New Year sucks. Christmas is over (well, actually that’s not such a a bad thing). You’ve run out of turkey recipes, and still have half a bird left. It’s starting to smell a bit, too. You can, if you wish, queue for hours in the freezing cold to stand a small chance of picking up a genuine bargain in the sales. Although I’m sure it won’t be as bad as the insanity and violence of the PlayStation 3 queues in America last month. This year, I’m spending midnight at New Year’s Eve on a plane. I know I won’t care.
Oh, and all new for 2007 – the price of poker is going up again. All around the country this time, too.
Grosvenor Casinos have announced a new schedule of “session charges”. Whilst they’ve had the sense to tier the fees so you pay less for a cheaper tournament, the attempt to justify it as the “true reflection of running costs of cardrooms” is unconvincing. I’m quite pleased that I managed to delete the word “bullshit” just then, very disciplined of me.
It’s a £2 charge on a £5 tournament, but £5 on £20. Does one game really cost two and a half times as much to run as the other?
It’s actually great for the game that the major casinos are finally starting to treat it as a game in its own right, and not simply something in the same league as £5 in free slot play or a complimentary drink. If they have to charge a little extra to do justice to their tournaments and keep the guys upstairs happy, then so be it. But c’mon, call a spade a spade. Call a service charge a rake (unless you’re not allowed to). And acknowledge this session fee what it is – a way for casinos to begin making money from poker directly, rather just using it to try to bring in pit game suckers.
Clothing: To help you pack, Fox Sports Net requests that men wear business attire–collared shirts, jackets, ties optional; women—smart business attire–suits, dresses. Note: no white clothing, no logos for the telecast. The dinner Friday night is held at one of the top restaurants in Caesars Palace or the Forum Shops, please wear appropriate business or resort attire.
It’s over seven years since I had to wear a suit to work, but I still have quite a collection of downright horrible ties. Given that I very much doubt they’d consider any of my non-plain shirts to be business attire (let’s be realistic – they’re not) a tie looks like my best chance to wear something ghastly on TV. I used to be a master at picking the tie that clashed most with any given shirt. Can’t wait to see if I’ve still got what it takes.
I’m not completely sure what they mean by "resort attire". I have a couple of t-shirts from Caesars, and – seriously – also a dressing gown. If it was a toga, and I was a little more attractive, it might be OK.
In answer to a Trivial Pursuit question that I can remember from like twenty years ago, table tennis is apparently no longer the only sport that you can’t play dressed in white.
The guys from the Sentinel apparently spent all day yesterday trying to get hold of Claire for a quote, causing much embarassment in the classroom. "Miss, your phone’s vibrating". Repeatedly.
She never got chance to talk to them but it looks like they’ve run the story anyway. I’m right there, above a story about the panto.
Apparently I’m going to be featured in The Sentinel tomorrow. Possibly even on pages one and two, the photographer said! Surely something more interesting will happen in the meantime… even in Stoke.
This is thanks (I think… having second thoughts now!) to Mike who asked me if he could write and submit the story as part of his journalism course requirements. I’m not even sure if he’s getting credit for the story any more.
No doubt I’ll write more once I’ve had chance to read it. I’m down in London tomorrow though so I’ll have to rely on the online copy.
For anyone that ends up here as a result though (I don’t know if they’ll actually print my blog address – it was worth a try!) and wants to know more about Poker Dome, click on the banner below. Then click on it again. One click not good enough. It’s a security feature, or something.
I’ve got my dates now: Episode 36, filming January 27th, airing on Fox Sports Net on January 28th.
The show is now being shown on FX over here. That makes four programs on that channel, alongside X-Files, Highlander and Cops. But obviously those stalwarts of the schedule get top priority and Pokerdome is squeezed on at 2am. I’ve put it in Sky+ and will try to work out how far behind we are.
The package includes:
Round Trip Air Transportation to Las Vegas They’ve confirmed that this is for one person only. Although it’s unlikely Claire can get time off during term time anyway so I’m almost certainly going alone. Which will be strange. If they book it for Fri-Sun though it won’t be a direct BMI flight. At the very least I need to try to get them to make it Thu-Sun and then I can get diamond club miles too, as well as stand a chance of being awake when the tournament starts! Have to make sure they’ve heard of other airlines than Virgin so I don’t end up having to get to Gatwick! If I’m only going to be there for a weekend, a 24 hour round trip journey is an absolute upper limit, don’t you agree?
VIP Check-in at Caesars Palace (2 nights included Friday and Saturday) Never stayed at Caesars. Always said its probably where I’d choose if money was no object, and I said that even before they had a card room. So this is pretty damn cool.
Welcome VIP package in the room (champagne, mansion welcome wear) Free shirts = always good. Champagne = don’t care. How much fun is it going to be to arrive by yourself and sit in your room and drink bubbly anyway? I’m sure I can find an appreciative wino…
$500.00 Casino Credit Sounds like this is actually just five black chips, according to http://pokerworks.com/article-674.html. Play em or cash em… well I can’t see there being any tables games lower than $25 minimum at Caesars on a weekend, so I’ll probably cash em. Or, I could try to do some real life rampaging at $2/$5 NL and see how just far I can spin it up…!
