Short blog today because I have to be back at the Rio for the restart tomorrow at 2 pm and it’s already 4 am. That’s good news though, it means I’m still in the $10k HORSE. Better than that, I have 56k and average is only 40k, so I’m in reasonably good shape. The field is tough, and I had to deal with Jason Mercier, Abe Mosseri, Scotty Nguyen, Daniel Alai, Jen Harmon
and Carlos Mortensen today. Probably a bunch of other known players at my second table that I didn’t recognize, most played well and knew each other. (more…)
Tourney Tracks Blog
Poker Tournament List
$10k HORSE – Day 1
Shades and the Rio
I know, I took a few days off. Quit whining. I busted 17th in the WSoP Razz event for $5,900, and unfortunately it was to Phil Hellmuth who went on to win his twelfth bracelet later that night. And in case you were wondering, I was ahead when we got most of the chips in, but I didn’t stomp off whining about how I should win every event but the donkeys always put beats on me. Grrr. (more…)
Vegas Update and a 19.9 TER
First cash for Fox out in Vegas. He came in 17th in the $2500 Razz event. A decent cash, but I know he’s disappointed; he’s an excellent Razz player and we both knew he had a great shot at the win when it started getting down to the wire. Unfortunately, Phil Helmuth caught his card on 7th street to send Fox to the rail en route to his record-setting 12th WSOP bracelet. (more…)
Razz with Hellmuth
Yet another short blog because I made it through another day of the Razz event. We come back with 18 left tomorrow at 2. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m short stacked after losing a couple big hands. I was up to 170k a few hours before the end of the day, but ended the day with 54k. Still a fighting chance, but a little annoying to run bad when so much cash is on the line.
I played a lot with Phil Hellmuth today, (more…)
Still Playing Razz
Well a short blog posted very late is good news! I made day two of the $2500 Razz event with an above average stack and way above average skill level. It’s amazing how basic the thought processes are in Razz, even with some very smart players at the table. A number of people were confused by plays I made that I could easily have explained to them with a few minutes and a spreadsheet. We restart tomorrow at 2 pm in the Amazon room.
The Rio is the same old Rio, though slightly easier to deal with so far because (more…)
Let’s Play Razz!
Today was my last day of rest for quite some time. I didn’t really rest, you never do what you work for yourself, but I didn’t play poker. I did walk through a few card rooms to confirm that things hadn’t changed significantly since I was in Vegas in the spring, and things seem to be about the same as they are every year at this time when it comes to cash games. (more…)
And Then Life Happened
I was going to write about some cash game strategy and talk about places to play in Vegas tonight, but we’ll just have to wait a day for that.
Once in awhile life comes along and puts everything in perspective. Today is that day for me. A very dear friend, one of my favorite people in the world, passed away after a long battle with cancer this morning. I took the day off today, and will take the day off tomorrow as well. Playing high stakes tournament poker when your head isn’t right is a recipe for disaster. (more…)
Fox in Vegas
Welcome Fox in Vegas, a daily report from the World Series of Poker and other major tournament series happening in Las Vegas. I was really hoping to have this thing off the ground sooner, but when no one bought it I slacked off for a few days. I’ll be playing approximately $80,000 worth of tournaments, lots of hours of cash games, and talking to players around the city in an effort to keep you abreast of what is going on. (more…)
Rule Changes in the WSOP
Just learned from the WSOP about some interesting news concerning the summer blowout tourney series. There will be some rule changes during the WSOP, and some of them are not necessarily backed by the TDA.
Though there are still a ton of tournament series out there—some of them with much better TERs in their smaller events—the World Series of Poker is still the 600lb gorilla of the bunch. So when they make a rule change, it will most likely have repercussions throughout the tournament world. And though these changes are more the relaxing of two strict rules that have caused a lot of controversial penalties, it will be interesting to see how they play out.
1. Verbalizations allowed — You will now be allowed to talk about your hand if there is no action left. There’s no longer an automatic penalty for talking about your hand when you’re last to act. The rule change as explained to us was a little vague, and I am concerned about how it is going to be enforced. If we had trouble understanding it in a small meeting, how are the hundreds of dealers and floor people going to deal with it?
2. Celebrations Allowed — Again, this is a relaxing of the excessive celebration rule, and the enforcement of this is even more troubling. The definition of excessive will be up to the floor, but they are being guided to allow people to celebrate.
Obviously, with the expanded TV coverage of the WSOP this year, these rule changes are intended to make better TV for the casual viewer. Hopefully, it won’t turn into a distraction that detracts from the game instead.
The final change is that the November Nine will now be the October Nine. The WSOP has no interest in going heads up against the US Presidential elections.
April Tournaments
We’re tracking 16 new tournaments starting in April, and I want to make sure to tell you about a few that are clustered geographically.
First, in my area, we’ve got a nice little duo going, especially for those of you returning from the Iowa run (Meskwaki and Council Bluffs MSPT & WSOPC events). First up on April 12th, the Spring Poker Classic starts at Running Aces. This is 9 days of poker with buyins from $45 to $1100 and lots of Main Event seats thrown into the prize pools. They’ve been putting a lot of work into the structures of their tournaments at Running Aces recently, and these promise to be good ones.
When that’s over, don’t leave town, because the Heartland Poker Tour rolls into Canterbury with satellites starting April 20th and a $1500 main event with the first flight on the 27th.
If you’re not a fly-over country kind of person, the right coast has a nice cluster of tournies this month. Starting in Atlantic City, you can play nearly the whole month at the Borgata Spring Poker Open. It runs from the 4th to the 20th and features buy-ins from $200 to $2,700 with multiple tournaments running on most days.
From there, you’ve got stops from the two biggest tours to choose from: the WPT at Parx Casino in Bensalom, PA or the WSOP Circuit at Harrah’s in CHester, PA. Take your pick!
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