Starts on Friday with the casual casino employee tournament then jumps head first into some hardcore action with the first tournament of its kind in the WS: $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.
PPC consists of eight poker variations: LHE, Omaha Hi-Lo Split-8 or Better, Seven Card Razz (Isn’t Razz always seven cards?), Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Split-8 or Better, NLHE, PLO, 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball.
What is 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball? I honestly have zero idea what separates it from the rest. Not a clue.
I’m also interested in how Phil Ivey does (I’m alone in this I’m sure, as Ivey is kind of an unknown). With his final table I’m sure it’s resparked some of his love for the game, if not just the main event. Nevermind the hundreds of thousands of dollars he is likely to be betting on himself all throughout the series like last year, which helped give him focus to win two bracelets.
I expect no less of him than two match his original record of three in a year. Put Mr. Lisandro back in his place.
All you are risking is your pride. And the best part is beating PeekerCPA. I didn’t think I would like, now it is one of the highlights of the week. And I have only played for three weeks (of course I am in first place).
plus he/she gets to rub my nose in it every week (so far :p)
but that’s otay, revenge is a dish best served cold. 'course being that we are supposed to hit the mid 90s before the end of the week i’d better take room temperature.
seriously, bees join us. it is really a hoot. and if you hate it all you lost was like an hour and a half of your life. or you could just bot out after a hand or two.
and i don’t want to be presumptious but it seems like the most recent joinees are enjoying themselves. now it would be nice if they weren’t as successful but, meh.
Daily updates? You’d get updates probably every thirty minutes since they have like four tournaments going on at any given time.
I think Jeffrey Pollack (not sure on spelling), some kind of suit with Harrah’s has a twitter account, but I seriously doube he’s giving chip counts and such.
Pokernews.com as the twitter feed from a bunch of a pros if you wanna know what they’re up to.
good news for Juanda fans. He made the final 4. But he is last place in chip counts as of ~10 pm Vegas Time. he has got about 30X the Big Blind, so there is room to maneuver.
1 David Oppenheim 8,388,607
2 Vladimir Schmelev 4,385,000
3 Michael Mizrachi 2,150,000
4 John Juanda 1,825,000
Michael Mizrachi wins the 50K Players Championship and $1.56 Million.
On hand 235, he went “All-in” with Q5 Off :o and the Schmelev called with Q8Off o:o.
Mizrachi got a 5 on the turn.
It finished about 4 am Vegas time. they played 80 hands heads-up and 50 hands with a 3-some. I wonder if they were getting tired?
14 hours to play 235 hands. Minus about 2 hrs? for breaks, that comes out to 3 minutes per hand. Considering, many (if not most) are won before the flop, that seems to be a long time per hand. 80 hands, in 3 hours of heads up action.
I think if I ever got to a final table at a WSoP event (especially a televised one), that pace of play would be the biggest hurdle for me.
What’s interesting to me is that over the last few years there’s been so much action amongst the great poker players at nosebleed stakes that the buyins and amounts you can win at WSOP events are trivial. These people regularly fight over $400,000 pots, so the idea of entering a dinky $5000 tourney and maybe winning $100,000 is a waste of time - you’d be better off playing in Bobby’s room during the series.
But they also want to promote a brand. For whatever reason, people love poker celebrities - which basically translates to people who enter a lot of tournaments. You want to get some sort of sponsored status with a poker site, or if you already have one, you have an obligation to promote them.
So players like Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, etc. need to put up crazy side action to make the series worth the time. They put tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars on long shots like 1000-1 odds to win the WSOP main event, or millions of dollars on lesser longshots like bracelet bets. If Ivey had won the main event last year, the 8.5 million he would’ve won from the tournament would’ve been a tiny fraction of his total take.
IIRC, Ivey has said something to the effect that he gets his high (and the majority of his income) off prop bets. Poker is now something to do in order to work the props.
With some of the new bloods, the Dwans, if you will, table play is so slow after the accelerated play online, that they have to do something to keep themselves stimulated. Watching some of them is like watching a room full of ADHD kids on crack.
Men (the Master) Nguyen wins his 7th bracelet in the 7-Card Stud WSoP event. Vladimir Schmelev made another final table.
Tom (durrr) Dwan is the chip leader at a $1500 no limit Hold’m event after Day 2. And he became the chip leader while playing in the deuce-to-seven low ball bracelet event simultaneously.
Apparently, durrr has $2 Million in side bets that he wins a bracelet this year.
o:o.