donpeters

Hey joeschmoe, thanks for the comment. There are a couple of things that can be looked at for the cause of the decline and you did name some of them. For one, the poker economy just isn't as booming as it once was. The 2003 numbers for this event were pre-Moneymaker and then things exploded after that. You also have to take into account that SCOOP is going on right now on PokerStars and many, many foreigners have opted to stay put and play those events rather than come to Las Vegas and play the $25,000 WPT World Championship. And yes, as you said the Bellagio has been falling as Las Vegas' top poker destination and it's something the players talk about a good amount.

You can expect the field size to increase once again for Day 3 as registration is still open until Level 12, so three more levels of late registration on Monday. Just from checking updates on Twitter, a few players have busted from the SCOOP events and are flying out to get in this event today. This is actually something the Bellagio and the WPT worked at in order to best accommodate those wanting to play both SCOOP and the WPT World Championship. Will be interesting to see how much more the field increases on Monday, but it should hit 150 players easily. In the poker world today, 150 players for a $25,000 event is nothing to be discouraged about. They're also running a $100,000 Super High Roller as well and should attract 15-20 players for that.

Thanks for taking the time to comment. We always value our readers' thoughts.

The PPC is actually at the Westin Resort and Casino Aruba, whereas the Aruba Poker Classic was held at the Radisson Aruba Resort, Casino & Spa, so the two are different. I still see it being just as good, if not better than the APC was. This PPC event is coupled with a WPT boot camp held in Aruba starting April 29th, so that's also a good thing.

I've spoken to countless poker professionals on the circuit that don't collect frequent flier miles. If you're one, you need to get on it. It does wonders for your travel and makes the experiences so much better. If you're a player who has an assistant that books everything for you or a regular travel agent, make sure they are on the ball with collection of your FFM. If they aren't, what are you paying them for?

Why pay for first-class seats when you can use free upgrades? Why buy food and drink at the airport when you can find both of those in the comfortable airport lounges? Why pay for airport Internet when it's free in the airport lounges? Need to freshen up or get some rest on a long layover? Most airport lounges have showers, better bathrooms and very comfortable furniture.

As Lynn said, Quantas and One World are her airline and alliance of choice. For me, it's United and the Star Alliance. One World has 12 airlines that belong to its alliance while the Star Alliance has 26 member airlines. For me, I use United and the Mileage Plus program. I believe it's the best, but of course if I was from Australia, Quantas would be my choice. One thing I love about United and the Star Alliance is it seems to offer the most flights to different places in the world. And now with United and Continental's merger, United offers flights to even more destinations.

Whatever you choose, feel free to ask Lynn, myself or any of the other PokerNews employees any questions you have regarding FFM programs. We'd love to help however we can. And if you don't collect FFM, shame on you. You're really missing out.

Also, one of the best websites to use for research would be SKYTRAX, found at http://www.airlinequality.com/.

Interesting thoughts, Percival.

I agree with R. Ryan that poker as a whole should be rooting for the EPL to succeed. I'm not necessarily saying we should root for the current EPL, but the idea behind the EPL is exactly something poker needs. It needs a league similar to that of the PGA in golf and will really help our industry if something like could take off. Of course, the EPL has failed to do that so far, but there is still hope for recovery (albeit slim).

In your second response, I think you're failing to think about the common poker fan. Common fans don't know everything we do, they simply know what's on the surface. Right now, the surface of poker is a very rough and rocky one. Seeing another big poker venture collapse looks extremely bad for poker. The common poker fan may know about the EPL, watch it on TV, recognize the faces in the game, but when they hear it fell through and the company filed for bankruptcy, it's going to fall under a dark light. Yes, they may be the cause of bad management and very, very lofty expectations for a start-up venture, but common fans of the game (and the regular person for that matter) only see this as another thing that poker can't get right.

I 100% agree with you that the EPL should have started much slower and grow over time. Probably the biggest mistake was diving into this thing full force as if they have been in business for years and years with plenty of top investing companies and sponsors behind it. That wasn't the case and should have called for growth year upon year. It's sad to see that this decision wasn't made and unfortunately the EPL is now paying for it, as our many others affected.

You make excellent points and rebuttals and I'm not going to side one way or another. Personally, I'm behind the EPL as an idea. Yes, the business plan was flawed from the start without major sponsors pumping money to cover the costs and guarantees. Yes, poor decisions were made in year one of the league. And yes, poker needs a PGA-like league where the best of the best are forced to qualify in order to take place in these prestigious events and reap the benefits.

