If a Deal Goes Unreported, Did It Really Happen?

[If you're unfamiliar with the mechanics of how deals are made at the end of major poker tournaments, read this post first.]

One thing I left out of yesterday's post that will be critical to today's discussion is precisely how and where deals are struck. For online tournaments, deals are struck in the chatbox of the final table, which is viewable by anyone who has opened the online poker client and is watching that particular table. For live tournaments, the players will typically go on a break and either negotiate (1) outside the stage area, if the tournament is being recorded for television; (2) a few feet away from the final table, as occurred at APPT Seoul; or (3) directly at the final table, as occurred at LAPT San Juan. With the exception of televised final tables, the deals are typically made "out in the open". Players at televised final tables have to be more discreet; it makes for bad television if players agree to a deal and take the drama out of determining who will be the winner.

Let's look at two deal examples from tournaments I've covered within the past few months.

At the APPT stop in Seoul, South Korea, a deal was reached when two players remained in the tournament -- Hidenari Shiono and Yoshihiro Tasaka. They set aside a chunk of money to play for, then chopped the rest of the prize money right down the middle. The deal was reached approximately three feet from the final table, in full view of the gallery, and was partially brokered by a Japanese-speaking member of the PokerStarsBlog team.

When only Ryan Fee and Joel Micka remained in the LAPT tournament that took place in San Jose, Costa Rica, Fee and Micka decided to look at the numbers that might be involved in a deal. Although I do not remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, I believe they agreed to do a straight chip-chop, setting aside a big chunk of money to play for in addition to the trophy and the title. The deal was reached with both players sitting at the table, in full view of and audible to the gallery. Tournament Director Mike Ward ran all the calculations necessary to come up with the final figures.

How were these deals reported by the tournament reporters on site?

APPT Seoul

PokerNews: "After a pause in play for discussions between Hidenari Shiono and Yoshihiro Tasaka, heads-up play re-commenced."

PokerStarsBlog: "After a short delay, we're heads-up for the PokerStars.net APPT Seoul main event title, and assured of a champion from the Land of the Rising Sun."

PokerListings: [no discussion of deal at all; not even veiled references to a deal.]

LAPT San Jose:

PokerNews: "The clock is paused, and the players are taking a quick unscheduled break. We expect to be back very soon."

PokerStarsBlog: "You might have noticed a slight slowdown here. That's because Joel Micka and Ryan Fee took a short break to cut a deal. Though the exact terms of the agreement were not publicly disclosed, the players did a chip-chop deal and left a big chunk of money on the table for which to play."

PokerListings: [no discussion of deal at all; not even veiled references to a deal.]

Now contrast the reporting of those deals with any of the reporting of WCOOP Events that took place on PokerStars in September. Reporters were instructed that all deal discussions should be made part of the "recap" posts, and that payouts in the recap posts should be adjusted to reflect any deal. Check out the recap for Event #18, $215 H.O.R.S.E., for an example. The deal discussions also made the live-blog for that event: "9:00am-- Thanks to the pleasant host we have a deal! Sensor $51,421.66; LittleRedElf $47,797.46. Since the money is sliced up, time to hunt for the glory. $6,000 and the 2008 WCOOP Event #18 bracelet is on the line for the winner."

I can tell you without a doubt that the policy of PokerNews is not to report on deals. That also seems to be the case for PokerListings, while PSB reports deals for online tournaments -- presumably because they are struck "out in the open" -- and tends not to report them for live tournaments.

Yesterday's post and today's post were just the set-up pieces. Tomorrow I'll (finally) get into the whys and wherefores of all of this. For now I'll ask this question. Why do you suppose each of these major tournament reporting outfits chooses not to publicize tournament deals?

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The Basics of Chopping a Tournament

Anyone who's been around tournament poker long enough knows that deals are often made at the end of major tournaments. What that means is that the players who haven't yet been eliminated (I've seen deals discussed with as few as two players remaining to as many as 18) will agree amongst themselves how to divide the remaining prize pool, rather than play out the rest of the tournament according to the published prize schedule. The typical player incentive for agreeing to enter into this type of deal is that the blinds have become so large -- as a function of the total chips in play -- as to make luck a much larger determinant of the winner of the tournament than poker skill. Agreeing to a deal takes the luck component completely out of the equation, and instead lets the tournament play to that point serve as the determining factor regarding which players take home more money, and which take home less.

