Taking a day or two off in the middle of a marathon tournament is one thing. Indeed, if you are drawn to play on Day 1A you already have to take a 4-day forced break before day 2A begins, then everyone gets at least a day off before all the players merges into a single Day 3. Another day off before the final table after 6 long days of poker is probably a welcome break. But a four month hiatus once the end of the road is in sight - and when you must be In The Zone to have got that far - is just a bit of a nonsense.
The point has been made that you could use this time to get some coaching and study the play of your opponents, but how exactly are you going to study the play of the eight other unknowns who haven't played a single hand on TV yet. That's actually the whole point of this stupid rearrangement - to accomodate ESPN. Are they really going to give the players a few hundred hours of unedited tape to wade through? I doubt it.
What I really wanted to know though was just how much the players might be losing in potential interest on their payouts as a result of having to wait nearly four months between Day 7 and Day 8. This is the richest "sporting" event in the world, after all, and the prize pool is pretty hefty.
I'm going to base the calculations on last year's field, because that means the full payout information is readily available and there's no reason to assume there will be wildly different numbers this year.
In 2007 there were 6,358 entrants, each paying $10,000 to play. There's a total 6% taken from the prize pool for the house and tournament staff which, accoording to my calculator, is about twenty grand more than the $59,784,954 prize pool published. I have no idea how this number could end in anything other than two zeros. It's must be just good old-fashioned skimming.
Just over a third of the total prize pool is given to the top 9 spots - $22,019,901 in total.
This year, once the final table has been determined, each of the remaining players will be given 9th place money straight away and when they return in November they'll be playing for the difference. 9th place last year was worth $525,934, so, based on last year's numbers, that would be a further $4,733,406 paid out in July.
Therefore the amount of the prize pool left unpaid during the hiatus is $17,286,495. A cool seventeen million - or about $1.9m per player - still to play for.
The interest rates for savings on the US Dollar are far from great at the moment. However, after a quick shop around the net I found a certificate of deposit product that offers 3.3% APY, but over a four month fixed term. That's almost a perfect example - the delay before the final table is 117 days.
I just plugged these numbers into an online interest rate calculator and the answer comes in at round about $180,000.
That's 18 Main Event buy-ins. Or, it's twice as much as the nine remaining players will have paid for their seats in the first place. Although it pales in comparison to the $3.8m total rake taken out of the prize pool for this tournament, $180,000 is hardly insignficant.
Quite what it's worth to Harrah's for hanging on to it for the same amount of time I couldn't really say. $17m is probably just a drop in the ocean to the world's largest gaming corporation, but nevertheless it's money that doesn't belong to them, yet they know that they will have custody of it for a fixed - and reasonably long - period of time. It's certainly investable, one way or another.
Suddenly the offer of an all expenses paid trip for two for each of the finalists to return to Las Vegas in November to play out the end of the Main Event doesn't seem quite quite as generous. Even I can get a free suite at the Rio!
Not that I'm especially bothered, but qualifying for the Main Event would have been something to aim for, even though I'd have taken any opportunity to cash in my ten large and play smaller tournaments with it instead.
The World Series of Poker 2008 will take place between May 30th and July 17th 2008. I'll roll into town a few days after all that. Oh well...
I think it's fair to say that I didn't know how to adjust to the standard of play in the EPT satellites. Particularly on Sunday, it seems I had a lot to learn. The following mania all happened during level 2 (blinds 50/100).
The under-the-gun player raises to 350. A frustrated Scandinavian calls and the next player re-raises to 900. The re-raiser only has 700 left, so he's going nowhere and I'm suspicious about why he hasn't just moved all-in already. I find pocket jacks in the cut-off. It's the best hand I got to see in either tournament, but with an UTG raiser who has me well covered, it's not a good spot to gamble my stack so I fold. UTG makes the powerplay of a smooth call. Obviously he wants to take the flop 3-way, but the other guy dissapoints him. Naturally with a pot of over 2000, the remaining 700 gets thrown in on a low flop. We see the re-raiser's pocket 9s hold up against UTG's T8s.
