I know the 2012 WSOP is in it’s infancy and there’s a loooong way to go to the finish line but I’m already struck by how many big name players are making deep runs in the first few events.  Maybe it’s because I follow poker a little too close that I know so many of these players but here in the early going, maybe it’s because the fields are flush with professionas but it seems like every event has a ton of people you can root for and who’ve you seen or heard on the poker landscape.

WSOP Event #2 - $1500 NLHE

Won last night by well-known, Jason Mercier backed (Cardplayer Magazine), Brent Hanks but at that same final table, fading a field of 2101 were also Andrew Badecker, JP Kelly, Vanessa Selbst and to win it all he had to best Jacob Bazeley (PokerNews). For a 2101 field, that’s an absolutely ridiculously stacked Final Table by anyone’s account.

WSOP Event #3 - $3k HU NLHE/PLO

OK, so this is an event geared to the pros, so certainly you’re going to have an aptly-named Elite 8.  That said, there were 317 runners and so when you see Jason Koon, Andy Frankenberger, David Benefield, Lief Force AND Annette Obrestad all in the quarter-finals you have to be happy if you’re the WSOP.  This is what it’s about: big names vying for big prizepools.  Hell, it may simply be ignorance on my part that I am not familiar with the other 3 left in the field!

WSOP Event #4 - $1500 7Card Stud Hi-Low

At time of this blog, there’s 23 left in the field and the talented Xuan Liu leads the pack (recent guest of Eric Danis’ on Poker, Eh!) but when you see who else dodged the bullets of the 622 person field, you’re going to recognize no less than half. Zeidman, Linda Johnson, Kassela, Owais Ahmen, Grinder, Ankenman, Todd Brunson, John Monnette, Sexton, Gobbo and David Singer - that’s at first glance.  I just wonder if I looked at the initial entrants list, would I recognize half the names right off the bat too?  Doubtful.  I guess that’s why these ladies and gentlemen are pros.

WSOP Event #5 - $1500 Pot-Limit Hold’em 

This event isn’t quite so close to the end with 10% of the 639 person field still in contention but if you look at the top 10 stacks on PokerNews you see not just stars, but superstars tearing it up: Daniel, Antonio and, one of my faves, Jon Aguiar all up there.  It’s waaay to early to talk about this event like the others, but if this trends continues, we could see massive names on the WSOP Live Stream.

Again, the summer is just getting started and the massive $1k fields have yet to descend on the Rio, but so far the WSOP action has hit so hard - I’m seeing stars.

Bonus: Tweets from the street.

new Hard-Boiled Poker post: “2012 World Series of Poker Schedule (Day-by-Day)” bit.ly/N0ExSv

— Short-Stacked Shamus (@hardboiledpoker) May 31, 2012

In the mood to mend fences with @jeffmadsenobvIs Spa changing his way?? #TeamSpa#wsop2012

— Truth Speaker (@AsianSpa) May 31, 2012

TSA Lady sees I’m going to LAS, ‘Good Luck.’ Why do they insist on calling it luck when the same 5 guys make the final table every year?

— Lee Childs (@leechilds) May 31, 2012

**NEW MICROS COMIC!*** Where we introduce a new character! ow.ly/bhf50 #YesTheyHaveFriends

— The Micros (@TheMicros) May 31, 2012

WSOP Photo Blog: Day 4 with @philivey, @AllenKessler and @BostonRob bluffm.ag/NkvaL3

— BLUFF Magazine (@bluffmagazine) May 31, 2012

A World Series of Poker trivia quiz: kickasspoker.com/?p=14662

— Haley_Hintze (@Haley_Hintze) May 31, 2012

Despite the fact he has this amazing poker tattoo…this guy was as ABC as they come. Nice guy though.

Twitter: @pkrgssp

Email: pkrgssp [at] gmail.com

Busting Out.

Depends on who you talk to the 2012 WSOP stared out with either a bang or a whimper as Event #2 – the first $1500 NLHE drew a crowd of just over 2100 (Bluff Magazine’s WSOP By The #’s). As anticipated, the action was fast, the bustouts frequent and it didn’t take long for us to get a little drama as well.

