There’s quite a heads-up battle going on right now between Justin Bonomo and the Grinder, Michael Mizrachi. Blogger Jon Katkin is on the rail and sends along these iPhone pics of the action:
Most recently: Bonomo’s won a couple monster pots and it could be over soon.
Caesars Palace is hosting its World Series of Poker Circuit Event, which started April 11th and runs through April 29, 2009. Registration for all events is underway.
The winner of the $5,150 World Series of Poker Circuit Main Event on April, 27th will receive 1st Place Prize Money plus entry into the 2009 World Series of Poker $10,000 Main Event. For more information contact the Caesars Palace Poker Room at 702-785-6566.
Team Tao of Pokerati hits Caesar’s Palace (and Bellagio) for the first open-field running (second overall) of Dream Team Poker. Have a listen to join Pauly and Dan + Shaniac on our ventures to the registration and jersey-issue cocktail party … a pregame breakfast at Cafe Bellagio (where we declare ourselves the favorites, or at least a Top 10 team) … and then back to Caesar’s for the tournament itself. Along the way we analyze the intricacies of team play, formulate an alliance against TJ Cloutier, negotiate a deal to off Jerry Yang, and show you how big bets on March Madness might be the secret antidote to tilt. Intense strategy talk and hand breakdowns to boot …
Chapter 10: Go Team
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Episode 10.2: Shirts vs. Skins
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Episode 10.4: Karma, Villanova, and Thor
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Episode 10.5: Bustout Strategy
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Episode 10.6: Better Luck Next Time
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Pauly is a better faster writer than I am — so it’s always good to have him in town to make me work less. Read his detailed recap of Dream Team Poker weekend here and his less-detailed first impressions here.
Likewise, over at Wicked Chops, they’ve got the Hottie Beat covered … and PokerListings has manhandled the actual tournament action.
Tao of Pokerati Dream Team teammate Shaniac has some great music to listen to while you’re waiting for more.
Meanwhile, Team Aced did their thing to keep Aced.com in the public eye as a potentially legitimate newfangled online poker room with celeb-pro representative Jamie Gold, LV poker-room man Houston Waldie, and Gold-girlfriend Ashley Nataupsky — who is still alive for the individual championship — locking up the team title earlier today.
The vibe on Day 2 (final three tables) was quite distinct from Day 1 (field of 444 playing down to 27). From an informed source on the ground at Caesar’s:
It was great. People really had to watch the standings when making plays. They might have had pot odds on a few calls, but people were laying down hands to hold. It turned into one big last longer prop bet.
Much to say about the WSOP Academy I attended last weekend at Caesar’s … about things I learned, how I performed, and, frankly, what kinda people are shelling out close to $2,000 for anything these days. For some of the 50-or-so poker players in attendance it was just a matter of a buy-in or two for the level they play at. And for others, it was more than half their annual poker budget in a way that doesn’t even account for flights to Las Vegas from Australia or Buffalo.
All in all it was a great class taught by Mark Seif, Mark Gregorich, Alex Outhred, and Michael Gracz — very engaging, informative, and often irreverent — didn’t feel like Saturday/Sunday detention at all. I lost pretty big in the one session of $1/$2 NL I’ve played since WSOP-Acad graduation … I guess they shoulda reminded us to take a nap after class, or they can only do so much with a guy who insists on misplaying KQ generally 8 out of 10 times. (Ah, the painful, humiliating schoolchild memories …) If I could just misplay the hand 4 out of 10 times, that would be some serious positive EV, saving me the theoretical cost of tuition in just a few orbits!
BTW, the next WSOP Academy is at WinStar, February 21-22 — a poker room near and dear to so many Texas player and longtime Pokeratizens. Outhred and Gracz will be part of the Thackerville faculty, along with Greg Raymer and Master Mindset (?) coach Sam Chauhan.
Click here for more info … and really, you should totally think about signing up. Your Pokerati-friendly friends will feed you and everything.
