the gist: As the self proclaimed best player at the final table of the WSOP many people believed that David “Chino” Rheem would breeze through the field of Amateurs only to bust out in 7th.  In a story as old as time a little more than a month later brings his redemption.  He had to beat a stacked final table to do so including Amnon Filippi, Steve Sung and Hoyt Corkins.  His biggest foe was Justin Young who has cashed in 4 of the 5 WPT events he has played in.  Justin made it interesting heads up but Chino prevailed.

Cardplayer updates

the gist: If you want a short list of the best young players in poker you do not really have to look much further than the final table of the Five Diamond.  Chino Rheem, Steve Sung and Amnon Filippi all made it while sending home names like Mike Matusow and Clonie Gowen.  The only old guard player to make it (once again) is Hoyt Corkins.  Hoyt is regularly at final tables and is about due for a little acknowledgement (though I doubt he courts it a great deal).

Cardplayer Chip Counts

the gist: It has long been argued that these awards are complete BS and if you look at the past winners it pretty much confirms it (other than the year Daniel won).  John Phan I think will also go down as a noticable exception, he had a phenomenal year taking down two WSOP bracelets and going deep in virtually everything all year long.

These awards go to the players that play all the tournaments, not just the 10k’s and up.

link to Cardplayer article

One of my buddies playing in the main event was at the table with one of the Hinkle’s and it was hilarious listening to him berate them.  In case you missed Tuesday nights airing of the WSOP Grant Hinkle wins, with his mom and brother in tow (his brother later goes on to win a WSOP bracelet).  The Hinkle’s are like Care Bears, Canadians or the color violet, you are not supposed to hate them, yet you do! When Chris Moneymaker played the bumbling idiot it was cool because a lot of people saw themselves in him and that brought a lot of people into poker.  The Hinkle’s are one of this years big stories, and by all account Blair Hinkle is a prolific pokerer.  Grant comes off as a lucksack (whether rightly or wrongly the TV does not lie, wink wink), it does not matter that he stole a lot of blinds or played one or two hands masterfully, in 3 or 4 of the biggest hands he got really lucky.  Which used to play well because people thought “hey, I can play like that guy and get lucky and win a million dollars”, forget the fact that you have to be willing to make a silly play with 10 4 which most people are not willing to do.  But that was so 2004, this is 2008, even though Chris Moneymaker qualified on a $50 satellite many people have chased that same dream only to be slapped in the face with a big can of variance. 

None of this is my reality, poker has treated me well but I do not look at Grant Hinkle and think, “maybe this will be the thing that brings more people from middle America to poker”.  If you need proof that packaging a similar idea is a bad move does anyone remember New Coke ?

On a side note, while some of us may indeed like the Hinkle’s (or canadians for that matter) I think we can all agree on 2 points:

1.  Theo Tran is a douche

2.  Mike Ngo’s antics would only work at about $1-$2 typically, which further points to Theo Tran being a douche since he could not see through that.

3.  When celebrity poker players are sweating you they are not your friends.  They are owed money.  Though I thought everyone knew this at this point.  Someone tell Norman Chad.

Now I totally get it that Paul Pierce owns the world at the moment and has every right to gloat.  And also there are so many celebrity types at the Bellagio and around Vegas that this would warrant no consideration.  Except that when you are walking with no shirt on early in the morning it has a "look at me" factor.  Now I am sure Paul is still celebrating and he will get a pass from me but for a lot of people that is exactly the type of stuff that makes them think that athletes do not deserve the adulation they deserve.  I do not think I have ever seen anyone walking with no shirt on in a casino before, so when it is someone that is well known it certainly stands out.

