The Poker Moth

First of all, if you’ve googled for “who is Seda1?” and found this, apologies. I haven’t a clue. Tracy McGrady, or Michael Jordan, or Jay-Z, or Nelly, or Tiger Woods, or Barry Greenstein, or Andy Beal, or someone else entirely. Although it’s surely not Barry G, or even Andy Beal, because the guy cannot play to save his life. And it’s probably not Tracy McGrady, because T-Mac was on court against Cleveland while supposedly dropping over a million dollars to Phil Ivey on Tuesday night.

For everybody else, welcome to the world’s greatest car-crash viewing, the poker rubbernecker’s paradise, the show that makes High Stakes Poker look slower than a very slow… oh, wait. HSP is slower than etc. ANYWAY. I am referring to the “nosebleed” stakes NLHE, PLO, PLO8 and PLHA action on Full Tilt.

At the eye of the storm, there’s Phil Ivey. Full Tilt have set up two tables especially for him; there’s a $500/$1000 heads-up NLHE table (called Ivey Deathmatch), and if that wasn’t sick enough, there’s also a $500/$1000 heads-up PLO table, (Ivey Thunderdome), with a maximum buy-in on either table of a standard 100BBs, ($100,000, in other words). These games have to involve Ivey, it seems, so when the other nosebleed players want to throw money at each other, they have to play lower stakes; in Pot Limit Omaha, that means $200/$400 (heads up or six-handed), while the upper limit is $300/$600 for heads up NLHE. and PLHA (Pot Limit Hold’em/Omaha). PLO8, being a split pot game, gets the full $500/$1000 treatment, (although it’s less popular than the others). It’s enough to make your eyes bleed, never mind your nose – to take the somewhat meagre sounding $200/$400 PLO action, that’s currently averaging at $9704 a hand, and 70 hands an hour. $700k changing hands every hour. On the big Ivey tables, 200k pots are fairly commonplace, and 400k pots have already occurred. It’s only a matter of time before the record for the biggest pot in online poker history ($465,451) is broken.

Who’s brave enough to get involved in this madness? Gus Hansen and Erick Lindgren are the only FT pros to regularly swim in the 200/400 games, with Patrik Antonious playing less regularly, but higher, and the likes of Mike Matusow, John Juanda, and a handful of other red-inks occasionally stick their head out at these levels. Few players (and no red-inked names) venture as far as Deathmatch and Thunderdome. The notable names who do are mainly obscure internet pros; the best are Ziigmund and “Durrrr”, the former a very strong Finnish player, the latter an extremely aggressive 2+2 forum regular who’s been known to take multitabling to ridiculous new levels by playing eight or more of the 200/400 and 300/600 games at once. He appears to do rather well, too.

And then there’s Seda1. No-one but Phil Ivey knows who Seda1 is, and he’s not telling. However, whoever it is, Ivey took $600k from him in Deathmatch on Tuesday, and it’s widely believed that the game was “crossbooked”, which basically means they had a private agreement to play for double the stakes, with the loser forwarding the difference privately after the match was settled. Seems $500k/$1000k just wasn’t high enough… and the upshot is that Ivey is believed to have pocketed over a million dollars of the mystery player’s money in that one session.

There’s a thread on 2+2 with most of the HHs for the major hands in the session here, (WARNING: Contains 2+2) and there’s nosebleed action on FTP from late evening GMT onwards, pretty much every night. Who needs Gabe Kaplan when you’ve got this?

What’s that? You’ve not heard of her?

Ms. Obrestad first came to my attention when I heard Daniel Negreanu talking about her, in awed tones, on High Stakes Poker. What I heard astonished me. This is (roughly) what he said -

“Did you hear about that girl who won the WSOPE? Apparently she’s been winning tournaments online without looking at her hole cards. No, seriously. Completely dark. Just playing purely position, I guess. Only 18 years old. Probably sticks a post-it note on the monitor”.

She started playing online when she was 15, built her bankroll entirely from freerolls, and three years later she’d won the inaugaural WSOP Europe event for $2,000,000, making her the youngest ever winner of a WSOP bracelet (it was also the biggest prize ever won by a woman in WSOP history), and she has a sideline in mindblowingly cool party tricks. I am awestruck. But perhaps not so awestruck that I can’t rip her idea off.

