Those dastardly SAEs won’t be allowed to play in the Pikes-only Northwestern homecoming freeroll, that’s for sure.

Pokerati is headed to Chicago for an event you may not know about, nor should you. The awesomely titled “Pike Poker Tourney” takes place at the Best Western-Evanston on Saturday, Oct. 23, after Northwestern’s (5-1) homecoming football game against Michigan State (7-0).

It’s a $1,000+ freeroll for Pi Kappa Alpha alums and actives … with $1k going to first, and 2nd through 4th TBA tomorrow. Economists have confirmed that $1k is still “a shitload” to college students.

I’ll be serving as executive floor honcho, and found out earlier today the original plan called for only 1,000 starting chips.

Gahhh!

Just because this will be a very quick, luck-friendly 3(ish)-hour event doesn’t mean it has to suck! (We can stretch it to 4 hours if necessary, though it shouldn’t be hard to get players to push chips around — health officials confirm that college students still like to drink, as do aging alumni desperately trying to cling to their youth.)

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Trying to remember where in town I spotted this one … hard to tell from the distorted reflection on the trunk. Doesn’t look like the Rio … but regardless, have a feeling that if I’m not following this Lexus on Flamingo, I probably am on twitter.

Real question for Nevada DMV: When will we be able to include an @ sign on a personalized plate? Could make a diff for @POK’TI. Please forward to state-gov suggestion box.

Had plans with Pauly to be ready to record an episode of Tao of Pokerati while the bubble was bursting … the text alerts came in … “8 left” … “we’re h4h now” … when he got to “5 left” I headed over, knowing we might lose the necessary players in a matter of a few long hands, or we could be waiting an hour or more.

Alas, I arrived to an empty Amazon room — WTF? Couldn’t believe we mighta had the fastest bubble-break ever, and I wasn’t there to see/hear/record it. But tuned in to the twitters to discover that what I really missed was a roomful of BOOOOs, balking at the decision of @WSOPTD to go on a 90-minute dinner break four away from the money.

That woulda been the sound to record — the collective groan from a Jack Effel decision that will likely be debated for years to come. Two of the more civil tweets about it:

RT @WSOPTD @wsop ME plyrs, need time to prepare 4 the money bubble. Paying 747 places requires precise coordination. thx for understanding.

@AlCantHang @WSOPTD I don’t disagree with decision but I don’t agree with the explanation. The entire world saw the bubble looming except WSOP staff?

Funny, was just typing up a “Rumorati” post about word spreading that Matt Savage would be taking on a new role with the WPT, as some sort of overseeing honcho — maybe like a hybrid of Jeffrey Haas’s and Thomas Kremser’s roles at the EPT? — when a press release came over the transom.

Check it out … a big move in poker, it would seem, for both Matt Savage and the WPT.

No word yet on how WHAT ARE OFTEN PERCEIVED TO BE some of the notoriously worst blind structures in poker, as seen on the WPT, might change under the aegis of a TD known for his much-heralded “deep structures” system of tourney progression. THE WPT, OF COURSE, CHANGED THEIR BLIND STRUCTURES (FOR THE BETTER, ARGUABLY) AFTER SEASON VI IN 2008, SHORTLY BEFORE SAVAGE MADE CHANGES TO HIS BLIND STRUCTURES IN A WAY THAT COUNTERED THE TREND OF DEEPER AND DEEPER STACKS.

WORLD POKER TOUR® ANNOUNCES MATT SAVAGE AS
WPT EXECUTIVE TOUR DIRECTOR

LOS ANGELES (June 16, 2010) – World Poker Tour® (WPT) announced today renowned tournament director Matt Savage will join their team as Executive Tour Director. In his new role, Savage lends his years of experience and vast knowledge base to WPT committing himself to improving player communication, tournament offerings, tour cohesiveness, and event growth.

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Matt Savage, host of the new Las Vegas Poker Series at the Hard Rock, served as tournament director in the 2007 movie Lucky You. Don’t hold that against him.

