The WSOP continues to move in an Olympic-like direction … as they just added another non-bracelet exhibition event … Dream Team Poker. (Didn’t we talk about this on an episode of The Poker Beat? I seem to remember someone — me? — saying we should have non-bracelet, exhibition events at the WSOP … and someone else — BJ? Gary? — saying maybe, but we definitely won’t see it this year at the Series.) I could be wrong on my show recall … but regardless, July 12-13 will be another team poker event — this one a $500+60 x 3.
Bracelet or not, should prove to be a popular alternative to a $1,500 donkament or, from an individual perspective, one of the many $500 deep stack tourneys around town at the same time. The first 300 pre-registered teams get personalized jerseys, which sounds silly and unimportant, but really is a cool little touch.
That’s the unconfirmed word on the street … despite what seemed like a semi-big win for Team Aced/Gold at Dream Team Poker … Dream Team can probably go ahead and retire that jersey set, because the new online poker site and former WSOP main event champion supposedly have broken up.
No details yet … just third-hand information over here. But I’m hearing that either Gold said hey, time to pay up and they didn’t have the cash, or Aced said, yo, Jamie, where are all those players you promised us?
Either way … assuming that some element of the above is true, is it shocking that this didn’t last?
I blame it all on a text that put me on tilt for about four critical frames … regardless, to close out his most recent visit to Vegas, Pauly and I went bowling at the South Point casino for an intense heads-up match and some prop-betting education … and because he’s not on Facebook and we couldn’t wager status-update control, we had to play for cash:
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.
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 …
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.
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.
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.
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.
While I get some work done from home in sunny, springy Southern Cali, my Pokerati pals are actually looking for fortune and fame on the felt playing some tournament poker.
Dan is playing the much-hyped Dream Team Poker event at Caesars Palace. On his team? Shane “Shaniac†Schleger and Dr. Pauly, playing as the Team Tao of Pokerati, also known as Tao of Pokerati’s 420 All Stars. Look for some Tao of Pokerati episodes to come as they record some of their intense strategy sessions and gossip about the other players. Sure, these three may be taking more breaks (certainly at 4:20pm today) than other players in the room, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be inspired to take it down.
Karridy is competing in the Texas Amateur Poker Championship. At last post, he was the chipleader with 50,000 chips in Level 4. After his recent visit to the WSOP Academy at Winstar, he might just have that extra insight that will take him all the way.
Go Guys!
Keep up with them both via CSR reports as the day progresses.
UPDATE: Karridy finished 12th in his event. 300something entries, so almost definitely in the money, but probably just short of the big money. –DanM
Everyone’s hustlin’ gigs these days … and beyond status updates to my Facebook page, I’ve found two welcome homes for some non-Pokerati writing — at Bluff, and most recently What’s On … where I let the not-so-poker-geeky Vegas tourists know about happenings of interest from the LV poker scene, such as:
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.
The Team Poker concept isn’t going away just because its big introduction to Las Vegas a year ago turned out to be a near-criminal scam. (FWIW, everyone did eventually get paid from the PokerBowl, I’m pretty sure, except Karridy.) The LV room embracing it — team poker, not the rip-off attempts — is the Hard Rock … which is now running weekly team poker tournaments:
Hello Everyone!
Welcome to Team Poker at The Hard Rock Poker Lounge!
Every Thursday night at 6pm we have our Team League Tournament. It is teams of 4 people. $100 buy in per player, you start at different tables and you get 4 chances to win $2000, 3rd place wins your money back!! It is a lot of fun. We have lots of teams signed up already, Don’t miss out!
Call me asap 702-245-3758 If you want to register your team for tonight.
Hope to hear back from you,
Lara
Poker Host
In addition, the Hard Rock has just announced a big “Dream Team Poker” tournament, a $1k per player team event to be held there November 7-9. Check out the details at DreamTeamPoker.com. This one is the brainchild of a dude named Daniel Delshad, who from the best I can tell made his name in networking among storage professionals.
Everyone’s hustlin’ gigs these days … and beyond status updates to my Facebook page, I’ve found two welcome homes for some non-Pokerati writing — 