Welcome Dinner and Introduction to the Poker Dome (Friday Night) Oh God, I have to be sociable? After an 11 hour flight? At like 5am UK time? Is this optional? 🙂
VIP Transportation to and from the Poker Dome (Saturday) Why they’re not putting us in a Downtown hotel I don’t really know. I’d probably still want a ride from the El Cortez at night, but anywhere else saves them a load of hassle.
$50 meal credit at hotel If it’s good at the Cheesecake Factory, you can be sure I’m going to be trying to smuggle a couple of those bad boys back home.
VIP transportation back to airport BFH. Super, smashing, great.
The tournament itself is a three round, six-handed, speed poker shootout for a million dollars. 15 players stand between me and $1m – hey, it’s just like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire! And, if this article is to be believed, you can almost ask the audience too. There’s also that annoying drone of tension music all the way through. If I beat five players, I win some money that I can’t lose and get to come back for more. It’s $25,000 for round one, and a further $50,000 for round two. Second place gets diddly squat though. The speed poker element is that you get 15 seconds to make each decision and there are two dealers to keep the cards flowing quickly.
In the rules I’ve been sent (which, incidentally, are all TV rules, and nothing to do with poker) state no logos on clothes, no ipods, and no recourse whatsoever if they decide to make stuff about you to make the show more interesting.
"I hereby release Producer from, and covenant not to sue Producer for, any claim or cause of action, whether known or unknown, for libel, slander, invasion of right of privacy, publicity or personality, or any other claim or cause of action"
I’m also a bit worried why they need to include this:
"I understand that there is a possibility of i) risk of injury to me or others and/or ii) damage to either my property and/or the property of a third party as a direct and/or indirect result from my participation in or connection with certain activity(ies) which may be included within the production of the Program."
Playing beyond your bankroll completely rocks when you get lucky. 🙂
I knew the PokerDome satellite was too expensive for me to justify buying into direct. Even with its awesome added value – a $215 seat was worth $343 tonight – I’m just not serious enough or good enough to play three-figure buy in tournaments on a regular basis. I was well aware that I couldn’t continue playing this tournament every week, as I desparately wanted to, without running a little bit hot at first.
Last Saturday, I used some of the money remaining from the very nice Mansion NFL bet bonus I took advantage of earlier in the year to buy into the $100+$9 rebuy and the $200+$15 freezeout. It was pretty uneventful – I didn’t survive the first hour in either of them and couldn’t remember anything vaguely interesting to write about, so I didn’t even mention it.
Today I went only for the freezeout, figuring my balance could support two more cracks at it and I wasn’t really likely to play anything else at Mansion. They have a few money-added tournaments during the day, but they’re now making a big deal about a Christmas tournament series with $250,000 added. Very attractive (and a $50+$5 buy in is much more realistic for me) but they all start at 3am. So despite the Mansion server clock being GMT, they pretty much don’t give a hoot about their European players and have put this quarter of a million up for grabs only to attract the Americans that are still looking for a place to play. You can see why they’d do that, but just a couple that start during the day for US players – a token effort – would be nice.
Oh, did I forget to say the result before I went off on one?
First place baby! $7000 PokerDome package and $3430 cash.
What follows now will probably be waffle. I’m completely wired but also in need of sleep (I have to catch a train at 07:24). In this case especially, the size of the prize is much more interesting than how I actually won it, so I definitely won’t be offended if you don’t read any further.
Everything started great and I was chip leader within 15 minutes after eliminating two players with big pairs that held up. Had to make a terrifying all-in call with QQ on TT2 flop. The other player had called my third raise pre-flop and moved all-in immediately after the flop. There’s a chance he’s playing AA or KK in a donkish way there, but I found it hard to believe he wouldn’t try to check-raise me on that board if he had anything that beats my queens. In fact, a check-raise there may well have got me to fold the QQ (I’d be putting him on JJ-AA), but instead he donated his stack when AK did not improve.
Players fell fast down to three tables remaining. Two tables were getting paid, with $350 for places 10-18. On the bubble there were three mega short stacks, with about 1000 chips each and blinds at 300/600. I had a heart attack when I saw KK on the big blind with players who mostly had me covered, and was never more pleased to get a walk with a big hand. It wasn’t just me who wanted to lock in $350 then – that’s almost two more goes at this in my weak mind!
There were some crippled stacks on the final table so it dropped to 6 remining pretty quickly. That had guaranteed me a four-figure payday. I was keeping up with the pack pretty well, but I know I could have played stronger to take advantage of the bubble effect – when two players had very short stacks but the next jump in money was $600, I fancied the $600. I was helped by someone playing AK much too passively. He smooth-called a minimum raise from a habitual min-raiser, forcing me to pay one bet to see a flop with K8s from the big blind. I didn’t hesitate when the flop came KQ8 and got the payoff.
The jump between 4th and 3rd was $1500 and I was extremely glad that it happened on a pretty easy decision. I had AJs on the big blind and the small stack button pushed. He flipped over J8o and stood up.
