$10,000 Charitable Boat Poker Tournament on September 29

BlondeFish

Charitable Boat Poker Tournament with a Winning Pot of $10,000.00 In Support of The Canadian Cancer Society.

This tournament and party is taking place on the Enterprise 2000 Cruises boat on Friday, September 29, 2006.

The No Limit Texas Hold’em Poker tournament has the winners taking home $10,000.00 in prize money.
For non-poker players, entertainment is provided by a live D.J.

Registration & Boarding is at 7:15 p.m at 5 Queens Quay West, Toronto.

Tickets are $100 to attend the party and register in tournament.
Tickets are $15 to attend the party only. Must be 19+ to attend.

For more information visit the website at www.helpinghandsaffinity.com.

To Reserve your spot at this event please contact

416-876-7580 or 416-315-7026 OR
info@helpinghandsaffinity.com

Helping Hands Affinity (HHA), a committee that plans events for non-profit organizations, has organized the poker tournament.
Proceeds raised will be donated to the Canadian Cancer Society.

pkrfce9

Sounds like a good cause.

There isn't much info about the tourney itself on that website. What is the blind schedule? Does the 10k come with a little asterisk? What does "Participants have ten minutes to buy-in after their last play." mean? It doesn't say it but I'm guessing the tourney has to be over within maybe 4 or 5 hours so I'm guessing the last blind level is oppressive.

Just cause I know the area, will they insure your car against break-ins in the parking lot at Queens Quay?

And for Cory, what's the rake and do I get a shirt? What about sandwiches?

Good luck with this.

g2

Participants have ten minutes to buy-in after their last play

Sounds to me like a REBUY

/g2

BlondeFish

Note that according to their website, the time and location of the event has been changed.  It will no longer be on a boat so you don't have to worry about getting seasick or being stuck for hours if you get eliminated early.

pkrfce9

BlondeFish wrote:

Note that according to their website, the time and location of the event has been changed.  It will no longer be on a boat so you don't have to worry about getting seasick or being stuck for hours if you get eliminated early.

Unless my computer is caching the old info, one of us is extremely confused. The website says it is on a boat. Still little to no info about the tourney itself. Are you working with these people? Please straighten them (or me) out.

compuease

Carefull guys, this one sounds fishy to me. There have been several so called "charity" poker tournaments over the past year or so that have used the word charity in conjunction with their advertisements. Now I have NO direct knowledge of this one but check to make sure everything is on the up and up before committing yourself. Many just use charity to keep the local constabulary from busting down the door and only contribute a very small % to the charity mentioned. Before I would play I would want to know what % is going to the charity, what % is being held as "rake" by the organizers and what % is being payed out to players. (Geesh, I sound like Blondefish here don't I?) Also the last minute change in venue and the fact that there are spelling errors in the ad make me wonder.

BlondeFish

compuease wrote:

Before I would play I would want to know what % is going to the charity, what % is being held as "rake" by the organizers and what % is being payed out to players.

Compuease, you are even smarter than I thought! I have no connection to Helping Hand Affinity (HHA), but listening to compuease's wisdom, I tried to do some research.  Below is the information I found out so far.  Anybody can do their own due diligence and use the contact information from the HHA website

- HHA held another charitable event in April in support of the Heart & Stroke Foundation.

- "HHA has changed the location and time due to technical difficulties with the boat. Since the boat would be in a standstill position for the night we made the appropriate change to accommodate all players to have more playing time and to leave at their convenience. As an added bonus for players, a debit machine is located on the premises."

- I have been told that they have obtained a gaming license so it appears to be legal.  Another reason that the venue has been changed from a boat to a hotel is to be fully compliant and make it possible for the authorities to observe the event if they so choose.

- They are trying to arrange free or reduced parking at the hotel.  There is no dress code.

- Blind duration will be at least 20 minutes.  They are considering using the WPT structure to give players the feel of playing in the WPT main event next month.

- Rebuys are permitted.

- There will be approximately 25 professional poker tables and 25 dealers.


After doing my due diligence, I have decided to play to help support the Canadian Cancer Society.  Anybody else from the forum going?

compuease

Ok and what about the %'s going to payouts vs charity vs overhead (rake)? That's the biggest thing I have a concern with.. Whatever charities I support, I choose to give to directly, ie Sick Kids, Heart and Stroke, and Canadian Cancer Society among others.

BlondeFish

Just came back from the tournament.  There were over 150 players there to support the Canadian Cancer Society.  I went out at 11th place after going all-in with the best hand and getting called with
:qd :7h .
Unfortunately for me, being in the top 7% was not enough to share in the $10,000 prize pool.   One of my Royal Cup II champions teammates happened to be there - Pac- and he made it to the money.

There was a film crew and photographer.  I thought that the charity tournament might be full of fish that are only there to support cancer research, but it was a much tougher field than I expected.  All the tables I played in were full of rocks and tight-aggressive players.

There was a memorable exception - a guy who had won over $1,000 playing NL at Fallsview Casino earlier in the day and had won a couple of WPT satellite vouchers there.  Soon after the tournament started, he busted out and did a rebuy.  Then another one and another one.  By the time he came to my table, he had already busted out and rebought five times!  I was the chip leader in my table but I knew that the table dynamics had greatly changed when he sat to my left.  Unfortunately for me, I did not get good cards when he donated his chips away and did a sixth rebuy!  When he eventually busted out, he played in the side games and won most of his money back.

All in all, it was a well-organized and fun tournament.  Two of my early dealers kept making mistakes that I had to help out and I wish that they had hired somebody more competent like xx23 or Easy, but the rest of the dealers that remained as tables closed down were very good.  I had to cancel out on a $300 tournament elsewhere with first prize being a $10K WPT seat, but I have no regrets going to this tournament instead.  If they hold another charity tournament in the future, I would want to play again.