→ In it For the Money
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.