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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.
Finally I manage to drag myself out of the house for a live game of poker and whizz along the A50 towards Leicester. For some reason, my sat nav keeps telling to turn round. It wants to take me on the M6 to the M69 for some reason. This way is never used to be the quickest even before the A50 bypasses (bypi?) were completed and it’s never tried it before. I think the heat was getting to it.
Getting to Leicester early is essential. It frequently sells out well ahead of the start time, plus they do a very nice range of burgers. I had the Texan burger this time, which comes with bacon and cheese. This was a change from my usual Stilton and Bacon Burger, which as you might expect comes with bacon and a different type of cheese. There’s definitely a pattern, but I haven’t been disappointed yet.
I register for the game at just after 7pm, for an 8pm start, and there’s already 27 players in, which isn’t bad as you can’t register until the night of the tournament. In total there were 49 players when it kicked off, with seven tables of seven. The usual capacity is 56 (8 tables) but I think this might have been a sell out at 49 tonight as they were short of dealers. My table kicked off without a dealer and Old Steve (not me being rude, it says this on his name badge!) the cardroom manager had to deal for a few minute whilst they borrowed someone from a roulette table. Not even a mention of us having to go self-dealt even for a while.
It’s a pretty uneventful night for me, and I think I’d underestimated how fast this tournament moves, having enjoyed reasonable success with it in the past. Although I couldn’t remember if the 150/300 blind level used to be played, or I’d just gotten lucky early on when I’d played before. They coloured up the 50 point chips after level 1 of (50/100) – and then stormed up to 100/200 then 200/400 before things start to settle down.
I survived a potentially early bath when I folded 89 on my big blind after a raise and a call. I just didn’t think I had the chips to defend with a very mediocre hand. When the flop comes TJQ I’m thinking I’d be screwed if the raiser had AK. In fact he had QQ but the other player wouldn’t lay down AT and the turn K made him the nut straight.
Apart from one situation, where I was fairly pleased I had the balls to make what I thought was the right move, nothing particularly exciting happened. Sitting on the big blind with 1800 chips left, the player to my left min-raises to 400. One mid-position player calls and the small blind calls. I look down at 77 and I really want to call and hope to catch a set, which is probably the best value play. But looking at my situation I decide that it’s worth a crack to try and take the pot down right there. I figure the two callers are probably weak, and I have enough chips to stand a chance of pushing them off a mediocre hand by making it 1600 each more to call. My worry obviously is the min-raiser to my left and I don’t yet know what that means, but being left with 1600 after a call and not hitting a set – 1500 after the small blind – and blinds going up to 200/400 soon this feels like a perfect opportunity to pick up some dead money. If I don’t run into a bigger pair and barring some really manic overcalls, I’m either taking down 1400 uncontested (almost doubling my stack) or going 50/50 with a decent overlay.
So I move in, and all three players fold. I’m back in the game.
Briefly.
I can’t get enough chips to deal with the oppressive 200/400 level. I see AJ and raise, to end up racing with a short stack. His K6s gets there and I’m left with 1400.
Then I’m left facing playing the next hand or putting in half my stack in blinds. I take a quick peek and feel that QJ is good enough. The player to my left instantly calls 1400 cold, and the big blind also calls. After they check a flop that doesn’t help me, the player who called 1400 preflop bets at the dry side pot and I figure I’m done. He actually has A4 and hasn’t paired yet, so I’m still alive but drawing thin and I don’t make it. The vast majority of times he’d be doing me a huge favour here with the donkey bet, but as the big blind told me she’d also folded QJ it made no difference.
On the way home at 9.15 – not great, but that’s the way it goes I guess..
