Poker From The Rail
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Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
After an insane amount of poker over the last 17+ hours, the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event finally found it’s way down to the final 2 players. The tournament has been suspended with Joe “jcada99″ Cada and Darvin Moon returning on Monday evening to crown the new champion.
It was a day full of everything you expect to find at the biggest poker event you will find. Over 1,400 spectators lined up early outside the Penn & Teller Theater hours before the gates were scheduled to open, even generating long lines 12 hours after play began. The big name of the table, Phil Ivey, pulled in members of the media from around the world but could not avoid the one monstrous suckout that would have put him back in contention. Darvin Moon, our amateur player who came in as the chipleader, played an interesting game that was all over the map but in the end will be playing heads up for the championship. There were far too many ridiculous suckouts to list but will certainly provide a great viewing experience when it hits the ESPN broadcast on November 10th.
The superstars came out in force and camped most of the night on the stage supporting either Ivey or Jeff Shulman. For his part, Shulman will not be able to prove whether his words were true when he stated he would throw the bracelet in the trash. Our first and last eliminations of the day were bookended by the only two European players at the final table. Akenhead finishing in 9th and Saout in 3rd.
After all that excitement and all the craziness, it is time to shut the lights down in the auditorium and prepare to recharge for Tuesday’s heads up match between Darvin Moon and Joe Cada. I will be back with that match once it kicks off.
Seat 1 – Darvin Moon – 58,875,000
Seat 7 – Joe Cada – 136,925,000
Update: If you’d like to read about the insanity of the November Nine, feel free to click here to read my 2009 November Nine Live Blog
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
My view from the heights
After 12 grinding days of poker and nearly 4 months with the 2009 World Series of Poker on “pause” we are now down to the time when a new WSOP Main Event Champion will be crowned. All nine players will shortly entered the Penn & Teller Theater to take their seats at the most coveted final table in the game. Phil Ivey will begin as the most famous and Darvin Moon will have the biggest stack. An ex-Wall Street banker, several young guns and a couple Euros will take their shot at being the last bracelet winner in 2009.
Play is schedule to begin at noon which is just two short hours from now. I will be camped out high above the stage with a bird’s eye view and bringing hourly updates as we whittle down the field. Come back to follow along with your favorite player at the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event final table.
Poker from the Rail 2009 World Series of Poker November Nine Part 1
Poker from the Rail 2009 World Series of Poker November Nine Part 2
Poker from the Rail 2009 World Series of Poker November Nine Part 3
Seat 1 – Darvin Moon – 58,930,000
Seat 2 – James Akenhead – 6,800,000
Seat 3 – Phil Ivey – 9,765,000
Seat 4 – Kevin Schaffel – 12,390,000
Seat 5 – Steven Begleiter – 29,885,000
Seat 6 – Eric Buchman – 34,800,000
Seat 7 – Joe Cada – 13,215,000
Seat 8 – Antoine Saout – 9,500,000
Seat 9 – Jeff Shulman – 19,580,000
11:30PT – The doors are open
The gates to the Penn & Teller Theater have been opened and the crowds of fans, friends, and spectators have begun pouring into the room to find their seats. The press box is elbow to elbow with outlets from all around the world. The players have completed their pre-game meeting with the WSOP staff including Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. Chip bags are on the table and the dealers are preparing their setups.
The early line on fan noise has Joe Cada well ahead with a crew in yellow Michigan “Cada” t-shirts and mugging for the ESPN cameras. The Darvin Moon crowd is walking around with “heads on sticks”, not exactly sure where that is going. Poker legend Doyle Brunson has found the stage and will be giving the Shuffle Up and Deal command. Photographers are getting their last minute shots before the players are announced, the lovely Lacey Jones is prepping for hosting duties, Lon McCarren and Norm Chad are doing their rehearsals. Fellow Full Tilt blogger Michael Craig is in the house and ready to bring the action from up close.
In late minute player news, the word around town is that Steve Begleiter hired SnG player expert Jonathan Little as his couch for this “Sit n Go”.
13:00PT – Cards in the air
Getting under just a little over an hour later than scheduled, the cards are finally in the air.
