Obviously we're going to look into everything very carefully.
Keep in mind the following:
a) every new event is just that - a NEW event. That applies to this year's CSC (different buy-in, completely different event) as well as this event. New events are by definition unpredictable.
b) Timing? Earlier would have conflicted with WPT World Champs and EPT Grand Final. Later is in the middle of the WSOP. The global poker calendar is VERY packed at the moment.
c) For the first WPT Montreal there hadn't been a major event in Eastern Canada (East of BC) for 5 years. Now (thanks largely, but not only, to us) there are at least half a dozen or more including Fallsview and WSOP-C. That's awesome for players, awesome for poker.
d) it hasn't been formally announced but it's not a secret either - the next fall event is the PokerStars Montreal Festival (year 2). Note the sponsor name change.
Anyhow that's about all I'm going to say for the moment - I'm not prepared or qualified to rep Playground on this whole question - that's above my pay grade, so to speak.
Obviously we're going to look into everything very carefully.
:
d) it hasn't been formally announced but it's not a secret either - the next fall event is the PokerStars Montreal Festival (year 2). Note the sponsor name change.
Will PokerStars also be looking into everything on why there was a $266,000 overlay? Maybe sn1perb0y, SteveKerr, T8urmoney, lynx5 & anybody else who has played at Playground can comment on the following suggestions:
1) Have satellites that include cash for travel expenses, instead of seat-only. From what I heard, PokerStars did nothing for its qualifiers, unlike PartyPoker who treated us like VIPS at the seat-only WPT CSC.
2) Get Daniel Negreanu and other PokerStars-sponsored pros in North America to publicize and show up for the guaranteed event.
3) Include a Survivor Event next time. The poker economy in Kahnawake continues to shrink with the virtually unbeatable cash game rake.
4) Both pros (like chainsaw) and non-pros (like me) hates the re-entry format for big buy-in events. If the next main event is yet another re-entry, I'll just play the Survivor and other freezeouts, or just stay home and win at my usual games.
Will there be a WPT Montreal III in November sponsored by PartyPoker, who seems to have surprisingly done a better job than PokerStars? lynx5, sn1perb0y, my other friends and I look forward to the return of the Royal Flush Girls, PartyPoker models, >:D Kara Scott/Rizzo, Mike Sexton, etc.
Obviously we're going to look into everything very carefully.
Keep in mind the following:
a) every new event is just that - a NEW event. That applies to this year's CSC (different buy-in, completely different event) as well as this event. New events are by definition unpredictable.
b) Timing? Earlier would have conflicted with WPT World Champs and EPT Grand Final. Later is in the middle of the WSOP. The global poker calendar is VERY packed at the moment.
c) For the first WPT Montreal there hadn't been a major event in Eastern Canada (East of BC) for 5 years. Now (thanks largely, but not only, to us) there are at least half a dozen or more including Fallsview and WSOP-C. That's awesome for players, awesome for poker.
d) it hasn't been formally announced but it's not a secret either - the next fall event is the PokerStars Montreal Festival (year 2). Note the sponsor name change.
Great answers, and at the end of the day, I'm sure that none of the players mind the free 1/4 million - works out to be a rake free event and then some. Playground and the players win looks like, assuming Stars is writing the check.
D confuses me...fall of 2014 or 2015? Setting records wasn't working?
No - the Montreal Festival (early fall, last year) WAS the Full Tilt Montreal Festival, now it will be the PokerStars Montreal Festival and will be a similar tournament in late summer/early fall.
The WPT Montreal will be back for a 3rd year but the exact dates are still to be confirmed - but generally at the same time of the fall as in the past.
Yuck, same re-entry and other formats that failed to attract more than two forum members and was short $266,000 of the guarantee. No Survivor or All-in-or-fold events for me to play. If this PCC only had 578 players, how can the shrinking Kahnawake poker economy by the summer attract 1,000 players to meet the guarantee?
