Keep in mind, these bets were being made before the series started. When Phil offered me the chance to take any five guys, I didn’t know whether Ivey would be playing much at all. The five I chose were pretty safe picks.
A year ago, Negreanu was taking bets at 5-1, Jesus and Barry were literally multi-tabling live tournaments in their desire to get themselves the jewelry and Binger was tying a online slots real money usa record with eight cashes in one year. Thus far, only Binger has managed so much as a final table finish from this group, but with the odds where they are, I’m still happy with these bets. If any one of them wins a bracelet, I’m close to break-even for the series.
WSOP main event to have 6400 players – over
WSOP main event to have 7000 players – over
$50,000 HORSE event to have 140 players – over
I think its obvious in my writing that I’m pro world series and more or less an optimist, and I don’t like the 400 point drop the US stock market took yesterday, but I still believe in the growth of the main event. Event #2 drawing 3929 players just left me feeling like people aren’t stopping their hobbies, and with the glowing reports that the Series has gotten (Jeffrey Pollack went so far yesterday as to call this ‘the summer of love’) you have to think people will be drawn here. I admit, I set the HORSE event bar a little too high (I think 138 is about right), but I think I should do well here.
My other wagering came in the form of ESPN’s fantasy pool. Each year, Feldman gathers his writers, colleagues and a few pros to put together a fantasy draft for public consumption. This year’s roster was Andrew, Gordon, Lance Bradley, Bernie Lee, Peter Feldman, Gavin Smith, Bill Edler, Mark Seif, Daniel Negreanu, Joe Sebok and Steve “Chops” Preiss. My logic going in said non-Americans would prove valuable since this entire crew is US-based.
The problem was that from May 18-21 I was taking care of last minute travel details, May 21-25 I was in Costa Rica covering the LAPT there, May 25-28, I was recovering and writing like a madman…in other words, I didn’t do a lick of preparation. To make matters worse, I was doing the draft on my shitty cell phone while en route to pick up Bradley from the airport. Where there was construction. On my brain.
In the end, I think I drafted a very solid team, but it would obviously have been better if I’d spend 15 frikkin’ minutes actually looking at who was out there and discerning some order of value. In the end, here’s who I got:
Jesus Ferguson (too early)
Michael Binger (good value pick)
Humberto Brenes (too early…could have waited a round)
David Singer (w00t!*)
Tom Schnieder (too late. What a sick pick)
Alex Kravchenko (about right)
Minh Ly
Daniel Alaei
* I seldom use internet slang like w00t! If I do, you’re safe assuming it’s me mocking people who use internet slang like w00t!
Daniel, who missed the draft, went pseudo-ballistic when he saw the team we drafted him based mostly on the ‘Daniel always drafts Asians’ principal. I’m not going to lie, I had a lot of fun suggesting players like Mao Tse Tung and Buddha. Still, fair is fair, and we let him drop a bunch of players for undrafted free agents. When he dropped Kenny Tran, I scooped him up, replacing Minh.
It’s a solid team. Most of my guys play games other than hold’em and have past WSOP success. Still, in just about every round, there was a pick that made me think ‘shit, I should have taken him.’ That can’t be a good thing.
I just made one last wager last night, by the way. Lance bet me at even odds that john Murphy will win a bracelet by event #10 in 2011. I think he’ll be asleep when he gets blinded off.
OK, time to fess up. The start of this entry was a incomplete article I never got submitted, but it seemed like a fun topic and a shame to let good work go to waste. There you have it, My blog is a receptacle for past failures and the incompleteness of my being. Call it a collection of my flaws. At least though, when my flaws include making wagers without thinking them through, maybe you can learn a thing or two from my stupidity.
I’m skipping the links today because I need to get this up. I’ll include them in my next installment. If you really, really want to read my stuff though, go to worldseriesofpoker.com and you’ll find it. I’ll be here holding my breath.
