I would like to begin this article by congratulating the Venetian poker room staff for the professional manner in which they managed the Deep Stack extravaganza.

Kathie Raymond Director of Poker Operations was given the difficult task, when she was hired two years ago, of taking charge of a new poker room. Kathy needed to find a way to make the poker room player friendly enough to compete with the other established poker rooms along the Las Vegas Strip. She has accomplished this by surrounding herself with a courteous well trained staff. The poker room itself is by far the most spacious in Las Vegas, and players can appreciate the fact that each table has been carefully placed to allow plenty of room between tables. The food service is excellent the floor supervisors are generous with their comps. and I found that overall it is the most player friendly room in Vegas. Great job Kathie Raymond!

Deep Stacks Extravaganza III

• The main event began on Sunday July 13th.
• The buy-in was $5000.00.
• 189 paid entries were given a generous starting stack of 30,000 in chips.
• The levels would be 90 minutes long.
• Blinds started at 25/50.

Day One:

My opening table was a happy mixture of tourist, internet whiz kids, a couple of older guy’s (like me) and some novice players. I pretty much was card dead for the first four hours, just managing to keep my stack at about average. At the 100/200 level I caught a break, there was not a lot of pre-flop raising taking place, the players were still opting to try to limp and see cheap flops.

I was in the big blind with a 7/9 off suit; four players had called the 200. I’m content to just get to see a free flop, so I checked and the flop was 5-6-8 rainbow. Yum yum ok how should I play this hand? My chip count was about 31K, and I decided to bet 500. The player next to act (chip count 15K) raises the pot 1500 for a total to call of 2K. The next two players fold, and the player on the button moves all-in for his remaining 9K. The action is back to me, and I’m loving it. My only thoughts were centered on whether or not I could instill a call from the player who had initially raised me, I thought for the appropriate minute, and then called the 9K. Then the 15K player pushed in, and I instant called. The hands were turned over, and as I peeked to my amazement both players had identical hands 8/7. Sometimes you got to just love the new breed of gambling players, especially when you have two all-ins drawing practically dead. I won the hand, and now had a respectable stack of 54K.

By day’s end I had lost a couple of hands, plus many blinds, and ended with a chip count of 39K. The field was down to about 68 players average was about 45K. It was a little past 2am, and I was happy to be returning for day two, at a 4pm start time.

Day Two:

I arrived only to discover that I had been relocated to a new table. The resuming blind structure was 400/800 plus 75 antie. Since I was not familiar with the players at my table, it pleased me that although on the short side of average, the 90 minute level would allow me sufficient time to learn how I must play with all my new friends. After 20 minutes of play, I knew the table line up, and found it to my liking with one exception. (There is always at least one wild man with chips.) The good news is that he was immediately to my right, and raising constantly. I find it interesting that throughout my professional career, so many times I have been able to determine which player at my table is going to either double me or end my day by eliminating me. Once again my thoughts proved to be correct. The wild player made his standard raise. I had QQ, and re-raised, his response was to push in, I called and he showed A/J the board came all rags, and my new found friend was nice enough to double me up. My chip count was now slightly above average, and the cards started to come my way. Through the next six hours of play I continued to add to my chip count, via a bit of thievery, and having my hands hold against all-in shorter stacks. We played down to 18 players, who were all happy to have made the money. At day’s end I had been fortunate enough to run my 39K up to 417K. Average, was only 220K. We all drew our new seat assignments, bagged up our chips, and went home.

Day Three:

When we resumed play at 2pm the blinds were 1500/3000K plus 500 antie. Fate plays a big part in the game of poker, and as we began play purely by the luck of the draw, our table line up had the top seven players in chip count, and only two players under average. The chip leader at the other table only had slightly above average. I knew that this would present a problem, and that we were in for a long day in our quest for the final table. To add to this dilemma the players who were to be the small and big blind, when it was my button, both doubled thru in the first few minutes, and eliminated two other big stacks. The end result being that they now held over 1M each. Wonderful. I now had to settle in, and hope for some real hands because they were both players with an aggressive style who were going to defend their blinds. Three hours later we were down to ten players, and I had not been able to play any hands, my chip count had been reduced to 250K.

Final Table:

When we re-drew for our new seats at the final table I realized that I was in 8th in chip count. With approximately 220K, but because of the slow structure of the tournament, the blinds were still only 6/12K, and no need for me to panic. I must say that I continued to remain card dead (sadly) but the less experienced players, managed to get their chips in wrong, and after one hour of play we were now at six players. Eventually your tournament life must come down to a coin flip, and so ended my day I pushed my last 140K in with 5/5 versus K/Q. Unfortunately the flop brought a king, and my day had come to a close, having to settle for 6th place, and $40,000. Whenever you’re so close, it is always disappointing that you couldn’t quite get that rush of cards that we all would like to experience. Oh well, timing is everything. When everything is done and settled, if you were satisfied with your play. Then 40K is not a bad payday for three days work.

Who is going to be our next champion? MAYBE YOU!