Unless there is another Mega Overlay Satellite that pkrfce9 is willing to carpool with me (no bro jobs though) AND I win a satellite, I think I'd rather stay home during that period, and play the usual +EV games at Casino Rama/Brantford/GBH/Mohawk/1000 Islands/Woodbine/online.
If they didn't have the next day re-entry then they would have been more then $266k short of the guarantee.
Even though I am a fan of re-entry for satellites, I am not a fan of it for regular tournaments, but understand why they do it.
Only 578 players for a $3300 but in and the Montreal Festival is a $1100 buy in. I am sure they will find the needed players to surpass what is needed for the guarantee for the Festival
I think the event is AT LEAST 1 day too long. They could have easily played down to a final table today (they only played 6 hours!), Im sure it will be less than that getting from 27 to 9.
Wetts - in terms of length - the structure was built for more players going to Day 2, so 5 days with these numbers is long, but you have to build it to meet a wide variety of situations - and then you add things like a live stream which remove the ability to shorten things up...
But the $1100 was 5 days last fall as well, which was too many days even with a lot more players (structure was quicker), so we've adapted and it will be 4 days this year.
Blondefish - I always appreciate your comments but I would appreciate it even more if you would be less declarative about some things you say. By no measure can the Kahnawake poker economy be considered to be "shrinking" - not even close - but you declare this twice as if it's the absolute truth. It's almost like you're trying to spin us. And I wonder why.
I *work* at Playground and I hope you (all) note that I'm not trying, ever, to spin anyone even though it might almost be expected of me. I would really love the same respect back.
In terms of the next-day re-entry format I've said it before - I don't see how anywhere outside of Las Vegas or maybe Atlantic City could ever hope to host big events *without* it. At the WSOP you can host almost only freezeouts because when you bust, there are another half-dozen tourneys in town you can buy in to within a few hours. How do you encourage people to travel to a less-known area when there's only a single big event in a festival and variance is what it is? Are you really going to travel for a single event when you know that your quads could get cracked in level 2 and there's nothing you can do about it? Or are you going to restrict your poker tournament travel to *just* the WSOP in Las Vegas?
I fear that if this anti-next-day-re-entry takes hold that basically every single non-traditional poker market will be relegated to third-class status because of it. No one - esp those who are most vocal on the issue - has ever had even the slightest response to this.
The security issues around best-stack forward events are completely unfounded and not based on any actual evidence. The bogeyman stories that people raise are just not an issue in a well-managed event. In the current event, with 27 left we are exactly 7K over (if I recall correctly) on a 17M+ total chipcount (with a never-before-used chipset). By any standard that is exceptionally good.
Lastly - I haven't seen that part of the schedule yet, but I think you can fill in the blanks about the Mega Overlay satellite - it's a basic part of our formula - and it's especially effective for $1K-sized tourneys, when the overlay event can get 75 or more players into the event in one weekend. I guess there's a chance it won't fit, schedule-wise, but even I would be surprised.
Really lastly - Blondefish I take note of your request for All-in-or-fold and/or survivor events. Can you say more about what it is about those formats you appreciate? I think I get the survivor-love (and I agree that it's a great way for whole-festival-players to bolster their bankroll in mid-festival) but I'm less sure about the AIOF.
What do you mean by "spin?" ??? I asked a fellow Playground player that a Playground manager accused me of spinning and he said, must be a "young guy with that street lingo!"
My GTA friends & I drove to Playground in the first weekend of May and saw a healthy number of seats generated, so I was shocked by the impending overlay on May 23 after I saw the numbers for the first two days. After looking at Day 1B, I contacted my live friends at Playground that I was predicting an overlay, but they didn't even understand what an overlay is, :rolleyes: never mind it$ huge impli¢ation$.
