I will be invisible

My WSOP debut is coming up Thursday, so it has naturally been occupying a progressively greater portion of my thoughts as the big day approaches. Yesterday it occurred to me to check where in the Amazon Room I'll be parking my butt. I looked at the map of the room found in the WSOP Staff Resource Guide, and discovered that I'll be completely insulated from railbirds. I'm at Table 26, which, as you can see above, is against a wall. There's a corridor for passage between the table and wall, but it's ostensibly accessible only to players, staff, and media. It's just about as far as you can get from contact with the outside world.

This is good in the sense that it should help minimize distractions and thus improve focus. It's mildly annoying, though, in that there are at least a couple of people that I would be pleased to have nearby for easy chatting, pictures, or whatever. So I'm not sure on the balance whether to be happy or unhappy about it. Not that my preference would affect the draw anyway....

I had thought that Twittering updates would be verboten by the WSOP rules on electronic devices. But it's clear from spending any time at all either in the Amazon Room or just watching media reports as the tournament progresses that everybody is using Twitter, openly, shamelessly, and without comment or penalty from tournament staff.

Why the seemingly flagrant discrepancy? Well, a few days ago, in an interesting debate that arose in the comments to a Pokerati post on the subject, a couple of usually reliable and well-placed sources (specifically, B.J. Nemeth and Tim Lavalli) reported that WSOP organizers have made a deliberate decision to allow text messaging, as long as there is no indication that it is being used for collusion or other nefarious purposes. The decision was made after the 2009 rules had been finalized and published, which may explain the mismatch between theory and practice.

I am mostly in agreement with Shamus's rant on the subject here. They shouldn't have rules that routinely go unenforced, for all the reasons he lists. If they really have made an official decision to allow text messaging, but didn't have time to get it into the books, then at the very least they should make an announcement about it at the beginning of every event, so that all players are on equal footing with respect to knowledge of the rules.

But that controversy aside, the point is that I apparently will be able to Tweet to my heart's content. How much will it take to content my heart? That remains to be seen. I sure don't want to be distracted by the attempt to post meaningful 140-character compositions, or by any sense of pressure that people are waiting and I should post something. I'll just have to wait and see what it feels like at the moment.

I'm also acquainted with the PokerNews blogger that is assigned to my event (#24), so I may be able to get a hand or two out to the world that way--maybe even act as an unofficial and unpaid field reporter for my table for them. They kindly gave me time off from overnight wrapup writing both Wednesday night and Thursday, and will arrange for a substitute for subsequent days if I manage to hang in longer. Their accommodation is much appreciated, so trying to help them out a bit with passing on interesting observations is the least I can do in return.

For the most part, though, my plan is to take detailed notes of significant hands, and wait until the whole experience is over to write up a mega-post about the whole thing. Since nobody will be able to watch me, that's the next best thing, right?

And just in case I haven't said this enough (and I fear that I haven't), another million or so thanks to PokerListings for the tournament seat. It's an incredible, generous, and unexpected gift of an opportunity that I would not have purchased for myself in the foreseeable future, and I am deeply grateful for it. I'll make them the same offer as for PokerNews: Send somebody over to talk to me during the tournament, and I'll do whatever I can to feed you information. (I'm aware that I have a mildly awkward conflict of interest, with reason for loyalty to two competing poker reporting organizations, but I'll just have to do my best to help both of them out as I can.)



Completely unrelated to the above, except that I came across it in the comments section of the same Pokerati post, is this report about a touch of class from Phil Ivey:

Yan Chen looked at his cell phone and actually took a call at the table
when it was down to 3 players in the 2-7 tournament that Phil Ivey won. He said
it was about his kid’s doctor appointment and Phil Ivey told the dealer to hold
on and let him take the call. I have sympathy for the situation (if true), but
either have a rule and enforce it or get rid of the rule.

I think small gestures of compassion and kindness like this deserve a whole lot more attention than the rude, immature rants of Hellmuth and his revolting ilk, which are perversely the things that make television. And I disagree with the person reporting the story, in that I think it is good for us both individually and collectively to be willing to make small concessions to other people's needs, when the cost is so low.