Storied tournament director Matt Savage is stepping back into Las Vegas poker events — for the first time since 2004 — bringing the Las Vegas Poker Series to my weekly donk-stomping grounds at the Hard Rock, August 13-22.

The LVPS will feature low buy-in events ($230-$550), most of which count toward CardPlayer Player of the Year standings … with the Savage-tested deep structures (as opposed to deep stacks) that just about all players except Allen Kessler vigorously applaud. Also a money leaderboard of some sort is in play, though I’m not yet sure if this is about crowning an overall champion or qualifying for a player-appreciation freeroll … more TK as the schedule and other PR info gets released.

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@AllenKessler loves a good blind structure, and may or may not love to bitch about those in successful tourneys he’s not even playing in. Regardless, he’s answered @SavagePoker‘s call to reassess the popular deep-stacks format by trying to start a twitter flame war on behalf of … well, that much we’re not so sure about, but we haven’t seen such a fun Battle of the Tweets since @EskimoClark vs. @BigRussPoker (whose account has apparently been suspended?).

We may or may not get around to taking a closer look at the finer nuances of currently popular blind structs, but in the meantime we wanna know, unscientifically, of course, from a tournament blinds perspective, where you think the best place is to play. Daily voting to your right.

Oh, and then just for fun, be sure to check out the delightfully mock-a-vellian @ComplainSaw.

Good story in some non-poker media on Matt Savage, tournament director at the Commerce Casino in California … specifically about what it takes to keep players happy (and business churning) at the largest poker room in the world (160 tables) when your job is to entice customers into events — bad economy and all — where 90 percent of them are guaranteed to go home losers.

More challenging than a lotta people think …

One-time Pokerati contributor (and my hunting coach) Nick in Dallas writes in with a request for some charity theatrical poker tourney assistance:

Hey Dan,

So some friends and I are going to throw a poker tournament in February here in Dallas as a fundraiser for a theater production company that we started this fall (www.UpstartTheater.com). Blue Mesa Grill is going to host the games (free appetizers and happy-hour-priced drinks) and we are going to have a $20 per player donation buyin with rebuys. I was wondering if you had any advice/suggestions:

— How often should we up the blinds so that a game starting around 3 on a Sunday will be over by 8 or 9 at the latest?
— Do you know any poker company/group willing to lend/donate us enough chips and cards for 100 people or so?
— Do you know any poker company/group that would be interested in donating a prize?
— Do you know any poker company/group that would be interested in financially sponsoring the event (we’re tax deductible) in exchange for publicity on our event fliers, website, and performance playbills?
— Do you know ways to publicize this to the Dallas poker-playing community?
— Anything else you think would be helpful?

thanks a lot,
Nick

Nick, as always, good to hear from you. One of these days you will find purpose in your life and ditch the restaurant-service/medical-technology career combo, as well as your passion for the arts and philanthropy, to discover your true calling as a poker blogger. Either that, or you are clearly nothing without Markus and Andy.

In the meantime, click below for answers to your questions:

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Mike Sexton apparently has a new gig over at my personal poker news RSS reader PokerNewsDaily, and in his debut column shares his real thoughts on the 2008 WSOP. They are respectful (of course) but, the WPT television co-host doesn’t hold back from addressing his concerns about WSOP floor staff, cheating, and death.

Some highlights:

Another problem I have: “What if someone dies before the final table is assembled?” Putting a little casket on the table and blinding a guy off would not only create a morbid setting, it would also change the strategy players might induce to move up in the money. And although a legend didn’t make that final table (such as Doyle Brunson), what if they did and then they died in October? What might have been perhaps the greatest final table ever would now be a very sad and tragic final table.

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Jack Effel: “Players, you may now go on your 117-day break.”

I thought it would be extra funny if two people went out on the final hand … would’ve totally caused a “Doh!” moment to the folks who bought thenovembernine.com and thenovember9.com. (I’ll give you a hint, since I can’t link specifically to search results here.)

