A Hard Day's Night
It sounds like the Bahamas. It's not. It's anything but. It's a swanky high-rolling casino in the heart of Mayfair which echoes the cringe-worthy line: 'liquor up front, poker in the rear'. Last week, however, the Palm Beach diverted its attention away from appeasing its usual array of City toffs and Z-list celebrities to play host to the PartyPoker.com World Poker Open, a televised invite-only shootout that once boasted illustrious winners such as Marty Smyth and reigning champion Phil 'Unabomber' Laak.
Despite the nightmarish hour of 10am, I arrived to a ghoulish sight as the staff and camera crew trudged around the casino like stoic zombies, still reeling from the 4am finish the night prior. I half expected Rod to still be slumped in a corner somewhere, as he too had been present for the duration, updating on what had reportedly become one of the most tedious events in history. "It's taken eight hours to lose one player!" roared Rod through the medium of Skype as he battled his way through the WPT High Rollers.
The conditions I faced were cramped, tucked onto the end of a table in a back room as the production team worked their magic around me. I felt in the way, as if my job was of little importance, but it was understandable - they'd spent the whole week covering the WPT in a room hotter than the sun, watching endless hands of poker on a giant screen, and now there was another body in the way. The one saving grace to my experience, however, was access to the hole cards. As with the 'Big Game', I thoroughly enjoyed this luxury from an educational perspective, but the biggest plus recalls the very birth of the poker boom, the reason why televised poker became so popular in the first place: the drama. There's nothing better than knowing someone has aces, or the nuts, and watching them try to maintain composure and feign weakness, or observing their response to pressure when bluffing with air. It's reality TV at it's best, with thought and calculation, and I had a front row seat.
The opening heat was a local affair, but showcased some of the UK's top talents in Neil Channing, Sam Trickett, James Akenhead and co. There was barely a weak spot at the table, and it made me wonder if there was any value in these tournaments anymore. "Yeah, there's still value," argued Yevgeniy Timoshenko one day. "It's also good for a bit of exposure, and often they add money to these events." Starting stacks were 300,000 with blinds commencing at 1,000/2,000 and rising every 21 hands. It was a far cry from the 100,000 players got in Series 1, but a reflection of how poker had evolved over the years. Players want some play for their buck, whilst a more educated audience yearn for more than a star-studded crapshoot. Increasing the stacks was a step in the right direction, but 300,000 was perhaps the wrong figure as the period of fold-or-shove is merely replaced by the three-bet shove, both of which kill play in a similar way.
The action was fast-paced, and every hand seemed to produce a monster holding. Players were aggressive preflop, but slowed down post-, often c-betting, but rarely double barrelling. Meanwhile, the casino was like a ghost down, just a few addicted gamblers watching a white ball spin round as the heats progressed, and even a cleaner was moved on as she swept, quite literally, into view. It was strange - no rail, just a smidgen of background chatter as a fatigued 'Mad' Marty Wilson fought the yawns from his umpire seat. As the day progressed, players from the other heat would arrive and lurk in the background, and often Jesse May would give them a shout out for the camera. "There's John Tabatabai," he would say, "talking to Chris Olaafson, the world's greatest poker player and mentor to the pros." Jesse tried to elicit a reply from Praz and James that would continue the 'facade', but they were seemingly unaware of the current viral campaign and simply replied, "Yeah, met him a couple of times, seems like a nice guy."
If you were shrewd, then simply railing the other heats was a good way of raising your profile and spreading your presence across more than one episode. Where the cut-off lies, I'm not sure, but I found it hard to imagine I'd receive the same treatment. "Hey, look, is that Snoopy in the house?! Did you know, Praz, that he once won a £20 rebuy at the Broadway?" James Mitchell beat the cut; they filmed him sipping tea.
The subsequent two heats were eclectic affairs with the likes of durrrr, Viffer and Annette Obrestad all hitting the felt. Heat 2 winner Andrew Robl seemed like an interesting chap. A product of the poker boom, he grew a cult following for winning a lot of money at a very young age and splashing out on a 'baller' lifestyle that so many young kids aspire to. He even formed a crew called the 'Ship It Holla Ballas' and created a site showcasing their lavish adventures. It's not too surprising that he's wearing a Victory Poker badge these days. This whole idea of marketing either yourself or a company through excessive expenditure is something that I find a little repulsive, and I think it sets the game back a few years whilst setting a bad example to the young players in the game. Robl's a few years older now, though, and disposed of the site after getting a permanent girlfriend, so hopefully he's grown up a bit and is focusing on winning poker tournaments rather than showing off.
I don't know whether it was drugs, alcohol, or just an embrace of life, but Robl was 'wired' for this one. He arrived looking ghostly pale and with Ernie McCracken hair that became more dishevelled as time progressed. He reminded me of Phil Laak in some ways, unable to stop talking and even tying his hood up at one stage to conceal his face. The only thing missing were the press-ups. Baller or not, he was certainly entertaining.
