He Said What?

Daniel was asked about what his opinions regarding the Ladies Event at the 2010 World Series of Poker, he had the following to say:

“What irked me is that this woman has the audacity on her website to call herself ‘the best female poker player in the world.’ So I’m like ‘how offensive are you, you f***ing c***? You want to say you’re speaking for women, yet you claim superiority over all of them.’”

The Explanation

After the article was released, a firestorm ensured and eventually, Daniel was asked loosely about this in an interview with Kimberly Lansing at the Legends of Poker event in Los Angeles. Daniel then claimed that the comment he made about Duke was supposedly made off the record and was not supposed to be printed. He then offered a somewhat loose apology to women that may have been offended by the use of the “c word” but not to Duke herself.

Reaction to Story

Duke’s brother Howard Lederer said the following on Twitter in response to Daniel’s comments:

“Hey Daniel, nice job representing poker and reinforcing that our attitude towards women is still Neanderthal. I understand some agree w DN on the ladies poker event issue. Many do. But abusing those you disagree with is never cool.”

Duke later released an “Open Letter to PokerStars” on her blog where she criticized the site for not admonishing Daniel for his comments. In fact, one of the PokerStars support staff actually backed Daniel and his right to say what he wants, further drawing the ire of Duke. Online support is one of PokerStars Texas Hold’em poker site features that is not an official voice of the company.

PokerStars Official Reaction

After Duke’s open letter on her blog, PokerStars, issued the following statement:

“PokerStars does not support the use of derogatory or hurtful language directed at any other player. While this was a personal matter between two players, we wish that better judgment had been used in the choice of words.”

PokerStars also went on to state that the support representative that spoke about Daniel did so on opinion, and not at the request or approval of PokerStars. They went on to state that PokerStars did not support the comments made by the support person.

What Has Come Out of This

In the end, nothing really materialized from this story. The only thing that this did was put Daniel in a bad light. In a time of economic downturn and poker websites struggling to become legal in the U.S., this really equated to being a story that should have just stayed buried. However, it is probably safe to assume that this story has went a long way to reignite a long standing feud that really has no real signs of ending anytime soon.

I went to the Rio yesterday to settle up a debt with a friend. While I was there, it occurred to me that it’s entirely possible that I’ll never step foot in the Brazilian-themed casino again. This isn’t because I don’t think I’ll be back for the WSOP. It’s that I don’t think the WSOP will be back to Rio.

There seems to be a pretty strong rumor that Harrah’s has all but sold the Rio and will move the WSOP to Caesars or possibly even Planet Hollywood next year. If that happens, there’s really no reason to go Rio again. The fact that the Rio sucks wouldn’t be the sole reason I’d never go back, a casino sucking has never stopped me from stepping foot inside before, but it’s off-strip location pretty much means you’d only ever go there if your objective was to do just that. Without the WSOP, there’s really no reason to go to Rio.

I allowed myself a moment of nostalgia as I departed the Rio property yesterday. When I came to Vegas for the first time in 2005, just a few short days after I had turned 21, Rio was the first casino I set foot in. I got off my plane, got in a taxi, and told him, “take me to the Rio.” A few minutes later, I was immersed in the WSOP atmosphere and have been hooked ever since. I still remember what it was like seeing Marcel Luske walking through the casino. “Holy crap! That’s Marcel Luske!” I remember thinking. I’ve long since shed any sense of awe I have towards TV poker pros, so it’s kind of funny to me reflecting back on how excited I was to see Marcel f***ing Luske.

If this is indeed the Rio’s curtain call, I’ll be quite happy. I’ve never had much of a problem with the WSOP at Rio. The Rio facilities are massive and house the action comfortably. But Rio is starting to feel kind of stale as the host of the WSOP. This is the Rio’s sixth straight year of hosting the WSOP. The property would probably play host for the WSOP indefinitely as long as Harrah’s is its owner. By holding the WSOP at the island that is Rio, Harrah’s can optimize the room occupancy across all of their Vegas properties. Since it is located off the Strip, getting people to stay at the Rio is pretty tough, but if you put something like the WSOP there, poker players will stay at Rio and away from their other properties (like Caesars and Paris) that don’t need any help filling rooms.

