A Strange Journey Begins...Maybe.

As you may or may not know, the World Series of Poker is now in full swing. By "now" I mean June 17, 2015 and by "full swing" I mean that it is nearly half way through the 70 odd tournaments that make up this thing.

If you are like me, you probably have always thought it would be fun to play in the WSOP. I will openly admit that every time I'm in a bar somewhere and I see poker on a television, I think "Someday I'm going to play in a big tournament. It looks like so much fun." But, if you are like me, it has always been relegated to realm of "Someday, I'm going to write a novel" and "Someday, I'm going to finish painting the house." The realm of crazy dreams.

I used to be obsessed with poker. I wrote this blog back when I played live poker fairly often - back when the dream of maybe playing a big tournament seemed not so crazy. But then I began to lose interest. I stopped playing regularly and stopped writing this blog. But still I think of playing in the WSOP someday.

Suddenly, it appears that "someday" may be tomorrow,  and if all goes well my friend Eric and I will be on a flight to Vegas in about twelve hours.

Life is odd, no?

How it came about is this:
Over a month ago I had booked a little time off work so I could fly somewhere that has nothing to do with this story to talk to a guy who has nothing to do with this story about a thing that has nothing to with this story. The trip fell through because this guy said he had this thing to do in Budapest (If I had a dollar for every time I've heard that excuse), but the time is still booked off work.

Yesterday, my last day before this super-long weekend, was a particularly trying one. Yes, I know, I said I worked in a public library. If you don't think working at a public library can be stressful, then you have not been in one lately - particularly an inner-city library where the "marginalized" come to test the limits of your liberal social conscious. But I digress. I had a shitty day - let's leave it at that.

I meet up with my wife Sara and some friends at a bar after I finish my evening shift. I mention my crappy day. I mention that I'm off for five days. Somebody, (was it me?) suggests a trip to Vegas. My buddy Eric, who is semi-retired/self employed, likes the idea. I remember that the WSOP is going on, and wouldn't it be fun.... 

So it would appear we are going to make this happen. I'll keep you posted.

WSOP 2012 Underway

The annual circus that is the World Series of Poker has started up again and those who are interested can follow the action at http://www.wsop.com/2012/ . Over sixty events will make up this years WSOP, and two bracelets have already been awarded.

As always the first event is a No Limit Hold 'Em tournament restricted to Casino employees. This years winner is Chip Saechao, a blackjack dealer from Vasalia, California.

The other bracelet has gone to Brent Hanks, a 29 year old Vegas pro, who took down the $1,500 buy-in NLHE event and earned himself $517,725. Not bad for a former fifth grade school teacher.

Event #3 is a heads-up tournament - players compete one-on-one, with the victor advancing to the next round. The game itself switches back and forth between No Limit Hold 'Em and Pot Limit Omaha. Over 300 players began this tournament and only eight remain to duke it out. What makes it interesting is that one of those eight is 23 year old poker phenom Annette Obrestad, the youngest person to win a World Series of Poker Europe bracelet who is looking for her first victory in the WSOP proper.

This year the $10,000 buy-in Main Event may actually not be the event that gets the most attention as on July 1 a three day tournament will begin with a buy-in of $1,000,000. The Big One for One Drop cost a cool million bucks just to enter - with $111,111 of each entry going to the One Drop charity to help develop water management in Africa. Who would pay a million just to enter a poker tournament? According to Poker News, over thirty seats are filled.

The 2011 WSOP Main Event

This year 6,865 people entered the main event in the World Series of Poker - a number well off the peak in 2006 when 8,773 player battled it out for pokers' most prized championship but still large enough that the future of the spectacle seems solid enough. Today is a day off before play resumes tomorrow in what is officially called "Day 3" even though this event has been going on for six days already. With such a massive field the "first day" was run on four different dates (1A, 1B, 1C and 1D) with a quarter of the entrants playing on each day. Day two was similarly divided into two different days, so tomorrow will be the first time that all the remaining players (there are 1,864 left) will be playing simultaneously.

The vast majority of those remaining are relative unknowns, but a few notables to watch include:

• Ben Lamb, the current leader, is a professional poker player who has already won a WSOP bracelet this year in Pot-Limit Omaha.



• Patrick Antonius, a certified poker super-star, is currently in 7th. He is the best chance for a "big name" player to take down the title.



• Sol Bergren is the top Canadian right now, in 16th place. Bergen is from my hometown of Saskatoon, so I gotta root for this guy. With a fourth place finish in a 2007 APPT tour event in Australia, which netted him just under a quarter million Aussie dollars, Bergen has experience in big money situations.



