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

[hamsamich]

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.

[mxp2004]

[ 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.

[StarkNaked]

solid tr, nice score. congrats.

[Iplayragstoo]

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.

[hamsamich]

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.

[FiveFingerz]

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!

[SellingtheDrama]

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.

[Mike Gallo]

Congrats nice job.

[Carlson411]

[ QUOTE ]
Congrats nice job.

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

[Buonaparte]

*"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