I phone the poker room to get on the list. Twenty seconds later I hit F5 and giggle. The interest list now shows six. Wonder briefly why I find this modern marvel humorous, then shatter national stereotypes by shaving and showering. Put on my uniform of silver rings, cat collar bracelets, and one of my signature cat’s eyes T-shirts, yellow-green on black, gimlet glare. Cuban heels complete the ensemble and I’m on my way.

There’s a light wind out of the North and the Southwest Airlines 737s are climbing over Paradise, most banking left above the Wynn and heading West over the mountains towards the coast. I duck into Walgreens for a power bar and banana.

Arrive at the Venetian just as the game is being called, lock up the ten-seat and get two racks of lime green two-dollar chips. Only the gentleman in the three-seat has an oxygen tank and it is a small, hand-held model rather than the more common monsters on wheels favored by stud players at The Mirage a few years ago. As the cards get in the air I ponder the possibility that The Mirage stud game died because…well…it literally died.

Something I didn’t anticipate when I returned to live play is my tendency to get “drifty.” It’s not something that used to happen when I was playing online, probably because there’s simply no time, but live I keep finding my mind wandering all over the place. The game must have been going bad because I’d open-raised from cut-off and it had folded to an Asian gentleman in the big blind who was taking forever to make his decision.

My meandering thoughts are somewhere between Jay Leno not being funny and the London Zoo marmosets when I see four chips being tossed into the pot.

As the dealer taps the table my opponent looks straight at me and barks “Chicken or duck?”

I blink twice. The flop comes off and I scan it, puzzled, then look at my adversary. He is still staring at me and seems irritated.

“Chicken or duck!?” he shouts.

Completely at a loss, I am about to mention that this is an odd choice since both offerings are poultry, then realize I am not sure that duck counts as poultry, and am in danger of getting into one of my anxiety paralysis loops when I notice the dealer’s upturned hand indicating it is my action.

“Check!” I say, not because it is the best play, but because it seems like a promising route out of the impasse.

Almost immediately my opponent shoots back: “Chicken or duck?”

My skin starts prickling the way it does before I start sweating profusely, then I finally realize the gentleman is saying “check in the dark.” I have completely forgotten my hole cards at this point, but having been offered chicken or duck twice, my only sensible plan of action is to fire out a bet. My opponent folds, I take the small pot, and decide this is my last orbit.

Then Mr. Interesting intervenes.

Mr. Interesting is in the five-seat; a position which allows him to get the attention of the entire table with his loud, Texas drawl. I won’t repeat in detail the fascinating story he told, largely because, unlike Mr. Interesting, I recognize that those I address have things to do and places to be. Suffice it to say that Mr. Interesting recounted a long tale about a gentleman he knows who, nearly every day, goes on a walk through many of the casinos on The Strip, starting typically around the MGM and heading via the Bellagio and Caesars Palace to the Mirage and the Venetian. During this walk, our hero keeps a close eye for dropped, discarded, and otherwise available loose change around the slot machines. Which he pockets.

“And almost every… single… day…” drawls Mr. Interesting, “my buddy collects enough change for a cup of coffee.”

The only person at the table younger than me—a guy in his twenties with big, red, noise-canceling headphones that are currently around his neck so he can enjoy all the story—looks like he is contemplating calling the floor to have Mr. Interesting thrown out, but can’t think of a legitimate infraction beyond “took sixteen minutes of my life I’ll never get back.” The gentleman in the three-seat is stabbing at the nozzle of his oxygen tank with his car keys and it is not clear whether he is attempting to cease the flow altogether in a desperate attempt at final escape or to accelerate it to restart his heart. Meanwhile I have my own problems and realize with horror that I am on the button again and have seven hands to play before I can leave. I decide to use the time as best I can.

“This may interest you, sir,” I say to Mr. Interesting. “At five o’clock today, Allen Kessler is giving a seminar at the Orleans. Apparently he has figured out a method whereby if five associates pool their second-tier Harrah’s points, play at least ten hands of video poker each, and buy a bun at “Nosh,” they are eligible for a free banana. Not each, obviously. One between the five of them.”

I underline my point by whipping out the banana I purchased earlier, notice uneasily I am pointing it at him like a gun, and re-holster it in my jacket.

