Northernlimit was able to buy a seat. I started getting offers for my extra seat as soon as I got on the parking elevator, and eventually sold it to a very young-looking American who was holding a whole wad of US $100 bills.
As for my tournament results, let's just say that I outlasted Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith, David Williams, Eli Elezra and Joe Sebok (Barry Greenstein's son). I finished in the top half, getting eliminated just before Humberto Brenes who went out with the dead man's hand A-8.
The tournament started late at 12:20 PM and adjourned nine hours later at 9:25 PM. Food and non-alcoholic drinks were included, and there was a one-hour dinner break.
Fallview Casino disappointingly did not keep basic tournament information up-to-date, such as average stack and number of players remaining. At the end of Day 1, I had to make my own guess that there were around 105 players left, with an average stack of around 29,000 chips.
Here are some of the players that made it to Day 2:
- Isabelle Mercier is the only famous name left. She has below average stack.
- A forum member has ~50,000 chips. I will leave it to him to disclose his details if he so chooses.
- Labatt's Blue Poker champion. He won the regional championship at Kitchener-Waterloo, and got a seat, poker table and five-night stay at Fallsview Casino with a guest.
- Pirana Poker Tour champion, who won the $2,700 seat at the 120-player National Championship on October 15.
The total available funds were $742,818 instead of $750,000, so maybe three seats were not counted (e.g., Zellers or other contest winners?). Here is the prize payout that took a long time to be disclosed:
1st, 34.7%: $250,027
2nd, 16.0%: $115,285
3rd, 8.5%: $61,245
4th, 6.0%: $43,232
5th, 4.5%: $32,424
6th, 3.5%: $25,219
7th, 2.5%: $18,013
8th, 2.0%: $14,411
9th, 1.6%: $11,529
10-18th, 1.3%: $9,367
19-27th, 1.0%: $7,205.
Despite the many player complaints resulting from the 300-entry cap and this being a first-time event, it was still a lot of fun. Hopefully, Fallsview Casino will solicit suggestions from the participants on how to make next year's WPT CPO much better.
Glad to hear a forum member is doing well; sorry to hear that Blondefish is out of the tournament; well considering you got your seat through a $330 satellite, still a pretty good deal to play with the pros for a day and get a chance at all that $$$$. Here is the link with the updates from Day 1 and the chip leaders. Anyone recognize any forum members in the list?
What do you guys think of this interesting hand from the CPO?
Thomas Wahlroos raised to 3K from the middle and Steven Buttery called from the cutoff. Flop was Td 5s 3s and both checked. Turn was another 5c; both checked. River was 4d. Thomas bet 5K and Steven moved all in. Thomas thought for a while speculated that Steven held A2 and had made a straight, but finally called, showing A5 for trips. Steven held 76 for the straight and Thomas was busted.
End of level 8 and players are on break.
----
I am kind of shocked buddy would call a 3k bet with 76, with 3 players to still act behind him. I know he has a lot of chips, but that's crazy talk (although it worked perfectly when his miracle 4 hit in the gut on the river). He should have raised to isolate for head's up play against the original raiser, or just folded. Calling left him vulnerable to a squeeze play and I don't see how you can look someone up on a re-raise with 76, even if you have position and a big-ass stack.
But the other guy should not have let him have 2 free draws to his straight. He obviously put him on a pocket pair, or maybe Ax bigger than the 5, but he still messed up. Slow playing will burn you badly, it's the Murphy's Law of tournament poker. I am making him pay to see cards. I might check the flop, but checking the turn was a tournament ending error. He should have bet a big portion of the pot before the river card.
I am the mystery poker forum player blondefish was talking about. Sadley I was eliminated 45th.
Yesterday I had a very good run of cards on an extremly tight table. I believe if at almost any other table I would have been close to the chip leader.
Today was another story. The cards went south!
I have to say, this tournament was VERY well run and loved the structure (except the jump from 800/1600 to 1200/2400) and would highly recommend this to anyone playing. There was lots of play in every round. Loved the food spread avalible to the players, good touch!
Hats off to Fallsview!!!!!!!
For the next major tournament I would love to see a super satelite with the prize pool being split up into buyins for the tournament. I find that Turningstone does this for every tournament. Even if the prize pool is split up into 1K vouchers good only for the main event/satelites.
