Pair the Board

All right, we’re back in three-handed action.

Before we get going though, the three men have disappeared for an unscheduled break as soon as Buchman was eliminated in 4th place. And when you’ve covered poker tournaments for a while, a little silent alarm goes off when the last few players just stand up and walk away from the table. I have nothing to support this theory aside from my tingling blogger senses, but I think Cada, Moon, and Saout talked numbers sometime near sunrise on Sunday morning. It was about a half-hour delay, and the three men returned from the side of the stage opposite the normal break area. I’m pretty sure Harrah’s doesn’t allow deal making though. And I don’t think JohnnyBax would have let Cada chop. But I also suspect the players can do what they want with their money. So I’m not sure. Just speculation.

Anyhow, the instantaneous fireworks that ensued doesn’t hurt my theory. On the first hand back from break, shit exploded. Here’s how I wrote it up in the live blog on PokerNews:

Hand #272 – Instant All In

We’ve got fireworks right away!

There is a dead button for this hand, the first hand back from break. To begin with, Joe Cada comes in raising to 2.55 million from the small blind. Saout then announces a three-bet to 7.3 million from the big, and action comes right back to Cada. After a minute or two, he announces, “All in,” and Saout instantly makes the call with his towering stack! With Cada now at risk for his tournament life, the cards are turned up:

Cada: 
Saout: 

With a long pause building the suspense, the crowd again comes to life as the two opposing halves of the room yell back and forth at each other. Alternating cries of “Deuce!” and “Queen!” bombard the stage as the dealer burns a card and runs the flop:



Ecstatic celebration comes from Camp Cada as their man finds his deuce, taking an improbable and commanding lead in the hand. The turn and river come  and  respectively, and Saout can not re-improve to tally the knockout.

Instead of being forced to watch the other two men bag up for the night, Cada is now the chip leader with 78,600,000, all courtesy of that two-out deuce, the most important card of Cada’s young career!

For the second time at the marathon final table, Cada had spiked his two-out set to earn a life-saving double. This latest installment of the miracle baby card gave Cada the chip lead and sent Saout and his fans reeling. Cada played a big pot against Moon on the following hand, three-betting his way to a bigger lead with more than 90 million chips. Three hands later, Cada and Saout would flip for that chip lead, Saout all in for more than 40 million. Here’s another one that I’ll quote, since I happen to like how I called the action.

Antoine Saout Eliminated in 3rd Place ($3,479,670)

Hand #276 - 

Joe Cada has the button. He opens the pot to 2.5 million, and with it comes the final betting actions of the night. Antoine Saout makes an all-in re-raise behind him, enough to quickly fold Darvin Moon and his big blind. Cada, though, wastes little time making the call with his covering stack, and we’ve got a serious situation on our hands. Saout is now the one at risk of elimination, and he will soon find out that he’s flipping a coin for, oh, a couple million dollars:

Cada: 
Saout: 

“Ace in the window! Ace in the window!” plead Cada’s posse. Saout’s fans are murmuring in French, clearly a bit nervous for their countryman.

The spectators are punchy and tired and well-lubricated with alcohol, and the noise is awfully loud considering the relatively small crowd still left here in the wee hours. As the tension mounts, the dealer finally runs out the flop:  . That’s safe for the at-risk Saout, two cards from his double up.

The turn is safe too; the  changes nothing. The river, though, changes quite a bit indeed. Like a bolt of thunder, the  strikes the board and Cada is mobbed by a throng of yellow-shirted fans as he takes the pot with his pair of kings. Saout’s side of the room falls absolutely silent as their man can only shake his head and shake the hands of the two left standing before walking off the stage.

With Antoint Saout exiting in 3rd place, the final heads-up pairing is set for Monday. Saout officially earns $3,479,670 for his remarkable efforts here in the Main Event, but his bid for poker glory has fallen just two places short.

Joe Cada was swarmed by JohnnyBax and his yellow-shirted posse. Oh, his dad was there too, though you’d have thought Bax was his closest living relative. Darvin Moon was mobbed by toothless, unshaven hippies waving confederate flags, and they peeled out of the parking lot in their lifted Ford Bronco, hurling bottles of Budweiser at Cada’s Honda Civic. Antoine Saout was seen lurking near the Civic with a crowbar, a taser, and a roll of duct tape.

Okay, Cada and Moon actually bagged up their chips around breakfast time with the sun already peeking its head above the Vegas skyline. Everything was civil; no fisticuffs broke out when they came together to shake hands and wish each other a clean fight. It was a marathon day of poker that left each of them standing as the only man in between the other man and $8.55 million.