Although these tournament deals come in all different flavors, it is not uncommon for players to "chip chop". In such a scenario, each remaining player is guaranteed the amount of money that he would receive if he was the next player eliminated. After deducting that amount for each player from the prize pool, the remainder of the prize pool is allocated according to each player's percentage of the total chips in play. He is awarded his "chip equity" of the remaining prize pool.

To give an example, a recent APPT tournament awarded a prize of approximately $310,000 for second place, and $650,000 for first place. That is a significant difference. Although no deal was struck in that tournament, if for some reason that last two players remaining had agreed to chip-chop, each player would have received $310,000 as a base amount. Next, assume the chips were split 60%/40%. The player with 60% of the chips would additionatly receive 60% of the remaining $340,000 ($204,000) for a total of $514,000, and his opponent would receive 40% of the remaining $340,000 ($136,000) for a total of $446,000. This balances the prize pool in favor of the player with the chip lead and takes out the luck component in either player winning, or missing out on, an additional $340,000 in prize money.

Sometimes players do a modified chip-chop, with one player taking an additional base amount before paying out all players based on their chip equity. That's where negotiation and persuasion skills come into play. In a multi-way deal, a hold-out player can often leverage the desire of his opponents to make a deal into a bigger payday for himself than his chip equity would otherwise dictate. That's because all remaining players must agree to all facets of a deal in order to implement it. Otherwise there's no deal, and the tournament plays on.

If this all seems overly basic to you, that's ok. I just want to set out the general mechanics of a tournament chop, so that everyone understands what I'm talking about, before tackling some issues regarding chops (although probably not the issues you expect me to tackle). Tomorrow.

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Christmas Came Early

January was looking a bit thin of work. LAPT Chile with one of the many functioning alcoholics I know was locked up. Something else that was up in the air had come crashing to the ground with an underwhelming thunk. That was the sum total of what I had been able to line up.

Then one thing led to another (and here I believe I thank a blogger who lives about 300 miles southwest of me) and SHAZAM! This past Sunday, four weeks of work fell in my lap. It meant I had to back out of a commitment -- something I try never to do -- and cancel LAPT Chile, but I'll be in Melbourne from January 8-27 and Manila from January 27 - February 2.

I've spent a substantial amount of time on the road the past four months. I've got it at 58 days away, 61 at home. This will be my longest stretch yet, eclipsing the two and a half weeks I spent in Macau. Thankfully Melbourne is full of friendly faces (one example) and Manila is dirt cheap. And they're both full of hottie Asian ladies. I think I'll be fine.

Thanks, Sandy Claws.

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Are You CEREUS?

If you play online poker, you're aware that there have been some... problems... at AbsolutePoker and UltimateBet. You're also probably aware that those two sites recently merged into some uber-entity called CEREUS. It would seem that the merge has not gone as smoothly as AP/UB would have hoped. 2+2 gives us the following thread:

Hellmuth has worse hand but pot gets shipped to him anyway

Cliff notes: Playing heads-up $200-$400 limit hold'em, Phil Hellmuth calls down with 2s-10s on a board of Js-Kc-Kh-2h-9c, gets shown Kd-Qh, and somehow collects the pot despite tabling the second best hand.

UltimateBet's COO, Paul Leggett, posted the following to the UB Blog today:

Earlier today we learned about a poker hand where our system paid out the losing player instead of the correct winning hand. The hand number is #1162170993.

We are investigating this software malfunction as our absolute top priority.

This is the first incident of this kind we have encountered.

We are currently examining the poker system and the application logs in order to pinpoint the cause of this malfunction.

Not exactly confidence-inspiring, is it?

It's odd that Leggett chooses not to acknowledge that the losing player is one of the paid spokespeople for the site. I don't believe anyone would be stupid enough to cheat in this way, but given their recent problems, and by not acknowledging the well-known fact that Hellmuth was the recipient of the mis-awarded pot, UB/AP/CEREUS look like they're trying to hide something.

This isn't the first time a site has mis-awarded a pot. There have been problems in the past with non-hold'em games on sites like BetFair and AbsolutePoker. It does seem to be the first time it's ever happened in hold'em, which could just make it another curious footnote in the strange tale of UltimateBet.

