This weekend at the tables was as swingy as I have ever  had in my entire life.  On Saturday I was insta stuck about $10,000 at the tables (mostly 5/10nl online) and grinded it all back by the end of the day to break even on the day.  Sunday was so bad at the tables I had my laptop in my hand and it nearly went through the window about 5 different times throughout the day.  I mean, of all the poker I have played, I am almost certain I have never run worse.  I went on a 27 buy in downswing in one day, without playing one single hand in a regrettable fashion.  I was just dished out a cooler damn near every 5 minutes.  I would get kings and run into aces.  Had some clown shove 74s on me all in preflop, call with aces and watch the guy flop a flush.  Set over set, boat over boat, flush over flush, get it in with nut flush draw and a pair vs. worse flush draw no pair, and watch the guy runner runner a gutterball.  I mean it was the most incredible thing I have ever seen in my life of playing poker.

So I ended up quitting for the day after a half decent comeback and immediately went to the fridge and cracked some beers.  I needed something to stop the shakes.  Even though I was stuck a ton of money, it wasn’t a big deal really.  I don’t know why I was so upset, but it was just so surreal and nothing like I had ever seen before that my body just couldn’t handle it.

Then a funny thing happened the next day.  I woke up and decided that I was still a little fragile after yesterday’s session so I made up my mind that if I got stuck more than $3k I was done for the day.  I had lost $18,000 the day before (and that is counting the comeback I had at the end) and just felt that health wise my body couldn’t endure another bad day.  So I started winning right away and it did not stop.  I just won stack after stack after stack.  I coolered everyone and never even lost a pot in about 4,000 hands over $500.  Never got properly stacked once.  It was an amazingly good run and guess what, I won $18,000 before I quit.  I think at one point on Sunday I was stuck about $25,000 and by Monday evening I had won it all back!  That is one of my best comebacks ever, but also what is more amazing is that I had my worst day in terms of money lost of the year directly followed by my best day of the year.  What are the odds of that?

Well, I’m off to the gym.  Got some “baby fat” to lose.  I got in pretty decent shape before we had our child last fall and since then I put on about 20 with all the stress and lack of motivation to go to the gym, lack of sleep etc.  All the moms and dads out there know what I’m talking about I’m sure.  I went from 175 to 197 and after 2 solid weeks at the gym, I’m inching down to 192, but still a long way to go.  Actually that reminds me, I should clear something up.  I don’t know why, but occasionally I look at poker forums and I swear half of the time someone is comparing me to some sumo wrestler or something.  I think about half the poker population thinks I am this enormously fat guy.  Well, I am not thrilled with how I look at the moment, but for God’s sake this is the fattest I’ve ever been right now and I am still a 192 pound, 6 foot tall guy!  I mean, I want to be 165 or whatever, but I can’t imagine meeting a 192 pound, 6 foot tall guy and walk away thinking he was some insanely fat, gross guy.  Anyway, ya never know with the LOL internetz crowd what they are going to concoct in their minds and spew onto a message board.

The day before my wife and I went to Portland’s annual Brewfest at Waterfront Park.  Brewfest in Portland is AWESOME!  In fact, I have seen it on numerous lists as being hands down the best brewfest in the US.  I have only been to the brewfest in Portland, so I have nothing to compare it to, but I can definitely say I am not sure how you could create a better brewfest.  It is right along the water, has some of the best beers in the world, and there are probably ten thousand people on the grounds, so it can get pretty lively.  Portlanders love their beer and their passion for it comes through pretty obviously at the brewfest.