I’m keen to do this for a few reasons; firstly, and most importantly, it will be hugely educational. Secondly, I think I can set it up in such a way that I can blank my cards out without sticking stuff on my monitor, and then record it for the world to see, and thirdly, it’s just so incredibly cool and awesome and wow.

However, if I’m going to play dark, I’m not going in blind. My first attempt will be for play money, and then once I’ve got a feel for it, I’m going to take on a freeroll MTT. We’ll see how that works out before I try playing dark for cash, and I may never get that far; it’s kinda presumptuous of me to think that I have the skills to pull something like this off at all, frankly. We’ll soon find out, and it’ll certainly be interesting.

More news on this to follow. I’m off to have a crack at a playmoney SNG, and test the recording software out…

*edit*

OK. So, before I discuss my own attempt, back to Annette’s win. It was, believe it or not, a $4.40/180 SNG on Stars that she won – my very own bread and butter tournament. And, while there’s no video of this feat, she posted the hand history up to PokerXFactor (a rather nice hand history replayer site, among other things). You can view the game here – linky linky – but you’ll have to register with the site first.

Any doubts about the veracity of her claims are dispelled on the fourth hand of the tournament, where she folds KK under the gun. It’s really weird to see; it just looks so wrong.

One other thing to note – she claims that she looked at her cards once, when an opponent had pushed all-in at her. I’m guessing that’s very late in the tournament (I’ve only watched a quarter of it so far). One peek in 343 hands is pretty good going, though.

As for my own experiment… well, I’ve quickly realised that, just like non-dark poker, play money is completely pointless for anything other than acclimatizing to the table conditions. Briefly, I entered a 45 player NLHE SNG (for 300+20 play chips, if you care… incidentally, why do they rake these?), did nothing on the first orbit, then limped (WEAK) on the button in a multiway pot on the second orbit. The flop came down 778 with two spades, and the player in second last position minbet at it. Looked like a good spot to me, and I raised the pot, and only the minbetter called. She was shortstacked anyway, so I ended up shoving my chips in after a jack and a second 8 came on 4th and 5th street, with no help for the flush draw. She had the 7, and that was half my stack gone. No real complaints about that.

It was the second confrontation that reminded me why play money games aren’t the best environment for making moves. Again, I limped from the button, pushed the K94 rainbow flop after it was checked to me, and was called by… 62 offsuit! Who then hit his deuce on the turn and knocked me out. (I had Q8, apparently). He hadn’t even seen my apparently mental play with ten high earlier: I’d been moved to a different table immediately afterwards. He just thought he’d call me with six high and no draw. And I don’t think the pot odds had much to do with it.

So, two things are apparent. One: This isn’t going to work at play money, I either put my money where my mouth is or give it a miss. $1.10 STTs look like being the best place to practice. Two: I need to study that Annette_15 hand history file, and learn from the master.

More on this tomorrow, probably. I’m going to have another stab at the $20k now. *update* unsuccessful; played really well for an hour, then stacked off with TT against a player who my notes said I should not call under any circumstances. Especially not when he’s holding KK, obv. An extremely foolish and totally avoidable mistake, but that stupid blowup aside, it seems like my study of the dark arts is having some interesting positive effects on my positional play. We’ll see how it develops.

Well, I was watching Chelsea v Everton, and had a quick look through the Team Pokerstars list to see if anyone interesting was playing on Pokerstars. The only TP player online at that time was Daniel Negreanu. I’d watched a bit of a $5000 heads up match he was involved in earlier, and assumed he’d be playing something similarly high-stakes. But no – he was playing in an $8.80 MTT!

There’s almost always chat-box carnage when Negreanu plays on Stars. The railbirds witter away, posting hundreds of witless questions every second. This only gets worse when he plays low-stakes games, though, because observer chat is only available to players who have the amount of the tournament buy-in in their account. So in a $5000 match, the chat box is deadly silent. In an $8.80 game, it scrolls so fast it should carry an epilepsy warning.

I hadn’t been watching long before he was knocked out; the chips went in on a J high flop, Negreanu had QJ, his opponent had KJ, and that was that, to the immense relief of the other players at the table. I closed the table down and looked at the MTT lobby to see if Negreanu was going to continue his low-stakes adventure, and whaddyaknow? He’s in a $2.50 MTT starting at 10pm!

