The Lucky Donut

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.