Last night I was really struggling at the tables for awhile.  I was about to quit playing, but decided to tough it out because I had some pretty sick seats with direct position on some massive fish.  I am glad I maintained my composure and stuck it out because I went on a pretty good run and stacked most of the fish before quitting about 8 hours into my session.  From there the day kept getting better and better.  I decided that I wanted to go on a little trip with my family so I looked into some ocean front rooms along the Oregon coast for next week and found a really nice one.  I went to book two rooms online (one for the 3 of us and one for my mother in law who travels with us now that we have a baby) and the room types I wanted were not being listed as an option online.  So I called the hotel and spoke with a really nice woman who ultimately got us hooked up with an ocean front multiple room suite that we can all stay in, that was actually much LESS expensive than what I was trying to book online!  So here I was calling up thinking we were going to be screwed and I ended up saving $1,000 AND got the better rooms than I was even hoping for.  Score!

So with that good fortune I decided to book a 2 day anniversary trip with my wife that I am sure will score me some major points.  We ended up getting an awesome room by a winery in the Willamette Valley and got all of the fixins to go along with it (massages, champagne upon arrival, driver to take us to the wineries etc.).  What’s even better about all of this is that my wife was cool enough to let us “observe” our anniversary on a different day because if we didn’t, it would interfere with game day for Oregon football against New Mexico (the weekend after that I am going to fly to Tennessee to watch the Ducks play Tennessee on Sept 11th).  What can we say, we love our Ducks!

I will make another blog post about this, but keep your eyes peeled this week for a brand new you tube series I am starting that is essentially me recording myself talking about the most interesting hands I played for the day.  Each week I am going to pick out the 7 most interesting hands I played for the week and record myself breaking down the hands.  I will chop the recording into 7 videos and we will release 1 each day on dustyschmidt.net.  Now only 1 hand per day might not sound like a lot, but keep in mind that I am talking for 3-7 minutes per hand about every little detail of the hand.  No detail of the hand will go ignored and I will be breaking down why I did everything I did (or wish I had done differently).  I am hoping people enjoy this series and if they do, I will keep making them for an indefinite period of time.  I think the  first video will be ready to go up either Monday or Tuesday.  I will make a new blog post about it with links to the video when it goes up.  Please check it out.  If these videos get a lot of traffic, I will keep making them.

Well, I’m off for another big day on Poker Stars.  I am going to play for the next 8-12 hours on Stars in all of the high stakes cash games and tournaments.  I can’t wait.  Hopefully I get some momentum going early and am able to capitalize on the day!

It’s been quite a grind the last 5+ years at the tables. Over 8 million hands of poker and millions of dollars in winnings have left me in a great spot in life, but has also left me with a lot of questions. It has gotten me thinking a lot over the last year or so about what exactly I want out of poker and for that matter, life. Last year I got back into pursuing golf as potential PGA tour pro, which was a dream I was once well on track to accomplish before I had my fluke heart attack. After having my issues with the USGA and also figuring out that the game has evolved into less of a shot maker/short game/putting contest into a game of how far you can hit it, led me to realize that the chances of me making it were better than nil, but slim at best.

So this year I decided to focus on poker 100% and see where that took me. We’re half way through the year now, and I have realized a number of things. 1. I do like the income and lifestyle that poker afford me 2. I REALLY enjoy writing books/articles 3. I enjoy playing online, but I definitely want my 1.5M hands a year days to be behind me. About half of that would be great 4. I like live poker a lot more than I thought I would (tournaments, not so much, but I love live cash games 5. Now that I am comfortable playing live and have TV experience, I BADLY want another invitation to a high stakes TV cash game show 6. I LOVE to commentate on poker. Whether that be making videos for
Dragthebar.com or being an analyst on a TV show like I did for the Big Game over in London, I just love it. In fact if the pay were the same, I would forget poker and be a poker analyst for a TV cash game show. I love it that much.

So armed with this information I am going to try and focus more on what makes me happy in my career rather than simply grinding my face off from now until eternity. I am not burnt out from playing tons of online poker. I just like some other things better and don’t want to deny myself the opportunity to do them, especially when I do still make money at the other things too. I suspect this year I will likely still play a ton of poker because transitioning into the other things will take time. In fact there is no guarantee that anything will pan out for me the way I would like it to, but I am optimistic it will.