• Tony Hachem, in the 50th spot, is a PokerStars pro who happens to be the brother of the 2005 main event winner, Joe Hachem.



• Jeff Madsen, who has two WSOP bracelets, might be the most feared competitor remaining. In 61st position right now, I would not be surprised to see him make the final table.



• John Racener, who came in second place in last years' main event, is well positioned at 143rd spot.



• Past champions still in the running this year include Carlos Mortensen and Huck Seed.

Congrats to the Big Bonkowski

Tyler Bonkowski from Regina, Saskatchewan has won the $3000 buy-in Limit Hold 'Em event at the WSOP.

One Drop

With the popularity poker has achieved it is not too uncommon to hear of tournaments where people can win a million dollars or more but last week the WSOP announced something truly astounding - that next year they will be having a tournament where it costs a million dollars to enter. Here I will pause while you try to figure out if you read that correctly. A million dollars just to get a seat in the tournament.

The idea comes from Cirque Du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, who also started the One Drop Foundation; a group that promotes awareness of water issues as well as assisting African villages to access water. 11.11% of the money that would normally be included in the prize pool will go to One Drop.

Brilliant.

So who is going to pony up a cool million just to play poker? Laliberte himself says he will play and already several famous poker pros have said they are in, including: Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan, Patrik Antonius, Gus Hansen, Tony G. and Daniel Negreanu. Others who have apparently committed to play include:

• Bobby Baldwin - C.E.O. of Mirage Resorts and winner of the 1978 WSOP main event.



• Phil Ruffin - Owner of Treasure Island hotel and Casino.



• Andy Beal - The owner of Beal Bank who very nearly beat a team of top Vegas pros in what are very likely the highest stakes poker games that have ever been played. These legendary games are chronicled in Michael Craig's 2005 book The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King.



• And apparently a "well known American business man" has also committed. (What is a million dollars to Bill Gates when a charity is involved?)

In fact so far sixteen people have said that they will play. One Vegas pro has said that he predicts a total of fifty one players will compete. I think it will be more than one hundred. Hell, if I had a million dollars...

WSOP Update #2: Weirdness

Yeah, I know I said I was taking a week off. Sue me.

The most interesting story to come out of the WSOP so far is Matt Perrins winning the Duece-to-Seven Lowball championship. What makes this an interesting story? Well aparently Perrins had never played this form of poker before entering the event. In fact, the story goes, he only learned how to play by watching about 30 minutes of videos on YouTube. Unbelievable.

Adding to the weirdness is that Perrins hails from the small English town of Rochdale. So far in the 2011 WSOP, 8 championship bracelets have been awarded and now two of them have gone to people from this same town. Jake Cody, who won the $25,000 No-Limit Hold 'em bracelet, is a close nieghbor of Perrins in Rochdale.

Weird.

WSOP Update 1

While no bracelets have been handed out yet, currently there are three events being contested and each is actually kind of interesting.

Event 1 is the Casino Employees No-Limit Hold 'Em. With a meager $500 buy in, this is open to (you guessed it) casino employees and has been the traditional first event at the WSOP for some years now. At the end play yesterday they were down to four players and will settle the matter today. Currently in second place is Jason Baker who calls Calgary home, so this gives me someone to root for. I'm wondering if he could he be that dealer from the Stampede Casino named Jason. Couldn't be the same guy, could it?

Event #2 is the Heads Up No-Limit Hold 'em Championship. Heads Up means that two players battle each other until one is knocked out, with the winner advancing to the next round. I was amused to see that in the second round a very close and hard-fought battle occurred between Kenny Tran and John Juanda, in which Juanda finally emerged as the winner. This amused me because I didn't know who Kenny Tran was until I read Jerry Yang's book All In, in which Kenny Tran comes off like a total jerk who tries to bully Yang and mocks his overt Christianity. Well after Jerry Yang, John Juanda is probably the most earnest Christian to be found among the sinners of the poker world, so I imagine losing to him was particularly bitter for Tran. Ha ha. Anyway they are down to eight players now, including Gus Hansen and Canadian Matt Marafioti.

Event #3 is Omaha Hi-Low Split 8 or Better. It would take me a whole blog post to explain how this game is played. All you need to know is that among the remaining 210 players (out of the 925 who entered) are some pretty big names, including Barry Greenstein, Humberto Brenes, T.J. Cloutier (Go T.J.!), Erik Seidel and Men Nguyen.

