker Tour Venetian event starting this weekend.

Saw the exciting news a couple of days ago that ESPN2 will indeed be airing a number of hours’ worth of NAPT events starting April 19. (Read all about it here.) I also saw the less thrilling news yesterday that apparently Full Tilt Poker doesn’t want its pros playing in the NAPT Venetian. Gary Wise reported on that development over at ESPN, and Dan Michalski adds a few thoughts as well over at Pokerati.

Besides readying for the trip, I’m busily trying to finish some articles and take care of other matters, too. Feeling pulled in a number of directions, but not too stressed, really. (Maybe I’m being inspired by those Olympians to rise to the challenge.)

In any event, all of this stuff has most definitely gotten in the way of my creating a new episode of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show, which I now have to admit is on a hiatus of sorts. But I do have more shows planned!

Speaking of the HBPRS, the show is now being aired — syndicated, if you will — over on the fledgling Poker Radio Network. They streamed the first episode over there (Dead Man’s Deal) last week and I had some nice feedback on that. Should get the show a few new listeners, and perhaps some new readers over here, too.

I think the HBPRS gets played over on the Poker Radio Network on Mondays at 5 p.m., Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m., and Fridays at noon (all Pacific times). I believe there’s also a time on Saturday when the show comes on, too. There are some other shows over on PRN as well, covering a variety of poker-related topics.

Meanwhile, I’m going to be turning up over on Rounders Radio tonight when I appear on Lou Krieger’s Keep Flopping Aces podcast. The plan is for him to interview me a bit initially about the blog and other items, then I’m going to be asking him some questions to pick his brain a bit regarding the current status of poker books and print publications. (My plan is to write something up from my interview afterwards for Betfair.)

Krieger, as most of you know, has published numerous poker books — 11 altogether, I believe — and so has a particularly informed perspective on the subject. His first poker book was published back in the mid-1990s (Hold’em Excellence: From Beginner to Winner), and his most recent one in 2007 (52 Great Poker Tips). That means he was already on the shelves when the “boom” happened in 2003 (and, I assume, benefited somewhat from that). Here’s a page on his website where you can see all of his books and follow links for ordering.

Krieger also edits Poker Player Newspaper, familiar to anyone frequenting the cardrooms in Vegas and elsewhere, so he has some insight into that side of poker publishing as well.

Should be fun to go on KFA, which is one of the poker podcasts I’ve been following for a long time. I think I first found it three years ago (or so), when Krieger was co-hosting the show with Amy Calistri, and have always enjoyed the variety of guests and discussions. The show airs at 6 p.m. Pacific time tonight, or 9 p.m. for those of us here in the east, and then will be subsequently available for download as a podcast.

Finally, you can also hear me crashing the party again over on the latest episode (No. of the Gambling Tales Podcast with Special K and Falstaff, where we have a segment discussing James McManus’s Cowboys Full: The Story of Poker. As I’ve said before, those of you who have listened to and enjoyed my podcast should check out GTP, as it also features some great stories about gambling, delivered via interviews and discussions of such tales from history. Fun stuff.

So there are a few audio snacks to fill the gap between servings of The Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show. By the way, if you have any questions about poker books & publications you’d like me to bring up on tonight’s Keep Flopping Aces, leave ’em in the comments and I’ll see if I can work them into the conversation.

Be talkin’ to you.

One subject I have discussed here off and on is the difference between “amateur” and “professional” poker players. Probably the most recent attempt at discussing that often difficult-to-make distinction came last spring, when I declared myself once and for all to be an example of “The Recreational Poker Player” — not exactly an “amateur,” but certainly not a “pro” either.

A thoughtful piece was posted over on the ESPN Poker Club website yesterday, an article titled “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Pro’?” The author is Eric Siegel, Marketing and Player Development Leader for Poker Players International, an agency with a large roster of players. Poking around the PPI website, it appears the agency represents dozens of players, including folks like Tom McEvoy, Kathy Liebert, Victor Ramdin, John D’Agostino, Linda Johnson, T.J. Cloutier, and many other recognizable folks. The agency divides its players into different teams according to various criteria (Team PPI, Team PPI Elite, and Team PPI Pro, and Team PPI International), so Siegel is perhaps quite familiar with this sometimes tricky business of classifying poker players.

Siegel begins his article by noting that the “professional” label doesn’t always fit poker players as neatly or obviously as it might in other areas of society. “By definition, a professional is someone who engages in an activity as a source of livelihood or as a career,” writes Siegel. However, when it comes to poker there are many who “are either labeled or label themselves as ‘professionals’” without necessarily regarding that otherwise cut-and-dry criterion as a prerequisite for doing so.

Siegel goes on to make a couple of further points before making his own attempt at answering the question that appears in the headline. One point he makes concerns the fact that poker players on the tournament circuit are “under constant scrutiny from other players, family or the media,” with their results “made public record on thousands of websites” — oftentimes even before they collect their checks! Might be a slight exaggeration there to say “thousands” of sites posting such info, but you get the idea — it’s all out there (says Siegel).