I rack up my chips, head to the cage, then walk out of the Venetian onto one of my favorite Vegas views: the big hump-back pedestrian bridge over the “canal,” the Venetian campanile, and the entrance to the Mirage lined with palm trees. I grab my banana firmly in my right hand and head south.

The banana comes into play almost immediately. The “Girls Direct” snappers are completely thwarted by it. As I walk past them they start to offer me cards with naked women on them, then realize I am in no position to take a card due to my firm grip on the banana.

“Alice! Alice Cooper!” It is now two in the afternoon and consequently a third of the people on the Strip are hammered. The one mistaking me for Alice Cooper lurches towards me. The vain Kat wants to tell this asshole Alice Cooper is fifteen years older than I am; the sane Kat holds his banana to his ear and starts pretending he is talking on the telephone. Suspecting that I am nuts and possibly dangerous, the inebriated Alice fan backs off.

The density of pedestrian traffic increases, so I implement evasive maneuver Kat-Delta-Three and start weaving into casinos to get off the sidewalk. At Harrah’s shouts of “C’mon Roller!” mingle with “Ozzie!” and “No, it’s Alice!” as I cut past the craps and blackjack tables. My mind wanders again to the brave mariners who sought the Northwest passage as I try to shave another few meters off my walk to Bally’s.

Breeze into the Flamingo and the sickly scent of vanilla-coconut-showgirl-sweat-despair. The table games are busy and the walkways are nearly as crowded as The Strip outside. I decide to try the path less traveled and in the middle of a maze of slots I T-bone a tiny Asian woman.

She bounces off a Tora! Tora! Tora! slot machine and lands on the floor.

“Oh shit! I mean, are you alright?”

I help her off the floor. She seems a little dazed but uninjured.

“You slow down!” she says. Then glaring at my T-shirt continues: “Black cat unlucky!”

“I’m really sorry ma’am. Miss. Ma’am.”

“You be more careful, Mr. black cat, you hurt someone!”

I walk at a reduced pace through the remainder of the Flamingo, then cut the corner of Flamingo Road via Bill’s, emerge briefly into daylight, and thence into the familiar hubbub of Bally’s.

There is an open seat at table 2. Jesse brings me three stacks of red chips and I slip into the rhythm of badly-played 1/2 No-Limit Holdem.

It’s a loose, good game. Just sit back, make hands, and bet them. Combine getting a read on players with looking for characters I can use in poker articles.

There seem to be a couple of good candidates. A gravel-voiced Alaskan woman in her sixties wearing a flannel shirt is making sardonic comments after most of the hands. A gentleman with platinum-blond hair, spiked with gel, and wearing a black visor is verbally sparring with her. I simultaneously profile him and his game. Chatty, relatively aggressive, possibly competent, but splashing about. Probably in from SoCal with that hair.

He drags a big pot, and by way of a celebratory flourish removes his visor. His platinum-blond hair comes off with it revealing a shining shaved head.

This is well appreciated by the laughing table, particularly by me since laughter equates to profit. I try to extend the mirth by explaining that my own mass of black hair is, in case anyone was wondering, very much real.

“Yeah, but it’s dyed,” growls the Alaskan.

Yes it is. And everyone laughs. I’m fine with that.

After five hours I’ve doubled my red stacks from three to six and decide I’ve worked enough for one day. I cash out and leave Bally’s out the side door, retracing my steps through Bill’s and into the Flamingo. The February evening has become unseasonably cool and windy and I pick up the pace.

In the middle of a maze of slots I T-bone a tiny Asian woman. She bounces off a Tora! Tora! Tora! slot machine and lands on the floor. My banana has been thrown from my jacket and has landed on her face. She looks up at me from just above the banana and her eyes turn crimson.

“You again! You stupid cat! I facking keeeeel you!!!”

Casinos are staffed with people well-trained in dealing with customers in distress. They can get this.

I slip into the night.

And so to bed.

Kat Martin is a poker player, writer and coach from London, U.K. who accidentally spent the last eighteen years living in Kansas. The death of online poker in the U.S. compelled him to relocate to Las Vegas – one of the few cities on Earth where he blends.

