Season 5 Starts This Week

Well, after a long hiatus we will be starting up our latest poker Season this Friday. This one should be the best to date. We will use at Freezeout format rather than the usual rebuy format. But the most exciting part about this season is that we will use a "Winner Take All" type of prize rather than the end of the season tourney that we have played in the past 4 seasons. The buy-in for our Season series is $500. The winner will use the prize money to buy into one of next summer's WSOP $5k NLH events.

Game #1 Details:
Location: Chris' House
Date/Time: August 15th at 8:30pm.

Here are this season's participants and a list or rules.

The Season 5 lineup: Andy, Budi, Chris, Karim, Robin, Sabrinna, Steve, Tony, WeiYan, and me.

Season 5 Rules:
1) Your $500 is due by November 21.
2) The winner will use the money toward next summer's WSOP $5k NL Holdem event. Our annual trip will be planned around the date of the event once the official schedule is released. A consensus date will have to be picked if there are more than one $5k events. If the season winner would like to use the prize toward the buy-in for a $10k event, that is fine and the payout distributions will be adjusted accordingly. The prize can't be chopped up to use as a buy-in for smaller events.
3) 25% of the WSOP payout will be distributed evenly to the remaining season players. 75% of the payout is for the season winner.
4) If for some reason the season winner can't play in the event, the next available player will be bought into the event. Starting with the 2nd place finisher, then the 3rd place finisher, etc. If this does happen. 25% will be distributed to the remaining players(not the substitute or the official winner). 45% to the substitute. 30% to the official season winner.
5) The season will be played as freezeout MTTs using the standard WSOP Prelim blind structure and a 5k starting stack. The level times will be staggered to keep the tourney from lasting too long. The first three levels will be 30 minutes, then 27minutes, etc. Budi can send more details.
6) We will use your best 12 finishes to determine your ranking.
7) Points will be determined as follows:
a. 10 points per player to determine the top point total. For example, in a 20 player tourney, 200 points are up for grabs with a 1st place finish.
b. Points are awarded based on your finish. Your point total for the game is 80% of the previous finisher's point total. So for example, in a 20 player tourney, 1st = 200pts, 2nd = 160pts, 3rd=128pts, 4th=102pts, etc.
8) If more people join the season before we start, the remaining prize pool will go to the 2nd place finisher as a buy-in into a tourney during our trip. The same rules apply regarding the payout as with the 1st place finisher. We can come to a consensus before the trip on which tourney we would like the 2nd place finisher to play. 100% of the prize should be used
for the tourney buy-in. If additional money needs to be added by the 2nd place finisher, we will adjust the percentages accordingly. For example, the 2nd place payout is $500. The tourney buy-in is $1000. The percentages that are awarded to the rest of the players will be based on 50% of the payout since the season prize only paid for 50% of the buy-in. Note, the 1st place finisher will be in on this action and should be included as a recipient of the 20% distribution.

Season 5 Schedule:
--2008--
August 15, 30
September 12, 27
October 10,25
November 7,22
December 5
--2009--
January 16,31
Feb 13, 28
March 13, 28
April 10,25
May 8,23

Here are some roles:

WeiYan "The StatsGenie" Chan - Update the Stats Genie site to track the rankings.
Michael "The Director" Budihardjo - Focus all of your attention on ensuring that we have a flawless tourney week in and week out.
Chris "The Host" Honore - Host as many of the games as he can. Focus all of your attention on making sure the bottles are in the recycling bin.
Andrew "The Banker/Blogger" Gilmore - Collect the Season 5 money and regularly update this blog with the results.

Good Luck Everyone(except against me of course). Should be fun.

Andrew

WSOP 2008 Trip Recap

This is long overdue. Here's a list of the people that went to Vegas: Andy, Budi, Daniel, Mark, Robin, Sabrinna, Steve, Ted, Tony, WeiYan and me. We stayed at the Rio from June 28th - July 5th.

Let me try to remember some of the few highlights from this trip. In no particular order.

1) The headliner of the trip was Mark chopping one of the Caesar's Mega Stacks events. It was Event #31. He was the chip leader at the time of the 9 player chop and came away with $25k. Very nice pickup. This and his Main Event satellite win ended a very good June for Mark. Congrats!
2) Tony made it to the final table of a tourney and picked up $1k+. Good job.
3) Steve cashed in the Caesar's Mega Stacks Event #35. Good job. Now you're a link on cardplayer's website.
4) I had a few good pickups in the very soft Caesars SnGs. I'll be back fo' sho.
5) Andy, Budi, Mark, Steve and WeiYan played in WSOP Event #X: $1500 NLH. No one cashed. Steve lasted until around 10pm.
6) I guess this is a lowlight. I continued to dump a lot of money at the roulette wheel. So stupid. After saying I wouldn't ever play again, because I lost a good chunk of change a month earlier in Vegas, I just had to try and "get my money back". Bye, bye more money.
7) Sabrinna found her calling. The Texas Holdem table game. Some how she was able to make money each day playing this game.
8) We finally ate at the Rio Seafood Buffet, but it was a mistake to go there on our last night in Vegas. We ate so much that it just put most of us to sleep. Being the super hero that I am, I fought the evil forces of sleep in Vegas and just walked around like a zombie playing slot machines. LOL.
9) The cash games were juicy as usual. Are the cash games ever bad in Vegas? Particularly at Ballys.
10) We learned our lesson. The Rio is nice to visit during the WSOP, but we should have stayed in our usual spot, Ballys. I probably spent more time on those shuttles to Caesars and Ballys than I did in the Rio Casino.

Overall, I enjoyed this trip. Usually, I get homesick after 4 or 5 days, but for some reason this trip, after a week, I still wasn't ready to go home. It didn't fill up my pockets like I had hoped, but I'm always up for a good trip to Vegas. I can't wait until next year's WSOP. Main Event 2009 or bust!!!!

Andrew