Vegas Poker Scene -- August 2018

Below is my August column for Ante Up.  It's pretty cool because I got to mention fellow blogger Memphis MOJO (aka Dave Smith) because he scored in the seniors event at Orleans.  Be sure to check it out.

I also mentioned famed Hollywood actor and poker player James Woods. 

And finally, be sure to check out the profile I did on vlogger Brad Owen at the bottom of the column.

The link for the column on Ante Up is here.  Remember, I only write the Vegas portion.  Magazine should be in your local poker rooms by now.

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The Senior Extravaganza, a new event, runs Aug. 20-26 at the Venetian Las Vegas. Each day features an 11 a.m. event for seniors, starting with a $200 superstack event with a $10K guarantee. Next up is a $250 event with two starting flights and a $30K guarantee. A $400 Monster Stack with a $60K guarantee has two starting flights beginning Aug. 24.

During this series, the room will run two events daily that are open to players of all ages. These tournaments are one-day affairs, with $150-$300 buy-ins and guarantees between $4,500 and $20K.

The Ante Up Poker Tour returns to Vegas as part of Venetian’s DeepStack Extravaganza III, which runs Sept. 3-23. The first of its three starting flights runs Sept, 13. The event is a $600 tournament with a $200K guarantee. Players start with 20K chips and play 40-minute levels.

Other events in the series include a $1,100 MSPT tournament starting Sept. 7 with a $250K guarantee. There are also two of the popular $340 doublestack events, each with two starting flights and $100K guarantees. All told, more than $1.2M in prize money is guaranteed.

ARIA: The WPT 500 completed July 3 as the winner was Greece’s Kyriakos Papadopoulos, earning $208K. Bobby Poe from Southern California took home $140K as runner-up and Hoan Nguyen of Texas scored $103K for third. The $570 tournament had nearly 3K entries and a $1.5M prize pool. There were nine starting flights, including three turbo flights.

BINIONS: The $1K championship event completed June 14 and had 241 entrants. Sean Small of Georgia and Aleksandras Rusinovas of Lithuania agreed to a deal when heads-up, with each player getting $44,850. Small got a few dollars more and the title. Erkut Yilmaz of Pennsylvania earned $23K for third. The prize pool was $219K.

Jeffrey Higgins of Massachusetts won the $1K PLO championship June 23, claiming $23K. Japan’s Masato Okude took second for $22K and Matt Mueller of Illinois placed third for $10K. The event had 104 entries and a $94K prize pool.
Actor James Woods won the HORSE championship June 30 ($14,570) as Mihails Morozovs of Latvia was second ($13,890) and Las Vegans Ron Ware and Daniel DiPasquale each took home $12,500 for third and fourth, respectively.

GOLDEN NUGGET: Guilherme Ksyvickisbordao of Brazil won the championship event July 1, earning $132K. North Carolina’s Juan Garivaldi finished second for $82K and California’s Daniel Placencia was third for $61K. The $570 event had nearly 1,600 entrants, creating a prize pool of $788K.

GREEN VALLEY RANCH: Poker Room in Henderson has updated its tournament schedule. The new 10:15 a.m. rebuy tournament Monday-Friday has a $75 buy-in. Players start with 7K chips and play 20-minute levels. Through the first six levels, players can rebuy 7K chips for $50 any time they are at or less than 7K chips. There’s a $2K guarantee.

On Saturdays at 10:15 a.m., it’s a $50 tournament with a $1K guarantee, 5K chips and 20-minute levels. Players can enter and re-enter for the three levels.

Friday evenings at 6:45, a $100 Survivor tournament runs. The starting stack is 10K and blinds are 30 minutes. Players may take $100 rebuys for 10K chips for the first four levels any time they are at 10K or less. The tournament plays down to 10 percent of the starting field, when each remaining player gets about
10 percent of the prize pool.

Sundays at 1, the room offers a $125 tourney called the Sizzler. The starting stack is 10K and the levels are 30 minutes. There’s a $20 add-on for 2K chips, half of which goes to the staff and half goes to the prize pool. The guarantee is $5K and there’s re-entry for the first four levels.

Monday and Wednesday evenings at 6:45, it’s a $75 bounty event. Players start with 6K and play 20-minute levels. Through the first five levels, $50 rebuys are available for 5K chips whenever a player has 6K or less. The bounty is $25 and the guarantee is $2,500.

