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Random Questions with professional poker player Mark Newhouse.

Filmed at the 2008 World Series of Poker.

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By Matt Waldron

Reporting from the road can be challenging — especially when you are your own cameraman, videographer, writer, editor and gopher.  But then again, it can let you do a lot of things that a structured setup won’t let you do.  While I’m at the 2009 World Series of Poker, this is what I will be doing.  My “one man and a cam” Random Questions interviews have been paired with my freelance writing and photography to get access to every level of the action at the WSOP this year.  What I hope to give you as I bounce back and forth from the WSOP this year is a selection of inside bits that you won’t be able to get anywhere else as well as supplemental photos, writing and video that will help take you inside the rail at the Rio.  That, along with a few editorial articles, should make for a whole lot of fun.  Some of the features to expect:

Photo Updates! Shots of both Pros and Joes as they battle it out at the events that we are covering for Life’s A Bluff.  I know many of you will be coming here looking for those shots that I took of you, your wife, your husband, boyfriend, sister or the hot girl on the rail, etc. and for the most part, you will find them on my Flickr site.  If you are downloading them for your personal use, I say GO AT IT!  But, if you want to publish these, they are copyrighted, so make sure you contact me to set something up.

Video Interviews! The Random Questions train rolls up on its third anniversary at the end of this year’s WSOP and I like to think I’ve gotten a little bit better.  Watch this space for RQ’s with two of Event #2’s Final Tabelists, Alec Torelli and Justin Bonomo.  You can see all my old interviews here if you are looking for a particular player.  I might also be uploading “Random Nuggets” from the road that will be brief clips of the wild, weird or interesting things I run into out here at the WSOP.

Road Reports! Little shout outs from the road when I get a bit of time.  No guarantees on length, but some blurbs to keep you updated and let you know what I am doing and how things are progressing.  Without further ado, Road Report #1:

I arrived in Las Vegas at almost 10pm on Friday 29 May.  I have the same mix of excitement and energy that I always do when I hit Las Vegas during the series.  Even though I’m about to work 18 hours a day doing everything under the sun, wear myself out and squeeze in some moments of really  -EV gambling…I can’t help but feel like I’m coming back to a home away from home.  The Rio…possibly one of the strangest locations and themes in Las Vegas…will be my palace and prison as I bounce back and forth between the tournament and cash action, side events and my $30 a night off-strip hotel/casino crash pad.  All powered by a rental Yaris, (that has its check engine light on and sounds like a devil-possessed blender), my “studio in a backpack” (a combination of a Flip Mino, Nikon DSLR, digital audio recorder, laptop, Zazzle Cards and good old pen & paper), caffeine and intestinal fortitude.

After checking in at my hotel (which boasts a McDonald’s AND a drive through sports betting service) I made a bee-line for the Rio and wandered aimlessly trying to find out where in the hell the media room was this year.  4 different Rio employees sent me in 4 different directions but I finally got there and got checked in.  Upon getting my media credentials I was also issued a bag of Teriyaki flavored Jack Link’s Beef Jerky and told (very diligently by the WSOP media staff) to “Not mess with the Sasquatch.”  Oooooo-kay.  I dropped most of my gear except my camera and went into the Amazon room to see how things were progressing with Events 2&3.  The 40th Anniversary $40k buy-in NLHE “super tournament” and the $1500 Omaha 8 or Better.  (Check the photo link for some views from that evening.)

Coming into the Rio was like coming to a reunion of sorts.  Not only was I seeing the players (known and unknown) that I’ve covered and played with over the last 5 years, I’m seeing the poker media teams from all over that have become friends as we ground-out late hours covering poker action.  The teams from Poker Road, Poker News, Poker Pages, Cardplayer, Bluff, the WSOP and dozens of little sites from all over the globe are all here in full force.  Its like getting to see all your friends you haven’t seen for about a year…all at one time.  We are all being “supplemented” by modern technology this year.  Twitter is taking over the poker world!  Not only is about every known and semi-known player calling their own action, but the guys at Poker Road have teamed with Twitter to bring you Poker Road Nation.  From that one page you can see streaming updates from players they are tracking, Poker Road fans that are at the WSOP and poker journalists getting their 140-character sized two cents in as well.  You can follow the link to join the Nation and just add #nation to any post to send it out to that crowd.  (It even works when the Fail Whale lurks!!)  Let me know what you think!  I’m @MattCWaldron if you want to follow along.  (PS — keep track of me as there will be a chance to play a Sit N’ Go with some pros at the Sapphire “Brazilian” Pool on Monday.  Yes, that kind of Brazilian.)

The place was MAD with activity in the satellite room and the cash games as punters went at it to make enough to buy into Event #4, the $1000 “Stimulus Event” that was obviously about to run to capacity.  Lines were easily 100 or more deep from when I got there to when I left.  (Turns out it hit 6,012 runners and had a first prize of over $770,000.)

This is about midnight on the eve of The Event 3.

