Desert Diamond is July 20th

Just wanted to mention. I checked their website & called yesterday. The tourney is this thursday in tucson. I notice the event calendar had the wrong day. It also looks like they have a bigger tourney in August per their website

 

Just so you know

Last month they changed their date as well.

I called ahead of time to verify, and they confirmed the date. I drove all the way there and they then told me (after waiting for 20 minutes at their 'Diamond Club' for someone to show up) that it was 2 days ago.

Not so much as an apology out of them either for their customer service providing me with bad info.

Hopefully, you've had better luck getting them to tell you the correct date.

 

wow.....I can't understand how some casinos seem to have a hard time putting together a tournament. I will have to call again today to check again......I appreciate you sharing.... I will be driving 2 hours from phoenix to play so I will be extremely upset if they provide me with the wrong info and I drive down for no reason.....

appreciate the info....

 

No problem

I'll call as well just to see if we get matching info. I'd hate for you to drive for hours in 115 degrees for nothing.

Hopefully, we'll get good info this time.

Desert Diamond isn't my favorite of the two casinos in Tucson, I prefer Casino Del Sol. A much classier place, but their tournaments never did well, so they don't have any right now...although I keep trying to talk them into it since I hate Desert 'ghetto' Diamond. :joker:

If it is Thurs, it may conflict with Global's freeroll.

 

Get use to it...lol

This has been a problem for year and at several casinos. The problem is the marketing dept. and or VIP decides to host an event and discusses it with the rest of marketing and gets the okay from management, but never takes the time to print out any format, or rules for the employees who answer the phone or even the blackjack pit where all of our calls go to.

Half the time when the players call the employees don't have a clue what we are asking about. When I call and the employees hear blackjack tournament they transfer me to the poker room about 80% of the time...LOL (it really isn't funny).

The marketing dept. and VIP need to just print something for the employees that answer the phone or at least in the blackjack pit so the proper info gets out to the players.

It really pretty simple, just a case of to many cheifs and not enough indains.

 

Same info here

I called and got the same info.

I just got done having some annoying oral surgery, but I'll probably be a trooper and try to make it out there.

I'll hopefully see anyone else of you that are going out there.

 

Devistated on final hand in semis

Semifinals, 3rd round of a 4 round tourney.

Final hand

BR1 (A) $3400 (Me)
BR1 (B) $3400 (Another player that obviously knew what he was doing)
BR3 $2875 (A completely hammered drunk grandma that probably didn't guessing from her play in the frist 20 hands)

Everyone else at the table already busted out. Top 2 advance.

Min bet $100
Max bet $1000
No Surrender

I was frist to act.

The dealer was a moron and kept giving me a hard time about changing chips. She kept saying in her angry heavy accent "This is a $100 minimum bet table, only $100 chips" I finally got the tourney director to tell her to give me my damn chips. The concept of someone betting $125 on a $100 minimum bet table was apparently way too complex for her. This backfired on me though because this apprently pissed her off enough that she went out of her way to only give me 10 seconds to make a move on the final hand. I should have asked for some $5 chips at this point, but she gave me such a hard time on $25, that I didn't bother.

I'm first to act.

I go with $475. I assume she'll go max bet. This gives me a push with her and what I assume is the low on BR1 (B) since he'll bet enough to go over me. (I wanted to go with $480 to get what I expected to be the high and the low, but again asking for $5 chips from that dealer was going to turn into an ordeal, so I didn't).

BR3 goes max $1000

BR1 (B) goes $500


Cards in order of first to act to last:

BR1 (A)) (Me) K,K
BR3 7,4
BR1 (B) K,4

Dealer showing 6

BR1 (A) (Me) Splits and gets K,8 and K,7. To me this forces BR1 (B) to double a hard 14 and is the right call.

BR3 Doubles and pulls a 5 to go on her 7,4 for 16

BR1 (B) Doubles his hard 14 and pulls a 4

Dealer busts, I lose and want to smack my head against the wall.

