Booked a room for the tournament on Tuesday in the event I went deep and was
there late. It had been a long time since we stayed at Trump and I'll
concur with Howards earlier opinion. Room may have been somewhat improved
(large TV, bedding etc.) but, but there were several basic items that needed
help. I guess I've stayed in worse roadside motels. It works as a place to
lay your head if the brain is too fuzzy for the drive home.
Tournament Screw Up: Somehow they mangaed to oversell the second tournament
in the 4 tournament qualifying series. How do you oversell? I dunno. Seems
pretty basic to me. I know a couple of people who entered this one and
according to a dealer they had tables seating 11 for a while. Their
solution to the problem was to qualify 12 people rather than the specified
10 for the final money tournament. But wait, this leaves 2 extra people in
the 4 table (40 person) money event. Solution? Only give 8 qualifying
spaces to the field of tournament 4 in the series. Unfortunately the
tournament I entered.
Tournament director announced this just seconds before the tournament.
There would be only 134 entrants (originally slated for a field of 150) and
only 8 would qualify for the money event (originally slated for 10), but not
to worry the "percentages were the same." Not exactly having an alacrity
with numbers it didn't dawn on me until the next morning that this statement
didn't exactly work out. If my facts are correct, they reduced the prize
pool by 20% (essentially the prize here was entries in a tourney for which
player equity was $2500), but only reduced the field of players by about 10%
consequently reducing my equity in the tournament significantly. The
premistake tournament entry had an equity value of $166.66 and the
"corrected" tournament equity value was $149.25. I don't mind an equitable
solution to an honest mistake, but this was not equitable. The kicker is
they were announcing there was space for alternate entries until the last
minute to reduce my equity by even more! In essence everyone at that
tournament paid for that Majestic Star screw up and did not get what they
were sold.
On the positive side I did enjoy the tournament. I placed about 18th in the
field and was doing OK until my pocket KK got cracked when A5 off suit
pushed in early position and I pushed back with KK. The kings were cracked
on the river and it left me crippled with a stack of about 1/4 of a BB.
Just under 4 hours of poker and I walk away with bupkus. I made mistakes
and still have a lot to learn, but after only a few months of poker
experience I am happy with the way I played.
Another positive note: I played less than 4K that evening mostly chasing
the dollar prog at over $5K and had a comp room booked with a coupon, but
was still given a $20 Don&Mike comp. I guess the room comp didn't count
against my comp balance. Either that or they are taking previous play into
account.
Chandler