All in all, maybe the current demise of the EPL turns out to be a good thing for poker in the long haul. Another venture can see exactly what was done wrong and what not to do when former a league like this before taking the appropriate steps to move towards fulfilling the idea the EPL brings to the table.

From a player's perspective, I, too, would have played every event in order to get my hands on everything the EPL was given out as "freebies" and that includes the $400,000 in added money to each event. I'm surprised that given all the chatter going around since day one about the EPL being unable to sustain itself that the players didn't bring this up, especially the more business-minded ones. Sure, it's in their benefit to be quiet and get all they can, but it's also better for this to happen long term, which may mean talking some sense into the EPL during its first season.

@POKERrunons - Yes, this was just a field of 16 players, but getting to the point in your poker career where you are able to comfortably enter a $250,000 event where you'll be playing against some of the best in the world is a testament to Ivey's skill over the years. When he first began in the game, he was a grinder at small stakes in Atlantic City. He's worked his way up and conquered the best of the best.

I'd also like to add that whether you are a fan of Ivey or not, you must agree that poker needs him to be back playing events, driving the stories worldwide and drawing more and more attention from the fans. Much like Tiger Woods in golf — hate him or love him given all that's happened, poker needs Mr. Ivey.

Also, be sure to check out Rich Ryan's "Five Thoughts: Ivey No Longer a Fan Favorite?" article. Ryan makes some good points about how we can't be so quick to jump and judge. We need to let the facts come out and then make our evaluations from there.

"Let’s not get into a shouting match with one another to see who’s the loudest. Let’s wait for some facts to come out before we judge for or against Mr. Ivey." - R. Ryan

This guy is one of the nicest people in the world and a real pleasure to cover in poker tournaments. He's outgoing and fun, keeping things lively and interesting all event long. He's also a very solid player, which makes me happy to see him take home the title! Congrats to Calenzo, hopefully 2012 is your breakout year!

I was chosen during the bet to be the arbitrator. Each side will pick a given discipline, whether it be football, basketball, baseball, etc. and I will decide what the two will have to do for that given sport as a competition. If Remko choses cycling, I could say it's a time-trial race for 20 KM. If Jason choses basketball, it could be a three-point shooting contest, foul shots or a one-on-one game. I'm sure you get the point.

The two are aiming to make the bet happen sometime at the beginning of the 2012 WSOP. Hopefully we'll be able to film it at PokerNews and see these two in battle. I can't wait!

At the time, the APC had plenty of online qualifiers and the majority of people that traveled to the event were good, fun-loving people. They all understood that traveling to an exotic location isn't just about the poker grind. There's much more of that mentality at PCA than there ever was in Aruba. The atmosphere was much more laid back and free that it is at PCA, which made it all more enjoyable for all.

PokerNews has been providing daily recap coverage of the WPT World Championship event, although not on the floor for live reporting as that is run by the official WPT Live Update Team.

10:43 a.m. PDT: The WSOP has struck a deal with Shuffle Master to provide automatic shufflers for every final table, and in some instances for even more tables in a particular tournament.

It's awesome that they're finally jumping on board to make things more speedy at final tables, but the problem comes in the second part of that statement where it says, "in some instances for even more tables in a particular tournament."

It either has to be all tables in a tournament or just the final table, that's it. If a tournament has ten tables running and the two feature tables are using automatic shufflers, they'll be seeing more hands and playing at a faster rate that everyone else, giving them an advantage. The WSOP needs to be careful in this area. If players find out some tables are using automatic shufflers and others aren't, they're going to be very upset. This could also be branched out to a tournament-vs-tournament basis.

If one of the $1,500 events opts to use these automatic shufflers and another one doesn't, I want to play in the one that does. With the exact same structure, you'll see more hands in the one that does. If this is something that may happen, the WSOP should make clear ahead of time which events will use them and which won't.

Another thing that's interesting is that on the WSOP conference call that PokerNews wrote a live blog for, it was mentioned:

10:43 a.m. PDT: The WSOP has struck a deal with Shuffle Master to provide automatic shufflers for every final table, and in some instances for even more tables in a particular tournament.

It's awesome that they're finally jumping on board to make things more speedy at final tables, but the problem comes in the second part of that statement where it says, "in some instances for even more tables in a particular tournament."

