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Was following that NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship over the weekend in which Annie Duke ended up surviving six heads-up matches, including winning two of three against Erik Seidel in the finals, to capture the $500,000 first prize. I said on Friday that despite the relatively fast, made-for-TV structures for most of the matches — as well as the inherent luck involved in any given heads-up match — “anyone who manages to win… will have accomplished something noteworthy.”

That Duke won will probably further fuel debates over the relative significance of the event in terms of its measure of poker skill. Of course, anything involving Duke tends further to fuel debates in the poker world.

The fact is, besides now being known by many as a reality TV star, Duke is a highly accomplished poker player. Just looking at her WSOP record, it’s kind of amazing. She has 38 total cashes for over $1.12 million (I think the WSOP site is missing one, her cash in the 1995 Main Event), 15 final tables, three runner-ups, and one bracelet (the $2,000 Omaha/8 event in 2004). All in open events, incidentally, and in a wide variety of games (no-limit hold’em, limit hold’em, Omaha/8, stud, stud/8, and pot-limit Omaha).

Of course, Duke’s biggest win in terms of career earnings was that $2 million score for winning the 2004 Tournament of Champions event, which, like the NBC Heads-Up event, was a tourney she was invited to play. In fact, only ten players were invited, and while Duke outlasted a genuinely tough field (Hellmuth, Lederer, Chan, Raymer, Brunson, Negreanu, Ivey, Cloutier, and Reese), some have downplayed the significance of her having so significantly boosted her total career tourney winnings in this single-table freeroll.

So I think there is probably a bit of prejudice already in place to downgrade Duke’s triumph this weekend. Interestingly, two articles turned up on Sunday — before Duke had won — that differently addressed the significance of the event. One was a piece over on Casino City Times by Gary Trask with the headline “NBC Heads-Up event held in high regard by poker pros.” The other was a blog post by Daniel Negreanu in which he rated the “World’s Top Ten Toughest Tournaments.”

At first glance, the articles may appear to share a common focus — namely, to highlight those tourneys the top players hold in “high regard” as genuine achievements if one wins. Indeed, Negreanu’s article does provide a somewhat thorough ranking of tourneys’ “toughness” according to three primary criteria: strength of field, structure, and field size. While his list certainly invites debate — e.g., ranking the WSOP Main Event as the sixth-toughest tourney and putting a couple of yet-to-be-played events at the top of his list — it is clear Negreanu is focusing mainly on how well the events test players’ tourney skills.

The Casino City Times article rather focuses on other factors affecting players’ “high regard” — namely the enjoyment they get from participating, the fun of competing (and earning bragging rights with friends/colleagues), and the intangible benefits of succeeding in a high-profile, televised event.

Trask quotes Phil Gordon noting how “we all want to play in it” and how “the fact that it’s a heads-up, one-on-one match really brings the whole ego thing into the equation.” However, Gordon recognizes how the tourney may rate lower on a “toughness” scale such as the one Negreanu put together. “[W]e all realize that when it comes right down to it, this is a crapshoot,” says Gordon. “There’s just so much luck involved in a one-time heads-up match.”

Negreanu does mention at the end of his list how the NBC Heads-Up event’s fast structure necessarily eliminates it from consideration as one of the “toughest” tourneys. But the question remains of how to rate the achievement of someone who does win the event. As an NBC Heads-Up champ, Duke joins a list of other highly accomplished players — Hellmuth, Forrest, Wasicka, Ferguson, and Seed. Each enjoyed some good fortune along the way to win their titles, but such is true for all tourney winners to some degree.

I’ll stick to the idea that winning it is “something noteworthy,” though doubt Duke’s win will necessarily up the NBC Heads-Up event’s status as an especially “tough” test for players.

