OMG they went with a Ten Game Mix

HORSE was not enough, so they added a limit draw game, 2-7 Triple Draw, Pot Limit Omaha and No Limit Hold'em.  That wasn't enough to satisfy the "All -a-rounders" so they also added No Limit 2-7 Single Draw and Badugi.  Badugi?  Yes, Badugi.  Pronounced buh-DOO-ghee.

Badugi is a triple draw, lowball game where the best possible hand is A-2-3-4 using all four suits.  If a card is paired or a suit matched, the card is not used and player only has a three card hand.  Any four card hand beats any three card hand, so A-2-3-3 loses to an A-2-6-K Badugi (four suits).  I think the math guys just wanted to have a new set of pot odds problems to confound the feel players.  I guarantee you that they have figured out how big the pot needs to be to draw two to a nut Badugi with two draws left.

I still have a problem with adding Badugi to the WSOP while marginalizing 5 Card Draw, the game seen played by Nicki Arnstien in Funny Girl and preferred by Bret Maverick in the classic western television series.  Wasn't it 5 Card Draw being played when Nicolas Cage lost Sarah Jessica Parker to James Caan in Honeymoon in Vegas?

How can they leave 5 Card Draw out of the Series?

A lot of dealers are avoiding the Ten Game.  They haven't dealt the games and they don't want to make mistakes at the table and be berated by the players.  I have learned all of the games.  I just haven't dealt many of them for two or three years.  Actually, it doesn't take long to get into it and most of the oddball games are fairly easy to deal.  There are some specific rules relative to procedure when you run out of cards in the Triple Draw and Stud games but I dealt the mix all day yesterday and Stud 8 for 5 hours the day before and never ran out of cards.  The fact is that in tournament play, conservative play is rewarded, so play is tight and rarely goes past the first betting round more than three handed.

Common dealer mistakes in mixed games:

Putting out a flop in a Stud Game
Forgetting to stack the pot in a High Low game
Keeping track of how many hands of a game have been played

There are some things that help.

To assure that you don't put a flop out in a draw or stud game, collect the antes and place them in the center of the table in the space where you would spread the flop if you were dealing Hold'em.  At the WSOP there is a box drawn in the center of the table for just this purpose.  If it is filled with chips, you just won't have any place to put a flop, so you will automatically deal the next up cards to the players.

The players don't really mind if you don't stack the pot until later in the hand.  It gives them a chance to see players across the table.  There is actually a lot of time to stack the pot in a seven card game and because you allow players to leave the bets in front of them when a betting round becomes heads up, it is usually not an issue.

Keeping track of the number of hands is a matter of routine.  A stack of non-playing chips are used by the dealer to track the number of hands. When playing a game where eight hands of each game are to be dealt, the dealer will have eight counters in the well and at the beginning of each hand one chip is to be moved from one stack to the other.  I find the one I screw up most often is the first deal of a game.  The counters are a new part of the routine but you must incorporate it into the deal process.  In 2008 Mimi Tran insisted that I move the counter chip after I put the cut card out to cut and deal but before I cut the deck.  Ever since, I have it imprinted in my brain that whenever I put out a cut card, before I cut a pause a beat and think, "Is there anything I need to do before I start dealing?"  The only two things I need to check are collecting the antes and moving a counter chip.  Routines are a dealer's friend.

H.O.R.S.E.

Today's primary event is the $1500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. Tournament.  This is a tournament the more seasoned veterans love.  They feel they have an advantage over the younger players because of their experience playing a wide range of games.  In this event, they will play eight hands of Limit Hold'em followed by eight hands of Omaha High-low, followed by eight hands of Razz, then 7 Card Stud, then Stud High-low (8 or better).

Razz is a lowball limit game dealt like 7 Card Stud (two down, four up and a final down card) and the lowest possible hand is A,2,3,4,5.

Seeing that the stud games have lost popularity to the flop games the old grinders get to flex their Stud muscles against a generation that grew up on Hold'em.  Before the Internet brought us on line poker, the home games I played were always varieties of 7 Card Stud or Draw Poker.

Speaking of Draw Poker, I find it conspicuously missing from the WSOP.  Five Card Draw Poker, the game played by Wild Bill Hickok when he was shot in Deadwood holding those famous eights and aces; the game depicted in A Big Hand for the Little Lady and widely seen in movies and television shows for generations is missing from the World Series of Poker.  The only variants of Draw are Deuce-to-Seven Lowball No Limit and Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw.

If 126 players are willing to pony up $10,000 to play the 2-7 Championship, I am convinced that many more would support a classic game of Five Card Draw.  After all, isn't the five card poker hand of Draw the basic fundamental for all other poker games?  I think it should be included in the World Series of Poker.