I did manage to convince one friend - on the fence if he should sell the entry he won from the improved SNG - that he should "take the +EV shot." He is still in Day 2 of the $1,100 Event, and was part of a multi-way deal in the final table of another Event. "cheers:
With 20/20 hindsight that PokerStars would fail to generate enough qualifiers, I should have pre-packed and continued driving to Playground even though I was exhausted after my Wednesday late night win at Great Blue Heron Casino. I should have brought my laptop and multi-tabled online to meet my "Mission Impossible" goals while playing all the super satellites, improved SNGs, Event #7, Event #8 All in or nothing, etc.
P.S. I tried to Google what mikelbyl is accusing me of, but the best thing I could find so far was this:
I'm not accusing you of anything! This is a friendly conversation to me and you and I are friendly all the way. Just a quirk of the way you communicate I guess.
When I say "spin" it's a political term - using language in such a way to present one's personal opinion or analysis as a broadly accepted fact. I.e., as more than just your view - as something that is true and generally known to be true by most people.
I really appreciate the fact that you share your thoughts on all of this and don't want to endanger that.
So when you say, twice, "the shrinking Kahnawake poker economy" and then rely on that "fact" to make another point - that's what I'm talking about. You put it out there as if it were 100% immutably the FACT. When actually it is just your opinion.
For what it's worth, I think the poker economy in Canada as a whole - or maybe Central/Eastern Canada - is maturing and getting stronger. If there were 20 variables that could help us determine whether or not the poker economy is getting weaker, stronger or staying the same I think on almost all of them we would find, if we did the analysis, that it's getting stronger, not weaker. So when you present as FACT that it's shrinking - and repeat that - it sticks out to me.
Anyhow maybe I'll just come back to basics - the Canada Cup has been an amazing event. Attendance in events across the board has been fantastic, the poker play has been spectacular (and should continue - check out Table 39: PokerStars Canada Cup Main Event Day 4 seating chart & counts | PokerStars Canada Cup which I HOPE will be the feature table today).
In 2011 there was one major event - consisting of just 3 tournaments - in Eastern Canada. Now just 3 yrs later there are MANY more, including 4 big series/year at Playground, the WSOP-C, and a rejuvenated Fallsview. This is great for poker in Canada!
Will PokerStars also be looking into everything on why there was a $266,000 overlay? Maybe sn1perb0y, SteveKerr, T8urmoney, lynx5 & anybody else who has played at Playground can comment on the following suggestions:
1) Have satellites that include cash for travel expenses, instead of seat-only. From what I heard, PokerStars did nothing for its qualifiers, unlike PartyPoker who treated us like VIPS at the seat-only WPT CSC.
2) Get Daniel Negreanu and other PokerStars-sponsored pros in North America to publicize and show up for the guaranteed event.
3) Include a Survivor Event next time. The poker economy in Kahnawake continues to shrink with the virtually unbeatable cash game rake.
4) Both pros (like chainsaw) and non-pros (like me) hates the re-entry format for big buy-in events. If the next main event is yet another re-entry, I'll just play the Survivor and other freezeouts, or just stay home and win at my usual games.
Will there be a WPT Montreal III in November sponsored by PartyPoker, who seems to have surprisingly done a better job than PokerStars? lynx5, sn1perb0y, my other friends and I look forward to the return of the Royal Flush Girls, PartyPoker models, >:D Kara Scott/Rizzo, Mike Sexton, etc.
Got to play in this tourney and had a blast came roughly 100th. Agree though that pokerstars should have had more pokerstars pros attend, DN would have definitely brought in more people. Antonio is cool, sat with him on day 1 and day 2 but he is not a pokerstars member. Pokerstars did nothing for me when I qualified online had to expense hotel myself. Can't complain though, I love Montreal.
There are more cash tables open every night now then there ever were when Stardust was open. Not talking about peak times, any random Tuesday night kind of thing.
Stardust (and VIP, which is also closed) had a chance - both had lots of positives going for them and could have been a success.
