Event #3 Preview

After an early exit today I find myself extremely bored. I should probably head to the poker room and make some money, but I want to be fresh for tomorrow and this is a marathon not a sprint so I'm holding off. I did, however, break down and head to the craps table for an hour. I wanted to play Pai Gow (my favorite casino game), but all they had going was $50 and $100 minimum tables and I was looking for a little relaxation, not drama. In fact the minimums at all the table games were at the levels you'd expect to see on a holiday weekend. I'm sure they were looking to capitalize on people trying to get even for their $1,500 tournament loss today. I did not fall into their trap, picked up a quick $160 profit at the craps table and headed back to my room.

Tomorrow is $1,500 pot limit hold 'em. Last year there were 1071 entrants (I'd expect 1200-1500 tomorrow), 1st place was $369,535, 9th place was $29,560 and 100th place was $1,625. A few reasons why this event draws a smaller crowd than event #2 are: some of the players are still playing event #2, the people only playing one event usually go for the first one, and for some reason people don't like pot limit as much as no limit. What's the difference you ask? In no limit you can bet any amount up to all the chips you have in front of you at any time while in pot limit you can only bet up to the size of the pot. For example if there are 800 chips in the pot and the blinds are 50/100, you can bet any amount between 100 and 800 chips (you can't bet less than the amount of the big blind). It gets a little tricky before the flop to determine the size of the pot (secretly I think this is why people don't like pot limit) and consequently how much you can raise. If the blinds are 50/100 and you're first to act you can make it 350. What? There's only 150 in the pot how can you make it 350? Well the answer is you have to call the 100 before you can raise so what you're actually doing is calling 100 and raising 250 for a total of 350. If someone calls in front of you, you can bet between 100 and 450. If someone were to raise to 350 in front of you, you could make it up to 1200 (50+100+350+350=the pot so you put in 350 for the call and 850 more for the raise). You see a lot of guys sitting there and you can tell they are thinking "uh how much can I make it?" I can understand everyone having to think about it a little (especially in a reraise situation), but it drove me nuts in last years WSOP when we'd been playing 100/200 blinds for an hour and some clown says "how much can I make it" when he's the first one in the pot, we've been playing for 5 hours and everyone's been opening for 700 for the past hour. What are we playing for pennies on the kitchen table here? I suppose some people would tell you they don't like pot limit because it limits the amount you can bet, but what's stupid about that is you shouldn't be betting more than the pot anyway in at least 90% of situations. If you bet more than the pot you're generally risking more than you should be to win what's in there. I suppose I'd have a 51% preference for no limit, but I really don't care. I'll let you all know how it went tomorrow.