WSOP, WPT, EPT

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.

The press release and full schedule can be found here:
http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/news/fullstory.sps?inewsid=393478

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...

The timing couldn't be worse.  Harrah's have announced that the series will being on June 1st with the final table of the Main Event on July 17th.  There's no specific schedule information at this point in time, and I guess they don't actually know when it will start yet because nobody can qualify online anymore. 

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.

Played the EPT Baden satellite today with the W$ I cashed in from not playing the Dublin satellite last weekend.  Very tough game.  I raised once and folded to a reraise and after that they were all over me - two players in particular, both Scandinavian if you think that's relevant....  Couldn't get any respect and couldn't pick up any pots uncontested, and never saw a hand to do any real damage.

Whittled away I end up losing a race in the most frustrating way. Can you believe the board didn't pair?

Preflop: Hero is BB with Js, Jd.
6 folds, SB raises to t300, Hero raises to t1445 and is all-in, SB calls t1145.
Flop: (t2890) Jc, Kc, Ts (2 players)
Turn: (t2890) 5s (2 players)
River: (t2890) Ac (2 players)

Hero has Js Jd (three of a kind, jacks).
SB has As Qs (straight, ace high).

So I'm not going to Switzerland and I'm also not going to Vegas. 4th in tonights Poker Dome qualifier on Mansion. Which was much softer by the way, but you'd expect that for $22 instead of $475. I had aces cracked early on, fought my way back, ran into quads with a full house, managed to not go broke and almost recovered before finally going out 4th with 2 getting seats. A good performance considering the beats, but not enough to put me on the road to anywhere.

I have never been to Barcelona. I'm told it's very pretty, and the dogs do have noses. Quite how much of the city I'd actually get to see is debateable, but I have been trying two separate routes to get there. If either is successful you can be sure you will hear about it!

First, jumped into an EPT qualifier on PokerStars, for $36+$3 and entry into the main satellite for every $475 up for grabs this felt similar to the $36 qualifiers for the Sunday Million, but about twice as hard. I wasn't disappointed though, staying lucky when it mattered most and soaring into the final five to win a seat.

WPT, WSOP and EPT satellites on Stars can be cashed in for W$ rather than T$, so I know I'm not going to blow this on smaller tournaments as I might do with a T$215 seat. However you can spend W$ on WCOOP events, so I might bottle out of this and put it towards the $530 No Limit event in a couple of weeks time instead. I was thinking I'd play the satellite if there were more than two seats to win, and right now there's nearly enough for three so I probably will do that on Saturday.

The other tournament I want to get into is the Ongame Poker Classic. A few weeks ago I won a $50 ticket on PokerRoom and planned to use it to get into the Stage 2 Qualifier but it wouldn't let me register. Their reason for this, they told me, is that you can either win a ticket to the qualifier or buy one. Which still doesn't really explain why I can't use a ticket for the exact value for that tournament, but I'm going to have to find another way to get through this one, as it's fast approaching.

As my $50 ticket was about to expire - just like all money does - I decided to play a satellite for the Sunday Big Deal $300+$20. This has a guaranteed prize pool of $80,000 so you'd expect about 300-400 players - not too intimidating compared to the other sites big sunday events with 3000+ entries. Never been in it before - but I am now! This satellite also went unnaturally well and I picked up a seat by finishing in the top 2 of 18 players. This is the stuff television poker dreams are made of - I've parlayed $7 into $50, and now into $320. Next stop could be tens of thousands!

Oh, and I hit a royal flush too. I was so not expecting it that I didn't manage to scramble to the print screen key in time, but here's the hand history:

$50+$4 (real money), hand #933,398,217
Qualifier to Big Deal Multi Table Tournament, 1 Sep 2006 12:13 AM

Seat 1: Hallertauer ($5,440 in chips)
Seat 3: dosc74 ($6,420 in chips)
Seat 7: lucky_donut [QC,JC] ($4,960 in chips)
Seat 8: walkyre ($5,060 in chips)
Seat 10: bretbret ($5,120 in chips)

ANTES/BLINDS
bretbret posts blind ($100), Hallertauer posts blind ($200).

PRE-FLOP
dosc74 folds, lucky_donut bets $500, walkyre folds, bretbret calls $400, Hallertauer folds.

FLOP [board cards AC,10C,9H ]
bretbret checks, lucky_donut bets $600, bretbret bets $2,000, lucky_donut bets $3,860 and is all-in, bretbret calls $2,460.