Anyways, looking for what people think I should have done in this situation. I feel like I made the best move that I could, especially with the dealer dropping the 10 second deal on me for the only time of the night. If I would have pushed out a max, I would have won, but that just didn't seem like a very elegant right play in my opinion.

Thoughts welcome.

I'll go smack my head on the wall now since that cost me a final table worth $8000 and check back for your guys' thoughts on this once I draw blood.

Hope you did better mrposi.

I think I'll go drop 1000mg of vicodin and numb this pain =)

 

Desert Diamond

I also played in the Desert Diamond and busted out early on all 3 buy ins. It seemed all my big bets lost. Could never get to BR2 position.

 

I made the run down to Tucson..... unfortunately no luck..... 3rd at my table.....just missed moving into the 2nd round.....oh well can't win them all... good luck to all

 

Ace I think you had the right idea with $480, but why wouldn't $500 bet work even better.

A $500 bet gives you first high or low depending on what BR1 (B) bets and a possible tie for both high and low if BR1 (B) matches your bet.

The $500 bet covers beats a $1,000 max bet by BR3 by $25 (unless she gets an extra bet out by DD or split or BJ). It still covers BR3 should you lose and they push.

As far as BR1 (B) the $500 bet forces him to decide if he wants to play for a for high/low. If he goes low you just need a win, if he goes high ($1,000 max) you can still DD or split and play for the tie and still advance with the tie.

The $475 bet limited your options because if everybody wins the best you could do is tie for BR2 and have to have a playoff. Also if BR1 (B) would have bet the $1,000 max you couldn't have matched him with a DD or your split.

Congrat's for making it so far, I know it stinks making it one short of the money, but you'll get'em next time.

 

My two penneth... for what it's worth

To me this is the trickiest aspect of tourney play - last hand, you are BR1 and first to act. There seem to be lots of betting formulas to cover it but I'm never sure which is the best one to use!!

The way I see it you are just playing against BR2 so I wouldn't worry about BR1(B). You sort of used the "bet your lead minus a chip" approach which I never feel comfortable with because of the likelyhood of a max bet DD by BR2 which you can't cover. I'm not sure what the odds are of being dealt 2 cards then having a winning DD but I'm sure I've heard 30% elsewhere. I prefer the "max bet minus 1/2 your lead" to cover a likely max bet from BR2 and a doubling of that bet with your own double/split. That gives you a bet of $740. You can surrender this to a BR2 push but if they take the low you probably won't be able to surrender into a single bet BR2 win unless they make a betting mistake. Also it doesn't cover a BJ by BR2 but seeing as how the odds are about 4% I'll take my chances and DD if I need to.

I don't see any shame in doing my own max bet at this point either. If it was a good BJ player in BR2 I probably wouldn't but a drunk granny is going to max bet whatever you do so you'll almost certainly have the 2nd low and 1st high. And you can surrender it if needs bee because you have more than a 1/2 max bet lead.

I could be talking rubbish of course and would welcome any critique of the $740 bet.

Cheers

Reachy

(Edit: Just noticed the "No Surrender" bit of your post)

 

Day after hindsight.

Thanks for the input guys.

Rick, I'm really wishing that I hadn't pissed off that dealer so I had more than 10 seconds to come up with that $480 figure. She just had it in for me after my 'absurd' request to get other chip demoninations beside $100 :joker:

And, yes, Reachy, I wished surrender was an option. It would have given me more to work with, especially in other parts of the round.

Mrposi and Bluelight...at some of those tables there was nothing you guys probably could have done. I saw guys walking away with $7000 in chips after a starting bankroll of $2000. I'm just glad that guy was at one of my tables later because his betting style caught up with him in three hands there.

 

Don't PISS off the dealers...LOL

Yea, Ace I know what you mean. I always try to get along with my dealers, but once and a while you get the "Worlds Greatest Dealer" (or so they think) that knows everything and if you correct them they get bent out of shape.

One thing I do when I advance to the next round is tip at least $5 or more depending on the event and if it is "Live" or "NCV" chips. Keeping the dealers on your side is worth it to me, plus most of them are pretty nice people anyway.