As I was preparing the blog based on my interview with Jeffrey Pollack, I decided to compare player–participation numbers between the 2009 World Series and similar numbers from the year before. Although the year-over-year numbers are equivocal, it was a miracle in this economy that poker has retained its strength of the past several years. As Pollack said during our conversation, “The economy had no effect.”
After I busted from the Main Event, I had an opportunity to interview World Series of Poker commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. It had been a difficult week for Jeffrey. The demands on his time always escalate as the Series goes on, and by the Main Event, he has to work around the clock juggling responsibilities to sponsors, ESPN, tournament administration, players, and Harrah’s. Just a few days earlier, he had to weather the storm surrounding the sell-out of day 1-D of the Main Event, which locked hundreds of players out of the World Championship and forced a year-to-year decline in Main Event participation.
It’s time for me to get back to work. Or time to think about getting back to work. Or time to think about thinking about getting back to work.
It’s taken me twelve days to return to work after the World Series of Poker. If pressed, I’d blame my car’s navigation system, but the better thing is probably to start filling up this space. We have plenty to catch up on, and many interesting things coming up.
BOOM! Like that, it’s over until November. Poor Jordan Smith. The guy played great, built a stack after starting the day short, and twice in the abbreviated ten-handed session picked up pocket aces. First time, he raised, got no action, and showed them. Second time, he reraised with them, forced out the original raiser, and got Darvin Moon’s second flat-call of the hand. After a flop of 8-4-2, Smith check-raised all-in with his A-A, only to see Moon’s 8-8.
The Amazon Room is a bizarre looking place today. Since noon, one corner of the room has been brightly lit with action at just three – then two, and now one – tables. Even in that corner, everything else has been removed, including the lights. In the adjacent corner, far from the action, is Press Row, also brightly lit. That’s where I’ve been working from, though there really isn’t anything to see, do, hear, or report upon from this vantage point. The other two quadrants of the room have been empty and dark. Tables, gone. Lights, gone. I left the room when they went from 19 players to 18. Not only did they disburse the players from the third table to the other three, but the table itself vanished.
It’s just after 10 PM and there are just ten players left. The screams, cheers, and exhortations, which earlier today sounded like distant echoes, now have the cadence of carpet bombing. Press row is still the worst place from which to view the action, but, wow, is there ever action!
With the Undisclosed Location shut down and packed away, I wondered where Phil Ivey would go to relax during breaks. Come to think of it, I saw him at the Undisclosed Location only once during the entire Series. Where has he been going to hang out?
Even though I work for Full Tilt, I have no advantage over any other media in covering Phil Ivey. He has no interest in publicity or promotion. Period.
Still, I’ve been around poker for long enough to have know some things. Phil is a mystery to almost everyone and, I suppose, he’s still something of a mystery to me. But some of his most valuable secrets are hiding in plain sight.
Today is the last day of the World Series of Poker until November. Day 8 of the Main Event starts with twenty-seven players and they’ll play until just nine remain. I’ll be in the Amazon Room all day following the action, though I’m more likely to describe it later than post through the day. That’s not so say this space will remain silent; I just don’t want to duplicate the fine work PokerNews.com does recording the finishers and the big hands. I’ll look for “my kind of thing” to report as well as catch up on accumulated as-yet-unpublished blog entries.
Just 64 players left and one of them is Phil Ivey. Expect big ratings for the ESPN package this year, even better if he makes it to November. In fact, I’ll say it right now: Ivey making the final table will be the biggest thing for TV poker since Moneymaker won it in 2003 – for the opposite reason. Chris Moneymaker showed that Everyman and play with the best. After six years, Phil Ivey (who just missed the final table that year) symbolizes reclaiming the World Championship for the pros.
It took my favorite field correspondent, David Lappin, to keep me up to date on Scott Cook’s run for the November Nine. Lappin, as I’ve already told you, is part of Dublin Bellybusters (the mouth part, I imagine), a community of first-class people and excellent players. Scott Cook is part of that group and also the founder of BadBeatsPoker.net, another online community with which I’ve had the pleasure of interacting. More important for the moment, Scott has over 3 million chips going into Day Seven, which puts him just north of the middle of the pack.