TURN [board cards AC,10C,9H,4H ]

RIVER [board cards AC,10C,9H,4H,KC ]

SHOWDOWN
lucky_donut shows [ QC,JC ]
bretbret shows [ JS,AD ]
lucky_donut wins $10,120.

I had 15 outs (9 flush, 6 straight), so was a favourite against almost any hand with two cards to come. Nice as it is to see a royal flush, any king or any club would have done!

Michael Binger raises to $1,100,000 from the cutoff, Jamie Gold calls from the button and Allen Cunningham moves all in for $6,500,000 from the big blind. Binger folds an Gold makes the call. Cunningham shows 1010 and Gold turns over KJ. The board comes AK873 and Allen Cunningham has been eliminated in 4th place.

I heard this in the car just now driving home, and it made me think of England. Aww..

These are the official event photos of yours truly from Wednesday. Strangely I'm more interested in getting a copy of one of these than I was for my graduation photo... 1 2 3 4 5 6

Let's start positive.  I was responsible for sending three people to the rail in WSOP Event 37, $1500 NL Hold'em.  My ace high flush crushed a ten high flush, a short-stacked AK was disappointed to find me with AA pre-flop and I made a broadway straight to crush two pair.

That wasn't nearly enough though in a field of over 2800 players.  Playing 11 handed (which wasn't too bad really, the tables were nice and big, and pretty comfortable) there were still over 30 tables of alternates.  The floor were struggling, and even made the announcement "Players can you play a bit tighter please, we are getting behind".  I found this amusing, even if some thought it was inappropriate.  Lighten up guys...

When my KK ran into QQ, the poker gods decided to let me go with a brutal Q on the flop.  There was a raise ahead of me and I moved in pre-flop.  QQ put in the third raise, putting himself all in and the original raiser got out of the way. I'd be in trouble with this hand, even with bigger stacks or without the third raise.  Playing KK out of position on a Q high flop against a set of queens - I'd be losing a chunk here even if I can manage to not go broke.

There's no shame in losing as an 80% favourite with 3-1 pot odds (when you include the blinds, antes and the first raise) - what better opportunity can you get, particularly when you don't really have enough chips to isolate the raiser but someone else does it for you? 

So generally I think I did OK, and could stand a fair chance when the cards go the right way - you need a mighty amount of luck to survive in this field.  If I'd won an earlier coinflop with AJ vs KT, who was all in from the big blind for less than double my raise, and then had my KK hold up I'd have been in very good shape.  I didnt try anything fancy, but I didn't really need to, or ever have the ammunition to.  The same went for the other players - whilst I didn't notice anyone who I'd say was particularly bad, nobody really stood out as taking control of the situation or playing a consistently impressive game.

After four or five hours, the boredom was starting to get to some, for instance QTo raising and calling a reraise all-in, but I managed to stay patient.  Considering this is the fastest structure in the WSOP (after they gave the $1000 event $1500 chips, which is just wrong) I just can't comprehend how slow the main event would move....

And it's over. I guess we were about 560th in the end.

It all went very choppy. The table broke and before I could open up the new one I'd raised to 2400 under the gun with AQ. One player calls and the flop brings 245.

We apparently bet 3200 out of position here, leaving us with 5800 but the other player has a bit less. He moves all in for 7400.

[01:44] Fake Me: committed

Well, yeah. Easy for me to criticise when I'm somehow completely detached from the hand I know. This is one of those bets where you look like a genius when he holds AK and can lay it down, but otherwise gets you into a world of trouble. It's a check-fold, or a move all in - there's no half measures with these stacks. I'd often push here if there's something to represent but on this super low board, any pocket pair is going to play, so you won't get any worse hands to call so you're only doing yourself a favour against AK or another AQ.

[01:44] Fake Me: arse
[01:44] Fake Me: F**K

We didn't get any help and we're down to 1600 with the big blind coming right now. Any two will do now with 900 already in the pot in blinds and antes, and 33 looks sweet. It's very sweet in fact when a 3 comes on the flop and we just about stay alive.

Next hand JJ vs KQ and we double up.

Next hand TT vs KK and it's time for bed.

[01:48] Fake Me: bollocks
[01:48] Fake Me: sorry

Hey, it's a hell of a lot better than having me blind away because I can't make the start. At least we had a shot...