I would hope the other casinos in the area adopt your blind stucture and expecially your buyin for chips. $2700 for 10,000 in chips really lets you play. I find most of the local tournaments, the structure is rushed. If the buyin is $1000 you should be getting $3000T chips.
Oh and another thing, please don't change the buying for this event. There are a lot of good players that can't afford the bigger buyins. Me I am just too cheap.
Player Chips
Scott Clements 426,500
Arturo Kulczycki 302,000
Mark 'PokerHo' Kroon 245,000
Tim Anders 236,500
Gia Trinh 235,000
Joe Tehan 161,000
Bruce Williams 147,000
Jose Rosenkrantz 89,000
Erwin Evero 82,000
Vince Sessa 80,000
Adam Lococo 78,500
Blake Buffington 75,500
Tony O'Hagan 73,000
Levon Dedeyan 72,000
Steven Buttery 71,500
Andy Nguyen 70,500
Terris Preston 68,500
Paul Kleindienst 64,000
Kristian Kjondal 63,500
Dan Grolemund 57,500
Mike Mitchner 56,500
Steven Paul 54,500
Paul Rodrigues 53,500
Brian Taylor 42,000
Jason Sagle 35,500
Shalom Malca 33,500
Frank Parisi 27,500
Chips in play: 2,980,000
Average stack: 110,370
Since you are soliciting, here are my suggestions on how to make the next WPT events in Canada even better:
1) Have the CPO earlier in the spring or summer with NO CAP.
2) Use the same procedures as the well-run satellites in the US. It seemed that for every satellite, the dealer would sit there doing nothing for 30 minutes, then the players would be eventually called to sit down doing nothing for another 30 minutes as the payments keep getting recounted. Players from US satellites mentioned that they simply pre-purchase a satellite ticket then they start the satellite quickly.
3) Have more than one satellite going on at the same time if there is enough demand. There were dozens of angry players on the waiting list at Casino Niagara for a satellite, but the manager refused to open another table because "we don't have enough chips."
4) Have more than one type of satellite going on at the same day. In the US satellites, the winners of the Step 1 satellites earlier in the day can play off in a Step 2 satellite later in the same day. Players should not have to keep driving back and forth to Niagara Falls just to use their satellite voucher.
5) Have a multi-table super satellite, especially for the $10K NAPC.
6) Have a marketing agreement with one of the big poker tours or clubs. The Labatt Blue Poker Chip promotion was a joke with a horrible structure and used wrong poker rules.
7) On tournament day, assign an employee to constantly update and display basic tournament information such as: total chips in play, number of remaining players, and average stack. If West Side Poker Club can do it with two workers, then so can Fallsview Casino with its army of floor personnel.
8 ) Have copies of Niagara Casinos' "Rules of Play for Texas Hold'Em Poker" available to players and ideally posted on the website. This was supposed to "be available at the Tournament area", but I asked for a copy but did not get one. I witnessed several rulings that differed from Robert's Rules of Poker.
9) Have prize payout percentages and amounts available earlier. It was known early that the CPO was maxed and sold out at 300; players should have been given an idea BEFORE the tournament, not AFTER the dinner break.
10) Insert a blind level of $100-$200 with no ante, as Zithal suggested before. The next level will then have the first ante of $25.
11) Dealers that have a relatively high error rate should not be dealing at the WPT events. The players dreaded this one dealer being rotated into our table as he would usually make a couple of mistakes per shift. I have enough things to worry about the other players without having to worry about correcting the dealer's error.
12) Communicate beforehand to the players that food and drinks will be provided. There were players that left the tournament area to buy food, only to find out later that the same items were available for free at the Grand Hall.
Like Dead Money, I loved playing at the World Poker Tour and hope to play again at an even better event next time.
The total available funds were $742,818 instead of $750,000, so maybe three seats were not counted (e.g., Zellers or other contest winners?).
I'd call shenanigans on that. Why would contest winners get to freeroll? It dilutes the equity of the players who paid up (i.e. it's stealing). Must be something else...
Nice job Dead Money. Too bad you missed the payday but it sounded like you had fun. How would you rate the level of play overall? Were there a lot of sharks out, or was the field overflowing with, er, dead money...?
Nice job Dead Money. Too bad you missed the payday but it sounded like you had fun. How would you rate the level of play overall? Were there a lot of sharks out, or was the field overflowing with, er, dead money...?
I would rate the level of play as a little above average. Lots of run and gun players, Pros, who didn't make the 3rd break and good agressive tight players. With a deep stack tournament like this, there was no need to run and gun on the first day.
