The Beauty and Beast of Live Reporting From Online Poker Events
The year 2020 has certainly been different in many ways for almost everyone and while I was on the road for more than two-thirds of the year since 2015, that has all but changed. Fortunately, live reporting from poker events was still possible, albeit nearly exclusively during online festivals. With that, different challenges have emerged and I’d like to give a shot at explaining them and how to deal with them in the most efficient way.
Less Physical Movement — Faster Pace of Poker Action
During live poker events, I averaged more than 10,000 daily steps and that number is certainly out of reach when sitting in the office chair and starting at two or three screens for an extended period of time. But while the shuffle process at live poker requires a while, that is done instantly in the virtual arena and several multi-way hands could be completed in comparison.
The pace, in general, is ten times faster than in the live edition, and trying to stay up to that is near impossible. Instead, it becomes by far more important to carefully select which hands should make it into the live reporting and which ones can be left out or summed up in a reliable way.
To make up for the lack of physical activity, I have decided to always try and do at least two or three exercises in the scheduled breaks which usually last five minutes. More often than not, however, big hands take place right before that and this kills any spare time to do push-ups, squats, jumping jacks, or whatever comes to mind.
Oh my god, what the hell is that nickname?
While staring at the screens, an unusual alias will pop up regularly and immediately sends your head spinning. Whether or not that’s “!$eveeeeeeen!”, “1_conor_b_1”, “IlIlIlIliIIl”, “1123581321”, or “4!8!15!16!23”, there’s plenty of bizarre choices out there. If your brain can’t tell whether or not that’s seven times an e or you lose track of the order of numbers, they certainly don’t make the live reporting any easier.
Sure enough, database lists and copy-paste functions make it easy to quickly find the desired nickname, not having to type them every single time saves a lot of time. Trying to remember all publicly known aliases and their corresponding real names is yet another burning hoop to jump through for obvious reasons.
All live reporting we have done so far preferred the First Name “alias” Last Name on the first mention and last name for the remainder in the same post. The next time they get involved in a notable hand, it’s rinse and repeat and that continues until one known or unknown alias has accumulated all the chips.
partypoker has actually used real names for several of their online poker festivals this year including the WPT Online, which would have certainly been a treat to report on. It also made the live streams for all poker fans more exciting, and many success stories came out of it when players scored big after qualifying through satellites. GGPoker has also partly enforced real names for successful players on their network, however, no exact threshold has ever been revealed that would trigger this revelation process.
Software and Equipment Limitations
All major poker operators have come up with different solutions for their hand history and the option to follow the action as an observer, whether that means being logged in to an active account or not. On PokerStars, for example, you can watch up to 20 tables when logged in and their hand replayer is the best for live reporting needs.
For partypoker, only four tables can be watched at the same time and the hand replayer is only available to those who are actively involved in the hand. While you may have just started writing a very exciting hand that went to showdown, another two players have busted and there is no way of knowing how. One possible solution for that would be a screen recording software such as OBS but that’s yet another burning hoop to jump through.
Fast forward to GGPoker and the fastest growing online poker network on the market right now. While there is no replayer of sorts, the hand history is pretty decent and shows all the betting action. But that also includes any emojis used, which may require a few screenshots to have everything covered.
The major downside of the GGPoker client right now? As soon as the table breaks, the hand history for an observer vanishes into thin air. Sorry about that Fedor Holz, I know you busted but cannot pull up the details anymore. I have not reported any events on 888poker yet but word on the streets is the same disappearing replayer once the table closes.
Of course, one can only provide as many updates as possible based on the given circumstances. Not everyone has the option to add a second or third screen to the home office setup, or the money to purchase a majestic 49 inch super wide curved screen. In order to be able to provide as many updates as possible, I quickly bought a proper gaming chair for comfort and hooked up two screens to my work station.
It Always Helps to be Prepared
Compiling lists with known aliases is among the first steps to get ready for extensive online poker coverage. A quick search and the copy-paste function is an effective tool to get the job done within a few seconds, and memory will do the rest in order to remember those big names.
And the fewer tables remain, the better it is to come up with a “cheat sheet” in excel which you can place right next to the active tables. Those would usually be in seating order to update the respective chip counts in the next column. The file can also contain the payout structure for the headline and the final results chart.