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Well, it looks as though I might have overshot the 2010 Mastodon Weekend by about, oh, 675 miles or something. While others degen it up in G-ville, I am spending the weekend in West Palm Beach with Vera Valmore, attending with her a dressage competition. Will be, I imagine, a marginally less intense time these next couple of days here in southern Florida, although I have to say I’m very glad to be able to get away with Vera like this.

So far Florida is not the sunny, pleasant place we were hoping to find, but rather chilly and uncomfortably windy. Vera is getting to see some excellent rides, though, including some by Olympians and other top competitors in the sport.

Meanwhile, since I have found myself in a state that actually has live poker, I have already taken the opportunity to play a bit.

Gonna save the live poker report until Monday. I have made one quick (and happily profitable) trip to the Palm Beach Kennel Club thus far. May or may not get to play again — we’ll see. Was an interesting session, though, that included a couple of semi-interesting and/or memorable hands. So, like I say, I will share a bit about it early next week.

Setting that aside, though, since poker-wise we’re all mostly preoccupied with that NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship that kicks off this afternoon. Last night a draw was held to determine the brackets. Funny to read all of the tweets from all of the players, each of whom seems to have responded to his or her draw the same way: “Tough match!”

Here is how that draw wound up:

Clicking the image gets you to a better look. Or just go over to the NBC site and download it yrself.

Even with all of the special invites and other funny business surrounding the selection of folks to play, all four brackets look pretty tough. Once again, anyone who manages to win six matches — even with the relatively fast structures — will have accomplished something noteworthy, I think.

I wrote a preview of the event appearing over on Betfair today. I believe F-Train and the PokerNews folks will be providing coverage, so check that out if you’re interested (here is their live reporting page). Episodes will start airing later next month on NBC, continuing for six straight Sundays until the end of May.

Sheesh. That’ll be just in time for the start of this year’s WSOP. Already?

Enjoy the weekend, all.

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Cool first day at the Venetian yesterday for the start of the NAPT event. My sense at day’s end was that most everyone — players, tourney organizers, media — felt it more than met expectations.

As you’ve probably read elsewhere, the turnout was huge, with 872 players altogether, making the prize pool somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million. That meant 89 tables to start out. The Venetian Poker Room is already quite large, but only holds has room for about 40 tables, so there were tables set up all around the perimeter, filling every space there between the Poker Room and the Race & Sports Book, Noodle Asia, and the Casino.

I made it down early to get acclimated, and was glad to see Mad Harper (whom I last saw about 6,000 miles away in Kyiv, Ukraine) who helped get me oriented, as she helps everyone do at these things. Also glad to meet up with Garry Gates soon afterwards, with whom I’d worked the last two summers at the WSOP.

Brad, California Jen, and Joe (our photographer) had ourselves a nice spot from which to work, and once we got set up we were on our feet a lot, making the long circuit in and out of the tables. Had some more fun reunions while making that trek, including with Benjo, Gary Wise, F-Train, and Donnie Peters (who, by the way, final tabled one of the preliminary events at the Venetian).

Incidentally, those jokes the last couple of posts about my new computer were partially true — I am now writing on a MacBook Air which so far has worked like a charm. Still getting used to the basics, but as other Mac users have said time and again, the sucker is set up in a way that it generally isn’t too hard to figure out how to do what you want to do. The fast start ups and shut downs are pretty cool, too.

There was a little bit of talk here and there before things got going about the absent Team Full Tilt folks, but not a lot of attention to that story once the cards were in the air. Fact was there were plenty of big names there — including a lot Full Tilt pros, just none of the toppermost guys (and gal). Much more interesting to focus on who was there than who was not.

For a quick overview of Day 1, you can check out Brad’s wrap-up post which also has links to the live blog. Also check out the PokerNews’ reports for further details of the day.