In this discussion, Siegel does gloss over a couple of obvious factors. One is the fact that a relatively small percentage of actual poker pros are exclusively tournament players. Dan Harrington declared in a Card Player interview (the December 11, 2007 issue, Vol. 20, No. 24) that he didn’t think the tournament circuit was even a viable option for those truly looking for “a source of livelihood or as a career.” Because “the volatility in tournaments is out of sight,” says Harrington, “I don’t think you can consider playing tournaments for a living. I think that is impossible.” Some still try to do so, of course, but I haven’t seen too many folks disagreeing with Harrington’s statement over the past couple of years.

So a lot of poker pros are in fact sticking mainly to the cash tables, where their successes and failures are not part of the “public record.” Of course, even with the tourney players this “public record” is highly incomplete, including only cashes and not the amount spent on entries or overall ROI. Earlier this week another item appeared on the ESPN site, a piece by Gary Wise about the recent sale of T.J. Cloutier’s 2005 WSOP bracelet on eBay. The “public record” of Cloutier (incidentally, a PPI player) is stellar, denoting him as one of the top tourney players of all time. However, it appears the $9.8 million he’s won over the years in tournaments is probably not a true indication of his relative “livelihood.”

Siegel goes on to note how sponsorship — say, for a televised final table — doesn’t really provide a trustworthy indicator of whether or not a player is a pro. He also adds a comment about a player having earned others’ respect as perhaps a sign that he or she might have earned the “pro” designation.

In the end, Siegel’s says he considers real poker pros as falling into two groups, although both are similar and both in fact go back to that traditional definition of a “professional” as someone earning a living at what he or she does. The first group, says Siegel, includes the person who has left his or her career in pursuit of a career in poker, while the second group includes those who made poker “their first job with no prior income source.”

Like I say, a thoughtful piece, though ultimately Siegel doesn’t really offer us a different way of thinking about the professional-amateur distinction. He’s right to say traditional ideas of what it means to be a “pro” don’t always apply perfectly to poker. But while Siegel does give us some things to think about, he doesn’t quite offer us a clear way to think differently about the distinction with regard to poker players.

I still like David Spanier’s distinction, drawn in his 1977 book Total Poker, a collection of essays I have come to believe is one of the more underrated and overlooked poker books around. (See a review here.) “A fine line is drawn between the status of amateur and professional at poker,” writes Spanier. “Really, it’s a moral line. How far do you go, how much do you play, how much do you want to win?”

Ultimately, argues Spanier, the pro will come to think of poker as “work,” and thus as part of his or her self-identity, whereas the amateur will never quite get rid of the idea that poker is “play.” “Somehow you can’t imagine a professional saying he is getting down to play,” says Spanier.

That observation, I think, starts to get at the real issue here, and offers us a genuinely different way to think of the amateur-professional problem as it applies to poker. Set aside the idea of identifying one’s “livelihood” as determined by how much cabbage it earns you. What is your level of commitment? When it comes to this game — it is, after all, a game — are you playing or working?

One subject I have discussed here off and on is the difference between “amateur” and “professional” poker players. Probably the most recent attempt at discussing that often difficult-to-make distinction came last spring, when I declared myself once and for all to be an example of “The Recreational Poker Player” — not exactly an “amateur,” but certainly not a “pro” either.

A thoughtful piece was posted over on the ESPN Poker Club website yesterday, an article titled “What Does It Mean to Be a ‘Pro’?” The author is Eric Siegel, Marketing and Player Development Leader for Poker Players International, an agency with a large roster of players. Poking around the PPI website, it appears the agency represents dozens of players, including folks like Tom McEvoy, Kathy Liebert, Victor Ramdin, John D’Agostino, Linda Johnson, T.J. Cloutier, and many other recognizable folks. The agency divides its players into different teams according to various criteria (Team PPI, Team PPI Elite, and Team PPI Pro, and Team PPI International), so Siegel is perhaps quite familiar with this sometimes tricky business of classifying poker players.

Siegel begins his article by noting that the “professional” label doesn’t always fit poker players as neatly or obviously as it might in other areas of society. “By definition, a professional is someone who engages in an activity as a source of livelihood or as a career,” writes Siegel. However, when it comes to poker there are many who “are either labeled or label themselves as ‘professionals’” without necessarily regarding that otherwise cut-and-dry criterion as a prerequisite for doing so.

Siegel goes on to make a couple of further points before making his own attempt at answering the question that appears in the headline. One point he makes concerns the fact that poker players on the tournament circuit are “under constant scrutiny from other players, family or the media,” with their results “made public record on thousands of websites” — oftentimes even before they collect their checks! Might be a slight exaggeration there to say “thousands” of sites posting such info, but you get the idea — it’s all out there (says Siegel).

In this discussion, Siegel does gloss over a couple of obvious factors. One is the fact that a relatively small percentage of actual poker pros are exclusively tournament players. Dan Harrington declared in a Card Player interview (the December 11, 2007 issue, Vol. 20, No. 24) that he didn’t think the tournament circuit was even a viable option for those truly looking for “a source of livelihood or as a career.” Because “the volatility in tournaments is out of sight,” says Harrington, “I don’t think you can consider playing tournaments for a living. I think that is impossible.” Some still try to do so, of course, but I haven’t seen too many folks disagreeing with Harrington’s statement over the past couple of years.