I’m not sure I’ve ever been witness to a more incredible and ridiculous game of poker, either in person or on TV. I just saw a jaw-dropping, hands-on-face, mouth-open-and-screaming day of cards, and it came on poker’s grandest stage.

The November Nine took to the felt at precisely noon-or-so on Saturday to face off for all the Benjamins. Specifically, 8,547,042 million of them. And the shiny precious-metal bracelet. The poker fan in me could not have asked for a better vantage point to watch the ensuing madness unfold; Garry, F-train, and I were perched on the stage 20 feet behind Phil Ivey. Donnie, Matthew, and Elaine had the bird’s-eye view in the press box atop the theater, practically straight up from the stage.

Peter Eastgate and Doyle Brunson came to the stage together to give the starting orders, and Doyle’s brief speech included the sentence, “Someone’s gonna make poker history here today.” Cue the dramatic foreshadowing. Last year it was Eastgate setting records, and this year, they were all broken.

The atmosphere inside the Penn & Teller Theater was too unique for words; poker media, hall-of-fame players, and rabid fans packed into the stands elbow-to-elbow. Shirtless body painters. Thunder sticks. Ja Rule in the balcony. Multi-lingual shouting. Bright lights and television cameras. And the tension of playing for life-changing money. The cards went into the air eventually, and the table played it passively for a few orbits, passing the blinds and antes around as they felt each other out. Despite the pay jump being just over $36,000 between ninth and eighth places, nobody wanted to budge.

It took 44 hands for anything really notable to happen. James Akenhead was the baby stack, and he went with for his tournament life. Steve Begleiter called initially, but he never got to see the flop. Eric Buchman woke up with and raised Begs out, but Akenhead spiked a queen on the turn and faded a river spade to triple up. It was deja vu for Akenhead. On Day 8, he doubled up over 5 million when his king-queen luck-flopped Jamie Robbins’ two red aces.

Back to live action. Darvin Moon had a mini blowup the very next hand when Antoine Saout flopped two pair with jack-deuce. Moon three-bet shoved with ace-high and absolutely no chance of a fold, and Saout was up to 22 million just like that. A few hands later, Akenhead ran pocket kings into Kevin Schaffel’s pocket aces and gave back all of those triple-up chips. Schaffel would finish him off in Hand #59 with pocket nines against Akenhead’s threes, and the Brit became the first casualty of the final table.

Just like Akenhead, Schaffel couldn’t hold onto his chips for long, and it was aces versus kings for him as well. Except Schaffel was the one with aces! Steve Buchman called with the suit-dominated kings, but he would find his trips right in the door. Just to rub it in, the case king drilled the turn to leave aces drawing dead to the Four Horsemen. With no river needed, Schaffel was out in 8th place on Hand #68. Buchman overtook Moon for the chip lead shortly thereafter, and the action was really settling into a groove. The remaining seven went to dinner after 112 hands, stacking up like this:

Darvin Moon: 41,250,000
Phil Ivey: 14,900,000
Steve Begleiter: 38,100,000
Eric Buchman: 54,725,000
Joe Cada: 10,700,000
Antoine Saout: 28,725,000
Jeff Shulman: 7,175,000

Ivey had been picking his spots, chipping up bit-by-little-bit. He lost a flip to Cada in Hand #131 though, and he would slide backwards for a while. Everyone seemed nervous for him. Seven-handed play lumbered on for hours and hours; I don’t even know how long really. More than 100 hands. Then Ivey found his spot. Worked back down under 7 million, Ivey got it in good with against Moon’s . A disastrous in the door took the air out of the building, though Ivey barely flinched. He had been munching on an apple before the hand, and he continued to pick away at it while his 7th-place fate was sealed by the turn and river. Donnie was ready to pack up and go home. We were all bummed.

I happened to catch Ivey’s bustout from my seat on media row. Made me wonder when D-SLRs will get auto-focus for video. But it’s watchable:

Things would roll pretty quickly from there on out. The play got looser and looser as the payout jumps got more and more significant. It was getting late. And I heard that Moon was up at sunrise playing the Hold’em table game down in the casino with Schaffel for $10 bets. He was still playing poker 24 hours later, though the stakes had gone up considerably.

