No Vegas Trip for me :(

I just played in the Win a Weekend with Daniel Final and unfortunately, didn’t quite work out as planned. After playing for almost 3 hours, with about 5000 other players, I busted out around 900 place. It’s kind of painful after playing for so long to be eliminated fairly close to “in the money”. It’s pretty much a crap shoot with various types of players from total fish to season veterans. There were 2 hands that were probably the “TSN turning points”. One was getting my 2 Aces cracked by a pair of nines when a nine sucked out on the river. That would have put me close to 20000 chips. The 2nd hand I simply misread the player and it cost me.

One thing I learned from this is that it’s tough not to be get bored. It’s a slow tournament and I found myself watching TV, checking email, surfing, etc. Oh well, lesson learned and on to the next tournament!

July 27, 2008 | Filed Under poker | 1 Comment 

Qualified for the Final Round for the trip to Vegas

Even though I am fighting a bit of the flu, I just managed to qualify for the final round for the trip to Vegas with Daniel Negreanu. I posted that the 1st round was fairly easy and I only played maybe 2 hands the whole time. This time, there was over 6000 other players and the first 1000 players qualify to the Final round next Sunday, July 27. I actually had to play some poker this time eash of us starting at 2000 chips. Although there were a lot of dead stacks around (people who registered but didn’t show up so they automatically fold every single hand), there were still enough players around to make it interesting.

I basically played fairly tight for the early rounds and then started to open things up and play more aggressive and bully people around, raising and reraising. It’s easy to spot the donks who play any hand and give away chips. You just have to pick your spots and I quickly doubled up and then made my way to around 13000 chips or so. At this point, I basically shut it down and folded just about all hands until I qualified.

It still amazes me the people who take unusual risks and play stupid. But then again, those are the people who I love to play against! Next week will be interesting as I now have to change gears and play to win rather than play to survive.  The winner gets the $15000 valued prize and the 2nd place - 600 place still get cash money. Not bad for a free tournament :)

July 19, 2008 | Filed Under poker | Leave a Comment 

On to the 2nd Round poker tournament for a trip to Las Vegas

Poker Pro and fellow Canadian Daniel Negreanu is offering a Weekend With Daniel competition in Las Vegas:

The weekend includes a trip to Las Vegas, where you’ll get to stay at the Venetian Hotel and party with the man himself in true VIP style. Daniel will also invite you to his Vegas home, to teach you the skills you need to make it as a poker champion. The prize package is worth $17,000 in total!

Basically you have to first qualify in a daily WWD Round 1 freeroll.  Players that finish in the top 1,000 will go through to our WWD Round 2 tournament.

I just played the WWD Round 1 this evening with a total of 1458 players in the poker tournament. I literally played 2 hands and folded everything else.  Believe it or not, I qualified by doing nothing. I don’t know what the 458 idiots were doing but somehow they busted out. How hard can it be to make the top 1000??

So it’s on to Round 2 and I’ll let you know how that goes.  I imagine that I may actually have to play poker to get to the final round.

July 8, 2008 | Filed Under news, poker | 1 Comment