Lessons learned: Pocket pairs are always raising hands. Folding to a re-raise is weak.
I stayed out of the way for this one. All folded to the button who raised to 350. He had 98o, but the steal attempt is OK. Big blind defends with J5, a little stubborn but in fact the best hand. Soulscan successful. When the flop comes J97, carnage ensues. BB check-raises all-in with his monster top pair and the button decides it's a great idea to not get pushed around, calling his last 4000 chips to win about 6000 with a gutshot and middle pair. Seat open.
Lessons learned: Always defend your blind by calling out of position with garbage. Folding a straight draw is weak.
That bustee had used up all his luck in an earlier hand when he had raised small preflop with pocket aces, followed by a massive all-in overbet on a 952 flop. Just go ahead and tell everybody how strong you were before the flop and hope nobody caught up. For sure you won't get called now unless they got very lucky to outflop you. But outflopped he was, by pocket 2s. Then turn 5, river 5 put him back in front in the cruelest way possible.
Next, I limp after three others with 67s. One more player calls and the short stack big blind moves all in. I'm starting to get desparate and wonder if there's any reason to call here after it's folded back to me. I decide it's not even close - the pot odds aren't good and the raiser has been quite tight. In fact, in the land of the results-oriented, my 67 would have made a straight. I know this because the player on the button called and also made the straight with 63o. Pocket aces went home.
Lessons learned: Limp with any old shit if you have position. Folding once you have put chips in the pot is weak.
I didn't survive long into level 3. In fact the levels were a complete trainwreck. We were sent on a break at what I thought was the end of level 2, but when we got back it was still the same level. "Another 2 minutes at this level", they announced. About fifteen minutes later, the blinds actualy went up.
In level 3, blinds are 100/200. The only reason there are still t25 chips in play is that antes kick in on level 4. And to think I was worried that I might not be able to make an 8pm train home if I did well.
I was down to a thousand and change on my small blind and with 3 limpers already wanting to take a cheap look I completed with 78s. The big blind pays no attention to the action so far and makes it 500 to go. One of the limpers now decides to fold, but two do come along for the ride. Having been unable to find any spots to gather chips so far and expecting to be called if I actually get chance to open-push in the next orbit, I decide I have to play this hand. I could call and close the betting, then be the first to throw my chips at any flop that looks good, but I don't fancy pulling a stop-and-go against three other players, and with less than 1/5th of the pot size left to bet. By moving all-in here, I want to re-open the betting to allow the agreesor to isolate, and leave plenty of dead money in the pot to give a reasonable payoff if my second-best hand improves. Not a superb situation to be in, but I'd run out of time and couldn't expect to see much better.
In fact we take a flop four ways, and it doesn't really surprise me - even though one of the callers has left himself with just 300 chips now. Never mind. I'm right back in the game if I get lucky here. Flop: 89T with two spades - a pair and open ended straight draw. Could be worse, until I see the other cards. 67 is loving his made straight and I can only split with him. But we're both actually drawing dead to QJ in spades - the current nuts with a flush draw to boot.
So there ends my EPT journey. £660 for less than three hours of poker. Next year, I think I'll probably not bother.
I've had to set this all up in advance in case I can't get online while I'm in London. Haven't even decided if I'm taking my laptop yet, because I can't check into my hotel until after 1pm and the tournament starts at - obviously - 1pm. So I think I'll have to travel light.
So here is the live update graph for the benefit of the new and improved 11-man Team Donut: Darren, David, Geoff, Jill, Kevin, Larry, Matt, Paul, Rich, Vicky and Vij. I should get some football shirts made up or something. Who wants to be goalie?
Click the thumbnail graph to see the full size version on chipgraph.com, which I really honestly will finish some time soon, then write the instructions for it and consider making a bit prettier. Meantime, if anyone else wants to give it a try to create your own chip graphs with real time text-message updates, give it a spin and drop me a line if you hit any problems. The main thing - the actual graph - does work!
