The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a paper hat, a borrowed name tag and all the popcorn chicken you can eat out by the grease bins at the afternoon poker news Jack in the Box.
Got a tip for a future 3-Bet? Drop a note in the comments and we'll happily take a look.
Today in the 3-Bet we find one more quality entry in the great poker personality debate, Phil Ivey gets personal with the 2+2 Pokercast and why you'll never really make a great living playing only poker tournaments.
1) Hellmuth = Selbst, Timex = Ivey, Julius = Julius
We're diving back into the poker personality debate quickly today because of a great post by one of the most engaging and hilarious guys in poker.
Nope, not Allen Kessler. It's the UK's Sam "TheSquid" Grafton.
Responding to the Hachem/Negreanu/Galfond forays Grafton astutely points out that the problem isn't a "lack" of personality in the younger generation at all - it's how those personalities are perceived/presented. An excerpt:
"The point I'm trying to make is that the stars of a decade ago didn't have traits that were somehow more marketable than those of the current generation. It's simply that their behaviour isn't being processed by the media in a different way.
"We made a hero out of Phil Hellmuth being fiercely competitive, supremely talented and occasionally petulant - does this not sound like Vanessa Selbst? Phil Ivey was intimidatingly robotic at the table whilst turning out results with unfathomable consistency - could this not be Mike McDonald?
"We have Kyle Julius, Tim Adams, Jake Cody, Melanie Weisener (sic). These guys are huge characters and if this not being conveyed to the public it's a failure of the poker media and the site's marketing departments, not that of the player."
An excellent point - to which we say, we're trying. And also: have you seen our Easy Game mini-documentary series?
2) Phil Ivey Gets Social (and it's Awesome)
We've dabbled a bit on IveyPoker since it launched and checked out some of the videos available and, on first impression, have to say it looks like it'll be a pretty great/fun resource when it's fully up to speed.
In the interim, though, it's providing an even more fascinating side benefit - more quality time with Phil ivey.
At the end of the day if you launch a "social" training site centered around teaching people how to play poker and sharing the joy of the game, you have to start being pretty social yourself - something Ivey's not always been known for.
But more and more he's opening himself up to the media/cameras and the results have been pretty pleasurable. His latest effort? An extended interview with the always great 2+2 PokerCast, hosted by Adam Schwartz and Mike Johnson.
Calling in from Australia shortly after taking down the $250k LK Boutique Challenge Phil talks about being "Phil Ivey," the biggest poker action moving from Vegas to Macau/London, demoralizing Joe Cassidy on the golf course to the tune of $200k and more.
Listen to the full interview on the Pokercast.
3) Want to Make $60k/yr Playing Live Tournaments? Good Luck
The writing's been on the wall for a couple years now, given how much the average poker player has improved, but if you're still thinking about making the leap to being a full-time live tournament pro you might want to read this first.
Poker tourney grinder Darrel Plant (inspired by a Bryan Devonshire column in CardPlayer) did some heavy number crunching to figure out just what kind of ROI/minimum wage is possible for the average live tourney pro today.
The title of his piece posted today on Deadspin, "Why You'll Never Make a Living Playing Live Poker Tournaments," should give you an idea of his conclusion. The crux of the crunching:
"To make $60K with a 25% ROI, you need to play tournaments with a combined buy-in of $240,000. Nearly a quarter of a million dollars of buy-ins each year in order to make what is a little above average income in the US.
"If that sounds like a lot of money, it is. It's also a lot of poker playing. $240,000 of tournament entries per year is $20,000 of tournament entries each month, or about $5,000 per week for 48 weeks of the year (with four weeks off for good behavior). $1,000 per day, five days a week, if you want a weekend.
"The problem with that, as Devonshire alludes to, is that even Vegas doesn't have a daily schedule where you can seriously play $1,000 of tournaments."
It's a really great piece, if a little disheartening for some.