The new Gutshot web site is now live, with one or two components developed by yours truly. In fact, the bits I wrote seem to be mostly the sections that took a bit of a bash in transit from one server to the other, but I’m sure they’ll be OK again soon. We just need their system admins to put the right server modules back in place and then we’re in business again. Check out the odds calculator and the poker diary. They’re really rather good 🙂
I can’t take any credit for how this looks (they have an excellent in-house designer) and really my involvement was just a small part of a massive relaunch. This is a pretty awesome poker web site. The slick black and orange logo is already all over the cardroom, and now it’s made it to the web site as well. Opinions seem to be mixed about the light-on-dark colour scheme. I think it looks pretty sexy on my LCD monitor and my laptop, but when I’m reading the forum on my older CRT monitor (which is getting on a bit, and doesn’t really do midtones any more) then it does send my eyes a bit funny after a while.
Maybe this web site should carry a "best viewed on a flat panel monitor" advisory!
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 🙂
Continue reading Questing (Part 1)
After nearly five weeks I finally have confirmation of my entry into WSOP event 37!
I’ve said previously about the so-called registration hotline and my failure to reach a human and since then a kind poster on the 2+2 WSOP Forum sent me the number for the WSOP registration desk, but so far I’d still only managed to get a recorded message.
I’m loving reading that forum by the way, it’s really getting quite excited – even if most of the questions asked are along "can I walk from my hotel to the Rio". It’s actually only about half a mile from the intersection of Flamingo and the Strip, but you’d be walking in oppressive heat over a busy freeway intersection – nowhere to stop and lovely fumes to inhale, and then still have to walk for 20 minutes to find the right end of the Rio itself! Just take plenty of water, or you’ll probably die.
Anyway I’d left messages asking them to call me, email me – anything – to say whether my money had arrived and still no joy. Finally today Claire convinced me that I should call the Rio’s main number and see if I could find anyone to speak to in person on a different extension. In fact, I did and they were trying to be very helpful.
Firstly I spoke to Ron (or possibly Ray, I didn’t write it down) in the WSOP cage, who managed to confirm that my pre-registration fax had gone through but that I was unpaid. He was only able to check my pre-registration because I managed to fish out my old Harrah’s Total Rewards card. I hadn’t even written the number on the form because I thought it might have expired, but it would seem that Harrah’s have a very long memory…
So why was I unpaid, I asked. He said I would have to go to the main casino cage and sign over the wire transfer to the WSOP when I arrived. He tried to put me through to the cage so I could check they had my money but I got disconnected.
So I called back and asked for the casino cage. They said I needed to speak to the WSOP cage and put me through before I could argue. The phone line dropped again before anyone answered.
I called back to the WSOP cage and spoke to Ray (or maybe Ron, whichever one the first guy was not) and he said I’d need to talk to "will call", which I didn’t even know existed except if you’re going to see Penn and Teller. They weren’t answering the phone, so good old Ray said he’d run over there himself and make sure they took the call. Can’t fault the enthusiasm, if this is for real. However I was on hold for a good 15 minutes before I finally gave up.
However, something went right along the way as I finally received this email this evening. A huge relief!
Congratulations!! The World Series of Poker is the most prestigious Poker event in the world. This is a receipt for your payment of the Tournament Entry Fee of $1500 which reserves you a seat in WSOP Event #37 on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 12 noon.
Upon arrival at the RIO, to finalize your Registration and to receive your table and seat assignment, please visit our Registration Area, located in the WSOP Tournament Area. You must complete your Tournament Registration at least one hour prior to your event. Please be prepared to provide proof of identity via a Drivers License, Passport or Military I.D.
This year’s WSOP will no doubt be the largest and most exciting gaming event in history. Harrahs continues to lead the industry in creating an innovative gaming experience for valued guests. Harrahs and the Tournament Staff sincerely wish you, “GOOD LUCK!!”
Robert Daily
Tournament Director, World Series of Poker
This may have been covered numerous times in various places already – it’s about 4 years old now – but I only just got round to starting to watch the World Poker Tour box set, so – as usual – I’m just a little bit behind the times. In any case, it’s still just wrong.
When I was watching this with Claire, we diligently paused the DVD to work it out 🙂 I said at first that you’d be about 70% favourite, whilst she said about 75% and I said, well actually yes that’s probably more like it. You’re clearly a favourite as over half the deck improves you hand and there are two cards to come.
