Gary Wise from Las Vegas

The November Nine

Posted by admin on Nov 9, 2008

So, I bet you thought I’d forgotten I had this blog huh? I’m going to start out with my usual apology for lack of posts, but its been a really busy couple of months. Some of you know I’ve been heavily involved with my work with 60 Minutes, and most of you know I’ve been doing a lot of work regarding the World Series of Poker for ESPN. Between those, trips to Maccau, Uruguay, Seattle and Costa Rica and a few other projects its been a crazy… meg, screw it. I suck, we all know it.

So, right now, I’m sitting on a phush, comfy couch in the Penn and Teller theater at the Rio hotel in Vegas. We finally have the final table of the main event under way after so many months of waiting and I’m finding myself plagued my mixed emotions. On the one hand, I’m obviously glad to get this thing under way after so many months of writing about it. On the other hand, I’ve come to like every member of the November Nine, and it’ll be tough to see them take their turns leaving the spotlight they’ve enjoyed so much.

I’m keeping this short, since I’m still waking up and need caffeine. I’ll get some more thoughts up throughout the day, since I’ll have 10-14 hours to kill.

“Good for poker.”

Posted by admin on Jun 4, 2008

Man, I wanted Chris Ferguson to win tonight.

Amongst the people I’ve been having interesting conversations with at WSOP is Dr. Pauly Mcquire, the twisted, dark, friendly and wise author of what many consider poker’s best regular blog, the Tao of Poker and Dan Michalski, owner of pokerati. Both have mentioned to me their disdain for the term “Good for poker”.

I think a part of the boys’ logic stems from a similar theory to one I have about the establishment of poker as a pastime and the underatanding that games and industries will have their scandals. Referee Tim Donaghy bet on games he officiated and life went on for the NBA; tournament poker should aspire to becoming iconic enough that its Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet scandals will happen. Life and business will go on. “Good for poker” keeps intact the protective shell TV has provided through its black and white exchange of otherwise grey information. This may or may not be a good thing.

Where my opinion differs from these others seems to be in that they’r defining ‘poker’ as the game, while I define ‘poker’ as the industry. When I say “good for poker”, I mean good for the health of poker as a televisable entity, good for the establishment of online poker as a legitimate business and pastime and good for everyone who’s invested their time and money so they might benefit from the constant influx of new money, be it through the fish or ratings. The game is the same one played over the last however many years. That’s not about to change.

Back to Jesus, he was at the final table of World Series of poker event #2 – $1,500 no-limit hold’em. Theo Tran, a good kid with one TV table, was the second-most recognizable name at the table. In other words, Jesus was in a league of his own.  He’d eventually go out in third.

I was cheering for Jesus because a win for him would be ‘good for poker’. I believe that while amateurs winning big tournaments can still be a major story, the continuity of the business routes from familliar ongoing storylines. The occasional Moneymaker is obviously pretty good, but Iultimately want people to latch onto a storyline and follow it for as long a they follow poker. Jesus Ferguson provides us with one of those storylines.

Jesus is by all accounts a very good guy. He’s given back to the game in spades with his part in the creation of FTP’s software, he’s done a fantastic job of branding himself (I asked him tonight while on the subject of branding “Isn’t it amazing what you can do with a hat?” Got a nice laugh out of that one) and is absolutely fantastic with fans. He never resorts to unruly behavior, speaks well in interviews…this guy’s been a great star. Those weren’t the reasons I cheered him on though. Not directly.

Those things all make Jesus a compelling sotry for people to latch onto. He’s a recognizable figure and that means that the longer he’s on the TV, the longer people are going to keep their TVs trained to the show. In turn, that means advertising space will be more effective, more advertising will mean more exposure for the online community and that means more people are coming to the table for the first time.

Put more simply, I wanted jesus to win to keep the fish coming to the table. Without them, the sharks will eat their own collective tail.

Before I get to the links, I want to say you should be checking out the blogroll at the right side of this page. I’m only going to link to quality there, so you shouldn’t go too wrong with yoru clicks. Special thanks to WickedChopsPoker, who gave this space a full-blown, hyperkink in their own blog. oh, and props also to them for Keeley Hazell. On with the links on a somewhat slow day;

- First, the link to the article on Phil Ivey and Eli Elezra I mentiond yesterday.

- Second, the Wise Hand of the Day on wisehandpoker.com com looks at an exhausting day.