As soon as one table breaks, you can move around the players to the open spots and balance everything. That way it can also be figured out in moments which elimination might be missing. After all, even in high-stakes tournaments, there can be incredibly hectic periods close to and right after the money bubble during which it’s easy to lose track.
The Advantages of Online Poker Reporting
Compared to live poker, there is no need to try and figure out if the player in question stacks in piles of 20 or not because the software will tell you the exact stack size at any given time. This comes in handy for the likes of Andrey Zaichenko and Kitty Kuo, who love to build large walls of chips and can be incredibly difficult to figure out.
Zaichenko, known under his moniker “Kroko-dill” on PokerStars, can run up or lose a stack both live and in the virtual arena but only in the latter you can always tell the stack size with certainty.
If you miss the bet sizing or the string of actions and arrive late, the software client will tell you immediately with a few simple clicks. Obviously, this is out of the question when running around like a headless chicken to try and find interesting hands in a field of hundreds of thousands of players during the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, for example.
No trip to the payout desk is needed to snap a picture of the handwritten payout sheet in order to determine the order of eliminations, as the main lobby will tell with one click.
The Draining Mental Aspect
While I have no trouble to try and follow 20 tables for any interesting action during a live poker event, the equivalent on the world wide web sends my brain into overdrive. Short five-minute breaks are not enough to recover and at the end of the night after more than eight hours of staring at the screens, there is a lot of emptiness.
I have never multi-tabled a lot in all of the years of being involved in the poker scene and have found a lot of admiration for those who can fire up 20 tables and keep grinding. That certainly involves making effective EV decisions on a consistent basis for potentially life-changing money, jumping back and forth between different events or high limit cash games where tracking software may not even be allowed anymore.
I don’t think I’d be able to do that for a living these days, maybe the old age is kicking in much earlier than suspected.
Time Zones and Disrupted Sleep Schedules
If there is one thing I learned throughout all the online events this year, it’s the fact that your sleep schedules can be heavily disrupted. Based in the Central European Time (CET) zone, most major events tend to kick off in the evening around 7–8 p.m. local time and a typical tournament day can last as little as a few hours (for a final table only) or as long as 12–14 hours (as experienced during the WSOP Circuit and WSOP Online on GGPoker).
The daily work duration is quite comparable to the live poker circuit where wrapping up past midnight has not unusual either. However, posting the final hands of the night while the sun is going up again doesn’t seem to be a lot of fun. Blacking out the curtains is certainly an option but the quality of the sleep cannot be expected to provide as much rest and recharge the body energy properly.
If I was to guess, only Asian-based poker pros or New Zealanders might be even worse off when the major events kick off in the middle of the night. American ex-pats based in Canada, Costa Rica, or Mexico have a tremendous advantage to start their daily MTT schedule during major online poker festivals after lunch and wrap up at a reasonable local time if they run deep.
Of course, there are also tournament festivals geared to the European market such as the Unibet Open on Unibet Poker or the UK-based Grosvenor Casinos, who moved their events to the virtual arena. But those are mostly focused on regional markets and don’t attract a wide international audience, nor do they require any live reporting.
The Importance of Nutrition and Fitness
During the early stages of the online poker coverage experience, I heavily relied on caffeine to get the job done, which obviously keeps one pumped beyond the end of the tournament and makes it more difficult to fall asleep. However, as a lesson learned, the coffee intake can also be limited and compensated by quick fitness exercises during the short breaks.
Beyond that, the overall readiness and own durability can also be improved with high-intensity workouts for 30–60 minutes prior to the start of the online sessions. I also made it a habit to do 30 push-ups and 10-15 squats while my coffee bean machine prepares a fresh cup to use the waiting time in a constructive way.
On top of all that, healthy nutrition improves the overall balance. Being able to prepare snacks in advance such as vegetables, salads, fruits and low-fat yogurts mixed with fresh ingredients all were a tremendous help in the last few months. It might not look sexy after all but gets the job done, and that’s really what matters during these weird, confusing and extraordinary times.
However, as a matter of fact, it would also be by far more difficult to consistently prepare healthy meals in a similar way during live poker events, so there’s that. Either way, being able to adjust to the circumstances is required at all times and that’s what usually makes the difference.