Some context first. Antonio was out 10th last night, but there were still 4 talented pros plus two Playground regs who are well-regarded and experienced. Seat 2 (Armstrong) was an unknown, everyone knew Notkin was experienced (PlatinumStar status on stars etc) but not HOW experienced and then Ryan in Seat 9 who was pretty much unknown though by the way he handled chips it was clear he's not a newb or even a purely rec player.
The clearly least experienced guy went out first. But then Goulet - not a pro but a really nice player went out, and then two of the really talented pros - Thiago and Ankush. The commonality - they all had troubles with short-stacks.
So then Ryan is still there and short-stacked, as he had been seemingly forever. Not just a little short - he spent hours and hours with less then 10BB folding a lot and laddering up as more active players were eliminated.
By the time it got 4-way no one wanted to double him up (he was by far the shortie most of the time) and no one wanted to risk going out first. That being said, Robert was on his left, and he seemed to have little knowledge of how to put enough pressure on the player to his right to get the work of removing him done. Vincent tried a few times, but was disadvantaged because he was directly to Ryan's right.
Quite frankly there were absurd plays every 30 minutes at least. Open-raise-folding to 2BB+ shoves. Isolation moves that made no sense considering stacks.
Anyhow on the final hand, Robert limped his KK, then Justin (who had been active and played well) found himself even shorter than Ryan so, playing more conventionally, he shoved his KQo. Vincent had by then seen a TON of extremely passive play, so he moved to isolate the small stack and move things along. Then Ryan (I suppose) saw a possible triple up with 88 and got it in as well - and Robert of course stayed in.
I think everyone except Ryan played it well. It's ironic - if he had been happy to simply continue laddering up, he could have gotten 2nd place by folding his 88.
That being said, Robert was on his left, and he seemed to have little knowledge of how to put enough pressure on the player to his right to get the work of removing him done.
:
Quite frankly there were absurd plays every 30 minutes at least. Open-raise-folding to 2BB+ shoves. Isolation moves that made no sense considering stacks.
Wow, I regularly see such bad plays in local casinos with buy-ins of $100, but I didn't think that would happen in the final four of a $3,300 PokerStars event. I remember Robert & Ryan in WPT Fallsview/Montreal/CSC so I'm surprised they would play so passively the way you describe.
I think everyone except Ryan played it well. It's ironic - if he had been happy to simply continue laddering up, he could have gotten 2nd place by folding his 88.
I think Vincent made a mistake by not taking longer to think about Robert's open-limping range and unnecessarily over 3-betting 11 times Justin's all-in. I remember Robert open-raising UTG with K6s so unless he played so bad that he open-limped other times UTG & puck, alarm bells should be ringing with the other three players. Ryan only had an M=3 so unless he noticed the limp as uncharacteristic of Robert, calling with 88 is fine. Anyway, congrats to Robert!
I think everyone played the hand strange except for the guy with KQ. Don't really understand the limp with kings given stack sizes but that might just speak to my own playing style as I'd be min-raising a lot of hands four handed with chip lead.
The guy who's second in chips can easily iso-raise small and fold to limp/4b or just flat.
I'm not the biggest ICM expert but I'm sure the 8s are an easily fold.
I think everyone played the hand strange except for the guy with KQ. Don't really understand the limp with kings given stack sizes but that might just speak to my own playing style as I'd be min-raising a lot of hands four handed with chip lead.
Some players like to limp with AA, KK, etc. first-to-act. Maybe SteveKerr or anybody else who watched the live stream can comment on mikebyl's assessment of the play in the final table. Next time I see Bob or Ryan in the casino, I'll ask them about their plays.
The guy who's second in chips can easily iso-raise small and fold to limp/4b or just flat.
+1. Playing A-T was fine, but there were better choices than over raising all-in.
I'm not the biggest ICM expert but I'm sure the 8s are an easily fold.
