World Series Live

Back in the days when the newest technological advancement in communications was television broadcast in color, the World Series of Poker was a gambling event run by gamblers. Today it's run by hotel people at Harrahs and reality TV experts at ESPN.

I think they're fixing to get bit on the ass by the gamblers who still play in the World Series of Poker.

WickedChopsPoker reports the plans under consideration for this summer:

Play would be halted this July once the field was whittled down to its final nine players, and then delayed until three months later. The idea is to make the final table a big television event with plenty of lead time to hype the finalists and so no one knows who the winner is until the show airs.

Random Shuffles suggests that there might be some bad results from such a plan

Sure, let's give the final table three months to cut secret deals and work out what tapping twice vs tapping three times means when checking. Of course, they can do some of this in the short period between the last two sessions, but there's a limit on how much they can get accomplished. Over three months, you can not only work out a whole set of cheating signals, but you can practice your cheating.

But, the potential for cheating isn't just about deal making. Don't forget, we're dealing with gambler's here. Prediction markets are ripe for exploitation if the reality TV planners at ESPN and Harrahs actually give some gamblers a few extra months to set up something. What maroons.

The prediction market hustlers are already fixing Tennis and snooker matches. Does anybody really think it would be tough to exploit prediction markets on the winner of an over hyped WSOP final table given 3 months of hype time?

Even exchanges that are highly regulated and heavily policed can't keep out the cheats. We don't need to make it easy for them.

Porn is a sport

It's official. Porn is a sport.

Internet Poker Pro weighs in on ESPN poker coverage.

...
Amusingly, one of those WSOP inbreeds, who is so irrelevant that I can't bother to even google who it was, basically justified that the WSOP was a sport because people watched it and there was a lot of prize money. So if they paid guys to wank on TV that would be a sport? (Ok, they do, its called porn, and is the true purpose of the internet and the reason why playing poker one handed is so essential.) This is the kind of powerful logical thinking that got the US and its 53rd state into Iraqistan I guess.

...

WSOP tipping

It looks like the World Series of Poker winner, Jerry Yang, left an appropriate tip.

Cell phones at the WSOP

Breaking news during the WSOP used to be about somebody getting arrested in the cardroom, or getting too drunk to stay in their chair, or Becky skimming from the dealer toke pool, or something like that.

More recently breaking news is about really bad floor decisions. Some recent news from the 2007 WSOP is more about a good floor decision but one where the WSOP staff made it a lot harder than it needed to be to get it right.

I haven't blogged about it but I did make some comments in an rgp thread when the topic turned to whether or not Singer was trying to shoot an angle. Read the OP in the thread if you don't know what happened.

To the suggestion from some numb nut that his hand should have been killed just for letting the phone ring because the phone ringing might have been a signal I said.

> The ringing [or buzzing,whatever] could have been a message in itself.
>

So could me walking behind a player and saying, "Hi Charlie". So could me
walking into the room wearing a red shirt.

What's the matter with you people? We have to ban red shirts, it might be a
signal.

Fucking idiots. Do all of y'all work for Homeland Security or something?

Cheating with signals from a telephone is not a reason that cell phone use is banned. It's simply because it's disruptive and rude. That's the reason for the rule. Not because he might be getting "information". Even Harrah's execs aren't that stupid. Players get information all the time. Hell, I can walk up to you and talk to you while you're in a hand and that's not against the rules.

What the guy did was turn his phone off, so that the ringing would not continue to disrupt. That's exactly in the spirit of the no cell phone rule, is what he's supposed to do. Here's how I said that in the rgp thread

What is this "gaining information" nonsense? That can't possibly be the reason
for the rule. If there had been a text message (that he had not looked at)
would the ruling be different.

The reason for the rule is to not delay or disrupt the game, it can't possibly
have anything to do with gaining information because they don't outlaw red
shirts also.

Idiots.

When someone quoted Nolan Dalla to demonstrate that I was mistaken about the reason for the rule I said

Nonsense is nonsense.

If Nolan is right, then the only conclusion to draw is that WSOP management is
incompetent. But, if that's true then you can't depend on anything Nolan says.

So which is it? He's either wrong, or he's right and that means he's wrong.

A lot of people don't seem to understand the concept of angle shooting. Angle shooting is not against the rules. When somebody suggested that what Singer did was within his rights, therefore it was okay, I said.

Being within your rights is part of the definition of angle shooting slime.

Angle shooting means using rules in ways that they are not intended to gain an
unfair advantage.

If it's not within your rights it's called cheating.

Some people think anything that doesn't violate a rule is acceptable. I don't
really want to spend much time around such people. They aren't nice and they
can't be trusted.

Angle shooting is legal but it's just wrong under my personal moral calculus. That's not the case for everybody. I understand that. But floor rulings should never be made which encourage angle shooting or reward it. It really isn't good for the room and the rooms reputation.

It called angle shooting, however you want to try to frame it.

Angle shooting is always within your rights, it's part of the definition. It
just depends on what kind kind of person you are whether you decide to shoot
angles are not. Some people, I guess you're one of them, think that angle
shooting is just fine, there's nothing wrong with it, that anyone who doesn't
shoot angles when they can is just a sucker. But it's still angle shooting.