Not too many recognized pros made to the second day.
The most important thing for a poker player to learn, is that it is the player's responsibility to protect their hand.
Adam moved all in, and everyone folded around to the big blind. The dealer scooped Adam's cards into the muck before the big blind had acted. At this point, Terris was the only player with live cards and Adam's chips were in the pot. The floor ruled that Adam's chips were in the pot and had to stay there and action was on Terris, who called all-in, turned over J7 suited, and was awarded the pot. Adam had him covered and was left with only about 41K chips.
This is a hard way to learn a tough lesson, but it is always the player's responsibility to protect their hand.
Unreal. I would be so pissed. Sure, it's the players responsibility, I agree (an use a card protector), but it's the dealers responsibility to not be a moron when he is dealing at a final table and hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line...
Seat 1: Gia Trinh $246,000
Seat 2: Artur Kulczycki $220,000
Seat 3: Bruce Williams $142,000
Seat 4: Scott Clements $1,054,000
Seat 5: Terris Preston $257,000
Seat 6: Vince Sessa $128,000
Seat 7: Anthony O'Hagan $707,000
Seat 8: Steve Buttery $248,000
With the players left, I put my money on Vince Sessa..........or Scott Clements
It looks like POkerHo bit the dust. I don't really recognize a name there so I can't comment on who I think should win. But the dude with over a million should have a good shot.
AK asked me how the level of play was, and I thought it was above average. Reading the interview with James Van Alstyne, and he thought the play was below average. He mentions a hand where a short stack pushes in with Q-10, a call with A-10 and a call with K-Q.
For the record this did not happen at his table on day one! I sat on his right for the whole first day (see second picture in the article, my left arm, turningstone, is visible). The play at our table was very tight and aggressive. It took us over one hour to loose our first player and thoughout the first day we only lost 6.
I looked at the play as resonable, I made two bluffs the hole day and they were successful. There were no wild bluffs that were picked off at our table.
The article quoted Joe Sebok as saying the level of play sucked. Joe Sebok was in a pissy mood because Alex Azadpeyma was on his left and every time he tried to bluff, Alex would re raise him and show the bluff, and then trash talk him. For those of you that don't know Alex, he has won the GBH twice and well into the money this year at the WSOP main event. Well done Alex, Canadians can play too.
Anyways I think none of the " stars" of the game made it very deep is because most of them play against mind num players that are afraid to loose there buy in. This is why they are successful at bluffing. With a deep stack tourament you can be bluffed very easy. Why get committed to a pot that has 2K in it when you have 14 more behind.
I did see some play from some of the remaining "pros" that left me wondering who are the pros and who were the amatures.
it's the dealers responsibility to not be a moron when he is dealing at a final table and hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line...
Yes, the Niagara dealers seem to have been improperly trained into grabbing any cards in sight even though the player has just gone all in. See http://www.pokerforumcanada.com/showthread.php?t=10268 on a similar incident on Day 1 of the WPT.
A player who was in my original table was the next victim with only eight players left.
Arturo got all in, and then his hand got mucked. Tony was the only player with a live hand, so he called, showed pocket deuces (board was 7 6 J) and was awarded the pot. He had 457K and took that much from Arturo, leaving him with less than 25K.
Arturo Kulczycki of Toronto could have had almost $940,000, easily in second place, and would have a great shot at the $250,027 first prize instead of the $14,411 he got. I had made notes about him, including that he did not know basic tournament rules: he tried to bet a bigger chip pre-flop without announcing a raise, he kept splashing the pot, he took chips off the table. He seemed too old to be an Internet-only shark, so I pegged him as a basic tight-aggressive player with little casino experience. With three overcards on board, I'm pretty sure that Arturo would have a pair of 2's beat. I had thought that he would get in trouble with his ignorance about rules, but I never expected that it would cost him the CPO title and $250K!
from pokerpages.com...The dealer scooped Adam's cards into the muck before the big blind had acted....
Unreal. I would be so pissed. Sure, it's the players responsibility, I agree (an use a card protector), but it's the dealers responsibility to not be a moron when he is dealing at a final table and hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line...
Arturo did not have his cards mucked by the dealer, nor did Adam (who went out in 9th place). BOTH OF THESE PLAYERS LIFTED, TOSSED AND RELEASED THEIR CARDS TOWARD THE MIDDLE OF THE TABLE (or in Adam's case, onto 4 other mucked cards).