That's what I thought initially, but my ICM calculator indicates that it is a call. I would have looked more at Bob with the close decision, trying to get a read on his hand strength. With 20/20 hindsight, he never grimaced after he got raised all-in twice & looked way too relaxed.
You don't even need to know a thing about ICM to know that the 8s were an easy fold. But, sometimes you have to gamble and that's what he did.
You do NOT "have to gamble," I try to make the +$EV decision. Unless one was able to get a read that the ranges of Justin (shortest stack), Vincent (iso raise) AND Robert's open-limp were overly tight, calling with 88 would have been both +cEV and +$EV.
Some players like to limp with AA, KK, etc. first-to-act. Maybe SteveKerr or anybody else who watched the live stream can comment on mikebyl's assessment of the play in the final table. Next time I see Bob or Ryan in the casino, I'll ask them about their plays.
That's fine to limp with big hands but I don't see myself doing it very often, if ever, when it's 4 handed and stacks are this shallow.
Basically I'm saying it's a leak in his game if he needs to do this to balance his limping range because it means to me that he's limping too often for this stage of the tournament.
I would have looked more at Bob with the close decision, trying to get a read on his hand strength. With 20/20 hindsight, he never grimaced after he got raised all-in twice & looked way too relaxed.
I wouldn't read too much into this live tell. Being relaxed just means that he has an easy decision. He probably looks the same if he limped 57o and was planning to snap-muck when action returned to him.
Coles Notes: I wished TheGreatSabu would adopt me so I can be a tournament grinder at Playground instead of the 80-90 player capacity in Ontario casinos, but I hope there will be different formats during WPT Montreal.
The schedule already seems set for PokerStars Montreal Festival and looks too much like Canada Cup that had the $266K overlay. I I think most of the members most likely to win a online satellite - sn1perb0y, cns187, T8yourmoney, Wetts1012, lynx5 & me - are unlikely to bother if it remains just a seat in which they still have to find money to pay for transportation, hotel & other expenses. WPT Montreal III will have packages that includes spending money, so I'm hoping that schedule will include a couple of the Playground structures that I like:
1) Accumulator format. As more & more of the poker community hates the re-entry format, I want to try out this format at least once. This will incentivize players like me to stay longer at Playground, as opposed to arriving just before the ME starts then leaving as soon as we're eliminated.
2) Tag Team. I only played this format once, but would like to try it again.
3) Survivor. This is my favourite format, and is one of the rare tourneys that I will ever play in Las Vegas (Venetian). This is one of the first tourneys I ever played at Playground and I loved that it didn't have the hated re-entries.
4) All-in-or-fold. I first noticed this fun format during WPT CSC, but my roommate & I had left by then.
5) Iron Man format would also be fun.
6) If the hated re-entry format will be kept for the ME, how about copying Matt Savage's WPT 500 format?
Really lastly - Blondefish I take note of your request for All-in-or-fold and/or survivor events. Can you say more about what it is about those formats you appreciate? I think I get the survivor-love (and I agree that it's a great way for whole-festival-players to bolster their bankroll in mid-festival) but I'm less sure about the AIOF.
Comments
Keep in mind the following:
a) every new event is just that - a NEW event. That applies to this year's CSC (different buy-in, completely different event) as well as this event. New events are by definition unpredictable.
b) Timing? Earlier would have conflicted with WPT World Champs and EPT Grand Final. Later is in the middle of the WSOP. The global poker calendar is VERY packed at the moment.
c) For the first WPT Montreal there hadn't been a major event in Eastern Canada (East of BC) for 5 years. Now (thanks largely, but not only, to us) there are at least half a dozen or more including Fallsview and WSOP-C. That's awesome for players, awesome for poker.
d) it hasn't been formally announced but it's not a secret either - the next fall event is the PokerStars Montreal Festival (year 2). Note the sponsor name change.