Jeffrey Pollack, Lacey Jones, and Jack Effel all took their time at the microphone making announcements and warming up the crowd including the bracelet ceremony for Barry Shulman’s WSOP-E title. Lon McCarren and Norm Chad have have made their ESPN intros, and an honor guard made their appearance for the National Anthem. WSOP Tournament Director Jack Eiffel made the extended player introductions and the biggest ovation was for Phil Ivey followed by Joe Cada and Antoine Saout. The French are outnumbered but making plenty of noise. Jeff “Happy” Shulman received a polite round of applause.
Blinds will be at 120,000/240,000 with 30,000 ante for the next 7 minutes.
14:00PT – Faces in the crowd
Several big guns from Team Full Tilt have been spotted in the crowd to support Phil Ivey. Jen Harman and Marco Traniello are sitting on the stage along with Howard Lederer, Allen Cunningham and Perry Friedman. Phil Gordon is hanging around the Orchestra Pit and there has been a Chris Ferguson spotting.
After the first few orbits the crowd has settled down a little bit, only getting rowdy after a series of preflop battles. The French supporters have been as quiet so far as their boy Antoine Saout.
It took awhile before we saw the first flop and still haven’t seen a turn card. Very few flops, non-existent turns, and most pots being taken down with a preflop raise or a three-bet. They seem to be still feeling each other out and the blinds will not be forcing the action for a very long time. Begleiter and Cada appear to be the early aggressors.
Just 15 hands into the action and Phil Ivey found a hand worthy of pushing all-in behind a raise from Jeff Shulman. Joe Cada asked for a count and went in the tank for quite awhile before mucking, Shulman was not far behind. Shulman has spent the early part of the day making very odd, large opening raises pre-flop, perhaps this was the time for Ivey to look him up.
Shortly after the clock switched over the 2pm, Jack Effel announced an explicable 20 minute break after just an hour of action. This seems to indicate a very long day for our players and fans. When they return blinds will be at 150,000/30,000/40,000 ante for another hour.
You can find the rest of the live blog after the jump. A mere 5,000 words to describe 17 hours of action. Thanks for stopping by. Click below to read the rest of the story.
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, November Nine, Phil Ivey, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
2009 World Series of Poker Main Event “November Nine”
The big weekend is finally here. All the players are in town, ESPN is putting the final touches on the stage at the Penn & Teller Theater, spectators will soon begin queueing up to get the best seats in the house, people are starting to jockey the big wigs for prime access. The 2009 November Nine players will take their places tomorrow around noon and we will have a new World Series of Poker Champion by Tuesday morning.
It didn’t take long to get back into the swing of things as soon as my feet were on the ground. The cab drivers, bartenders, and dealers all have an opinion on who they think will win. Most seem to want Phil Ivey to win it all, many opinions about what he needs to do to get it done. WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack has already met with chip leader Darvin Moon and he is reportedly head-to-toe in New Orleans Saints gear. The exact same Darvin everyone saw on TV. Media credential request were from all over the globe and seems to be even more mainstream media showing an interest in the game.
I will be back on this space Saturday afternoon and bring hourly updates as the game proceeds down to the remaining two players. Those two will return Tuesday evening at 10pm PT to crown the champion. I will be tracking the three Full Tilt sponsored players, Phil Ivey, James Akenhead, and Steve Begleiter, as well as everything that happens until we have a victor.
Listed below you can find our 2009 November Nine Handicapping posts:
Poker from the Rail 2009 World Series of Poker November Nine Part 1
Poker from the Rail 2009 World Series of Poker November Nine Part 2
Poker from the Rail 2009 World Series of Poker November Nine Part 3
In Phil Ivey news, ESPN’s E:60 program ran a special on the most famous November Nine players to go along with the Insider article I wrote about earlier. After the jump you can find the clip from the episode.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 2009 World Series of Poker, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, James Akenhead, Phil Ivey, Steven Begleiter, WSOP
Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail
After the Full Tilt pros were practically skunked last week during the Big Money Sunday events, Michael Tureniec and Lee Watkinson almost made up for it on their own in the first big game of the day. Watkinson was the final table bubble boy and Tuerniec finished second in the Sunday Brawl for a nice showing. That final table also features a friend of the bloggers and regular player in the Battle of the Blogger Tournament Series as katiemother shipped 5th place for a cool $28,000.