I think of myself as having a conservative style of play. The truth is, I have been consistently playing too tightly. The other day I was playing $2-$60 spread-limit Hold’em on a table that I considered to be moderately loose. With 9 people seated there were regularly 3-4 in post flop play. They were people whom I recognized as being regulars at the card room and they also recognized me.

I spent entire orbits watching the play as I mucked rag hand after rag hand. When, all of a sudden, I find myself in late position with a pair of kings with 3 players to my right as limpers! Up until then I would have been happy seeing any kind of paint; the pair of kings was like manna from the gods.

I knew that my reputation at the table was as a tight player. With this in mind I had to find a bet that would keep somebody playing with me, but preferably not all 3. I guarantee, the way my luck has been running, if all three were still playing, one of the 3 would hit a backdoor flush and I would have been left broke because the flop would have given me a set.

The way I saw it, I had 3 choices; 1) Limp 2) Over Bet 3) Value Bet

If I limped it would have obviously kept everyone in, PLUS the button to the left of me. This is NOT what I wanted to happen. (See above paragraph)

If I over bet, I knew that everyone would drop out because I had been playing so tightly. You might think that this would have been seen as a bluff attempt, but with my table rep and these particular players, they would have known immediately that I had a monster. They had actually been joking about getting out when the tightest player on the table bets. In the end, this might have been a solid choice because I would at least take a handful of blinds.

I chose to make a bet of 4xBB instead. (about ¾ of the pot when you count the blinds that hadn’t acted yet) This seemed like a fair value bet to me. I knew I had the best hand at the table. I also knew the way the table had been running, it was a bet that should cause the player in the BB to fold and take out at least one or two of the limpers.

What it actually did was cause everyone to fold! As I shook my head in disgust, one of the players said to me, “You’ve got to give action to get action.” Thanks for the advice Lao Tzu.

I knew that my tight play would have that effect on people, but I also know that it’s not profitable to play the hands that I had been dealt to that point. In NO mathematical paradigm that I can find is it good to play a J8 off suit from early position—which was one of my best hands until I got the KK.

The problem is, I have been taking (too literally) the advice of the experts and not using enough imagination. If you play strictly by the chart of starting hands that David Sklansky published, or the “Starting Hands Chart” that is in “No Limits” by Wallace and Stemple, you will find that you are playing too tightly.

Neither one of those will have you playing 78 suited in middle position. Yet I’ve seen suited connectors win big pots time after time. The reason is, when you loosen up, people are more willing to pay you off when you do bet.

So, what I have learned this month is to pick spots to loosen up. If they’re still afraid of how tight I am, I’ll just take their blinds for a while. Eventually, they will loosen up around me and let me play in their game. I do know one thing though, if I’m ever in a spot where I’m playing off-suit one-gappers like 68 in middle position, you’ll know by looking at my forehead. I’m pretty sure you will see a vein about to pop.

Dave Nourse is a former Marine with an M.I.S degree who describes himself as both “very good looking” and an “uber-liberal socialist scum.” We’ve seen his picture, so we know at least one of those statements is a bald-faced lie

This is human nature. It’s also why coaches can be so important to the success of sports teams. A coach not only diagrams plays and strategy, but needs to be tuned-in to his players to make sure they’re motivated and focused. An unhappy bunch of players can fail to give 100%, even if the stats suggest they are the better team.

There are countless examples of this. In 1983, the Celtics had the home court edge in the playoffs against Milwaukee and were favored to win the series. But the Bucks swept the Celtics in four straight, going 4-0 SU/ATS in the games. Boston coach, Bill Fitch, resigned right after the sweep, and it was discovered that the Boston clubhouse was unharmonious—several players had tuned out the coach and were unhappy.

That appeared to be the case in the 2004 NBA Finals when the Lakers (a 1 to 8 favorite) got steamrolled by the upstart Detroit Pistons, four games to one. Later Coach Phil Jackson admitted he tried everything to get Kobe Bryant and Shaq on the same page but couldn’t, the first sign of the rift between the two stars.

It’s even more common near the end of the regular season. Some college basketball teams may sneak into tourney play, but they have had such bad seasons that even they know they have little chance of winning a conference title. And teams that miss out on getting invited to the Big Dance many times can be supremely disappointed at invites to smaller tournaments like the NIT and CIT. One has to watch those teams carefully to see if they really want to be there—or look to wager against them!