Time will tell.

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A Moment of Self-Reflection

This above all: to thine ownself be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
--Polonius, from Act I, Scene III of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

The WBCOOP is in full swing on PokerStars. I've played in four of the five qualifiers, cashing in two (PLO8 and Eight-Game Mix), not making much of a splash in one (PLO) and donking out in the other (NLHE). There was no excuse for my play in NLHE. Despite running KK into AA and QQ into KK, I would have been in a position to make a deep run but for a completely indefensible play against Obie.

The result of these qualifiers is that I've put in about ten hours of play this week. Not a huge amount by any stretch, but it's allowed me to acknowledge a few truths about myself and my game. I've written about this before (although I'm too lazy to look for the link); when writing a blog, it's so easy to gloss over the donkey plays and highlight the plays that make us look brilliant. That's basic human nature at work. Our egos can't tolerate having people think anything but the best of us, and after all it's so easy to say "The donkey bad-beated me."

Yet the road to self-discovery and improvement in poker lie from taking a harsh look at all the boneheaded plays we make and making painstakingly accurate evaluations of our skills on the whole. What follows are some observations about myself and my game. Maybe you'll recognize some of them in yourself.

* I tilt more playing online than I do live.

I can easily become "the cranky old man", according to CK, when playing online poker. I acknowledge this. It has always been my weakness playing online. I think it has something to do with the speed of play and the fact that nobody's watching.

* I tilt less playing tournaments than I do playing cash games.

Not sure why this should be so, but it is. Possibly because cash games represent actual money which has evaporated through my bad play or a lucky play against me, whereas in a tournament I'm in it until I'm out. The chip and a chair mindset, if you will -- as long as I have chips, I believe I can win the tournament.

* I am a shitty short-handed player.

I had a few forays into the land of 6-max $5-$10 limit hold'em a few years back. I was ill-equipped and frankly am still ill-equipped.

* I have excellent poker instincts and my reading abilities have improved. Unfortunately, I often do not trust either one.

See recent example from Venetian blogger deep stack tournament. Despite putting Derek on QQ or air, I was unable to let go of my hand.

* Measured against myself, I am a better player than I was in January 2005, the point at which I stopped playing high volumes of online poker. Measured against the rest of the poker world, I am a worse player than I was in January 2005 because I have not improved nearly as much as the rest of the world has (mainly through my own inaction).

This is where I really missed the boat. I let one bad streak at $15-$30 LHE on Party Poker back in the day completely sour me on online poker for a stretch of almost two years. In that time, it seemed like everyone else decided to crack open a book.

One downward streak of ninety big bets is normal variance in limit poker. Nobody likes being a loser, but poker requires that you accept losing as part of the game. It is impossible to win every time. I still have trouble with that concept. (See also, entries on tilt.)

* There are still games where I believe I have an edge over the field.

There's only one way to prove that this isn't just wishful thinking: put in the volume and evaluate the results. We'll see if that happens.

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Let It Snow...?

All this hubbub over a few measly inches of snow. You'd think we'd been buried under four feet, not four inches. I admit that I had to catch my breath when CK and I drove to get some things from the store today. If I had brought a camera with me, this is the photo I would have taken:

A sight you'll probably never see again.
Those are the mountains to the south and east of the Vegas valley, towards Henderson. The photo is part of today's post from VegasRex (I don't recommend reading it -- too long, not all that interesting) and was taken by him.

In other news, I qualified for the WBCOOP Final yesterday, placing in the PLO8 tourney. Then promptly slept through today's early NLHE session. 8-game mix tomorrow. Weeeeeee.

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Housecleaning

The sun sets on the last tournament of the year in Sydney, Australia.
Covering poker tournaments for the last six months has helped refine my poker instincts -- the ability to intuit what the proper decision is from the limited information available in any particular hand. My instincts have always been somewhat decent, but careful observation of scores of poker players during the last six months has improved them. The problem is that since I haven't been playing much poker, my ability to trust those instincts is very rusty. And really, what good are instincts if you don't trust them?

[Yes, this is me berating myself for not being able to lay down Ah-Qc on a board of As-3c-6d-Qd in a deep stack tournament when I felt there was a strong possibility the other guy was on Qh-Qs.]