If Harrah’s sells Rio, they’ll have to bite the bullet and move the WSOP to one of their Strip properties. The Rio’s new owner will be left with the interesting task of figuring out how on earth to get people to visit an off-Strip casino that, as shaniac so appropriately put it, is like a cruise ship from hell. One thing is for sure: without the WSOP, myself and probably countless other poker players will find no reason to visit Rio again.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog. I haven’t played any poker since busting out of Event 49 in 150th nearly a week ago. A week off has been so nice. My girlfriend was in town the whole time and we had a really nice week just doing various stuff around Vegas most of which didn’t involve poker.

On Saturday, we went to the Rio to check out some of the celebs in the Ante Up for Africa tournament. When she saw the WSOP (for the first time), she immediately noted that she didn’t understand how someone could play every day for the whole summer without going totally insane. That made me feel a little better about having gone kinda insane after five weeks of continuous poker!

There was a point on a dinner break last week where all I wanted was to get away from poker. Like, badly. I just wanted to go somewhere where I could sit down, enjoy a meal, and not be around anyone talking about poker. I tried a Thai restaurant about a mile from the Rio. Just as I was about to dig into my Pad Thai, I overheard this woman in the restaurant saying, “I three-bet him preflop with Seven-Six…”

AHHHHH!!!

I thought I was losing my mind. Is there not anywhere to go in this city to get away from people talking about various poker hands? It actually seems kind of funny to me looking back on it, but at the time I was losing it due to poker overload.

Hearing my girlfriend’s perspective on the WSOP was pretty interesting. It’s second nature to me at this point, so I’ve kind of lost perspective on how an outsider would be likely to view the poker culture. She just didn’t see how people could sit at a table all day every day without going insane and noted that a lot of the people we encountered apparently lacked basic social skills and kind of seemed like a part of this zombie sub-group incapable of functioning unless they’re gambling or talking about gambling.

Five weeks of being immersed in the poker community can take a toll on your sanity. Vegas and poker is such a false reality that I think hearing someone point out what an abnormal lifestyle the poker playing community has was kind of refreshing. It’s like, “oh yea, a bunch of people passing around millions of dollars over a deck of cards for six weeks is pretty nuts, isn’t it?”

I know it sounds like I’m dogging on poker and poker players, and in a way I kind of am, many of them are truly insufferable people, but I don’t want to make it sound like I don’t love poker or the poker culture. I do love poker. I have a blast playing poker and really enjoy the types of conversations you can have with poker players that are hard to achieve with people unaccustomed to forbidding emotions from playing a part in their thought process. But with that being said, everyone reaches their breaking point, and I think I reached mine after five weeks of nearly daily exposure to poker and poker players, so a week off felt really, really nice.

Okay, that’s enough about the psychology of poker. It’s time for a celebrity photo dump! (Apologies in advance for the picture quality that lies ahead; all of these were taken with my phone).

A few nights ago, I was hanging out with a friend in Aria who pointed out a gentlemen at a roulette wheel that he thought might have been Roger Clemens. I walked over for a closer look. Yup! That’s definitely Roger Clemens. I wanted to take his picture (I mean, it’s Roger Clemens!) but I figured he probably gets sick of being bothered in public, so I decided I’d just snap a picture of him on my phone from a few feet away. I really didn’t expect him to notice me, so I figured it was win-win: I get a picture of Roger Clemens, Roger Clemens gets to avoid being bothered by some fanboy.

There was just one problem: he noticed me. Right as soon as I was taking a picture of him, he wagged his finger at me and said, “dude, it’s not a zoo, if you want a picture all you have to do is ask!”

“I’m really sorry… but would you mind?” I asked, feeling pretty embarrassed to have gotten caught and called out. “Not at all!” he said. I gave my phone to my friend and pulled my girlfriend in for a picture with him. (I photoshopped her out since I dunno if she wants her picture on a poker portal that gets thousands of daily visits).

He was a really nice guy, and huge, too; I thought he was going to crush my hand when he shook it. We chatted with him for maybe a minute about Houston (since he’s played there) and about the WSOP (he asked what we were in town for). I told him he should give the Main Event a try and offered to coach him, but he said something to the effect of wanting to leave that stuff to the big boys like Hellmuth.

The next afternoon, we were walking through the Forum Shops at Caesars and noticed Pete Rose signing autographs at a collectables store (he’s the one with the hat on).

So in a span of like 15 hours, we saw two of the most famous baseball players of all-time, both of whom, incidentally, have had their storied careers overshadowed by controversy. Pretty ironic.

