Dead Money Poker Satellite Final Table (kind of...)
Every year the Dead Money gang gets together across the country with 10 or so of their friends. They play a single table Texas Hold'em No Limit Poker Satellite and ship their winner to New Orleans. There the winners play each other and the winner of that wins a 10k seat to the World Series of Poker Main Event. Except for last year, where the winner won a seat to the 5k Harrahs main event. Congrats Dave Andersen.
This year we looked to get back to the 10 or so winners necessary for the big prize in Vegas. Problem was many table captains couldn't get me winners and few guys dropped out. Suddenly, as the weekend approached we had three winners, myself, David Andersen again (looking to defend his title one of only two winners to get back to the final table), and Keenan from NYC.
Keenan had already booked his flight, so though we considered a delay, it wasn't really that reasonable a consideration with non-refundable tickets. Plus, we had two players from Nantucket who had booked flights for the last chance table (what's up Adam and Rob). What to do?
A lot of our regulars demurred on the trip this year, so I knew numbers weren’t only be down from a players perspective but also from a going out perspective. Irony of ironies, this would be during the year I cleared my schedule with my wife to hang out for a long time on the weekend and participate in all the parallel events that go with the Dead Money table. Twice it’s been during a weekend the Saints hosted a game. And the spirit in the quarter was really high the last time. Also, I hadn’t won a seat to our final table before. Last year I bought in and finished third. This go around after six years of participating with a lot of seconds and thirds I had finally won the seat. Problem is there was nobody in the other seats.
I knew the Beau was holding a 1k event on Saturday so I gave Dave and Keenan the option of using their buy-in for that. Keenan was all about it and pysched to come to New Orleans and even more pysched to play in his first offical live tournament at the Beau. So what if it was for $1000 and not 5k or 10k he’d be playing. So, I decided we'd hold a one table event on Friday night with the winner also having the option of playing on Saturday at the Beau.
We got nine handed with Big Ray, Lee Mac and his cousin, Joe C, Keenan, myself, Dave A, Rob, and Adam. We used the Beau's tournament blind structure with 10k in chips but raised the blinds every 20 minutes. I wanted it to last 4 hours and we luckboxed into just that as I think the tournament ended at 1 after starting at 9.
Big Smoove was the last one there, and we played a couple of rotations without him, but when he arrived he immediately hit the gas. Him and Lee Mac seemed to be most interested in winning the early money. There were a couple of big pots and before I knew it two of the players from out of town were the first two out. Rob, had a deathly allergy to dogs so it sucked even more that he had to sit around and wait out the action (I had picked them up from down town). More to come…
www.gulfcoastpoker.net
This year we looked to get back to the 10 or so winners necessary for the big prize in Vegas. Problem was many table captains couldn't get me winners and few guys dropped out. Suddenly, as the weekend approached we had three winners, myself, David Andersen again (looking to defend his title one of only two winners to get back to the final table), and Keenan from NYC.
Keenan had already booked his flight, so though we considered a delay, it wasn't really that reasonable a consideration with non-refundable tickets. Plus, we had two players from Nantucket who had booked flights for the last chance table (what's up Adam and Rob). What to do?
A lot of our regulars demurred on the trip this year, so I knew numbers weren’t only be down from a players perspective but also from a going out perspective. Irony of ironies, this would be during the year I cleared my schedule with my wife to hang out for a long time on the weekend and participate in all the parallel events that go with the Dead Money table. Twice it’s been during a weekend the Saints hosted a game. And the spirit in the quarter was really high the last time. Also, I hadn’t won a seat to our final table before. Last year I bought in and finished third. This go around after six years of participating with a lot of seconds and thirds I had finally won the seat. Problem is there was nobody in the other seats.
I knew the Beau was holding a 1k event on Saturday so I gave Dave and Keenan the option of using their buy-in for that. Keenan was all about it and pysched to come to New Orleans and even more pysched to play in his first offical live tournament at the Beau. So what if it was for $1000 and not 5k or 10k he’d be playing. So, I decided we'd hold a one table event on Friday night with the winner also having the option of playing on Saturday at the Beau.
We got nine handed with Big Ray, Lee Mac and his cousin, Joe C, Keenan, myself, Dave A, Rob, and Adam. We used the Beau's tournament blind structure with 10k in chips but raised the blinds every 20 minutes. I wanted it to last 4 hours and we luckboxed into just that as I think the tournament ended at 1 after starting at 9.
Big Smoove was the last one there, and we played a couple of rotations without him, but when he arrived he immediately hit the gas. Him and Lee Mac seemed to be most interested in winning the early money. There were a couple of big pots and before I knew it two of the players from out of town were the first two out. Rob, had a deathly allergy to dogs so it sucked even more that he had to sit around and wait out the action (I had picked them up from down town). More to come…
www.gulfcoastpoker.net
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