The Day 1 incident was a dealer error AFTER a player error (players must must MUST protect their cards at all times!). The dealer admitted to the error. But what could have been done? The player's cards are in the muck with 14 other cards. Do you want the cards pulled out of the muck?
The two Day 3 incidents happened on the last table of 9 players, within a short period of time of each other. Both of these cases were CLEARLY the players' fault. The cards were tossed into the center, onto other mucked cards, by the players. The dealer did nothing wrong. The same, consistent, CORRECT call was made in both of these situations. #1 Verbal is binding so the All-In counts and #2 Once cards are mucked, they are mucked.
I do not know what other people think would have been a better decision for these three situations. As always, I would be happy to hear them.
Did both Adam and Arturo think that nobody called their all-in so they threw their cards in face DOWN? I could see Arturo making this blunder as he was the type of player that needed to be given a copy of Niagara's "Rules of Play for Texas Hold'Em Poker."
I thought a fair TD would invoke the following rule:
2. Cards thrown into the muck MAY be ruled dead. However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game.
Did both Adam and Arturo think that nobody called their all-in so they threw their cards in face DOWN?
100%....well, at least Adam did. Arturo clearly stated "I'm all in" and then threw his cards into the center of the table face down before there was any other action. It was quite shocking, considering the incident with Adam just a while before on the same table.
I could see Arturo making this blunder as he was the type of player that needed to be given a copy of Niagara's "Rules of Play for Texas Hold'Em Poker."
I thought a fair TD would invoke the following rule:
2. Cards thrown into the muck MAY be ruled dead. However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game.
The rule above would have been great to invoke in the Day 1 situation with the dealer making the error. However, his cards were mixed with 4 other mucked cards.
The rule would not have been good in the Day 3 situations as the players CLEARLY made their actions on their own (close your eyes and imagine how you mucked your cards the last time you had 7-2 offsuit with a raise, re-raise and an all-in ahead of you....LIFT, FLICK, RELEASE...MUCKED!!!). Any decision other than the one rendered would have been very not "in the best interest of the game".
The author of "Robert's Rules of Poker" has an excellent article in the October 25 issue of Card Player (Casino Edition):
When rules are broken, it is extremely important to look at why the rule was made and why the rule was broken before you start administering what passes for justice.
:
My poker background says that the vast majority of violations come from people in category one, novices or inattentive people who made innocent mistakes. I will also add that such people are wonderful for poker, and should certainly not be driven away from the game by giving them what is perceived by them to be unfair treatment - and, in fact, really is unfair treatment.
:
The decision-maker needs to realize how much power he has. He is not forced in a stiuation to shut his eyes and follow the letter of the law when the violation is an honest mistake that has done no damage to anyone. Instead, the floorperson or tournament director can simply make the fair decision "for the good of the game." Nearly everyone has a sense of fairness, and it should not be suppressed because the letter of the law has been broken.
From what I remember from the first incident, the cards that the DEALER mucked in error were IDENTIFIABLE, so personally, I would have returned the cards to the all-in player. A similar incident happened in a 150+ player cash tournament I was playing in. A player had gone all-in with one caller, but the dealer mistakenly mucked the all-in's cards; the all-in player said what his cards were and the dealer verified it by looking at a portion of the muck; since the cards were able to be identified, the floor person ruled that it was NOT a muck.
I did not personally witness Adam's and Arturo's incidents, but after reading Robert Ciaffone's article, I think he too would have used the following rules and returned the identifiable cards to the all-in players:
- However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game.
- Management reserves the right to make decisions in the spirit of fairness, even if a strict interpretation of the rules may indicate a different ruling.
Having played with Arturo at the WPT, he would have been in Robert's category one from the article: "An inexperienced person who made an innocent error." Now why didn't he muck his cards when he called my all-in and eliminated me from the WPT??! >:D Anyway, the three all-in players whose cards were mucked by mistake were NOT angle-shooters and were not trying to gain an unfair advantage.
If 13CARDS has time, maybe he can email the details of the three incidents to thecoach@chartermi.net to verify what Robert would rule. Anyway, making judgement calls is not easy. Props to the Fallsview floor people and other staff for a great job at the inaugural WPT event.
I don't know if it was 13CARDS, but the floor person in my section was excellent. Every request and question I asked of him was handled superbly. I look forward to playing in more tournaments at Niagara Casinos, including the $20,000 tournament on Monday.