So I’m in too. There’s currently 2050 entrants, so the chances of me being on the same table as him are minimal and I’m highly unlikely to add him to my list* of Team Pokerstars scalps. I’ll settle for outlasting him.

I’ll update this post as the tournament progresses.

*Well, I say “list”. There’s only one name on it, and I took less than the $2.50 buy-in for this tournament off him. BUT IT STILL COUNTS!

—————————————–

10.02pm.: We’re off. 2938 runners. I get pocket queens in my first big blind, and am aghast when the SB raises 12xBB at the three limpers. I think about it, decide I’m likely ahead, push, and he folds. I now have 1810 chips, Negreanu still has 1500.

10.10pm: I get AKo, make a weak 3xBB raise against an early limper, and get called by the limper and both blinds. They all call my c-bet on the 567 flop, and two players are all-in by the time the action gets to me after a 4 comes on the turn. The limper had A8, the big blind 82s. I still have DN well covered, though; 1610 to 1140.

10.20pm: It’s proving quite tricky to watch my table, Negreanu’s table, and post these updates. After 20 minutes we’re down to 2210 players. Negreanu gets involved in a multiway limped pot from the SB on a T82 flop, the chips go in against the big blind on the turn, and he doubles up with T8 versus his opponent’s QT. Meanwhile, I’d lost a few chips through smallball limps, but then take on a bluffy type with my KJ on a AKrag flop with two clubs. I call his bet on the flop, check check on the blank turn, and I call his half-pot bluff on the end (with 97c) to take it down. I now have 1905, Negreanu has 2370.

10.36pm: Negreanu opens it up for 5xBB (25/50) from mid/late position. The BB calls him, then fires a 350 probe bet on the Q-rag-rag flop. I’m very surprised to see Negreanu fold; I had assumed he was value betting a huge hand, as he’s so likely to be called by people who want to bust him. Apparently not. Meanwhile, I drop a few chips with AQo, and then get moved to another table immediately after getting some great reads on several of my old opponents. Thanks, Pokerstars. Currently on 1610 chips, DN has 2200, and there are only 1639 players left.

10.44pm: I’m out! Limped in on my new table with QT of clubs, and was minraised by the seat behind me. Three players see the 893 flop, with two clubs, giving me a big fat draw – somewhere between 12 and 18 outs. I check, the raiser bets half the pot, the shortstack in the big blind calls, and I push. Both players call, with the minraiser showing aces (which was about what I expected), while the big blind had 87 of hearts. Even against aces, I was the favourite for the main pot; according to the odds calcumalator, I was 48.84% to win, with the aces 38.1% and the 87s drawing at a 13.07% chance. Heads up against the aces for the side pot, I was a 52/48 underdog.

Obviously, I missed my draw. I’ll have to wait for another opportunity to add Kid Poker to my “list”. *shakes fist*

Sadly, only on a $25 table, and he just doubled someone else up on the previous hand, so he only started with $1.20. But I felted Elky!

PokerStars Game #14692867465: Hold’em No Limit ($0.10/$0.25) – 2008/01/20 – 10:50:12 (ET)
Table ‘Pompeja V’ 6-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Andy.l.12 ($43.75 in chips)
Seat 2: Gin777 ($25 in chips)
Seat 3: Guihierba ($20.40 in chips)
Seat 4: ceddu57 ($66 in chips)
Seat 5: ElkY ($1.20 in chips)
Seat 6: dermoth ($25.65 in chips)
Andy.l.12: posts small blind $0.10
Gin777: posts big blind $0.25
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to dermoth [As Jd]
Guihierba: folds
ceddu57: folds
ElkY: raises $0.95 to $1.20 and is all-in
dermoth : raises $2.30 to $3.50
Andy.l.12: calls $3.40
ceddu57 said, “8 8″
ceddu57 said, “oui”
Gin777: calls $3.25
*** FLOP *** [5d 6c 5c]
Andy.l.12: checks
Gin777: checks
dermoth : checks
*** TURN *** [5d 6c 5c] [Td]
Andy.l.12: checks
Gin777: checks
dermoth : checks
*** RIVER *** [5d 6c 5c Td] [Jc]
Andy.l.12: checks
Gin777: bets $5.25
dermoth : calls $5.25
Andy.l.12: folds
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Gin777: shows [9s Qd] (a pair of Fives)
Dermoth : shows [As Jd] (two pair, Jacks and Fives)
Dermoth collected $16.55 from side pot
ElkY: mucks hand
ceddu57 said, “près du watrin rue st mihiel”
dermoth collected $4.60 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $22.20 Main pot $4.60. Side pot $16.55. | Rake $1.05
Board [5d 6c 5c Td Jc]
Seat 1: Andy.l.12 (small blind) folded on the River
Seat 2: Gin777 (big blind) showed [9s Qd] and lost with a pair of Fives
Seat 3: Guihierba folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: ceddu57 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: ElkY mucked [Ac Ts]
Seat 6: dermoth (button) showed [As Jd] and won ($21.15) with two pair, Jacks and Fives