I am really glad I took the time out to pursue golf last year. The reason why is that I felt like the “problem” of playing poker when my real passion was golf, and having the means to pursue golf with no financial stress, was going to weigh on me. Like as if I was cheating myself if somehow I never gave it a shot after I had the means to do so. Keep in mind, I was like a little savant when it came to golf haha. I could remember every hole of every course I had ever played. I knew who won every major championship since 1860 and for most of them, I could tell you who came in 2nd and some facts about the event. I felt like when it came to a golf question, I could answer it as well as anyone on earth. So it was a big part of my life. But now I kinda feel like in poker I am approaching that same sort of knowledge base as I had in golf. I have been reading every poker book I can get my hands on and am now well versed in the game, beyond simply how to play it. And when it comes to playing it, at least as far as NL cash games are concerned, I think I am reaching some very high levels of understanding the game, far beyond where my game used to be at. I have made some great strides in my game this year and am really getting some great results in brutal high stakes online poker conditions to prove it.

But back to golf. In golf I may have eat, breathed and slept it, but I just couldn’t play it quite well enough to satisfy me. It ate me up not to be those last 1-2 shots a round better. Those 1-2 shots were the difference between me blogging for PGATOUR.com instead of here. But what is great about poker is that I CAN actually play the game at a level I am very satisfied with. So I think poker is for me, and the time I spent at the golf course struggling once again, showed me that. So armed with that knowledge, I am now comfortable and happy to be a professional poker player and look forward to a very long career in poker.

So I have decided to do a couple of things immediately. For starters I am going to begin working next week on a pure poker theory/strategy book and I really think it has the potential to be the best book I am capable of writing. My mind is absolutely spinning with all of the things I want to say in the book. The outline is looking awesome already. Secondly, I am going to seek out opportunities to do some broadcasting for poker TV cash game shows. I am going to hold off on this until I get a chance to watch the 10 or so episodes that area going to come out soon on TV (channel 5 in the UK) and see how I did. The producers told me it turned out great, but I want to see for myself how I did, and get a feel for how I can make it better in the event I ever get another chance. In the TV cash game shows, I really think the shows are better off with a professional player who can beat (or is at least good enough to be highly competitive) the game being broadcast because it adds SO much to the show when you have an analyst who can really try and take the audience through EXACTLY what the players are thinking and doing. In golf, they ALWAYS have a former PGA tour player in the booth because it adds to the broadcast so much. In poker I think they should ALWAYS have a professional in there as well. So if I did as good of a job as the producers are telling me, maybe I can get another shot to do it again in the future. I sure hope that is the case.

Well, after all of that poker talk, I am taking a day off tomorrow. I had a great weekend at the tables in winning over $25,000 online. So tomorrow I am taking my wife and daughter to the zoo. My daughter loves playing with a toy called “Let’s play at the zoo” so I decided to take her to the real zoo. She may be a little young for that, but I think she will have fun. I guess the Dad in me is hoping she sees something that looks really cool to her and I can see her face light up. Forget about all of this poker career BS, I don’t think there is anything that makes me truly much happier than watching her light up with a big smile.

Other than poker, I have been watching the British Open at St. Andrews on TV. Tiger is putting SO bad.  I have never seen him struggle this much on the greens.  It is crazy what has happened to him since his scandal broke out.  He just isn’t the same, yet anyway.  When he talks about golf he even sounds more like a regular pro now.  The other day he said that he can’t put ball striking and putting together in the same round.  That is like the #1 complaint of 99% of the PGA Tour.  If they are striping it, they can’t buy a put.  If they are hitting it all over the place, they make everything.  One way or another they end up with their “usual game” which for a good pro is between 67 and 74.

But Tiger has always been the guy who has it all.  If he stripes it, he may just make everything too and win by 15 like he did at pebble.  Or 12 like he did at Augusta.  Or 8 like he did at St. Andrews.  But right now he looks like more like Sergio Garcia then he does himself.  He seems to have gotten his long game in order, but his putting is just abysmal.  I think it will be awhile before Tiger looks like Tiger again, but I suspect once he has his personal life in order (aka he’s either committed to single life, or finds another woman who he can start over with.  Man, can you imagine how insecure his future wife is going to be every time he travels?!!) we will see the old Tiger again.