From what I remember from the first incident, the cards that the DEALER mucked in error were IDENTIFIABLE, so personally, I would have returned the cards to the all-in player.
How would you have identified which of the six cards under the dealer's palm were the two cards that the All-In player had?
A similar incident happened in a 150+ player cash tournament I was playing in. A player had gone all-in with one caller, but the dealer mistakenly mucked the all-in's cards; the all-in player said what his cards were and the dealer verified it by looking at a portion of the muck; since the cards were able to be identified, the floor person ruled that it was NOT a muck.
By "identifiable", I am 100% confident that it does not mean the any two cards in a pile of mucked cards. If you believe a player when you ask him what his cards were, I think you have a leak in your game. No one should ever be able to look through the muck and select two cards for a player to use. That is not "fair".
I did not personally witness Adam's and Arturo's incidents,
I did...the ruling was 100% fair and consistent (Arturo had to know the ramification of his actions after just witnessing the same situation only minutes before. There was no way to rule differently). Remember, the most important rule of all is each player is 100% responsible to protect their hand at all times.
but after reading Robert Ciaffone's article, I think he too would have used the following rules and returned the identifiable cards to the all-in players.
Remember long ago when there was a post by BBC_Z about him mucking at showdown at Caesar's and then reaching out and getting his cards? Almost everyone on this forum agreed his cards were mucked (yet, easily identifiable).
Anyway, the three all-in players whose cards were mucked by mistake were NOT angle-shooters and were not trying to gain an unfair advantage.
Only one player's cards were mucked by mistake (dealer mistake). Adam and Arturo clearly mucked their own cards, without provocation. Adam because he was not paying attention and did not realize there were three players behind him and after two had acted he mucked. And Aturo, who declared "ALL IN!" and then immediately threw both of his cards, face down, into the center of the table, toward the pot and they hit the mucked cards. His cards have to be called DEAD. No one did any other action to cause Arturo to do this...it was just a brain fart on his part, but what recourse does the TD have, especially after Adam's muck previously ON THE SAME TABLE, IN FRONT OF THE SAME PLAYERS/STAFF/RAILBIRDS???
Props to the Fallsview floor people and other staff for a great job at the inaugural WPT event.
I don't know if it was 13CARDS, but the floor person in my section was excellent. Every request and question I asked of him was handled superbly. I look forward to playing in more tournaments at Niagara Casinos,
What did your floor look like? What was his/her name?
Comments
As for my tournament results, let's just say that I outlasted Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith, David Williams, Eli Elezra and Joe Sebok (Barry Greenstein's son). I finished in the top half, getting eliminated just before Humberto Brenes who went out with the dead man's hand A-8.
The tournament started late at 12:20 PM and adjourned nine hours later at 9:25 PM. Food and non-alcoholic drinks were included, and there was a one-hour dinner break.
Fallview Casino disappointingly did not keep basic tournament information up-to-date, such as average stack and number of players remaining. At the end of Day 1, I had to make my own guess that there were around 105 players left, with an average stack of around 29,000 chips.
Here are some of the players that made it to Day 2:
- Isabelle Mercier is the only famous name left. She has below average stack.
- A forum member has ~50,000 chips. I will leave it to him to disclose his details if he so chooses.
- Labatt's Blue Poker champion. He won the regional championship at Kitchener-Waterloo, and got a seat, poker table and five-night stay at Fallsview Casino with a guest.
- Pirana Poker Tour champion, who won the $2,700 seat at the 120-player National Championship on October 15.
The total available funds were $742,818 instead of $750,000, so maybe three seats were not counted (e.g., Zellers or other contest winners?). Here is the prize payout that took a long time to be disclosed:
1st, 34.7%: $250,027
2nd, 16.0%: $115,285
3rd, 8.5%: $61,245
4th, 6.0%: $43,232
5th, 4.5%: $32,424
6th, 3.5%: $25,219
7th, 2.5%: $18,013
8th, 2.0%: $14,411
9th, 1.6%: $11,529
10-18th, 1.3%: $9,367
19-27th, 1.0%: $7,205.
Despite the many player complaints resulting from the 300-entry cap and this being a first-time event, it was still a lot of fun. Hopefully, Fallsview Casino will solicit suggestions from the participants on how to make next year's WPT CPO much better.