Some rather fortunate events on the river there, and I’m not proud of that call, but I was hoping my kicker would play. I hadn’t read it for a sidepot-sized bluff with Q high, I’ll admit.

Anyway. I felted Elky.

Now, this is commendable. Our good friends at Pokertube are streaming live coverage of the EPT PCA (or, to give it it’s full, somewhat confusing title, the European Poker Tour Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure – held in that well known European holiday resort, the Bahamas). Live! Right now! Click that Pokertube link on the right to watch!

There’s much to love here; not least the fact that this is an EPT broadcast without Colin Murray, which is an exciting precedent. Better still, as the coverage is live, there’s no holecam – we see what the players see, nothing more. Why hasn’t someone done a recorded show like that? With the right commentary, that’d be fantastic.

(Commentary on the EPT is… decent. Like I say, no Murray. There’s a lot of guff, of course, but nothing you can’t forgive in the context of several hours of live broadcasting. You get the odd Colemanball, too; the best from yesterday being “the final 14 players in last year’s PCA were all American, including the eventual winner…”)

Anyway, the poker. The FT starts eight handed, and I’ll be a-editing this post throughout the day with random garbage about the players, the action, and the other thing.

4.07pm – Meet the players, in order of chips at start of today’s play…

1. David Pham, Mr. Hyper-aggro , and most people’s favourite to take the $2m. Finished last night by knocking out the last two players to assume the chip lead.

2. Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, well-known online pro, now becoming well-known in live tourneys. Has plenty of chips, largely thanks to a horrible suckout last night when he instacalled a big push with AK (for about half his stack) and caught an ace to knock out his opponent’s KK.

3. Joseph Elpayaa, yer typical net kiddie. Saw quite a lot of him last night, and was reasonably impressed by his play. And his enormous eyebrows.

4. Hafiz Khan, taciturn online pro. Arrived on the featured table late last night, but didn’t make much of an impression.

5. Kris Kuykendall, who I’ve not seen before.

6. Richard Fohrenbach, another net kiddie with the standard aggro style.

7. Craig Hopkins, the plucky Brit! Tighter than a bolt on a space shuttle.

8. Christian Harder. Another unknown from yesterday’s unfeatured table.

They’ve been at it for a while now, and very little has changed; Pham is the most aggressive, Elky’s not far behind, the two net kiddies are trying to steal pots with limited success, and everybody else is pretty snug. More news soon!

4.36 pm - Jo Elpayaa raises Pham’s blind from early position, everybody is astonished to see Pham fold.

4.48pm – Elpayaa’s throwing chips around with what seems like reckless abandon; he tried to take a standard raise away from Khan, who pushed him off the pot, (moving Khan into second on the chip count, ahead of Elky), but on the very next hand, Alpayaa calls a raise from David Pham and then reraises the flop, taking down a nice pot. He’s a busy little fecker, no doubt about it.

4.50pm – Net Kiddie War! Ricky Fohrenbach pushes all in over Elpayaa’s standard raise; Elpayaa calls with TT, Ricky turns over JJ and the hand holds up. Fohrenbach moves up to 4th with over $2m, Elpayaa is now in with three other players who have Ms of 8 or less. Someone’s going home very soon.

4.55pm – Ricky’s all-in with fishhooks again. Elky raises it, Fohrembach reraises, Elky puts him all in, and RF makes the call. Elky trurns over the AK0, and flops the king to send Ricky out in 8th with $150k. Elky nudges past $6m, but still trails Pham, who has the thick end of eight large.