So a lot of poker pros are in fact sticking mainly to the cash tables, where their successes and failures are not part of the “public record.” Of course, even with the tourney players this “public record” is highly incomplete, including only cashes and not the amount spent on entries or overall ROI. Earlier this week another item appeared on the ESPN site, a piece by Gary Wise about the recent sale of T.J. Cloutier’s 2005 WSOP bracelet on eBay. The “public record” of Cloutier (incidentally, a PPI player) is stellar, denoting him as one of the top tourney players of all time. However, it appears the $9.8 million he’s won over the years in tournaments is probably not a true indication of his relative “livelihood.”

Siegel goes on to note how sponsorship — say, for a televised final table — doesn’t really provide a trustworthy indicator of whether or not a player is a pro. He also adds a comment about a player having earned others’ respect as perhaps a sign that he or she might have earned the “pro” designation.

In the end, Siegel’s says he considers real poker pros as falling into two groups, although both are similar and both in fact go back to that traditional definition of a “professional” as someone earning a living at what he or she does. The first group, says Siegel, includes the person who has left his or her career in pursuit of a career in poker, while the second group includes those who made poker “their first job with no prior income source.”

Like I say, a thoughtful piece, though ultimately Siegel doesn’t really offer us a different way of thinking about the professional-amateur distinction. He’s right to say traditional ideas of what it means to be a “pro” don’t always apply perfectly to poker. But while Siegel does give us some things to think about, he doesn’t quite offer us a clear way to think differently about the distinction with regard to poker players.

I still like David Spanier’s distinction, drawn in his 1977 book Total Poker, a collection of essays I have come to believe is one of the more underrated and overlooked poker books around. (See a review here.) “A fine line is drawn between the status of amateur and professional at poker,” writes Spanier. “Really, it’s a moral line. How far do you go, how much do you play, how much do you want to win?”

Ultimately, argues Spanier, the pro will come to think of poker as “work,” and thus as part of his or her self-identity, whereas the amateur will never quite get rid of the idea that poker is “play.” “Somehow you can’t imagine a professional saying he is getting down to play,” says Spanier.

That observation, I think, starts to get at the real issue here, and offers us a genuinely different way to think of the amateur-professional problem as it applies to poker. Set aside the idea of identifying one’s “livelihood” as determined by how much cabbage it earns you. What is your level of commitment? When it comes to this game — it is, after all, a game — are you playing or working?

Was talking to Vera Valmore yesterday about the latest “big thing” in poker everyone seems to be talking about — namely, all the speculation over whether or not Brian Hastings perhaps received a little extra assistance from his CardRunners buds that might’ve helped him in that huge session versus Isildur1 last week. You remember that session — the one in which the senior at Cornell University took himself a little study break and ended up going back to the books $4.2 million richer. (Read more here.)

I tried to summarize the situation, including what I could remember of Full Tilt Poker’s “Site Terms” that might have been relevant here. I said I knew there was a rule against collusion, and those who do collude risk forfeiting their balance. I knew there was also something in there about using certain programs — called “external player assistance programs” (I see now, looking at the site) — “which are designed to provide users with an unfair advantage over their opponents.” That rule goes on to say that “Full Tilt Poker defines an unfair advantage as a user accessing or compiling information on other players beyond that which the user has personally observed through his or her own game play.”

As I explained it to Vera, some of the buzz made it sound as though it were possible that Hastings may have had some knowledge of hands played by some of his friends against Isildur1. That is, perhaps some of what they call “datamining” had happened whereby Hastings learned some things about his opponent he might not have been able to learn without assistance from another.

Hastings didn’t really say much along those lines in his 12/9/09 blog post about the session. He does mention there fellow CardRunners pro Brian Townsend’s losing session earlier in the day versus Isildur1, but doesn’t say anything about having had any inside dope regarding Townsend’s hands.

Shortly after his big day, Hastings was interviewed on a couple of podcasts, including ESPN’s The Poker Edge with Andrew Feldman and Phil Gordon (the 12/10/09 episode). At about the 10-minute mark, Gordon asks Hastings specifically about how he and his buddies had gone about analyzing Isildur1’s play, and Hastings responds by saying they had done quite a bit of study of the unknown Swede’s habits. Hastings notes in particular that Townsend had “analyzed a database of, like, 50,000 heads-up hands that Isildur1 played and constructed ranges of what Isildur1 was doing in all kinds of spots,” adding that “the three of us discussed a ton of hands and the reports that Brian made.” Hastings also appeared on Mediocre Poker Radio (the 12/11/09 episode) where he again makes reference to having watching Townsend playing that session and getting in the mood to play Isildur1 after Townsend finished.

Then, on 12/14/09, Gary Wise posted an article over on the ESPN Poker Club which made a few points about Hastings’ big win, including placing an emphasis on “the strength of the collective” — i.e., pointing out how beneficial it can be to have fellow poker players to talk to about one’s game. Wise noted how “he, Townsend and Cole South conglomerated their hand histories, allowing them to study the mystery man’s playing style,” and included that quote from the Poker Edge interview as well as support.