PLANET HOLLYWOOD: The $2,200 main event of the Goliath Series ended June 30. Krasimir Yankov of Bulgaria took the $272K first-place prize. Raul Manzanares of Spain received $266K for second and Daniel Wilson of Ireland scored $250K for third. There were 924 entrants and a prize pool of $2M.

ORLEANS: The Seniors Poker Tour Championship saw the final three players made a deal as Peter Splettstober of Germany took home the biggest prize ($16,500). Florida’s Dave Smith claimed $14K for second and Paul Niemala of Las Vegas received $11K for third.

The $400 event attracted almost 300 players and the prize pool was $104K.

The final five women in the LIPS National Championship, a $250 event, agreed to a chop. They were Sandra Kasinowitz of Texas, Candyce Samples of Texas, Maria Hagood of Hawaii, Elizabeth Oueliette of California and Eleanor Wheeler of the UK and they each took home $10,500. There were 500 entries and a prize pool of $100K.

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Meet Brad Owen:

A pro and vlogger, Brad Owen moved to Vegas twice, first from Northern California and then from Los Angeles.

How did you get started in poker and vlogging? I started playing poker with my older brother and his friends when I was around 14. We’d mainly play tournaments for $1-$5 at our house. I really enjoyed it because for the first time I felt like my brother and I were competing against each other on an equal playing field.

I got started vlogging after seeing the first few episodes that Andrew Neeme put out. I thought it was so cool to see someone honestly depict what it’s like to play low-to-mid-stakes poker for a living.

I felt I had a unique perspective and I wanted my friends and family, who didn’t understand what I was doing for a living, to see what my life is actually like as a professional poker player. I didn’t anticipate that many people would watch it.

What is your greatest highlight in poker? There have been a lot of highlights in the past year. Phil Hellmuth and Doug Polk appeared in different episodes of the vlog. It was a blast hanging out with them. What I’m most proud of is developing different communities within poker.

My brother and I launched a website called offthefelt.com. It’s a forum site with 1,000-plus members in which people talk about hand histories or anything else poker related. It’s been great to see people share insight, connect with others, and improve together.

What are your poker goals? I don’t have many poker-related goals other than to last as long as I can. I’ve realized that I’m either not very good at or don’t enjoy other (non-poker) activities that make money. I love playing poker and hope to be involved in it at some level for the rest of my life. 

"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.

The Buck Naked / Stripper Tournament

This was the first tournament I played in Vegas last month.  I believe I already mentioned here that I didn't have any success, tournament-wise, during this trip.  So there will be no write ups of long tournament runs ending with a big pay day, or even me complaining about the dreaded min-cash.  But I had a few interesting experiences at some of the tournaments I played before busting out prematurely and this is one of those.

It was the Golden Nugget $150 that they had going nearly every day during the series, with a $20K guarantee.  It started at 1pm and it had a dinner break so it was pretty much ideal for me.

Anyway, the tournament started and of course the tables were not full. I was sitting at seat 6 (out of 10) and the seat on my immediate right (seat 5) was one of the empty seats.  A few hands into the first level, I hear and sense someone taking that empty seat next to me.  I didn't look at him.  And suddenly I hear a voice, "Oh and I'm sitting next to my buddy here!"  I look up and I recognized "Buck Naked."

You all remember Buck Naked, right?  That's the name I gave the author of three guest blog posts three years ago (starting with this one here) .  As Buck explained at the time, he has three hobbies: poker, cars and beers.  Well also, he has an eye for the ladies as you'll see if you check out his guest posts.  I've encountered Buck numerous times in Vegas, often around WSOP time, for obvious reasons.  And wouldn't you know, Buck, who had been in Vegas for awhile by this point, had on this day just checked into the Golden Nugget and decided to play in this tournament.  And by an amazing coincidence managed to be assigned to the seat directly to my right.  What are the odds that two players, neither of whom lives in Vegas but know each other through the magic of the internet, end up sitting next to each other at the same tournament (when there's a bunch of fairly similar tournaments going on around town at the exact same time)?

Anyway, Buck and I spent some time catching up, it had been at least a year since we'd seen each other in person.  But he is a loyal fan of my blog so he was fairly up-to-date with what I've been up to.  And it didn't take Buck too long for him to announce to the whole table, "If you want to read a good blog, this guy has the best blog on the internet (pointing to me)."  Well I was a bit embarrassed but certainly appreciated the kudos.  But it always feel a little awkward whenever someone mentions my blog at the poker table.  He gave the URL but I said, "No, don’t look at it now, it'll make it too easy to play against me."

