Another Way To Play @ The WPT

djalikool

Blue Chip Poker is back.
Good news if you're into Texas Hold'em.

If you buy† a Labatt Blue or Blue Light at participating locations, you'll get a poker chip. That chip could be your entry into the game of your life where you'll throw down your poker skills in the quest to make it to the 1st annual World Poker Tour® Canadian Open in Niagara Falls.

Head to labattblue.ca for details and event listings.

Good luck. And may you get "bullets" every time

JohnnieH

And the locations are where?

13CARDS

Click on the pic to see full size

JohnnieH

Cool 13cards, but what "locations" are we talking about?

I assume it's a bar or a pub.

13CARDS

go here http://labattblue.ca/poker/index.html

JohnnieH

13CARDS wrote:

go here http://labattblue.ca/poker/index.html

'

Perfect!! Thanks!!

BlondeFish

All I see on their website is a blank blue screen. Can somebody please post the address for the August 26 tournament at Guelph? What is the procedure for the "no purchase" option?

moose

Labatt Blue poker. hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Biggest joke ever, unless you happen to know someone who owns a bar and hands you fistfuls of pokerchips. Search the forum for threads. Complete chaos and waste of time.

13CARDS

BlondeFish wrote:

Can somebody please post the address for the August 26 tournament at Guelph?

Shakespeares Arms
35 Harvard Rd

jpajamas

Great fun, lousy poker, free swag...maybe play in WPT event...gonna do a couple I hope.

BlondeFish

After the $12,000 Pokerbowl tournament was cancelled,  I needed a poker fix and I ended up playing in a Labatt Blue Chip Poker tournament.  While Pokerbowl seems to have attracted a lot of interest in the US including many of the top professionals, it's sad that Toronto will not even have a team.  The $45 satellite structure to the $240 tournament is the best I've seen, but I think only a couple of forum members bothered to play in the satellites (and we won).

Anyway, the Labatt tournament was advertised as being from 7 PM - 12:30 AM, but the cards were not dealt until after 8 PM.  The Labatt crew with microphones were interviewing people in the bar.  I was asked a few questions, gave them my poker nickname, got some laughs, and was awarded a prize.

One guy had 181 Labatt chips, another guy had 163 chips, and I had a grand total of 1 chip! Unsurprisingly, I was not among the 32 drunks to get picked for the first round.  Fortunately for me, the first round drunks were not allowed to play again, and the remaining customers with much fewer Labatt chips got to play in the second round.  Unless there are more than 64 people that want to play, it turns out that all you need is one chip and spending to get 181 chips is a total waste of money.

It was a weird tournament structure, but I had a strategy on how to win my table.  The starting stack is 1,600 with blinds at 10/20.  After being card dead during the first three blind levels, I managed to take a slight chip lead during the last level of 100/200 with three players left.  After the short-stacked button folded, I saw
:kd :9h
and moved all in, figuring that unless the other big stack had a monster, he would have to fold and wait for a better opportunity.  He called and risked his tournament life with only
:qs :5c
so I was both surprised but glad.  The flop was something like
:kc :10d :2s
so I had 96% chance of winning.  The only way he could win was two running cards.  The turn was
:qc
I was still an 8-to-1 favouritie of winning almost all the chips in my table and qualifying for the final table for the night.  The river was
:qh 
After my bad beat, I had no choice but to keep going all in and was eliminated a couple of hands later.

Astroboy's post from last year still apply and unfortunately, Labatt has not fixed the problems.  Poker rules such as raising, dead dealer and dead small are not followed.  You can skip a blig blind simply because the player to your right got eliminated.  I made a minimum raise of double the big blind, but the dealer said that any raise has to be at least triple the previous bet.  Both the dealer and the players in my table were incredibly slow, with one newbie being illegally coached on every single hand.

If you love poker, you may still have fun like I did despite the problems and my bad beat. Feel free to post any questions.

Astroboy wrote:

OK Guys...Here's the scoop on the Blue Poker Chip Tourney. How it works is, you collect chips by buying a Blue Product at the bar or the beer store. So you collect these chips and bring them with you to whichever venue you want to play at.

The tourney is a two round 32 Player tourney. The chips are your raffle chips to get into the tourney. So just say you have 50 chips, then you will have 50 entries into the raffle. If you are selected, you sit at one of four 8 seated tables. Now here comes the unbelievably stupid part of this tourney. The point of the tourney is to be chip leader at your table. The chip leaders from each table within the two rounds, comprises the final table of 8. In the two preliminary heats, you sit with 1700 chips with blinds at 10-20, doubling every 15 minutes. You have one hour, yes you read right, ONE HOUR, to accumulate as many chips as possible from your table. I was lucky enough to be drawn into the tourney. You have to play a really aggressive game. The dealers are very poor and deal around one hand every 5-7 minutes. I found myself looking at an even stack with 10 minutes left and only three players left on my table. Needless to say, the chip leader at my table was getting extremely lucky and had about 5X my stack. The third player was at about 3500. At this point, the only way I was gonna win was to push in on every hand following and hope for the best.

After the hour, the four chip leaders from each table move on to the final table. Each player starts with 3000 chips and blinds start at 100-200. Blinds double every 15 minutes and cap at 3200-6400. The winner of the final table moves on to the actual tourney hosted in Toronto.

The tourney is a little bit of a crap shoot, but if you can make it past the preliminary rounds, you have a good chance of winning. The players that showed up were piss poor and hammered. You need to get really lucky. I saw a hand where there were four people all in preflop. Hands ranging from T4, JJ, Ax, etc. Absolutely horrible play. Oh and also, the rule for raising is double the previous bet. I don't know why. I tried to explain to the TD but they don't listen. And instead of having a dead puck when a player gets knocked out, they just move it over, skipping a big and small blind for two players.

All in all, it was a horrible experience. There were guys coming in with over 100 chips. I'm surprised I was drawn. The tournament was very poorly run. Good luck to everyone who plays. I will not be attending any more of the tourneys.

jpajamas

Some guys REALLY like their Blue...

moose

moose wrote:

Biggest joke ever, unless you happen to know someone who owns a bar and hands you fistfuls of pokerchips.

BlondeFish wrote:

One guy had 181 Labatt chips, another guy had 163 chips

Do you really think that @$4 a beer someone spent $724 to enter a freeroll?

jpajamas

"Do you really think that @$4 a beer someone spent $724 to enter a freeroll?"

You would be surprised...

13CARDS

15 buckets at $25 a pop equals I hate Blue but like crazy-poker!!!

BlondeFish

Can 13CARDS or somebody please post the bar name and address for the upcoming events, i.e.,
1) Scarborough, tonight
2) Etobicoke, September 14
3) Hamilton, September 18
4) Guelph, September 19
5) Burlington, October 17?
Thanks.

By the way, I was told that Daniel Negreanu and Evelyn Ng will be playing at the WPT events next month.

jpajamas

http://labattblue.ca/poker/index.html

13CARDS

Looking for a cheap way in there, Blondefish?????

AcidJoe

Of course blondfish is..... Mr rake free blind free. and everything else wants to play for free....... and I"m sorry My 2 4 diamonds busted your AQ.

jpajamas

Don't be sorry, they were sooted!