Consider this a solicitation.....
PokerJAH
Thomas Wahlroos raised to 3K from the middle and Steven Buttery called from the cutoff. Flop was Td 5s 3s and both checked. Turn was another 5c; both checked. River was 4d. Thomas bet 5K and Steven moved all in. Thomas thought for a while speculated that Steven held A2 and had made a straight, but finally called, showing A5 for trips. Steven held 76 for the straight and Thomas was busted.
End of level 8 and players are on break.
----
I am kind of shocked buddy would call a 3k bet with 76, with 3 players to still act behind him. I know he has a lot of chips, but that's crazy talk (although it worked perfectly when his miracle 4 hit in the gut on the river). He should have raised to isolate for head's up play against the original raiser, or just folded. Calling left him vulnerable to a squeeze play and I don't see how you can look someone up on a re-raise with 76, even if you have position and a big-ass stack.
But the other guy should not have let him have 2 free draws to his straight. He obviously put him on a pocket pair, or maybe Ax bigger than the 5, but he still messed up. Slow playing will burn you badly, it's the Murphy's Law of tournament poker. I am making him pay to see cards. I might check the flop, but checking the turn was a tournament ending error. He should have bet a big portion of the pot before the river card.
Yesterday I had a very good run of cards on an extremly tight table. I believe if at almost any other table I would have been close to the chip leader.
Today was another story. The cards went south!
I have to say, this tournament was VERY well run and loved the structure (except the jump from 800/1600 to 1200/2400) and would highly recommend this to anyone playing. There was lots of play in every round. Loved the food spread avalible to the players, good touch!
Hats off to Fallsview!!!!!!!
For the next major tournament I would love to see a super satelite with the prize pool being split up into buyins for the tournament. I find that Turningstone does this for every tournament. Even if the prize pool is split up into 1K vouchers good only for the main event/satelites.
I would hope the other casinos in the area adopt your blind stucture and expecially your buyin for chips. $2700 for 10,000 in chips really lets you play. I find most of the local tournaments, the structure is rushed. If the buyin is $1000 you should be getting $3000T chips.
Scott Clements 426,500
Arturo Kulczycki 302,000
Mark 'PokerHo' Kroon 245,000
Tim Anders 236,500
Gia Trinh 235,000
Joe Tehan 161,000
Bruce Williams 147,000
Jose Rosenkrantz 89,000
Erwin Evero 82,000
Vince Sessa 80,000
Adam Lococo 78,500
Blake Buffington 75,500
Tony O'Hagan 73,000
Levon Dedeyan 72,000
Steven Buttery 71,500
Andy Nguyen 70,500
Terris Preston 68,500
Paul Kleindienst 64,000
Kristian Kjondal 63,500
Dan Grolemund 57,500
Mike Mitchner 56,500
Steven Paul 54,500
Paul Rodrigues 53,500
Brian Taylor 42,000
Jason Sagle 35,500
Shalom Malca 33,500
Frank Parisi 27,500
Chips in play: 2,980,000
Average stack: 110,370
Since you are soliciting,
1) Have the CPO earlier in the spring or summer with NO CAP.
2) Use the same procedures as the well-run satellites in the US. It seemed that for every satellite, the dealer would sit there doing nothing for 30 minutes, then the players would be eventually called to sit down doing nothing for another 30 minutes as the payments keep getting recounted. Players from US satellites mentioned that they simply pre-purchase a satellite ticket then they start the satellite quickly.
3) Have more than one satellite going on at the same time if there is enough demand. There were dozens of angry players on the waiting list at Casino Niagara for a satellite, but the manager refused to open another table because "we don't have enough chips."
4) Have more than one type of satellite going on at the same day. In the US satellites, the winners of the Step 1 satellites earlier in the day can play off in a Step 2 satellite later in the same day. Players should not have to keep driving back and forth to Niagara Falls just to use their satellite voucher.
5) Have a multi-table super satellite, especially for the $10K NAPC.
6) Have a marketing agreement with one of the big poker tours or clubs. The Labatt Blue Poker Chip promotion was a joke with a horrible structure and used wrong poker rules.
7) On tournament day, assign an employee to constantly update and display basic tournament information such as: total chips in play, number of remaining players, and average stack. If West Side Poker Club can do it with two workers, then so can Fallsview Casino with its army of floor personnel.