Sometime later there was a discussion of all the tournaments going on around town and Buck told everyone that I was the expert on the tournaments and knew pretty much everything about every tournament going on in town right now.  A slight exaggeration but somewhat accurate. 

Later, I was a little surprised when Buck missed another chance to give me some props.  One of the guys at the table was talking about playing at Caesars over the weekend.  And he mentioned that on Friday and Saturday night, they line up for their nightclub right in front of and around the poker room.  He said it was quite a sight to behold, all the barely dressed young ladies all lined up for the club. A really great view.

You don't say.

Well by this time I was surely expecting Buck to not only agree but point out that I was indeed the expert on this phenomenon, and had even written a few blog posts about it, and given it a name.  But although Buck agreed that it was an enjoyable experience, he didn't mention my credentials in this area.

I must admit I came close to saying something myself.  I was thinking of saying, "Yeah, I wonder if anyone has come up with a name for those girls lining up like that?"  But I said nothing.

Now perhaps Buck was just being a gentleman and didn't want to bring up The Slut Parade.  You see, there were ladies present.  Almost half of our table, four to be exact, was female.  And strangely enough, all the females were sitting right next to each other.  Seats 7-10 were all women.  The seating assignments were so weird that we kept making reference to it, it was like the men vs the women.  So perhaps Buck didn't want to offend the ladies.

Two of the ladies were rather ordinary but two stood out.  One was an overly chatty Asian lady, who arrived to the table late waiting for a slot jackpot to be paid to her (but her chips were in play).  My goodness did that woman yak up a storm.

The other lady of note was a blonde woman who looked strangely familiar to me.  As soon as she came to the table, sometime after Buck did, I was sure I'd seen her before.  I would have bet anything  that I had seen before playing poker somewhere.  In fact, I was certain that I'd played with her before, somewhere.  I never could place her in a particular room.

As I said, she was blonde, long hair pulled back. Mid-30's maybe (I'm bad estimating ages). She was wearing a loose fitting shirt, nothing even remotely sexy.  In fact it looked like she was not trying impress anyone with her appearance this particular day.  But somehow, despite the loose fitting shirt, I could tell that what was inside her shirt was, well, plentiful.

Anyway, it was a very friendly table and the ladies were all discussing their backgrounds and such and one of them asked the blonde gal where she was from and she said Vegas.  And they asked her what she did for a living and she said she was a dancer.

A dancer?  I dunno why exactly, but as soon as she said dancer I knew she was a stripper.  I mean, I didn't know it for an absolute fact, but I was like 99% sure she was a stripper.  There are other kind of dancers besides strippers, sure.  But this gal didn't look like a ballerina to me.  Or even a chorus girl.  Or a party-pit dancer, for that matter.

A little later there was a discussion about tipping.  The female dealer was saying that it is known fact that men tip better than women (something I've always heard myself).  Well the blonde dancer said that she works for tips, so she overtips.  She'll tip $10 on a $20 pot (she'd already said that she usually plays cash games instead of tournaments, except for this time of year).

Hmm….a dancer who works for tips?  Yeah, that pretty much confirmed to me that she was indeed a professional clothing remover. 

She was a fairly aggressive player.  Thus, she was the first of the ladies to bust from our table.  I saw her rebuy and play at a different table. A few minutes after she was gone, the remaining ladies were discussing her and one of them said (or perhaps asked the others) that she was probably a stripper.  They all unanimously agreed that she was.  And they were totally cool with it, totally non-judgmental.

Now I had planned to cue Buck about my suspicions when she was gone. I thought that he might not have heard the comments about her being a dancer and working for tips.  But I never got the chance before the ladies discussed it.  When I said to Buck, "Did you hear that? I was going to tell you myself."  He just nodded.

Oh, what a naïve fool I was.  Let's fast forward to a week or two later when I was playing at the very same tournament.  Guess who was at my table again?  No, not Buck Naked, just the blonde gal who gets buck naked professionally.  Yeah, there she was. Another strange coincidence.  This time she was wearing something a little more revealing and I could see her tramp stamp, her leg tattoos and a little bit of side boob.  If I were an oddsmaker, I'd make it a 6-1 favorite that her chest was not original factory equipment. 

