I was planning to play the $2,000 No-Limit tournament tomorrow, so today I decided to play some live poker for the first time in maybe a week. As I walked down there, I really did not have much motivation for playing live, but have been thinking to myself it's silly not to be playing live when I'm staying at The Rio for the entire duration of the WSOP.
So I queued up for a single table satellite. This is pretty annoying, standing around in a line waiting for a table to become available. Then, when you finally get allocated to a table the dealer and floor staff mess around with paperwork for about ten minutes before the damn thing starts. Then we get to the actual game. Still we have dealers here who do not know what they are doing and struggle to grasp the most basic of rulings. Eg not dealing in the stack of a player who is away from the table, which wastes time and results in a misdeal.
The chips in the single table satellite area are now filthy. I would estimate at most 60% of poker players wash their hands after visiting the toilet, so you don't need to be very imaginative to work out how unhygenic playing live poker is with people constantly riffling the chips and carressing the cards, which are obviously passed around amongst all the players at the table. Pretty revolting when you think about it. The player to my left today smelt like he hadn't had a wash, let alone a shower, for about three weeks. His finger nails were black. And here I am by choice, opting to sit next to him, inhaling his poisonous odour and becoming saturated in his germs for up to three hours.
Also present at my table were two Europeans (perhaps German), who seemeed to be good friends. Some may even say partners. They avoided playing pots with each other, and were clearly discussing hands and other players at the table, in German of course, in between hands. And what was done about this? Absolutely nothing. Added to which, one of them should certainly be in some type of secure accomodation, I would not by choice spend one hour in his company if you paid me $1,000, so why I choose to sit at a poker table with characters like this is an absolute mystery.
And why do people insist on dwelling for an age, while everyone knows at the table they are sure to fold, before tossing their cards towards the muck in a manner in which it appears they are auditioning for a Hollywood movie. I don't mind when a player has a genuinely difficult decision to make, but at least half the time someone dwells it's not for this reason.
The poker tables are furnished with the cheapest, most uncomfortable chairs possible. No wonder the masseuses are doing a roaring trade. And what about the actual playing cards? Well they are rubbish. I heard one player describe them as 'bubble gum' cards, and that's being generous. They are the most flimsy playing cards I've ever seen. They are ridiculously easy to mark, and often flip up when being dealt/mucked as they are so lightweight. It was reported that at the beginning of The H.O.R.S.E Event players were complaining about marked cards, imagine that, a $50,000 buy-in Event and Harrah's provide recycled marked cards. The mind boggles.
There's always one clown at each table who, when folding his hand, tosses the cards slightly up in the air towards the muck thereby exposing at least one card to the other end of the table. There have been a few tales of decks containing, for example, two ace of spades, I'm guessing this is due to a cheat inserting an extra ace of spades into the deck rather than a manufacturing error, but whatever, this does not happen on the Internet and is another annoyance.
Finally, probably the biggest single reason why I am struggling to tolerate live poker is that I find the whole process, especially on a ten-handed table, torturously slow.
I say to myself, surely there is a better option than this. And of course, there is. It's called online poker. The reasons why include a lack of everything I've written about so far.
A few more observations about the whole WSOP circus. Firstly, the media. The main reporters of Events here appear to be CardPlayer. I think their coverage is ridiculous. They (or Harrah's) censor their own reports. For example, the well-documented Harry Demetriou incident, where he was escorted from the NLH Shootout after making a complaint, was originally reported on Cardplayer, then a while later all references to the incident were mysteriously removed. Cardplayer also have done some sort of deal with Full Tilt where players affiliated with Full Tilt appear in the chip counts in Red ('Friends of Full Tilt', and 'Team Full Tilt' players get a special red triangle). How pathetic.
Full Tilt seem to have bought as many name players as possible. This I don't mind, it's simply aggressive marketing to try and catch up with PokerStars and PartyPoker. PokerStars efforts on the other hand are a little irritating. Joe Hachem currently stars in a PokerStars advert where he basically says he improves his game by playing poker for free at PokerStars.net (they are not allowed to advertise the real money site here). Everyone knows that Hachem bought into the Main Event last year, and PokerStars only showed any interest in him after he won it. PokerStars have also recently purchased Barry Greenstein and Victor Ramdin. Not entirely sure why Greenstein would sell himself to Stars given his wealth, but apparently he has.
I think that's enough for now. The main reason I'm in a cranky mood today is The Rio telephone operator decided it would be a good idea to put a call through to our room at 6am this morning, after which it took me two hours to fall back asleep. The customer service here is pretty shambolic, and if anyone says to me "Have a great day" again when what they clearly mean is "Now give me a tip and go away", I think my head may implode.