Housecleaning and arranging is my primary task right now. CK and I just changed houses in Las Vegas, from a 1400sf rental with someone else's furniture to a 2500sf rental with our own. Boxes are everywhere. It may be a few days before I return to regular posting. I will be enjoying the sounds of three inches of snow melting off our roof in the interim.

Welcome to life at 3200 feet above sea level.

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LAPT Mexico Mired in Quicksand

LAPT Mexico kicked off earlier today in Nuevo Vallarta, Mexico with 232 players in the field. Towards the end of the day the tournament was suspended due to an inquiry by federal police. Details of what exactly went on are murky, but it looks like a shakedown by some folks who either didn't get a cut of the "licensing fees" or felt they didn't get a big enough cut. We've been told to expect a statement from the LAPT some time later today, but I'm guessing it will be sparse of cold hard facts.

The tournament was stopped late on Day 1. 89 players remained when federal cops shut everything down. Not only did they shut everything down, but the entire room was cleared -- players, media, dealers and all tournament staff. There is no way to confirm who was sitting where, or what any individual player's chip count was at the time of the shutdown.

Pretend you're LAPT President Glenn Cademartori or LAPT Tournament Director Mike Ward. Assume that play will not be able to resume as scheduled tomorrow. What would you do with the prize pool? How would you resolve this situation?

None of the choices are particularly appealing; most are downright impossible. You can't divide the prize pool by chip equity, and you can't complete the tournament online, because there's no way to confirm the chip counts. You can't divide the prize pool equally among the remaining 89 players, even though it would be the most most equitable solution, because you can't confirm who was still in and who was out when the room was cleared.

You could offer to re-run the tournament at another time, but there's no guarantee that the people who have entered will be able to set aside whatever block of time is required to attend a re-run (and they may not want to pay travel expenses again, anyway). Those people would be upset unless they were offered a full refund of their buy-in. A re-run would also be unfair to the 89 players left in the tournament, since their tournament equity is non-zero, whereas the 143 who busted before the cops busted in have zero equity.

It would seem that the only thing that can be done is issue a refund to anyone who entered. That's sure to anger the players who hadn't busted before the tournament was suspended. If play doesn't pick back up tomorrow, it will be an ugly mess for the LAPT.

Either way, this shakedown (assuming that's what it is) is a black eye for the LAPT and will certainly hurt the tour's reputation. It's a fair bet that there will not be any further LAPT Mexico events. Sad to say that although this turn of events was unexpected, it's not entirely surprising. Everyone knows Mexico is a shady, shady place that's full of corruption.

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Lighten Up, People!

I've finally got thirty minutes, but I feel it's been so long since the 60 Minutes and the Washington Post stories on the AP / UB cheating scandals were released that nothing I can say is going to feel all that fresh. I'll give it a brief whirl anyway.

I don't understand what all the doomsaying from certain sides is about. The pieces were fair encapsulations of what went on although has been pointed out on numerous sites, Todd Witteles' closing comments on 60 Minutes were unfortunate. Now we have to see what, if anything, will happen as a result of the stories. I'm putting my money on "not much". There are always bigger legislative fish to fry than online gambling, but right now that's doubly or triply true. The economy is in shambles and will remain at the fore of all legislative efforts for at least a year. (Side bar: I become angrier and angrier every time I read a story which makes a bailout of the auto industry more likely.) Unless another crusader seeking points with a sliver of the electorate makes online gambling a pet issue, I suspect the murky legal status quo of online gambling, including online poker, will remain as is.

Some participants in this passion play can't find the real issue if it bit them in the ass. I refer to an excellent post by Short-Stacked Shamus regarding Mason Malmuth's recent appearance on the Two Plus Two pokercast as one example. But that's typical of the poker industry as a whole -- Chicken Little doesn't hold a candle to most of the major players.

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Sydney Update

Been here three days.
Consumed roughly twenty beers.
Got thrown out of a bar two nights ago. There was some shoving, but no punches thrown.
Found something better than Asian girls -- Asian girls with Aussie accents.

Unfortunately, the internet in my hotel room has been on the fritz. I haven't had as much time to follow up on the 60 Minutes piece, and write up a few personal blog thoughts, as I would like.

I'll be back from Sydney on Wednesday, December 10, just in time for the WPBT festivities to kick off on Thursday. See you all soon.

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