The guy just seems to never stop looking for another angle to shoot. In an interview with pokerlistings.com he said

So not only do I feel like I got the wrong call, the floor person didn't do his job in letting me appeal to a higher authority before he made the ultimate decision. Anyway, I went on to lose the hand and get knocked out. I feel like I should get my money back from the tournament. I really feel like I should've been allowed to play it on another Day 1, but that didn't happen; I guess I didn't pursue it enough.

The more the guy talks the slimier I feel when I read what he has to say.

Here's what I said about Singer's incessant whining

Singer was not an injured party. He had nothing to do with the cell phone. HIs
claim to injury is simply that his attempt at shooting an angle failed.

Had the rule been misapplied, Singer would have benefited. But that doesn't
make him an injured party when the rule was not misapplied.

A lot of people are talking about it.

Ramblings of a mad man has some really strong thoughts. Singer made a bad play on a draw hand and wants a fucking do-over card?

Micheal Craig shows us why FullTilt hired him to pimp blog for them. David Singer, in addition to being a talented and experienced tournament poker player, is an attorney and nobodies fool. He immediately motioned to the dealer to declare the hand dead, which would have awarded him the pot. (David Singer is a paid prop player for Full Tilt)

Pokerhaus.com thinks angle shooting is always the right thing to do. I have to agree with Singer. Apparently you can’t take your phone out for any reason during a hand and if you do then your hand is declared dead. Singer and Bloch’s hands were declared dead in previous tournaments when they took out their phone. (I don't know the details but somehow I'm going to guess that Singer's hand was killed for some reason other than touching his phone, maybe like using it to make a call or to answer a call).

Knowing that Singer is a lawyer explains a lot.

No Family rule?

What the hell is this?

BY: TODD BRUNSON
FROM THE: Event 39 - World Championship H.O.R.S.E.
PUBLISHED: Sunday Jun 24, 2007 12:22 PM

I got off to a great start, I won about four hands in a row; the limits went up and I lost two back, so I am right about where we started at 100,000. Its still early. I've got by far the worst table here: TJ Cloutier, Phil Ivey, Mike Sexton, Dewey Tomko. I was at my dad's table but they wanted to enforce that no-family rule, I didn't mind that table but then I got moved here.

No family rule? Is that the same as the "no friends rule"? Or the "no business partner rule"?
What in the world is that rule supposed to accomplish?

I haven't played in the 2007 World Series of Poker but I did play some events a couple of years ago. You have to sign a release when you sign up as a player, but there was no required disclosure about family members. So if my son and I had been at the same table the WSOP had no way to enforce it. They would have had no way to enforce the no-family rule because they didn't want to enforce it, they didn't want to ask.

But if you're Todd Brunson they can enforce it, and they do. What does it accomplish? It increases the changes of a Brunson name being at the final televised table. That's all it accomplishes. It gives the the Brunson family, as a group, an edge over other players.

What bullshit.

If would benefit other players only if the Brunsons are cheats. If they aren't cheats then it benefits the Brunsons.

Update: Some rgp discussion about it.

The 50k event

I really should be writing more about the 2007 WSOP that's going on.

The $50,000 buy-in HORSE event should be finishing up in a couple of days. Today is the third day of a five day marathon.

I don't know what to think about the event. Martin Derbyshire of PokerListings seems to think it's a big deal

...the $50k H.O.R.S.E. event seems to be the tournament most top pros feel is the one that will decide who the best poker player in the world is, making it the true main event of the 2007 WSOP.

I think it's more accurate to say that many top pros want it to be the one that will decide who is the best poker player in the world.

Not because of the HORSE aspect, although that's what they might tell you. But because of the $50,000 part -- that's the part that makes it self-selecting elite.

It's a 5 day event with only 148 entries.

I used to be that pros went for the money and let the amateurs have the bracelets. It was a pro that took the money in exchange for taking a dive to let Maria Stern win a bracelet a few years ago. I took such a deal a few years ago in a small tournament in Bay St. Louis when Casino Magic was giving out cheap trophies to winners of their daily tournaments. When we got heads up I took the money and let the other guy have the trophy. But because of the fame and endorsement opportunities, it's the pros who are willing to buy off competitors to increase their chances at a bracelet.

Of course an event with few entries will be attractive to most fame-seeking pros. But that has nothing to do with determining who's "best".

Back from Vegas

I didn't blog from Las Vegas as much as I probably should have. I didn't even play as much as I intended. I didn't play at the Rio or in the 2007 WSOP at all. I didn't even spend enough time at the Rio to find someone giving out free t-shirts.

I did get some work done though, had a business meeting or two that turned out productive, etc. So, the trip was certainly worthwhile, even though it didn't turn out to be much of a poker trip.

I really need to spend the next year working on my health. I've had diabetes for a few years, and recently have started having some high blood pressure problems. The drop in stamina resulting from the blood pressure problems is stunning to me, I can't even cut the grass all at one time anymore, much less spend a couple of 12 hour days playing a poker tournament.