Friday, August 18, 2006

Eres de la region El Paso-Juarez ?

Me encantaria que pusieras un mensaje en este post si vives en la region de El Paso-Juarez o relativamente cercas (+ - 4 horas) de esta region. Me gustaria hacer una reunion de jugadores de poker de esta region, para platicar nuestras experiencias, quizas la podriamos llevar a cabo en UTEP, o dependiendo cuantos seamos, en algun restaurante de la localidad. Escribe si eres de por aca, y deja tu email para hacer una lista y ver de que manera nos podemos juntar.
So, if you're a poker player from this region, lets hear from you and lets plan a meeting !!

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

WSOP ME Payout structure

This is the payout structure for this year Main Event:

1 $12,000,000
2 $6,102,499
3 $4,123,310
4 $3,628,513
5 $3,216,182
6 $2,803,851
7 $2,391,520
8 $1,979,189
9 $1,566,858
12,11,10 $1,154,527
13-15 $907,128
16-18 $659,730
19-27 $494,797
28-36 $329,865
37-45 $247,399
46-54 $164,932
55-63 $123,699
64-72 $90,713
73-81 $65,973
82-126 $51,129
127-189 $47,006
190-252 $42,882
253-315 $38,759
316-378 $34,636
379-441 $30,512
442-504 $26,389
505-567 $22,266
568-621 $20,617
622-666 $19,050
667-720 $17,730
721-774 $16,493
775-819 $15,504
820-873 $14,597


I would like to know who decides the structure and what are the guidelines to make such decision? I just don't understand the need to give 12 million to 1st place. 10 million would be a very nice round number and enough for marketing purposes, hell, even last year's 7.5 million was an insane amount of money. I find ridiculous to win only about $50k if you finish 82-126, you just beat like 99% of the field and you win only 5x your buy in? Let's compare to the 2005 payout structure:

1 $7,500,000
2 $4,250,000
3 $2,500,000
4 $2,000,000
5 $1,750,000
6 $1,500,000
7 $1,300,000
8 $1,150,000
9 $1,000,000
10 $600,000
11 $600,000
12 $600,000
13 $400,000
14 $400,000
15 $400,000
16 $350,000
17 $350,000
18 $350,000
19-27 $304,680
28-36 $274,090
37-45 $235,390
46-54 $173,880
55-63 $145,875
64-72 $124,835
73-81 $107,950
82-90 $91,950
91-100 $77,710
101-110 $65,360
111-140 $54,965
141-170 $46,245
171-200 $39,075
201-230 $33,197
231-260 $28,375
261-300 $24,365
301-350 $21,070
351-400 $18,335
401-450 $16,055
451-500 $14,135
501-560 $12,500


It just does not seem right, if you finish 37th in 2006 you win around the same as if you finish 37th in 2005; but the difference between the number of players was more than 3000 !!! 8773 compared to 5619.

Even more ridiculous is if you finish between 82-90, in 2005 you win $92k but in 2006 you win only $52k, WTF??

I have always been a big proponent of flat payouts, usually this means to take money from the top places, but if there is a tournament where you can do this without affecting the "heavyness" of the top prizes, it's this one. I just don't understand why in the world you want to give 1st place 12 million and take out of the poker economy a lot of money. The wealth should be spread, it's not that I'm a poker communist (if even the term makes sense); it's just better for the poker economy. They should cap the 1st place to 10 million, that's enough money; I think even for the guys at Bellagio that play the big game, 4-8k, they should be happy with that number the one time one of them is going to win in the next 50 years. Why did they decide this structure for 2006? Any of your guesses is better than mine.

Monday, August 07, 2006

WSOP Main Event

Well, it's still too painful to post about my main event, I just can tell you now, that I didn't have any luck but I didn't play my best either. I made at least 2 mistakes and you just can't made any, well, some people can (Aaron Kanter, Tiffany Willamson in last years WSOP ME), but people with "average" luck like me shouldn't (average, yeah right).

Right now, the main even is in its n-th day, hah, don't even know how many days, but the players left will be playing in their 6th day. Out of the 8773 players that started, there are 45 players left. Who are we rooting for? Well, I have 2 friends left in the field. The amazing Eric "Rizen" Lynch and the colorful Costa Rican Humberto Brenes. Humberto has a short stack with 565,000 good for 41 out of the 45, but Humberto is a pretty good short stack player. Eric has a 1,900,000 good for 19 out of 45, and it doesn't matter if Eric has a short, medium or big stack; he's like the "Neo" of Poker, the chosen one, whatever it needs to happen, it will happen. He has supernatural powers, whatever he wants to admit it or not. Both are extremely nice guys, I have had the fortune to talk poker with Humberto in several occasions through the years, in my traveling to several tournaments across the country; since we share our beautiful Spanish language. He was the first I talked about my hands after being busted from the main event on Sunday July 30, and he nicely gave me his advise about how he would have played the hands, all this while signing like 100 autographs and getting his picture taken with plenty of fans. Eric is not that well-known by the general public (so far), but he will be, the same Sunday I had the chance to hang out with Eric for like 3 hours talking about poker, life, family and some other things; I really enjoyed the time I spent with Eric. In all the time I spent in Vegas last month, I just took like 5 pictures with my camera, and the only two I took with an individual were with precisely Humberto and Eric; and here they are in the final 45 of this monster field. It would be real sweet if they can make the final table.