Party Poker World Poker Open IV Conclusion
More spoilers, obv. After 6 days of pacing up and down at home, I played the semi-final on Thursday. This went pretty well, again I won't spoil it too much by talking about hands but after losing a chunk early on by flopping second best (try not to do that in this format lol), I worked it back to my starting stack, doubled up in a completely standard way, and then played well for about an hour and at one point had a very strong position. Unfortunately it didn't quite break for me from there and I ended up carrying 190K into the final, which was slightly less than average.
Yesterday I didn't feel as focused in the final and I think my play suffered a little bit. I flopped second best again, not having learned the lesson from the day before, and ended up 4th after going out on a standard blind v blind coup. Still, I copped $30K for that, and a few more in swappage, which was all in all not bad for a week's work and the experience might prove very important at some point down the line. Or it might not, but at least having copped a bit it was still worthwhile. Thanks to Beiju and everyone involved, I never realised how many people it took to run one of these ! And very well done to the winner Marty Smyth, who was very affable and played extremely well. It'll be interesting to see how it looks, I think I should come across well at the table but in the interviews who knows, I jabbered a lot of nonsense and it depends what they decide to use. I know I mentioned yoga and £10 stud tournaments so I might look a bit odd :-)
In an age where the word irony is so mis-used, I did think it was the genuine article when, after less than a week of sweating over $40K in equity, I was so distracted by the WSOP announcement on Thursday morning that it actually helped me to switch off thinking about the semi. God alone knows the stress people will be under waiting for 4 months to play for a share of $20 million plus. I'm not actually going to go on a rant about this now (sorry Richard). Something might come up on Poker Verdict because Hugo caught me on the phone when I was waiting to play yesterday, and I vented off a lot of nervous energy giving it the full gun on what I think of it all. Hopefully it will come across well, as I said to Jesse in an interview all my best work is motiviated by rage.
Anyway, now I've calmed down, I'm not playing it, problem solved. What really mugs me off in these spots is how the people who stand to benefit can never come out and say "Well, this is good for me and bad for you. Every man for himself, that's capitalism baby." Instead they have to try to convince you that it's good for you too, often using the most retarded, selective and specious arguments known to man. Well, you failed. This crosses the line and I'm not paying $600 to be treated like this. You can do what you like.
Yesterday I didn't feel as focused in the final and I think my play suffered a little bit. I flopped second best again, not having learned the lesson from the day before, and ended up 4th after going out on a standard blind v blind coup. Still, I copped $30K for that, and a few more in swappage, which was all in all not bad for a week's work and the experience might prove very important at some point down the line. Or it might not, but at least having copped a bit it was still worthwhile. Thanks to Beiju and everyone involved, I never realised how many people it took to run one of these ! And very well done to the winner Marty Smyth, who was very affable and played extremely well. It'll be interesting to see how it looks, I think I should come across well at the table but in the interviews who knows, I jabbered a lot of nonsense and it depends what they decide to use. I know I mentioned yoga and £10 stud tournaments so I might look a bit odd :-)
In an age where the word irony is so mis-used, I did think it was the genuine article when, after less than a week of sweating over $40K in equity, I was so distracted by the WSOP announcement on Thursday morning that it actually helped me to switch off thinking about the semi. God alone knows the stress people will be under waiting for 4 months to play for a share of $20 million plus. I'm not actually going to go on a rant about this now (sorry Richard). Something might come up on Poker Verdict because Hugo caught me on the phone when I was waiting to play yesterday, and I vented off a lot of nervous energy giving it the full gun on what I think of it all. Hopefully it will come across well, as I said to Jesse in an interview all my best work is motiviated by rage.
Anyway, now I've calmed down, I'm not playing it, problem solved. What really mugs me off in these spots is how the people who stand to benefit can never come out and say "Well, this is good for me and bad for you. Every man for himself, that's capitalism baby." Instead they have to try to convince you that it's good for you too, often using the most retarded, selective and specious arguments known to man. Well, you failed. This crosses the line and I'm not paying $600 to be treated like this. You can do what you like.
2 Comments:
Its not often i am gonna disagree with you Mr Ward but your wrong on this WSOP change. Its win win for everyone, please list your objections because i have'nt heard one that makes any sense.
Lionel Hutz
Ahh, don't start me off mate. I don't think you're looking at this from a player's point of view. In my opinion, the benefit of this for players is absolutely negligible. The half-arsed way they're going about this is barely going to improve their ratings at all IMO. And so what if it does ? You're talking about a US TV programme. How many people are there left in the US who
- haven't seen enough poker on TV to have made their mind up already
- will be encouraged to start playing online because of the difference in this broadcast
- even if those follow, will be ABLE to start playing online because of UIGEA/deposit restrictions
But that's mostly by the by. My #1 objection, which I feel that the vast majority have overlooked, is the stress that this 4 month delay would put players under. It would be HUGE. I was pacing up and down all week waiting 5 days to play for $40K equity. I just can't imagine what it would be like, 4 months playing for $2M. The great appeal of the WSOP in the past, for me, was that you could do what skalie did last year, make the final, pick up $1M for 5th, and get on with your life. You can't do that now, without 4 months of being totally hassled from all corners. That's the main one for me. I'm sure you've seen all the other arguments about collusion, coaching, player safety ... and those are debatable.
But another one that's not really been picked up though is do you trust Harrah's to run the event on a level playing field if, say with 10-12 players left, there are one or two major marketing draws still in (say Hellmuth or a fit bird), but they're short stacked ? You remember that $3K NL last year when they made the final 10-handed because Hellmuth was short stacked ? The incentive for them to fuck around with this now is much, much higher.
Maybe I'm being stubborn but I've always been in the camp that the main event is just another donkament. It's not the be all and end all. Yes it's great value but it's also impossible variance and variance, while being the break-even/losing/shot-taking player's friend, is the pro's worst enemy. I simply resent the fact that we are being fucked around so much so that the organisers can make more money and WE'RE STILL PAYING $600 TO PLAY IT. Well, that should read you, not we. Sometimes you have to draw a line.
Andy.
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