Oct. 20, 2019 - Venetian DS $300 NLH Rebuy

Gogie

Went to Vegas last weekend for my birthday and played in a couple of events in the DeepStack Showdown Poker Series at the Venetian (no, this wasn't the "sucky" Lucky Shot Poker Series and Drawing, which started immediately after the Showdown Event). Played the $400 NLH MonsterStack Day 1E (Oct 19th) and couldn't get any traction so I decided to play the $300 NLH Rebuy on the 20th. This was an interesting event - there were no re-entries allowed but there were unlimited rebuys up to the end of level 8. The starting stack was 12,000 and you could rebuy anytime your stack was 12,000 or less for $100 and get another 12,000 chips. Needless to say most everyone immediately did a rebuy before the first hand so the tournament was effectively a $400 buy-in for a 24,000 chip stack.

I started out slow and ended up doing a second re-buy early on after my stack dwindled down to 12,000. Later (probably around level 6) I busted but immediately did a double rebuy for another 24,000 chips (the structure was pretty good so even that late a 24,000 chip stack gave you lots of play).

With $600 invested in the tournament I managed to work my way all the way to a 2nd place finish (out of 59 runners) and a nice little $4,390 payday ($6,143 less Uncle Sam's $1,743 withholding). I should be able to get some, if not all, of the withholding taxes back - just have to get myself an ITIN and file a US return next year.

The picture I've attached shows the winner of the $400 NLH MonsterStack. It was taken during the final table of my tournament, which you can see in the background. If you look closely in the upper right quadrant you can see a white-haired old guy sitting to the dealer's left - that would be me. We were six-handed at the time (they paid six). The eventual winner said he played poker for a living so he wasn't interested in making any deals. When we ended up heads up I almost stacked him. We played for quite a while and at one point I probably had him out-chipped 2-1. We got it all in on the flop when he flopped top pair and shoved and I had a flush draw. Couldn't hit that last club for my flush on the turn or river and eventually the "pro" managed to take me down.

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Toronto Pimp

Congrats Brian. Well done.

was anyone talking about the boycott of this crazy rake everything over 150k Guarantee tourney ? Looks like it has worked so far.

after 4 day ones they have only hit 53,000 in buy ins.....

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Gogie

Thanks, Mike. While I was there (and I was in the poker room while they were playing the first two days of the "event") there wasn't much discussion about the Lucky Shot tournament. I was reading on 2+2 that the grinders were probably waiting until the last day or two to see how much of a potential overlay there would be before deciding whether or not to play.

On another note, I played a bit of 1-3 NL chasing the V's high hand promotion, which was a pretty good promo. Every 30 minutes the high hand (had to be at least a full house) won $600. If someone tied the high hand before the end of the 30 minutes that person won $1000 while the original high hand still got $600. Generally it took quads or better to win, although I saw a few high full houses hold up. The downside to this promo is that they withhold 30% of the payout for Canadians as withholding tax. I asked the floor about this and was told that the IRS was getting pissed off at the potential for runners to win multiple promos over a week or two and not have any reportable income to be taxed so they now required poker rooms to withhold for each win.

While playing 1-3 I soon learned that chopping was optional. If the SB or BB had cards that potentially could hit for a high hand (think suited connectors or pocket pairs) one blind would ask the other if they wanted to see a flop. The two would then proceed to check it down in hopes of one of them hitting a high hand. There is a $10 minimum pot size to qualify so obviously if a high hand is hit there would be a follow up bet to make sure the pot reaches the minimum and the winner would surreptiously refund the other player his bets after the fact.

Card Dead

Ugh! That sucks. I'm heading down on Sunday and the HH promo at the Venetian was a big part of my plan. Last time i was there i hit a couple of those and they just paid out the full amount in chips. Thanks Trump!

Any idea if this is now at all Casinos or just the Venetian?

Great run in the tourney tho.

Gogie

Card Dead;415375 wroteUgh! That sucks. I'm heading down on Sunday and the HH promo at the Venetian was a big part of my plan. Last time i was there i hit a couple of those and they just paid out the full amount in chips. Thanks Trump!

Any idea if this is now at all Casinos or just the Venetian?

Great run in the tourney tho.

Don't know about other casinos but I get the sense the answer is it probably does apply to all casinos. The V rep implied that they can't affort the liability of having to come good for taxes that should have been withheld so they are withholding on all HH wins for Canadians.

Tournament wins are still handled as in the past - winnings net of buy-in over $5000 are taxed.