8 ) Have copies of Niagara Casinos' "Rules of Play for Texas Hold'Em Poker" available to players and ideally posted on the website. This was supposed to "be available at the Tournament area", but I asked for a copy but did not get one. I witnessed several rulings that differed from Robert's Rules of Poker.
9) Have prize payout percentages and amounts available earlier. It was known early that the CPO was maxed and sold out at 300; players should have been given an idea BEFORE the tournament, not AFTER the dinner break.
10) Insert a blind level of $100-$200 with no ante, as Zithal suggested before. The next level will then have the first ante of $25.
11) Dealers that have a relatively high error rate should not be dealing at the WPT events. The players dreaded this one dealer being rotated into our table as he would usually make a couple of mistakes per shift. I have enough things to worry about the other players without having to worry about correcting the dealer's error.
12) Communicate beforehand to the players that food and drinks will be provided. There were players that left the tournament area to buy food, only to find out later that the same items were available for free at the Grand Hall.
Like Dead Money, I loved playing at the World Poker Tour and hope to play again at an even better event next time.
I'd call shenanigans on that. Why would contest winners get to freeroll? It dilutes the equity of the players who paid up (i.e. it's stealing). Must be something else...
Sean
I would rate the level of play as a little above average. Lots of run and gun players, Pros, who didn't make the 3rd break and good agressive tight players. With a deep stack tournament like this, there was no need to run and gun on the first day.
Not too many recognized pros made to the second day.
The most important thing for a poker player to learn, is that it is the player's responsibility to protect their hand.
Adam moved all in, and everyone folded around to the big blind. The dealer scooped Adam's cards into the muck before the big blind had acted. At this point, Terris was the only player with live cards and Adam's chips were in the pot. The floor ruled that Adam's chips were in the pot and had to stay there and action was on Terris, who called all-in, turned over J7 suited, and was awarded the pot. Adam had him covered and was left with only about 41K chips.
This is a hard way to learn a tough lesson, but it is always the player's responsibility to protect their hand.
Unreal. I would be so pissed. Sure, it's the players responsibility, I agree (an use a card protector), but it's the dealers responsibility to not be a moron when he is dealing at a final table and hundreds of thousands of dollars are on the line...
Seat 2: Artur Kulczycki $220,000
Seat 3: Bruce Williams $142,000
Seat 4: Scott Clements $1,054,000
Seat 5: Terris Preston $257,000
Seat 6: Vince Sessa $128,000
Seat 7: Anthony O'Hagan $707,000
Seat 8: Steve Buttery $248,000
With the players left, I put my money on Vince Sessa..........or Scott Clements
http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-player-interviews/wpt/season5/from-sams-town-to-your-town-james-van-alstyne-at-the-canadian-op
For the record this did not happen at his table on day one! I sat on his right for the whole first day (see second picture in the article, my left arm, turningstone, is visible). The play at our table was very tight and aggressive. It took us over one hour to loose our first player and thoughout the first day we only lost 6.
I looked at the play as resonable, I made two bluffs the hole day and they were successful. There were no wild bluffs that were picked off at our table.
The article quoted Joe Sebok as saying the level of play sucked. Joe Sebok was in a pissy mood because Alex Azadpeyma was on his left and every time he tried to bluff, Alex would re raise him and show the bluff, and then trash talk him. For those of you that don't know Alex, he has won the GBH twice and well into the money this year at the WSOP main event. Well done Alex, Canadians can play too.
Anyways I think none of the " stars" of the game made it very deep is because most of them play against mind num players that are afraid to loose there buy in. This is why they are successful at bluffing. With a deep stack tourament you can be bluffed very easy. Why get committed to a pot that has 2K in it when you have 14 more behind.
I did see some play from some of the remaining "pros" that left me wondering who are the pros and who were the amatures.
Yes, the Niagara dealers seem to have been improperly trained into grabbing any cards in sight even though the player has just gone all in. See http://www.pokerforumcanada.com/showthread.php?t=10268 on a similar incident on Day 1 of the WPT.
A player who was in my original table was the next victim with only eight players left.
Arturo Kulczycki of Toronto could have had almost $940,000, easily in second place, and would have a great shot at the $250,027 first prize instead of the $14,411 he got. I had made notes about him, including that he did not know basic tournament rules: he tried to bet a bigger chip pre-flop without announcing a raise, he kept splashing the pot, he took chips off the table. He seemed too old to be an Internet-only shark, so I pegged him as a basic tight-aggressive player with little casino experience. With three overcards on board, I'm pretty sure that Arturo would have a pair of 2's beat. I had thought that he would get in trouble with his ignorance about rules, but I never expected that it would cost him the CPO title and $250K!