In the NBA, it often shows up with some teams having train wreck seasons and essentially packing it in down the stretch. For instance, a year ago the Sacramento Kings finished the season on a 1-4 straight up, 2-3 spread run, winding up a lost season. This season the team made a coaching change and last month reached an agreement on their facility which means they are unlikely to relocate, which was rumored. It will be interesting to watch the Kings closely down the stretch, as they won’t make the playoffs but could be more fired up than usual to play hard at home to cultivate the fan base knowing that it’s been a significant season for the franchise in Sacramento.

As basketball season winds down, be on the lookout for teams that might begin to pack it in. A few years ago the Washington Wizards made a frantic run to make the playoffs, but after Michael Jordan was lost with an injury, the young Wizards lacked leadership and went 5-9 ATS to end the season. A similar occurrence happened to the LA Clippers, who missed the playoffs during a 4-9 ATS season-ending run.

That same season the Atlanta Hawks had a remarkable late meltdown. The players were unhappy and complaining, while tuning out Coach Lenny Wilkens. It was a bad situation for the players, coaches and fans and the Hawks completely packed it in, going 6-24 SU/ATS to end the year! Last season the Minnesota Timberwolves appeared to give up, losing their final 15 games, including a 2-6 spread run in their final eight games.

It can work the other way, as well. Many pro and college hoop teams will be in the process of clinching a playoff spot or a conference championship. There can be spots where players are sky-high, especially in front of the home fans. The best situation, of course, is a road team that appears to have packed it in taking on a winning team that can clinch a conference title. So keep your eyes open for spots to cash in, betting against unmotivated teams or on teams that are hungry for a ‘W’.

1. Sports bettors are mostly idiots, especially dumbasses who are relying on a six-team parlay to make their trip a success. Anyone who takes a six-team parlay has no mathematical aptitude and can’t possibly calculate simple things like pot odds or their odds of hitting a draw. These are very good people to play poker with.
2. Most folks who are in town for March Madness are there to gamble it up. Even good players come to Vegas during the tournament to gamble it up and they don’t play very well.
3. The environment is infectious. A couple guys ordering drinks and making stupid side bets can get the whole table to go nuts and pay for old Karl’s new orthotics.
4. Many of these fools have never played in a casino before. Tourists who don’t understand how blinds work are about as easy as it gets. The old “It’s your turn, put $10 in the pot” works on beginners every time. Then four guys call their accidental raise and I get to back raise with nothing and chase them all away.

I also got the chance to show two bluffs in one hand. That kind of opportunity doesn’t come along very often, so Karl is gonna tell you all about it.

I was playing at Planet Hollywood about three in the afternoon on Saturday, and everybody at my table was watching the ball games more than the poker games. We were playing $1-3 no-limit and one idiot had run his stack up to about $2,300, which was about $2,300 more than he should have had with the way he was playing. He was also knocking back tequila shots and Coronas just as fast as they could bring them to him.

He was betting on every game, but we could only see two games on the TV, so I was giving him occasional updates from my phone. I knew an opportunity would come up where I could use the fact that he was looking to me for sports scores, so I kept it up. About an hour into the session he was sweating a game pretty hard on some stupid parlay he thought was going to make him rich.

He raised it up from one off the gun, typical since he was raising almost every hand. I looked down at a pair of fives in middle position. He had raised it up to $25, which might be a little too big to call usually, but dummy was trying to give his chips away and I had about a thousand in front of me that was going to turn into two thousand if I flopped a set, so I figured it was worth it.

A couple other mental midgets behind me called, probably with junk aces and queen-ten type hands. These guys were all completely lost, the game was unbelievable.

The flop came 3-4-6 rainbow. Not exactly the flop I was looking for, but a straight draw and a pair ain’t so bad. Dummy bet out $50, which meant I could narrow his range down to any two cards and possibly only one card. If this guy looked down at his hand and saw a business card from a timeshare salesman and the old maid he would raise it up and bet the flop. I raised it to $120 to get the riff raff out of there and the other dummies folded.

He called, which narrowed down his range to at least one card above a jack or a flopped pair. With an over pair or better, he would have shoved all-in for $2,000. The turn was an ace, he checked and I bet $150. I normally don’t bluff the calling station, but I had a plan here.

