Bellagio recaps

The change reported in the previous post was short-lived and, as of today, Bellagio's $2-$5 and $5-$10 games have reverted to $500 and $1,500 caps (originally $500 and $1,000).

Bellagio's NL games now uncapped

Effective from 11am today, Bellagio's $2-$5 and $5-$10 NLHE games have no maximum buy-in. Till now they were capped at $500 and $1,000 respectively. The timing of the move is interesting as it coincides with one of the quietest periods of the year. Only time will tell what effect this will have on the ichthyological ecology, but I predict changes in both feeding and migratory patterns.

Stuck

It is an indisputable fact that short playing sessions are generally preferable to longer ones. I have accepted this and found it has paid dividends. Yet once in a while, I find myself inexplicably stuck to a chair because I'm stuck. The frequency of this has decreased over time, but when it does occur it is usually a painful experience.

ESPN WSOP coverage begins

ESPN weekly coverage of the 2008 WSOP events begins tonight, culminating in the live broadcast of the final table of the Main Event on November 9th. Airing tonight is the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold'em event, in which the still braceletless Andy Bloch managed yet another second place finish after holding a commanding chip lead with only 4 players remaining. Karma's a bitch.

Effective advertising

When driving from Melbourne to Sydney on the Hume Highway, as I have done on a couple of occasions in the past, one will pass through the New South Wales country town of Yass.

The Bespoke Search Engine

Yahoo.com has always been my home page, yet when I wanted to do a search, I would navigate to Google. That is till now. Following Google's imposition of harsh and selfish monopolistic advertising guidelines on poker and other sites, and the subsequent doctored alteration in their search results, I have broken a long and instinctive search engine habit and now use Yahoo. I believe that Google's bespoke searching is not returning an optimal result and I have a distinct chance of missing out on something that could be valuable, unless I want to keep paging till Results 151-160. I am therefore better off with Yahoo or MSN.

For an update on the recent developments, read Bill Rini and Nat Arem's posts.

When this episode flared up in October 2007, with Google slashing the page rank of renowned blogger John Chow, GOOG was trading at over $700. Tonight in after hours trading, GOOG is at $492 after disappointing 2nd quarter 2008 earnings. Google, clearly the answer lies elsewhere - please come to your senses.

Venetian Slot Tourney

I was invited to a slot tourney at the Venetian, together with a comped suite for 3 nights. When your current digs are a homeless shelter in foreclosure, this is like winning the Powerball. The walk from St. Luke's shelter to the Strip should take about 25 minutes but there was an Excessive Heat Warning issued on Sunday, so it came as no surprise that I barely staggered into the Palazzo completely dehydrated, and before passing out I managed to run into, knock down and break their mini-David figurine situated 5 feet inside the fountain pool in the marbled lobby entrance, and reputedly valued at $2,500,000.

After filling in a few insurance forms and mumbling my apologies in broken Italian, I was carried to my suite in the adjoining Venetian on a stretcher. I would have preferred the gondola. Still, with the slot tourney scheduled to open in 12 hours time, I was thankful that my right index finger was uninjured.

The next day who should I run into but Grubby, who was also playing in the tourney. Luckily he was seated next to me, enabling him to apply an ice compress to my forehead with his right hand while hitting the slot button with his left. After the last session, we took a stroll to the Mirage where I partook in some $1-$2 NLHE, while he opted for the $70 SNG.

Sitting in the 6 seat at my table was 95-year-old Jack Ury, the oldest player in the 2008 WSOP Main Event. He proudly told us that he was still in after Day One. I had occasion to play one hand with him when his flopped baby flush took down my TPTK for a $50 pot. After I tabled my hand, it took him about 10 seconds to turn over his cards. This, however, was attributable to gerontological rather than slowrolling factors. God bless him.


Grubby took down the SNG and I lost $133. After an enjoyable afternoon, we headed back to the Venetian and parted ways. I didn't place in the tourney but at least Grubby won $100 free slot play.

Tonight I read that Jack Ury was eliminated (Day 2B). "I can't walk, can't see, can't hear, but I can still play poker!" said Ury to PokerNews reporter TassieDevil. "I'll be back again next year...if I'm still alive!"

Sweet dreams are made of this

Commiserations to the bloggers who didn't make it past Day One. And to those that did (Iggy, Loretta8 and any others that I don't know of), please continue to rip through the field.

Maybe next year

Negotiations for the sponsorship of my $10,000 2008 WSOP Main Event entry fee broke down at 3:30am this morning. I am bitterly disappointed considering how close we were to an actual agreement.
I prefer not to get into specifics, but the main stumbling block was my insistence that my kidney was not to be removed before November were I to make the final table.