At the Ante Up for Africa event, we saw Matt Damon (black hat in the one seat; note the very DOJ-friendly table draw of Lederer and Ferguson seated together):

Jerome Bettis (ten seat) and Don Cheadle (seven seat):

And David Alan Grier:

I was surprised at how short Matt Damon is. He stood up at one point when his table broke and was like… little. The internet says he’s 5′10″, but he didn’t look an inch over 5′7″ to me. All in all, the celebs in the tournament seemed to be enjoying themselves. You could tell poker is still new and exciting to them. Ahh… I remember those days.

Today is Day 1A of the Main Event and I’m still not sure if I’m playing or not, though I would say it’s pretty unlikely at this point. I might try a couple of satellites, but barring luckboxing one of those, I doubt I’ll play this year. I’ll be fairly disappointed if I don’t end up playing, but what can you do?

The plan for the next few days is to bet soccer (Netherlands over Uruguay and Spain over Germany both for fairly big bets) and try to run hot in a couple of satellites or something. If push comes to shove, I might put a couple hundo on a number on roulette and try to spike a Main Event seat (how good does that story have the potential to be?). I’m taking suggestions for what number to bet (0-36). The suggestion with the most logical reasoning for why that number will hit might just get my action!

It’s been a couple of days since I’ve written an entry and a lot has happened since then, but unfortunately I don’t have a ton of time right not to talk about it, so this will be kinda brief.

Two days ago, I busted out of the $1k at WSOP. I don’t even remember how, but I think it was before dinner break. Yea, it definitely was before dinner break, because on dinner break I drove Ray Coburn (Exitonly) and Jimmy Fricke (gobboboy) to Taco Bell where I remember asking them what it was like to still be in a tournament. In Ray’s case, he was on day three of a $1500 event and was down to the final table when they broke for dinner (Jimmy was just in day one of the $1k that I just busted).

The reason I was hanging around with poker players on dinner break despite not being in any tournaments was because Ray is one of my best friends in poker and has helped me with my tournament game to such an immense degree that I wasn’t going to miss sweating a final table of his for anything. I started talking to Ray online in 2005 when we were both grinding micro-stakes multi-table tournaments. Ray won the monthly tournament leaderboard on Stars one month mostly from just crushing $1-$3 buy-ins. He and I became pretty good friends from talking online and have remained that way for six years now.

Despite Ray probably having always been a better thinking player than myself, he’s never quite had any huge breakthrough scores. When I was running hotter than the sun in 2008, a part of me always felt a little bummed for Ray. Put yourself in his shoes: a guy that you taught how to play is crushing everything and popping up on ESPN and you’re swamped in make-up. That’s the way poker goes, Ray knows that, but to say that he’s been “overdue” for a large score would be a huge understatement.

Well… his large score finally came.

Sunday night, I found myself and probably 20 of Ray’s closest friends in the poker world (most of them, heck, all of them 2p2ers), on the rail of the $1500 final table. This was the first time I’ve ever had the chance to sweat a good friend at a huge live final table, so I was pretty excited and even more excited that it was Ray. Incidentally, one table over, my friend Leif Force was playing at the $5000 PLO/8 final table. So after going years of never getting to sweat a friend at a WSOP final table, I get two chances in one night. (Leif would go on to finish 6th for $65k, nice job Leif!)

There was a Brazilian at Ray’s final table which meant one thing: Brazilian railbirds. Those guys know how to sweat their countrymen. They had Brazilian flags, alcohol, even a vuvuzela! The highlight of the final table was when the Brazilian got all-in against Ray (for most of Ray’s chips, too) three-handed. Ray held 98 and the Brazilian held QQ all-in on a T87 flop. The atmosphere was like a World Cup game; both sides were going nuts rooting for their guy. Our rail went absolutely insane when a six came on the river. “U-S-RAY! U-S-RAY!” It was probably the most excited I’ve ever been about a card in a game of poker. I couldn’t be happier for Ray.

After he and Jesse Rockowitz took some off the table before their heads-up battle, Ray built up a 3:1 lead and could almost feel a bracelet around his wrist until Jesse won a couple of big pots and put him away fairly quickly. No regrets for Ray though; he played great and landed an absolutely huge score ($550k)!

Okay, I really am running out of time, so I’ll have to wrap this up by saying that I made day two of a $1500 at WSOP. I’m trying to do my Ray Coburn impression. Right now, there are 315 players remaining, 270 will finish in the money, I have 27,300 and blinds are 600/1200 when we resume in a little over an hour. The only time I was all-in was after four-betting Dyzalot with Ace-King and being pretty happy to see him make a fairly big overcall with Ace-Queen. Queen in the door. Jack, ten behind it. I’ll probably post updates from the table on Facebook (just search for my name) if you’re interested in following along. It might be a little while before I get another entry up; my girlfriend gets into town tonight, tomorrow is my birthday, and hopefully I’ll be at day three of the $1500 taking one down.