A couple of days after Wise’s article appeared, a thread started up over on Two Plus Two that raised the question of whether or not Hastings et al. may have violated Full Tilt Poker’s “Site Terms.” On Saturday, 12/19/09, a representative of Full Tilt Poker (“FTPSean”) came onto the thread to say that “After doing an investigation and speaking with Brian Hastings, Brian Townsend, and Cole South, the Fraud and Security team have come to the conclusion that the statement taken from the ESPN article describing the three combining their hands into a shared database was inaccurate.”

However (FTPSean goes on to say), the investigation did reveal that Townsend — a Full Tilt red pro, by the way — was guilty of a breach of FTP rules regarding datamining, and that the punishment for Townsend would be the loss of his Red Pro status for one month. (Townsend writes about the matter on his CardRunners blog here.) (Incidentally, Cole South came onto the Two Plus Two thread later as well to deny any wrongdoing on his part.)

I told Vera the whole thing seemed to highlight the fact that the online poker sites have certain rules that seemingly cannot be enforced. Indeed, in FTPSean’s note on Two Plus Two he begins by saying “There is absolutely nothing wrong with discussing hands, discussing opponents, or discussing strategy with other players while away from the table,” but then notes how the sort of datamining of which Townsend was found guilty is out of bounds.

Clearly there is some distinction there regarding the degree to which one takes one’s discussions of strategy while away from the tables. Less clear is how exactly one makes that distinction — and, importantly, how an online site can effectively regulate against it.

I tried to draw an analogy with downloading music files from the web — clearly not legal, but “everyone does it.” Vera quickly stopped me. “Not everyone does it,” she said. True. “And downloading music files can always be tracked,” she added, noting a clear difference between the sort of rule-breaking that we were talking about with regard to sharing hand histories/compiling databases and my proposed parallel.

Definitely seems on the surface to be a bit unfair to the individual who finds himself up against “the strength of the collective.” But, really, anyone who plays online poker potentially subjects him/herself to such a disadvantage, dontcha think?

Wonder what Isildur1 thinks about all of this? Sounds like we might find out, as apparently Matthew Parvis of PokerNews has scored an interview with the Swede. I imagine we’ll be seeing that appear sometime today.

Will definitely be interesting to see what else those continuing to dig deeper into this story manage to uncover.

(EDIT [10:55 a.m.]: Parvis’s blog post about the still-to-come interview.)

(EDIT [11:25 a.m.]: The PokerNews interview is now online, in which Isildur1 says he plans to make a formal complaint to Full Tilt Poker regarding the session with Hastings.)

I have written about Victoria Coren here before on a couple of occasions, having heard her on podcasts, occasionally read her poker-related columns in The Guardian, and covered her in a few tournaments, both live and online. In one post, “Victoria’s Secrets,” I wrote about her very interesting interview with Gary Wise in which she offered some insights about the whole men-vs.-women-in-poker thing, as well as discussed writing and poker and the great poker narratives such as The Biggest Game in Town (1983) by Al Alvarez and Anthony Holden’s Big Deal (1990).

In that interview with Wise (from January 2009), Coren mentioned that she was at work on her own poker narrative. The book, titled For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker, arrived this fall. I recently had the chance to read and review it, and wanted to share a few comments here about the book as well. The book primarily functions as a “poker memoir” chronicling Coren’s poker career — from her first learning the game as a teenager from her older brother in the late 1980s to her becoming a European Poker Tour champ and a PokerStars team pro. The book is much more than that, though. Let me explain.

The category of “poker books,” despite being a teeny, tiny niche (really), includes a wide variety of styles and subjects. Go to Borders or Barnes and Noble and on the “poker” shelves you’ll find jammed together strategy texts (covering a wide variety of games, both cash and tourney), simple “how-to” primers, rulebooks, biographies, autobiographies, histories, and more. People visit these shelves for a number of different reasons, and in a lot of instances, books are prejudged by the (potential) reader’s idea or opinion of the poker-playing ability of the author. Such preconceptions have relevance, certainly, when considering a strategy text, though aren’t necessarily as valuable when considering other, non-strategy works.

As a poker player, Coren has had some success, highlighted most prominently by her victory at the EPT London Main Event in 2006 (a sweet £500,000 score). Some — especially poker players who tend to adhere to the “time equals money” formula — will not be persuaded by her other, less obviously remarkable results to consider her memoir worthy of their “investment” (in time or in cabbage). Such folks will be missing out on a well-crafted, perceptive, and witty example of storytelling which I would think should appeal to all poker players. Probably would interest some non-poker players, too, I’d imagine.

Coren does tell the tale of her 2006 EPT success, cleverly winding her narrative of the most significant hands from that final table with the primary autobiographical thread. Each chapter is punctuated with a hand, and it is in those interludes one encounters the bulk of the “strategy” talk in the book. But even there the emphasis isn’t so much on strategy as on relating Coren’s ups and downs as that dramatic final table plays out.