I am also putting together a draft for a purely poker instructional book that I think people are REALLY going to like when I am finished.  I had no intention of doing a purely poker instructional book, but I came up with what I am hoping is a really good idea for how to present fun to read, easy to understand high level poker instruction that will be fun to write and hopefully will improve the readers’ games.  I had always intended to write a sequel to treat Your Poker Like A Business, which I will at some point probably this year, but this book is what I am most excited about right now.  I will keep you all posted on my progress in this blog.

Well, I think I am going to just play a little bit of poker and spend the rest of the day with my wife and daughter.  Tomorrow I am going to watch the final round of the British Open and play the Sunday tournaments on Poker Stars and tons of cash game hands.  I am definitely pumped to play and hopefully continue to run good.

The house had a sick pool and view of the strip.  The pool had this cave thingy and a powerful waterfall that was pretty cool.  My 9 month old daughter loved getting in the pool and it was a great chance for the two of us to play in the pool and bond together more.  My wife is with her all day and I am probably with her 2-3 hours a day only, but I can tell she really loves me.  Every time I see her now she gets super excited and gives me a big smile. Believe me, those smiles are huge because she has been a very difficult baby so far and it has been tough, no question.  It is all starting to seem worth it now though.  Those big smiles alone make it worth it, in fact.

I was a little disappointed that the WSOP tournaments didn’t go better.  I only played 11, so I guess it is a small sample size, but those things are tough!  First of all, either there are not a lot of recreational players that play or I just got really tough table draws because there was not a lot of soft players from what I could tell.  The other thing that sucks is that there is no good way to make tournaments a great measure of skill.  If you make the stack sizes huge and the blinds go up slowly, it would take a month to play a tournament.  So stacks have to be shallow and blinds must go up quickly.  But the problem with that is skill becomes such a small part of the outcome of an event.  Sure, we all try to play our best, but luck is by far the most critical aspect of how well you do.  What sucks is that even when you get a good table with lots of terrible players, if you aren’t able to get a lot of chips from them early, the blinds get so big that you only have one move: all in.  And really, how much edge do I have on even a terrible player when we are playing 1 move poker?  Even a mule knows a decent hand range to shove with and even if they don’t, they can easily spike a card on you.  Anyway, tournaments are what they are.  I guess as a cash game pro, it is tough to see the great importance placed on these things by the poker community when anyone with any decent poker mind understands that they really are just a big lottery.  But as I say that, the TV cash games seem to be really popular right now, so I guess us cash game guys are getting our due anyway.

I was talking to my buddy the other day and we were saying it is a shame poker can’t have some mechanism to truly determine who the best of the best are.  Golf has a world ranking and 4 major championships a year where the courses are laid out with the intent of identifying the best golfer in the world.  Poker has a ranking, but it is only for donkaments.  But what if they had a true world championship that was something like a $50,000 buy in event where you started with 100,000 chips and the blinds at 25/50.  The blinds double once per 8 hour day and we play the event for like 6 days a week for an entire month?  Now that is something I would play in for sure.  I’d rather do that then play all of these piss ant $1,500 buy in WSOP events that have no skill in them.  And the last man standing at month end is the true world champion.  I think that would be sick.  It would be grueling and luck would definitely not play the biggest role in determining the outcome.  Maybe they only do it every 2-3 years or something like the World Cup.  Anyway, I would love something like that.

