$15,000 BJ tourney @ BETCOM.COM (Jan 1-5,2005)

It should be most of the day

Last time the finals were much like the qualifying. The finals should run for most of the day. I assume they'll either phone or email the finalists to cover the details.

As many of you have noticed, solid information about rules and format is often non-existent in these online events. I have a story about the recent Cherry and Euro finals, but that will have to wait a while until I catch up around here.

 

Finals Details

OK, I squeaked in with $4030 on my fourth attempt. I was actually up to around $4300 and decided I had chips to spare to shoot for the leader. I blew most of my extra chips, and then went into a losing streak. I actually got down to two hands remaining and my balance was under $4K, but I luckily won the next hand.

I spoke to James the casino manager to clear up a few issues. First, on the hand counter, they're aware of the problem. It has to do with split hands not being reflected accurately on the count on the screen. If it's important to you, count the hands manually. Remember, splits count as two hands.

I also clarified two important points...

The Vegas trip goes to the highest qualifying total, currently under $11,000. This offers a nice overlay if you'd like to shoot for the trip. Qualifying ends at 7 AM EST Wednesday morning. If I were interested in the trip, I'd probably get up early to take a few shots at the leader.

The finals will be played on Thursday January 6th. You'll have one shot, to play 50 hands, anytime between 8 AM and 11:59 PM Eastern time. Last time, they did not display the scores, so you had to guess at an appropriate target. I assume that will be the case this time as well.

 

Yeah, it's been frustrating

I attempted to do my qualifying play from Vegas, but attempts to play from the Venetian's in-room Internet access, and at the airport's new free Wi-Fi access were both frustrating and useless.

Once I got back home, I had no problem. However, I wonder if there might be another reason for the very slow response over the last few days. Betcom is primarily a sportsbetting site, and it's quite possible that their servers might have been under attack during Bowl Week, by one of the online extortion rings operating on the net. Just a guess, but it would make sense I think.

Springbac, I can certainly sympathize with your point of view. They have a lot of cleaning-up to do. I hope they take these issues seriously in preparing for their next event in March.

 

Finals

The finals will be played on Thursday January 6th. You'll have one shot, to play 50 hands, anytime between 8 AM and 11:59 PM Eastern time.

 

It won't be me at the top

I won't reveal my score after 50 hands of finals play today at Betcom, but I can assure you I won't be near the top of the competition.

If you're one of the forty-some qualifiers, don't forget to play today. The finals are over at 11:59 PM Eastern tonight.

Good luck!

 

And the winners are...

The results are posted:
http://www.betcom.com/com_login_2.asp

Congrats to Melissa B, whose $6060.50 score took first place and the $5000 prize!

I'm looking forward to their March Madness tournament. Surely if I keep making the finals I'll do well eventually, right?

 

March could be huge

I spoke to someone from Betcom today, and they were pleased with the player participation in this event. They're planning to increase the prize pool for the March Madness tournament, to possibly $50K or more!

I made them aware of the rules confusion this time, so maybe they'll have all that cleaned up for the next event.

 

As far as I know, they're planning to leave the entry fee at $50, and accomplish the higher prize pool by having more participants. Since this was their second event, and they really didn't have that much time to promote it, I think their chances are good at dramatically increasing participation. We'll see.

I was not too surprised at the $6K total of the winner. Remember, less than 50 people participated in the finals, while there were probably 4 or 5 times as many participating during qualifying. Still, both the $10K and the $6K are pretty low numbers. With increased player counts, both of those will go up next time I'm sure.