Browse by Tag - Pro Bounties
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Pro Bounties
November 11, 2007As I mentioned in my last post, I recently played in a couple of tournaments that had contracted a couple of professional players to play and then put a bounty on their heads.
Friday's tournament featured Chris Moneymaker. Antonio Esfandiari was suppose to play but had been delayed. Anyway, before the tournament began, it was announced that the bounty on Chris Moneymaker was a $10k trip to the Playboy Poker Camp at the Playboy Mansion. A prize that I would have sold if I had won just to avoid a divorce. My wife is supportive but not that supportive
.Moneymaker was eliminated before the 2nd break
. Apparently, any hand that Moneymaker played, at least 2 other players at the table would push all-in without even looking at their cards. I spoke to one of these players and he basically felt that risking a $340 buy in for a $10k prize that he would be glad to pay for anyway was a good risk. He and the player that eliminated Moneymaker had made a deal. If either of them won, they'd take the other since it was a trip for 2.Moneymaker had no chance. We all know that pocket aces are cracked all the time so there was no strategy that Moneymaker could employ that protected him. These were all-in preflop anytime he was in the hand.
Saturday's tournament featured Moneymaker, Esfandiari, and a Playboy Playmate. Moneymaker was eliminated during the 1st level when his pocket kings ran into pocket aces and failed to improve.
I was seated a couple of tables from the Playmate. A dealer told me that right before the tournament began, they were giving her lessons on how to play because she had never played cards before. Apparently, the lesson told her to fold EVERYTHING but the top 3 hands. With those, push all-in. She lasted to the 5th level before her pocket queens faced AK and lost the race.
Antonio fared the best. He had managed to win a couple of early challenges and was sitting on about 4x the starting chips when unfortunately, I was eliminated. At least it took quad 10's to get rid of me.
My point in this is that even though the casino contracts these professionals to play in the tournaments, they are not really able to play. As long as there are players that are gunning that hard for them, they have very slim chances of survival. Imagine if EVERY hand you played was for all of your chips. It's hard to win them all. One slip and you're done. It brought a lot of excitement to the tourneys but they had NO CHANCE.
One note....the LSU vs Auburn game was going on during Saturday's tourney. Antonio could not believe how loud and excited all of the fans got during the game. He asked if they were always like this. The reply, "Only on Saturdays"