I’ve been playing a fair amount of poker at the new Rush Poker tables on Full Tilt. I love love love Rush Poker. It’s made online cash games fun for me again. I’ve been doing pretty well by playing like ridiculously aggressive. Like I’ve been raising any two cards anytime it folds to me in the hijack, cutoff or button and I feel like it’s been solidly +EV doing so. People are just addicted to that “Quick Fold” button and love getting on to the next hand that there’s some value in dwelling in the moment a little bit and trying to win the hand you’ve been dealt rather than moving on to the next one. My average hands per hour at Rush Poker is around 195. The average average (haha) hands per hour is more like 270, so I’m definitely playing way more pots than most people.

I spent last week in New York and had a really nice time up there. We went to the Letterman taping on Monday and got front row seats. Apparently they seat people based on how you do in an evaluation process when you pick up your tickets. Somehow we wound up in the front row with all of the attractive and smiling people despite the fact that we made zero effort to appear to be having a good time when we picked up our tickets. Good beat. Here’s the view of Dave interviewing Bruce Willis. I could literally use the stage as a foot rest which was pretty ballin’. Sorry for the poor image quality; we weren’t allowed to use a camera so I kind of had to sneak this one on the sly with my phone and I think maybe my hand was a little shaky or something. That, or maybe the iPhone camera just sucks (more likely).

I just positioned myself in front of the TV to start watching Super Bowl pregame coverage five hours before kickoff. I love Super Bowl Sunday. I’m a total sucker for it. The coverage, buildup, suspense, flash bulbs at kickoff, commercials, all of it, love the whole thing. I’ll probably fire up a couple of the usual tournaments so long as I’m sitting here doing nothing, but I really don’t want to play too many to where I can’t primarily focus on the game.

I’ve got a fair amount on under 57 and am also exposed to the Saints moneyline. Before the playoffs started, a buddy and I went back and forth drafting teams. He took first pick (Colts) and I got the next two picks (Chargers and Saints), and then we went back and forth one-and-one after that. Anyway, whoever’s team wins the Super Bowl wins a few bills, so I guess I’m sort of rooting against the Colts (even though I’m really not since my heart is kind of with them being from Indiana and all). As long as the under comes in, I’ll be happy no matter who wins!

Alright, last thing, did an interview with Mike McDonald this week on PokerTips that is worth checking out if you’re a poker fan. He’s off to a sick start in 2010 and really has put up some unbelievable results despite not even being old enough to play in the U.S. yet.

I did an interview with Joe Cada this week for PokerTips. Cada is my primary rooting interest at the final table (except for maybe Ivey, but everyone’s rooting for Ivey, so that’s kinda lame). He wasn’t quite as chatty in the interview as I was hoping he would be, but there’s no doubting he’s a busy guy right now [who is maybe too big time for PokerTips? *sad puppy face*].

Anyway, this interview kind of got me thinking about November Nine players and their interaction with the media. Perhaps it’s just that people don’t really care as much as I think they do, but it seems to me that out of the now 18 players who have been in this position, only maybe one of them (Dennis Phillips) has embraced the spotlight to any significant degree. This is kind of surprising to me mostly because I think I can’t really relate. I mean, I guess the fact that I’m an obscure player who nonetheless maintains a personal blog should make it obvious that I would be a complete attention whore if I made the Main Event final table. But after two crops of finalists who have mostly kept to themselves, it seems I would be in the minority.

• This year’s chipleader, Darvin Moon, actually returned to his day job as a logger and has so far completely shunned all media requests. Additionally, he is yet to sign with any online poker room and there’s some speculation he might not at all claiming he’s never played online poker before and would just prefer to wear his New Orleans Saints hat. I can’t be sure how much money Moon would lose out on if he did this, but I have to assume it’s well into the six-figures. (In a related note, check out this article about a golfer who is turning down $300k a year).
• Ylon Schwartz, a finalist from last year, spent most of his four month hiatus dropping weight practicing yoga and told reporters if he won the tournament, he’d just prefer to disappear off the map for good. (I was a little surprised to see Schwartz back at the WSOP this year carrying around those extra pounds again and blending in seamlessly with the rest of the weary looking grinders).
• When asked what he plans to do during the four month break, Phil Ivey told reporters he wants to disappear to another country to escape it all and that he’s “not kidding either”.
• Last year’s winner, Peter Eastgate, told ESPN that if he could win $9 million anonymously or $9 million with fame and glory, he’d choose the anonymous route.