Anyway, I'd already noticed that a lot of the Full Tilt pros were playing this, and looking at the top stacks now I can still see John Juana, Erick Lindgren and Kristy Gazes vying for a seat. We finished above Phil Gordon, by the way, for what it's worth. It does seem a bit tight though that these players - who undoubtedly are getting their Main Event entry paid by Full Tilt - are playing this satellite. One would expect the Team Full Tilt field to have a decent success rate in these satellites (it will be interesting to see how many of them make it), and certainly you would expect better than 1-in-24 to make the top 127.

So if Full Tilt are paying their entry to the satellite, isn't this just a stealth rake? And if they're not, why are these guys playing it at all?

The strangest thing about having someone play for you is that I'm really not sweating it that badly at all. We're getting in bad shape, picking up just the blinds with AA and somehow I'm not relating what's happening on screen at all to my shot at a $10k seat and ultimately $10m and all that fame and (more) fortune malarky.

Even when this happens, I just find it ... well... slightly amusing.

[01:30] Fake Me: well 5 hands to push or not
[01:30] Fake Me: all in next hand
[01:31] Fake Me: ok not this time
[01:32] Fake Me X: KJ o
[01:32] Real Me: nooooooooo
He duly moves all in, from early middle position

Fortunately the big stack big blind folded, and we're still alive.

And try as I might to stay out of it, I can't. But whether I'd follow my own advice here I don't know...

[01:37] Fake Me: ok this level is going to kill us
[01:37] Fake Me: looks very dodgy now mate
[01:37] Real Me: push any 2 if folded
[01:37] Fake Me: here we go
He does as I suggest
[01:38] Real Me: gl
[01:38] Real Me: what ya got?
[01:38] Fake Me: KQ
We are called by AJ, but the flop brings a Q and we survive
[01:38] Real Me: f**k yeah
[01:38] Fake Me: rockin

An average stack is within sniffing distance once more...

So Full Tilt's fear that they'd be out of pocked on the guaranted tournament was - as expected - a load of nonsense. There were 3,050 entrants making 127 seats to be awarded! They're making a cool $106,750 in entry fees from this tournament alone.

I also just checked at PokerStars who were having a 150 guaranteed seat satellite today - with 7,377 players they are awarding 234 seats! Blimey, that'll go on until the wee hours and then some.... The self proclaimed largest satellite in the world ever, and it's very hard to argue. I didn't even realise their software could cope with such a big field - usually it's capped at 3600 or some such number.

I got back a bit earlier than I thought I would and I've already seen myself rollercoaster.

[00:13] Real Me: how are we doing?
[00:14] Fake Me: 5500
[00:14] Fake Me: make that 9200
[00:14] Fake Me: AA just held up
[00:19] Fake Me: in 50th place
[00:24] Fake Me: 11595 chips

At that point we were in 37th place and I'd finally got settled, microwaved myself a chicken burger (surprisingly good, and ready in just 55 seconds) and pulled up the table on screen to watch.

Then it all went a little pear shaped. The first hand I saw with AQs turned into the nut flush draw vs two overpairs (88 and JJ on a 7-high board) and we got no love from the poker gods. I decided to stop watching for a while - clearly it's bad luck to observe yourself from afar, with likely side effects ranging from mild itching to a variety of natural disasters.

But by the time I was brave enough to peak again we were back down to just over 5000, and the average had overtaken us. It's now the second break, and after a steal with 66 (so I'm told) we have 5,785 with 250/500 blinds and a 50 ante. 1090 players remain and the average stack is 8394.

So I'd already qualified for tonights Full Tilt 100 WSOP Seat guaranteed satellite, but after I realised I wouldn't actually be able to play it from the start I've had to make a deal with someone else to play it for me. I can't really say who this is, as he's apparently had to arrange to "work from home" tomorrow in case it goes on late (I figured it'd run to about 5am if all goes to plan).

The prize package is a $10,000 WSOP Main Event Seat with $2,000 for expenses paid in cash. I had tried everything to get Full Tilt to deregister me from the tournament - I'd asked if I could transfer the seat, take it's value in satellite tokens to play other tournies on their site, even if they'd give me the $535 seat value to buy into a WSOP event for which of course I'd agree to wear their gear (which is pretty hideous) whilst I played. They gave me the runaround for almost 2 weeks, sounding like something was going to happen but eventually the Promotions Manager said no.

Their excuse: this is a guaranteed seat tournament so you must play it. They were afraid that there would not be enough entrants to cover the 100 Main Event seat prizes. Like that would ever happen. I was more pissed off that they kept me hoping for so long without a straight answer, than the fact that they wouldn't actually bend the rules for me. I mean, how long does it take to say "rules is rules"?

