2010 WSOP: The Daily Sweat 18 June…plus, a ‘smoke break.’
Daayyummmmm. The WSOP be trippin.
Question: It’s FRIDAY! Where da’ weed at? (a la Chris Tucker)
Answer: Not (in the open) at the Rio. As they continue to crack down with ‘pot patrols’ no one is getting a ‘puff-puff-pass’ today, even the Seniors’ Event Entrants with Glaucoma.
It’s a bit of a separation from a topic devoted to players-on-fantasy-team’s-performance, or is it? As more people start to debate the use of drugs and performance enhancing ‘prescriptions’ amongst poker players, I think you have to ask if this is affecting certain players’ performances. Just to start the discussion out of the box, let’s look at those known chronic-boubonic-ballers that have been in town for the whole series: Matt ‘AllInAt420′ Stout, Steve ‘Mr.Smokey’ Billirakis and Bryan ‘Banana Break’ Devonshire.
(No trying to sneak ‘Bakes’ into the argument here, its built on his last name, not his typical state-of-mind.)
Stout has 4 cashes — all of them fairly minimal, with his biggest coming before the ‘crackdown’ early in the series. Total just under $20k. Several ‘straight arrow’ pros would trade with him though.
Billirakis — Jumped out to a 6 figure score in the $10k 7 stud and deep run in $2.5k NLH 6max for $160k this series.
Devo has ‘uno cash-o’ at the series so far. But based on last year’s results, it’s an improvement. (Don’t hate me Devo, I’m stat-mining here. Yes, I have worse results.) The other half of the B-team, straight laced Jimmy Fricke is on a repeat track as well.
I think my point is, for pot, (in this admittedly small sample) it did not matter for crap. I know the group is much broader but I’m only using folks here that publicly make no bones about using pot while playing poker. Maybe MJ cuts tilt (unless you are Eugene Toddbro) maybe it puts you in a ‘zone’ state to block out the other crapola racing around in your mind, but I see little reason to think that if I fired up a bong or hit a spliff, I’d morph into a poker player with an advantage. As to the effect of the Rio crackdown/ban? Those that had to smoke reverted to their ‘staying with grandma’ tricks and those that used other substances — aren’t talking about it.
Dr. Pauly and I discussed Adderall and long-stretch press writing, but both of us could produce a ‘script if asked. My bottle had a dosage that made press/pros laugh. Can’t say anyone took it seriously, but everyone agreed that Addi was ‘the nuts’ for focus in long sessions. I recently saw a ESPN commentary that said that the sudden dominance of pitchers was due to an MLB crackdown on amphetamines. To paraphrase them: without the ‘edge’ of speed-like drugs, they are not able to get the jump on pitchers. Steroids are about driving the ball deeper, Amps are about ‘connection’ speed and therefore contact. As any base hitter will tell you, contact is the hardest part in pro-baseball, maybe as much as 90% of the game with power and direction being the seperation between classifications (in the last 10%.) So, to close the comparison, someone on ADD/ADHD meds gains the enhanced ability to focus for long hours and go deep. At a pro poker level much like MLB, skills balance out for the most part. You are at least ‘good enough’ to be at that level. Going deep is 90% of success in poker tournaments, the last 10% is luck and closing skills. Are the two tied together? If so, these kind of meds ARE an edge and should be scrutinized. But will we ever see it in the ‘hands off’ organization free world of ‘pro’ poker? Nope.
Without a doubt coke and meth will eventually burn players out. Stu Unger, Mike Matusow and several other players will tell you this. Yes, they did huge sessions and ran deep, but the after-effects, not associated with moderate Adderall usage, were far more drastic and life altering. In other words, they are their own deterrent.
For further debate, here is a look at an old article by PokerKing on the subject. Does Smoking Marijuana Make You a Better Poker Player?
Poker News Daily article on LA Times article on performance enhancing drugs and poker: Poker Players Take Performance-Enhancing Substances
OK, rant over, (Frisina wound up) now on to the regularly scheduled ‘Daily Sweat’ for all of you:
Event #29, $10k Championship of Limit Hold Em, aka The Deadline. A personal favorite player of mine took this down. A very laid back grinder and family man from Nor Cal, Matt Keikoan took down his ‘validation’ bracelet and $425,969 after wading through an top tier field. (Known as such because some will call one a ‘fluke.’ but two…) Keikoan won his last bracelet in 2008 in the $2k NLHE event, so he wasn’t a dog at the final table, but Brock Parker (5th $105k), David Chiu (9th $39,760) and Michael Mizrachi (8th $49,733) had equally if not more impressive resumes. Keikoan started the heads-up match down 3-1 to Daiel Idema and at one point had only 2 big blinds in front of him but mounted what is probably the greatest comeback of all time to take the win. (Yes, even more thank the Strauss $5k chip & a chair.) We went over the other fantasy cashes yesterday, so flip back for those, but this was certainly an exciting final table…even if it ended at 5 AM and tormented the souls of several poor reporters.
