"I Used to Read Your Blog"

Two days after playing in that Golden Nugget tournament (see here),  I returned to the Nugget for my second tournament of my trip.  But this was a different tournament.  It was a $200 buy-in with nine starting flights spread out over three days, with day 2 to take place on Sunday of that weekend.  The guarantee was $200K.

What I liked about the format was that if you made it to day 2, you’d automatically be in the money; there was no chance of having to return downtown just to bust out before the bubble broke.  It was also one of those "best stack forward" tournaments.  Players could play multiple flights, and if they bagged and tagged more than once, they'd take their biggest stack to day 2.

The question is, what happens if you do make day 2 more than once?  Do you get anything for that?  Well there are different ways to handle that situation.  The Aria WPT 500 has that set-up and if you qualify more than once, you get the minimum day 2 payment for any stack that you don't play on day 2.That seems logical. I believe I've also seen tournaments where you don't get anything for that extra stack you forfeit.  You're playing multiple flights for sole purpose of trying to get a bigger stack to play on day 2 and that's it.

But when I entered the details for this one into PokerAtlas, I noticed that the players qualifying for day 2 more than once would get a $1,500 bonus for each stack they bagged that they had to forfeit.  I didn't think all that much about it at the time.  I've entered other tournaments with similar arrangements on PokerAtlas.  And I was pretty sure I'd noticed tournaments like that at the Bike.  Just never played one with that type of "forfeited stack bonus" before.

It was only after I played in my flight (the last flight of the first day, so Thursday night), that I started thinking more about that bonus payout.  Now I never came close to having to deal with the bonus payment.  If I had made it to day 2 on my only try, I would have been happy with that.

Instead, I busted out after a few hours.  Sadly, there are no memorable hands to talk about, although I did actually win a pot with the dreaded pocket Kings. Raised preflop, two callers, lowish flop with two clubs.  I had the King of clubs.  My c-bet went uncalled.  Other than that, it was an uneventful bust  out in the ninth level.  I was crippled when I shoved my pocket 10's and a shorter stack shoved with Ace-4.  There was not just one Ace on the flop, but two.  I had to shove with King-9 in the big blind a few hands later and lost to Ace-8 (only one Ace this time).

But sometime later, thinking things over, I was reflecting on bonus payout of $1,500 for qualifying more than once.  I thought about it a lot, and it seemed to me, well, if you're going to give someone $1,500 for a stack he/she isn't going to play, well, the min-cash has to be no less than $1,500, right?  I mean, why should a non-played stack be worth more than a stack belonging to a player coming back the second day to actually play?

Suppose a player does make it to day 2 twice.  He gets $1,500 for the smaller stack and then plays the larger stack.  All that is certain is that stack he is playing is bigger than the one he forfeited, but it could still be a small stack relative to average stack.  He might have just barely qualified twice, right?  Let's say that on the first hand of day 2 he does indeed bust out.  So he gets the min-cash.  How could that be less than the $1,500 he got for the stack he didn't play?  That would be like Chico telling Groucho he gets more for not playing than playing (see here).

But realistically, I couldn't imagine them paying out a $1,500 min-cash for a $200 tournament (even I think that's too much!).  So I eagerly followed the results of this tournament to see exactly what the min-cash was.  When it was over, I saw that it was $425.  Well, on the one hand, it satisfies my own personal "double the buy-in" rule I have in my mind.  That's actually a decent payout for the min-cash.  I couldn't complain about that.

Until I compare it to the bonus payout for forfeiting a stack.  Then, it doesn't make any sense to me.  I'm basically going through this exercise to explain why, when they ran this exact same tournament a couple of weeks later, I decided not to play in it, although I had initially intended to.

This just did not seem fair to me, no matter how much I thought about it. Of course, nobody ever said life, or poker, is fair

I want to make it clear I'm not criticizing the Golden Nugget.  They certainly have the right to establish the rules any way they see fit, and this is not a new concept they just came up with it. As I said, other rooms have run the same format many times before.  But I checked with their series last year and although they ran a very similar tournament then, they did not offer the bonus payment for the second stack.  Instead, the forfeited stacks just got a minimum day 2 cash for the efforts.  The $1,500 bonus was something they added this year.