Anyway, so to get my glamourous assistant to play the tourney for me, I had to give up the $2k additional prize money - not an awful deal for either of us really, as I'm already in Vegas if I get the seat and the chance to $2k cash for 6-8 hours playing at no risk isn't bad. I'm just hoping its enough incentive for him to not actually play this like a freeroll!

The fun starts at 11pm, and I'll be back probably sometime between midnight and 1am.

I have decided to make it my mission this week to qualify for a big event through an online satellite.  Why, I'm not really sure with Vegas just round the corner (T-18!).  But I've not had much time to play poker lately and I decided that if I was make time to play this week then I'd do it with a mission.

I'm still not going to be able to throw myself at this, with hundreds of other real world things to get done before we go away, but any poker I play will be focused on The Mission.  I'm going to try to (gasp) single-table these games too, something I haven't done for quite a while.  Occasionally two quallies I want to play will overlap so I might make an exception, other than that I'll have to see just how good my patience is!

I have identified four possible satellites that I want to get into as cheaply as possible:

OnGame Poker Classic:
Stage 1: $6+1
Stage 2: $50+$4
Stage 3: $300+20
Final: $5000+$200 on Sept 2nd played online down to 45 players
Final 45 play live in Barcelona Sept 28th-Oct 1st

Aruba Ultimate Poker Classic:
Sub-qualifiers to satellites costing $200 or $1000
Event is Sept 23rd - Oct 1st
$10,000 package includes $5,200 entry plus travel and accomodation

Camp Hellmuth:
Satellites are $109, package worth $3000
Event takes place in Vegas Aug 11-13
Camp value $2000 + $1500 expenses paid

Ultimate Bet WSOP $3k Satellite:
$30+$3 rebuys or $50+$5 freezeout.
Prize is $2000 in WSOP entries + $1000 cash.
I'd use this for a main event satellite and another preliminary event.

I've so far played four qualifiers, and so far managed to keep to one table at a time without getting itchy fingers!

PokerRoom $6+$1 Poker Classic Stage 1.  I began at lunchtime with the 12:10 qualifier and it was short and sweet, but thanks to a masterpiece of misplanning this early in my quest I'd already put some bacon in the George Foreman grill before I realised it was about to start and would have been distracted by food shortly afterwards anyway.  8 minutes in and I was busted with QQ, moving in on the flop with my overpair vs two flush draws which both hit on the turn.  I was pleased to see I was ahead but didn't really like the move as my all-in came after I got raised and called by the other two players.  The bacon factor, along with seeing that there was only one seat and one cash place in this satellite with 24 players almost certainly influenced my decision.

$11 feeder to Camp Hellmuth satellite.  I survived 59 minutes before busting out in 6th place - hey at least I didn't have to sit through the break with hardly any chips left...  There were only 9 entrants in this giving us a small overlay on the seat value, but meaning that it was first place or nothing.  With a minimum raise to 120 under-the-gun and one caller I reraise to 340 with 44.  If the min-raiser actually has a hand and comes to life I can get away from this with 865 chips remaining.  The raiser folds, but the weak caller wants to see a flop and I feel I have to move in on the flop when he checks to me as long as the board doesn't look too scary.  He instacalls with JT on a J62 rainbow board (couldn't ask for much better without a 4!) and I'm done.

$20+$2 satellite to $109 Tournament.  As UB now offer tournament dollars, even though this was not a Hellmuth satellite I would be able to use the seat value to play in the event I wanted.  This seemed like good value, with one seat for every five and a half players (I have had decent success in a similar structure on PokerStars) however it was a turbo tournament with 5 minute levels.  In total there were 38 players for 6 seats and $106 cash, but I went dry when it mattered and got called by a rag ace when I needed to steal some blinds.  I went to the rail in 16th place.

PokerRoom $7+$1 Satellite to $50+$4.  This seemed to be a bit better value than the Stage 1 qualifier, with the same value ticket prize.  Finally, things go right and I land a ticket for just over 2 hours work.  I have more detailled notes about this one, and depending on whether it sounds vaguely interesting when I read it back I might post some hands later.  However when I went to register for the Stage 2 tournament, it wouldn't let me use this ticket!  My next mission is to find out why...

Summary:
Played: 4
Cost: $48
Won: $54

Not exactly impressive yet.  About even