My November Nine Picks

[Content Disclosure: WSOP November Nine]

Some degenerate in the media pool decided to challenge us to pick our final nine in the main event before the start of yesterday's play. So we had 64 runners to whittle down to our own personalized November Nine. Below are my choices. A Willy Wonka Golden ticket to the first reader to discover the amazingly insightful selection criteria I used to pick my nine.

Darvin Moon

Billy Kopp

Phil Ivey

Steve Begleiter

Ludovic Lacay

Antonio Esfandiari

Tommy Vedes

Antone Saout

Ben Lamb

(Addendum: I must admit to the success of my endeavor, as the thoughtless selection of the nine chip-leaders led to my winning the media pool; however, not without a four-way, six-level tiebreaker.)

Entender para atender

Olá amantes da arte!

Entender para atender! Esse é o conceito mais apropriado quando se usa o marketing como ferramenta a fim de desenvolver qualquer negócio. Entender as reais necessidades de consumo das pessoas, e criar soluções práticas e inteligentes para atender esses anseios.

Certamente quando falamos em marketing, devemos estar atentos para outras centenas de conceitos e ferramentas que nos ajudarão a vencer a concorrência! Vocês sabem o que significam os 4P´s do marketing? Pois bem. Darei ênfase a isso. Os 4 P´s, nada mais são do que o estudo: Preço, Praça, Produto e Promoção de qualquer produto ou serviço disponível no mercado. Eles são uma importante ferramenta para o bom desenvolvimento de qualquer plano de negócio vencedor!

Em se falando de tatuagens, não podia ser diferente.

A variável preço, a meu ver, é uma das mais complexas. Não existe uma regra para “preços” de tatuagem. Uma tatuagem no norte pode ser R$500,00 e a mesma arte no sul pode chegar a R$2.000,00. O que eu gostaria que as pessoas entendessem é que essa variável é muito subjetiva. Sempre que se fala em arte de um modo geral, o que determina o preço são fatores como: Quanto tempo o profissional está no mercado, seu profissionalismo, suas credenciais e cursos, sua fama, seu carisma, sua disponibilidade, a forma como trata o cliente, etc...

Ao falarmos da “Praça”, estamos nos referindo especificamente ao ponto onde iremos atuar! Bem, não gosto de enxergar isso como um problema, pois aprendi que os melhores artistas serão sempre os melhores, independente de onde ele faça sua arte! Muitos tatuadores, por exemplo, tatuam em casa e são excelentes profissionais. Assim como existem outros que não dispensam uma loja bem localizada, num bairro onde se tenha comércio, escolas, faculdades, bancos, farmácias, mercados, etc...Em fim, um bom ponto ajuda, mas o profissional grita a diferença.

O produto é o “encanto”. É o que esperamos num final de uma sessão de horas de trabalho! Uma tatuagem bem feita traz felicidade, confiança, melhora a auto-estima e o que é melhor: Traz mais clientes. Temos o produto (que é a arte em si, tatuada na pele, assim como o piercing) e temos também o serviço (que é algo intangível, ou seja, algo que não podemos tocar, é simplesmente perceptível).

Não existe receita para uma boa tatuagem. É necessário harmonia! Harmonia entre as idéias do profissional e os anseios do cliente. Tratar o cliente bem, ter uma boa conversa antes do início dos procedimentos e captar ao máximo suas vibrações, certamente vai fazer com que o produto final supere as suas expectativas! O sorriso do cliente no final é sempre a melhor parte!

E por fim, a promoção ou aspectos promocionais devem ser levados em conta. Isso ajuda a divulgar o artista, e enriquece o seu trabalho. As promoções podem ser criativas e inovadoras. Isso ajuda a roupagem do negócio e atraí clientes. Exemplos: recebimento de cartões de crédito como forma de pagamento, cartão de fidelidade, fotografias para o site, sorteio de tattoo´s e piercings, etc... É onde podemos brincar com as possibilidades gerando receita para o profissional e satisfação ao cliente.

Rodrigo Carvalho - Salvador

The 6,495th Player

[Content Disclosure: a wee bit of math]

Monday Prologue: (An autographed copy of Check-Raising the Devil to the first reader who correctly identifies the seminal theme of this impending post. All intelligent guesses and most wild speculations should be made in the comment section below. Decision of the judges will be semi-final. Duplicate correct or partially correct answers will participate in a run-off drawing overseen by an intelligent female poker commentator, who does not show cleavage on camera. Full post with brilliant analysis and cogent quips will go up in twenty-four hours.)