Event #30 the $1.5k NLH mid-week scramble got down to 21 and we left off before we had the deep cash numbers on many of the runners so we’ll get to that here. Still in the running for the final table, bracelet and $581,851 (spooky number) first prize are not many people most would be tracking. Clinging to the 10 spot is one Mr. Neil Channing who eliminated my pre-series pick for POY, Carlos Mortensen, at the end of the night last night in 25th and he’s below average in chips in in the top 10. Its going to be fast on restart and Jean ‘Prince’ Gaspard and David Sands will also be trying to sprint/luckbox to the final table. Sands is already ‘multi-tabling’ from another event, meaning he ran deep in two concurrent as he is not a Senior. Cashing out last night are: Carlos Mortensen $16,644, Dan Kelly and Per Lind $13,541, Adam Katz $11,150, Darryll Fish, Matt Stout and Steve Gross picked up min-or-near-min cashes of under $4k.
The amazingly popular Event #31$1.5 HORSE – or the fate of the Chainsaw – restarts today as well. Topping the charts is another come-back story, Robert Mizrachi, who started the day with 3,000 in chips but finished in 3rd position with 238,000. Nice run Grinder’s Brother! “The Chainsaw” disproved his own theorem and went big as the blinds/antes jumped at non-Kessler approved rates to finish up in 4th position. Cliff ‘backing 32.1% of the action in the WSOP’ Josephy bagged up in 7th with 165,500, just above chip average. Still in this are: Chip Jett, James Van Alstyne, David B….rooker and Jon Turner with 3.2 bbs. 80 out of the 827 cashed. From bottom to top they are: Mincasher Tom Dwan ($2,872), almost min-cashers Robert Williamson III and George Lind ($3,778). Jason Mercier and Maria Ho ($4,281), Pat ‘Negreanu’s Horse’ Pezzin and Jeff Schulman ($4,929) and bubbling the night Michael Craig and Lex Veldhuis ($5,779.) Returning players make $6,885 until 17th place (We’re looking at you Jon Turner.) 8 handed final table makes $21,551 up to the $257,134 first prize. This will NOT be Chainsaw’s biggest cash with a win. It will put him in POY contention. Dear gawd, if you love chaos as much as I think you do…please let Allen Kessler in the race for POY!!
We are starting to get into the ‘big boys’ in terms of payouts and full player participation when we get to Event #32 the $5k NLH 6 max. Christian Harder finished day 1 with the lead with Tony Dunst and David Elliot in 2nd and 3rd but no where near him in the scheme of things. Also knocking on ‘heaven’s door’ is fan favourite Phil Ivey in 8th. This win would win him additional respect (if that is possible) by locking up what is considered the toughest NLH field of the WSOP. (ed: outside of the $25k 6 max gimmick, but I argue ‘affordable’ is more challenging.) 116 return for Day 2 with 54 making the money. Min cash is $10,171 (double + juice refund) all the way up to an impressive (but not Ivey prop bet equivalent) $667,433 dollars. Outside of the top 10, but still above average we have Isaac Haxton, Craig Marguis, Jennifer Harman, McLean Karr (you should love this guy…you really should), Chris Klodnicki, Bryn Kenney, Chad Brown, Men Nguyen, Todd Terry, Eric Baldwin, Scott Montgomery, Andrew Robl, Aaron Jones, Steve (mentioned above) Billirakis, Shannon Shorr, Thomas Marchese, Mike Watson, Erick Lindgren, David Fox, Eugene Todd, Lisa Hamilton and Toto Leonidas. As you can see from the difference in names listed here vs. the $1500 HORSE, this is the pro’s event, the miniature HORSE is the ‘everyman’ event. More of these I say! Which? – both actually. I wanna play the mini mix and watch the shorthanded action-junkie events. Yes there are several notables sub-average, but you can go look those up yourself.
HA. Ha ha ha ha. No wait. Event #33 $2.5k Pot Limit HA. This one is full of early 5k bustouts and PLO specialists looking for an edge and I think you’ll have a great final table…but I’m less sure now. Justin Smith came into the day with the chip lead and somewhat knowns David Paredes, Josh Tieman and David Kitai made the top 10…but that is not really earth shattering. Only 48 get paid and the day kicked off with 126, so it may take a bit to grind down to those that are going to not only get paid but threaten for the title. A few I hope make my earlier prediction come true are David Chiu, Andy ‘mad as bull snot’ Black, Burt Boutin, Jeff Lisandro, Ashton Griffin, Ross Boatman, Phil Ivey (professional high stakes multitabler) and Rob Hollink with chips. I’m going to squeeze in Liv Boeree and Shaun Deeb as they would certainly create talk at a final table but they both have about 25k in chips…Deeb T100 behind Boeree.
Event #34 the $1k Seniors Event or the Metamucil 500, kicked off today and a staggering 2500 had registered by 9:30 am. Take that you late reg whipper snappers! An AMAZING total of 3,148 players signed up in total. I can only imagine what the line was like for the early bird special at Perkins off Flamingo, but they made it in anyway. Bathroom breaks will be sponsored by Flomax and the dinner break will be catered by the Country Kitchen Buffett. Defibrillators, oxygen, Ben Gay and support socks are perks made available on demand PLUS a complementary dosage of Viagra and a limo to the ‘Rhino for all those busting out in day one. Yes, yes, I know I’m making ageist jokes, but since this event was protected, unlike the ladies event, I think that makes it free game for jokes. Only grey-mares making any noise at the time of press (outside of complaining about the thermostat being too low…but who isn’t) are Dennis Phillips, Thor Hansen and Sirious Jamshidi who tripled their starting stacks off the jump. Card them quick!!
(Think you can make better jokes? Do it here.)
When Ethyl raised her prized pill case AND the pot, shit got serious.
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