As things stand, I didn't quite raise enough stake to play both satellites although it's close (24% sold, I would need at least 30%) so there's a chance that I will get more and still be able to play them both anyway. But unless I post here otherwise before kick off, or use one of the first text messages to my chip count graph to announce that I'll be playing on both Saturday and Sunday, it's just the one satellite this time.
I realised that it would be unfair to wait until after I've played the first tournament to see if I could convince myself to make up the shortfall, so I have to make this decision before things get going. I have to draw a line somewhere, and I did originally say that it was 30%. As promised, I'll refund your stake if you only wanted to be involved with the two chances of qualification, rather than the larger share from one satellite. Just make sure a message lands in my mailbox or post a comment here before 1pm Saturday.
I had no joy trying to book a free train this Saturday so I'll end up travelling on an open ticket, which makes me pretty flexible and so I'll take donations right up until the last minute. It could still happen! :)
The chap I spoke to at Virgin Trains said he had no idea why every single West Coast train to and from London on Saturday was restricted (Friday and Sunday were just fine) but agreed with me that it was very strange. Something must be going on, but I don't know what. Usually you can book a ticket right up to 6pm the night before; the seaside trains tend to have limited availability for comp tickets but I've not had to pay to get to London at the weekend in a long time!
EDIT @ 9am: I've made the 30% so it's two satellites as planned. Team list above updated
After my spectacular break-even performance at the Orleans Open in July, I've decided to put together another sponsorship package for anybody who fancies a piece of my action. It was great fun last time (not just for me, I'm told) with the live chip graphs and all the winning. So let's give it another shot.
Well actually I'll be trying to putting something together along the same lines for my Christmas Vegas trip. I doubt there will be a festival on - it's very unlikely over Christmas week (as it's the quietest time of year) or over New Years (as everybody is too busy getting drunk, or getting their tits out, or watching others get their tits out) - so I've not quite worked it out yet. I'm thinking it will probably be a crawl along four of the major cardrooms, playing whatever the best value tournament is at each. It's only a ten day trip, but I'm sure I can figure something out.
In the meantime, I've come up with another adventure to share. This time it's a real shot at greatness and fortune - albeit a long shot. And I've left it until rather late to start begging for money too.
Two weeks today - Saturday September 21st - I intend to play a £330 super-satellite at The Vic to try to win entry into the EPT London Main Event. That's a £5500 buy-in, so there'll be one seat awarded for every 18 players in the satellite.
I'm quite keen to double my chances of getting there by having two attempts to qualify via a satellite, and so I'm going to sell myself off in small chunks to try to get there. Here's the deal.
The bankroll I need for the two days rounds up to £700. That's 2x £330 for the poker, and I'll use the other £40 towards accomodation in London - I don't think that's exactly taking the piss. A 1% share will therefore cost £7.00. I take many different payment methods - but a player-to-player transfer on a poker site is usually the easiest, and makes it easy to pay out winnings too.
BUY A STAKE IN ME AT THE EUROPEAN POKER TOUR FOR JUST £7.00!
That was for the benefit of anyone who was just skimming the blog. They'll go back and read this entry in ful now, maybe.
Ideally I want to sell 50% - a pretty big chunk, but that way I'll still be paying the same amount to play as I was always going to but will have doubled my chances of making it to the Main Event. This is more about the chance of getting to play in a major tournament than it is about winning a life-changing jackpot. Although half of £750,000 isn't exactly insignificant...
However, with just two weeks to go I'll be amazed if I come anywhere close to that. So:
If I sell 30% or more (£210) then I'll definitely play two satellites. It'll cost me no more than £450 for the two stabs, and that's just about within my budget.
If I sell less than 30%, I'll only play one satellite. I'll offer backers the option to take double their percentage in the single tournament, or to withdraw completely for a refund. So if you bought 5% for £35 and I only played one satellite, you'd could actually end up owning 10% of me when I make it into the money and onto the TV table. With Vicky Coren sitting to both my left and my right, hopefully.
