Apr
20
by Chad Holloway
On Wednesday, April 6, 2011 I set out from Wisconsin with my cousin Dan Almerli (@Almerli on Twitter) for the World Series of Poker Circuit at Harrah’s St. Louis. I was assigned to cover the Main Event for PokerNews.com, but decided to go down a few days early to play some cash games and take some shots in various tournaments. I was really looking forward to playing poker instead of watching and actually getting to enjoy the experience as opposed to flying in, working, and flying out.
After driving six hours to the venue, I jumped right into the action by entering the 4 PM Event #18 $245 limit Omaha Hi tournament. It is rare to see limit Omaha being played, especially in a tournament format, so I was looking forward to it. On top of it, I felt I had an edge given that I’d played a few such tournaments in the past, even managing to win one. The tournament drew 40 players, which was about what I was expecting, and I got off to a fast start by winning the first two hands.
Since it was a limit tournament, the action was long and grueling. Slowly but surely the players began to bust and I found myself holding a pretty decent stack. Fast forward a few hours and we were down to the final table of ten. Most of the remaining players wanted to make some sort of deal, but I wasn’t too excited about it considering I was top three in chips and two players were extremely short stacked (one had 400 with the blinds at 500-1,000 or so). When those players inevitably busted, the table once again brought up the idea of a chop. I was open to the idea since only four players would make the money ($6,940 prizepool of which $3,100 was set aside for first), but I was looking for a good deal given I had chipped up close to the chip lead.
Here was the situation: three of us had big chip stacks and were in good shape, two players were sitting in the middle of the pack, and three players were on life support. The top three chip counts got together and discussed what to do. I came up with the following deal, which I never expected to get accepted (I know I wouldn’t have taken it had I been in anyone else’s shoes): the top three players would get $1,600 each, the woman who sat fourth in chips took $800, the next guy got $545, and the three short stacks would get their buy-in back. The blinds were high and it really was anyone’s game, but to my surprise the entire table agreed. I would have been more than happy to play it out, but I was ok with a deal that favored me and provided me the funds to freeroll into a couple more events. “Officially” I was listed as taking third in the event (it was a non-ring event so I didn’t care all that much).
I used part of my winnings to buy into the $565 Event #20 NLHE tournament at noon on Thursday. This was a ring event that drew 272 players, including my cousin Dan, who ultimately busted around the halfway mark. On the other hand, I found myself slowly chipping up and made it to the dinner break. When we returned, there were about 100 players left with the average stack at 34K. I was sitting with 25K when an under-the-gun player, who had just lost 47K out of his stack, moved all in for his lat 7,700. A middle position player flatted and I looked down at pocket queens in the big blind (600/1,200 with 100 ante). It was the best hand I had seen in a couple hours and by far the best since returning from the dinner break, so I decided to push all in. I knew the UTG player was pushing extremely light (he ended up having 10-6), but unfortunately the middle position player had flatted with kings. I couldn’t catch and I busted in what I estimate to be 90th place (only 30 got paid).
I was disappointed I couldn’t go further, but felt I played pretty good overall. I decided to skip the cash games, get some sleep, and enter Event #23 $345 NLHE on Friday. Unfortunately, that event was similar to the one prior. I played for 8-9 hours, made the top third of the field, but subsequently busted. Luckily, my early score and cash games results ultimately saw me coming home with more than double what I took. It was a fun and profitable trip to say the least.
When Sunday rolled around, I had to transition from player to reporter as I had to cover the Main Event for PokerNews.com. All told, 449 players entered, creating a prizepool of $646,762 with a first-place prize of $142,290. Both 2004 WSOP Main Event Champ Greg Raymer and St. Louis native Dennis Phillips were in attendance, and managed some deep runs. Unfortunately, they were both eliminated shy of the money on Day 2. In the end, it was Kyle Cartwright who emerged victorious. Cartwright, who had won the “Casino Champion” designation at Harrah’s Tunica a few months prior, won his third WSOP-Circuit ring. That is amazing since he played his first live tournament just a few months earlier and the record for most rings held by a single player is only four. Cartwright’s performance cemented his legacy a WSOP-Circuit beast.
Here is a look at the final table:
WSOP-Circuit Harrah’s St. Louis Final Table
|
Seat
|
Player
|
Chips
|
|
1
|
Kyle Cartwright
|
2,875,000
|
|
2
|
Mitch Franks
|
460,000
|
|
3
|
Nick Jivkov
|
206,000
|
|
4
|
Ron Segni
|
983,000
|
|
5
|
Asheesh Boyapati
|
1,138,000
|
|
6
|
Chris Viox
|
346,000
|
|
7
|
Troy Weber
|
1,006,000
|
|
8
|
Steve Goff
|
1,270,000
|
|
9
|
Phil Stelzer
|
637,000
|
Apr
5
by jake
MarketZero, the company behind the poker stat tracking portal PokerTableRatings, was recently purchased by Zynga, the company behind numerous highly successful social games for Facebook.
Zynga has been on a company buying tear having bought 11 studios in the past 11 months. The PokerTableRatings purchase is particularly interesting as its their first poker related purchase. Zynga described MarkeZero as a "pioneering force in the online poker world.”
Could Zynga, with its 37 million free play Texas Holdem players, be possibly gearing up to dive into the real money online poker game? If so, you can expect they'll be significant player in the industry.