As he was thinking about making the call, I checked the game on my phone. Xavier was losing, which was bad for him. It would ruin a six team parlay for him and the game was almost over. We were buddies since I was giving him sports scores, so we had a little conversation.

“Good news/bad news, buddy” I said “I have a set, so you aren’t winning this hand, but Xavier is up seven with less than a minute left so your parlay is good.”

“Really?” he said “Awesome. You can have the pot bud, that parlay is gonna pay for my trip and then some!” and he tossed his hand on the table face up, the three and four of clubs.

After the dealer mucked his hand I tossed my hand face up on the table as well.

“Only bad news now, buddy,” I said “I was bluffin’ ya and that Xavier game?”

“Huh?”

I looked back down at my phone and gave him the news.

“Xavier just lost.” I said “You’re screwed.”

“What the hell?” he said, like his best friend in the world had just kicked his dog.

“Yeah, sorry about that, I wanted a few extra bucks to bet on some games myself so I needed a fold there,” I said. “Who do you like in the Baylor game tonight?”

Enjoy the issue and may February bring lots of love…and chips!

—hatfield

In the past, touring tournament pros and amateurs looking to find a series to play had to check CardPlayer’s tournament list, Bluff Magazine’s list, the sites of casinos in California and Nevada, and leaf through a few print magazines in hopes of finding the right tournament series. Tourney Tracks fixes that problem and has already saved me some time. The list includes a number of tournaments I would never have known about, and will certainly grow as poker rooms realize that being on the site can help them get players to their tournaments.

With the launch of TourneyTracks.com, being a tournament poker player just got easier. The front page tournament listings start with the tournaments that are happening right now and scrolling through the list allows the reader to see future tournaments and plan trips well ahead of time.

The appearance of the site on a mobile device is particularly impressive. On both iPhone and Android, the mobile version very easy to use. Many sites have mobile versions, but suffer from an overly complicated mobile design that is tough to read quickly on a small screen. Tourney Tracks appears as a simple linear scroll with bold lettering giving the location, date and name of each tournament series starting with the soonest.

Tours like the Heartland Poker Tour and Canadian Poker Tour that are overlooked on other lists are represented on Tourney Tracks, as well as single tournaments that might be missed on the magazine sites. I talked to the founders of the site and found out about plans for future expansion as well.

BLIND STRADDLE: The site looks great as it is, simple and easy to use. Are there plans to add more features and grow or is this it?

TOURNEY TRACKS: We have lots of plans, maybe more ambition than we have time for. We’d like to expand to cover tournaments across the globe, add travel information from a major travel site, deals from hotels and airlines, ride and hotel share information, entertainment in the area around each tournament, and forums for players to find backing and sell shares of themselves. Eventually we may move into listing all of the regular tournaments at major card rooms, but that will be a big job. For now we’re very happy with the functionality of the site and we don’t want to compromise that by adding more information than we can organize with the current format.

BS: I love the Google map features you’ve integrated into the site. Are you doing more with that?

TT: We’re continually looking into how we can leverage current technologies into making tournament players lives easier. The Google stuff was very easy to integrate, and I think we’ve just scratched the surface of what we can do with it. Helps that it’s free, too.

BS: What prompted you to create the site?

TT: We were online poker players and since Black Friday we’ve been traveling a lot more to play. It sucks to go somewhere and hear about a tournament happening a few hundred miles away that you’d rather be playing, so we essentially created the site for ourselves and people like us. If we have a problem finding all the tournaments we want to play, then other people must be having the same problem and there might be a real market there.

BS: How is traffic so far?

TT: It’s very early, but the response has been much better than we expected. Traffic is increasing very quickly and word is spreading. With each new series more and more players seem to be telling each other about the site and people are talking about it on forums as well. We even did an interview for a print magazine last week that will be out in a month or two. Overall it’s going great.

BS: Is this a labor of love or do you hope to make a living from the site some day?

TT: A little of both. We do love tournament poker—we’re our own target market! So having the site up just for ourselves and our friends is nice, but we’d also like to make some money from it considering how much work we’ve put into it. We’re not sure where the income would come from, but the way the site is growing in terms of traffic there will probably be some income from it. We’ve been contacted by a few card rooms who want to promote their tournaments on the site, so we may make a few dollars next month, but we aren’t going to get rich from it right away and that’s fine with us.