5.02pm - Although Pham has Elky covered, Elky has the seat immediately to Pham’s left, and the very next hand sees the two in a blind v blind confrontation. Neither player seems particularly shy, and Elky takes down a $1.7m pot with a turned straight against Pham’s weak flopped top pair. Elky now has the chip lead.

5.04pm- Next hand, and shortstack Christian Harder is the next to give chips to Elky; he pushes all in with 77, Elky calls with JJ, and that’s another $1m plus chips for Grospellier, who now has $9m+ to Pham’s $5m. Three of the other players are sub $1.5m, and with the blinds going up soon, there’s going to be more pushing soon…

5.15pm - Hafiz Khan, who’s been quiet for a while, raises Kuykendall’s blind, and Kris reraises him off the pot. Meanwhile, Craig Hopkins hasn’t played a hand today. Get pushing, man!

5.25pm – Kris Kuykendall wins the last hand of the level from Hafiz Khan, pushing all in on the river and picking up a very nice pot, moving him clear of the shorties. Here’s the stacks at the break -

1. Elky – $9.1m

2. David Pham – $5.445m

3. Hafiz Khan – $2.940m

4. Kris Kuykendall – $2.445m

5. Jo Elpayaa – $1.515m

6. Craig Hopkins – $1m.

Blinds for the next level are 40k/80k/10k. Time to GO, Hopkins!

5.45pm - my apologies to Mr. Hopkins – he played a hand right at the start of the day, calling a raise from the blind and check folding. He’s now played a hand in this level, pushing the second hand and picking up the blinds.

5.50pm – Jo Elpayaa picks up a nice pot, pushing following a raise and a call and scooping the pot without resistance; he shows AKo and now has just over $2m chips, and clear blue water between himself and Craig Hopkins, who now has no bubble justification for waiting to push.

6.15pm – A strange pot begins when Jo limps in, Hafiz limps behind, David completes the SB and Elky checks; the flop comes 72J rainbow and Hafiz opens the betting, with Pham and Elpayaa calling; the Qc comes on theturn, Hafiz bets a third of the pot and only Pham calls, then checks the Js on the river with 1.7m in the pot; Hafiz fires a third bet and Pham folds.

Craig Hopkins is still asleep. Down to 635k now.

6.25pm – Kris and Elky get into an entertaining blind v blind confrontation; Kris completes, Elcky checks, and they check to the river on a 44833 board; Kris bets out less than half the pot, Elky puts in a heavy raise, and Kris dwells up for about an hour before making the call. Elky instamucks his hand, and Kris turns over the A8.

6.27pm – Craig pushes from UTG, picks up the blinds. Still gasping for air, though. Jo Elpayaa’s starting to sweat, too, down to $1.5m.

6.29pm – Elky raises Jo’s blind, Elpayaa repops, and Elky calls with AQo vs Jo’s KJs, and the best hand holds up to send Jo Elpayaa out in 6th, and Craig moves up a notch on the payout table. The nest nearest shortstack has him covered five times over. GO GO GO GO GO!

6.39pm – Craig pushes UTG again, and for the second time, Elky gives it up; on the next hand, Elky raises all in from the SB, Craig gives it up. He has 685k, nearest competitor has $3m+. The action seems to have dried up while everyone waits for Hopkins to sod off.

6.43pm - No sooner do I say that then Khan and Pham get involved, with 1.25m in the middle by the river of 2d Jh 6s 9d Kd (I didn’t see the flop action, I’m afraid; I think Pham was the aggressor with Khan in the blind). Khan fired 900k at the pot on the river, Pham asks for a countdown, then calls, Khan shows 64d for a flush and wins a $3.05m. Khan now has $5.15m, Pham is down to $4.365m.

6.51pm – More flirting between Khan and Pham; this time Pham raises Khan’s blind, and Khan calls. The flop comes QJ6 with two spades, both players check; the turn is the 8c, Khan checks to Pham who bets 375k into the 510k pot, and Khan flat calls. The river is a red 4, and both players check it; Pham shows A4s for the busted flush draw that reversed into bottom pair, but Khan shows AQ, and cements his second place position.