The stacks were — as the “Deep Stack Extravaganza” name suggests — mighty deep, starting at 30,000 with 50/100 blinds and with a very gradual schedule of increases. So aside from a few bits of drama early on (e.g., Daniel Negreanu doubled up on one of the day’s first hands), it was slow going poker-wise for the first couple of hours. But things soon picked up and by day’s end the field was down 510. The plan is to be down to 24 by the end of Day 3 (Monday), though, so we’re anticipating a couple of long ones today and tomorrow.

Phil Hellmuth arrived at the start of Level 5 — the last possible moment, I believe — and was soon gone after somewhat stubbornly running his pocket queens into Eric Levesque’s pocket aces. Enjoyed hearing about that hand from Kathy Liebert (who was at the Poker Brat’s table), although Cali Jen had already been there to report it on the PS blog.

Speaking of Liebert, Jen and I have begun a new “He Said/She Said” column over at Woman Poker Player, and in the first one we separately discussed the issue of women and sponsorships in poker. The idea was partly suggested by some recent debates about the issue in the poker media, debates which invariably involve Liebert, the most successful no-limit hold’em player among women who doesn’t currently have a sponsorship. We’ve both been getting some nice feedback on those articles — here they are, if you are interested: He Said & She Said

Like I say, a nice start, and it’s only going to get more exciting as the tourney progresses. And I’m glad once again to be working with and alongside a bunch of talented and smart folks. Follow along over on the PokerStars blog for all of the latest.

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The 2010 World Series of Poker schedule has arrived. A little earlier than last time around, when we didn’t get the full slate of tourneys until late January. However, the year before that, the schedule for the 2008 WSOP did come about this time, if I recall (i.e., mid-December).

Sheesh, 2010. A little too science-fictiony, ain’t it? So tell me, are you planning to play in the WSOP this year? Will 2010 be the year you make contact?

Once again we’re looking at 57 bracelet events, matching last year’s record total. Friday, May 28th is the day everything gets started with the Casino Employees $500 No-Limit Hold’em event (No. 1) cranking up at noon. Then at 5:00 p.m that afternoon comes what is being called “The Player’s Championship,” a $50,000 buy-in event featuring the eight-game mix we’ve seen employed the last couple of years (i.e., Limit Hold’em, Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better, Seven Card Razz, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better, No-Limit Hold’em, Pot-Limit Omaha, and 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball).

This “Player’s Championship” — I can already tell I’m gonna start getting frustrated with that apostrophe being on the wrong side of the “s” — is the new version of the $50K H.O.R.S.E. event that has been part of the WSOP since 2006, with the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy going to the winner.

Curious, I suppose, to see the WSOP start things off once more with a high-dollar event (the most expensive of the 57). Last year many were critical of the decision to have that $40K NLHE event come at the beginning of the Series as it was thought it may have a negative impact on players’ ability to participate in subsequent events. However, only 201 entered that $40K event, and one would assume the turnout for this eight-game version (a.k.a., S.P.L.E.N.D.O.R.) will be substantially less, as the highest the $50K H.O.R.S.E. ever drew was 148, and only 95 entered last year.

Later in the Series will come a $25,000 buy-in Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event (Event No. 52) which should get a lot of attention, I’d imagine.

Also, as was the case last year, there will also be ten different $10,000 buy-in “Championship” events this time around. I’m seeing they aren’t calling them “World” championships on this schedule sheet as in past years. (I guess they already call it the World Series of Poker.) Those ten events will be in Seven-Card Stud (Event No. 10), Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split-8 or Better (Event No. 15), 2-7 Draw Lowball (No-Limit) (Event No. 19), Omaha Hi-Low Split-8 or Better (Event No. 25), Limit Hold’em (Event No. 29), Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em (with a 256-player cap) (Event No. 35), Pot-Limit Hold’em (Event No. 38), H.O.R.S.E. (Event No. 43), Pot-Limit Omaha (Event No. 55), and, of course, No-Limit Hold’em (a.k.a. the Main Event) (Event No. 57).

There are also five different $5,000 buy-in events, meaning that out of 57 bracelet events a little less than a third (17) will cost $5,000 or more to play.