Meanwhile, as mentioned, the autobiography begins with Coren first learning the game as a teen, then going to college after which she takes a turn as a standup comedian. Eventually Coren finds herself repeatedly returning to the Victoria Casino in London (the “Vic”), enamored with other gambling games (especially roulette) but eyeing the poker tables as well. Then comes an opportunity to go to Las Vegas to interview Huck Seed for a newspaper. Seed had just won the 1996 World Series of Poker Main Event, and for Coren the opportunity provides a kind of “seed” — my groan-worthy pun, not Coren’s — for a career in journalism as well as for her continued pursuit of poker.

The rest of the book carries her story forward to 2006 where the twin narratives finally join together — in surprisingly dramatic, even moving fashion — near the book’s conclusion. Along the way, we read about Coren’s becoming involved with “Late Night Poker,” the ground-breaking poker TV show that debuted in 1999 and on which she eventually appeared both as a player and a commentator; her early experiences at the Vic and in Vegas, including her first participation in events at the WSOP; her developing many friendships with poker players, with nifty character sketches of figures like Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Neil Channing, John Duthie, Hamish Shah, Roland de Wolfe, and the Hendon Mob guys; her other, more significant relationships with men (all discreetly handled); and the illness and death of her father, the satirist Alan Coren.

A few themes emerge over the course of the book, besides the ongoing “education of a poker player” that is happening throughout. As one might expect, there is the whole “woman in a man’s world” motif, symbolically introduced in the book’s opening line: “My brother’s game is on the other side of that wall.”

As in that interview with Wise, Coren makes some keen points here when discussing the subject of women in poker. “Men and women are not sufficiently different, psychologically, for either gender to be ‘naturally’ better at poker than the other,” she maintains, though quickly adds that she is “not saying that gender differences don’t exist.” She goes on to speculate that “If the differences between men and women are relevant to the game at all, it should be true that women’s traditional qualities of craftiness, patience and guile should balance out the male instincts of aggression, bluff and bluster.”

When playing at the Ladies Event at the 2001 WSOP, Coren notes the strangeness of the scene — that is, a poker room filled with hundreds of women at the tables and no men — humorously describing it as “like science fiction.” “It’s a vision of how the world could have been,” she writes, “if somebody stepped on a butterfly and it all turned out different.” While not everyone is going to agree with her conclusions on this subject, I think her book does provide a valuable contribution to the ongoing conversation about women in poker.

Another, somewhat related theme that emerges in the book is suggested by the title, taken from traditional wedding vows. Coren frequently notes how her path in life has not included marriage or children (yet), and indeed poker — with whom she’s had a lifelong “romance” — kind of takes the place of that traditional sort of relationship. (As she notes in the preface, “poker is the most companionable thing I do.”) There is also a lot in there about the “the romance of poker” and its various thrills, all of which she relates accurately and effectively.

Those of you who have read Coren’s columns know she is both witty and “literary” in her writing — that is to say, she definitely can make you laugh, but she can also deftly employ various poetic devices (symbol, metaphor, allusion) to help her communicate her intended meaning. I could make this post even longer by citing the many examples of both her wit and literary sensibility, but I’ll confine myself to sharing just one of each.

Among the book’s many laugh-out-loud moments is Coren’s account of her meeting Phil Hellmuth in 2001. He’d come over for a series of “Late Night Poker” in which Coren was also participating, and a group goes out for dinner. Ever the entrepreneur, Hellmuth begins describing his idea for an album — The Phil Hellmuth Poker Album — for which he’ll compile songs from other bands’ outtakes. Coren questions him about the project, not understanding what exactly makes it a “Phil Hellmuth” album or a “poker” album. “‘I will have collected the songs,’” he explains, excitedly (and enigmatically). “‘And I’m a poker player.’”

Coren’s response is to cite the lack of relevance. “‘You might as well gather up a bunch of animals,’’” she says, “‘put them in a field and call it The Phil Hellmuth Poker Farm.’”

As far as “literary” moments go, I especially like one Proustian passage in which she shares a flashback to a trip to a flea market as a 12-year-old with her father, a memory which is in fact inspired by her account of a Vegas trip and a particularly successful run at the craps tables with a group of friends. It is “one of those moments you dream about in gambling,” she explains, where the group keeps winning and winning. Her description of the run dissolves into a giddy, lyrical expression of that hard-to-define pleasure that comes from winning (and, not incidentally, from experiencing meaningful companionship, too): “We cannot lose. We will never lose again. We will never be lonely, we will never get ill and we will never die. Our chip towers are rising and rising and rising and rising. Dice are beautiful. Everything is beautiful. Everybody’s beautiful.”

Like I say, there’s more here. But I think you get the idea. There’s some strategy talk, but that’s not why you pick this book up. Rather, For Richer, For Poorer is for those who love literature, who love to laugh, and who love poker.

One month from today the final table for this year’s World Series of Poker Main Event will at last resume after a 115-day hiatus. On Saturday, November 7th, the nine players still with chips will reassemble around a table in the Penn & Teller Theater in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino to play out the sucker. At last.

