Thursday July 14, 2005

wsop

WSOP main event didn't amount to much for me. I was rarely over 10k. I started out at a fairly active first table. I had all the calling stations lined up to my left. But then nothing to go after them with. A few steals always got called. One amusing story from the first few hours. A player who early on made the statement that "today was for survival" managed to get his stack in on a flush card turn with top and bottom. I had marked him for some special attention. Glad I didn't push on him too hard. Well after dinner on the first day I was moved to a more passive table. Managed to steal some and win a few pots. Picked up black aces UTG, open-raised to 1100, got two callers. The first caller gives wonderful tells. On a Qs 7s 5h flop he was interested. I checked, he bet 3k, the player behind folded, I called off 3k of my 3900 (I intended to raise but lack of sleep or something and I made an inconsequetial error). I bet all in on the 6 turn and a spade came up on the river. He showed me 8s 6s for a thin leader on the flop and a slight trailer on the turn (guess that erroneous call on the flop was better then I thought). Next.

Generally I thought there were a whole host of silly organizational issues with the tournament. The painful hallway of smoke. Some really silly decisions (floor decides that because there hasn't been "much action" [only a fold, open-raise, two more folds] and because the opener doesn't mind that that a late discovered 3 cards in the big blind creates a misdeal). The poker lifestyle arena mostly holding the hopes and prayers of companies trying desperately to jump on the poker bandwagon (reminds me of an Amiga conference I went to in the early 90s except that the booth babes at the WSOP had invested in Dow chemical a little more). Creating more congestion around the tournament by forcing the participants through the poker lifestyles area. Having the side games be "first-come first-serve" (I'm sure this cost Harrah's some multiple of the side game revenue) because nobody could figure out how to or cared to figure out how to use a clipboard in this day and age of computerized game lists.

But that was well made up for by the amount of dead money in the tournament and the amazing side action around town. ( Jul 14 2005, 02:04:04 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]