- Third,  the Wise Hand of the Day on Pokerlistings looks at Jesus’ elimination hand.

ging to sign off not, can’t really see through my blurred eyes anymore. Hope you’re having a good week,

Gary Wise

gary@wisehandpoker.com

Meet The Press

Posted by admin on Jun 3, 2008

How do I do this to myself? I’m starting to blog at 5:10AM and I’m not really sure how it got this late. Seriously, it was a pretty mundane day at WSOP; no final tables, no massive drama. I didn’t play a hand of poker today, so where did the time go?

For one, it went to some lengthy conversations about the main event final table. Get together a bunch of industry insiders and its almost inevitable at this point. Some are excited for the drama the four month delay will build, some think that it’s an ineffective way to achieve the goals of a PR boost and others still think the collusion issue is too big to ignore.

Me, I’m a fan. I don’t see the collusion as much more of an issue than it has been in the past and I’m not usually a fan of breaking with tradition, but as far as health of the industry goes, I think something drastic had to be tried in order to save us from ratings death and programming removal. Is this it? I’m not really sure, but at this point in time, both in the poker timeline and in the AM, I’m happy to try anything without much resistance.

The big thing I took from that gathering of minds is the fact that part of my enjoyment of WSOP routes from the reunion with the finest journalists in the industry. Talking about the past, present, future, winners, losers, TV, tourneys, cash games, players, executives and everything in between lets me geek out with people I respect and can always learn something from. The interaction inspires me, as should be obvious from my recent output.

Bluff’s Lance Bradley has been a joy to work with. Nolan Dalla of WSOP has always loaned me his mentorship and continues to be an inspiration as the hardest working man in the game. BJ Nemeth provides the technical approach that supports my writer’s license, while Dr. Pauly surpassed my output while having the courage to talk about the darker (and therefore even more romantic0 side of the game. Dan Michalski, Jen Newell, Haley Hinte…these people have dedicated themselves to the game, and sharing the upper perch of the media partition with them provides constant inspiration.

The poker media doesn’t get enough love. It’s a mostly thankless task that doesn’t always pay what it should. Players possessed of ego or recoiling from contact can be difficult to approach, and being able to surpass all that is an underrated skill. These folks give their all to the game, cheesy as that may sound, and while yeah, ‘geeked out’ makes a lot of sense sometimes, it better not be used in a derogatory fashion, because without these people who have dedicated their lives to supplementing the game, the people who have followed the likes of Andy Glazer, Mike Paulle and Max Shapiro before them, there wouldn’t be much worth reading on the Interweb. Thank them the next time you see them recording a card or hacking furiously at a keyboard. You can point a finger and laugh at me though.

Speaking of reading things on the interweb…

In a new ESPN column, I remember last night’s stunning turn of events and note how each of the final four had somehow been previously overlooked;

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/columns/story?columnist=wise_gary&id=3422466

Early in the day, Dewey Tomko and Billy Baxter were amongst the chip leaders. The two classic gamblers had me feeling nostalgic, as you’ll see here;

http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/news/article.asp?newsID=2046

In the wisehandpoker.com Wised Hand of the Day, we see David Singer maneuver his way into a commanding chip stack here;

http://www.wisehandpoker.com/Handofday/archive/2008-wsop-day-4.php

In the PokerListings Wise hand of the Day, Nenad medic goes down to good buddy David Williams;

http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-hand-of-the-day_wsop-day-4-no-repeat?show=all

I have one more article about to go up on worldseriesofpoker.com about Phil Ivey’s big bet with Eli Elezra, but frankly, I can’t really keep my eyes open any longer. 5:35. God I’m an idiot. I’m going to bed, as per usual. Nite,

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

Sick of the Hate

Posted by admin on Jun 2, 2008

So, first off, I have to say that was a pretty awesome final table. I mean, is there a better way to start the WSOP than a four-way battle between Andy Bloch, Kathy Liebert, Nenad Medic and Mike Sexton? You have;

- One of the best tournament players in the world, fresh off a 2nd place finish at NBC’s National Heads-Up Poker Championships and a 3rd place finish in Full Tilt’s $25,000 head-up championship looking for his first bracelet with a massive chip lead.

- The winningest female tournament player of all-time

- A 25-year old MMA-looking Canadian (!) who many were calling the best no-limit cash game player in the world ever before this final table made folks pay attention…again.

- One of poker’s truest ambassadors, a man who loved playing so much he set it free to host the WPT.