If I intend to play two satellites but win a seat in the first one, then I can't double the percentages, or I'd end up with nothing left for myself! So in that case if I was allowed to play the second and sell the seat, I would. Otherwise I'd play another £330 tournament, like the second-chance event at the Vic on Saturday 29th.
Sounds good doesn't it :) To get involved or if you think you can pick holes in my masterplan, email chris at luckydonut.com.
Jerry Yang (a new poker millionaire, not the Yahoo! billionaire) took it, with pocket eights against Tuan Lam's ace queen with all the money in pre-flop. After getting outflopped, he runner-runnered a two-gap gutshot straight for $8.25m. A true champion.
A novelty side bet, that is. A bracelet... nah, he still hasn't got one.
Thanks to some dodgy geezer streaming the ESPN pay-per-view coverage on a dodgy web site, I've been able to watch some of the Main Event final table live. Although, I didn't exactly sit and watch it intently because it's just a little bit on the dull side.
Of particular dullness are the incomprehensibly long delays where the dealer dutifully freezes (I think he's also required to not breath) between dealing each round of cards when a player is all-in. They must have to take a moment to drag in a few more cameras, as it's very important to make sure they can catch the reactions of all two players in the hand, get a fresh look at the prize money, and also see all five board cards as they sprint across almost half a yard of felt. How on earth does the ESPN crew cope with NFL games?
When everyone's ready the announcer says, "Here comes the turn card". Thanks for that. These guys have been playing this tournament for eight out of the past 12 days. Right now it's level 32 ($150,000/$300,000 blinds with a $40,000 ante) so that's about 64 hours, not counting breaks, in total so far. They all know what comes after the flop by now, even if they didn't when they paid $10,000 to enter.
The live audience may not have been paying such close attention as the players the past fortnight, but they turned up to watch the World's Slowest Poker Game - it's not like there's nothing else to do in Vegas today - so they must have at least a passing interest in the game. I'm pretty sure they know that the last card dealt is called the river.
The folks watching at home (some of them at least) paid $19.95 to have 16 hours of their life drained away, so they probably know a bit of the lingo too. Even if they didn't, there's still Phil Gordon and A. N. Sidekick saying pretty much the same thing as the announcer at pretty much the same time. And when it's shown to the masses on ESPN proper in August, there'll still be Norman Chad. (I can't possibly even start to go there).
So back to the victory. Phil Hellmuth was making his way to the commentary booth - which is actually a desk - and Gordon made a bet with Sidekick: how long before Hellmuth mentions his eleven bracelets? The line was set at 45 seconds, and Gordon took the under.
Hellmuth was given a flattering introduction... and then...
In just three weeks time I'll be playing the first of four tournaments I plan to enter in the Orleans Open. Three no-limit Hold'em poker tournaments, and one fixed limit folly. My backers may be wondering what I've been doing in order to prepare for the fixed limit event.
Fixed limit tournaments are quite rare - The Orleans has two $40 limit tournaments in their normal weekly schedule, but they're the only ones in town that I know of. I've never played one live before. I've played a few online, but mostly by accident on Party Poker, where they still insist on labelling fixed limit as simply "Hold'em" and you're meant to remember that the default format for a poker tournament is fixed limit. The infinitely more popular no-limit tournaments are labelled "NL Hold'em" and pot limit is marked "PL Hold'em", so I guess the distinction is there. But given that even the times I've intended to enter a limit tournament, I've ended up at a table with at least half the players not wanting to be there, they might consider making a simple change for the benefit of many of their players. Oh, never mind, I just remembered who we're talking about...
From what I remember, the first few hands always go like this:
Raise raise cap call call call call call. Bet raise raise cap call call call call call. Bet raise raise cap call call call call call. Bet raise raise cap call call call call call.
The sound of half a dozen players trying to bust out so they can start again in a different tournament that they actually want to play. But even after all that action, the losers still have 80% of their starting stack left. And so the pattern begins again.