Just because my poker telecasting career the PokerBowl seems to have fizzled under a cloud of overt mishandlement (like the video’s gone and everything), don’t think the concept of organized semi-collusion has been simply tried and dismissed. A different operation — Dream Team Poker — pulled off a successful invitational at the Hard Rock in November, and sure enough, as is always the case with these team poker events … everyone had a great funky-slightly-different-poker time. And the winners (Bluff publisher Eric Morris, editor Matt Parvis, and tournament ringer ZeeJustin) actually got paid — $39k divvied up accordingly.
Dream Team Poker 2 is ready to go — Mar 27-29 at Caesar’s — and this one will be an open event … so any threesome with $1,650 ($500+50 per person) can get in on the action. Because the buy-in is both big enough and low enough, I wouldn’t be surprised to see this be something of a good-ole-fashioned pro-am event … especially if some of the pros who have been buying into similarly priced Venetian Deep Stacks lately feel they have an edge because they’ve played in a couple of these team tournaments already.
From $4 to $5 in most rooms and games. Don’t know the exact casino-by-casino and hand-by-hand breakdowns of what the house takes, but the Rio and Caesar’s Palace both recently put the $1 uppage into play earlier this month.
Hevad Khan, the most infamous member of last year’s WSOP final table for example, took down the $10,000 Caesars Palace Classic and the $1,000,000 first place prize earlier this morning. The behavior that earned him his own rule for the 2008 WSOP (will there be a Scotty Nguyen rule in 2009?) has been severely toned down since then. Now that Beyond the Table has returned, does this mean the return of Genghis Khan to call in to congratulate him as well? The rest of the tournament results can be found over at the best tournament database out there: www.thehendonmob.com .
There are 50 poker rooms in Las Vegas, so we thought you might appreciate the assistance of fellow degenerates in narrowing down the possibilities of where to play when you come to town. The votes have been tallied … and four places stood out above the rest … In what may or may not become a recurring tradition around these parts, Pokeratizens say the Best Poker Rooms in Vegas are:
Gold Medal
The Venetian
Great regular tourneys, Deep Stack Extravaganzas, plenty of all-but-the-highest-stakes action, bottled Fiji water, and maybe the escalator that dumps off drunkenly clad party girls coming out of Tao right in front of The V’s poker room make it far and away the favorite of this website’s readers/players/dealers.
Silver MedalThe separate tournament room really is cool, if not the best in town, and the comfortable multi-tiered cash game area never seems short of action appealing to the masses of big little-stakes players. Great freerolls for regular cash players, too.
Bronze MedalStill home to the biggest games in Vegas (in terms of buy-ins), thereby drawing the most pros and the players who want to challenge/sit near them. Everything Bellagio is always luxe, of course, and their regular $500 and $1k tourneys makes the chance to play for baller money an in-town constant.
Playing under our little satanic-spade banner … David Pflaster. Some of you may recall … he got his start playing at the Lodge and before you knew it was getting aces tattooed on his forearms, dealing in Dallas, and about a year ago moved to Las Vegas to make it as a low-stakes pro.
He actually seems to be doing it — says he’s just slightly better than breaking even in cash games while hitting some “big” scores in tourneys. More than $20k in the past few months in Caesar’s freerolls, another $10k win online … today he’s playing in the $2,000 NLH event … and with about half the field eliminated just before dinner break, he’s a pretty-big stack with about 18,000 chips (more than double the avg.). Seen here after just having taken out a player who moved all-in on his big blind in a hand where he woke up with pocket kings.
NOTE TO SELF: Satanic Spade … good name for a new death metal band!
UPDATE: According to Pflaster: “Dude, my Aces ran into Jacks.” His opponent was apparently a relative big-stack … so he’s now down to 3600, with blinds at 300/600 … and Pflaster in the big blind on the next hand after dinner break.
Yikes. But at the same time, on the previous break he and I talked about this exact situation, and how he’s learned his way out of it. We’ll see, no?
BTW, mad props to WSOP dealer and Pokeratizen 85Nutz, who spent his day off competing in the $300+30 at Caesar’s yesterday … finished in 7th place, which paid him $8k. Nice!