Then I saw something that made me both happy and sad at the same time.  Right in front of the on-site studio for Poker Road Radio, was a picture that Scott Diamond had commissioned from Life’s A Bluff of our lost friend Justin Shronk.  Shronkdaddy was taken away far too early and this picture really captured him.  Players were signing the poster print so that it can be sent to his mother and I can only hope it shows her how special he was to all of us.

Scott Diamond commissioned this art in memory of Shronk

It somehow turned into about 3:30 in the morning and I had to be back in the ‘palace’ at 10am so I wandered out into the warm desert night, studio in tow, fired up the Devil’s Blender and motored up the 15 for some sleep.  I wish I was driving this:

1970 454 Stingray prize for Invitational Champ

Report #2 tomorrow!!

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Hey folks. Back again. Shortage of updates from the last trip due to some image conversion issues I had with my camera that are allllll better now. Anyway, what a WSOP this year! Double Double bracelet winners and a solid half dozen people with 5 cashes and probably a few with 6 by the time I post this. I’m not sure Ivey is inhuman and Brock…well, I’m pretty sure is the ‘tsoprano’ superpowered beard making things happen. (Edit: Ivey proven to be human after all when his quads were squashed with a straight flush for a huge 50k stack in the 5k PLO today.)

Annie basks in the hypnotic glow of Brock's super beard.

I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with all of the bits and items that you guys would find interesting. But it looks like Nolan Dalla and the WSOP crew stat-meisters are all over that. Note to self — they track the low points too! Let me share with you their official review as yesterday’s midpoint events kicked off:

NOTABLE NUMBERS THRU WSOP EVENT#33

• Total Entrants – 32,136

• Total Prize Pool – $64,293,644

• 71 & Counting – 71 different locations around the globe have had at least one entrant at this year’s World Series of Poker.
  
  
• USA: The U.S. leads with 26,329 entrants or 81.9% of entrants thus far.

• Battle of the Bracelets: USA has captured 75% of the bracelets awarded to date (21 of 28), as the below bracelet leaderboard shows:

• 
  God Save The Queen? The United Kingdom, with 2.3% of entrants thus far, has captured 2 gold bracelets, or 7.1% of the bracelets awarded.

• Top 5 Countries: After the U.S. (26,329) and Canada (1,698), the United Kingdom has the most entrants (761) followed by Germany (422) & Russia (327).

• Double-Double: Both John “Brock” Parker and Phil Ivey have captured two bracelets in 2009. That means Parker and Ivey have captured more bracelets than 69 other countries playing here this year.

• Skill But No Thrill: Some of the biggest names in poker have come close to adding to their bracelet count, reaching the final table of an event. Johnny Chan (10 bracelets; 5^th place finish); Erik Seidel (8 bracelets; 7^th place finish) John Juanda (4 bracelets; 4^th place finish) and Daniel Negreanu (4 bracelets; 2^nd and 4^th place finish) continually prove they have the skill.

• In Baseball Terms: A .300 hitter in baseball is considered special. The below chart details those who are cashing at the WSOP at a similar clip:

(Minimum 10 events; through Event #28)

• Honorable Mentions: Ville Wahlbeck (cashes in 4 of 5 events entered; 80%), Darryl Fish (cashes in 5 of 8 events entered; 62.5%) and David Baker (cashes in 5 of 8 events entered; 62.5%) have all proven their mettle as well.

• You Can’t Win Unless You Enter: These folks have entered the most events at the WSOP, through 28 events:

• Show Me The Money: The Top 10 Money Leaderboard includes eight bracelet winners and two others who cashed in the $40K buy-in event: (through Event#28)

A few more fun bits to clean up. You can win some serious prizes here with Life’s A Bluff and the Random Wandering (and Random Questions) of Matt Waldron!! There are a few contests going on including a ‘Caption This’ contest and a ‘Name That Pro’ contest going on at the forums at PokerRoad. The contest is about as simple as it sounds and you get to catch up on all the photos from inside the rail at this year’s WSOP. Winner’s will received SIGNED copies of books from Michael Craig, Tom Schneider and Daniel Negreanu’s various writings.   One book per winner, bonus prizes for those that can pull off the ‘double bracelet’ win. The exact thread can be found here, so sign up for the Poker Road forums and be sure and check out PokerRoad Nation if you are on Twitter.

On top of that, you can get in on the Random Questions yourself with RQ 2.0.  Generate your own Random Questions and if I use them on the air, I’ll site your name as the author!

Always trying to leave you with a laugh and not having one (and considering Frank’s penchant for political tension and storm chasing) I thought I would give you a little something brought to you by the inane madness that is the BBV section for the 2+2 forums. Basically this started as one guy’s taunt to people he felted in $50 NL HU matches online. It developed into a song, and then quite quickly into this video. All apologies to The Bear, Snoop, and anyone else that appears in this video without their permission, I did not make it but I did laugh. It might help if you read a bit of the thread.

Bing Blan Blaow — Instructions for Life Tilting ppl online lolz

Until the next update from the road…May the FORCE BE WITH YOU!!

Sadly, Jedi mind tricks DID work on him.

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