There is an air of pithiness around the WSOP that really takes away from the fun you are supposed to be having.  I suppose you can argue that poker has always been like that and you see a few old timers that are grumpy and mumbling to themselves and wonder if that is what a lot of poker players are going to end up like in the future.  By its nature poker, and especially tournament poker, can be a bit negative whether it is taking a bad beat or just running card dead for a while it wears on you.  I doubt that I have the need and want to be exceptional at poker mostly because of the fact that I would have to operate around so much negativity.  I am speaking mainly of live poker.  With online poker I just close chat.  I ran across a couple of young guys that seem excited to be here I just wonder how long that lasts with a collective toll of bad beats, bad beat stories and the ups and downs that wear on you.

It sucks getting close to a final table and whiffing.  I came in 49th in the $1500 NL, I was going to play the $1500 today but I do not feel up to it, so I am likely going to just relax by the pool side, meet up with friends and have an overall chill day.  It is tough playing live poker only once or twice a year, while the skills are there, I am sure I missed a few spots and I know I was awkward with the chips occasionally.  At one point I made a minimum raise because I did not adjust to the blind levels, when someone went all in for 96k I folded my 88 but the result might have been different if I had made a standard raise.  Overall though I think I have a lot of good elements to do well in tournaments and I am fairly confident going into the main event.  I play on the 3rd.

Today I will be live blogging the $1500 tournament at the WSOP on twitter at www.twitter.com/beaniepoker.  I have 46,500, average is about 35k.

So first let me say that I was the guy that knocked out the bubble guy with 6c7c.  He had about 20k and I had about 40k.  He raised 5k into the BB that was openly saying that was openly saying he would fold with Aces.  Figuring that he heard that and needed to chip up I put him on a steal and hit a straight on him.  Do not ever believe the updates, they either write what they are told or reconstruct the action but common sense would tell you that I did not call with 6c7c, which is how pokernews wrote it up. 

OK, so to the Layne Flack part.  I was at the Bellagio and was cashing some chips when I see a friend (Greg Pierson) in the high limit section.  After I get my money from the cage I tell my dad "let me just stop by and say hi for a sec".  Greg is having a few drinks with Layne Flack and both seem to be having quite a good time, it looked like Layne was playing 100-200 Limit Holdem and Greg was just sweating him.  As I was leaving I acknowledge Layne by giving him a little head nod like "hey, how is it going".  Layne looks me dead in the eye and says "fuck you", I smile at him and just walk away.  I hear Greg say, do you even know who he is and Layne goes "yeah I know who the fuck he is", kind of loud like.  My dad is dumbfounded and says, "man that unabomber guy is a real dick".  I then explain to him that he is thinking of Phil Laak, and then also have to explain who Layne Flack is.

Socially I have had a few interactions with Layne, nothing that super stands out, so here is what I have nailed it down to:

[ ] Laynes mom bought a Royal Blue Peanut from me when it was 6k and now it is 2k.
[ ] After Layne won Aruba he played a lot of 25-50 on UB.  I was playing a lot at that time and did quite well.  My buddy list consisted of three people that I would always play, Layne was one of three.
[ ] Once in chat, he was sober at the time, he got upset at me about something silly and I told him he has lost his sense of humor now that he is no longer drinking.
[x] Layne was 8 o’clock drunk.

It did not really bother me but it has been a while since someone has said "fuck you" to me so it was a bit shocking.  Equally as shocking was it happening in front of my dad.

I have written about Nick in the past and I likely will write about him a lot more.  He runs cardschat.com which is likely the best run forum online.  The classic sniveling and arguments that typically make up a poker forum do not happen at CC.  Most online forums begin as a community but then as they become more popular negativity begins to take over as a disconnect happens between users.  CardsChat is a reflection of Nick, he is pretty low key and that is how his forums are.

Nick is also 19, he can not even get into a bar and in case you have not figured it out he has been running things since he was about 15.  I do not know about you guys but when I was 15 I was thinking about who I was going to take to the homecoming dance.