Simply put, you get what you pay for. You want a book written by a guy who crushes poker online, it is going to cost more. But the value of the book to the reader is much greater not only in my opinion, but the tens of thousands of people who have read Imagine Media’s books. If you want a book put out by another publishing company by some author who you may have seen on TV or heard about, the reason that author wrote a book and put it out into the world for $19.99 (and the author’s cut probably being in the range of $1 a book) is because the guy or gal probably can’t make much money playing poker. You don’t see truly successful poker players ever put out books unless there is a big price tag on it. When Doyle Brunson (who we can all agree truly is a GREAT poker player) wrote Super System back in the 70s, it was $100 a book! That was probably at least $500 if not $1,000 in today’s money. But you don’t see Ivey or Antonius or Durrrrr write a book. You don’t see any great players write books without huge price tags. What you see is people who leveraged some of their past successes into a career as a poker media person, which generally includes a book.

Anyway, I’m just trying to give the most truthful and honest representation. Again, I hate to burst people’s bubbles, but the books you are reading by your heroes are probably 90% of the time (some exceptions that come to mind from books that I have read are Dan Harrington and Ed Miller) garbage cash grabs put out by famous poker players who are trying to make money off of their reputation because they sure can’t make much money at the tables. The GREAT poker players who want to write books either carry larger price tags or occasionally, the player may have just wanted a new challenge in life and decided to write a book even though he knew it wouldn’t benefit him monetarily in a way that was worth the loss in poker income.

The best way I can sum it up is with this analogy. What would you pay for an investment book put out by Warren Buffet that exposed, in large part, the investment strategies he uses every single day? I’d imagine a lot of people would pay thousands for this book. There may be some big time Wall Street guys who may pay millions, who knows. But Warren Buffet is probably not going to do that because he is too busy using his skills to make money. Now if some investment “guru” put out a book for $19.99 telling you how to make “millions” (where his cut is $1 a book and he probably will sell 25,000 books max) shouldn’t you be a little worried you are being scammed? I mean, why would a guy who has such great investment strategies that he can make “millions” off of, want to make only a $1 a book AND give away his secrets at the same time. Again, you get what you pay for. This may be a bit of a bold statement, but if you want a cheap book (and therefore “cheap advice” in my opinion) then the $19.99 books are for you. But if you want the goods, it is going to cost more money. It is just simple economics and definitely NOT a rip off like some people may initially think when they see a slightly higher price tag.  And the only reason Imagine Media is even able to put books out into the world for as cheap as $40, is two fold.  1. We are not greedy 2. We have a superior business model that allows us to put books out into the world for less than they should cost.

So, I rarely try and spam anything in my blogs, but hopefully I have built your trust and you will take me seriously with what I am about to write. I want to tell you briefly about a poker book that the company I own, Imagine Media just put out into the world. The book is called Way Of The Poker Warrior and it was written by Paul Hoppe (aka GiantBuddha on Poker Stars aka Limit holdem phenom). The book is one I have read and enjoyed immensely, despite not being a limit holdem pro. Essentially the book is poker and life instruction through the lens of martial arts. I guess one might loosely say it is like the book Art of War for poker players. Paul’s Grandmaster, Suk Jun Kim, said this about the book, “In this book, Paul will show you how to win and make money. What I think you’ll ultimately find, though, is that these are the least important things Paul has to teach.” This sums it up completely for me. The book, no matter what form of poker you play, will help you make money at the tables. And while you may be making more money after reading the book, down the line that is the one of the last things you will remember the book for. It is the kind of book that has the potential to really elevate your approach to poker and life in a way that you may be grateful for for a very long time.

One thing Imagine Media is proud of is that we are the leaders is driving down the cost of poker books written by online poker pros. When online poker pros first began writing poker books a few years ago, they were all $500 or $1,000 or even as much as $5,000 a book!! Yeah, that isn’t a typo, there were books put out that cost 5 GRAND! Last summer, I made the decision to write Treat Your Poker Like A Business and I was looking at the poker book market and the cheapest book I had seen written by a successful online poker pro was $399 and it was on sale! No joke, it was on sale at $399. I told myself there was no way I would ever put out a book that carried a price tag like that so I released Treat Your Poker Like A Business for $39.99 (only 10% of the cost of the next cheapest book) and blew every other book written by the online guys out of the water. And I am glad that I did it. I have long believed that there are a ton of talented people out there who never get to realize their potential because of lack of opportunity. So to me anyway, putting a book out into the world that only serves the people who are among the “haves,” is clearly not in line with what I believe in.