On the other end of the bankroll spectrum, the WSOP has added a clutch of $1,000 buy-in events this time around. In addition to the Ladies Event (No. 22) and the Seniors Event (No. 34), there will be six different $1,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em events. I guess we’ll call those the Stimulus Not-So-Specials, since they’ll be coming about once per week throughout the WSOP. There are 19 different $1,500 buy-in events as well, meaning about half of the WSOP is made up of these low-end events.

Those low buy-in events will be stimulating the house, too, as the juice is a whopping 10% for all events with a buy-in of $1,500 or less (up a touch from the 9% held from those events last year.)

If you decided you wanted to enter all 57 events — in which case you’d necessarily be a female casino employee aged 50 or older — it would cost you a total of $267,500.

Rebuys are still out, although again there’s one of those “Triple Chance” events that sorta kinda pretends to be like a rebuy tourney. And apparently a number of these Omaha events have some add-ons as part of the deal (will have to investigate further). I’m counting 22 non-hold’em events overall (including the $2,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’em/Pot-Limit Omaha Event No. 33), down just a tad from the 24 non-hold’em events we saw in 2009.

All in all, the 2010 WSOP schedule looks a lot like the 2009 one. I haven’t really looked at the structure sheets (also released yesterday), but it appears the plan is again to go with “triple stacks” meaning players will begin with three times the buy-in in chips, and so I’m going to assume the structures haven’t changed much (or at all) from last year’s events.

Click here for the full schedule, including links to the structures and registration forms, too. Hard to believe the sucker is less than five months from now. Still seems like 2010 shouldn’t be so close. Sounds too far away, like Jupiter or something.

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Thoroughly enjoyed ESPN’s rapidly-produced, two-and-a-half hour repackaging of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event final table last night. Liked the features and rhythm of the thing. Thought Norman Chad had a few genuine zingers in there, adding to the fun. My favorite was probably when Steve Begleiter put in the first reraise in that infamous Hand No. 90 versus Darvin Moon, and Chad quipped “That’s a bit bet, particularly in this economy.” That was some good funny.

Did appreciate the extra half-hour, mostly taken up with the heads-up battle in which Joe Cada outlasted Darvin Moon. Actually by the very end of the show I was starting to feel like it didn’t really need to be much longer than it was. Perhaps having followed the action so closely as it happened made me less eager to see every hand again, but I think two-and-a-half hours of this sort of thing is probably plenty.

Liked the sportsmanship at the very end quite a bit. Also thought Phil Ivey came off as the coolest cat ever.

Was also thinking quite a bit during the show of the whole “luck-vs.-skill” contest once again, wondering now and then how it all might have appeared to those less familiar with what happened during the 364 hands and/or those who are less versed in poker, generally speaking. Did the selection of hands make it look like poker was a game of skill? Or did it come off as a drama-filled series of coin-flips in which chance ruled?

One of the most interesting aspects of poker, actually, is how difficult it is to say definitively whether in any given hand “luck” or “skill” prevailed. Outcomes are driven both by players’ actions and the cards dealt. In fact, two people watching (or playing) the same hand may likely come away with differing opinions about whether a hand was skillfully played or “played itself.” And it goes without saying that a person’s judgment is also highly influenced by his or her own poker-playing experience and knowledge.

