FULL TILT POKER BLOG

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Or, Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning’s End

The fortieth World Series of Poker starts in less than two weeks. I will be covering the Series for Full Tilt for the third time, and let me say, with no bragging involved, you could not be luckier. The WSOP is a magical event and no one can cover it like me. I have written daily about the World Series for three years and, before that, worked on two books and numerous articles during the World Series. I have been everywhere and seen everything. In addition, between my relationships with winners of more than 200 bracelets and authors of almost every good book ever written about the World Series, I have a huge mental and physical archive of World Series history.

Let me share how I plan to put all that to work for you:

Full Tilt is significantly expanding its World Series coverage this year. The website will have a special page devoted to series coverage and you will have this blog. (Most likely, the blog will also appear on Full Tilts World Series page.) I expect to be posting more than daily, with my posts covering the following subjects.

The Daily Tilt (a/k/a Tilte Deim!)

I will start everyday I’m at the Series by providing you a general update of how Full Tilt’s players are doing. For every Full Tilt player (assuming I can ascertain the exact population of Tiltdom), I will post a running list of earnings, cashes, and final tables. I will also provide links to the significant posts of the previous day and any blog updates by Full Tilt pros. If Twitter becomes as big as I think it will be at the Series, I will post some of the notable tweets from the day before.

The Full Tilt Guide to the WSOP (a/k/a Las Vegas on $2,000 a Day)

These posts will take me to the familiar territory of all that Las Vegas and the World Series have to off: the Amazon Room, the single-table satellite room, the mega-satellites, the 11 PM second-chance tournament, the food concessions, and even what other poker rooms are doing around town. If you are thinking of coming out to Vegas this summer, I will be your guide for what to expect. If you are experience the World Series only “virtually,” I will be your virtual guide. And either way, expect to be entertained.

Some of my favorite posts of this type came from the CardRunners.com Satellite Room last year. I spent several days playing single-table satellites, with results that were both successful and hilarious. In one satellite, I was heads-up when my opponent nearly got into a fistfight with some guy trying to collect money from him. In another , one player fell asleep after his action on every single hand and needed to be roused by the dealer, another player, or the floorman before his action on the next hand.

Seen and Heard

These posts will pass along all the best inside information about your favorite players at the Series. I’ll provide biographies and profiles of Full Tilt stars that you are just getting to know, along with a rundown of what’s happening with my good friends who are part of Full Tilt. You will get to find out who’s starring and who’s slumping and why.
 
Ghost Series

The World Series of Poker is 40 years old and this blog will be one of the few places where you can read about all that history and have it set against on the latest developments at the World Series. These posts will contain history, trivia, anecdotes, and perspective.

Let me give you an example. The first man to win a million dollars in a World Series event was Brad Daugherty, when he won the Main Event in 1993. I got to play a tournament with Brad in my first-ever World Series satellite in 2004.

It was Sunday night and downtown Vegas was stiflingly hot and mostly empty. Binion’s Horseshoe, which was closed by the government just a few months earlier, had been purchased by Harrah’s, which slapped on a new coat of paint, but the place was doing no business on a Sunday night. Once I took an escalator to the second floor, however, the former bingo hall and gutted restaurant were a hive of activity. At one edge of the room, the previous day’s event was playing out at the final table. The event that started at noon was continuing at one corner. Second chance tournaments and satellites were already running.

I entered a $200 super-satellite and was seated to left of Brad Daugherty, whose book about satellite tournament strategy I had just finished reading. Daugherty was a super nice guy, even taking time to answer the questions of a married couple on the rail who wondered in and had no idea what they were watching.

I thought Brad deserved props and these people deserved to be impressed, so I told them they were learning from a world champion and the leading expert in this particular type of tournament. They asked him many more questions, bought a copy of his book in the hallway outside the room, and got Brad to autograph it.

But this is a poker story so you can bet that everything did not end happily-ever-after. Brad got short-stacked and busted when his button bluff ran into pocket kings. As he was leaving, the married couple on the rail went from fans to foes. The husband looked at the book like he was holding a turd. “Why is this thing $25? It’s paperback and it’s barely 200 pages.”

The wife was nonplussed. “You’re the one who let him sign it. Now we can’t even take it back.”

World Series of Poker history is everywhere, and I have accumulated a fantastic amount of it. Did you know that when Brad Daugherty won the 1993 World Championship, he was staked by a 24-year-old Cal Tech dropout from Montana named Huckleberry Seed who would win his first bracelet in 1993 and win the Main Event himself in 1996? But before any of those World Series accomplishments, he was bankrolling the winner.

Or that Mike Matusow, who made the final table in 2001 and 2005, owned a quarter of Scotty Nguyen when Scotty won the Main Event 1998?

Read my blog during the Series and you’ll really enjoy the Series. AlCantHang’s Poker From the Rail blog will also share an up-close view on what life is like in the Amazon Room. And stay tuned for all Full Tilt’s Series coverage, which will have its own page and update you daily on the winners, losers, and personalities that make the World Series of Poker the most compelling sporting event on earth.

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2 Responses to “#742 – The World Series of Poker is Everywhere”

1. Xyzzy Says:
   May 21st, 2009 at 12:01 am

   “I will be covering the Series for Full Tilt for the third time, and let me say, with no bragging involved, you could not be luckier. The WSOP is a magical event and no one can cover it like me.”

   I can’t wait to read the reports from one so modest as yourself!

2. Paul Pratt Says:
   May 21st, 2009 at 10:37 am

   Michael,

   Does it hurt both your tongue and your cheek when you write stuff like this?

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