Anyway, enough with that, Paul’s book is $24.99 and can be be purchased in either ebook or hard copy form at GiantBuddhapoker.com There is a review up on the site that Pokernews.com’s Barry Carter was kind enough to provide that will give you an unbiased opinion on the book, as well as some excerpts, if you are interested in purchasing it. All in all I think you guys will be well served picking up a copy and I hope if you do, you are glad you did it after reading the book.

Well, I am going to log onto Poker Stars here in a few minutes and play all of the major Sunday tournaments. I am also going to grind the cash games until my eyes bleed so hopefully I can get a hold of some loot by the end of the day. As always, I will provide updates on my Facebook page when I am done playing for anyone interested.

I hope you guys kick some butt today at the tables!

For those that haven’t read my last few blogs, my friend who I am staking at the WSOP lost chips and nearly went bust in a WSOP event to a guy WHO WAS NOT EVENT IN THE TOURNAMENT. The floor ruled that my friend John lost his chips “in good faith” to the man next to him who sat at the table by mistake and the dealer somehow did not catch the error, giving the man chips to play in the event. Days after the event, my friend John escalated the issue to the WSOP top dog and gave him a few days to talk it over with his subordinates. That is where the story left off for those who are just now reading about this.

After John spoke with the top dog at the WSOP, he took down his number and said he would call him back with a decision. A couple of days went by and they never called, so John decided to track them down at the Rio today. Apparently the fact that someone nearly went broke from one of their prestigious events to someone NOT IN THE EVENT didn’t mean a whole lot to them because they actually had talked about it but didn’t even bother to reach out to John. When John approached them today, they basically just told him that he was unfortunate, but there was nothing they were going to do. John was seeking a refund in tournament chips from the event, but they said they “weren’t going to go around refunding every person who has a complaint about their events.” Really? The WSOP considers a random person sitting down and nearly busting one of their participants a “complaint?”

Their reasoning was that if they did give John a refund it would open Pandora’s box and people would be rushing to get refunds every time a dealer had a misdeal or something. This is an absurd stance to take. In any game or sport, shit happens. In golf they call it “rub of the green.” Sometimes an official is going to get a ruling wrong. Sometimes something really unlucky is going to happen like a batter hits what would be a home run only for it to hit a bird and drop short of the fence. In my days playing golf, birds have flown down and picked up a ball after I hit a putt that was going dead in the center of the cup. That has happened a few times to me actually. Leaves have blown onto the green and deflected my ball away from the hole. Shit happens. But there is “rub of the green” and there are things that can easily be prevented. And when they are not, someone should bear responsibility. Having someone sit down at a WSOP event who is not even in the tournament and nearly bust a participant is not a minor mistake. Refunding the victim for their lack of control over their own events is not going to open Pandora’s box for God’s sake. There are mistakes and there are massive fuck ups. This is pretty firmly in the “massive fuck up” category, I don’t think many people will deny that. It is just not the same as a random misdeal or incorrect floor decision.

Anyway, John and I have done all we are going to do. We are not going to go to battle with the WSOP or boycott or anything like that. What’s done is done. But I do feel their decision should become public so everyone can know how things are done over at the WSOP and how little they care about anything other than making the most money they possibly can. While the WSOP may like to claim they are the ones who host the most prestigious poker tournament series in the world, that is really just good marketing. Because they do absolutely nothing to make it that way. They cut costs at absolutely every turn. If they wanted their events to be so prestigious, why not have competent dealers? Why not have a freakin rule book that covers every possible situation the way golf does? That way arbitrary rulings that apply no logic (such as the one made against John) couldn’t happen. Although, I say that, but apparently the people at the WSOP don’t think logically because there is no way on earth you can tell me that it is logical to believe that when you are hosting a world championship event that you can be nearly knocked out of the event by a non participant and think that is fair or at the very least, unworthy of even a second shot at the event.