So, according to WPT you have any heart (9), 7 (3 non-hearts), 9 (3), J (3) or Q (3 non-heart) to win. But you can also win with the other 3 10s, and somehow they’ve missed this! As if 21 outs wasn’t enough, you actually have 24.
There’s so many outs here that the rule of four isn’t close to accurate, and the full house redraw to lose or running pair to win makes it pretty tricky to work our from first principles, even if you can divide numbers into 45 and 44 in your head! The rule of four would make you a 96% favourite on the hand, and with that logic the universe starts to falls apart.
However I couldn’t believe that you’re only 2-1 here so I had to plug it into a calculator to find out if they got that wrong too… but alas no, the answer was just over 69% – a bit better than 2-1 but not as far ahead as I thought.
What use this is I don’t really know, although it’s made me – somewhat compulsively – check out how the open-ended straight flush draw looks against various other hands. You’re in pretty bad shape against an opponent holding 88 or 99, of course. But you’re also behind to any overpair, the worst situation being QQ with the Q of hearts where you’re actually worse than 40% to win, and even ace-rag of hearts is just beating you.
Here’s what I didn’t consider and have subsequently learned, thanks to the WPT’s mistake! The pair on board with two cards to come gives an opponent with any pocket pair a 17% chance to make a full house. So even if you do improve to a straight or flush, you’ll still lose this hand one time in six. If the board is not paired, you’ll only lose to a full house one time in 35.
This is a complete misnoma. I just called the WSOP Registration Hotline to check on my entry – it’s been two weeks since I faxed over my form and wired the money and I’ve not heard a peep. Not asking for much, just an email to say "thanks, we got your money" would do.
I really don’t think there’s any reason to be suspicious of Harrah’s, and I can understand that they’re going to be a little busy processing mountains of registrations so it could take a while. I just want to know that my money got to the right place, and they know what it’s for.
Given that when I was calling Citibank to set up the wire, they read aloud to confirm the spelling of "N-E-V-A-R-D-A", even with the written confirmation they’ve sent to me, there’s still just a niggling fear that it hasn’t gone right.
The most interesting mistake I’ve seen Citibank make is when I applied for casino credit at the Stratosphere – they faxed through an account summary stating my average balance as $487,317. Very specific and very, very wrong I’m sorry to say. Sadly this didn’t impress the casnio enough to make them throw any free stuff at us.
So the WSOP Hotline: 1-877-FOR-WSOP. After over four minutes of recorded blurb telling me just how great this year’s event is going to be I press the button for "if you have any questions". Alas, there’s no human on this number though. I’m given the option to leave a recorded message, and someone will get back to me within 72 hours.
Not very hot at all really.
So let’s recap 🙂 I wanted to play Event 37 $1500 No Limit Hold’em, and also have a crack at a $1060 satellite in Vegas for the main event. I think we’re nearly there.
Party Poker: $411.30
Gutshot: $1400
Blue Sq: $766
Total: $2577.30
That’ll do it!
So I’ve only bloody gone and done it. My entry form for Event 37 has been faxed, I’ve wired the money to Harrah’s and I am going to be playing in a bracelet event on July 25th. Takes 3-5 days for the money to arrive apparently, and then I’ll get a confirmation from the Rio. You can be sure I’ll post it here once I have it!
You can’t register in advance for the super-satellites, you just turn up and play on the day. Usually these take place at 7pm each night but July 26th and 27th are "Satellite Days" (in addition, July 27th is "Media/Celebrity Event Day" – whatever horrible made-for-tv monstrosity that might be). If I’m doing well in the $1500 event, I won’t be able to play one of these, but that would be a very happy problem to have. Only the final table will play on the 27th, so if I’m there looking fat for the ESPN cameras I won’t really care about the main event satellite! 9th place last year got $23,820 and the winner took over $300k.
The question now is whether I’ll actually try and win a seat for the main event online first…
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