My wsope 2008....

I only played the £1500 nl event and was out ten minutes into level 2....nice! I know that purposely the lower buy in world series events are a lot faster than the more expensive ones yet I feel the structure was still awful. For several years now I have found that often in world series and other events they feel so pressured to ensure that everything stays on schedule that they rush things too much. I believe around 230 people played on day 1a with the aim of cutting it down to around 80 players before the day ended. So play starts at 1pm, half way through the day there is a ridiculous 2 hour lunch break then by midnight play stops for the day with 42 players left. Personally I think you could start play at midday, a one hour lunch break is more than enough midweek in Leicester Square, there are literally 100s of places to eat from. It is not like Las Vegas with a dozen outlets in the casino and a million fat americans in front of you ordering food as if their lives depended on it. I know the buy in is meant to reflect the amount of chips you have yet surely its time to change this instead of just ridiculously dragging days out with meaningless breaks and late starts.

We start with 6000 chips so come level 2 after one hours play I have around 6000 still which is just 60 bb at 50/100. The first hand of level 2 I have a pair of sixes and position on a raiser who makes it 300 so I call and the two blinds (aggressive donks) complete. The flop comes down 652 with two of a suit out, and its checked to initial raiser who puts in a weak 600 bet. I don't want to reraise as any flush draw with overs is likely to stick the lot it and with two cards to come have a fair chance of hitting so I flat call hoping one of the two blinds who checked see the weakness of the continuation bet and reraise letting me be the one to push all in but they both fold for the first time in their lives. The turn drops the 4 of the suit and the guy does something which makes me know instantly he has hit a flush and he bets around 1200 into the 2400 pot, the straight draw does not scare me as he isn't the kind of player who can have a 3 in his hand in this spot. Now I have to call and try and hit my full house so now the pot is 4800ish. River drops a meaningless Jack and he bets around 2200. I have lost 2400 of my 6000 stack and if I call and lose this hand its down to barely 1000 for me, I had a think for a few minutes as it was a hard fold on a 3 suit board, but then I told myself look you know he flushed on the turn and was calling hoping the board paired, it did not so give it up you know you were beat. So down to 3000 chips, a few hands later I have QQ in the bb and raise to 500 one of the limpers calls, flop comes down rag I lead out 1000 guy calls, turn blank i stick in like my last 1700 or so guy calls. He is impatient and asks what I have, I flip over my overpair QQ and he dwells for like 10 seconds before turning a 8 hi flush draw. Why ask what I have, I am hardly going to be behind to 8 hi. Anyways the river comes Ks, flush for donk goodbye for me. I say good luck to other players and leave, the guy from the hand just before said to me good fold before I did have the flush. His name is Joe, and he is something to do with badbeat and seems like a genuine enough chap. So even though I don't play much live poker this may change in the near future as I was simply noticing too many things about the other players at the table. My plan now is too try a few tournaments in Las Vegas soon and then hit a load of tournaments at world series 2009. That said I believe the tournaments at bellagio and venetian offer much more play still having big pay outs.

Well thats that, the only live tournament I played in 2008....it will be a different story in 2009.