Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

7a wake up. Shower. Drive to Showboat. I have never been here and was directed to the tourney room with well placed signs starting from the moment I entered the casino (nh Showboat).

Registered at 930a and there was no line. Cashier said she didn't know how many were in but thought it was over 200 (was 140 yesterday morning when I called so let's hope so!). She says The cap is 600 not 400 which was obviously wrong. Doesn't look like there will be anywhere near that many.

I have to kill an hour now because I refuse to gamble. Get coffee and smoke my filthy cigarettes until 11a.

Turns out we had the full 400 +20 alternates. Showboat tells everyone they are using WSOP payout schedule and it works out to about
30k for first 15k for second 8k for third 6k for fourth …..so on and so on

Round 1 & 2
Doubled up on the last hand before the break. 7 players to the flop no raise with 99. Flop a set and bust KK when they hold up. 20k in chips.

The rest of the day went very similar to above. I just kept getting my money in good and didn’t have any beats put on me. At the dinner break at 4pm I was around 65k. Still lots of players left though.

After the dinner break I got moved to a table with lots of chips/action. Got into it with a female player who called my all in on a flopped set of queens with a flush draw. Turn made me quads and she was drawing dead on the river. Ship about a 250k pot.

OK. I am going to admit this because to pretend it didn’t happen would be bad karma and just not right. The one dam hand all day long where I fouled up should have been the end of me and wasn’t on a horrible beat I put on someone. All in PF with KJ vs. AKs. Guy to my right tells me he folded a J (thanks for the words of encouragement!). The turn gave him a flush draw and my only outs were the non spade tens to make my straight. Needless to say the ten of hearts is now my favorite card in the deck. Ship the 500k pot on pretty much the worst beat I have ever put on someone. The really sick thing is that the guy had me covered by like 9k and with the blinds at 20/40k and 3k ante he chipped back up to over 100k before busting.

Down to like 12. A couple of guys are talking about a chop when we get to the final table. I agree because the blinds are about to go to 30/60k with 10k antes and I pretty much am at 10BB. The hand for hand was a little frustrating but I think Showboat will get better at this if they keep running these.

We finally get to the final nine. Blinds are still at 30/60k 10k ante and I have around 500k. A guy wearing a Jets jersey who I hadn’t played with went out pretty quick (he was super short with like under 100k) and we are down to eight.


Death of player 8

Since someone else posted something mentioning that this guy is not a nice dude I would like to point out, I was not targeting this guy for any reason. The chop talk was still sort of going on but we were still getting our acts together and figuring out what everyone wanted to do. Blinds were at 30/60k with 10k ante and I had about 650k and limped in with JQd. The table folded to him on the BB and he checked. On a flop of 7c8cQs he led out and I moved all in. I just wanted him to fold so we could move on and continue the chop discussion. The casino would not hold up play and if the talks broke down (it was NOT a done deal yet that we were chopping) I really did not want to have that hand haunt me as the one I should have played. He turned over 89 and did not improve. That hand actually gave me the chip lead with almost a million in chips of the 4.2 million in play. It was the last hand we played out. We had to go through the motions so everyone just pushed and folded and we had our ‘winner’.

Prize pool was 72,400. We took 10k each and tipped 2400 to the dealers. Showboat took forever to get us the money, not real sure what that was about but they kept saying the person who had to sign off on the payouts was not available. Pretty long day (it was midnight before we got paid and got out of there) and we all just wanted to get wherever we were going.

For you degenerates…..YES…..Alicia Lee, who apparently is an Eagles cheerleader was in the tourney and sat next to me for a while. Also, they had Hugo Boss girls walking around with blind cards and the ‘winner’ got to take his picture with them at the end (we all were joking that if we knew that we NEVER would have chopped…lol). They did take a couple of group photos though, but I don’t see anything on Harrah’s web site.


CLIFF NOTES
Play 420 person $250 donkament
Chop with final 7 for 10k
Knock out guy who someone on 2+2 doesn’t like.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

[ QUOTE ]
Blinds were at 30/60k with 10k ante and I had about 650k and limped in with JQd.

[/ QUOTE ]

First off, congratulations on a great win. That's a fantastic payday. And don't feel too bad about the beat you put on that one guy. I bet you remember every single time you were on the other side of that matchup and saw hours of great work go up in smoke. It's nice when karma repays you.

I noted the blinds that you mentioned as you got down to the final table. Paying $190K to play one orbit is pretty steep. With 4.2 million chips in play, I bet even the chip leader had only around 1 million in chips and an M of around 5. It's such a shame to play so hard and so well for a big prize and then have it come down to a card-catching, all-in fest.

From what I recall, this structure was a lot like the Borgata daily structure, and I think it's generally pretty good. But the tournies almost never make it to an actual winner for the same reason. I finished "4th" in one recently, but it was the same thing. If I recall correctly, we chopped 7-ways with the blinds at 20,000/40,000 + 5,000 or something like that. The chip leader at the time had around 320,000 and an M of around 3.

