NAPT TIME

Late last month, I played the North American Poker Tour’s main event at the Venetian. The buy-in was $5,000 and the turnout was great. Best of all, 470 of the players qualified online. That makes the field particularly soft – and makes the tournament way better for us pros. Think about it: Guys who get in by winning $35 satellites are usually not as good as professional players who pay $5,000 per seat. I cashed in 113^th place for $7,200. It was disappointing to get that far and not make a significant score, but, hey, winning some money is better than the alternative

Whatever the case, I had no time to lick my wounds. A day later, I was playing in the NAPT’s $25,000 invitational event. This tournament was a single-table shoot-out, which means that you had to win your table in order to advance; for each player your knocked out, you received a $5,000 bounty. The structure made the tournament feel like a short-handed cash game, which is what I am used to playing. So that aspect was really nice.

Then there was the toughness of the field. Remember what I said up top? About soft competitors? That was clearly not the case in this tournament. I made that point to a reporter from PokerNews.com, after I was asked to predict who would win each table.

Check out the excellent competition that I found myself up against: Sitting to my left was fellow VictoryPoker pro Lee Markholt. Next to him was John Hennigan, a top high-stakes cash specialist. To John’s left sat my old friend Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, one of the best players out there. Then there was a well-known online pro, AJKHoosier1, who’s a member of the Brunson 10. Brett Richey, yet another solid player, one with whom I got into a dumb, drunk fight a year ago (we made amends the day before the tournament), came next. And rounding things out was Daniel Negreanu. This was not an easy table. But there were seven VictoryPoker pros in the tournament, and I figured that at least one of us would advance.

Before the first card was even dealt, Phil Galfond got a bit of a bad beat. He was told that he couldn’t wear his logo for BluefirePoker.com – an excellent strategy site that Phil has an interest in. That was a bummer, but the rest of us tried to compensate by making sure to mention BluefirePoker whenever we were sure to get some camera time. Phil got such a big kick out it that he gave us all free memberships to the site.

We started the day at the feature table, which meant that we played with hole-card cams and were miked, which was really cool. I got into an interesting hand with Phil, which I’ll be writing about for coinflip, which I am going to start being a featured blogger for along with Lars/Ziggmund — so no tipping it here. Less interesting was when I called Bretty Richey’s all-in with pocket Queens and he flipped us fives. He hit a third 5, depriving me of a $5,000 bounty and his stack. The fact that we had been mortal enemies a week ago, well, that made his hitting a two-outer all the more dispiriting.

Daniel busted out right before the second break, and when we came back, all of a sudden, we were no longer the feature  (TV) table. The remaining players found that to be pretty humorous. By the time I went broke, in fourth place, I was no longer laughing. I was looking back at a fairly expensive little adventure. I made no bounties, I was wrong about all of my table-winner picks, and none of my VictoryPoker brothers came close to the money. On the upside the invitational was fun, the structure was excellent, I’m freerolling on BluefirePoker, and ESPN is airing the tournament.

See you on the flat-screen!