Hugo's Blogspotting: 5 June

Hellmuth Whistles a Sad Tune

The WSOP is in full swing now and the blogs are overflowing with bloggage. Where better to start than World-Series-of-Poker-Champion-eleven-bracelets-Captain-of Team-Ultimatebet Phil Hellmuth himself.

Now you don’t need me to tell you that Hellmuth suffers from delusions of grandeur as well as a ludicrously fragile ego that is looking for constant validation.

This latest blog, however, finds Phil in a weird mood. In some nightclub at the Bellagio by himself after his friends have gone off to bed, Phil reflects on getting knocked out of WSOP Event #2 within an hour (he played the tournament in his NASCAR suit by the way, thanks for letting us know that Phil).

“It seemed like I was feeling sorry for myself, or maybe I was a little depressed. But why? My life seems about perfect. Maybe having the 12 million cans out didn't make me as happy as I thought it would.”

Ha! I knew having your mug plastered all over 12 million cans of Milwaukee’s Best would be anti-climactic. The path of a poker superstar is one less traveled. It’s lonely at the top. And so on. Whatever.

The Poker Brat has gone from saying that having his boat-race on a can of beer is more exciting than winning a bracelet to finding it’s all a bit of a downer. Maybe Phil was downtown near the El Cortez and saw a skid-row bum sitting in an alleyway in his own piss drinking a special Hellmuth can of Milwaukee’s Best Light and the reality of the human condition got to him or something.

Still, it’s the World Series, traditionally a time when Phil shines so it didn’t take long for our favourite Wisconsin to get his crap together and go play Chinese in the Bellagio card room.

“After sitting around gathering my thoughts I went to the poker room at the Bellagio and started a chinese game with Raffi (the world famous children's singer), Roland De Wolfe, and Josh Arieh. I lost around $30,000, and actually had to borrow $10,000 from Raffi! Even worse, I stayed up until 9:45 am playing.!”

At this point dear reader, I must go off on a bit of a tangent. If, like me, you have young offspring you may well be familiar with Raffi, the world famous children’s singer, to whom Hellmuth refers to. I don’t know about you, oh fellow parent, but my mind has been blown!!

Without doubt, Raffi is like the Beatles or the Stones of kiddies’ music. I actually enjoy his renditions of Baa Baa Black Sheep, Peanut Butter Sandwich, Cluck, Cluck, Red Hen and other classics. Of course, I only know his first three albums which were all made in the 1970s, a golden era for music. Anyway, I now discover he’s a poker player too! Plus he so owned Hellmuth at Chinese he had to lend him a big dime! I’ll never be able to listen to Pick a Bale O’ Cotton in the same light again.

Eskimo Redux

You may recall Eskimo Clark nearly dying a few times in various tournaments at last year’s WSOP. Well, he’s still alive and the Tao of Poker has a good update (entry dated June 5th) on this grizzled survivor.

“I noticed a familiar silhouette gazing up at one of the TV screens. The figure was none other than a gloomy-looking Eskimo Clark.

I guess he couldn't find anyone to put him in a satellite in the Tropical Room or in a second chance event and he was banished to roam the hallways like a tragic oaf straight off the pages of one of Bukowksi novels. Old. Broken. Desperate. Wounded. Unwanted.

The TVs showed Jerry Yang's interview with Norman Chad moments after Yang's victory in the Main Event last July. Eskimo stood there with his hands in his empty pockets and slowly shook his head in disgust. It was an emotionally somber scene to witness. I had been in an unusually jovial mood at this year's WSOP. I gotta say, seeing Eskimo at the moment really brought me down... deep down... into the abyss of despair.”

Pauly relishes the dark side of Vegas, and it has to be said that a figure like Eskimo does seem to inspire his feverish missives from the Vegas/WSOP front line.

“If Eskimo was a race horse, they would have put him down last year when he had a stroke in the Poker Tent. That would have saved him from the humiliation of pissing himself at the Razz final table last year.

Eskimo has become a symbol of all things degenerate in Las Vegas. I wouldn't be surprised to find him crawling on the pavement outside in the smoking area in a search of stray cigarette butts. When you sink so low and become a parasite, the tiniest crumbs become a feast.”

Doctor in the House

Obviously at an event the size of the WSOP you are going to have the odd player who, like Eskimo, ain’t feeling too well. Terrence Chan was playing in Event #5, $1k NLHE rebuys, when he saw some geezer in a cash game at the next table collapse.

The floor staff respond reasonably well and Chan discovers that one of the players on his table is a doctor who goes over to assist. As play resumes in the tournament there is an awkward moment when Chan suggests that the other players give the doctor’s big blind a walk.

“Most of the table agrees or is silent (which as far as I'm concerned at the time is enough for me) but there are a couple dissenters, both shorter stacks. John Juanda suggests that we call the floor and see if we can deal him out (so he doesn't have to post antes and blinds), which I think is a better idea than mine. The floor is called over, and listens to our suggestions but rules that the tournament must go on.”