Despite this rather interesting start to the 2011 WSOP, the big story is that poker superstar Phil Ivey has chosen not to play any WSOP events this year in sympathy for all the Americans who have had their Full Tilt accounts frozen by the FBI. Phil has also announced a lawsuit for over $150,000,000 against Tiltware the company that supplied Full Tilt with the money transfer software.

Stay tuned.

The 2011 WSOP gets under way

That's right. What used to be a single tournament that took a couple of days back in the early 1970's has sprawled in to a massive, some might say bloated, extravaganza that now includes fifty eight separate events culminating in the main event, which doesn't start until July (no that's not a typo; July not June) 7th. As the WSOP has gotten bigger, it is hard not to argue that having so many events is diluting the mystique somewhat. Can earning a WSOP bracelet be considered the ultimate poker achievement when they are handing out fifty two of them in a year?

Some events are considered more prestigious than others. The main event has always been considered, well, the main event. A couple months ago I had written four posts on the main event from 1971-2000 ( 1971-1981, 1982-1991, 1992-1997, 1998-2000) because I knowing about the history of the main event was integral to having a basic knowledge of poker history. Then I petered out...interestingly I stopped writing about the main event just at the point in it's history when it began to be won by people who were previously unknowns in the poker world. Amateurs and unknowns make up the vast majority of the massive numbers of competitors in the main event, making it statistically unlikely that a well known celebrity player will win the big one.

Because of this, many poker snobs see the main event as a circus and claim that the winner of the event called "The Poker Player's Championship", a five-day event starting July 2nd, crowns the true champion. One reason this tournament is considered a tougher test is that instead of just playing the ubiquitous No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em, players are required to play a number of different forms of poker in rotation: Limit Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better, Seven Card Razz , Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better, No-Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit Omaha and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball . Obviously only extremely serious players are going to be skilled at all these different forms of poker; I don't even know what 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball is! And just as obviously this not a tournament that an average person could follow on television without getting confused. So for the great unwashed masses, the main event remains the ultimate tournament.

I will try to complete my little summation of the WSOP main event before the 2011 main event gets under way. With over a month, I should have no problem.

The WSOP: 1998-2000

The international appeal of poker began to be reflected in the Worlds Series of Poker champions when Vietnamese born Thuan (Scotty) Nguyen took down pokers top honour in 1998, followed by Irishman Noel Furlong in 1999.

The 2000 WSOP of poker main event saw a then record 512 competitors vie for the $1.5 million first place would bring. Among the players fighting it out that year was Jim McManus, who had been sent by Harpers Magazine to report on the tournament. Not satisfied to simply watch, McManus took the advance Harper's had given him and won a satellite, giving him a ticket to play in the big game himself. A lifelong amateur player, McManus went on a terrific run and made it all the way to the final table, finishing fifth and collecting $248,000. He then wrote a book about it; Positively Fifth Street. On a personal note, I read Positively Fifth Street and was captivated by it. It was this book that got me interested in poker and I'm sure it had a similar effect on hundreds, maybe thousands, of others.



The final two players that year were T. J. Cloutier and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. The contrast between the two men made this final showdown particularly dramatic. Cloutier was an almost perfect example of the old type of Texas road gambler; a sixty-one year old Texan who had honed his skills over decades of playing in the illegal backroom games in the American south west. A professional football player in his younger days, T.J. was physically intimidating as well. The "old school" of poker players could not have a better representative.



Chris Ferguson was everything Cloutier was not: A slim young Californian who had just completed his Ph.D in computer science. With his beard and long brown hair, he bore a striking resemblance to the popular image of Christ, hence his nickname. Ferguson had none of the swagger and intimidation of the "old school", but he had a deep understanding of the mathematics and game theory. In the end, Cloutier outplayed Ferguson. Ferguson later said he knew that he couldn't beat T.J. "straight-up" and that to win he would have to get lucky - and that's exactly what happened. With Ferguson holding a slight chip lead, he got into a showdown holding A9 against Cloutiers' AQ, but a miracle 9 came on the river and Chris Ferguson won. This victory seemed to spark new interest among average people. If an egghead (albiet an egghead that looks like Jesus) can beat a tough old Texan, then it seemed like any reasonably intellegent person might be able to do allright at this game.

The WSOP: 1992-1997

From 1991 to 1999, first prize in the main event at the World Series of poker was set at an even million dollars. The number of players entering the tournament grew steadily from 194 at the start of the decade to 393 at the end - steady growth, but nothing spectacular.