Talking of Robl, he once posted an amusing, although, I strongly suspect, fabricated story in his blog. It doesn't really relate to the World Poker Open at all bar being written by Robl, but I'm going to retell it anyway:
A young pro is relieving himself in the restroom of the Rio during a break of one of the preliminary WSOP tournaments. While he’s taking care of business Eskimo Clark wanders in and says, “Hi,” to Sam Grizzle who is washing his hands.
Sam replies, “Hey Eskimo, you still in the tournament?”
Eskimo responds: “Yeah, I’m doing well, have 28,000 in chips.”
Sam replies, “Cool, I have 30,000, want to swap 10 percent?”
Eskimo quickly says, “Yeah, book it.”
At this point Sam wishes him good luck and exits the washroom. At which point the unnamed pro wanders up to Eskimo and says, “Eskimo, I was at Sam’s table and I have to tell you he busted out over two hours ago.”
Eskimo smiles and responds, “It’s OK, kid, I didn’t even play.”
There are a lot of dishonest people in poker, and although this story seems to have been made for the benefit of mocking the starring cast, it's something that does happen, and on more than one occasion I've had someone ask me to check to see if a player played a tournament, only to report that he didn't.
There aren't many pros who I believe to be stand-up members of society, but I do hold a lot of respect for Barny Boatman. He seems like a genuinely nice chap, and I rarely hear a bad word said against him. Barny's had a plethora of close-but-no-cigar moments in his poker career, but on Tuesday he bounced in for heat 3, a smile the width of the M1 after reaching the final of the Poker Million. "I'm really happy with how I played," he beamed. "I don't care what anyone says, I know I played well. I'm guaranteed 90,000, but it's a million up top, a bit like the winner-takes-all series John Duthie won. It's going to be tough because Tony Bloom made it through. He's probably the best No Limit Hold'em player in the game, he's hugely underrated."
I also spotted Liam Flood sipping soup at the bar, waiting to join Barny in his heat. Despite his Yoda years, he seemed in fine fettle, and has maintained a genuine passion for the game that many tend to lose. "I still love it," confirmed the Irish veteran with a twinkle in his eye. "I won the European Open, now I'm after the World. I don't know if I'm going to win, but I do know that it'll be a fast heat." He looks at Duthie with a devilish grin. "Are you playing well?" I asked. "I think so. I had five percent of Teddy [Sheringham] last week." "Ah, so you are playing well!" I replied.
To someone more than a third his age, John Eames was making his televised debut, but seemed to be taking it all in his stride. "I'm just going to play solid and wait until 10 big blinds," he joked. "That's the strategy, isn't it? All these heats are tough, but I like mine, I think I've got one of the better ones. Tomorrow's one with Jake [Cody], Toby [Lewis] and Praz [Bansi] looks like the toughest."
Perhaps the most interesting inclusion in the opening few heats was MB Mahmoud, a high stakes amateur who frequents some of London's meatiest cash games such as the 'big game' at Les Ambassadeurs down the road. A last minute replacement for Luke Schwartz, who had "issues", Mahmood had been dying to get in the game all week, continuously prodding Eddie Hearn for an invite. He had no idea what the event was, he just had $10,000 at hand, and wanted to play, and now he had his chance. It's amazing how many people were willing him to win.
What I loved about Mahmoud was that his presence totally changed the dynamics of the game. Whilst the previous two heats were virtually raise-or-fold from the off, Mahmoud limped more than Keyse Soze, from any position, and forced his opponents to adjust accordingly. Even on the very first hand, he limp-called with 9-9 before check-calling three streets on a 4-4-Q-J-J board. Italian lawyer Giovanni Safina won with A-Q, but the hand was an early indication of what was to come: Mahmoud playing a passive game with a VPIP stat that would make durrrr seem tight.
It was clear that Mahmoud's style was not one that his opponents were prepared to tackle head-on, as players resisted the urge to isolate with any two, rather preferring to limp in behind and see a cheap flop. The result was numerous multi-way limped flops that changed the game to a post-flop battle rather than the preflop one of previous heats. Incredibly, Mahmoud came second to John Duthie, and would be making another appearance in the turbo heat later in the week.
I never realised how much effort went into producing these shows. Like most of my early sexual encounters, I was expecting a quick in-and-out job, but 14 hours later I was still there. The camera crew are restricted to certain hours, and breaks, and so the players are obliged to fit around them rather the other way around. If the heat is taking a while, then breaks for the players will be few and far between, and several minutes at most. As for me, well, there's no union in blogging, and it doesn't matter if I don't have a break, so I ended up working Monday through, no breaks, meals on lap, watching every hand. I rose at 9am, got home at 2am, finished some Black Belt Poker work and got five hours sleep. I was shattered and it was only Day 2! And I thought these TV gigs were easy...
Read Part Two...