Picking a tournament

Pokerblog.com has a post on how to evaluate a tournment. I guess it's an okay post, at least I thought so until I got to this

Players should then look at structure. If a tournament has a bad structure then there is no point in playing it.

What the hell does that mean?

What is a bad structure?

Everyone plays the same structure. So if a structure puts you at a disadvantage it's not because of the structure, it's because you don't know how to play.

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Poker Culture blog

Harrah's second mortgage

Harrah's is taking out second mortgages. I don't know what that means. Probably nothing.

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Poker Culture blog

Harrah's economic troubles

I don't know if this has any implications for WSOP or not. I kind of doubt it does, but Harrah's had kind of a sweetheart deal to manage a state owned casino in Kansas that they packed out of because they didn't have the cash for the required security front money.

"We truly regret that we must withdraw our gaming application as a result of circumstances beyond our control, that do not permit us to meet the proposed schedule for the project," said a written statement by Jeffrey Ungerer, manager of Sumner Gaming Joint Venture, a partnership of Harrah's and Sumner Gaming and Resorts.

He said the company might rebid if the business climate improves.

Harrah's was the winning bidder among three companies that sought to develop and operate the casino that would have been just off the Kansas Turnpike south of the Sedgwick-Sumner county line.

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Poker Culture blog

Poker, stamina, and health

I started this blog a couple of years ago when I thought I was going to be playing in some of the minor events at the World Series of Poker. Although I went to the World Series that year, I didn't play in any of the events. This year I didn't even go.

What I've been doing this year instead of going to the World Series of Poker is having heart bypass surgery. It turns out that my problems the last couple of years with loss of stamina and shortness of breath has actually been a bunch of small heart attacks.

The operation is all finished and I'll probably be released from the hospital sometime this weekend. Everything looks like it was a success. So maybe next year I'll actually be healthy enough to play.

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Poker Culture blog

International visitors to the World Series

This is the sort of thing that visitors outside the US can look forward to if they want to play in the World Series of Poker this year.

I'm not even dark complexioned and I don't want to fly in the US these days. We've gone nuts. Insane. No amount of conversion of poker to a reality TV show will fix this.

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Poker Culture blog

Bodog

I don't really want to plan on even trying to play in the world series, mostly because of various health problems. Even thinking about some marathon event wears me out.

I did play some in a Poker Stars step event. On one first step buy-in I got as far as the third step then back to the second step a couple of times, then I finally went busted. And I don't have any more money in that account right now so I might play it some more, I might not.

I'm going to try to play in a WSOP Blogger Tournament that Bodog is putting on. Bodog is an advertiser of my Math and Poker blog so I try to support them when I can. They're nice people to work with. Or at least that's been my experience.

More about the WSOP Blogger Tournament here.

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Poker Culture blog

2008 World series

I had some health problems last year with blood pressure that severely effected my stamina. As a consequence, there was no way I was going to enter a tournament that might require me to play all day -- that just wasn't something I thought I was going to be able to do.

I'm still having some problems, but the lack of stamina is much less severe than it was last year (I was hospitalized for a few days last year).

I don't know if I'm going to the World Series or not this year. Right now I'm leaning towards probably going, but I still havn't made any hard plans.

I did start playing in a
Poker Stars "step" tournament though. It's a parlay to a world series entry starting with a Step 1 tournament with a $7.50 entry. I won a Step 1 sit-n-go which gives me an entry into a Step 2 event. But I havn't seen one offered yet. I'm assuming there'll be one soon.

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Poker Culture blog