BS: Well, good luck. I’m going to Tourney Tracks and go plan a trip right now.

Many authors have played with the idea of poker as a metaphor for life. When the game is also your job, the metaphorical content gets interwoven into your worldview in ways that are impossible for many other professions. In my previous career as an astrophysicist, for example, much of my work involved studying what happens to galaxies when they collide with one another. While one might argue that the ensuing fireworks of compressed gas clouds producing bursts of star formation and subsequent stellar explosions had something in common with my two marriages, for the most part the connections are tenuous.

Perhaps the clearest connection is that we invariably view poker games and our lives in terms of a narrative. What is less well appreciated in both cases is that the nature of that narrative is malleable. If one gets all-in pre-flop with AK against an opponent’s JJ and the board runs K23/7/J, there are those who will wail and moan about getting two-outed. Remind them that they got the money in as an underdog and they will inform you irritably that “that’s not the point!” And indeed they are, in a sense, correct. Because the point is that there are those who, for deep psychological reasons, prefer to write their poker and life narratives in such a way that they are cast in the role of permanent victim.

A few years ago I was contemplating where I would live if I had the choice. I suppose I was thinking about where I would retire to once work no longer kept me in Kansas. Returning to London seemed difficult for financial reasons, cities that I like such as Chicago and Boston have winters that I loathe, and Southern California also seemed out of reach given the property prices.

Then PokerRoom.com decided the $65k I had paid them in rake the previous year should be rewarded with an all-expenses paid trip to Las Vegas during the WSOP. By the time my first Vegas vacation was over, I knew where I wanted to move and had also determined that there was no reason to wait until typical retirement age.

The narrative that takes me from then to now can be cast in different tones. The end of it, in particular, could easily be written as tragedy rather than comedy. Due to Black Friday I was forced to move sooner rather than later. This means my house, which is still not sold, is going to generate far less money than I previously anticipated. I am nearing fifty and sleeping on the floor of an apartment with an eye-gouging Pepto-pink bathroom. Emotionally, the biggest blow has been leaving behind my ancient Maine Coon cat, Zoot. He is still healthy, but too old to make the move. I had always planned on being with him when he died.

If I tried, I could embellish the above with additional hardships, but why would I want to do that? You don’t want to hear a bad beat story and, far more importantly, I don’t tell them. Not about poker; not about life.

Here is the reality: I now live in an apartment fifteen minutes away from the Venetian. When my house sells I’ll furnish the apartment, but right now sleeping on the floor is funny. In fact, I’m finding a lot of things funny; whenever I pass a mirror I seem to have a smile on my face. The amazing pink bathroom makes me cackle. If there is any possibility of rain in the forecast I stay home. My dear old cat Zoot is living out his last few months in a loving home.

Most importantly, I did everything I could to achieve my long-term goals. I got the money in good with the cards I was dealt. With Black Friday and Zoot living longer than expected, I guess you could say the board ran out kind of funny, but I can’t control the deck. I don’t need to. If I make the right decisions and make the choice to write my personal narrative in a positive way, life will be just fine.

Kat Martin is a poker player, writer and coach from London, U.K. who accidentally spent the last eighteen years living in Kansas. The death of online poker in the U.S. compelled him to relocate to Las Vegas – one of the few cities on Earth where he blends.

The series kicks off every year with the casino employees event, which basically announces to the world that casino employees suck at poker and can’t even hang with the flocks of tourists and first timers that come in for the $1k events. I can’t say I’m sad that I can’t play poker all day with a bunch of dealers and floor guys. I’d skip it even if they paid me to play.

About a third of the events are your standard $1,500 no-limit holdem crap shoot with thousands of players, a completely junk structure that starts with 4,500 chips, and two days of work just to min cash for $2,500. I’ll skip reviewing each of those and save us both some time.

Hmmm. I see a pot-limit holdem event again this year. It’s like no-limit holdem, except a tiny bit different. Honestly, when was the last time you wanted to bet more than the pot and it would have been a real problem if you couldn’t? Pot-limit holdem is stupid. Whoever scheduled this event is stupid. You’re probably stupid too.

The Mixed Max event has a moronic name, but it looks interesting. Less players per table as the event goes on, with heads up play on day three. I might play that one if I had $5k to blow. I don’t.