Shoot, as I type that, I just blew my mind even more haha. I mean think about that. My friend nearly went BROKE to a guy NOT IN THE TOURNAMENT and all we were appealing for was a second chance at one of their events. We weren’t asking for anything more than that. Just a second shot at one of their events because we got cheated out of the first one. Their response, “No, that would open Pandora’s box.” Hey WSOP, how about running your events half decently so there wouldn’t even be potential for Pandora’s box? Did you ever think of that? Maybe take a chunk of the tens of millions of dollars you make and actually hire people who are competent, which includes not only the dealers, but the floor as well. You can start with the head guy. Because I don’t know how the floor is going to make good decisions when the head guy has absolutely no grasp of what is fair or reasonable. Actually I don’t know that. He may just be greedy. It’s certainly one of the two. He is either really greedy or really lacks the capacity upstairs to come to reasonable decisions. My guess is it’s probably a bit of both.

Anyway, I went to Portland, OR for a couple of days and I am flying back tomorrow to play in the main event. I am going to make my annual $10,000 donation to the WSOP main event fund all so I can at least look at myself in the mirror. That’s really the only reason I play that dang tournament, because I know somehow, someway I will lose my chips to either some donk play or some cooler and go home $10,000 poorer. It’s just the way it goes in tournaments. I have played a jillion tournaments and never had one good thing happen to me in one event ever. Thank God for cash games haha. I can’t wait to get down there and play some of those. There is nothing more exciting to me in poker than sitting about a 1,000 blinds deep and playing what I like to call, “real poker.” I can guarantee I will never sit down at a cash game table and go broke to someone with no cash!!! ]]> http://dustyschmidt.net/2010/07/wsop-final-ruling-pound-sand/feed/ 0 http://dustyschmidt.net/2010/06/follow-up-to-the-bizarre-wsop-ruling-against-my-friend/ http://dustyschmidt.net/2010/06/follow-up-to-the-bizarre-wsop-ruling-against-my-friend/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:49:02 +0000 Scott http://www.dustyschmidt.net/2010/06/follow-up-to-the-bizarre-wsop-ruling-against-my-friend/ I noticed an overwhelming number of people reading my last blog and they had many questions regarding the unbelievably bizarre ruling by the WSOP from my friend who nearly went bust in a hand vs. a player NOT even in the event.  So I thought I would post a follow up to expand on my story.  My friend John Mcclain (who I am co-backing for the WSOP events) sat down at a $1,500 WSOP Nl holdem event earlier in the series.  A man sat next to him and showed his ID and registration ticket to the dealer who then handed him a stack of chips.  My friend got involved in a reasonably sized pot that he lost to the man next to him.  That man then said, “Isn’t this great that we only have 5 people at the table for a shoot out event?”  John then said, “This ain’t a shoot out.” They called the floor and the guy thought the event was on one day when in fact it was on the next day and he sat at the table that was apparently assigned to him for the next day’s event.  No one caught the error when he sat down at the table and the man played the event thinking he was in the right event.

The floor talked about it and ruled that the man’s chips would be removed and he was told that he showed up on the wrong day.  So no harm no foul, unless you are John.  John then said, “Uh, we’ve got a problem here.  Is it possible that I can lose a chunk of my starting stack to a person NOT EVEN IN THE TOURNAMENT?”  The floor talked it over and came back to him saying that he “lost his chips in good faith” to the man.  Yeah that is no joke.  They really said he lost them “in good faith!”  My first reaction when John told me this story was what a crock that was.  Don’t we all register for WSOP events in “good faith” that we will actually be competing against people who are ACTUALLY REGISTERED FOR THE EVENT!  I just have no idea how anyone can actually put thought into that decision and come up with “Sir, you lost your chips on good faith to the man not event registered for the tournament.”  Seriously?

I guess next time the November 9 come back for the main event final table their fiercest competition may just come from the rail.  One of them might jump onto the table and check raise someone out of a big pot!  I mean seriously, the jokes are endless on this one.  How can this ruling be possible?