It either has to be all tables in a tournament or just the final table, that's it. If a tournament has ten tables running and the two feature tables are using automatic shufflers, they'll be seeing more hands and playing at a faster rate that everyone else, giving them an advantage. The WSOP needs to be careful in this area. If players find out some tables are using automatic shufflers and others aren't, they're going to be very upset.

The comparison to a football game is quite interesting. During NFL games, there are numerous times you see the QB going on images of the opposing team's defense with the coaches. You also see images of the defense going over images of the opposing team's offense. These images are taken from plays that just happened and then the teams looking at them try and adjust or find holes in the other side's system to take advantage of. Now, on one hand you could say this is exactly what could happen in the WSOP and everyone has the opportunity to "look at the tape" and adjust, but it's not so black and white.

Players on the outer tables won't have access to hole card cameras where they can see their opponents' play. They won't have the opportunity to adjust like people playing on the feature tables will. That means, in general 18 players at a time in the WSOP Main Event will have an advantage over their tablemates that other players in the field won't. Amateur players who have made it to the chip lead and are seated with pros will be at a huge disadvantage. Do you guys honestly think Jamie Gold would have won the Main Event if his hole cards were shown on a 30-minute delay? Not taking anything away from Gold's play, but he'd have so much more to overcome and his strategy that he was using over and over to talk to players and manipulate them wouldn't work anymore as people would be able to correctly adjust. Now, if every table has the opportunity to "view the tape" then it's a different story, but it's not going to be that way.

How different would football be if only one team was allowed to see these images of their opponent? Or, how about only the NFC could use images and the AFC couldn't? The teams with the greater ability to make adjustments in the NFC would thrive whereas the teams in the AFC wouldn't even get the chance.

One of the criteria should be that Poker Hall of Fame members get an membership card to this series. Dan Harrington? Mike Sexton? They should be offered a membership card to this event.

This begs the question: Where does everyone feel Selbst ranks amongst the best female tournament players in the world? How about the best tournament players overall? Interested to see how everyone ranks her.

Santana - I understand what you say about Doyle and it also branches into today's generation with the endless training sites out there, but the game has gotten a lot harder to beat and all of these are big reasons why. Does the amount of money Ivey gets from coaching even compare to what he makes when playing poker? He plays the largest games in the world and wins. What's $500/hr of coaching going to do for him except take away from the time he can be playing? Also, he plays in such a select field of players in these games that his tricks of the trade may not apply at all to people playing say $.25/.50 for example. Doyle's books translate to a lot broader games than Ivey's do, where a lot of his stuff is based on these players.

Jimbo - If Ivey comes out with a simple instructional video on how to check-raise semibluff, or other basics, it's going to be pretty lame. He probably won't really believe his true secrets and get into too much detail. Personally, I don't mind having Ivey never teach anyone anything, that's one of the great things about him. No one is inside Ivey's mind and it keeps the allure about him strong. This is one of those things I hope stays a mystery.

I will say that I'm completely surprised with the thoughts of Ivey possibly teaching others poker and find it hard to believe. Why would the greatest in the world give away his secrets? He certainly doesn't need to sell out to this sort of thing for the money, so why do it? Do you see Tiger Woods selling instructional golf DVDs? Michael Jordan providing personal one-on-one basketball coaching to the public? It seems weird that he'd go down this road, especially being someone who doesn't put himself out there in the public eye as much as say Phil Hellmuth or Daniel Negreanu does.

umpa21 wrote

@FlopTurnRiverJB I've always been known to handle coolers/tilting extremely well. The way I see it, once I'm all in, the hand is over. Especially when I see that I'm ahead, there's no reason to think any further into the hand while playing. I've done all that I can do, get money in with a winning %. To prevent any sort of tilt or bad play, I generally play a couple of shorter sessions. I try to not play sessions over 3-4 hours. I've noticed that keeps me fresh thinking, and not in a robot state haha. When I play less tables, I notice myself getting into more spots I generally don't get into 24 tabling.

This is some great advice.

Excellent profile. Interested in seeing how he does from here on out.

What are the most important stats you look at on your HUD? Is it just VPIP and PFR that you use when determining who's good and who's bad? And what are some examples of stats that people should be looking for as a fish?

I'm pretty sure everyone plays their own money, minus the Loose Cannon, who is staked by PokerStars on The Big Game. Oftentimes, as also with tournaments, players will piece themselves out to play if it's above what they normally play and they are taking a shot for television.