In any event, congratulations again. I hope you really enjoy your prize.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

solid tr, nice score. congrats.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

WTF????

You have 1 mill of 4.something in play, and you do an even split????? Dude, congrats on the 10k, but my god you lost a ton of equity. You should have had at least double that if not more. Next time do a split based on chip equity.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

Play..I would have but the discussion and agreement was done prior to the start of the final table when my chip count was MUCH lower. I felt it would have been bad form to basically back out of what I had already agreed to do. Yes, I DID lose a lot of equity based on the chip counts and how much was out there, but with the blinds as high as they were I could also have been SS in one or two hands if we are playing out and you had to finish 1st or 2nd to beat the chop that we agreed to.

In the end it came down to the fact that I said I would do it a certain way and stuck with it. It's just the type of person I am. Upon reflection, the chop was discussed and agreed to a little early. I did however manage to make everyone almost an extra 1k by knocking out player 8.
The thing is, if no one wants to play and you are seen as the kiljoy doesn't that make it even harder if you get a table full of guys who are just ganging up on you?
I would really like to hear from some people who have been in these spots and hear how you would have handled it.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

You kept your word +EV and +karma points if you would of backed out of it and wanted to change things up because you were the chip leader you would have been the next one out. It always works that way, you know the guy who doesn't want to chop gets busted out next you see it all the time. LOL I think you made the right decision Ham I mean 10K for $200 not a bad ROI. Nice hit sir!

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

I see it the same way you do - you made a deal and you honored it. The only thing you could have done differently was to say 'I'll discuss the chop once xxx is out or when we are x handed'. Generally though, once players start the chop talks, its pretty hard to derail them.

I had one chop happen (or almost happen) around me. Venetian similar buyin, much smaller tourney. We were three handed - I had about 1/4 of the chip leader's stack and 1/3 of the other guy's stack. They agree to split once I'm gone. Next two hands I double and redouble. Eventually I get one gone and the other down to near a single big blind. He jokingly asks about the chop again - I tell him (truthfully) that if we get near even in chips, I'll chop happily..otherwise not. He went broke the next hand and it was a moot point.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

Congrats nice job.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

[ QUOTE ]
Congrats nice job.

[/ QUOTE ] Same here. I'll take the $10,000. Good job on fighting to make it to the final table.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

*"Same here. I'll take the $10,000. Good job on fighting to make it to the final * table."

What are the tax implications in a chop like this? Of course deals happen every day of the week, but in most places in AC that I've played the house doesn't condone or even acknowledge a final table deal. The house also makes the table play out to finish to record, in this instance, seventh through first place.

What happens with the W2-G issued to the player who is on record as first place even though he agreed to a chop and walked away with $10,000? As far as the IRS is concerned he won over $30,000.

I've always been skeptical of final table deals, because I've never been sure of the answer to this question. Anyone have any practical knowledge of how this works?

Thanks,
G

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

Buon....
I requested that the SS take the win on paper to make up some of the difference. The odd thing is that Showboat told ALL of us more than once that they would NOT be issuing a W2 for this.
You are correct in your thinking though. It doesn't matter what deal you agreed to, if you took 1st place on paper then you are responsible for the taxes on the full 30k, or whatever the win was on paper.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

Thanks for the info, Hamsamich.

I was in a tournament at Showboat about a month ago. When there were maybe six left the chop talk started, I was the large stack by far and took advantage of that situation by saying I wouldn't get involved for the tax reporting reasons I outlined in my prior post. When I noted that if we chopped, someone would then sign off on a W2-G for a lot more money than they were gonna walk out with in their pocket, light bulbs popped on over people's heads all around the table. It had occured to no one up until then. Sure enough, at the end I signed off on a W2-G from Showboat.

Congratulations on your good work in the tournament. The cherry on the slice-of-cake is that you kicked Ronnie's ass off the table right before the chop. I hope Showboat runs this kind of tournament on a regular basis.

G

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

[ QUOTE ]
WTF????

You have 1 mill of 4.something in play, and you do an even split????? Dude, congrats on the 10k, but my god you lost a ton of equity. You should have had at least double that if not more. Next time do a split based on chip equity.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that the deal was all that unfair because of the blind structure at the time of the deal. Sure, OP had about 25% of the chips in play. However, the average stack was probably around 500,000, and with blinds of 30k/60k + 10k, my guess is that most hands would have been all in or fold. It wouldn't take much of a beat to drop OP back to the middle of the pack or worse, and just one orbit of folding would diminish OP's stack by 16%, with a corresponding reduction in tournament equity. Finally, anyone at the final table would have needed to finish better than 3d place to make more money, and with such low Ms around the table, getting there could be a real crapshoot.

If there were one or two super-short stacks, it may have been advantageous to wait to see if they busted before cutting an even chop. But all in all, locking up a $10K payday seems like good work and good judgment.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

how did you guys work out the tax situation...since i know that someone must sign for 1st place money and that's reported to the irs, right?