Well Buck was still in town and he had texted me that he had just cashed in a tournament in another part of town.  I told him that our stripper friend was at my table again.  He texted me back that he thought she worked at a certain strip club which he named.

What th-?  How could he possibly know that?  Well, it turns out that Buck had actually had a conversation with the young woman during one of the breaks, introduced himself, and found out where she works.  Yeah, by the time I mentioned to him my suspicion that she was a stripper, he had already had a conversation with her during the break and confirmed it.  He never told me.  You dog, Buck, you dog.

Then he went on to say that she had given him her phone number. Really?  Why would a stripper give some guy her phone number?  Let's just say Buck and the stripper are not exactly close in age. 

By the time Buck and I had gotten this far in our texting, she had already busted.  I mentioned this to him but then I told him that once again, she had re-entered and was sitting at a nearby table (I guess she likes double entry). 

Now when I first heard from Buck he said he wasn't sure what he was going to do, but he was flush with cash from that tournament he'd just finished up.  He was thinking of coming downtown and joining me in the Nugget tournament.  Another possibility was driving out to Pahrump to purchase some affection legally (you know from his guest posts how wild Buck is).  Now he was thinking of a third option…..he texted the stripper to see if she might have some ideas of how he could pass the time.  Strip Poker, perhaps?

I guess he texted her before I had a chance to tell him that she was back in the tourney.  He assumed he wouldn't hear back from her and presumably got ready for a visit to the desert.  But it wasn't long before I heard back from him, telling me that she had responded and wanted to come over to his hotel room for a "private dance."

Oh, is that what the kids are calling it these days?

But she was still in the tournament and wanted to meet up with after (or perhaps another day, if she made a, you'll pardon the expression, deep run).  Buck wasn't going to wait around for what he wanted, and I am also led to believe they couldn't come to terms on what an acceptable fee would be for her private dance.  So to the best of my knowledge they never got together.

And yes, now that I've explained all this, I suppose a more accurate title for this post would be The Buck Naked/Hooker tournament, but I like the way it sounds the way I went with and when I came up with my title, I didn't really intend to reveal all these extra sordid details.  It just sort of happened.

Now, as for the poker, I'll spare most of the sad tale and just get to the last two hands for me.  Card dead the entire day, I started level 8 with a stack of $4,600 (starting stack was 15K). The blinds were 75/300/600 so you can see I was quite desperate.  So I opened shoved 8-7 offsuit.  Yeah, that's how desperate I was.  I think I was in late position so there weren't that many left who could call me.  I was called by Ace-Jack.  Well at least I had two live cards, right?  I didn't see an 8 or a 7 on the flop.  Instead, it came out 10-9-6!  Wow.  Flopping a straight there was pretty cool.  I had gotten my much needed double up.

But I was still desperate, still pretty much in shove or fold mode especially as we were almost done with that level and about to play blinds of 100/400/800.  Buck was the big blind so I was under-the gun.  With pocket 10's it was easy for me to go all-in.  It folded around to a big stack, who asked for a count (I think it was a bit under 8K, not sure).  After tanking a bit longer he called.  Then it folded to Buck who stood up, picked up his chips and announced "all-in."  He too was short stacked, but he had a few more chips than I did.

I was relieved to see the big stack flip over two 6's.  But I was really surprised to see Buck turn over Ace-Queen offsuit.  Really?  Sure that's more than good enough to open shove.  But to get it all in there after a shove and a call seemed a little questionable.  Buck later explained to me that he wanted to "chip up or leave."  So a chance to get a triple up—or be out of the tournament and move on to the next activity—really appealed to him.  I totally understand.  Sometimes when your short like that it's easy to take a big risk because you feel you have nothing to lose.

Anyway, the flop was all bricks, as was the turn. Though the turn kind of scared me—it was a King and when I first saw it, I thought it was a Queen.  No, just a King.  The Queen came on the river.  Yes, it did.  Buck took my chips, got a bunch from the big stack and got the triple up he needed.  And I got…shown the door.  My poker was over for the day.

The next day I heard from Buck.  In that hand where I busted, he was one river card away from being out himself (the big stack would have taken the rest of the chips I didn't have covered).  Instead, that Queen hit and he went on to make a huge, deep run, making the final table.  I think they ended up making a deal when they were down to five or six players and he received around a payout of around $2,500.

Poker, huh?