Begs was next to go out despite also getting it in with the best hand. His pocket queens were no match for the run-good of Darvin Moon and his mighty ace-queen. The board was clean until the river, but the curse of Barry Greenstein struck Begleiter. The ace of diamonds on the river was not a good card at all, and a stricken Begs slinked his way to the rail and into the arms of his family. They were right in front of our table, and they were amazingly supportive of their guy. But media row was glad to have heard “Begs! Begs! Begs!” for the last time.

The pace picked up. Cada and Buchman had been pushing the action, but Cada was stuck around 10 million in chips. He got them in with pocket threes on Hand #195, and Shulman made the call with two jacks in the hole. As F-Train said in the blog: “Wow. Run good one time, Joe Cada. It’s a trey in the window.” Yes indeed, it was the three of diamonds, and Cada notched the unlikely two-out double up. It would not be his last.

Shulman would double up his short stack one and linger around for a while before bowing out next in 5th place. By now the theater was nearly empty. And mostly quiet. When there was significant action, a big three-bet or a sick turn card, they would rouse themselves to life a bit. But not much. Cada’s late-teen friends were still going the strongest, but even they had begun to fade. Fortunately things would continue to speed up.

At 4:20am, the big blind was a cool 1 million chips, and the four players left were drawing even in chips:

Eric Buchman – 56,100,000
Darvin Moon – 53,775,000
Joseph Cada – 46,325,000
Antoine Saout – 39,600,000

Buchman lost the biggest pot of the tournament when he shoved on Antoine Saout with ace-queen. Saout tanked and called all in for his own survival with ace-king. He would find two more kings on board to take the pot and the chip lead with nearly 90 million! In a weird two-hand sequence, Buchman would double up with  against , then go broke with against  . And both were against Darvin Moon. Kings on the board both times first saved, then eliminated Buchman in 4th. Cada was now the short stack with half the chips of the other two.

This is getting wicked long, so I’ll pick up with three-handed action in Part 2.

Yep, another 5 days with no posts. I’m not doing so well at this daily writing thing. I don’t know how people find time to write every day and give it their best. Impressive. But I digress.

I made it to Vegas this week, and it feels like home. The poker media and disciples of the felt are trickling into town from all corners of the country and the world. Went to the Gold Coast bowling bar Thursday and got caught up with everyone. Pauly and Change took Benjo to a music festival in Cali. AlCantHang still can’t accurately tell me where he lives. F-Train is off to Cebu to work the APPT event in the Philippines. Three of us went to PT’s to chow after, and Garry ran $60 into about $350 on the triple-play video poker machine while he waited for his entree. MBN.

I spent Saturday and much of Sunday covering the final table of the World Series of Poker, the so-called November Nine. What started in July with 6,494 players came down to just nine finalists, and they returned to the Rio this week to wage war for the most prestigious title in poker.

And they came from all walks of life. Steve Begleiter, the former manager at Bear Stearns, now in recovery mode on Wall Street. He answers to “Begs” and has annoying fans who chant his name three times. Kevin Schaffel, entrepreneur of his own printing business, now semi-retired. The senior citizen of the table at 51, his family and friends wear shirts that say “Schaffel Up and Deal”. Antoine Saout, the Frenchman, an engineering student who’s been having some good success on the felt this year. He always looks strung out with big red circles around his eyes. He and his fans only speak French, so the only cheer I can make out is “Allez, Antoine!”. Next is Joe Cada, the baby-faced student-turned-online-grinder. He’s a self-admitted “B” student who bought his first house with cash at age 19. My initial pick to win, and if he does, he’ll surpass Peter Eastgate for youngest ever to do so. We have a James Akenhead, the European standout who only comes to the U.S. to play the WSOP. He starts with the shortest stack, but he’s probably the second-best player at the table. Steve Buchman, consistent brick-and-mortar performer since his early days in the card rooms and underground clubs of the northeast. He could be your next-door neighbor, if your next-door neighbor happens to be the second biggest stack at the final table. Darvin Moon, the quiet logger from Maryland. If he’s your next-door neighbor, you should consider moving. Doesn’t own a computer, a cell phone, or a credit card. Appeared on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries when his girlfriend went missing. Her body still hasn’t been found. Seriously. With his big gray Jew ‘fro and straggly beard, Jeff Shulman is at his second Main Event final table. He’s the Editor of Card Player magazine, and his daddy Barry is the CEO. Jeff’s a bit of a curmudgeon, and he’s made waves by bickering with Harrah’s and saying he’ll throw the bracelet in the trash if he wins.

