The Party is Over

No, nothing annum horribilis. It was the end of the year for High Stakes Poker. A few may argue my call on annum horribilis that were getting their free buffet in the suite at the top of the South Point. That was one expensive buffet for several players. There was some great and not so great play. Helmuth was … well … HELMUTH. You never know whether to call security or day care for the golden one. Speaking of Golden, as in gold plated donk; there was Jamie Golds’ display of how to dump a big buyin without using a single bit of gray matter in the process. He seemed to be trying to dump a buyin and almost succeeded but failed and left with lunch money.

Negreanu showed up late but managed to dump about 60% of his buyin. One nice hand he bluffed well but did it against one of those French folks its hard to bluff. He almost pulled it off with a great comment on Frenchy’s holdings – calling KK when he held AA. As bluffs go, it was well done. If he’d watched Benyamine play on FullTilt, he might have reconsidered.

Antonio played the half-mil buyin. Played a pretty tight game which balanced the loose cannon approach of Sammy “Raisy Daisy” Farah. I doubt it is a Sunni vs. Shia thing but you never know. More North - South is my guess. Don’t more northern players tend to gamble more? We often think that but Patrick Antonius played a very sane cash game. There goes a whole collection of stereotypes in one paragraph.

Barry Greenstein and Doyle Brunson represented the old school. Barry lost a pot on a bluff where the player showed his tens. But, Doyle make a 7K prop bet with Benyamine that he was beat on the hand and that will get paid off. Barry had one of those days where your big hands don’t get paid off. It wasn’t his finest hour but it wasn’t for lack of skill in how he played it.

Doyle walked away a very nice winner which included the biggest hand of the show $800K. You kind of expect that. Not sure if you’d expect how spot on he could be with comments. His table talk really required close listening. He never tapped on the glass; but, if you paid attention, it was deadly without being mean.

TV is an imperfect media for viewing poker. It often isn’t the players or the shuffle but the video editor who defines what is seen. In this imperfect world, High Stakes Poker does as well as we might hope. I love the uncut version but that’ll never be. There is also the posturing for TV that happens when a poker player is ‘media savvy’ where Helmuth and Gold show us why you don’t want to trust the 6 o’clock news providing how you should think.

ADDENDUM:

Glenn and Felicia lost a friend named Truvy. We get awfully attached to our pets. She was fiesty right up to the end. And, giants come in a mix of sizes.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Journal, Poker Other. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.