WSOP
2003 Day 2
You Think That's a Bad Beat? Nah, THIS
is a Bad Beat
Today
was the 2K Limit Holdem, 422 players,
a great field but way down from the 600+
last year, I think due to several factors.
One is that Bellagio is still going on
so there were a lot of players who couldn't
be in two places at once, two is that
Bellagio may well have sucked up a lot
of the cash from players who would normally
have come to WSOP, and three is that it
was mid-week, I think it would have been
a lot better to have the opening event
on the weekend.
I
played, and with the lack of cream of
the crop pros still at Bellagio made this
a fantastic overlay, I was rarely at a
table with a 'known' player, and for the
most part I was amazed by the incredibly
bad play, it was like being in a 3-6 game.
I came 47th., 27 got paid, nothing I really
did wrong, just ran out of luck at the
wrong time. My last few hands were:
AA,
I raised, no callers.
TT
vs. QJo - Here's an example of where my
raise with TT (and I had a super tight
image at the table, I had never shown
down a bad hand) didn't even make them
flinch with QJo, a hand I wouldn't even
limp with normally, he flopped a Q.
99
(I raised) vs. 77 (he reraised) and flopped
a 7.
AK
(he raised, I called in the big blind)
vs. AQ, he flopped a Q.
This
run came exactly at the wrong time, I
was in great shape with a just above average
stack, and had I won any of those hands
I would have at least made it into the
money, but overall I was very pleased
with my play and will now definitely consider
the events I was debating playing, the
$1,500 Pot Limit Holdem, $1,500 Limit,
and the ugh, 1K Seniors. Feel free to
send me money.
The
tournament area is fantastic, it's away
from all other noise (well now that Devilfish
is knocked out of Bellagio we may be getting
some singing soon), it's bright and kept
extremely clean, even has windows looking
out on the mountains. The three tournaments
have all started exactly on time, no missing
chips, and as much as it pains me to say
it Matt is doing his usual fantastic job.
His support staff are the nuts, all extremely
capable, and Steve McDonald (tournament
coordinator) and George Fisher working
27 hour days keeping it all smooth in
the back office. But so much for the abuse
record of just one penalty last year (or
was it three?), there were three just
in the first event today, you can read
about one of them below. The one big complaint
is that a few of the dealers, maybe 5
or so, are brand new and don't have a
clue, there were lots of complaints in
the super sats last night.
The
following paragraph is not for the squeamish,
it's a bad beat story, maybe the mother
of bad beat stories, and it's not even
my bad beat. I was in the small blind,
seat 9, with 84o. Seat 1 raised, and the
dealer apparently called 'raise'. I didn't
hear him, and as the dealer had his left
arm laying down on the table I also couldn't
see any chips or cards in the 1 seat.
It was folded around to me. The blinds
were 200-300, so I threw in 100 hoping
to see a cheap flop. Then the dealer told
me (again) that it was raised. I could
have just taken the chip back, in fact
the dealer and everyone at the table was
fine with that, but I've been in tourneys
where you can't remove chips that are
in the pot, so I said they'd better check
the rule. The ruling was that not only
did the 100 stay, but I also had to complete
to 600 as I had completed half the bet.
Now I think that is a terrible rule, I
understand it and I understand their argument
of not wanting any 'gray areas', I even
understand that I should be responsible
for being aware of what's happening at
the table, but it was blatantly obvious
I didn't mean to call a raise, and the
big blind never acted so there no action
behind that I had affected. But anyway,
there we were, the big blind folded and
it was heads up. Flop was A8x, I checked,
he bet, I saw he was short stacked and
called. We both checked down the turn
and river, he lost with QJo. I know this
because he proceeded to turn blue, and
then scrunched his cards into a very unusual
shape. For that he was given a 10 minute
penalty during which he missed two blinds
and was down to one big blind when the
10 minutes were up. But he never came
back. Lucky it was 'only' a $2,000 event
he threw away and not one of those expensive
ones.
I haven't caught up with rgp the last
couple of days but I saw a thread about
the late night steak dinner special in
the Coffee Shop. They still have one,
it's $5, comes with a salad, rolls, a
very nice about 1/2 lb. steak (not like
a flimsy breakfast steak) and potato.
Getting seated last night took a while,
no line but I guess they were short staffed
at 11pm and had closed a couple of sections,
but service was very good. The dinner
buffet was also pretty good, it's easy
to get a comp for it, last night had good
shrimp and crawfish, plus great ribs,
and chicken cordon bleau amongst other
things.
Today
is the 7 Stud, I think they have about
175. I might play the 11PM tonight, I
think they had something like 160 last
night. I think I might also check out
the pawn shops today (and maybe the porn
shops :) ) just in case I end up needing
to buy a gold bracelet.
Paul Westley
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