For the first half of the decade, the main event was won by names most people today would not recognize. Dan Harrington changed that with his 1995 win. Rather than slipping back into the shadows, Harrington leveraged his new profile and wrote a number of very good books on poker.

The following year a kid from California named Huckleberry Seed (Do you think his parents were hippies?) won the title, which created ripples of interest outside of the poker world.

Then in 1997 Stu Ungar shocked the poker world when he won the main event for the third time. By 1997 Stu Ungar had been battling drug addiction for over ten years and despite his poker triumphs he was deeply in debt. Few people wanted anything to do with him. Everyone remembered the 1990 WSOP, when Stu did not show up for the third day of play and was found unconscious in his hotel room after too much cocaine. Once unquestionably the best poker player in the world, Stu was now up all night before the tournament trying to convince someone to back him. Billy Baxter, an old friend, finally agreed to pay Ungar's entrance fee (in exchange for a cut of Ungar's winnings) but by the time the tournament began Stu was exhausted and began falling asleep at the table. Miraculously, he made through the first day. From his second day on, Ungar destroyed his competition. Showing up well rested each day, he quickly amassed a huge chip lead and won the tournament easily. He split the million dollars evenly with Baxter.

What could have been -should have been- the turning point in Ungars life may have been his undoing. Ungar blew his winnings in a few months, mostly on drugs and sports betting. Ungar's addiction prevented him from competing in the WSOP the following year. A year and a half after his amazing third main event win, Stuart Errol Ungar was found dead in a seedy Las Vegas hotel room. Despite having won millions at poker in his lifetime, Ungar died without assets. At his funeral a collection was taken up to pay for the service.

The WSOP: 1982-1991

In 1982 Jack Straus pulled off what is still regarded as the most improbable victory in the WSOP main event when he was reduced to a single $500 chip on the second day of play and then went on to win the tournament. Straus was a very likable professional, so his victory seemed like a breath of fresh air after back-to-back wins by the self-destructive Stu Unger and the 1979 win by Hal Fowler, an unknown amateur who won despite popping Valium and making horrible calls. Straus's dramatic victory seemed to many people to put the WSOP back on its proper track. 1982 also marked the first time over one hundred players entered the tournament, and was the first time the winner received more than half a million in prize money.

In 1987 Johnny Chan won his first main event. Although American, Chan had been born in China, and his success was a harbinger that poker's popularity was now reaching far beyond the United States. In 1988 Chan repeated as champion; previously only Doyle Brunson and Stu Unger had managed to win the title back-to-back, and no one has done it again since Chan. A clip from Chan's 1988 victory over Erik Seidel is featured in the movie Rounders.

Amazingly the following year Chan nearly did it again, coming in second place to a young man named Phil Hellmuth. Only 24 years old at the time, Hellmuth was the youngest player ever to win the main event (a distinction now held by Joe Cada, who was only 21 when he won in 2009). Hellmuth's youth and caustic jabbering earned him the nickname "Poker Brat" and he quickly became one of poker's most well known personalities.

In 1990 the growing international interest in poker was once again made evident when Iranian Mansour Matloubi took the main event title.

In 1991 more than 200 players entered the main event, and for the first time the winner took home more than a million dollars. Poker's growth though the 'eighties had been slow and steady.

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Year - Winner- Prize Money (USD)-Entrants

1982-Jack Sraus-$520,000-104

1983-Tom McEvoy-$540,000-108

1984-Jack Keller-$660,000-132

1985-Bill Smith-$700,000-140

1986-Barry Johnston-$570,000-141

1987-Johnny Chan-$625,000-152

1988-Johnny Chan-$700,000-167

1989-Phil Hellmuth, Jr.-$755,000-178

1990-Mansour Matloubi-$895,000-194

1991-Brad Daugherty-$1,000,000-215

The WSOP: 1971-1981

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) began in the early seventies when Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino, invited six players to compete against each other with the champion to be determined by secret ballot. Obviously this voting approach was unsatisfactory and in subsequent years the winner was determined by a “freeze out” tournament.

The main event of the WSOP has, over the decades, proven pivotal in dragging poker out of the disreputable gambling dens and into the light of public acceptance. Perhaps the first big step on this journey occurred when Amarillo Slim Preston won the first tournament contested WSOP in 1972. Slim almost perfectly fit the public’s romantic ideal of a poker player; a thin, leathery cowboy with an endless supply of anecdotes, he was impossible not to like. Slim went on several talk shows, including The Tonight Show, and his charisma did wonders for the reputation of the game.

