Picture this. Justin Verlander, who no hit the Brewers today, comes out in his next start and pitches six perfect innings. Major League Baseball then empties the stadium and  makes anyone who wants to watch the last three innings watch on Pay Per View. That’s pretty close to what happened when Phil Hellmuth won his record 11th bracelet Monday night.

No one got to root him on. No one got to give him a standing ovation. No one was even officially supposed to know about it until the one hour delayed internet broadcast ended.

Poker isn’t necessarily the spectator sport that baseball is, and no one is paying admission to watch the players go at it during the World Series of Poker, but when Hellmuth got down to the last two tables of the event that started with over 2000 players, his table was surrounded by a large crowd and there was an electricity running through The Rio convention area. Then they played the final table in a black tent.

At one point, Mike Matusow, ran up to the tent and screamed “Phil is going for his 11th bracelet and they’ve got him in a tent? What the fuck is this?” Instead of anyone agreeing with Mike he was told to leave the poker area by security, but this time he was right.

The desire to broadcast final tables with hole cards on the internet is understandable. It makes money for Harrahs and it lets a much bigger audience than those walking around the Rio follow along with the action, but it kills the notion that the event is being held for anyone but those watching on the web.

The event obviously can’t be shown live since word would get to the players about the strength or lack of strength of previous bets that were not called. Showing these events on the web is obviously not going to go away because there is money in it, whereas having a crowd of rooters for Hellmuth pays no one, and if anyone understands a cash making opportunity it’s Hellmuth, himself. Nevertheless, it seems like a better idea to increase the delay to two hours and allow spectators. Finding out that someone bluffed two hours ago is something the players can probably live with, but having something historic happen under a huge black tarp shouldn’t be.

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Daniel Negreanu: Would showing a bluff be good for the game?

If you’re like most of the world, that’s how you were introduced to Kaseem “Freddy” Deeb. It was at the 2004 $10,000 No Limit Championship Poker at the Palace event. Deeb was heads up with the popular and garrulous Negreanu. He had control of the event and the best hand. Holding AK to Negreanu’s A7, Deeb bet out $16,000 at the K 6 2 board and Negreanu with no pair, no draw, and really only the ability to buy the pot, flat called. The rest is poker television history. Having heard Deeb mention that smaller bets scared him more than all in raises, Negreanu holding the Ace of hearts used the 4 of hearts that came on the river and put a possible flush on the board to take the pot away from Deeb. Seconds later Negreanu turned the knife in Deeb’s back by showing the bluff, one that Howard Lederer providing analysis for Fox television called “one of the great bluffs of all time.” Deeb still had the chips to compete with Negreanu, but the hand threw him off of his game and the tournament was all but over.

Now, Deeb has something else to be known for. Although the event ended at close to 5AM and almost everybody had gone home, Deeb was the last man standing after a grueling 15 hour final table and won the second running of the “real main event,” the $50,000 Horse World Championship, the limit event that rotates between five of poker’s most difficult limit games. 148 players entered the event and with the hefty price tag and the title of best pro alive up for grabs, none of them were weak sisters. On the first day of play, there were at least four huge name poker pros at every table. Last year’s final table was perhaps the most prestigious of all time including, Doyle Brunson, TJ Cloutier, Phil Ivey, Andy Bloch, and eventual winner Chip Reese. On day one, I asked Deeb what he thought of the competition at his starting table, which included both Negreanu and Marco Traniello. Deeb wasn’t impressed, and four days later with the bracelet on his wrist he was proved correct.

The diminutive Deeb fled Lebanon; the country of his birth, during the civil war of the 1970’s and took to poker after failing to obtain a work permit inside the United States. It was Deeb’s second World Series bracelet and earned him $2,276,832, but Deeb has plenty of money. For the next year the friendly, smiling Deeb holds the title that everyone, Negreanu included, was dying to put on their resume. Now, perhaps someone can talk to Deeb about those multi-colored clash with everything “lucky” shirts he loves to wear. Then again, when you’re on top of the poker world you get to wear whatever you want.

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I’m not a particularly big fan of the corporatization of poker, and just one look at the way Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack dresses and carries himself and you know instantly that he’s a corporation man through and through, but I have to applaud the World Series for outlawing the type of deal made by Bill Chen in the second round of the shootout event.

Chen had the chip lead with one other player left at his table and sold a piece of himself for the right to advance. Deals such as this are nothing new at the World Series of Poker. Amarillo Slim made one in the 1972 Main Event with Puggy Pearson. Pearson didn’t want either his family or the Government to know about his gambling, and Pearson got to go on the Tonight show for years and brag about his victory to Johnny Carson.

Furthermore, agreeing to chop prize money once the final table is down to three or four tables is a long and storied tradition. It’s understandable that players don’t want to flip coins for millions of dollars, but despite my love for some of the shadier sides of the game’s history, I’d prefer that the future of the game rested with players like Daniel Negreanu, who refuses to make deals of any kind. Chen’s deal was especially egregious, because it did not just affect the money payout; it affected who did or did not advance and perhaps the winner of a tournament. Imagine the Detroit Pistons meeting with the Cleveland Cavaliers before the overtime of this year’s game five of the Eastern Conference Finals. Rasheed Wallace tells Lebron James that while he’s sure the Cavs could probably eke by the Pistons, they both know that only Detroit would have a chance at beating the San Antonio Spurs. While it probably would have made for a more entertaining finale, exchanging cash for such a deal would have rocked the sport.

