In the money!

In the money!

57 People Left!

Just got this text from Dave:

57 people left average 70k. 58k for me. First time I've been a little nervous this year even thought I'm doing well. Chris Fergusan at my table

Only 9 people to go!

More HORSE Updates

Some more texts from Dave

At 6:40 - 20k left 90ish players left. Last hand before dinner lost 34k pot. Had nuts on turn and lost to 3 outs.

8:00 - Back in black! 50k!

According to pokerpages.com, which has an hourly commentary, there are about 70 players left making the average stack about 58,000.

-Jen

Texts from Dave

Dave's doing great! I got these two texts from him since he started today:

At 2:40 - Major rush, 28k!

At 4:20 - Absurd 1st 2 hours of day 2. Up to 48,000! 128 players left average is 32k. To the stables!

-Jen

Horse Update

Hi, this is Jen. Dave wanted me to put up a quick post saying that he's made it to day 2 of the HORSE tournament!

He is a little short, with 10,300 chips. He's in about 160th place out of 200. Average is about 20,000. 48 spots pay, with 48th being $5277, 8th is $32,647, and 1st is $311,899.

He starts up again today at 2:00 PST

WSOP Event #21 Preview!

Event #21 is $3,000 buy in HORSE. For those of you who might be new to my blog and don't know a lot about poker let me give you a brief explaination of how HORSE works. HORSE is an ackronymn for five different forms of poker (H)old'em, (O)maha, (R)azz, (S)tud, and Stud (E)ight or better. You play each game for a short period of time and then switch to the next game.

I find that most players seem comfortable with either the flop games (Hold'em and Omaha), or Stud and Stud-8 and otherwise good players sometimes have no clue what to do playing Razz (7 card stud where the lowest hand wins). The reason why many players don't know how to play Razz is the only time anyone ever plays it is as part of a mixed games format like HORSE. If you don't play much HORSE you might still play all of the other games, but not Razz. Unlike many of my opponents I play all of the games well and since I play as much HORSE as I can, I play a fair amount of Razz and feel very comfortable with it.

I've played three HORSE tournaments in my life with buy ins over $1,000. I've finished 2nd of 32, 13th of 60 (I was in first with 15 players left, but blew it), and 4th of 444. I have high expectations for this tournament.

I'm moving from the Rio over to the Bellagio tonight which is going to be a small pain in the ass. If I make day 2 of the HORSE (which starts at 5 pm) I'll be playing until 2 or 3 am, heading to the Bellagio to check in, and then I'll need to be back here at the Rio by 2 pm. As a result I might not have time for a detailed blog post, but I'll try to put up something.

Derailed by Dinner?

My Dad recently put a comment on my last post that it seems like I'm doing well until I have dinner and then I'm going broke and maybe what I'm eating is affecting me mentally.

First of all let me say that the main reason I'm going broke after dinner is around that time is when the stakes get high enough that it's much easier to go broke. In the first two tournaments (which were limit tournaments) the stakes were so low in the first few hours compared to the number of chips we had that it's near impossible to go broke. In fact only 1 or 2 players in of the several hundred entrants went broke in the first hour and only a handful in the second hour. But by the time hour 5 or 6 rolls around the stakes are high enough that a few (or even one) bad hands can send you packing.

With that said, my diet has constantly been on my mind while I'm here. I know from past experience how draining it can be to eat restaurant food day after day. From the day that I got here (and even in the days leading up to my departure) I've been trying to make the best food decisions that I can. The biggest problem is the lack of easily available options (no grocery store nearby and no kitchen in my hotel room), but I think I've been doing a good job so far and a third of the way through my trip I still feel good physically and mentally.

Thanks for he comment Dad!

Changing topics for a moment. This is my 500th blog post! When I started this blog it was just a way to avoid making a ton of phone calls to report my results at the 2006 WSOP. But it's turned into so much more. Thanks to everyone who reads!