World Poker Open at Gold Strike Numbers Up

The World Poker Open tournament series started Friday with a $340 buyin, 200k guarantee. Poker is not dead in Mississippi obviously, as the numbers for Day 1A & Day 1B were up from last year and they actually ran out of tables, dealers & room. Last year, the total entries for Event 1 was 1,105. The tournament director, Johnny Grooms, announced on 2+2 last night that 1,173 was the final count for this year's Event 1. Day 1A had 503 and day 1B brought 670. I am wondering how many entries they would've had if there had been enough tables.

I talked to several players who either unregistered or didn't register at all on Day 1B due to the large number of alternates. My friend and fellow blogger, Mojo, wrote about his experience here. The Ladies event, which I planned to play, was scheduled on Saturday at 4:00 and because of the 670 players in the noon event, there were no tables for the women. Again, they were taking alternates and I decided to skip it. I feel like we really got screwed on this. Dear, Johnny Grooms, please do not schedule the Ladies event on the same day as a big guarantee that's expecting a huge turnout! Numbers were up for that event, too, as only 49 women registered last year and there were 65 registered when I was unregistering, plus there were others waiting to register who also changed their mind because of the alternate situation. I'm interested to see what the final number was, as he didn't mention that in his 2+2 post, because hey, it's just the ladies event, right? Who cares...ugh.

So, there's that. They weren't expecting the large number of players that showed up and couldn't accommodate everyone. Disappointing to say the least.

As for me, I played day 1A of the 200k and had a decent table, but just couldn't get anywhere. I don't even have any interesting hands to discuss.

After I decided to pass on the ladies event yesterday, I joined my husband and father in law at Harrah's to play some 1/3 NL. He heard the waiting list at Horseshoe was at 157 (wowzers!). I had a good table and a good session at Harrah's and my husband finished 3rd in their nightly trny, so it was a pretty good night anyway.

I do have an interesting floor decision to discuss from my cash game that I'll write about in my next post.

I am so out of the poker blog loop, if you can recommend any good blogs to read, please let me know in the comments. I've linked a few in my sidebar, but found most of the ones I read back in the day are no longer active. Booo :(