1) Have satellites that include cash for travel expenses, instead of seat-only. From what I heard, PokerStars did nothing for its qualifiers, unlike PartyPoker who treated us like VIPS at the seat-only WPT CSC.
2) Get Daniel Negreanu and other PokerStars-sponsored pros in North America to publicize and show up for the guaranteed event.
3) Include a Survivor Event next time. The poker economy in Kahnawake continues to shrink with the virtually unbeatable cash game rake.
4) Both pros (like chainsaw) and non-pros (like me) hates the re-entry format for big buy-in events. If the next main event is yet another re-entry, I'll just play the Survivor and other freezeouts, or just stay home and win at my usual games.
Will there be a WPT Montreal III in November sponsored by PartyPoker, who seems to have surprisingly done a better job than PokerStars? lynx5, sn1perb0y, my other friends and I look forward to the return of the Royal Flush Girls, PartyPoker models, >:D Kara Scott/Rizzo, Mike Sexton, etc.
Great answers, and at the end of the day, I'm sure that none of the players mind the free 1/4 million - works out to be a rake free event and then some. Playground and the players win looks like, assuming Stars is writing the check.
D confuses me...fall of 2014 or 2015? Setting records wasn't working?
The WPT Montreal will be back for a 3rd year but the exact dates are still to be confirmed - but generally at the same time of the fall as in the past.
PokerStars Montreal Festival - over $1M guaranteed!
Unless there is another Mega Overlay Satellite that pkrfce9 is willing to carpool with me (no bro jobs though) AND I win a satellite, I think I'd rather stay home during that period, and play the usual +EV games at Casino Rama/Brantford/GBH/Mohawk/1000 Islands/Woodbine/online. P.S. Congrats to actyper. ^-^ Hope for a reunion like at the 2009 ME.
Even though I am a fan of re-entry for satellites, I am not a fan of it for regular tournaments, but understand why they do it.
Only 578 players for a $3300 but in and the Montreal Festival is a $1100 buy in. I am sure they will find the needed players to surpass what is needed for the guarantee for the Festival
But the $1100 was 5 days last fall as well, which was too many days even with a lot more players (structure was quicker), so we've adapted and it will be 4 days this year.
Blondefish - I always appreciate your comments but I would appreciate it even more if you would be less declarative about some things you say. By no measure can the Kahnawake poker economy be considered to be "shrinking" - not even close - but you declare this twice as if it's the absolute truth. It's almost like you're trying to spin us. And I wonder why.
I *work* at Playground and I hope you (all) note that I'm not trying, ever, to spin anyone even though it might almost be expected of me. I would really love the same respect back.
In terms of the next-day re-entry format I've said it before - I don't see how anywhere outside of Las Vegas or maybe Atlantic City could ever hope to host big events *without* it. At the WSOP you can host almost only freezeouts because when you bust, there are another half-dozen tourneys in town you can buy in to within a few hours. How do you encourage people to travel to a less-known area when there's only a single big event in a festival and variance is what it is? Are you really going to travel for a single event when you know that your quads could get cracked in level 2 and there's nothing you can do about it? Or are you going to restrict your poker tournament travel to *just* the WSOP in Las Vegas?
I fear that if this anti-next-day-re-entry takes hold that basically every single non-traditional poker market will be relegated to third-class status because of it. No one - esp those who are most vocal on the issue - has ever had even the slightest response to this.
The security issues around best-stack forward events are completely unfounded and not based on any actual evidence. The bogeyman stories that people raise are just not an issue in a well-managed event. In the current event, with 27 left we are exactly 7K over (if I recall correctly) on a 17M+ total chipcount (with a never-before-used chipset). By any standard that is exceptionally good.
Lastly - I haven't seen that part of the schedule yet, but I think you can fill in the blanks about the Mega Overlay satellite - it's a basic part of our formula - and it's especially effective for $1K-sized tourneys, when the overlay event can get 75 or more players into the event in one weekend. I guess there's a chance it won't fit, schedule-wise, but even I would be surprised.
