It is only by coincidence that I emailed everyone for the first time just before entering Event 52, the first day of which was yesterday and, yes, we are launching into Day 2 at 3pm today. I cannot give a play by play description of this event because it is far too fast, but I'm writing now to give a brief overview of the event and a couple interesting notes.
The event is particularly fast because it's played six-handed and every six hands the game changes, going through a cycle of the following ten games:
- Hold'em (Limit)
- No Limit Hold'em
- Omaha 8 or better (Limit)
- Pot Limit Omaha
- Seven Card Stud/ 8 or better (Limit)
- Seven Card Stud (Limit)
- Razz (Limit)
- 2-7 Triple Draw (Limit)
- 2-7 Single Draw (No Limit)
- Budagi
As a first note, you should know that in my life, prior to yesterday, I've played 2 hands of Budagi. Sensei brought it to our home game in 2004 and after 2 hands the home crew rejected the game and went back to something like deuces wild. So, to educate myself, I looked on line to see the rules of Budagi before playing. It's a very simple game in terms of the rules.
When I arrived yesterday, I found at my table one Barry Greinstein, who evidently wrote the book on Budagi. Literally, he wrote the book on it. I can fill my knowledge of Budagi in two paragraphs, also found on Wikipedia, and this guy writes essays on esoteric Budagi strategies. Sitting between us, by the way, was a kid who has already won a gold bracelet this year in No Limit Hold'em. Fortunately for us, Barry didn't have much in the way of luck yesterday and the bracelet-winner didn't know much about these games outside of Hold-em, so neither of them survived the first day.
One other person of mention was the man to my left, who two hours into the tournament told a tale of lies that was quite scary because he believed them to be true. In short, whenever he gets up a little in a tournament (lie - he was never up), people start staring at him (lie - no one was staring at him. He was so confident though that I even started to look). They're from the Reformed Church of Satan (I'm not sure if I can call this another lie or part of the previous lie). He's simply not that good looking, so they shouldn't stare (well, this was kind of true). Anyway, he didn't last though the first day either, but became the talk of the tournament when he raised in 2-7 Single Draw with a perfect hand (23457, rarely seen in Triple Draw and almost never seen in Single Draw; it's like having quads in NLH except it can never be beaten), only to be re-raised by Barry Greinstein. Two odd things here. First, crazy liar man just called. Calling with that hand is literally a penalty event. You cannot call heads up with a perfect hand. He was not given a penalty, but the herd should realize how odd the call was. Perhaps even more odd, Barry also had a perfect hand (23457)! This is like two sets of unbeatable quads! They split the pot.
Although crazy liar man didn't get a penalty, he did get one shortly after that. We were playing 2-7 Triple Draw and I felt okay about my hand (I had a 9-6, which is good but not great). Crazy man was pounding bets in and I just called until the end when I showed my 9 and he showed an 8 (as this is a low game, if his highest card is an 8, he has a better hand unless he has a straight or a flush, in which case his hand is terrible). Although this looked bad at first, he had an 87654, also known as a straight, and a much stronger poker hand than my 96542. He was, rightfully so, very angry with himself. The next hand he was dealt he mucked face up so everyone would see AAQQJ, which is a great poker hand, but a terrible 2-7 hand. The dealer told him that he shouldn't do that and he responded telling the dealer that the dealer shouldn't deal him that crap. Then he carried on that it was a free country. He became free to watch the next six hands from the other side of the rope. Crazy liar man did not last much longer.
We're headed into Day 2 in a bit. The web has us tied for 29th with Marco Traniello:
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