All four players had won $1,000,000 tournaments before they ever made it to 2008, and they all played some remarkable poker. While I’m obviously pumped that a Canuck won (Canada 1, world 0), I have to feel badly for Andy Bloch, a man who always gives an answer when I have a question, who’s well-liked throughout the industry and who I’d have especially loved to have seen won his first bracelet. The fact he hasn’t was so ludicrous to me that I completely forgot to include him in the article I posted the link to yesterday regarding the best players to have never won jewelry.

Bloch was the victim of some internet vitriol for some questionable plays in the FTP $25K, but nothing like what Kathy has been forced to endure over the years. Smart, sweet, Kathy is a no-bullshit lady whose endured and thrived in a damn tough field for women to do so in. The placing her gives her around $4.7 million in tournament winnings and it’s about time the insecure internet fan boys shut the hell up and showed one hell of a player some respect.

Annie Duke once told me about a choice encounter at a Montana casino. This was in her early playing days and she was still learning the finer points and sitting with a group of more experienced men, she got busted. “Don’t worry honey” one of the brainiacs shrugged “you can go across the street, spread your legs and make it back.” Nice.

The point is to tell you what it’s like for a woman dealing with what’s mostly been a male-dominated industry. Like it’s not tough enough to just win at poker, women have to do it while fighting the pressures of archaic biases, chauvinistic stupidity and the overabundance of testosterone that comes out whenever there’s a woman to impress or something to be fought over. Like guys, seriously, do you not want women appreciating what you do? Personally, I want to see more ladies in our midst since all the men who might be interested are already playing and fish are needed to feed the sharks. Posting crap about strangers isn’t exactly going to help in that regard.

I can’t say I’m that close with Kathy. I’ve been there for a lot of her successes and interviewed her repeatedly and she’s always been nothing but a lady. Where a lot of my bustouts are angry and (excusably) a little classless, she was the opposite after she busted out tonight;

“Most of the players were excellent players. There were only 1 or 2 guys I didn’t know and they were internet geniuses. Obviously it was a very tough final table. I mean, you always want to get first but to come in eighth in chips and move up and get third is pretty good. I knew I had a shot to win it, so it’s bittersweet, but I feel good about the performance.”

No whining, no propping herself up, no defaming opponents. This is the way a professional gives an interview, praising good work on the part of others and showing some great sportsmanship on the way out the door. This isn’t a person deserving of hate. Maybe if the people who express it for her so often were to actually meet the lady, they’d figure out that they’ve been acting like idiots for far too long. Conversely, they may just need to get laid and stop taking out their inadequacies on other people.

Congrats to Nenad, condolences to Andy (though, winning a half-mil isn’t too bad) and congrats and condolences to Kathy. She’s a hell of a player and like she said, 8th to 3rd on this kind of table is a pretty great showing.

I got up a summary of tonight’s final table over at worldseriesofpoker.com. You can find it here;

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthread.php?p=4428047&highlight=liebert#post4428047

If you don’t know the players who started the day at this final table, you should read the preview I posted prior to the day’s play here;

http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/news/article.asp?newsID=2041

In today’s wisehandpoker.com Wise hand of the day, I take a quick look back at the three-way hand that knocked Kathy out;

http://www.wisehandpoker.com/Handofday/archive/2008-wsop-day-3.php

in the pokerlistings.com Hand of the day, I look at an earlier hand that could have cost Nenad his tournament with four players left;

http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-hand-of-the-day_wsop-day-3-a-little-bit-of-luck?show=all

It’s 5:13AM and I still want to write an ESPN feature about this final table. How can I not, you know? Pretty fantastic way to start the series. If you’re interested in showing Kathy some of the support she deserves as a fantastic practitioner of the game, check out her site at www.pokerkat.com/. Thanks as always for reading,

Gary Wise

gary@wisehandpoker.com

“It’s been a long day.”

Posted by admin on Jun 2, 2008

‘I’m at the end of a very long day.’

I’m starting to get the feeling that either a) that should be the name of this blog or b) every installment I write up until July 14th should start that way. Despite my not being full-time on any one gig and having some freedom to enjoy for the first time in a few years, I seem to always be at the Rio and doing five things at once.

For the second day in a row, it was a fairly news-less day due to a remarkably well-run WSOP ship thus far, but I was following a couple of stories closely, namely the absolutely superb final table taking shape in event #1 – $10,000 pot limit world championship and the absolute dismantling of the record for most players in a live non-WSOP main event.