Arturo did not have his cards mucked by the dealer, nor did Adam (who went out in 9th place). BOTH OF THESE PLAYERS LIFTED, TOSSED AND RELEASED THEIR CARDS TOWARD THE MIDDLE OF THE TABLE (or in Adam's case, onto 4 other mucked cards).
The Day 1 incident was a dealer error AFTER a player error (players must must MUST protect their cards at all times!). The dealer admitted to the error. But what could have been done? The player's cards are in the muck with 14 other cards. Do you want the cards pulled out of the muck?
The two Day 3 incidents happened on the last table of 9 players, within a short period of time of each other. Both of these cases were CLEARLY the players' fault. The cards were tossed into the center, onto other mucked cards, by the players. The dealer did nothing wrong. The same, consistent, CORRECT call was made in both of these situations. #1 Verbal is binding so the All-In counts and #2 Once cards are mucked, they are mucked.
I do not know what other people think would have been a better decision for these three situations. As always, I would be happy to hear them.
I thought a fair TD would invoke the following rule:
2. Cards thrown into the muck MAY be ruled dead. However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game.
The rule above would have been great to invoke in the Day 1 situation with the dealer making the error. However, his cards were mixed with 4 other mucked cards.
The rule would not have been good in the Day 3 situations as the players CLEARLY made their actions on their own (close your eyes and imagine how you mucked your cards the last time you had 7-2 offsuit with a raise, re-raise and an all-in ahead of you....LIFT, FLICK, RELEASE...MUCKED!!!). Any decision other than the one rendered would have been very not "in the best interest of the game".
Rules are meant to protect the innocent, not the foolish.
I did not personally witness Adam's and Arturo's incidents, but after reading Robert Ciaffone's article, I think he too would have used the following rules and returned the identifiable cards to the all-in players:
- However, a hand that is clearly identifiable may be retrieved and ruled live at management’s discretion if doing so is in the best interest of the game.
- Management reserves the right to make decisions in the spirit of fairness, even if a strict interpretation of the rules may indicate a different ruling.
Having played with Arturo at the WPT, he would have been in Robert's category one from the article: "An inexperienced person who made an innocent error." Now why didn't he muck his cards when he called my all-in and eliminated me from the WPT??! >:D Anyway, the three all-in players whose cards were mucked by mistake were NOT angle-shooters and were not trying to gain an unfair advantage.
If 13CARDS has time, maybe he can email the details of the three incidents to thecoach@chartermi.net to verify what Robert would rule. Anyway, making judgement calls is not easy. Props to the Fallsview floor people and other staff for a great job at the inaugural WPT event.
I don't know if it was 13CARDS, but the floor person in my section was excellent. Every request and question I asked of him was handled superbly. I look forward to playing in more tournaments at Niagara Casinos, including the $20,000 tournament on Monday.
By "identifiable", I am 100% confident that it does not mean the any two cards in a pile of mucked cards. If you believe a player when you ask him what his cards were, I think you have a leak in your game. No one should ever be able to look through the muck and select two cards for a player to use. That is not "fair".
I did...the ruling was 100% fair and consistent (Arturo had to know the ramification of his actions after just witnessing the same situation only minutes before. There was no way to rule differently). Remember, the most important rule of all is each player is 100% responsible to protect their hand at all times.
Remember long ago when there was a post by BBC_Z about him mucking at showdown at Caesar's and then reaching out and getting his cards? Almost everyone on this forum agreed his cards were mucked (yet, easily identifiable).
Only one player's cards were mucked by mistake (dealer mistake). Adam and Arturo clearly mucked their own cards, without provocation. Adam because he was not paying attention and did not realize there were three players behind him and after two had acted he mucked. And Aturo, who declared "ALL IN!" and then immediately threw both of his cards, face down, into the center of the table, toward the pot and they hit the mucked cards. His cards have to be called DEAD. No one did any other action to cause Arturo to do this...it was just a brain fart on his part, but what recourse does the TD have, especially after Adam's muck previously ON THE SAME TABLE, IN FRONT OF THE SAME PLAYERS/STAFF/RAILBIRDS???
What did your floor look like? What was his/her name?
WHAT????