Really lastly - Blondefish I take note of your request for All-in-or-fold and/or survivor events. Can you say more about what it is about those formats you appreciate? I think I get the survivor-love (and I agree that it's a great way for whole-festival-players to bolster their bankroll in mid-festival) but I'm less sure about the AIOF.
Blondefish can explain better why we want to see more of those structure tournaments.
My GTA friends & I drove to Playground in the first weekend of May and saw a healthy number of seats generated, so I was shocked by the impending overlay on May 23 after I saw the numbers for the first two days. After looking at Day 1B, I contacted my live friends at Playground that I was predicting an overlay, but they didn't even understand what an overlay is, :rolleyes: never mind it$ huge impli¢ation$.
I did manage to convince one friend - on the fence if he should sell the entry he won from the improved SNG - that he should "take the +EV shot." He is still in Day 2 of the $1,100 Event, and was part of a multi-way deal in the final table of another Event. "cheers:
With 20/20 hindsight that PokerStars would fail to generate enough qualifiers, I should have pre-packed and continued driving to Playground even though I was exhausted after my Wednesday late night win at Great Blue Heron Casino. I should have brought my laptop and multi-tabled online to meet my "Mission Impossible" goals while playing all the super satellites, improved SNGs, Event #7, Event #8 All in or nothing, etc.
P.S. I tried to Google what mikelbyl is accusing me of, but the best thing I could find so far was this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGNiXGX2nLU
When I say "spin" it's a political term - using language in such a way to present one's personal opinion or analysis as a broadly accepted fact. I.e., as more than just your view - as something that is true and generally known to be true by most people.
I really appreciate the fact that you share your thoughts on all of this and don't want to endanger that.
So when you say, twice, "the shrinking Kahnawake poker economy" and then rely on that "fact" to make another point - that's what I'm talking about. You put it out there as if it were 100% immutably the FACT. When actually it is just your opinion.
For what it's worth, I think the poker economy in Canada as a whole - or maybe Central/Eastern Canada - is maturing and getting stronger. If there were 20 variables that could help us determine whether or not the poker economy is getting weaker, stronger or staying the same I think on almost all of them we would find, if we did the analysis, that it's getting stronger, not weaker. So when you present as FACT that it's shrinking - and repeat that - it sticks out to me.
Anyhow maybe I'll just come back to basics - the Canada Cup has been an amazing event. Attendance in events across the board has been fantastic, the poker play has been spectacular (and should continue - check out Table 39: PokerStars Canada Cup Main Event Day 4 seating chart & counts | PokerStars Canada Cup which I HOPE will be the feature table today).
In 2011 there was one major event - consisting of just 3 tournaments - in Eastern Canada. Now just 3 yrs later there are MANY more, including 4 big series/year at Playground, the WSOP-C, and a rejuvenated Fallsview. This is great for poker in Canada!
Got to play in this tourney and had a blast came roughly 100th. Agree though that pokerstars should have had more pokerstars pros attend, DN would have definitely brought in more people. Antonio is cool, sat with him on day 1 and day 2 but he is not a pokerstars member. Pokerstars did nothing for me when I qualified online had to expense hotel myself. Can't complain though, I love Montreal.
Sick last hand
4 handed and in one hand we have a winner
GBH reg Robert Notkin wins
KK vs KQ vs A10 vs 88
Kings held and was the chip leader by 550k
Stardust (and VIP, which is also closed) had a chance - both had lots of positives going for them and could have been a success.
It was a totally wild ending to a tournament!
Some context first. Antonio was out 10th last night, but there were still 4 talented pros plus two Playground regs who are well-regarded and experienced. Seat 2 (Armstrong) was an unknown, everyone knew Notkin was experienced (PlatinumStar status on stars etc) but not HOW experienced and then Ryan in Seat 9 who was pretty much unknown though by the way he handled chips it was clear he's not a newb or even a purely rec player.