Naturally the biggest draw of the day was the 43,000+ player FTOPS XIV Warmup game that played so crazy that it actually made the Double Deuce look sane. I’m not going to say it was a complete crapshoot, it was more like 95% luck, 4% timing (sort of luck I suppose), 1% skill (getting the hell out of the way). The biggest name I saw running deep, and quite proud of it per his twitter page, was Dutch “Dutchalicious” Boyd who somehow got through most of the field to finish in 80th.
I’d like to highlight just one player and three hands to give a feel for the game. I just happened to have the table up at the time and watched “her” go from decent stack to chip leader in just a few hands with less than 500 players left, I believe the first player over 1,000,000 in chips. Then all in one swoop was out of the tournament in 413th. I am by no means picking on “MsKitty0487″, just dump luck that I happened to have the table open.
It all starts off with either the most brilliantly played Aces or the biggest head scratcher. She limped in late position after one other limper. Checked it down on the ace-high, two heart flop. Flat called a min-bet on both the turn and river for a very small pot. “david koch” pretty much lost the minimum he could on that hand. No matter, just one hand later she turned on the burners and took all his chips with AJ versus A9 on a jack-high flop. How could he get a read after the previous play?
Here is the hand that got her up near the stratosphere. No aggression, just check/called the entire way has her next victim hung himself betting into the mortal nuts. This hand pretty much played itself at this level. Nice flop.
It didn’t take very long after that for it all to start circling the drain. After a few sketchy hands at her new table, she tangled with the only player at the table who could knock her out, with a borderline hand out of position. Called a pretty sizable preflop raise, a huge re-raise on the flop, and the shove on the turn with a 7% chance to pick up the pot. From hero to out in no time. “Froggetaboutit” went on to finish 33rd, a $450 difference from there to 413th.
I’m no expert, just presenting it as I saw it. What hand can she beat there on the turn? QQ or an airball is just about the only thing she beats with the pre-flop action.
While I was running around grabbing screenshots, I was also taking down all the information I could gather. You see, I have this freaky love of numbers. Random numbers, formulas, statistics, etc. I’m always running a few spreadsheets on the side tracking random things just for fun. I thought for sure I’d see something interesting if I kept a note how the field busted out between breaks in the FTOPS XIV Warmup and wasn’t disappointed. Generally you see some sort of slowdown as the field corrects itself with blinds and chipstacks. Once this monstrosity got past the second break the pace of people hitting the rail stayed about as consistent as possible. From then until the very end of the tournament the rate between 65% and 69%. Of course it went even quicker when down to two tables.
Break 3 – 23,971 down to 7,581 (68.3%)
Break 4 – 7,581 down to 2,405 (68.3%)
Break 5 – 2,405 down to 733 (69.5%)
Break 6 – 733 down to 259 (64.7%)
Break 7 – 259 down to 85 (67.1%)
Break 8 – 82 down to 20 (76.4%)
Break 9 – 20 down to 5 (75.0%)
As far as I can tell, a statistical loony bin.
Hopefully the run a version of this tournament for the miniFTOPS and the rest of the FTOPS as they progress. It’s just too compelling of a spectacle to resist.
Here are your FTOPS XIV final table results, the rest of the Big Money Sunday can be found after the jump.
FTOPS XIV Warmup
Entrants: 43,874
Prizepool: $250,000
First place: $22,500
IGetMugger – 23,703,448
propopl77 – 17,943,316
redr1212 – 13,349,496
TILTOHOLIC – 9,407,018
Aunt Bessie – 6,381,052
Junokeo – 6,268,573
marciwallace – 4,750,096
Bura-AA – 3,736,488
Tigermitfell – 2,208,513
1st – propopl77 – $22,500
2nd – TILTOHOLIC – $15,725
3rd – Aunt Bessie – $11,500
4th – redr1212- $9,000
5th – IGetMugger – $7,250
6th – Junokeo – $5,750
7th – marciwallace – $4,500
8th – Tigermitfell – $3,250
9th – Bura-AA – $2,000
Tags: AlCantHang, Big Money Sunday, Bloggers on the Rail, FTOPS, FTOPS Warmup
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