It is not uncommon in poker for young people to do well because the game requires a fresh mind.  Looking at the results from every major tournament you can see what I mean.  In the poker industry however young people have not historically done well.  Part of the reason is that there are a lot of negotiations that need to happen.  In Nick’s case though he has a thriving community that is loyal to his cause, card rooms see that and want to be a part of it.  Nick does not need to yell, he let’s his actions do the talking.

As you can obviously tell I am impressed.  Nick is a tireless worker and his blogs and poker strategy sections are some of the best on the internet.  Unlike a lot of things in this industry where people pay each other to recommend them, this is unsolicited.  Virtually everyone in my family and everyone I know has heard about Nick.  If you are looking for a great poker site that is refreshingly low key in a world of flash banners and stupid prop bets check out www.cardschat.com.

I moved to Minnesota when I was 18 by 19 I met the woman I would eventually marry and I took her on a roller coaster ride that is still going on today. My first business was simple, there was no fresh shrimp in Minnesota and I thought I would be the man to deliver it. So off I went devising a scheme that involved ice chests and overnight delivery from Northwest Airlines (with a little help from some friends in La. where I am originally from). The idea was good enough, I went to the farmers market and I always sold all of the shrimp but often it was at cost to the farmers at the end of the day. Now that took some hustle but it did not take me away from having to work for someone else.

I am going to skip a few minor hustles but they are all similar to the shrimp idea. Low cost, easy to decide whether or not there was a market. Which brought me to sportscards. I was never really into sportscards as a collector, I was a speculator and I seemed to have a knack for micromarkets that not everyone has. For instance, I was into the business about 3 weeks before I figured out that promo cards were a big thing and they were cheap. All you really needed to do was be in the location they were being given out. So when I went to Chicago (3 weeks into this particular adventure) I saw people selling promo cards for $30 that people got for free when they came into the door. That was a bingo moment. I would go to the next big show and become one of these guys buying cards for $5 and selling them for $30. Then I got a little lucky, fact is, my idea was not spectacular, so I needed a little luck. On a hunch I drove to San Francisco to reap all of these promo cards that I was going to make a killing on. I had maybe $1000 on me, at the most $2000. As I went through the door they were handing out a hockey card, which greatly disappointed me, there was no way I was getting rich off of this thing, and that is when it occurred to me that this was not all that would be given out that day. Randomly they inserted Chris Webber limited edition autographs, I figured that out on instinct and nothing more. Now if I was an idiot I would have seen the hockey cards, got disappointed and went back to working for someone else. I turned about 50 of those cards Chris Webber cards into about $30,000 and that started me off on a journey that eventually saw me in debt over $100,000. A magnificent failure that has made me millions of dollars over the years. The lessons you learn in failure stick with you.

My next business was Beanie Babies as you have imagined by now (given the name). All of these examples have great and colorful stories of a time where I was willing to do anything or go anywhere to make a few dollars. I did not have a real good concept of a time/value equation, I just figured I was making good money and it was not like I had anything else to do with my time. My business partner and I came up with the idea to establish stores to buy Beanie Babies considering that the market was so hot that wholesale and retail were blurred, blah blah blah. While Beanie Babies was a great success I was still in a hole when it started so I did not break the bank, but I did well.

If you are still reading this you might be wondering what the hell this has to do with poker, after all this is a poker blog, right? Stick with me and I think I can make the connection.

Right around Beanie Babies was when I read Advanced Texas Holdem by David Sklansky. So as I was traveling the country opening up Beanie Baby stores I was also playing decent stakes even back then. Pretty much every card room I visited I was playing the highest games available, which usually maxed out at about 30-60 Limit Holdem. There really was not a lot of No Limit Holdem when I started and there were very few tournaments. I mostly was treading water paying for vacations and televisions and such, poker was a hobby but I wanted it to be more, there just were not enough games, not enough suckers and I was not good enough to quit what I was doing daily.

