PPT Round 1

If you didn’t watch it yet then don’t read. Some issues:

The clock sucks and has no place in real tournament poker. These are professionals for fuck’s sake.

Hit-out Harrington – who’d a thunk it?

The commentators suck. I never thought I’d miss Vince Van Patten. I love Mark Seif in tournaments when he’s running over tables, but he was horrendous. I think they didn’t get enough tape and kept looking comments like “every professional wants to be the first to win a PPT tournament.” Really, Mark? Then why the fuck do you have a mic in your hand, genius? One hand a few weeks ago they just called comically wrong. I don’t remember the specifics but basically the underdog flopped a monster draw and they started talking about how happy the (pre-flop) favorite was with his hand. You could look at the percentages or the players’ faces and know exactly the opposite was true. Yeesh, Vince we hardly knew ye.

Two of the final three players were “famous” faces from the very first season of the WPT. They’re also people you haven’t seen much of since – I’ve thought of both of them as basically “semi-pros.” I was surprised, but overall the final table was a pretty good line-up (what a shocker given the field).

What the fuck is it with all-in fests late? I’ve seen this in the WSOP Circuits they’re running on ESPN – like Gavin Smith pushing a small pair like they’re aces (against kings no less). Why would a professional with an advantage strive so hard to get all their chips in pre-flop? Tonight (a spoiler) heads-up with blinds of 15,000/30,000 and 3,000 antes, Bigler limped in with A8o (why he didn’t raise is another question) and Juanda pushed in for almost 700,000 with a pair of 3s. Seriously? With 15 seconds left on the clock Bigler called. Juanda had just ass-hatted Bigler the hand before when Bigler didn’t follow up a turn raise with a river bet and Juanda nicked his 5s with 7s. That hand gave him a slight chip lead – around 130,000. Why push with 3s there?

Interestingly the flop came with three spades and both players had one, so Bigler went to about a 53% favorite. Luckily he didn’t hit, although Juanda would have deserved it for such a douche play.