Now I of course understand the reasoning behind it….they want to encourage more entries, more people to enter multiple times even after they've qualified, not just to increase their stack but to chase that $1,500.  I mean, even if someone was the chip leader of their first day 1 flight, they have an incentive (that they wouldn't otherwise have) to re-enter another flight….$1,500 for $200 is a pretty sweet deal.  So I get that.

But, I wonder how many re-entered after already making it once and did not bag and tag again?  All those people added to the prize pool.  But any player who re-entered and made it again actually reduced the prize pool, right?  That's $1,300 taken away from the prize pool.  Of course, there are certainly no guarantees that anyone who made it once could make it a second time.

And the rules were clearly stated up front.  In fact, since I was one of the very first to see the structure sheet (so I could enter the tournament into PokerAtlas), I knew about this bonus payout pretty much before anyone. No excuse for me not knowing what I was in for.

I don't regret playing it, and at the end of the day I would have been happy to have made it to day 2 and gotten that $425 min-cash.  The Golden Nugget puts on an excellent series each year and I'll be eager to play in their events next year.

But I'm not likely to play in an event like this again (anywhere), just because the bonus payment irks me.  Now I am open to changing my mind.  Perhaps you, my readers, can persuade me that this bonus payment is a good idea.  Thoughts?

Anyway, there were a few other things about the tournament that were noteworthy.  One was a classic "woman said."  Our table was near a bunch of electronics for one of the tournament clocks.  Some player noticed there was a bank of portable USB ports just sitting on table there.  He went over and said, "Are these for charging phones?"  The female dealer at our table said, "No….I don't think so…"  The guy said, "Do you think it will blow up my phone?"  And she said, "I don't know."  The guy said, "Well I'm gonna try it."  And so she said, "Yeah, just stick it in there."  She realized how that sounded, had a sheepish look on her face and said, "I better watch what I say."  So I said to her, "I didn't hear that at all," and laughed, and she laughed back.  Anyway, the guy apparently got his phone charged without it blowing up.

Then there was a player at our table who looked familiar to me but I couldn't quite place him.  Finally at one point he shouted over to me, "I used to read your blog."  Hmm….how am I supposed to take that?  I wanted to say, "Well why don't you any more, has it gotten boring?"  I didn't of course.  By the way, I think you could call that a left-handed compliment.  I just nodded and said, "Oh you recognize me?"  He said yeah, he used to see me all the time at the Saturday Binion's tournament I used to love.  Oh well, that explains why he looked familiar to me.  Then he said, "You introduced me to The Trooper."  Well, sir, I'm glad your time reading my blog wasn't a total loss to you, then.  I tweeted to Trooper what happened and said he owed me a commission. 

But to be fair to this guy, he's not the only person who used to read my blog, apparently.  At least going by the reaction (or lack thereof) to my latest couple of posts, particularly the last one.  That really surprised me.  I mean a story about playing poker with a stripper who was really a hooker, and my buddy texting her about a possible private dance? How could I go wrong?  But apparently I'm losing my audience for such salaciousness.  I mean with "naked" and "stripper" in the title, and the "hooker" label, I was at least expecting a lot of hits from search engine traffic.  But it didn't happen.  Hmmm…I wonder if the search engines have shadow banned me because of my political take on the whole straw thing?  Ya think?

Or maybe I've just lost it.  I gotta tell you, that last post was probably my best story coming out of my recent Vegas trip.  If that was a bust, maybe it's time to retire?

Lastly, I recognized one of my favorite dealers who retired a few years ago.  He was working the series.  He actually came to our table and the two of us had a grand old time catching up.  He was always one of the friendliest, funniest dealers around.  He would joke through his downs keeping us entertained.  Until they forced him to use his real name, his employee badge said his name was "Tip."  You know, as a reminder that he worked for tips.

His favorite joke was, the first time at each table somebody tipped him, he'd take the chip and say, :"Thank you very much.  I want you know to know that this tip is going straight to charity……she's a stripper at the Rhino."

That joke never got old.