Brief explanation of the situation: Online Tournament Pro, sponsored Lock Poker Pro and lead instructor forTournament Poker Edge – Casey “BigDogPckt5s” Jarzabek tweeted that his bust out of the $1500:

@bigdogpckt5s: Qq into aa at least it wasn’t a bad beet. Just to short in these not to get qq in the middle. Pool day #tpedge

Well, on his table at the same time was online/live pro and lead instructor of Stack’em Coaching – John “Nikolak” Kim. He saw Casey’s bustout hand and tweeted the following:

@NicolakPoker: Wth, following a notable on twitter, he’s on my table, he busts by playing A6 horribly then tweets he busted QQ<AA#keepthebackershappy

From there “the Twitters” caught fire for a few minutes and the thought was that Casey misrepresented his bustout hand, potentially to keep backers and/or “piece-buyers” happy because QQ into AA is a pretty acceptable way to bust from a MTT, is it not? Well, Casey’s name got temporarily dragged through the virtual mud being called “terrible at poker” by rappin’ Brett Richey and essentially being accused of lying by others.

Casey later tweeted his rebuttal:

@bigdogpckt5s: Wow guess I need to be more clear on bust outs lol I did lose qq to aa for most of my chips then lost remainder with nut flush draw a6.

I like both of these guys through conversations on the radio show, so I’m not going to comment on whether it’s true or not as I just have no way of knowing. I will say that it’s obvious what the implications of misrepresenting your play would be should people be invested in you monetarily and while it’s hard to say “I went on tilt”, “I blew up” or “Misread by me” when people are counting on you to play perfectly – it’s clearly the right thing to do. One should be honest with yourself and your backers about how you played.

It does bring up this question though: what is “the bustout hand”? Do you consider it the very last hand that sent you to the rail? While it could be and it sometimes is, I think most find that the”bustout hand” is the one just a few hands before that happens. It’s the critical hit your stack takes when you lose a race to take a beat.  

In a personal example (if I may bend your ear with a bit of a bad beat story) I played the Bay 200 this Saturday with 182 runners. With 21 people left (18 paid) I called a shove with AK for about 70% of my stack: He turns over KJ. Before the flop is dealt, two people on the table “confess” that they each folded a Jack (unverifiable) but still when a K flops and what is presumed to be the case Jack hits the river – my stack takes a crucial blow, as does my demeanor (gotta work on that) and within 4 hands I’m the stone bubble boy of the day. (Sorry for that)

Many local poker peeps knew I was deep as I’m not an unrecognizable guy here locally and so when asked at a later time “What happened?” I give the answer they want to hear. A short and sweet explanation of how it went down - “One outer on the river”.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

No one wants in-depth details of the end of your tournament. No one wants me to say “blah blah, one outer, so and so, lost a flip to the only guy left shorter than me, etc etc then was forced to call off with Q4 with less than 1bb behind on my big blind.” Nope. What happened was essentially, in this case, the end of the line was the goddamn unrealistic #riggedobv hit to my stack and so when “reporting” to anyone who asks, I give them the short and sweet turn of events that led to me crying real tears. (OK, that may be a tad embellished.)

Isn’t that what you do? Is that what Casey did? Am I wrong? Luckily I don’t have any backers (usually) so if I decided to lie, I’d just lying to myself. But what about Casey – is he misrepresenting to his backers. Well, according to writer Rich Ryan and Pokernews that wouldn’t seem to be the case. One of my favorite columns “Five Thoughts” touched on this same topic and asked Casey point blank about it and it seems like he’s got 100% of himself. Is this a Stack’em Coaching v. Tournament Poker Edge thing? Doubt that too – John seems like a stand-up guy who doesn’t need to take cheap shots at the competition. So, until proven otherwise I think this is a matter of standard “bustout” reporting blended with some Ill Communication (the original meaning of Ill).

Of course, where there’s drama there 2p2 and if you want to check out what others are saying, it’s threadtastic. Included in the thread are direct statement from John.

Super off topic:I know I’m late to the party but how great is the self-titled album by Cults?!

Follow along on Twitter: @pkrgssp and let me know what you think via email: pkrgssp (at) gmail.com

What’s I’d like to see at the 2012 WSOP.

Perhaps there’s no better time to be a poker player and enthusiast than during the World Series of Poker. Not only does the entire poker world converge on Las Vegas to take their shots at winning the most prestigious award in all of poker, a WSOP Bracelet, but everything you want to see is in one place: the biggest poker stars in the world playing for the largest prizepools of the year on the grandest stage that poker has to offer. With so much going on at the Rio this summer, you just never know what you’re going to see. Double bracelet winners? Check. Beef jerky eating Big Foot? Check. Warmed over pizza in the poker kitchen? Check.

