April 25, 2005
I'm in the final event!
On April 24 I won my way in! I was one of 3 winners in a 180 person super satellite to gain an entry into the $10,000 buy-in no limit Texas holdem final event of the World Series of Poker. I've been trying to get in for years!
This is probably the largest, most famous, and richest poker event in the world. In years past, this tournament attracted several hundred people each year with the first place finisher winning around $1,000,000.
Over the last three years -- due to the growth of internet poker sites, the World Poker Tour, and televised Poker shows -- the tournament has doubled in size every year. This year they expect 6,000 entrants which will produce a prize pool of more than $60,000,000. First place is expected to be worth $10,000,000. And if I win it, fulltiltpoker.com will pay me a bonus of $10,000,000 because I won an entry from their site! It cost me $216 and now I play in Vegas in July for the millions.
Posted by LarryW at 09:19 AM | Comments (6)
April 26, 2005
How I got in...
The tournament I won for my entry was a $216 buy-in super satellite on fulltiltpoker.com which would give away a seat to the big one for every 60 people that played. We started with 180 people -- so 3 people would win...
It was a well structured online tournament which increased the blind bets at a comfortable pace. The players acted quickly so we got in a good number of hands per round. I was selectively aggressive -- the way you are supposed be. I did very well -- making very few costly mistakes. I was able to keep my stack up in the top 20 or so players for most of the tournament. I had my share of some good pots, and lost a few of course.
I paid attention. I made player notes. I thought about everything. I was focused and excited. My son Max watched the last hour and we screamed and yelled as I won and lost pots. No one could hear us. We screamed at people to fold their hands when I bet with nothing. And they did. But they couldn't know. We had our best internet poker faces on. Can't do that the same way in the real thing.
Railbirds watching the final table were gambling on which 3 players would wind up winning it. I had one of the smallest stacks of chips, but someone correctly picked me and the other two winners. My key hand was a semi-bluff bet for all my remaining chips on a 4 flush (I hadn't made my flush yet). I got one caller and needed to pull the club on the last two cards and did!
When it got down to only four people left I was almost crying. I REALLY wanted to win. I was hoping two of the other remaining players would go after each other so I could slip into the winning 3 spots. And two of them did! One guy with the second highest stack spent it all on a crazy and unsuccessful bluff when he really didn't have to. Not the time in the tournament to be doing that -- and against the largest stack! So I was in!
Posted by LarryW at 09:40 AM | Comments (1)
April 27, 2005
Thanks Claudia!
A special thank you to my girlfriend, Claudia, for not needing my attention on a Sunday afternoon! I have to say, if she hadn't been supportive of me "wasting" my Sunday afternoon playing online poker, I wouldn't be on my way to "wasting" 10 days in Vegas in the middle of July!
Posted by LarryW at 09:43 AM | Comments (0)