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It took me some time to wind down after the May thru July spectacle of the World Series. Nevertheless, I was able to take you along on some interesting adventures these last few months. In addition, I was able to spend my time at home developing my online game (and hopefully, at least a little bit, yours) and write several profiles of Full Tilt’s most compelling pros. Anchoring the last few months, of course, was Shauna’s and my coverage of the Final Table at the WSOP at the Main Event.

As usual, my travels unearthed a wealth of bloggable material. When we went to Las Vegas in October, I had to deal with attitude from, of all people, the desk clerk at the Gold Coast at 3am. The trip provided us with great information for our final table coverage, some of which we are still working into this blog. I also had the opportunity on that trip to catch up with Ted Forrest and find out how he was traveling the world without identification.

At the beginning of December I drove to LA to appear in Annie Duke’s Celebrity Poker Night. Although my experience in tournament itself was a train wreck, the seminar preceding it taught me some great lessons about the necessary mindset for poker improvement. On reflection – mine and panelists Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch, and Annie Duke – these lessons provided an excellent opportunity to share one of Phil Ivey’s hidden talents. Then, of course, there was the obligatory middle-of-the-night hassle with the night clerk, this time at a roadside flophouse in Blythe, California.

I put the time spent between travels to good use. Many of the blogs from the later portion of 2009 concerned important matters of poker strategy. My blogs on tournament poker strategy have received a very positive reception and I think I know why. It’s definitely NOT that I have all the answers; sometimes, it’s pretty clear that I don’t have ANY of the answers. But I can do two things well. First, I’m pretty sure I’m asking the right questions. Second, because of the wealth of information I’ve gathered as an experienced online tournament player, from my extensive poker library, and from my collaborative friendships with some of the best poker players in the world, I’m able to put a lot of good information into the discussion.

For beginners, I explained, in response to a pair of emails from a friend of the blog, the proper level of tournament aggressiveness and the proper size of buy-in for a new player.

For players of varying skill levels, I wrote a series of posts in connection with a private tournament I played with The Potkings.com. After winning their tournament, they raised questions about a number of hands and I responded (in their forum and in this blog). Those essays included post-flop play, considerations related to controlling the pot size, how to handle when an opponent tries to take away the betting lead, and how to play pocket pairs late in a tournament.

I was also able to write informative profiles about some of Full Tilt’s most compelling personalities. Shortly after Steve Zolotow hosted an FTOPS event, I shared details from his remarkable story and some of his entertaining Pro Chat responses. When Howard Lederer came achingly close to winning his elusive third bracelet during WSOP Europe, I tried to provide some insights on the workings of his complex mind.

And then there was Ivey.

When Phil Ivey made the Final Table of the Main Event, he gave a lot of people a lot to write about. What he didn’t give them, however, was access or information.

That’s my wheelhouse. I have been tracking Phil Ivey for five years. During this time, I have observed him playing Andy Beal, taping television shows, making bets, ordering food, and relaxing with friends between tournaments. This positioned me uniquely not just to better put together the pieces of the Ivey “puzzle”, but also to supply some missing pieces.

That profile, as of January of 2010, remains unfinished. Perhaps it will never be finished. But I will continue supplying and fitting together details in the remarkable mosaic of Phil Ivey’s life. Thus far, I have written about his aggressiveness, his connection with music, his playful side, his friendship with Tiger Woods, his gambling philosophy, and why he is so good at poker. I have just scratched the surface, not just about Phil but about my own material. Phil Ivey’s not going anywhere and neither am I. I will provide additional installments in the coming months.

The highlight of the blog’s coverage in the fall was the Final Table of the Main Event. In addition to all the Phil Ivey coverage, Shauna and I tried, as is my motto, to be “everywhere, all the time.” With so much live or near-live coverage of the Final Table, especially the excellent hand-by-hand updates by Pokernews.com, we focused our coverage on the atmosphere. WHAT DID IT FEEL LIKE TO BE THERE?

These are the kinds of things I shared with you, in real-time: the atmosphere at the Rio, from my wake-up call from Penn Jillette to the media crowd waiting to enter the room; the look and feel and the Final Table and the Penn & Teller Theatre, and the drama of the introductions; the behavior of the fans, mostly partisans, down to the ground-shaking roar on the turn of a crucial card; an idea of what it felt like to be on James Akenhead’s emotional rollercoaster that day; the palpability of Ivey’s resolve; how the feeling in the room changed as day turned to night, the table remained nearly full, and Sasquatch stalked the room 901; and the emotional moment when Phil Ivey was all-in with the best hand … only to have Darvin Moon draw out.

In contrast, I handled the heads-up match between Joe Cada and Darvin Moon differently. I watched the players and their styles carefully, and analyzed them over the next several days. (Nevertheless, I was pleased with my descriptions of Cada’s and Moon’s rooting sections – pleased enough that one of Moon’s fans was insulted by my description!) To start, I thought the outcome was ordained by Darvin Moon’s first action on the first hand, though he won the hand in bizarre fashion. I then devoted posts to each player’s heads-up strategy, how Joe Cada was ready for Darvin Moon to bet and call with nothing and how Darvin Moon – though too infrequently – took advantage of the reraise to slow down Cada.

I finished my analysis of the Final Table with some perspectives on an important but poorly described and analyzed aspect of tournament poker strategy I called “preservation.” How much of a premium should a player place on their continued survival in a tournament? What factors affect the size of that premium, and by how much? Although I didn’t feel qualified to reach definitive conclusions, I explained the potential bias toward overestimating its size, and described perspectives from great players and strategists such as David Sklansky, pro-preservation advocates Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow, and less-pro-preservation Chris Ferguson. I concluded the essays with an analysis of some key hands from the Final Table in which Jeff Shulman, Phil Ivey, and James Akenhead employed preservation strategy in questionable ways.

All in all, I thought it was a great year. And 2010 should be better. The tech guys are redesigning the blog, Shauna and I are planning on kicking off some new features once the new design is finalized – more details on them later, because Uncle Tilty has to sign off on some of them, but more strategy, more comedy, more reporting, more contests, more video, more audio, more pros, and more Shauna.

So I’m going to quit tooting my horn about 2009 and start producing some horn-tootingly compelling material in 2010.

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2 Responses to “#940 – Where Did 2009 Go? Part III – Fight to the Finish”

1. john Says:
   January 10th, 2010 at 11:51 am

   Only recently subscribed to your blog but looking forward to reading you in 2010 – good luck this year!

2. Poker Says:
   January 10th, 2010 at 4:05 pm

   great post, good luck

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