Yeah, you’ll see all of those things but here’s a few more events that might not happen, but I sure hope does, during the 2012 WSOP.

(in no particular order)

* The return of Hevad Khan.

It’s still there, buried deep in your psychosis…

“Bulldozzzzer”.

It longs to come out when you hit a two outer…

“Steammmmrollller!”

The WSOP made a rule specifically to thwart antics of one-time PokerStars online pro Hevad Khan from ever happening again. Only, as it turns out - Hevad Khan made for some amazing TV. You see, poker’s a game of emotion, even if that means trying to hide it, and emotion makes for compelling viewing. There’s nothing worse for poker TV than to see hoodied twentysomethings taking it all in stride. We need a little excitement, a little action - we need Hevad Khan!

At least we need someone like him: a fun-loving master of celebration that borders on obnoxious but isn’t a “rub-it-in-your-face” kind of guy. We need a divisive figure with some outstanding catch phrases that doesn’t come off as too forced and has more appeal than simply barking like a dog. ESPN wants to bring back the characters to the WSOP telecast and they’ve loosened the rulebook on celebrations to do so. What they need is a 2012 Hevad Khan. Let’s dooooo this.

* Tom Dwan trying hard.

Is there any questioning the Passion of the Dwan? Of course not! This guy plays full-time at the biggest stakes with no online poker to fall back on. He’s grinding it out, worldwide, wherever the games may take him but this summer I hope he sees fit to continue his devout focus on capturing WSOP glory. He’s not a tournament professional (nor is he a slouch) and he sure doesn’t need the accolades, but facts are facts: he’s the highest profile poker player without WSOP Gold and when he’s at a final table, the poker world stops, looks and listens. OK, so Dwan isn’t exactly overly media friendly, he doesn’t necessarily delight you on camera with warm witty quips or over the top remarks but it doesn’t stop him from being one of the most intriguing figures on the poker landscape and if he decides to continue to grind it out like he did in 2011 (and maybe win a bracelet bet or two) we could be in store for a fun summer of sweating out favorite (former) internet young gun.

* Andy Beal and Phil Ivey get HU in the One Drop

The Big One for One Drop is going to be a lot of things: the largest prizepool in WSOP history, a phenomenal money making charity funder and the collection of the biggest degens and poker sickos on the planet from all walks of life converging in one room. So yea, Phil Ivey has yet to commit to this monster of a tournament but his nemesis from The Corporation days has: Andy Beal is vetted, committed and participating. In 2006 Andy Beal and Phil Ivey went to war on the felt, with Ivey famously playing for “The Corporation” and taking Beal for a 16 million dollar ride. With an estimated 42.6 million dollar price pool (48 players field, as this is expected to sell out) and about 10 people cashing the first place money would be right around what Beal dropped to Ivey back in the day. Wouldn’t you love to see these two be forced together one more time, under the ESPN lights? I would. I guess first we need to make sure Ivey plays, but I have a feeling this tournament might just be too Big to pass up.

* Phil Hellmuth goes ballistic

Hey Phil, we’ve had it with you. No, not your antics, whining and tantrums but this new “do-gooder”, media savvy, turn-the-other-cheek Hellmuth. We’re done with it I tell thee! Ok, so you have a new website and a new forum and a new talk show to promote. Here’s some free PR advice: What you really need is a new face melting, blood-boiling, “honey”-crying temper tantrum! You need a new narcissistic, spur of the moment catch phrase. Someone shine the Brat-signal!

It’s time for the Brat to come back.

Three second place finishes last year and nary a single insult thrown?? No crying? No complaining to the wife? Phil, you’re the greatest poker heel of all time and now you want to turn face? It’s just a bad idea. This year, we need new over-the-top insults and penalty-inducing borderline insults, we need a renewed commitment to the Poker Brat persona. Yes, go get bracelet number twelve, but for the sake of poker – be an ass while you do it. I’m not saying don’t do charity work or be nice to your fans but on the felt it’s war and it’s time for you be the Brat once more.

Whether we see these things or not, one thing is for certain – the 2012 WSOP will be a spectacle to behold.