You never know, it might be just the same as this in a $540 festival tournament, but I doubt it.
I've not really found anything lately, but I'm still on the lookout for some limit tournaments I could try online. I want to find a tournament with a decent sized field (I remember playing in a field of just seven on Empire a while back) and one where the players do actually want to be there, so I can get a feel for how the dynamics of the game change as the limits increase.
In case I don't find anything suitable in time though, I can always keep in mind the strategy employed by the youngest ever World Series of Poker bracelet winner, Steve Billirakis. He won Event #1, $5000 World Championship Mixed Hold'em event - which alternated between no-limit and fixed limit every 30 minutes - aged 21 years and 10 days.
In this interview with Phil Gordon from the Expert Insight WSOP Podcast, Billirakis revealed (obviously I'm paraphrasing) that he is an arrogant rich kid who was desparate to get onto TV playing poker as soon as possible after his 21st birthday, without having - or thinking he might need to have - any idea how to actually play a game that made up 50% of this tournament. Sadly, he got very lucky.
LOL dickaments.
"I don't have much experience playing limit Hold'em, so I pretty much avoided playing limit Hold'em"
Oh, if you still want a piece of my action, I only have 5% left for sale, and it's going on eBay very shortly if I don't shift it!
Tony G does a brilliant job of demonstrating the blandness and complete lack of character at the Rio, by filming his video blog in a lovely taupe room where the World Series of Poker payouts are processed.
At 4.10am the pop up banner announced a ten minute break. I never had a ten minute break on Poker Stars before. Well, I guess that's something to be pleased about if I don't make it now.
Morning has broken, it's getting light outside. I need to be up early in the morning to take Claire to school and her car to the garage. I wouldn't mind being fit to drive, but that looks like a long shot. 373 players remain. 231 get paid, of which 220 walk away with an $11k package. Which really is an $11,000 cash prize, as Stars cannot register players into the WSOP.
The chip leader is at my table, and he could easily fold to victory, yet he's still playing, calling big bets, and knocking players out. I'd quite like to move tables. I'd also quite like to see a big hand and have it hold up. I'm below average now, but it feels like I'm one coinflip away from standing a damn good chance.
That'd be a $5500 coinflip then. Where did my comfort zone go?
EDIT: Nearly 6am. The four figure coinflop was 66 vs AJ. I raised, and the flop looked good. An ace on the river and it was all but over. 256th. 8 hours, no cigar.
Welcome to stupidly large World Series of Poker satellite night.
On Poker Stars, 150 seats are guaranteed to be given away and on Full Tilt another 100. In fact, between the two sites there's over $4 million dollars in play - enough for 359 ten thousand dollar seats, and a bit of pocket change to the runners up.
I never even thought of playing one of these until today, yet here I am, battling with nearly 7000 others on Poker Stars in Probably The World's Largest Satellite Poker Tournament Ever. OK, actually it was ever so slightly bigger last year, but not so much you'd notice.
Let's rewind a bit.
Turbo satellites are silly. With the blinds at $1500/$3000, plus a $150 ante, I have little more than one small blind remaining. Click on the thumbnail to see the full table image. For Harrington fans, does the fabric of the universe falls apart when you have an M that has to be expressed as a fraction? It all looks grim, and yet I'm loving it. Believe it or not, I'm in great shape here.
This was an $80+$8 qualifier to the main satellite. The lobby called it a "last chance" tournament, but I will argue that it was actually my first and only chance. One in five got a seat, and it looked like a good way to use up my W$ balance, which has been doing pretty much nothing for as long as I can remember. Sure I could have sold them for 80% of value, but I figured eventually there'd be a more interesting way to spend them. This was going to be it.