That took me into mortgages during the last mortgage boom, with the money I made from Beanie Babies I was buying a house and needed a small mortgage. I eventually began working with the company I got my mortgage from. I peaked at about 30-40 mortgages a month and it was really the first legitimate thing that I could talk about without feeling awkward. Though it was infinitely uninteresting it was based around markets and numbers and really worked to my strengths. I loved it. In fact, there really is not one thing that I can look back on and say I disliked because almost all of it had me dealing with people and that is what I like to do most.

They say that fortune favors the bold, well it sometimes helps to go broke too. When mortgages began to get slow I started playing more poker. Poker was on television now and I became obsessed with tournament strategy, if anyone can recall there was virtually nothing written on the subject at the time. Since I was a little ahead of the curve on new poker players I took to it well. So well that I quit my job. Folks I am going to tell you right now that is a tough conversation to have with your wife no matter how much money you are winning. Not to mention I had to let go of staff and have other mortgage guys wonder why the hell I would quit when I was doing so well.

Fact was the potential for poker just offered me more and I knew it was something I was passionate about so I would be able to give it my all. I wrote on a piece of paper that I would become a professional poker player before I was 50 and gave it my wife, who was then my fiancee just so she really understood what she was getting into. I have been doing this for about 5 years now. In that time I have moved from micro stakes to the highest limits available and then back to the middle. I have won a lot of tournaments at all levels. I am no huge baller but I am no sucker either. Along the way some people noticed that I had a bit of understanding of how business works and that has afforded me some consulting opportunities, which have been nice. It is a way to not be forced to play poker and as many of you know that is what I spend most of my time doing these days.

All along the way I tried to keep with a forward moving motion. My hustles now have respect for my time and family. I can not for instance just drive to San Francisco for 2 weeks on a hunch. I would challenge everyone playing poker today to consider whether their hustle is dramatically better than it was when you started. Have you plateaued? Or are you maintaining a forward moving motion?

No matter who you are or what you do, you should be getting better. Better does not have to mean you are making more money but it should factor into the equation. Most importantly any hustle is easier when you are passionate about it, if you have lost that passion try and regain it by doing what you like most. Trial and mostly error come easy to me, I am very forgiving to myself. For everyone that is not the case so try and see what works best for you. Your poker game should evolve in a way that has you waking up early because you are so excited about the opportunities that the day presents for you.

One last thing, taking extended breaks can do wonders when it comes to poker. Poker players have not figured out what a lot of people have that burn out is real and that time off from something can help you remember why you enjoyed it so much in the beginning.

By in large the news about the WSOP delaying the final table until November has been received poorly, which shocks me on multiple levels.

1. I realize people are averse to change but it should not take a brain surgeon to realize that ESPN has some clue of what they are doing.
2. Start of football and end of baseball, or WSOP. Pass the potato chips I will be watching football and the real World Series.
3. One of the biggest complaints I am hearing is the coaching factor “some idiot could make the final table and suddenly get better”. Guess what that idiot could have also gotten lucky and won, you do not need me to give you examples I would assume.
4. The sponsorship money could be huge for these final 9, I believe Jerry Yang was 8th in chips when he won last year. The deals these people will be able to negotiate will be unreal and it does not stop there. If I were a betting man (and I am) I will bet that card rooms will be jockeying for position, if you make the top 50 you may just find yourself sponsored on the off chance you hit the final table.
5. If ESPN is making this dramatic of a change you can best believe they are working on the brand. Which likely also means that they are going to be able to market it differently. Different does not always mean better but once again I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

I often talk about the fact that I think there should be less poker on television. The simple fact is most of it is bad. Taking some time to raise the quality of the broadcast is going to be a good thing.

Now if it has not occurred to you already it should have, you are going to see more slice of life segments about Johnny’s dad dying or whatever but guess what casual poker players like those. If they did not ESPN would not make them. So expect more chip tricks, more fruit cut with the dealer button but most importantly more viewers excited about poker.

And that my friends is a good thing.