I guess I find the choices of each of these players to be a little bewildering. It’s hard to know for sure until you’re in their shoes, but I’m pretty sure I’d be going the Dennis Phillips route and seeking as much media exposure as possible. I mean, why not? I think it’d be fun. Maybe I could even get on Letterman; we share an alma-mater!

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I haven’t made an entry since getting back to Houston because I haven’t had much to say. I played online last Sunday and, save for a couple mini-cashes, washed out of everything. That coupled with the Magic failing to win the NBA Finals all but cemented the fact that I won’t be returning to Vegas until the Main Event.

I’ve been following the WSOP action pretty closely since returning home. A couple friends have enjoyed some deep runs that ended in final table bubbles. Leif Force finished 10th in the $2,500 pot-limit Omaha event that had 430 players. He professes to be a very good Omaha player and his live results seem to back that up. I’m hoping he’ll let me buy a little of his action in the $10k coming up!

Sebastien Sabic just busted out of the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. event that drew a field of 770 players in 11th place. I know he had to be disappointed with coming so short of the final table, but he has a lot to be proud of with that result. It’s not easy having to make decisions in five different games while navigating through a field of donkeys.

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Today, I raided Costco for about $300 worth of bulk merchandise. They have a really interesting business model. Basically, you have to be a member in order to shop there. How do you become a member? By filling out a registration form and paying an annual due of $50. This is a smart business model in a few ways.

First, it caters to people’s vanity. Even though anyone with a Ulysses Grant in their pocket can be a member, there’s still some magic vanity overlay that a lot of people find in being able to say they’re a member of something. Second, it prices people in to feeling like they have to shop there a lot. If you don’t know what Costco is, it’s basically WalMart on crack. Everything is packaged in bulk and sold at a nice discount. For example, I got a 52 pound bag of dog food today for the cost of about a 24 pound bag from a “regular” store. I got a three-pack of mouthwash for just 150% of the cost that I usually pay for a single bottle. The whole store basically works like this. Items packaged in bulk and sold at a cheap price.

What makes the $50 membership smart is that it probably wouldn’t be worth it if you only shopped there once or twice a year. However, it’s definitely worth it if you go there once a month (or more). So by getting people to commit to a $50 membership in order to have access to the discounted bulk merchandise, they feel obligated to recoup that upfront expense by shopping there as much as possible. Pretty smart.

Another good business model I saw recently was at Lucky Brand Jeans. I visited them while in Vegas and was informed you get a $25 gift card for every $100 you spend. At first, I assumed this basically equated to $25 off my purchase for every $100 I spend. It was only when I got to the counter with a little over $200 worth of clothes that I learned the $25 gift cards would not become active until a couple of weeks after my purchase. Touche, Lucky Brand.

I visited a Houston-based Lucky Brand today so I could redeem my two $25 gift cards. Of course, I made it to the register with about $70 in merchandise meaning they got another $20 out of me. I thought this was a very smart promotion on their part. In addition to the extra money they got from me, there was some intangible value of getting me to come to their store on a second occasion. This builds familiarity with their product line and a sense of loyalty. They’ll probably make even more money off of me in the future just from having priced me in to visiting them more than once and thinking about them on a semi-regular basis as their gift cards sat on my desk serving as a reminder to redeem their value.

The thing that each of these business models have in common is that they “price in” the consumer to making repeat visits. In other words, they make shopping there on multiple occasions a sensible thing to do. Any promotional model that can do this is smart regardless of the current economic state, but it’s especially smart during a severe recession when people are looking out for “sensible” shopping options more than they otherwise might.

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Between now and the Main Event, I have a friends’ wedding to attend and a family function in Illinois to attend. The family function, my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, actually came at a terrible time. They’re having an open house the Wednesday before the Main Event and then the whole family is going to the Ozarks for a weekend on the lake. I told my family that if the lake plans were on literally any other weekend of the year, I’d be there, but I simply can’t skip the Main Event just to lay around on a pontoon for three days no matter the occasion. To their credit, most in my family seem to understand this and are appreciative I’m coming up for the open house at the very least.

Bodog Beat Interview