And then there is Mr. Phil Ivey, regarded by anyone with a valid opinion as the greatest card player on the planet. More than $12 million in tournament winnings to go with tens more millions in the nosebleed cash games. Seven gold bracelets including two already at this WSOP. Best poker face ever with his slackened jaw and darting eyes. Unreadable; makes amateur players cower behind their chips.

It was shaping up to be a captivating final table, and it didn’t disappoint. I’ll post a recap and some photos a bit later today. Or not. But I probably will, because it was pretty damn exciting.

A couple quick things to muse about as the November Nine is right on the front of everyone’s mind. I was standing over the Golden Tee machine at Blinco’s last night with E:60 on the TV in the background. They put together a segment covering Phil Ivey over the course of a four-day, multi-continent gambling tour. Phil let the cameras into his life and onto his plane as they hopped around from one casino to the next; check it out:

In other N9 News, the firestorm has finally flared up around Darvin Moon and the flush-over-flush hand from last night’s ESPN broadcast. Life’s a Bluff’s Matt Waldron sat down with Moon during the Final Table hiatus, and that hand was a topic of some debate during their interview, an excerpt of which was recently posted on PokerNews here.

The most interesting thing about the piece is Moon’s failure to remember the details of the board during that massive hand. To get started, read the hand the way F-Train wrote up the hand here:

Billy Kopp Eliminated in 12th Place ($896,730)

Wow. That’s a succinct description of what just happened on the secondary feature table. Billy Kopp opened for 600,000 preflop from early position and was called by the small blind, Darvin Moon. So far, so good.

On a flop of {Kd} {9d} {2d}, Moon had first action and checked. He then called when Kopp bet 750,000. Again, nothing out of the ordinary yet.

It was on the turn {2h} where everything went haywire. Moon checked again and drew a bet of 2.0 million from Kopp. Moon then check-raised to 6.0 million. Improbably, Kopp moved all in for about 20.0 million total. Even more improbably, Moon called!

Kopp: {5d} {3d}

Moon: {Qd} {Jd}

Kopp looked like he wanted to cry when he saw Moon’s hand. He knew that he was drawing dead and that Moon had him covered. Kopp had more than 80 big blinds to start the hand; with the {7c} river he had none. He didn’t even wait for the river to come out, barreling out of the secondary feature table area as fast as he could.

Moon is once again the chip leader with a whopping 45.0 million chips.

In what may end up being the largest pot of the 2009 Main Event, Moon failed to recall some pretty simple details. He insisted that the board did not pair on the turn while recalling Kopp’s hand incorrectly as well. I would have been shocked if F-Train or the field reporter missed the cards, and indeed, ESPN’s broadcast last night affirmed Mr. Train’s recollection of the events. It’s pertinent, because it looks like Waldron was just about to jump all over Moon for that play, for calling it off with the second-nut flush on a paired board. He starts to take an attacking course, but when Moon insists on his own version of the story, Waldron backs off and lets Moon make it up as he goes.

The way Moon revisits the hand details certainly raises a few questions about his play. I’m not here to jump all over Mister Chip Leader, but I wonder if he even realized the board was paired when he made the call in real time. He certainly remembered it wrong, but maybe that’s because he didn’t see it right to begin with.

This highlights a perennial problem amongst poker players, and I often get caught in the crossfire as a member of the poker media. I can’t count the number of times that I’ve been approached by a player regarding a hand I or another blogger has written up. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Player: “Hey, you guys totally blew that hand I busted on.”
Media: “Okay, what happened? You ran top set into a big draw, right? He hit his open-ender?”
Player: “No, that’s the thing. It wasn’t open-ended, he could only win with a 6.”
Media: “I have that he was open-ended with hearts too. Seven-eight of hearts gave him the open-ender and the flush draw.”
Player: “No, no. He definitely  had a heart and a diamond. I can’t remember which was which. And the turn gave him a gutshot, 9 2 A 5, then he hits the six on the river.”
Media: “Are you sure?  I wrote down 9 T A 5 after the turn. He wasn’t open-ended?”
Player: “No way. He friggin’ called it off with a gutshot.” <storms away>

In this butting of heads, it’s usually the players’ word against ours, and people already expect us to be wrong. Players misremember hands all the time, even those who pride themselves on impeccable hand recall. Often times, especially with elimination hands, he tends to remember the hand the way he wants to, the way that makes him look like the mythical hero or the unfortunate victim of fate’s folly. We as media take the heat on blogs and forums for missing the action as the benefit of the doubt always goes to the player. After all, he was sitting there at the table, right?