(some fine guesses were submitted but none hit the mark.)

The 6,495th Player

I am going to go with some hard facts today. Hard from the perspective that they are grounded in solid, empirical mathematical theory and "hard" in that they may shake your faith in the list that reads: Eastgate, Yang, Gold, Hachem, Raymer . . . Moss, Moss.

Here is my thesis: If a 6,495th player had been allowed to register for the main event this year, the members of the November Nine who will be determined tomorrow night would be different. And the eventual WSOP champion would be someone else, not the name we will all remember following Peter Eastgate. You see with all the skill versus luck conversation that goes on around poker, the mathematical facts are that if you add one more player or allow one less entry you drastically change how the fourteen days of the tournament play out. 

This additional player need not have been the 2,810th entry on Day 1D, nope a 874th player on Day 1B would have had the same effect with a different result. We are talking "pebble in the pond" math here. One more player means their initial table plays differently, breaks differently and players move throughout the tournament differently. One more 30,000 stack of chips is distributed throughout the Day 1 and then the Day 2 and the ripples grow. 

Surely it's easy to see if say we remove Ivan Demidov from last year's tournament. Take Sammy Farha out of the Moneymaker 2003 win, or Eric Seidel that year or David Williams or Steve Dannenmann those years. But the math tells us that it need not be a final table figure who doesn't register or a big name player who was left out in this year's Day 1D shutdown. One more or one less player in such a large field must inevitably change the tournament and the longer you play it out the greater the change.

One more entrant in Day 1C would not effect Day 1A or 1B or 1D or 2A, the effects begin immediately for 1C and then for 2B but Days 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and November each have magnified implications based on the extra runner. In fact, just a bit of extrapolation would lead us to the conclusion that one more or one less player on each of the Day 1's would mean no amount of math or analysis could lead us to any conclusion except that the November Nine would be nine completely different players than what we will see tomorrow night.

So the next time you get involved in the Luck vs. Skill argument. Remember this. Once you start playing the game, It's All Skill; but leading up the the biggest tournament in the world, it's all the luck of the draw and the ineffable math of big numbers in the registration queue.

Poker Mind In Depth Part XVIII: Finale

[Content Disclosure: Poker Mind In Depth series]

It's a wrap! No, not the main event; there are still 408 players with a bracelet dream still alive. But the 2009 WSOP run for Matusow, Negreanu and Hellmuth has come to an end. Phil busted last night with of all hands -- pocket aces. So I will wrap my "Poker Mind In Depth" series with a few thoughts.

First of all, thanks to three players who took the time to answer many not always easy questions. Not once in the past five weeks did anyone back away from a question or give me a lightweight response. In fact, several times one of the players did a second take when they thought they had not given a complete response to my questions. I appreciate that I was able to have access to the first three players on my wish list for this series, my only regret is that #4 was such a privacy pussy.

Yes, as some have asked, there is a potential book being considered. What would you think of a group of 12 or so top professional poker players being completely open and honest about the psychology issues they face in their poker lives and the compensations they make outside of poker to play the game? I have a partial line-up of interviewees in mind and an interested publisher but suggestions for additional players are welcome.

The WSOP is not over, so I will be shifting my emphasis for the next few days to other parts of the Amazon room and maybe a few places outside the main event. Thanks for following along, hope you enjoyed my series within the Series.

____________________

Previous posts in this Series:

Part XVII: Phil Hellmuth

Part XVI: Mike Matusow

Part XV: Daniel Negreanu

Part XIV: Mike Matusow

Part XIII: H.O.R.S.E. Controversy

Part XII: Daniel Negreanu

Part XI: Phil Hellmuth

Part X:   Mike Matusow

Part IX: Daniel Negreanu

Part VIII:  Phil Hellmuth

Part VII:   Mike Matusow

Part VI: Daniel Negreanu

Part V:  Phil Hellmuth

Part IV: Daniel Negreanu

Part III: Daniel Negreanu

Part II:  Phil Hellmuth

Part I:   Mike Matusow

Introduction to Series

Phil Hellmuth: Poker Mind In Depth Part XVII

[Content Disclosure: Poker Mind In Depth series]

Today is Day Four of the main event, with 789 players still in the hunt out of 6,494 starters; Phil Hellmuth sits in a very comfortable 75th place with 485,000 chips. As you may remember Phil made a deep run in last year's WSOP finishing 45th. Now we all know that predicting success based on a Day Four or even a Day Five position is folly. Chip leaders will come and go and disappear many more times in the next several days. So what makes 2009 different for Phil?