When the first hand of the final table is finally dealt, Maryland logger and amateur player Darvin Moon will enjoy a large chip lead with 58,930,000 — that is, a little more than 30% of the chips in play. Moon’s nearest foe, Eric Buchman, will start with 34,800,000, followed by Steven Begleiter (29,885,000), Jeff Shulman (19,580,000), Joe Cada (13,215,000), Kevin Schaffel (12,390,000), Phil Ivey (9,765,000), Antoine Saout (9,500,000), and James Akenhead (6,800,000).

Last fall around this time there was a lot of talk about an apparent lack of hype surrounding the delayed WSOP Main Event final table. While there were interviews and articles about the players appearing within the poker media, there didn’t seem to be a great deal of publicity happening elsewhere, and by the time the final table arrived in November, a lot were wondering what exactly was accomplished promotion-wise during the intervening four months.

One reason we were watching for such extra attention was the fact that when the idea for the delay was first announced in May 2008 we were told to look for such. “The added time prior to the final table will help get poker mainstream media attention,” suggested Daniel Negreanu, a member of the Players Advisory Committee that had approved of the delay. WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack also noted that the delay created what he called “an unprecedented opportunity to capture the world’s attention,” characterizing the interim as a period of “16 weeks of promotion and relevance” for the November Nine.

There were a few moments here and there during which the nine finalists were covered in places they might not have otherwise, such as when Brooklyn native Ylon Schwartz was profiled in the The New York Times. And we heard something after the final table had completed about invites to major talk shows like “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Ellen” having been turned down by players. But by the time the 2008 WSOP Main Event final table began, most were noting how little the “mainstream” seemed to have picked up on the story.

Another much-referenced argument in favor of the delay concerned the added opportunities it provided the nine players to solicit endorsement deals, including from non-poker entities. No one knows precisely how much last year’s November Nine benefited from the extra time, but most agree they all made more cabbage than they would have otherwise. After the final table had concluded, Barry Greenstein (another member of the Players Advisory Committee) said on Gary Wise’s podcast Wise Hand Poker that players had received three times as much as they would have otherwise.

So what has the “mainstream” been saying about this year’s November Nine? Well, again, outside of our little poker world, mostly a lot of nothing. Thus far, anyway.

Darvin Moon did get some press last week when a feature on the chip leader appeared in The Washington Post. It’s an interesting profile. Moon apparently had never even flown a commercial jet prior to his summer trip to Vegas. He earnestly claims he believes all eight of the other players at the final table are better than he is. And he’s not interested in seeking more publicity or even working on his game, eyeing a three-week deer hunting trip here in October instead. (Both pics on this post courtesy the great FlipChip, btw.)

As far as the other eight players go, I can’t say I’ve really noticed much “mainstream” attention of them, though each has been on the radar within the poker world in various ways over the last three months — perhaps more so than was the case with last year’s November Nine.

Eric Buchman (in second) got a little bit of attention over on Two Plus Two during the last couple of days when someone — an acquaintance of Buchman’s, apparently — started a thread as Buchman himself complaining about how Full Tilt Poker was giving the player some difficulty with regard to the two one-day endorsement deals he’d signed with them at the end of play in July. The real Buchman then came on to clear things up a bit, though the story brought attention to the fact of Buchman’s switch from Full Tilt on Days 7 and 8 to PokerStars for the final table. Here’s the new thread (the old, spurious one was deleted), and here’s a Poker News Daily article from late July in which Buchman mentions his endorsement deals (and the distractions they cause).

Steven Begleiter (in third) turned up a bit on last night’s WSOP coverage on ESPN. The 47-year-old from New York seems like a nice fellow, and I’m not just saying that because he’s the only member of the November Nine who follows me on Twitter (haha). See for yourself in this interview with “Begs” on episode 10 of ESPN’s “Inside Deal.”

We’ve been seeing a lot of Jeff Shulman (in fourth) on ESPN over the last couple of weeks, and continue to talk about his criticisms of Harrah’s and potential “villain” role at the final table. And, of course, the victory by Barry Shulman, Jeff’s father, at the Main Event at the World Series of Poker Europe last week adds yet another interesting plot development to Jeff’s WSOP ME run. I mentioned last week that Gary Wise conducted a lengthy interview with Shulman and wrote it up over on the ESPN Poker Club. In the interview the publisher, president, and COO of Card Player discusses the Main Event, Harrah’s, and his having taken on Phil Hellmuth as a coach.

Like several of the November Nine, Joe Cada (in fifth) has been interviewed over on Phil Gordon’s podcast (another ESPN production), The Poker Edge. The 21-year-old came off as surprisingly together in the interview, even when pressed about his sponsorship deals (which he didn’t really want to discuss, it seemed). “Are the November Nine going to be logoed up more significantly than they have been in the past?” asked Gordon, adding that while last year’s players were seen to represent online poker sites and some charities, “we haven’t seen any real mainstream brands.” Cada said no, he had not.