EDIT

I just wanted to follow up on a few more questions people had and one more opinion of mine on the situation.  John sat with the man not in the event for several hands.  John thinks the reason the floor decided to say he lost the chips “in good faith” was because the man had played so many hands at the table that it would be an incredibly big deal to try and rectify the situation on the spot.  To truly make it fair, they would have to consider every hand played with the man at the table to be dead and to give people their starting chips back.  They would also have to reset the clock.  Of course by doing all of that, you would have to completely stop the tournament and let the one table that John was at play poker for as long as the tournament ran with the blind structures back to where they were.  Once the table caught up to the rest of the tournament, then everyone could resume.

Doing something like that is obviously not practical, and with no fair way to really handle the situation, they just told my friend he lost the chips “in good faith.”  So I agree with the WSOP in the sense that they were in a spot where there was no equitable thing for them to do.  But where they are obviously screwing up is that they should reimburse the entry fee to John and probably the entire table who played a joke of an event.  Certainly just telling my buddy John that he was SOL with the chips he lost to the phantom player is absurd.  I think he should get his $1,500 in tournament credit and he should have gotten to free roll the event he was in.  That would’ve been fair in my mind.  Anyway, I will post more updates on this as my friend John is going to take his case to the WSOP floor again today and see if they decide to do the right thing before he possibly escalates it further.  I sure hope for the sake of John, the WSOP, poker in general (and to a very small extent, myself who lost money in this event backing my friend) that they do the right thing immediately.

The floor came over and the man was told to leave the table and come back for the event he registered in.  My buddy, told the floor, “Hey, we’ve got another problem here.  Is it possible that I can lose chips to someone not even in the tournament?”  The floor crew got together and ruled that my buddy lost his chips “in good faith” to his opponent.  My buddy was stunned.

Now I understand it can work both ways.  My buddy could have easily won some chips and it would have stunk to have to give them back.  But my God, how on earth can you lose chips to someone not even playing in the event?  Can you imagine this happening in any other sport?  What if Lebron James just walked onto the basketball court and scored a bunch of points for the team you were playing against?  Do the points count?  In golf, if I just show up to the Masters and make my way past the guards with my golf clubs, can I go out on the course and try and win the Masters? I mean c’mon!  How on earth can they get together and come up with THAT ruling?  What if my buddy had gotten busted by someone not even registered for the event?  I can say one thing, if I got busted in a $10,000 buy in event by someone not even registered in the tournament, I would at least get a refund come hell or high water.

I am sure the WSOP has a rule book they go by, but given the enormity of the event that they run, they ought to spend more time putting in more thought to potential situations that could arise and come to logical conclusions based at least in part to player input.  Respectable players would I’m sure be more than happy to give their input.

In golf they have a rule book and a “decisions on the rules of golf” book.  The “decisions” book has an official ruling on every conceivable situation that has ever occurred.  I think the WSOP should do the same because arbitrary rulings like losing chips to someone not in the tournament need to be ruled out.  And when you make on spot decisions like the floor does at times, rather than referring to a well thought out rule book made prior to the event, you add in the element of poor judgment that could sway what they consider to be the most prestigious poker event in the world.

I’d be interested in hearing if there is precedent for something like this?  Has someone else ever come across something like this?  If so leave a comment.  Coming from a golf background, I just can’t even imagine how it is possible that you can lose to someone NOT in the event. I realize that if the error had occurred later in the event after he busted several people who may have driven home, it could get ugly.  But in my opinion the WSOP should step up to the plate and give those people a refund or at least let them free roll another event with a similar buy in amount.  That would be the least they could do for their mistake.  Certainly penalizing someone for your own mistake should not be an option.  The WSOP overall does a pretty good job all things considered.  I know their job isn’t easy.  Which is why I’m saying we need a more well thought out rule book that takes into account all of the crazy stuff that can (and likely will at some point) happen.