With 350 players remaining and 317 getting paid, I'd been fortunate enough to get two successive table breaks that landed me in a good seat, just as I was about to be blinded out. Game of skill my arse. Cards were irrelevant by that point. Almost nobody could survive one round of blinds, so all that mattered was hanging on longer than everybody else. With 38 tables left, 33 players left to be eliminated and the luxury of five free hands before I was forced in on the big blind, I needed 6 or 7 players to go bust for every hand played at my table. No problem. I was all set to fold pocket aces.
Two hands later, you could probably hear my woohoos. I'd got a result in the turbo poker lottery, which from start to finish took just 75 minutes to eliminate 80% of the field.
The main satellite will be somewhat slower, however. 30 minute levels and 6702 players to money. Could be a late one.
Harrah's have announced the schedule for this year's WSOP. Someone who is disgustingly well bankrolled has 55 ways to win a bracelet in 2007 - 9 more than last year. That is, of course, providing she is a female casino employee aged 50 or older.
The 52 open events now include much mixed-game fun: a $1000 buy-in SHOE, $2500 and $5000 HORSE and $1500 and $5000 mixed limit/no-limit Hold'em events. These are in addition to the return of the $50,000 HORSE "real world championship". Gone are the $1000 and $1500 bracelet events that took place alongside days 3 to 7 of the main event, and in fact you'll only get to play a $1000 No Limit Hold'em tournament at all if you are a lady or a senior. The buy-in for these so-called World Championship events is almost as patronising as the fact that they have to take place at all.
"As part of our commitment to innovate for the benefit of all players, we've added nine bracelet events", says WSOP commish, Jeremy Pollack. Yep, that'll be the reason. Harrah's are, after all, world-renound innovators. Like the groundbreaking conversion of Caesars Palace from one of the classiest, most opulent resorts in the world into - well - just another Harrah's with a few columns on the outside. More likely it has something to do with the certain drop in the number of internet qualifiers this year and the huge amount of rake they're going to lose from the resulting smaller Main Event field.
They're still planning for 9000, which is 1000 more players than last year's capacity - the final total also includes several hundred alternates. The World's Most Vacuous Cardroom is being expanded to accomodate up to 3000 players at a time and Main Event Day One will be split into three days, rather than the four they had last year. Day 2, which was split into two, is now scheduled for one day only. If they do manage to sell 9000 seats - I guess we'll just have to wait and see about this - it's going to be a very long first day, with over two thirds of the field having to bust out before the end of play.
I've never bought or traded a percentage in another player before, but now I have ten percent of David Buckle in next year's WSOP Main Event. Not a big name player, I grant you, but it's got to be better to walk away from a tournament with a lottery ticket than a big fat zero. So that's what I did.
Last night was the £150 WSOP super satellite at Gutshot that I won entry into last week. With 33 players and a handful of rebuys, the prize pool just topped the £6500 mark - just enough to award one Main Event seat with flights and accomodation.
The complete prize structure looked like this:
1st: £6500 package 2nd: £115
Somewhat top heavy. With one buy in less in the prize pool, we'd have been playing for three packages with a $1000 super-satellite at the Rio and some spare change for 4th place. Despite almost everyone in the tournament preferring to play for three places, the prize structure stood and we weren't able to chop the package. The final add-on was actually taken by someone who wanted to play all-or-nothing for the big one, knowing that paying the extra £150 would be enough to create the seat. And that was that.
So with twenty-something players remaining and just one prize greater than the price of a buy-in to play for, I wasn't going to hang around. Looking down at AK and having a below average stack, I figure I have to take a shot, even facing a raise and a reraise that already covers my chips. I'm hoping to run against two smaller pairs, or one smaller pair and a worse ace. In either of those spots, I'm about one-in-three to triple up and that's plenty good enough. In fact, I end up drawing a bit thinner, against QQ and KK. When the KK is slowrolled after seeing both the other hands, karma kicks in and sticks a queen on the flop right up his arse. There's a jack too, so I'm calling for a ten to make a winning straight, and the turn card dutifully obliges.
