BIKE OKTOBER SATELLITE

It was a dark and stormy night.  Well, maybe not stormy, but it was dark... well maybe not dark at 7pm, but eventually it did get dark and 10 wannabe poker geniuses gathered round to play a winner take all satellite for a seat in the Bicycle Casino's Big Poker Oktober Main Event, which is happening this weekend.

Each of us put up only $60 and we played for a $550 seat, with a 60/40 split for the winner if he/she cashes at the Bike.

The main reason I was looking forward to the tournament was so that I could put my long ago purchased Sit-N-Go set of chips into action.  They are three racks exactly and perfectly match out to give ten players 20K chips each, with a 20 stack of 5K chips left over.  They also happen to look exactly like the Rio DDS chips that are used in the WSOP.  (Google it!)

Why hello my beauties.

My Card Protector - made before the internet.  Also made before the airplane.

Before the game my kid reads from the Cleary classic "Henry Huggins".

Allen R. busted before I had a chance to take any pics.  Also, unfortunately the video crapped out and didn't record, so you'll have take my word for it that it was a cray cray night of teh pokerz.  In a way I'm kind of glad the video recording didn't work, for some reason we didn't play any music; which meant that every profanity laden comment and every obscene observation likely came through way louder and clearer than usual.

Nick does his best Teddy KGB impersonation.

Mike P. left and eventual winner Tony G. right.

Are you guys through dicking around so I can deal the river?

My stack before I gave it to the chip leader.

I played well until I didn't.  In the end it was Tony G. who won the seat - with Dan G. finishing second, taking his spot as the alternate if Tony can't make it as well as $50 to almost recoup his buy-in back.

Good job Tony!  Sorry I was too sleepy to remember to take your picture.  This is actually the second satellite Tony has taken down at Pepper Street, he won a WSOP seat a few years back.  Run good my man!

UPDATE: 10/14/13 - Alas, Tony did not make day two or the monies for that matter; he busted out late Sunday afternoon after a valiant fight that saw him pretty much card and flop dead for his entire tenure at the table.  Better luck next time Tony!

The good news is that we will for sure have another Satellite for a local big tournament;

The next one coming up is for the Main Event of the L.A. Poker Open, a WPT regional event at Commerce - which has a $1650 buy in, but I don't think I'm going to do a satellite for that one - as it takes place the weekend before Thanksgiving and goes for three days, starting at 2pm on Monday for day 2 and 2pm Tuesday for the final table.

What I would rather do for that event is play in one of the smaller two day events for $150 and maybe send out an evite to you all so you could join me.  The one I'm looking at playing takes place on the weekend of Nov. 15/16, click here for the schedule and structure.  It is a turbo with 15 minute rounds, but I'm very familiar with the structure as it is the same as the Commerce dailies and is very beatable.

The tournament that I am thinking we should for sure do a satellite for is the January 2014 Mega Millions Tournament at the Bike. Click here to see what's what with that.

As you can see, there are four ways to enter - I think the best route for us is to again have a $60 satellite and go for the $550 entry which gives over twice as many chips to start as the cheaper option and also moves 10% of the field on to day two instead of 5%.

We will likely have the satellite on Friday night, Jan 10th, just before the event.  Also, the LAPC at Commerce, which is also a WPT event, will also be in January; but they haven't released the schedule yet.  As soon as they do I will likely also arrange a satellite for one of their larger buy-ins, though probably not the main event which last year was 10K.

If we do four or five of these satellites in a year, including one of course for the WSOP, this could be a very profitable year indeed for Pepper Street!