I see they continue to schedule your standard $1,500 Stud and Omaha events, for people who really enjoy playing those games in their home game and think they are good at them. Then they come to Vegas, play with pros who’ve been playing them for 20 years, and donate $1,500 thinking they have a shot. They don’t. Fools.

Four handed no-limit holdem? Really? Let’s take the most annoying part of the tournament, four handed play, and do it all the time! Can we also only play really tired like the end of a tournament? How about getting less comfortable chairs and worse food, too? This event sucks.

Ah, the $1,000 seniors event. Where 4,000 old folks show up and tell jokes and old war stories and make friends and clog up the hallways and the toilets. They really need to make this event happen before or after the series is over so the old timers have enough time to get where they need to go without getting in everybody else’s way. Last year there was a four hour wait to register for an event at four in the afternoon because the geezers event was the next day and they were all standing in line trying to figure out how to use their phones to text their grandkids. Enjoy your 3,000 chips old timers, that $1k will ensure a solid hour of entertainment if you play tight (which we know you do).

Did I mention that there will be a limit holdem shootout? Who the hell wants to play that? A shoot out with fixed limit betting is like watching a turtle race. Seriously, playing in this event should be punishment for the guys from Full Tilt.

“New Event – Ultra Deep stack limit holdem shootout. This event will be attended by Howard Lederer, Jesus Ferguson, Rich Bitar, Rafe Furst and any pro who still owes money to Full Tilt and refuses to pay. Blind will start at 25/50, increasing every seven hours and players will start with 50,000 starting chips. A three-bet maximum per betting round will be strictly enforced. There will be no breaks in this event. All proceeds will be seized by the department of justice and held until the players give up on ever getting it back and then distributed to local governments to enforce anti-gambling laws.”

Now that would be a great event!

The $50,000 Poker Players Who Are Sponsored or Independently Wealthy Championship is back this year. Find out who is the best player with $50,000 to spend on a single tournament buy-in! Exciting.

The $1,000 Ladies Championship will also be happening again this year. This event, which takes all the female players from the seniors event, adds two women who are under 50, and will probably also be played by three or four idiot men who like to wear panties in secret, should be a blast. Not.

There’s something on the schedule called “Doubles No-Limit Holdem” with no explanation from the WSoP. This may be a tournament where teams of two play in the event and share their winnings based on finish position. This is a significant change from standard events where teams are usually of at least ten players with pieces of each other who are playing for the same backing company.

There is also a million dollar buy-in event which is for an excellent charity. Nothing to see here, move along.

I want to know who the hell decided to put a $10,000 2-7 no-limit single draw event on the schedule. I really do. The seven players who know how to play 2-7 single draw, or Poker Your Grandpa Thought Was Lame in 1942 as we like to call it, should really enjoy this event, though only two of them can afford to buy-in. This will be a tough bracelet to get in a two man field.

The most wonderful irony and most obvious example of incompetence is actually in the same tournament. The Bracelet Bounty event awards… Wait for it…. No bracelet! Why the hell would you name it the Bracelet Bounty event if it awards no bracelet? Possibly because you had suffered a crippling head injury or just didn’t apply yourself in school and were never very sharp to begin with.

But you would think that there would be some explanation of what a Bracelet Bounty tournament is and why it wouldn’t award a bracelet. The irony of the name certainly caught my attention and I wanted to learn more. But the WSoP didn’t see fit to offer any explanation about what this tournament might be. There is nothing but a structure sheet. No explanation at all. Thanks guys, I’ll definitely register for this event knowing I can’t win a bracelet, but having no other details at all. Maybe the 2-7 guys will still be playing their heads up battle and I can watch that instead.

The $10,000 main event starts on the 7th of July, it will be the same crap shoot it always is, and nine fools will run good enough to be famous for a minute and win enough money to play the big game for a few months until they’re broke and Barry Greenstein has all their money. Then he will use their cash to buy another ridiculous car. He’ll probably also continue to tell Full Tilt that he isn’t giving their money back. And he’ll still be short. And bald.

That’s Karls Tournament Round Up, sponsored by TourneyTracks.com, the official site of giving Karl Tepley $100 to write an article every month. Look for my Tournament Round Up in future issues as long I get my money.