First, I want to say that catching up with Phil for any kind of in-depth session is really not in the best interest of his game right now. Phil can and does get incredibly focused each day before the event begins and I respect that focusing process. I can give you my observations based on Phil's play and some brief encounters.

This year, at least the main event, is different for Phil. He reports to being incredibly calm, which is a departure from his condition in the last five or six years at the main event. There is no doubt in my mind that this more low key approach is leading to better play. Not that with Phil's record he actually needs to elevate his game, but better is better, so why not. You will notice once the ESPN shows begin to run, there are no Hellmuthian blow-ups. Sure there is camera time, as someone wise once said: "You don't put me on the TV table to be quiet." But the 2009 version of Phil is really under a lot more control. He has been more aggressive in spots where he would have folded in previous years and yet I have seen four big lay-downs that saved him 50% or more of his stack. Very few players would not have gone broke in those four hands.

What does this mean for the next 3 days? Well, we all know that aces do run into kings and runner, runner, perfect, perfect suck-outs happen. No one has a clear path to the final table this early. About all we can say today, is that most of the field has a shot at the money, we will be "in the money" about midday today. 

What I can observe is that Phil is once again in position for a deep run in the main event. Once again! I will keep a close watch on him and we will have a Part XVIII & XIX to this series, if . . .

____________________

Previous posts in this Series:

Part XVI: Mike Matusow

Part XV: Daniel Negreanu

Part XIV: Mike Matusow

Part XIII: H.O.R.S.E. Controversy

Part XII: Daniel Negreanu

Part XI: Phil Hellmuth

Part X:   Mike Matusow

Part IX: Daniel Negreanu

Part VIII:  Phil Hellmuth

Part VII:   Mike Matusow

Part VI: Daniel Negreanu

Part V:  Phil Hellmuth

Part IV: Daniel Negreanu

Part III: Daniel Negreanu

Part II:  Phil Hellmuth

Part I:   Mike Matusow

Introduction to Series

Nominee: Best WSOP "At the Table" Story 2009

[Content Disclosure: Stranger than (poker) Fiction]

I got this story directly from the dealer involved, he verified the details and the pain involved. This is a WSOP main event tale, obviously from early in a day one session. Involved in the hand is a known, but not well known player, who has been efficiently building his stack against a very weak table. His opponent is a completely unknown woman, who has to this point demonstrated exactly zero poker skills. 

The pro flops top set (kings) with a unconnected board (K-5-2) and they manage to get it all-in with four bets. The betting did include the question: "How much can I raise?" The player turns over his top set, waits for the novice to table her lower set but instead the lady turns over 9-7 offsuit, no draw, none, period, zip, zero. Oh wait, there is a five on the flop, so she does have a double belly-buster straight draw. She proceeds to catch perfect (6)-perfect (8) for the straight.

As she stacks her chips, something she has clearly not done before; the player asks:

"Excuse me, did you win your seat online?"

She innocently replied: "No, mine was in a bag of Planter's Peanuts."

WSOP Final Table: Does Size Matter?

[Content Disclosure: Poker Minutiae]

Each year about this time I play with the idea that being the chip leader going into a final table actually means something. The question is: "How much does the chip lead add to your chances of taking down a tournament?" Just looking at the raw numbers here are the stats for the preliminary events at the 2009 WSOP.

Forty-eight preliminary events had data worth looking at. You have to throw out heads up and shootout tournaments and a couple of others where no one was watching closely enough to actually count the chip stacks when an official final table was reached. Here are the numbers for those 48 events:

What place did the eventual bracelet winner begin in?

12 times the eventual winner started in 2nd chip position

11 times the final table chip leader went on to win

10 times the winner started in 4th

 7 times in 3rd

 1 time the winner began in 5th and 1 time in 6th

 5 times the winner came all the way from 7th place

 1 time (James van Alstyne event #31) from 8th place

no one won an event from 9th place

Where did the chip leader finish?

11 times in first

14 times in second

 9 times in third

 4 times in fourth, 4 in fifth, 4 in sixth

 twice in eighth

no chip leader finished 7th or 9th

-11 out of 48, the chip leader managed to win it all.

-Jeffery Lisandro accounts for 3 of those 11; all three of his bracelets were won going in with the final table chip lead.

-Phil Ivey won his two bracelets this summer coming from 6th & 7th chip position.

In a strange statistical anomaly, the chip leaders who went on to win the bracelet were clustered in events #37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 48, 51 (also 16 & 20). Through the first 36 events you could have made a lot of money betting that the chip leader would finish second and the second chip leader would win the bracelet.