World Series of Blackjack III, Week Two

1st bonehead play

Congratulations to Steve for making the first major bonehead play in episode 2. :fish: A minimum bet on the knockout hand - what was he thinking? Even Paul (you know, the no strategy guy) would not make this play.

 

Real Bonehead

I watched this taping live and was like "huh?" He gave Kami and everyone else a free play.

 

I found tonight's episode interesting for what was learned about the Power Chip --- that:

A.) You can use it to replace a card even after the hand has ended.

B.) That you can use it as a way of checking the double down card to see if it's a good card.

 

Tonights show had lots of lead changes...

Tonight's show didn't have anyone you really rooted against.

I felt sorry for Steve falling for the surrender trap Kami set, but for a second when the dealer turned up her picture card I thought Kami's trap may have back fired on her.

Knowing both Kami and R&R Darrell I was rooting for both of them to succeed tonight.

I was surprized at Darrells bet on the Knockout hand, but still he needed to get swung (or push/ lose) for him to lose (which is what ended up happening).

I understand he was trying for the lead and felt safe enough with his postion to bet higher and gamble on that hand instead of matching Anthony's and Kami's $8,000 bets. To bad it didn't workout for him.

I was surprized of the number of lead changes in the show, other than Steve I believe everybody was the table leader at one time tonight.

I did like the use of the "BK-Power chips" tonight. I thought over all the players put them to pretty good use.

Congrat's to Charlie for winning and Kami for 2nd place.

Below is a list of tonights players and where they qualified or if they were selected players.

June 12th: Anthony Lu (LV Hilton), Kami Lis, “Rock ‘n’ Roll” Daryl Arnold, Steve Bortle (Lucky Eagle), Charlie Montoya (Ute Mountain)

Here are next weeks players:
June 19th: Jeff Bernstein (LV Hilton), Mano Fuentes (Thunder Valley), Jamie Root, David Weston (Cherokee), Angie “Moneytaker” Hardy

 

I liked this week's show much better. It felt more like a normal tourney than a sideshow. Kami's trap was great, but I still feel like a good deal of the people just don't deserve to be there, qualifier or not, in place of guys like Joe Pane and Wong.

 

Darrel's play on knockout hand

Actually I liked Darrel's bet. If he SR his bet of $33,000, he beats Charlie's PUSH. And Charlie had 19 vs. dealer's 9. By hitting he gave up the push -about 36% .

Thats HUGE.

 

Agreed, I'm surprised he didn't surrender the hand to add in the possibility of a push, especially with the dealer showing a nine.

 

Class of the Table

I thought the bet left a lot to be desired he should have just matched up with the player in seat 1 who had 500 less than him and was acting before him .Charlie goes after him so the better play was to match up and have the high & low on seat 1 and still force Charlie to win his hand .He had so many more way's of avoiding the dreaded " KNOCK OUT" with making the same bet as the player in seat 1. What was his name ?

Last year I could have told you every players name now its just seat numbers.

I thought the announcers were overly kind to say that Darrell was the favorite to win the round.

Kami was the clear cut class of the table and it has been proven now 2 years in a row.

Her surrender trap showed her skill level. Poor seat # 4 he never even saw it coming.


Joep

 

Week 2

I thought the show was great with better action than 1st week. Kami and Darrell started off strong with each making good bets. What killed Darrell was a run of bad cards tilted him as Kami collected ace after ace. Kami had the hot spot as far as cards hand down. The Asian guy did OK and that poor Steve was so scared he couldnt think. I think Charlie needs credit here. He wasnt catching good cards but bet well. I dont think he counted stacks often if at all, but bet correlation and upped his bets at right times. Also, I liked the gimmicks better this week as we saw Charlie use it and use it well. The Mexican Cowboy deserves a pat on the back. Well done.

Barney

 

Agree to disagree

I understand what your saying, you would rather see players that you are familar with, but I have to disagree. I feel anyone that win a seat through a qualifying event deserves to be there.

And Joep I understand that we may not know many of the players this year, but how many knew any of us from TV prior to WSOB II?

I tip my hat to all the qualifiers and just hope next year I am good enough or lucky enough to win a seat and be back on the WSOB.

I would like to point out the players with Cowboy hats have come in 2nd on week one and 1st on week two....
Yee Haw....LOL

World Series Champions

WSOB - MIT Mike Aponte

WSOB II - Kenny Einiger

WSOB III - ?​

 

Probably a stupid question....

Why isn't the WSOBJ more closely modelled on the WSOP format? I might be wrong but it seems to me that one of the reasons why poker has been so successful recently is because of this "aspirational" event. Like all athletes want to win gold at the Olympics, all poker players (deep down) want to win the WSOP and if you've got the money, or you win a satellite anybody can play (and win)!

I have no idea how multi-table BJ tournaments are organised because I have never played in one or watched one on the TV (don't forget guys I'm UK based and only played GP S&G's) but I've got a reasonably good idea how the WSOP works because I've seen lots of them and read books. You go to Binions, pay your 10 Large, sit down and play until you're out of chips or you become WSOP champion. Why can't the WSOBJ be like that? The WSOP format seems, well, more democratic than the WSOBJ or UBT format and it would give the little guys a dream...

I've probably got a rose-tinted view of it all, so please correct me if I'm off the mark.

Cheers

Reachy

 

Remember....

The WSOP started with like 18 players decades ago. Until the WPT started and brought poker into our homes on a weekly basis the WSOP only had 800-900 players, now look at it.

The WSOB is still just a baby, only 3 years old. Even though, the WSOB has doubled it's prizes money every year.

Year one - $100,000 for 1st, year two - $250,000, and this year - $500,000. Still I agree there are things that can be approved on and GSN does try and improve each year with new changes. Hopefully next year it will increase again.

This year they offered "Open Qualifiers" to everyone. This opened the door to all players interested in trying to make the show and stopped some of the whining about the "Selected Players" who always get on TV.

 

Fair enough

Thank you for that TXTourplayer. Like I said, I only see it from afar, and the "romanticism" of the WSOP was what got me interested in poker initially (well, that and Late Night Poker on Channel 4).

Cheers

Reachy

 

Been there done that

I agree with Ken, I think Darrell just lost his concentration when he put out the wrong amount for the bet. I think we have all done that at some point, made a mistake and got so engrossed in thinking about the error we made that we zoned out and compounded the error by misplaying the hand. I'll give Darrell some slack so he can reciprocate when he sees me make my bonehead play on UBT.

 

Kami's bet

Ken,

You are right, I thought Darrell meant to bet $28,000 not $38,000, which would explain even better why he got upset when he thought he gave up the trap.

I think Kami's error was in her double if I recall. On that hand she didn't split her bankroll in half and when she pushed out her double down, it didn't come out right.

Pat