Craig Marquis made it! And even though he had the smallest cheering section of any player — save for maybe the stoic Russian — the dude from Dallas is clearly the man, and the only player who matters. St. Louis, Shmaint Louis!

In the meantime, while we figure out what’s up over the next almost-four months, you can see a few more details about the final table of the 2008 WSOP main event here.

Jack Effel and Oliver Tse

(Apologies for the blur, but I had to kick into full-on Stalkerati mode and take these shots while running.)

Change 100 reports (via PokerNews):

25,000 Chips Introduced

“Hey, what are those green chips in your stack?” asked a surprised Maya Antonius. A small stack of forest green chips sat atop her tablemate’s stack of yellows and oranges.

He showed the chips to a curious Antonius– at the last color-up dark green 25,000-denomination checks were introduced into play.

Ms. Antonius looked a bit disappointed that she didn’t have any… yet.

The arrival of these chips have been highly anticipated — not just because they are big — but because of the color troubles last year with orange, off-orange, and pinkish-orange all on the table at the same time.

All the denominations higher than 5,000 have changed this year, and even the floor staff doesn’t now what they will be until they come out for color-up.

Johnny says: Ask Dan to post about garbage men and chip dumping. He had some interesting ideas on conspiracty theories…

Indeed … today we moved from yellow-chip ($1k) threat level to orange ($5k) — with tighter than usual security notably apparent during the green-chip race-off today. After clearing out the fans then players, the perimeters around the table we’re extra secured: no media allowed in, no masseuses, no waitstaff. A couple people did wander in unknowingly and were quickly and sternly ushered out. It was all taken so seriously — making sure every chip was properly accounted for, one can only presume. For as empty and quiet as the entire Amazon room was — only about a dozen small-stakes cash games going — it was totally abuzz. Floorsuits half-running down the aisles, barking questions, answers, orders … dealers making sure the chip trays were aligned at the perfect angle … all done with a certain military efficiency that suggested they had done the dress rehearsal, and now it was go-time.

(Even in the hallways, I saw for the first time semi-armored chip carts, arriving empty, and by the end of the day returning full.)

The only non-tourney staff allowed in to the tournament area was the sanitation crew. On breaks, they pick up empty cans, bottles, discarded magazines, general poker waste, etc. while wheeling overstuffed black trash bags between the tables. For all the effort that went into protecting the integrity of the 2008 main event race-off, these necessary laborers were the security weakness should anyone want to engage in shenanigans. Pay these guys off with something akin to their annual wages and before you know it those garbage sacks arrive amid the floorstaff frenzy stuffed with a orange chips machine guns or even bigger and stun grenades … poof, a little slight of hand while cleaning, and whammo, a dirty player returning from break finds a few big chips tossed onto his stack or wedged between the felt and rail. At least that’s what I would do.

What, you think it doesn’t happen? Probably not … but it would make a good movie if it did.

So really, I know poker players aren’t supposed to be religious superstitious, but paying 666 players in the main event?

Though it’s not unusual for pros to show up late for WSOP tourneys, something was amiss during one of the last 1500s when Scotty Nguyen didn’t show up til well into the 100/200 level …

Apparently Scotty lost one of his capuchin monkeys. The fire department was still trying to get the the pesky little primate out of a tree when Scotty decided he just had to go. Not sure what the status is of said monkey, but one thing that is interesting is how the floor handled his depleted stack.

From Adanthar:

Naturally, Scotty was unhappy about that and asked the dealer why he didn’t have 3K. But at the WSOP, only late registrations get their full 3K chips (and get seated in Seat 10); everyone else gets a regular seat and then gets blinded off if they’re late, which is normal. Scotty, though, obviously didn’t like the idea of starting out with a 9 bet stack, said “I’m not playing”, and went off to find the tournament director. I think he just wanted to be allowed to unregister, but instead, a couple of minutes later, the floor showed up with a full stack and gave it to him. On the one hand, this is pretty much blatant cheating – it’s a free 1200 chips that nobody not named Scotty Nguyen would ever get;

Murmur?

(Thanks, Shamus, for the link.)