I should have tripled up here, but somehow I got stiffed on the pot. I moved in for 3200, but ended up with 7300. It should have been virtually 10k, but thanks to the excitement of actually still being in the tournament, I didn't notice until half way through the next hand. All I can think is that my side pot was only awarded the first player's original raise; whatever happened it was too late to do anything and I had to try to convince myself that it wasn't going to matter that much.
Actually, it was about as insignificant as you could hope for. From that point on, I only committed all my chips twice; once defending my blind with A2s (my reraise was called after an eternity by 35s, and I still don't understand why but it made breathing difficult for a while) and then when I was actually eliminated in fourth place, with my AJ losing to K9.
With four players remaining and the cardroom still unwilling to chop up the prize the best we could come up with was for the winner to give 10% of any World Series winings to each of the other three. We hastily scribbled an agreement which the club are keeping in their safe; far from perfect but even a forum post is more than anyone claiming to have a piece of this year's winner had. Even though the deal really probably isn't worth much (although, of course, it could be worth 10% of $12m...) it no longer felt like I'd been playing for six hours with still a chance of going home with nothing.
I was pleased with my performance, and definitely got more out of this tournament than I expected. Most importantly, I got a lot of high-pressure final table experience. The stakes were way out of my comfort zone (my seat was worth over £1700 before I busted, and I couldn't lock in any of that equity) but I didn't choke. I stayed patient and made good decisions. I'd built a table image that I could take advantage of. I always believed it when I told myself I had as good a chance as any other player to take first place.
I was also very pleased that I managed to walk directly back to my hotel without passing any places that I'd only ever seen on Monopoly squares! This is a first for me, and although it's nice to see London by foot, it's not ideal when you're alone at 3am and are a little unsure of the way. Plus, I was disappointed last week when I discovered, by accident, that The Angel Islington was just another Wetherspoons.
I've left it a bit late to write up the tournament I played at Gutshot on Monday, but I did win... so I think I should still make the effort to recount my moments of greatness.
Clearly I rock. I picked up pocket aces three times in the first hour. Bad players just can't do that, it's the reason they suck. This was an unlimited rebuy tournament, so I didn't even need to find opponents with much of a hand to get action. It's a satellite into the WSOP qualifier next Monday (a £150 ticket), and actually a freeroll. You start with 500 chips for absolutely nothing. Then every time you need more, £10 gets you an extra 1000 and there's an add-on after an hour where your tenner gets you 2000 more chips. 148 rebuys and add-ons created 10 seats; in fact the cardroom added £20 to the pot rather than create a cash prize for 10th. ty.
Aces #1: There's an all-in from early position by a player who has made it quite clear he isn't going to rebuy. He's been playing it, well, like a freeroll. His bet is called by the player to my right who had taken one rebuy to start with 1500 (as had I) but now has a little less than that remaining. I move all-in over the top - no point being fancy here, and there's no real downside to showing strength now. If the guy stuck in the middle likes his hand, he'll call. If he doesn't, we have a chunk of dead money and a better chance of winning. I'm not letting anyone else into this pot for cheap. Turns out he did like his hand: 9Ts. The freerolling maniac flips up AJ and I take it down. One player rebuys, the other makes his way downstairs.
I'd been sitting tight for a good 20 minutes. Usually not even worth thinking about, but in this game chips were flying and dudes and dudettes were gambling. Everyone except me, that is. I feared I may have too much respect, so when I looked down and saw the Gutshot Powerhouse, I thought I'd check my table image. I raise, and all fold to the big blind who thinks for an age and eventually passes. I throw the mighty five-high face up, and nobody looks impressed. Yet when someone folds the same hand face up from a blind later in the tournament there is much talk about how they were way ahead, it never loses, how can they fold that, etc. I'm dealing that hand, so I cheekily rabbit hunt and make him a one card, five high flush to beat the raiser's pocket tens. Ahead the whole time, indeed.
It couldn't get more perfect when the very next hand ...