People probably don’t hold poker to the same standard as they do major sports, but perhaps deals such as these are the reason. The new era’s large fields definitely help keep big poker tournament’s from Tilt-like chip dumping nonsense, but players looking to reduce variance are still making final table deals and selling pieces of themselves like an internet IPO. Believe me I get it, but it’s something that could blow up in the game’s face. Last year’s story should have been Jamie Gold dominates the World Series of Poker, wins $13 million dollars and calls his sick father to tell him his medical costs are covered, instead it was Jamie Gold won a lot of money was sued by a guy who might have had a piece of him and eventually settled out of court.

If player’s would like to see poker follow the model of the PGA, where the best players vie for huge sums without putting up their own cash, these types of deals need to end. 

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WSOP Event 39 $5000 No Limit Hold’em Shorthanded

Today we’ll be discussing a hand with internet legend Rob “ChaynesawMSSehKER” Downs. Rob is one of the emerging names in the online poker world, but this year having just turned 21, he is trying his hand at live play.

Rob has $1,500,000 in chips.

TH.com: What are you thinking Rob?

Rob: Well, I’m currently 4th out of thirty. I can probably skate my way to the final table, but with the payoffs escalating quickly I’m going to try to be aggressive and push the more careful players off of hands. We call these players “Pansies” in the online world.

TH.com: In this hand Phil Hellmuth has raised from Early Position. He has $2,000,000 in chips so he has you covered and he’s opened for $200,000. You’re on the button with 9c 10c. What are you thinking here?

Rob: Well, I love playing suited connectors because that’s what it says in Super System. Phil is notorious for playing scared. He will raise with a mediocre hand and fold to a big re-raise. So I’m going to announce my presence with authority and raise to $500,000!

TH.com: Phil calls what are you putting him on here?

Rob: I can see it in his eye that he has a good Ace so I’ll have to tread lightly if an Ace comes.

TH.com: The flop is Ah Jh 4h. You really have nothing here and Phil leads out for $500,000.

Rob: He clearly has a big Ace, but he’s got to be worried about those hearts. So I’m going to be cagey and flat call. I have $500,000 in chips left.

TH.com: The turn is the J of diamonds. Phil checks. What are you thinking?

Rob: This is a clear sign of weakness from Phil. He’s obviously worried about the hearts and the Jack. There is no way he has AJ. I put him on AK off or AQ off. He has to fold to an all in so I push.

TH.com: Phil insta-calls in that annoying I can’t get my chips in fast enough way and shows JJ for Quad jacks. You are out of the event. What are you thinking?

Rob: I can’t believe he called me an internet dork. That was uncalled for. The preening dance and the speech about how all these young kids with their computers can’t play worth a damn wasn’t nice either. I have to go my mother wants me to clean up the basement.

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Things certainly have changed. Poker is no longer the province of gunfighters and rogues. What fun is it thinking about Doc Holliday and Wild Bill Hickock, when their favorite pastime has been taken over by the MIT Blackjack Team? Sigh.

Today’s $5000 No Limit Hold’em winner, 21 year old James Mackey is about to walk into a bank with a check for $730,740. The bank teller will then call the bank manager. The manager will call the bank President. The President will call the FBI. Fingerprints will be checked. Why? Because through no fault of his own Mackey will be getting carded at bars for at least the next ten years. There’s just no getting around this. The diminutive Mackey looks just like Ron Howard, but not the Richie Cunningham, Ron Howard. The Opie Taylor, Ron Howard, and the young one at that, the episodes before his voice broke.

He obviously has game. He took down the likes of Main Event table final
Table-ists Michael Binger and Tex Barch like he had someplace else to be. The whole final table lasted 48 hands.

After the win, Aunt Bee and Barney Fife took Mackey to Circus Circus, where they ordered up some prostitutes and blow and celebrated taking down the biggest first prize of the Series so far.

I’m sorry. It’s clearly envy on my part. I just can’t see Mackey performing well in the Old West. What would James Mackey do when Johnny Ringo stood up and accused him of cheating? What would James Mackey do when he was playing with Doyle and Sailor Roberts and they had guns pulled to their heads? (Well, probably the same thing as Doyle and Sailor actually, fork over his dough.) He’d probably actually be in better shape, since the thieves would probably mistake him for the drink boy. “Dance, Spider, Dance … Big Deal, so he got shot in the foot … Take him to Ben Casey. Let him crawl like he crawls for the drinks.”

Hey, James, great win baby, wanna back me?

1 $ 730,740 James Mackey  
2 $ 448,892 Stuart Fox  
3 $ 295,245 Michael Binger  
4 $ 194,319 William McMahon  
5 $ 140,091 Karga Holt  
6 $ 108,457 Nick Schulman  
7 $ 81,343 Jan Sorensen  
8 $ 60,254 Tex Barch  
9 $ 43,684 Michael Gracz

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