Cocktailed and ready

They call it The Dig and it's not a place for the claustrophobic. Or the fish-ophobic. It's an underground tunnel, through which you walk, facing everything from colorful sea fish, to mean looking eels, to glowing jellyfish. It's inspiring and spooky enough to give a tired blogger the willies.

But tonight, anyone who walked through it emerged to the sound of music and PokerStars winners' cocktail reception.

It was a fine afair, with fried pot stickers, crab cakes, jumbo shrimp, and some sort of gooey lambchop that I may never be able to fully erase from my memory. Bless the epicures of the world.

More than that though, it was a chance for the old online friends to finally see each other face to face, and for the old school pros to josh with each other before the big event starts tomorrow.

Rather than over-romanticize the event and the lamby-lamby-lambchops, I thought it might just be better to throw a few pictures up. We're just a few minutes from the beginning of the first tournament action of the week. I should probably concern myself with that and not lambchops and the prettier of the pro players.



PokerStars' Dan Goldman addresses the crowd



The crowd receives its address


Tournament director, Mike Ward, reviews the crowd



Beauty and poker



Robin Hood arrives


Pete Giordano and the Moneymaker men

***

One thing I'd like to do as much as possible this week is introduce you to the people who won their way in and are taking a shot at the big time.



This is B.J. (aka bjbad1) from Alamogordo, NM on the left. He won his entry earlier in the year and was pretty happy about that. Then, on Christmas, he won another entry and promptly transfered it over to his uncle (pictured right), the man who taught him to play poker.

That's a pretty good holiday gift. Not to mention a pretty good nephew.

The Super-Sat starts soon. No telling how many Main Entry events we'll pay out tonight, but 3am should be pretty interesting.

Bags o' fun

All day yesterday, people kept talking about The Bags. It was "bag this, bag that." I got the impression the bags were really important. I sort of figured everybody was talking abouut litle gift bags. Maybe something with a few coupons in it or something.

Okay, so I tend to underestimate things.

In the middle of the room, all by itself, sits Daniel Negreanu's bag. A few minutes ago, somebody walked by and said, "I've got Michael Jordan's bag." (Yeah, MJ is going to be around here, but that's a whole other tournament and a whole other thing).

That's two of the bags, but, to be sure, there are just a lot of bags around here. Hundreds of them.

Now, I don't want to sound like too much of a shill, but PokerStarsis really going out of its way to treat its winners well. For the past two days, PokerStars' staff has been stuffing these big red duffel bags full of stuff that, frankly, I'd like to be taking home with me. Three or four nice shirts, beach hats, beach shoes, frisbees, teddy bears, and a whole bunch of things that I can't remember at the moment.

As I speak, the valets are loading luggage carriers full of the bags with the intention of sneaking them into players' rooms during the 7:30 cocktail party.

It's the kind of perk that one just might not expect and it's pretty nice.

Not bad, really. A week in paradise, a multi-million dollar tournament, and one heckuva nice bag.

Bag this, indeed.

Pot-Limit Life

"Three-ten. Three-ten. Three-ten!"

The blonde woman was emphasizing the words by putting her hands on the felt. Firmly.

"Now, what's the pot?"

The wide-eyed people sitting around her answered like a homeroom class, "Three-ten."

It's education by inculcation. It's education under fire. See, there is a movement afoot and it's called Pot-Limit.

***

I found myself talking with Meg Patrick a little earlier in the afternoon. She's a dealing expert, the woman who staffed last year's World Series, and the owner of Poker Etc.'s "The Poker Acadmey" in Las Vegas, a hard-core dealing boot camp.

"I'm going to be teaching a pot-limit class here in a few minutes," she said. I understood why without having to ask many questions.

I'd heard the stories from a few dealers here already. Pot-limit hell.

Now, it's not as if people don't play pot-limit in America. They do. But as one dealer put it, "In Europe, that's all they play."

I was surprised to learn that a large percentage of the players here in the Bahamas have traveled here from Europe. And they want to play them some pot-limit games.

Don't misunderstand me. Meg isn't worried. "We have all A-list dealers here," she said. "I staffed only A-list dealers."

Still, dealing pot-limit is an art as much as a science. Fortunately for everybody, we have a Picasso of Pot-Limit in the house.

***

"Three-ten. Say it in your head when you burn the card. Three-ten. Say it in your head when you count out the flop."

This is the first of many examples Meg will review during the pot-limit class. She wasn't sure at first how many of the dealers would show up for the instruction. It started with enough people to fill a table. Within a few minutes, her teaching area looked like a final tournament table, with sweaters three and four deep.



Meg spoke with a reassuring voice when she told her students (they actually aren't students per se, but actually professional dealers from all over the place) about her first time. "I know as a dealer msyelf, I was terrified," she said, "but I found out that if I went in humble...the players will help you."

As poker players, we often forget how much grief dealers have to endure. They get blamed for the cards. They get blamed for other players' bad behavior. For some malcontented players, dealers are a lot like the police: The players are only nice to them when the need something from them. And while they deal, the dealers have to remember every rule in the book.

And now they have to remember the size of a pot that's been raised three times.

Give these folks a break.

Meg's advice is as solid as some of the great poker theorists. "The math will never steer you wrong," she told her dealers. "Use the math."

She laid out her pot-gauging formula for her students. While I sat back and took notes, I'm not going to pretend I couold go in and deal a round of PL O8 right now. The real dealers here would probably laugh me out of the room. Still, I feel comfortable the pot-limit players here are going to be pleased.

Finally she reminded everybody, "Remember, poker is still supposed to be fun. You are in one of the best hotels on the planet. Have a good time."

I'll try, but it's going to be hard to concentrate. Something in my head keeps whispering, "Three-ten, three-ten, three-ten."

The sound of one foot tapping

Tick.

That's eventually going to be followed by "Tock," but time seems to be moving so slowly, I think we'll wait awhile until we get there.



The room is ready, save a few lighting changes, and all that's left to do is have a couple cocktails tonight and wait for Mike and Meg to tell the dealers to put the cards in the air.

With as many celebrities as are wandering around, I'd be half-tempted to see if I could find Tom Petty and ask if he'd sing that song about the waiting. And the hardest part.

But that would be just silly.

So, with little left in the way of good color, good pictures, or good stories to tell (trust me, they are on the way), I thought we might as well get some information out on the table.

Today's schedule:

7:30-9:00pm--Winners' Cocktail Reception
10pm-3am--Main event super-satellite ($200 buy-in with $200 rebuys)
Single table Sit & Go tournaments
Single table main event satellites

The super-sats will pay out an entry to the main event for every $8000 that makes its way into the prize pool. If a player already has an entry into the main event, s/he will be paid out in cash.

Expect updates here as they are warranted. I suspect before this is all said and done, the updates will be coming faster than you can hit your refresh button.

Oh, yeah...

Tock.