As I write this, it’s 4:48 and the final ten players in the pot-limit are still going. The final nine will be at ESPN’s televised final table, and that means big bucks for everyone but the last man to go. Prospective player agents have been looming for hours and a rep of one site told me they’d have two players at the final table regardless of who makes it, but with chip leader Andy Bloch firmly entrenched at FTP, second-running Mike Sexton a PartyPoker man and Mike Sowers, Chris Bell and Nenad Medic all having their own deals, you have to think there’s going to be some competition for those last few names.

The big sponsorship prizes left on the board are Phil Laak, Kathy Liebert and Patrik Antonius…

Oh man; 4:56AM and John Kabbaj was just eliminated.

Back to that thought, Phil Laak is a likable and familiar figure, though ‘zany’ and ‘player rep’ aren’t always synonymous in the eyes of industry types. Kathy Liebert is a likable lady to talk to, but she’s burned through two sponsorships and some bridges. The real prize here is Antonius, the supermodel-genius with poker balls the size of watermelons. Stars and FTP must be salivating. There’s another game of poker going on here.

Quick story about Patrik; you know those posters on his website with the nickname ‘The Black Lotus’? Last year in the press room, I was hanging out with then-Bluff magazine staffers Chris Vaughn and Matt Brown and then-PokerNews.com video producer Justin Shronk when the subject of my having played on the professional Magic: the Gathering tour back in the day came up. Yeah, I’m a nerd. Go to hell.

Anyways, the three stooges got around to mocking me a little bit and googling at the same time and discovered that the most valuable card in the game was called the Black Lotus. I think it was Shronk who asked “Is the Black Lotus like the Patrik Antonius of Magic?” They thought the question was so hilarious that they agreed to all start referring to Patrik as the Black Lotus in their assorted coverage. Patrik Antonius, this chiseled god who makes women swoon, who is so cool that internet fan boys profess homosexual love for him despite heterosexual leanings, named himself after a Magic card.

That’s the kind of stupid shit that goes on in the media room.

The second story I was watching was the size of event #2, $1,500 no-limit hold’em. Divided into two days, this thing is going to max out at –get this—4,098. The old record for live non-main event tournaments was 3,151, set a year ago. How often does a record in any established competition get bettered by 25%? TV poker may not be in the best shape at the moment, but tournament poker is better than ever.

Since it’s 5:30AM and I’m getting up in 5.5 hours, I should get to the links. I’ve got four articles for you guys to look at today, which makes me wonder how it is I managed to find time to get to the tables and win a few bucks. Yeah, I know, brag post. On to the links;

- I thought so much of how well day one went that I got an article into ESPN about it late last night. You’ll find it right here;

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker/columns/story?columnist=wise_gary&id=3420340

- With Patrik Antonius amongst those threatening to take the bracelet in the PLHE championship, I did a pretty basic piece for worldseriesofpoker.com on some of the best-established players to have never won a bracelet. You’ll find it here;

http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/news/article.asp?newsid=2039

- The PokerListings.com Wise Hand of the Day is a look at a funny hand that happened with ten players left in the PLHE championship;

http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-hand-of-the-day_wsop-day-2-a-lot-of-money?show=all

- The Wise Hand of the Day on wisehandpoker.com, I look at the final hand of the day’s play;

http://www.wisehandpoker.com/Handofday/archive/2008-wsop-day-2.php

Anyways, its time to hit the sack. Hope you guys enjoy the reading, and keep an eye on that final table over at worldseriesofpoker.com tomorrow. Have a good one.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

My Favorite Day

Posted by admin on Jun 1, 2008

I think I can say with some certainty that ever since I started covering the World Series of poker back in 2004, day 1 of the event has been my favorite day of the year. It’s the end of the anticipation, the re-igniting of friendships. It proceeds the inevitable grind that WSOP becomes for those of us crazy enough and enamored enough with the game to stay away from the tables long enough to make the event work. It reminds us of why we love the game.

Today, day 1 lived up to expectations. Each year, I seem to know more and more of the guys most of you are accustomed to seeing on television. One of the benefits of my job is unfettered access to the tables and I milked it for all it was worth, dancing through tables, shaking hands and bumping fists, cracking jokes and having them cracked back at me. I’m a little old to be a kid in a candy store, but it was the next best thing.

From the moment the event got under way, highlighted by one hell of a rendition of “Viva, Las Vegas!” courtesy of a marching band, there was a shit-eating grin adorning my face. For all the late nights, the times where the words don’t come, the frustration with scandals, the no-show interviews, this was a genuine moment that made it all worthwhile. The euphoria lasted far longer than I should have ever expected considering I’d gotten around four hours of sleep.