I’m not saying we don’t make mistakes, and I’d like to point out that most of us are eagerly receptive to players who approach us about a potential typo. That being said, I hope the players remember that this is our job. While the player is seeing the action from behind their own chip stack, our reporters and bloggers are standing keenly over the table, waiting for the next bet. We have nothing to do except watch poker hands go by, and I’d like to think we record them accurately in nearly all cases.

In any event, it made my chest puff out a little bit when I saw Waldron’s compliment, even though it had nothing to do with me directly. Good on ya, F-Train. And thanks, ESPN.

It’s been a good week.

It started with my trip home from Poland, last monday, an impeccable voyage from start to finish. I was with SAS for the first two legs like I mentioned in the first post about it. The long haul was Copenhagen to Dulles, a little over nine hours flying time if memory serves. I was scheduled for a cruel six-hour layover but I had already been eying up other possibilities. SAS/United had a 5:45pm scheduled to RDU which gave me about 70 minutes from the time I walked off the plane at 4:35pm.

I made it through passport control pretty steadily for a Monday afternoon, though the minutes were agonizingly ticking away on the clock. Luggage took forever. Snagged them from the conveyor belt which seemed to be humming along unusually slowly today. Straight past the German Shepherd and the pair of Customs officials in the middle of a chattering conversation. Dropped the two bags on the re-check conveyor and hoofed it.

I tried to walk as fast as I could without looking like a moron, all. the. way. down Terminal F or E or something. My mythical early flight home was parked on the exact opposite end of Terminal D or E or something else. The next one over. Just across the horizon. They were connected end-to-end and it was a friggin’ haul.

It was at least a 30-minute walk at the half-running pace I was setting. I got to the gate out of breath at 5:35pm and walked up to the middle-aged lady scanning the last few tickets. Laney was her name, I remember now. She rocked. As she fed tickets into the little ticket taker, Laney smiled genuinely and told me that there were empty seats and she could probably get me on there. Sure enough, after the final few people had cleared the line, she printed me a shiny boarding pass, shuffled me through the door and closed it behind me.

On board, in my seat, and in the sky before the sweat had even dried from my brow. Six hours magically becomes ten minutes.

I was home in a snap, and at Blinco’s for Golden Tee and Monday Night Football very shortly thereafter. Ah, back it up though for one second, back to the airport. I had deplaned and walked straight into the United baggage office near the conveyors. I showed my two bag tags and asked her if she could make sure my bags got on my original Dulles->RDU flight since I had caught the early connection. I would just come back and pick them up when the flight from the future landed. She punched away at her antiquated computer and told me that my bags showed up as “arrived” on her screen. Well, sweet lord. I had to wait another long while at the conveyor, but sure enough, my two pieces of luggage came rounding the corner, one behind the other like a little train of joy. Still don’t know how my bags made that connection with the way things worked out. No clue. Awesome though, a big thanks to United Airlines’ baggage service.

Anyways, loitering around the house in a vegetative state for the next few days, I finally had a chance to exhale and relax and untangle from a long three weeks of work. Lots of lining up ducks into rows. I finally got the entire EPT Warsaw gallery up, and Aruba is up there on the Photos page as well. Expect more to come soon as I continue to fill in this website. Check them out and let me know what you think.

I had lots of invites for Halloween stuff, but I just couldn’t muster enough desire to go take part. Went to Blinco’s again, watched the Yanks crush in Game 3, and made an early night of it. Miss Kane came up to Raleigh this weekend, and I couldn’t even be bothered to go out with her and the Boone crowd on Hillsborough Street. She did come over for coffee on Sunday with her brother though, and her and I got to hang out and flirt unproductively all afternoon. Not sure that’ll ever change. I was in a couple tournaments too, so I couldn’t really dedicate the full allotment of energy to being charming and whatnot. That girl and I connect though; there’s something about her. She is most certainly the lady I can’t explain.

Out went the weekend in a blaze of fantasy football glory. I didn’t even have to sweat the Monday game in any of my three leagues. Total domination. Looking really strong in the one I run with Chris. Tomorrow is another massively busy day of laundry and packing, which seems like all I ever do anymore. Not that I’m complaining. I’m off to Vegas on Thursday for some WSOP shenanigans. Can’t wait. Good luck and safe voyage to Donnie too; he’s in the early-going of a cross-country trip from Massachusetts to Sin City as he moves out there.

Jealous.