It used to be that there were two things that were certain in life – death and taxes. Legendary high roller and poker player Nick “The Greek” Dandolos then added percentages to the list. Well, now we can add a fourth sure thing in life – the tournament never stops! The blinds and antes always go up.

“Anyways, it's "sorry guys, nothing I can do" from the floorman. I get slightly emotional about the response and get a warning (I don't think I was out of line or anything, I just raised my voice a little about the fact that it's really just a poker tournament). Maybe I am out of line or was overly emotional.”

As a detached observer I have to say that I can see both points of view. Obviously some punter collapsing and possibly being near death’s door makes the poker tournament one is playing in seem a little irrelevant. But, the guy who collapsed is a poker player so would probably understand that the tournament must go on and probably wouldn’t have minded if the doc had just nipped back to his table now and then to at least defend his blinds and play his button.

Still I must admit that even I think the following wisecrack made by another player about the doctor being blinded off is a little crass:

“So play in the tournament goes on. Guy on my left (who was one of the dissenters) makes some dumbass joke about "too bad, he (the doctor) should have went to law school instead, ha ha."

Rebuy!

Like I said, Chan was playing in the rebuy event and Daniel Negreanu has written a good blog outlining his rebuy strategy. You may remember a few years ago Negreanu had some absurd amount of rebuys in this event (27 I think, but can’t be bothered to check) which left some commentators gasping.

What’s nice about this particular blog is that Negreanu turns what poker players usually wish for upside down. In other words, one often hears players in tournaments hoping their big (and good) hands stand up i.e. the ace-kings, pocket queens and so on. Not so in a rebuy event where you are looking to gAAAAAAAAAAAmble.

“Sometimes 10-3 loses to A-J an inordinate amount of times. That's really unlucky. Most people (aside from guys like Gus Hansen) don't really understand that fact. Losing with 10-3 against A-J four times in a row is really unlucky! Yes A-J is a favorite, but not that big a favorite.”

The Hevad Khan Rule

Meanwhile Joe Saumarez Smith at BiggerDeal.com is applauding Harrah’s new Excessive Celebration rule. Basically anybody who whoops and hollers and generally goes apeshit when his hand stands up will get some sort of penalty.

Being an old school type of player naturally I agree with all of this. Getting rubbed down after losing a hand is never nice, especially if losing means you have been knocked out of a tournament.

The irony is that this sort of stuff never used to happen until ESPN and its cameras encouraged such behaviour.

“Part of the problem was that the cameras patrolling the floor at the Rio would focus only on those who brought attention upon themselves – so players soon learned that if they wanted to be on TV (and seen by all their buddies), then the most likely way to achieve that was to behave like a total tool. There was a snowball effect to this as television editing meant that viewers at home were educated that ‘in your face’ behaviour was perfectly acceptable at the World Series”

“The rule has already informally become known among players as the Hevad Khan rule, after the final table antics of last year’s sixth-place finisher.”

Excellent! I like that this already has a name. In fact, I think that it should be the official name of the rule rather than Excessive Celebration; much less of a mouthful plus people will get the idea immediately.

However, having said all of that, I’m not really that bothered. Touchdown-style celebrations are part of the game now and if you let those sorts of adolescent hi-jinks get to you then maybe there’s something wrong with your game. You could almost argue that when you see players indulging in that sort of behaviour it usually means that they aren’t a very good player.

A professional is meant to have alligator blood running though his veins. If, say, making the money means so much to someone that they scream and shout when they knock another player out, they can’t be that good of a player can they?

I think it’s better not to tell off the punters and let them have their “fun” – that way they won’t realise that this poker lark is in fact a serious business, more important than life or death.

How Many Chips Shaniac?

Someone else concerned with WSOP etiquette is Shane “Shaniac” Schleger. A recent update gives a guideline for what not to do during the breaks in the various events at the Amazon Room.

“I don't care if you care how many chips I have. If asked, I will try to avoid the question. I would like to eliminate this whole conversation piece as a default starting point for shooting the shit. Similarly, if you pass by my table and are impressed by the amount of chips I have, or are, say, wondering where I lost some chips, or if you want to tell my about how you won some chips recently, keep it to yourself. I'm trying to work here.”

Shaniac’s blog has prompted quite a few negative comments in the forums along the lines of lighten up dude and so forth. I guess it does seem a little grumpy and writing, “I'm trying to work here” is definitely asking for it, but at the same time I see Shaniac’s point.

I mean, so what if you have 50 million chips at the first break? Or if you have 22? These donkaments are marathons and whether you have the average chip stack or so and so has billions really is irrelevant.

I guess poker players can’t help themselves and it has to be said that the next best thing to playing the game is talking about the game. But still, the inane crap one hears during a break in a tourney is usually a load of bollocks so I’m with Shaniac on this one.

“There's a unique social energy here, and it's cool to see my fellow poker players embracing that. But this isn't summer camp. I'm here to work, and I don't take my ability to concentrate on my own goals for granted.”

Mind you, what’s the over/under on the number of players at the Rio who go up to Shaniac and ask him how many chips he has?

Hugo 'Chimney Sweep' Martin

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