Then I dithered a bit too much. The problem (if you can call four grand in the bank a problem) was that 3rd paid a nice chunk of cash ($4116) whereas 2nd was "only" $235 in addition to the PokerDome package. $4116, or indeed the $3430 extra for first place, would nicely take care our house rental next summer. Claire did just this with the extra cash she won alongside her WSOP seat last year, so I wanted to do the same. So my strategy at that point should have been to go for broke: get myself a massive chip lead or bomb out and guarantee the biggest cash prize on offer. Finishing 2nd, chances are I’m going to Vegas by myself, unless by some freak of timing the event I’ve qualified for is either the weekend we’re already going to be there or lands in a school holiday. Plus, I’d heard other players talking about previous satellites, saying that the 3rd place finisher is also taken to Vegas as a reserve.
By the time I’d realised that I needed to make this adjustment, it was too late. The other two were going at it, and we were heads up. The other guy had about a 2:1 chip lead on me. Playing, basically, a freeroll for $3000 in a satellite is a very strange experience. It’s the biggest leap in prize money on offer, even though both the players remaining have pretty much already achieved what they came for. We were both on our way to Vegas. But the tournament just kept on playing, there was no time to take that in, no time to start leaping around and not even time to go and wake Claire and get a sleepy hi-5. I’d been running excitedly back and forth with updates all the way down to 5 players left, as she’s much more conscientious at the whole having-to-get-up-at-6.30 thing than me. That’s like 5 hours away… and still no way I can sleep!
The heads up slaughter lasted about 45 minutes. I suck at heads up. I’m way too weak, and this guy was a big bully. He bashed me down to about 15k vs his 120k and I got lucky to survive. From then on I somehow slogged my way back even, eventually picked up a big hand and got paid off and once I’d fought my way to a 3:1 chip lead his TT held up against my AQ and we were back to level footing. Same old story – he bashes away at me and I have to get lucky again. Although by now I’m wondering if the Kill Phil heads up strategy of "go all in every hand" wasn’t such a bad idea. I was definitely outclassed, but on the bright side I now have some great experience of playing heads up for a big prize.
We already know that it’s bad karma to turn down a deal. Here we were, almost at the stage where it was time to race random cards for $3000 and I offer a deal. Don’t even know if it’s possible to do that on Mansion, but he wasn’t interested anyway. Can’t blame him really. He knew he was better, and I’d have been overjoyed to take any kind of deal to have it over with.
But when it’s with you it’s with you. I got ahead again, calling a small bet with middle pair and making 2 pair on the river. I never saw what he had, but I must have been behind most of the way. So with nearly a 4:1 chip lead I decided to have a crack with K9 to try and end it. It was good enough:
Now, you never know, going on TV might be enough to push me just that little bit harder to lose some weight…
… but if anyone would care to come and sweat me, we’re down to 11 players in the PokerDome satellite and I just about have an average stack. I’m already in the money, thanks to Mansion’s fantastic overlay, but it starts to get really interesting at the final table. Top two go to Vegas…
Full report to follow, probably.
— 22:54. Quickest edit ever. I’d just pressed "save" on this, and it dealt me QQ with a raise in front of me. I took it down with a reraise though. Whew, as they say.
— 22:57. Second quickest edit ever. Same situation, this time JJ. Apparently I’m second in chips after that resteal!
— 23:30. Brief update at end of 3rd hour. 5 left and I have 2 grand in the bank. I’m second bottom in chips though and the blinds are mental. I think it’ll be over pretty quick either way.
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…
I can’t believe i haven’t realised until today just how much added value there is in the PokerDome satellites. I’ve only made it to the main satellite once, mostly because I regularly manage to forget that the $20 freezeout qualifier starts at 8.15pm. They’re not bad themselves, often a small overlay to make up the two guaranteed seats into the next round.
Today I was thinking about buying in direct, simply because the package on offer was for the tournament taking place whilst we are in Vegas at Christmas. Then, true to form, I managed to miss the start and I kicked myself harder than usual after I noticed just how juicy this satellite was. They guarantee two seats for Vegas – kind of essential to make sure the TV show goes ahead. What I didn’t realise, and perhaps I just wasn’t paying close enough attention or maybe they just don’t a big enough deal about it, is that one seat is added to the prize pool and as far as I can tell it’s added regardless of the actual entries. This week there were 69 players, paying $200 each. That’s $13800 in the prize pool, which would be just shy of funding the two $7000 seat prizes. But rather than just add $200 to make it up, there was in fact $6800 up for grabs in consolation cash.
Not only that, but they paid the whole final table – 9 prizes from 69 runners is a little flatter than usual, and makes it just that little bit more appealing for a tournament that’s not exactly within my bankroll. A $200 online tournament is definitely out of my comfort zone to buy in direct. I even get cold feet when it comes to using PokerStars T$ or W$ for the actual events I’ve qualified for! But when you’re actually getting, effectively, $300 worth of seat for $200 I’m going to find this hard to resist!
Of course, if I can actually remember the satellites this week it won’t be an issue.. 🙂
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