The clearly least experienced guy went out first. But then Goulet - not a pro but a really nice player went out, and then two of the really talented pros - Thiago and Ankush. The commonality - they all had troubles with short-stacks.
So then Ryan is still there and short-stacked, as he had been seemingly forever. Not just a little short - he spent hours and hours with less then 10BB folding a lot and laddering up as more active players were eliminated.
By the time it got 4-way no one wanted to double him up (he was by far the shortie most of the time) and no one wanted to risk going out first. That being said, Robert was on his left, and he seemed to have little knowledge of how to put enough pressure on the player to his right to get the work of removing him done. Vincent tried a few times, but was disadvantaged because he was directly to Ryan's right.
Quite frankly there were absurd plays every 30 minutes at least. Open-raise-folding to 2BB+ shoves. Isolation moves that made no sense considering stacks.
Anyhow on the final hand, Robert limped his KK, then Justin (who had been active and played well) found himself even shorter than Ryan so, playing more conventionally, he shoved his KQo. Vincent had by then seen a TON of extremely passive play, so he moved to isolate the small stack and move things along. Then Ryan (I suppose) saw a possible triple up with 88 and got it in as well - and Robert of course stayed in.
I think everyone except Ryan played it well. It's ironic - if he had been happy to simply continue laddering up, he could have gotten 2nd place by folding his 88.
I think Vincent made a mistake by not taking longer to think about Robert's open-limping range and unnecessarily over 3-betting 11 times Justin's all-in. I remember Robert open-raising UTG with K6s so unless he played so bad that he open-limped other times UTG & puck, alarm bells should be ringing with the other three players. Ryan only had an M=3 so unless he noticed the limp as uncharacteristic of Robert, calling with 88 is fine. Anyway, congrats to Robert!
The guy who's second in chips can easily iso-raise small and fold to limp/4b or just flat.
I'm not the biggest ICM expert but I'm sure the 8s are an easily fold.
That's what I thought initially, but my ICM calculator indicates that it is a call. I would have looked more at Bob with the close decision, trying to get a read on his hand strength. With 20/20 hindsight, he never grimaced after he got raised all-in twice & looked way too relaxed.
Did pokerJAH hack into your account?
That's fine to limp with big hands but I don't see myself doing it very often, if ever, when it's 4 handed and stacks are this shallow.
Basically I'm saying it's a leak in his game if he needs to do this to balance his limping range because it means to me that he's limping too often for this stage of the tournament.
I wouldn't read too much into this live tell. Being relaxed just means that he has an easy decision. He probably looks the same if he limped 57o and was planning to snap-muck when action returned to him.
The schedule already seems set for PokerStars Montreal Festival and looks too much like Canada Cup that had the $266K overlay. I I think most of the members most likely to win a online satellite - sn1perb0y, cns187, T8yourmoney, Wetts1012, lynx5 & me - are unlikely to bother if it remains just a seat in which they still have to find money to pay for transportation, hotel & other expenses. WPT Montreal III will have packages that includes spending money, so I'm hoping that schedule will include a couple of the Playground structures that I like:
1) Accumulator format. As more & more of the poker community hates the re-entry format, I want to try out this format at least once. This will incentivize players like me to stay longer at Playground, as opposed to arriving just before the ME starts then leaving as soon as we're eliminated.
2) Tag Team. I only played this format once, but would like to try it again.
3) Survivor. This is my favourite format, and is one of the rare tourneys that I will ever play in Las Vegas (Venetian). This is one of the first tourneys I ever played at Playground and I loved that it didn't have the hated re-entries.
4) All-in-or-fold. I first noticed this fun format during WPT CSC, but my roommate & I had left by then.
5) Iron Man format would also be fun.
6) If the hated re-entry format will be kept for the ME, how about copying Matt Savage's WPT 500 format?