I made a note last night of which hands were being shown. Of the 364 total hands, we got to see 32 on the telecast. Not going to rehearse all of the details of each hand here (you can read about them further on the PokerNews live blog), but here is a list with hand numbers and brief reminders of the action. You decide whether in each hand “luck” or “skill” seemed more important:

Hand No. 11 — Moon limp-reraises with from late position, forcing Schaffel to fold pocket nines in the big blind

Hand No. 14 — Ivey’s all-in shove with pocket kings forces folds from Cada (pocket tens) and Shulman (pocket fives)

Hand No. 44 — Akenhead survives going all in with K-Q versus Buchman’s A-K by spiking a queen on the river

Hand No. 45 — Moon’s crazy play with A-4 versus Saout’s sorta crazy play with J-2 in which the latter fortunately flopped two pair; “I messed up big time,” said Moon afterwards

Hand No. 53 — Cada’s loses a lot with versus Moon after flopping a flush draw, then not getting there

Hand No. 54 — Schaffel doubles up with pocket aces versus Akenhead’s pocket kings

Hand No. 59 — Akenhead eliminated when his 3-3 can’t catch up to Schaffel’s 9-9

Hand No. 68 — Schaffel eliminated with pocket aces versus Buchman’s pocket kings when a king flops, then Buchman makes quads on the turn

Hand No. 90 — Moon’s crazy flop fold getting 8-to-1 or something versus Begleiter (see discussion here); Moon did have , it turned out, and Begleiter (overs, straight outs, and nut flush draw); and did Moon tell his wife he had queens afterwards???

Hand No. 92 — Shulman folds pocket nines to Ivey’s all-in reraise with K-Q offsuit

Hand No. 106 — With ace-high, Ivey pushes Begleiter off his pocket sevens on the river after a scary group of community cards had arrived

Hand No. 112 — Ivey raises UTG with pocket jacks, Saout reraises from the button with pocket sevens, and Ivey folds (I believe this was the very last hand before the dinner break)

Hand No. 122 — Shulman takes a big chunk from Cada when his A-K outlasts Cada’s A-J

Hand No. 131 — Cada survives with pocket fours against Ivey’s

Hand No. 153 — Saout and Begleiter get all of the Frenchman’s chips in on an flop; Saout has the flush draw, and Begleiter a pair of eights; the flush comes

Hand No. 175 — Moon’s A-Q eliminates Ivey who had A-K after a queen flops; loved Ivey’s line when the turn brought a trey: “Close.”

Hand No. 187 — Moon again uses A-Q to eliminate Begleiter, whose pocket queens turned to mush after an ace came on the river

Hand No. 195 — Cada survives, spiking a set with pocket treys versus Shulman’s J-J

Hand No. 199 — Cada’s pocket rockets survive versus Moon’s K-9 offsuit

Hand No. 236 –Shulman eliminated when his pocket sevens lose race to Saout’s A-9

Hand No. 259 –Buchman wins a big chunk of Saout’s stack after heavy betting on a ten-high flop; Saout had a ten, but Buchman had the better hand with A-A

Hand No. 264 — Buchman loses a bunch back to Saout with A-Q versus the Frenchman’s A-K

Hand No. 271 — Moon () eliminates Buchman (), turning a king

Hand No. 272 — Cada survives, spiking a set with pocket deuces versus Cada’s Q-Q

Hand No. 276 — Saout eliminated with pocket eights versus Cada’s A-K after Cada rivers a king

Hand No. 277 — Moon slowplays pocket queens in first hand of heads up; ends up winning a decently-sized pot versus Cada’s 9-9

Hand No. 288 — Moon check-raises with air on flop, then turns a queen to make top pair, ends up getting Cada to call a big value bet on end

Hand No. 293 — Cada turns top two pair with and forces Moon to fold his fourth-best pair on the river

Hand No. 323 — Moon pushes Cada off of his A-Q with a preflop four-bet; Moon says “I had a monster,” but it was A-J

Hand No. 347 — Moon and Cada both have J-9 offsuit, but Moon’s aggressive betting gets him the pot on the turn

Hand No. 356 — With the board , Cada makes the big call with all of his chips with ; Moon has , and Cada’s hand holds up

Hand No. 364 — Cada wins the bracelet when his pocket nines outlast Moon’s

So what was your impression? Or your impression of how other viewers might have seen the show? Does poker look like roulette, or chess?

(Photos courtesy the great FlipChip, natch.)

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