Aces #2: Kerching. AA. Let's see how much respect I have now. Hopefully none. Blinds are up to 50/100 so I open with a raise to 300. A newly rebought 1000 chips comes over the top and my hand holds up against another AJ. Rebuy in seat.. well, who knows what number the seat is in these self-dealt games...?
I'm then moved to another table, and having lost one small pot and a couple of rounds of blinds I am sitting behind a stack on 3300 when the last three hands for rebuys is announced. Two hands pass uneventfully. Last hand before the break, and wouldn't you know it...
Aces #3: Woohoo. There are two limpers ahead of me, and I make it 300 to go from the button. I haven't needed to rebuy yet and I'm feeling a bit frisky, hence the small raise. I'd like some action please Bob. It's not very often you'll see me trying to build a pot with one pair, but right now I can still pay £20 if it all goes wrong and be back to 3000 chips, roughtly where I started. The blinds quickly fold and the two limpers call. These two limpers had history. The guy in early position had been frustrated by the girl in between us twice since I'd been here, with her moving all in over the top after he bet. Both times he folded a medium strong hand face up (whereas she showed nothing and just grinned), and though he was probably correct both times he was clearly getting rattled. So with me last to act behind these two, I have to hold my breath when there's a bet of 500 and an immediate all-in on a Q-high, fairly raggy board. Had she not seen me here? I don't think the other guy had, as he announced "call" before I had chance to do anything. Two nits at the table convinced him that the call stood because I had ever so slightly less chips than the raiser. Which I think is correct, but instead of calling for a ruling he just threw in his remaining 500 with bottom pair (45s) and started berating the nits for getting involved once his hand did not improve (compulsory call for him though anyway in that spot). QJ also did not improve, and I'm up to about 10,000 at the break after I take the add-on.
The girl does not return, so there's 125 chips with no owner at the table when we come back from break. The table gets broken quickly and I have no idea where those chips end up. Surely they won't have reseated her with a dead stack for three or four hands? Wasn't at my table anyway...
The streak continues at my new table. I get one customer when I raise with AQ, the flop comes Q-high and he check-calls all in on the flop with 66. Not exactly pot-committed (the bet was about the size of the pot) but he must not have believed me. Doesn't he know how powerfbloody lucky I am tonight?
From then on it did get harder. Can you believe I didn't see aces again all night? Sometimes that really makes you question how good you are... I was glad to have the big chip advantage because the blinds got silly pretty quick. I'm still not convinced by the 250/500 and 350/700 levels. They are uncomfortable numbers, and really just serve to skip three levels for the price of two. About half the players were pot committed on every hand they played, so I mostly just stayed out of trouble. No need to win this one, top ten will do fine. I manage to maintain and creep my stack up a bit to 16k before we are down to two tables.
Playing some great push/fold, crapshooty, throw-it-all-away-on-one-hand poker, I see AJ and have to move in from the cut-off. The small blind likes his hand. He thinks for a while and says "I have a pair". Bad small blind - if he calls and shows a pair, he can't win this pot. They only recently allowed any speech play at all at Gutshot, but you still can't talk about your hand whilst there are other players to act. Heads up it seems you can do what the hell you like... So do I actually want him to call, then yell for the floor and let them decide whether I just get his blind or the whole pot? Or do I say something now, and make him pass whilst also letting the other player still in the hand know that I'm not particularly keen on getting action here? I decide to keep quiet and fortunately he folds what he says is a pair of sixes.
From then on the remaining players dropped like flies. I still had to take a 50/50 with my 55 against AT to ensure safety, but I stayed lucky and didn't finish 13th. Two simultaneous bustos, one on each table, took ten of us into the next round. One winner even got all the way without paying a penny. Living the dream baby!
The £150 satellite is next Monday. It's costing me £88 on the train (they just got expensive for Christmas) and £34 for a hotel (and yes, you get what you pay for) to be there. With my £20 investment, I guess I'm about £8 up...
But still, there won't be a poker table in sight at the World's Most Vacuous Poker Room when we land on July 22nd for Summer O' Poker III. I'm still undecided whether this time it will be in 3D.
