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[chriscompton]

I am the first person to let someone know that whining is a waste of time and that if you aren't going to do somrthing to improve the situation, you have to just accept it as is. Unfortunately, my evening turned bad tonight, and I guess I can't fix it.First of all, I won the $100 buy in woth rebuys tournament at the Golden Nugget tonight. Only 14 buy ins and 9 rebuys, but $1000 profit is not so bad - a great start to the evening. I played very agressively and had 20000 at the break without a rebuy from a starting stack of 2500.I came back to the Rio to play the 11 pm tournay, but arriving at 11:45 apparently doesn't cut it, and I was on the outside looking in. I decided to take a $525 shot at getting into tommorow's $5000 NL holdem event. We sat down and a $100 last longer was proposed. If you have never tried this, a last longer bet is a seperate wager amongst some of the players that they will outlast the other wagerers. Even if you don't win the sattelite, you can get even by outlasting all of the entrants in the last longer pool. I don't normally play these, because the strategy for outlasting certain playrers can be counter productive to winning the sattelite, but there were seven entries, and I bought myself and Andre - a CPA from LA who is a good player - so I thought it was the same strategy, just a larger wager, and I gave it a shot.The good news was I was seated next to Neil Channing, a great British player with a keen wit and great conversation skills. I also contracted a beautiful girl with strong hands for a massage at the table, and ordered beer number four to get the thing rolling - a nice start I have to say.In the $525 sattelites, you start with $2000 tournament chips, 20 minute levels, playing 25-25. The levels double each time, so you go 25-25, then 25-50, 50-100, 100-200, 200-400 then 300-600 and 500-1000. With only 20,000 in play, the 300-600 level is pretty key. I use a very conservative strategy in these one table events, as opposed to the wide open strategy I use to get chips early in a big tournament, because there are usually some pretty bad players, even at this level, and they throw away their chips early. I like to be around five handed with the blinds higher, when a raise can really be significant. This is not the only strategy, but having tried several, this is the best one, I promise.With a combination of good play and good luck, I managed to have 9000 of 20000 with three players left, going to 500-1000 levels. Now the fun begins.The player who I had paid for in the last longer was still in. I was in, and a player who I don't know personally, but is a goood player and is of Asian descent, probably Vietnamese, but who really cares, right? and I were still in. We were playing for $5000 in tournament entry chips and $120 in cash. I had nearly half the chips and they had the rest. There was a crowd around the table, and there was a heated discussion about the possibility of a deal, with several railbirds contributing their two cents in a language which I do not speak. Now I am the first to admit that Americans are stupid and arrogant as a people and that only speaking English is nothing to be proud of, but at the WSOP, English is the only acceptable language at the poker table. I called the floorman over.The floorman was a young guy, whose name was coincidentally enough Chris. I asked him to clear the players away form the table, as they were crowding the table, conversing in a foreign language, and distracting me from a match for $5000, which is a significant amount of money, especially if you are a poker floorman, I would think. He told me that the spectators were fine. I said, "OK - then stand here and enforce the English only rule." He felt like I had overstepped the boundaries of the player/floorman relationship. Please understand that I never raised my voice or was rude to him, although I am the first to admit that my tone can be acerbic, and I am certain that I was in that frame of mind tonight, but we were playing for a LOT of money, and I was asking him to do something which was: a) clearly within his job description, and B) not at all out of line with the rules or the spirit of playHe thought giving me a ten minute penalty was the best solution.Now, if you have ever played a sattelite, you understand that a ten minute penalty at the 500-1000 level with a total of 20000 in play is crippling. And given that fact, I protested in a rather vehement fashion, as I felt that there was some collusion going on designed to steal my equity. Why Harrah's is giving that much power to a non supervisor level employee is beyond me. I still never raised my voice, but I did indicate that if I was leaving, it would be with the aid of a security escort. Hey - I got my wish at last.Security was called, Chris put my chips in the tray and I left the room - WITH the $900 last longer pot.Now of course the other two are so happy that they are getting 2500 in equity that they haven't earned and that the best player is being eliminated along with all of their chips that they don't care about the $900, right? Nope. Even the son of a bitch that I put in, the guy with no interest at all in the last longer bet is trying to get a piece of it. What a compete and total ********** - not tha there is anything wrong with tat, by the way.Chris came out of the room and told me that if I did not return $800, I would be ousted from the tournament room for the remainder of the WSOP. My response was that the decision was well beyond his level, and his supervisor would be needed to work this out. Security was present at this time. Security, by the way, was very courteous. They told me I was absolutely not under arrest nor was I being detained, but that they would appreciate it if I would wait for the matter to be resolved. Unlike Chris, who is a raging ******* at best, and an imbecile at least, they could not have behaved in a more proffesional manner.Chris' supervisor is Jody Ivener. I like Jody. I think Jody, unlike most of the rest of the staff, has the experience and the expertise to handle tough situations. He came out and asked the two other players - who had chopped the tournament as fast as possible to make sure I didn't get back in by the way - to come out. I told him what happened, and he said I should give the Asisan player $450 of the last longer pot. My option was to give him the $450 or be out of the WSOP, for which I already have a $10000 championship event seat. I gave up the dough.Maybe I am wrong. Maybe this is just the norm, and players are subject to the whim of untrained 20 something floorpersons who can reward their friends and penalize others I don't know. What do you think? Email me at chris@comptoninc.com and tell me what you think.On another note, I have played literally hundreds of tournaments with rebuys. The normal structure is to charge a certain amount for the entry, say $1000, plus an entry fee, say $60. Then the rebuys would be $1000, and it would all go into the prize pool. Harrah's CORP has a better, less player friendly, but definitely more corporate friendly idea of how it should go. The good people at the Rio do not charge an entry fee. Not one red cent. If the event is $2000 pot limit Omaha with rebuys, you pay ONLY $2000 for your entry and $2000 for each rebuy. Then when the prize pool is finalized, they conveniently whack the WHOLE THING, including the rebuys. Mot a bad gig. In the $1000 rebuy no limit tournament, there were 1495 rebuys, so the CORP took nearly 90,000 dollars more than normal out of the prize pool. They charged the players well more than twice what the same event would have cost at the WSOP last year. There were 395 rebuys today, so that's an extra 39,500 above the normal expected rake - not so bad, huh?In addition to that, a buy in to a tournament for 1500, 200 or even 5000 dollars would certainly get you a room, right? NO. A meal? NO. Haow about a discount? OK. $10 off the price of a meal at the RIO. Well, at least they have the regular prices, right? NOPE. Everything is at least a little higher than it was last month. Bottled water in the Masquerade village store - $2.75 for 20 ounces. Listen, I am all for making a buck when you can - but this is crazy, and the players are letting it happen. Just a loosely formed player's association WHICH MUST INCLUDE ONLINE PLAYERS and a polite letter letting Harrah's know that this isn't going to fly or that the WSOP will have eight entries would go a long way. What happens next year - 25% rake? Where do we draw the line.Until next time... -------------------------Chris ComptonI'd rather be agressive than good

[gobears]

Interesting story - you should post this in General; way more readers there.