Should give him plenty to dump into video poker at Ellis Island, because that’s what dealers do after a big score, no?
The Venetian was on to something when they created their Deep Stack Extravaganza series of tournaments. Not so shockingly, the low-stakes masses flocked to these events where you could compete against sizable fields will skill-rewarding starting stacks for hundreds, as opposed to thousands, of dollars.
This year, several casinos with an obvious love for poker tried something similar … but not all have found the same results. In fact, the Venetian itself was apparently struggling to fill their tables earlier this WSOP. A sign that, damn, poker really is waning? Not exactly …
The Caesar’s Palace MegaStack tournament series was giving more chips per dollar-buy-in than the Venetian … and lo and behold they took all their players. So the Venetian has reportedly responded by adding 2,500 more chips to their own Deep Stacks … and lo and behold, the players returned.
Meanwhile, downtown, the two big tournament series (they apparently call a series of tourneys “festivals” in Europe … I like that!) are the Grand Series of Poker at the Golden Nugget, and the Binion’s Poker Classic. Upon a quick spot-check at Binion’s $110 Seniors event yesterday, they seem to be doing fine. They are in their second year of doing this, of course, whereas the Golden Nugget is in their first … and struggling (with or without Montel Williams). Apparently several of their megasatellites have had less than two tables worth of runners, and don’t make … and a far cry from true “sit n gos” … even the single-table satellites are taking upwards of three hours to fill.
I don’t have full numbers on any of these events … but that’s the basic gist on summertime mini-WSOP’s:
Caesar’s — kick-ass according to all reports
Venetian — maybe not as good as before, but still pretty sweet
Binion’s — Binion’s is Binion’s; there’s always good tournament action even if some players steer clear of the high likelihood of an opponent spitting on the floor
Golden Nugget — tiny fields=tiny payouts; better luck next year?
2+2 has a great thread running down the daily Las Vegas tourney schedule all summer long.
Boston Celtics vs. LA Lakers … apparently people are pretty excited about this upcoming NBA finals. And while quite a few poker players have been known to place some sports bets, they’re gonna have to leave the Rio to do so this year…
Harrah’s Chairman and CEO Gary Loveman owns 2.4 percent of the Celtics, and that may or may not be a conflict of interest. The directive reportedly comes straight from David Stern the NBA, and thus no Harrah’s properties will be taking bets on the NBA finals. Talk about a hit for Harrah’s, the Rio, Caesar’s Palace, Paris, Bally’s, Imperial Palace, Flamingo, Bills, Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Harrah’s Reno, Harrah’s Laughlin … perhaps a mini-boon for Bellagio.
The Palms and Silverton also won’t be taking bets on the NBA finals, as their owners also have ownership stakes in other NBA teams. I find this pretty darn interesting … because if the NBA can remove betting on the finals at these casinos, why wouldn’t they want to maintain the same level of “integrity” throughout the regular season?
In the WSOP-Caesar’s main event:
Troy “Darling” Phillips has been sitting on a comfortable stack all day. He’s currently got about 20k in chips, which puts him well above average.
TBR has been playing short-stack poker all day, hardly getting above the starting 10k in chips. With blinds currently 100-200+25, he’s got about 4k in chips.
UPDATE: Pictures taken shortly before the dinner break …
TBR, currently running on less than fumes.
This chair got its aces cracked.
TBR and Darling are in town to play in the $5k WSOP Circuit main event at Caesar’s today. To prepare for it, the two of them and yours truly played in a $500+50 single-table satellite last night (go collusion! Troy’s money!).
With that lineup — and Troy’s playing really well of late, having chopped a satellite earlier in the day — what do you think the odds are that we would all play for nearly an hour-and-a-half and not one of us would finish in the Top 5?
Just to be clear, it was really TBR+vodka playing.
Watched Game of Thrones, now I am playing Sensible Soccer on the 360, for some reason. #Monday
@apokerplayer betting patterns, eyes, posture. the combos were all there, and spot on.
Great crAAKKer post by @Grange95: http://t.co/KcaobMfP) I wish I could write like Michael. Maybe someday. #poker #onlinegaming