Limit

I am dealing the Limit Hold'em Championship final table this evening. It should be streaming video from 6 pm EST until it is over - like 10 Hours later. Find link on WSOP.com

Pot Limit again

I find it odd that they schedule the $10,000 buy-in Pot Limit Hold'em championship on Friday June 3rd, then they follow it a week later with a $1500 buy-in Pot Limit Hold'em event.  You would think they would try to build up to the big buy-in events by having the less expensive one first.  Hmmm.I suppose they are very different in that the $10k had 249 players all with enough bankroll to fund the entry while the $1500 had 765 entries and the field had a lot of players with smaller bankrolls taking their "Shot".  The total prize pool in the $10k is over two million while the $1500 had about half that and it spreads the payouts over 70 players.

Latest update is that Lillian and Mary (my wife and daughter) are flying in Saturday.  I'm working 1 to 9 but might be able to get an early out and see them when the land.  I was able to swap a work day and get Sunday off to celebrate Mary's 21st birthday.  We have tickets to Love, the Cirque/Beatles show at the Mirage.

Now to figure out if there's any way to get Monday off.

Oops! Pot Limit Day

Work was kinda cool today if you like dealing to a room filled with the Poker players that you often see on television.  My first table at the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold'em Championship included Annette Oberstadt,  Jason Mercier, Sam Stein, Josh Arieh and Beth Shak  I later dealt to Daniel Negreanu, Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Men Nguyen, James Ankenhead, John Juanda and Hoyt Corkins.  Several others like Mike Matusow, David Benjamine and Eric Lindgren were at adjacent tables.

I thought it was interesting that they played the Pot Limit version of Hold'em tighter than they played No Limit.  Of all the Poker celebs mentioned above, the actress Jennifer Tilly was doing best by end of day building up a tidy stack of chips.

After work we headed over to the Venetian and found a $1-$2 Pot Limit Omaha game to our liking.  I blew a few hands early to get down a buy-in and then almost lost all of that before things began to turn around for me.  I hit a few sets that held and Pocket Aces held up for me and after a few hours I was back to even.  Feeling pretty good about my turnaround I started playing more hands and calling more raises with weaker holdings mistakenly thinking that the cards had turned in my favor and I wanted to press the advantage.  Ha.  It took a few hours, but I wasted the entire stack chasing second place hands and calling bets on the end with hands that could only beat a bluff.  Obviously, I didn't snap off very many bluffs.  Glad I didn't bring any more of my bankroll.

I must say that Pot Limit Omaha is a lot more fun to play than Hold'em.  With four cards in hand there are just  so many more possibilities, but you have to be very sharp.  If you aren't paying attention to how each hand develops from the opening raises, you can get crushed.  Because of all the draws, hands may often be behind, but favorites to win with two cards to come.  Win a few of these coin flips and your stack can grow quickly.  Lose a few and you're headed to the ATM.

Tight - aggressive is the way to go.  Maybe even loose - aggressive before the flop but very tight after.  The objective, as with all Poker, is to win the big pots and lose small ones when the cards don't go your way...

Yes, we cook, too!

Pan Seared Country Style Pork with Asparagus and Garden Salad.  How healthy!

Starting work today

Ready to start work, finally.  I suppose it would be easy to turn these few days into a real vacation and spend a bunch of money on "entertainment" - after all I am in Vegas - but I'm really here to work, not play.  My fun has been to play some poker while waiting for work to start.  I've played in two small tournaments and several cash games at the lower levels and broken just about even so far.  Disappointing, I know.  I was hoping to win about $500 prior to yesterday and then play in the casino employees' tournament that kicks off the World Series, but I just didn't play well enough to do that.  Most of the time I spent hours struggling to grind my way back to even after blowing my initial buy-in.

I found an Apple store on line.  Actually there are several here in Las Vegas.  The email app on my iPhone had been acting up.  It wouldn't allow me to delete several "This message has no content" spam emails, so I decided I needed one of those Apple Geniuses to help.  Barry went with and used his Phone's GPS to direct us to the nearest Apple store.  It only missed by a few miles giving us directions to Fashion Mall on the strip rather than to the Town Center a mile or so away.  Fashion Mall is fun anyways.

While waiting for my Genius (there was an hour long wait) the store manager came up to say hello.  It took him about a minute to re-cycle re-start my email app and that solved the problem.  Cancel the Genius.

In the mall there was a kiosk selling iPhone screen protectors.  This is a 99 cent item they sell for 9 bucks.  Sounds like a ripoff, huh?  Not until you watch them install one.  She did such a nice job.  She cleaned the screen first and used a little tape to remove a few specks of dust then perfectly aligned the cover and made it look like it came from the factory.  Took about 10 minutes but was well worth the money for such a perfect installation.  Now I have a non-glare screen and my phone's glass is protected.  Highly recommended.

Back home to make some Country Style Pork with Asparagus and a salad.  All part of a good low carb diet.

Full from dinner we just sat around and watched movies - one pretty bad one called "The Other Guys" with a great cast (Will Farrell, Mark Wahlberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Anne Heche, Eva Mendez) but not a great script.  After that Al, Sara and I watched "The Hangover".  Now, I suppose, I need to visit the theater and see the sequel which just came out this week.  Seems they made the same movie again, but this time set it in Bangkok.  I'm betting the same jokes are funny again in a different setting.