6.55pm – Well, after a certain amount of badgering from me, Hopkins pushes again with K8d, and gets looked up by David Pham’s pocket tens. the T97 flop provides a bit of a sweat, but the turn and river blank off and Hopkins goes home in 5th, with $450k. Time for another break.

7.31pm - We’re back. I don’t have chip counts, and I’m typing this while on the final table of a tournament myself. Not quite so glamorous – it’s a 180 man $4.40 SNG on Stars. Blinds in the Bahamas are now… ummm. Increased.

7.35pm – Okay; Elky has 9.4m, Khan has 5.2, Pham has a bit less, and Kuykendall has 3m.

7.56pm – Khan and Pham are at it again – much chips go in on the river with a KQ77 rag board,Pham shows K4, Khan’s KQ scoops a $3m pot; Pham is now the shortstack, just him and Kuykendall have 3m stacks, Khan’s up to 7m, Elky still leads with just shy of 9m. I’m still running in my tourney, too. 5 left.

8.05pm - I’m out in 4th; made a terrible error, raising a c-bet with 77 on a J-rag-rag board without noticing there was someone to act behind me; shoulda been paying more attention. Oh well. Still four handed in the Bahamas, but there’s plenty of action.

8.14pm – Elky has 9.42m, Khan has 5.595m, Pham has 3.96m and Kuykendall has 3.825. I’m getting in the bath for twenty minutes. Let me know what happens.

8.45pm - OK, I’m back and I’m clean. The big change in the last half hour is Khan; he’s dropped a load of chips to… *someone*, and Elky is now the clear leader, with the other three about level. Here’s the stacks.

1. Elky – 9.375m

2. Khan – 4.71m

3. Kuykendall – 4.71m

4. Pham – 4.05m

9.30pm – Well, after a break for a quick curry, I’m back watching, and we’ve lost David Pham. He lost a sizable pot to Kuykendall just before the break, and his downward slide seems to have continued. We’re now three handed, and hopefully I’ll have some sort of idea of what’s going on in a bit.

9.35pm – Elky’s got a sizable chip lead, with Khan in the middle, and Kuykendall’s quite short, with an M of about 6. Kuykendall pushes at Khan’s big blind, Khan eventually makes the call, and shows A5 to the AK of Kuykendall. The flop comes AQQ, and the case ace comes off on the turn to chop the pot.

Updated counts – Elky 12.32m, Khan 8.145m, Kuykendall 1.78m. There’s 300k in the blinds and antes.

9.40pm – Elky’s running riot, and Khan’s letting him. I get the feeling Khan’s playing for second.

9.45pm -Khan raises enough to put Kuykendall all-in from the blind, and gets called by KQo; Khan shows A7h and the hand holds up. We’re heads up. Elky has 13.1m, Khan 9.145m. Play resumes in ten minutes.

10.20pm – OK, more than ten minutes. Elky raises the first pot preflop, Khan takes it away witha check raise on the flop, and the chips are pretty level now.

10.26pm- Big pot goes Elky’s way; he raises it up from the button, Khan calls. The flop is AAJ with two diamonds, and is checked round; Khan fires a bet on the blank turn which looked like a strong-action bluff, Elky raised it, Khan calls, a third diamond falls on the river and it’s checked down, with Elky showing the A7 for the win. Nearly 2.5m in the pot, and advantage Elky.

10.33pm – BLOW UP! – Elky’s been raising a lot preflop, which I guess explains why Khan reraised him all-in with 93 offsuit. Elky makes the call with 88, and it’s all over. Khan gets just over a million dollars, Elky bags two million.

That was fun. I’m off to digest my curry.

Oh, man. I just logged into Pokertube to catch the latest episode of HSP, and the featured video on the front page was a tribute to Chip Reese. And my first thought was “well, Chip’s the kind of guy you’d create a tribute for even if he hadn’t died…”, but, sadly, not this time.

I don’t go in for the distance-quotes-mourning of celebrities in general; it’s one of those weird internet phenomena that I just don’t get. Someone famous dies, then someone on an internet forum posts a RIP thread, and everybody else forms an orderly line to pay their respects and snarl at anyone who questions whether celebrity X deserved that sort of meaningless internet tribute. Sadly, (as mentioned above), Chip Reese was a player who deserved tribute, alive or dead, and I’m genuinely saddened to hear of his death. We need more Chip Reeses in the world, not less.

R.I.P, Chip.