Early Father's Day Vegas excursion

Took a quick little overnight trip to Vegas last week. This trip was even approved by the wife as it was ostensibly to have a meeting with my manager who was in LV with his family from San Diego. I had a productive meeting and pleasant lunch with my manager and his lovely family. Having taken care of the important things I turned my attention to poker.

I originally planned on playing the Venetian 12:00 tourney but they are in the middle of their Deep Stacks and I didn't quite feel like putting down $550 for a tourney. I had toyed around with the idea of heading out the Rio to play their $200 buy-in 1:00 tourney but instead decided to play the 1:00 Aria tourney for $175 after a positive review of the tourney by the B.W.O.P. I have nothing but positive things to say about the staff and dealers who put on a well-run tournament. With automatic shuffling machines and dealers who keep the action moving along you get a lot of hands in during each 30 minute round.

As I took my seat at the table I recognized none other than the Poker Grump taking a seat (thankfully) two seats to my left. In one of the first hands of the orbit I picked up Kings and got called down all the way by a guy who would bust out a couple hands later with the sucker end of a straight. Just to tip my hand to the Grump that I knew his identity I pointed out that 2-4 would have been a winner (I think the board was T 3 T 5 6) . Unfortunately I would bust the Grump with Aces vs his AKs in the third round when I re-raised the one player who might have been raising light. As he sat in the BB contemplating his move I silently willed that the Grump would fold and the original raiser would make a move but it was not to be. Luckily the Poker Grump stuck around long enough that I was able to formally say hello (right after busting him out of a tourney didn't seem appropriate) to him and Cardgrrl who was also playing the tourney.

After that I managed to stay around twice the chip average for most of the tourney. I used my tight image and imposing stack to push a few players off hands and take a fair number of uncontested pots. It wasn't until we were down to the final three tables that had a suck-resuck when my AQo caught a J on the river to make a Broadway straight against a KJ that caught a King on the flop.

The biggest hand came when we were down to 11 and I raised-called an all-in on a board of 8h 8x 2h with AK (no heart). The BB turned over KJ and the turn and river came 8 -8 to give me quad 8s with an Ace kicker. With that hand I had over 200,000 in chips and almost a third of the chips in play when we got to the final table. When we got down to 6-handed (top 7 paid) we did a chop. With 179,000 in chips and the biggest stack I theoretically took 1st. Not bad for 6 hours of work.

CFF Charity Tourney

A few days ago Andy Bloch (@Andy_Bloch) posted on Twitter that he was coming to Seattle to play in a charity tournament for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I've always been a fan of Mr. Bloch and the way he carries himself at the table (at least what they shown of him on TV) so I was intrigued. Also my wife used to work in CF research and what I learned from her about the disease is that Cystic Fibrosis is something that I would not even wish upon my worst enemy, or likely their children since people with CF do not have long life expectancies. So with the possibility of playing poker with my wife's blessing, and for a good cause, I looked into it further.

The website for the event was somewhat vague on the details except for that the buy-in was $300. Well, for $300 you get a "VIP Player & Casino Guest Night Ticket" which I imagine is their way to work around probably some stupid state gambling law. "The Draw" (aka first prize) is a seat to the World Series of Poker Main Event. Now, calling it "the Draw" is a little confusing. I think they meant that the draw of the poker tournament is the ME seat, but of course it could also be read as there is a drawing for the seat. Unfortunately not much useful information (e.g. number of entrants, structure etc.) was available on the website.

After badgering Mr. Bloch with my questions on Twitter I decided I should just call the number listed on the website and ask. So I called and talked to very helpful woman who gave me probably as much information as she could. And here it is.

The number of entries will be capped around 180. There will be unlimited rebuys and an add-on for either $60 or $80 (she was doing this all from memory and not at her desk) for the first few levels. The early rounds will likely be about 45 minutes and will shorten as the field is reduced with the aim being to wrap up the tourney around midnight (starts around 7:00 after the conclusion of a live auction). Mr. Bloch said that the event was a shootout however the woman I spoke to mentioned that tables would be collapsed down so it's unclear if that is indeed the case. She did say that the final table would be 9-handed. As of Friday there were about 100 people already registered for the event.

I imagine a lousy structure with a very mixed level of play. But it's for a good cause and I might get to meet Andy Bloch so sign me up!