The Bluff party at Tao was great despite my only staying for 75 minutes after a few hands and a Philly cheese steak at the Venetian. I headed back to the Bluff house with worldseriesofpoker.com editor Lance Bradley and worked until Bluff own Eddie Kleid returned to the fold. Once lance crashed, Eddy and I got to talking business. Before I knew it, it was 4:30, I still owed ESPN an article and I was more or less collapsed on my keyboard.

The piece –an interview with ESPN’s Jamie Horowitz that will be posted some time over coming weeks—got mailed in at 5:30AM and I crashed a few minutes later. I’d told Lance to awaken me a few minutes before he was heading to the Rio so I could join him. What I didn’t know was that he wanted to be there by 9:45AM, and I’m paying for it now. I’ve been up for eighteen hours on four hours sleep and I’m not so young that I can really do that any more, so you’re reading the end of one hell of a day.

Despite the general fatigue and the exhaustion of my day 1 afterglow, I managed to get a few articles done and posted. The first was an interview with a man I consider to be one of the most important in the poker industry right now, John Pappas;

http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/news/article.asp?newsid=2035

Pappas, as I hope you’re going to read, is the president of the Poke Player’s Alliance, perhaps our best shot at getting online poker legalized in the United States. He and I get into the basics of why we need that legalization, what the PPA is doing to make that happen and how you can help. Namely, get your ass out and vote.

Another piece I got up on worldseriesofpoker.com was the first of what will be a daily ritual, ‘Notes From the Floor’, a collection of thoughts and tidbits from the day’s proceedings;

http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/news/article.asp?newsid=2036

I think BJ Nemeth, who I’ll be quoting a lot throughout the series, was right in his assertion that the lack of news was newsworthy. After last year’s day 1 fiasco, today ran smooth as silk. If you’re a fan of WSOP (and really, I’m not sure why you’d be reading this if you aren’t) this was a very good sign. One hell of a start for the Seth Palansky era.

Finally, I got up a couple of Wise Hand(s) of the Day posted, one over at pokerlistings.com;

http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-hand-of-the-day_wsop-day-1-escaping-the-royal?show=all

…and one at WiseHandPoker

http://www.wisehandpoker.com/Handofday/archive/2008-wsop-day-1.php

It’s pretty insane to think about being happy when your opponent turns over a royal. What a colossal screw up. I mean, to err is human, but…meh, call it first day jitters. WSOP is a different animal. Yeah, I’m being nice.

Now kiddies, I must sleep, because tomorrow’s going to be a long one. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have a record-setting field since we’re over 3,000 registrants now and the record for live non-main event tournaments is 3,151 players, and we’re going to be getting down to our first final table. Keep a special eye on a WHP favorite Mark Newhouse, who was down to 1,500 chips at one point. I would, but both of mine are closing and I still have one last article to write.

Gary Wise
gary@wisehandpoker.com

WSOP blog …and so it begins.

Posted by admin on May 30, 2008

I’m not much of a club guy, but when it comes to the World Series of Poker, you don’t mess around. Bluff Magazine, who I’m working and living with during the World Series of Poker, is hostiing a party tonight at Tao, one of the true Vegas hotspots, and even a wet blanket like me can’t help but take advantage of VIP treatment, free booze, beautiful women and a night out with hosts Phil Laak, Jen Tilly and Antonio Esfandiari. The car leaves in a few minutes, so I’m keeping this relatively quick.

I’m taking these few minutes to say welcome to my WSOP blog. If you have no idea who I am or what I do, my name is Gary Wise, I write about every facet of poker except strategy and I do it for some of the industry big boys, including espn.com and Bluff Magazine. Each day, I’m going to post a few original thoughts on WSOP goings on here along with links to all of my articles so those so inclined can keep your reading up. For example;

Today, I have fresh articles up all over the place. I have a look at the storylines going into this year’s WSOP over at worldseriesofpoker.com; you can find that at WSOP.

Then, I have a couple of pieces over at espn.com, with another look at storylines (this one a little different) at ESPN and a look at the top bracelet winners of all-time.

Finally, I have a look back at Chris Moneymaker’s bluff of Sammy Farha, perhaps the most crucial hand in poker history to the development of the industry.  If that all isn’t enough poker reading for you, you’re a sick, sick individual. Of course, you’re my kind of sick.

If you have any thoughts or comments on this here blog, be sure to let me know in the comments section. Thanks for reading; I’m looking forward to sharing the WSOP experience with you. All the best, I’m off to Tao.

Gary Wise

gary@wisehandpoker.com

maintained by: BJM for Gary Wise