AimlesslyChasingAmy

After spending all night at the Rio, BJ sneaks home for a breather.  He has to be back in less than two hours, but it’s his dog’s (Rhapsody) birthday.  In the media room, April pulls up a picture of her dog, Vegas, on her laptop.  Otis (shown above) steps away from the table at the MGM to call home.  His son says Dadda for the first time.  He returns to the table verklempt.  Maybe it’s because he has been more than a thousand miles away from his son for the better part of the month - or maybe it was that our mixed games were still in Razz rotation.  Pauly delights when I show him a link to view Celebrity Butt Cracks; a site I found by accident (honest) while looking for a picture of Paris Hilton’s butt (harder to explain).  He shows me some of his favorite porn links that get him through a day on the road.

As much as the blogging/writing road warriors of poker couldn’t miss covering the WSOP, the month and a half on the road takes its toll.  By now, most are home, trying to regain some normalcy and routine in their lives before they go out there and do it again. 

I spent a few hours at Barton Springs yesterday; hanging out in the chilly waters with the rest of Austin’s weird.  I also spent some time at “Barking” Springs next door - where every Austin labrador was enjoying a splash in the cool shallows.  I brought along Peter Alson’s new book, Take Me to the River.  I’m thoroughly enjoying this recount of his experiences at the 2005 WSOP - and not just because I’m mentioned three times.  I’ll write more about the book once I’ve finished it.  I also watched all my TIVO’d episodes of Entourage and Project Runway; two of my few television vices.  And yeah, it’s kinda bumming me that people have reported that the ethically challenged talent agent Ari Gold in Entourage was modeled after Jamie Gold.   

I did talk to Michael Craig briefly (which means less than an hour) about the final table dynamics and the pay-per-view coverage on ESPN.  We also discussed the concerns relative to the excess chips in play for the main event.  We discussed the mechanics of performing a worst case mathematical exercize to determine whether all could have been introduced in chip races.  If he wasn’t able to go through that yesterday, I may give it a shot sometime today.         

Reflecting on the ESPN pay-per-view coverage, I thought back to one of my favorite sports movies.  My top five sports movies (I have a separate category for poker movies) are:

1. Slap Shot

2. North Dallas Forty

3. Bang the Drum Slowly

4. Bull Durham

5. Tokyo Olympiad

Tokyo Olympiad is Kon Ichikawa’s documentary of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.  The dialogue is sparse.  The cameras drill down on the sport and the athletes - sometimes in slow motion with only an amplified soundtrack of feet hitting clay or escaping breath.  

I wish the ESPN unedited coverage of the WSOP final table used more of the power of visual over audio.  The dynamics of the final table were stunning.  The tension and drama ebbed and flowed throughout.  The players’ personalities were exposed.  But so much of that was diminished by the incessant commentary and pedestrian (and often times impractical) camera work.  Still, I would much rather view poker this way than any slick edited version with hole cards.

For ESPN’s maiden voyage into live unedited poker coverage, it wasn’t too bad.  There was one inexcusable gaffe when Richard Lee was all-in with his doomed pocket jacks and ESPN kept showing a graphic identifying him as Kim.  Kim was the only other Asian player who made the final table, but Kim had already busted out; leaving the impression that “they all look alike” to ESPN.    

I also have Jamie Gold’s father’s telephone number on my TIVO: probably not a wise camera shot, guys.

I’ll post some of my favorite pics from the WSOP soon….once I get my life back.