Kevin Schaffel (in sixth) was among the chip leaders at the EPT London Main Event before busting out in 19th place. The final table of that event, featuring last year’s WSOP Main Event winner Peter Eastgate, has just begun. Follow the coverage on PokerNews here and/or watch the action on the terrific EPT Live webcast here.

Rounding out the November Nine, Phil Ivey (in seventh) has enjoyed his usual prominence in the poker world over the last few months, although in terms of “mainstream media” I suppose we can only point to his brief cameo on the first episode of NBC’s “Face the Ace.” And the table’s short stacks, Antoine Saout (in eighth) and James Akenhead (in ninth) both got a bit of attention by making the final table of the WSOP Europe Main Event, where Saout finished seventh and Akenhead ninth.

As I say, I do feel like I’m a bit more aware of these guys that I was of last year’s November Nine at this time last year. And I am a little more interested in seeing how it all plays out than was the case last time around, too.

Still looking for that “mainstream media attention,” though. Perhaps we will ultimately see one or more of these guys pop up on the talk shows or elsewhere. Don’t necessarily expect to see Darvin Moon on Jay Leno’s new prime time show, though. Something tells me he might have left the cell phone at home so as to concentrate more fully on the deer.

Spent much of the afternoon and evening following the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event final table on PokerNews. Sucker ultimately went something like 16 hours all told — not quite the 22-plus hours from the year before when John Juanda outlasted Stanislav Alekhin, but a marathon nonetheless.

The last five hours consisted of Daniel Negreanu and Barry Shulman battling heads up for the bracelet. Negreanu had the chip lead when heads up began, although the Card Player publisher pulled even and then ahead after an hour or so. But Kid Poker moved in front again and looked as though he was going to win it all after getting Shulman all in preflop holding versus Negreanu’s two black aces. But two hearts flopped, then a third came on the turn, and Shulman was back in front with a three-to-one chip lead.

Negreanu would spend the next couple of hours clawing back close to even, and had the lead once more when the hand Danafish declared “Hand of the Day” occurred. The pair got it all in preflop with Shulman having A-A this time versus Negreanu’s . A jack flopped, then a second one came on the turn, and it again looked like Negreanu’s day. Then came an ace on the river, saving Shulman and crippling Negreanu. Shortly after that one, Shulman would take the last of Negreanu’s chips with pocket tens versus Kid Poker’s pocket fours.

As I said, I followed along for most of the latter part of the final table yesterday, thoroughly enjoying the reports on PokerNews. Like Snoopy (who reported earlier days), both Danafish and Djinn employ a keen wit and (to me) add a great deal of fun to the reports, exemplifying what makes live blogging ultimately more valuable than the ticker-type updates one can find on Twitter — although those are fine, too, for those desirous of the quick check.

I love posts with headlines like Danafish’s “Negreanu Has Chips Delivered to Him on a Trey,” in which one learns Negreanu flopped a set with pocket threes. Or Djinn’s “One Way Street Changes Direction, Confuses Tourists” describing how after a brief spell of pots won by Shulman the chips had begun to flow back Negreanu’s way. Fun stuff, and the kind of thing that definitely encourages one to keep hitting refresh to read more.

Last summer while helping cover the WSOP for PokerNews I wrote a post asking the question “Does Humor Belong in Tournament Reporting?” My answer was ultimately an affirmative one, noting that even if there were millions of dollars at stake, we were reporting on a game, after all, and so I concluded that “keeping it light (within reason) is probably the right instinct, generally speaking.”

Wouldn’t want to sacrifice accuracy, clarity, or reader interest, of course, in order to yuk it up too wildly… but a little bit of wit here and there definitely adds value to the reports, in my view. One could even argue doing so lends a “literary” quality that ensures the reports endure a little better than they would otherwise as straightforward, unadorned accounts of the action.

And as I say, Danafish, Djinn, and Snoopy are in my opinion the tops, striking the right balance throughout. Thus what’s left there on the PokerNews page is a vivid account of all of the important hands, as well as a fine balance of humor and color that makes the chronicle well worth reading through even after the event has ended. Well done, mates!

Barry Shulman’s win obviously adds another layer of intrigue to the upcoming November Nine, where his son, Jeff, will be trying to match his father’s victory with a win of his own. Gary Wise has a new interview with Jeff this week up over on the ESPN Poker Club in which the publisher, president, and COO of Card Player takes back his earlier threat to “renounce” the bracelet by “throw[ing] it in the garbage” should he win the Main Event. (He’s currently fourth in chips.) Jeff also points out in the Wise interview that “[n]ot once was [he] ever thinking about trying to get extra publicity” by making the statement, which some — including your humble gumshoe — remarked was a pretty obvious consequence of the whole brouhaha.

Wise comes away from the interview saying Shulman doesn’t appear a “villain” to him in the still-unfolding 2009 WSOP Main Event story. Some will still characterize him that way, though. And it will be interesting to see how Barry Shulman’s WSOPE Main Event victory will play into that bit of story-manufacturing.

’Cos like I say with regard to the live blogging, that’s part of what makes all of this fun — the stories. That’s a point WSOP Commish Jeffrey Pollack made on this week’s Two Plus Two Pokercast with regard to the WSOP ME final table. “I think the November Nine table is straight out of central casting,” said Pollack, noting how among the nine there are “a lot of great players and interesting characters” — Shulman included.