As the years passed, more “events” were added to the WSOP. Championship bracelets were given for different types of poker: Limit and No-Limit Hold ‘em, different stud games, various Omaha and even Razz tournaments all became part of the WSOP. The big championship game came to be known as the “Main Event”. When you hear so-and-so won the WSOP - it usually is referring to the main event, which is a massive No-Limit Texas Hold ‘Em tournament.

Throughout the seventies and eighties the main event drew relatively few contestants, possibly because the $10,000 entrance fee was too much for most people to pay. It was 1982 before the 100 player mark was broken and it was 1991 before the main event drew more than 200 players. As the entrance fee remained fixed, over the years it gradually became less of a barrier to professional and amateur players alike.

In 1983 Al Alvarez wrote a book called The Biggest Game in Town. It was both a history of poker and an account of the 1981 main event which was won by Stu Ungar. Alvarez was and is a great writer of both poetry and prose, and was also Sylvia Plath’s close friend and editor. He knows how to put words together. But he also knows a lot about poker, being a long-time player himself. The combination of writing ability an deep knowledge of his subject makes The Biggest Game in Town, in quite a few people’s opinion, the best book about poker. I have read it a few times and I have recommended it to people who want to understand what all the fuss is about. The game has never had a more eloquent spokesperson.

I do, however, two small quibbles. Quibble number one: historical inaccuracy.

After Benny Binion took over the Horseshoe Casino, he slowly began to develop it into the main poker place in Las Vegas. Binion achieved this in part by creating a myth - the myth of Johnny Moss and Nick the Greek. In a nutshell, the story goes that Nick the Greek, the most famous gambler in the world at the time, came to Vegas in 1949 and asked Binion to set up the highest stakes poker game possible. Binion called in Johnny Moss (who would later win the WSOP main event twice) to duel it out with The Greek. The game, according to legend, lasted five months with only short breaks for meals and rest. Binion set up the table right at the front of his casino and the epic struggle drew thousands of curious onlookers who, it is assumed, spent their money in Binion’s place. Binion even went so far as to claim Albert Einstein came to the Horseshoe and was introduced to Binion’s friends as “Little Al. He runs a lot of the action in Jersey.” After five months of fortunes sliding back and forth between the two men, Moss finally wore The Greek down, until The Greek finally stood up and uttered the famous words: “Mr. Moss, I have to let you go.”

That’s the story. Binion claimed the epic game was the inspiration for him starting the WSOP. The story quickly became accepted as truth and was given credibility when Alvarez repeated it in detail in The Biggest Game in Town. The only problem is that it almost certainly did not happen. There is no record Nick the Greek ever spoke of such a match, much less participated in it, and the story seems to have started only after Nick’s death. If such as match took place, with thousands of tourists serving as witnesses, then there must be a mountain of photos to prove it - but the fact that no one has ever brought forth a single picture of this game is a pretty strong argument that it never happened. Still a great story. One really can’t blame Alvarez, who was a poet not an historian, for perpetuating the myth.

The only other quibble I have is Alvarez’s obvious dislike for the man who won the 1981 WSOP main event, Stu Ungar. If Amarillo Slim Preston moved poker towards the light of respectability, then Ungar certainly moved it back towards the dark. Far from eloquent, Ungar is portrayed by Alvarez as barely human - communicating with monosyllabic grunts. Ungar was a terrible drug addict, which may have also fuelled Alvarez’s distaste. Still the portrait of Ungar as somehow sub-human reflects poorly on Alvarez.

People are rarely as good or as bad our snap judgements make them out to be. Ungar was almost certainly a much more complex person than Alvarez makes out and Amarillo Slim Preston would become a pariah in the poker world when in 2003 he was charged with indecency in an incident involving a 12 year old child.

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Year - Winner- Prize Money (USD)-Entrants

1971-Johnny Moss-$30,000-6
1972-"Amarillo Slim" Preston-$80,000-8
1973-Walter "Puggy" Pearson-$130,000-13
1974-Johnny Moss-$160,000sm-16
1975-Brian "Sailor" Roberts-$210,000-21
1976-Doyle Brunson-$220,000-22
1977-Doyle Brunson-$340,000-34
1978-Bobby Baldwin-$210,000-42
1979-Hal Fowler-$270,000-54
1980-Stu Ungar-$385,000-73
1981-Stu Ungar-$375,000-75