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

Hey Hamsamich..I'm really glad you had such a good time playing at the Boat on Saturday. It was a great turn out! It ran so smooth too.

Alicia Lee smelled great didn't she?

Those Hugo boss girls were hot..and the fact they were handing out those hundred dollar credits to Hugo Boss to all the players was awesome. The food wasn't even that bad, and it was reasonably priced..like $1.50 for a big slice of pizza. I wish they would have had tables or somewhere to put your drinks and stuff, though.

The tourney itself broke down real fast didn't it? It broke from the back of the huge ballroom and it seemed like it was a table almost every 5 minutes for a while there. But I didn't really notice a single table out of balance.

The WsoP payout structure was a good payout scale I think.
It worked out really well. I agree the hand for hand proly needs some work but I know it will get better. They are already talkin about having another one maybe even in October. I saw that there were four people who made it to the money that had won their seat in the $30 Turbo Satellites that ran in the Poker room for the month before.
Did you buy your seat outright or did you win it in a turbo?

How do you think it was run in general? Did you like the blinds, etc.?

Were you the one who took first? If you were I think you owe me some money hahaha. J/K
Grats on the win dude! Maybe see you there next time!!

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

Alicia Lee A++ Would smell/???? again

I didn't check the food out (I don't eat when I play) but from what I saw they did a pretty good job with the spread. The one thing I REALLY liked was that the coffee was right there in the room so when you ordered one up you didn't have to wait forever.

I played at four tables including the final so the moves were not that bad for me. I bought in direct but the guy to my right who was in the chop of the final 7 turbo'd in. $30 >> $10k is pretty sweet!

I think it was run very well in general. A lot of people were complaining that a break after every two 25 minute rounds was too much though. They are actually correct but I will never complain about it because I am a degenerate smoker and will take whatever breaks they give.

I took 2nd on paper, but we never played a hand once we got down to 7.

I will def. be playing if/when they run another one. Hope to see you there.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

[ QUOTE ]
Buon....
I requested that the SS take the win on paper to make up some of the difference. The odd thing is that Showboat told ALL of us more than once that they would NOT be issuing a W2 for this.
You are correct in your thinking though. It doesn't matter what deal you agreed to, if you took 1st place on paper then you are responsible for the taxes on the full 30k, or whatever the win was on paper.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hey Ham, Im the guy who took first(at least on paper)and also the lucky guy to have those hot hugo boss girls takin pics with me, lol. but, yeah, I was pretty shocked when they told us that we would not be getting W-2's for that. I agreed quickly to take it on paper originally because I was one of the SS after a long tourney of being the chip leader at each of my tables...cards went cold for me towards the end of the day. The tax hit would have sucked, but i guess it turned out great in the end. Still feel like we got away with something, but im not complaining.

And btw, with those blinds at 30-60k, with 10k ante and rising, if you raise one pot and miss the flop, you take a significant hurting on your stack...even with 1 mil. I think once it got down to 7, it was definitely the smart choice for everyone to chop (I would have done the same, even as chip leader). I was actually even telling people earlier when i had 500K and there were about 17 people left, that I would consider a chop, knowing how much of a crapshoot it was about to become.

Anyway, good playin with you, and I'm sure I'll see you at the next one.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

[ QUOTE ]
I bought in direct but the guy to my right who was in the chop of the final 7 turbo'd in. $30 >> $10k is pretty sweet!



[/ QUOTE ]

I guess I made out the worst by losing 4 $30 satellites when i knew i was gonna buy right in anyway....

I knew that seat was special enough to spend $370 on!!

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

AK...Good playing with you too bro. Did you hear anything about what they were doing with the pics? There isn't anything on the web site and I called to ask Chris but they said he is away for a few weeks.

As I mentioned before, my chip count after the couple of hands was almost irrelevant. I'm just not the type of guy to say well ya I agreed to chop but that was before I had all these chips! lol

I feel like the seven of us got a good payday for the money that was at risk and the work we did to get there and I try not to be greedy in spots like that. Even waiting for four more people to go out and chopping three ways did not even double the payday.

The rumor is that they will be running another one in October but I haven't seen anything from Showboat yet. Whenever it is I will certainly have it on my list.

THIS TIME I GET TO GROPE THE GIRLS AT THE END THOUGH!!!
[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

haha, ok, your turn to grope the girls.

I didnt hear anything about the pics. I was there last friday night and asked a couple of the floor people but they didnt know what was goin on. Chris and Kelly were not there. I'll be there again this weekend and will try to find out more about that. Ill also ask about the rumor of an October tourney, but imo they probably wouldnt run one so quickly without the time to advertise more this time around. NOt sure if they need it as the turnout was great, but who knows. I'll let you know if I hear anything new.

Re: Showboat 9/15 Donkament TR tl;dr w/cliff notes
 

October does sound like a good time of year to have another tourney doesn't it?