I know I’ll be reading.

Listened to The Poker Beat’s latest episode last night, and — as I expected — the hosts didn’t seem to pull many punches with regard to the Joe Sebok signing at UltimateBet. Pretty clear all of those who spoke — host Scott Huff, Pokerati Dan, Gary Wise, and John Caldwell — are less than thrilled at Sebok’s decision to sign on with UB, expressing varying degrees of skepticism and trepidation in their conversation.

The good news there, of course, is that the content of PokerRoad’s most interesting show doesn’t appear to have been unduly affected by PR’s CEO having become a sponsored pro and “media and operations consultant” for UltimateBet. As I say, I didn’t really think it would — though I suppose that like with other matters we’ll have to wait and see how long things remain as they are at present over at PR. (Will be most interesting, of course, to hear the next episode of PokerRoad Radio, the show Sebok himself co-hosts.)

On yesterday’s episode, Pokerati Dan shared his funny story regarding his recent request to obtain his hand histories. As you might have heard, Sebok published a blog post informing everyone how to get their hand histories from UB, and Dan followed the Cub’s instructions. Apparently after his initial request, Dan was sent a form letter instructing him how to look at previous hands while playing at UB — i.e., a useless non-response. He did get another, less impersonal reply afterwards (not discussed on the show), but it didn’t jibe with Dan’s memory of his UB (mis)adventures. (Dan’s interactions with UB support are being chronicled in the comments to this Pokerati post, if you are interested.)

Some readers of this blog might recall my own struggles with trying to get hand histories from UB, a site which I joined in the fall of 2007, then quickly decided to leave on the heels of the Absolute Poker cheating scandal. Knowing that UB and AP were owned by the same folks, I didn’t see any reason to risk remaining on UltimateBet and so pulled my money off of the site a couple of months before the scandal broke over there.

Anyhow, it was in the fall of 2008 that I put in a request to UltimateBet to get copies of all of my hand histories — not so much because I was worried about having been cheated (I play at low stakes, and thus apparently below the range of the cheaters), but simply as part of my efforts at the time to get hand histories from all of the sites on which I have played. Incidentally, my requests to PokerStars and Full Tilt were entirely successful, with both sites able to supply me with four years’ worth of hand histories within days.

The response to my October request was that “unfortunately, due to the amount of information, we are not able to send you all your hand histories.” Of course, we’re only talking a couple of months’ worth of play on the site, so while I was skeptical, I didn’t pursue the matter.

Then on 12/14/08 Annie Duke appeared on Sebok’s PokerRoad Radio podcast and said “We’ll send anybody who requests it their lifetime hand histories.” So again I sent in a request, and this time was told it would take a couple of weeks, but I could get my hand histories. After three weeks of nothing, I wrote back, but received no response. Tried one more time later in January, but once more my email went unanswered.

So I gave up, but decided this morning to try again. My request concludes with the following paragraph:

“I played on UltimateBet for only a couple of months — Aug.-Sept. 2007 — and according to my records only played a small number of hands, relatively speaking. I also played low limit stakes, and so while it is likely I was not affected by the cheating that occurred on the site, I would like to see my hand histories nonetheless. UB’s response to my request will determine whether or not I wish to return to the site, and also whether or not I will be recommending to others that they consider playing on the site.”

I’ll note in the comments to this post what sort of response I get from my request (if any). Perhaps some — including those handling the hand history requests at UB — might for various reasons view my case as relatively unimportant. Indeed, I wouldn’t disagree that there are those who played on the site for whom there is much greater urgency here than is the case for myself.

Nevertheless, I was a customer at UB. And I’d like to know with utter certainty I wasn’t cheated while playing there. Indeed, I recall how during my last session on UB — not long after the Absolute Poker merde had hit the fan — a weird hand or two led to thoughts of the possibility that someone could see my hole cards. Which led to the realization that I couldn’t keep playing on the site, whether or not my paranoia was justified. (As it happened, the cheating was still going on at UB at the time — although as I say probably not at my low limit table.)

So, we’ll see. Can’t believe, really, we’re all chirping about UltimateBet again like this.

Of course, some are worried about other highly important stuff. No, I am not referring to Phil Hellmuth threatening to mastermind an alternative poker site/series to compete with the World Series of Poker/Harrah’s (check it out). I’m referring to the pressing need for casinos to ready themselves for the possibility of pot being legalized in California and Nevada. No shinola! What is this, poker news or freshman comp? Got nothing but love for my bud-loving buds, but legalization is still a huge longshot. And casinos letting players get high in the poker rooms? Pure fantasyland. (Of course, the author does suggest at one point he thinks most of his readers might well be high, so maybe I’m somehow missing the big picture here, man.)

To be honest, I think it is only slightly more possible that all 31 names of the cheaters alluded to in the KGC “final decision” on the UltimateBet cheating scandal will be named. And maybe a little more likely all these friggin’ hand histories will finally be shared. Even so, I think we can all agree these are still matters worth discussing.