23
Gambling Fever
When World Series higher ups changed the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha tournament into a re-buy event at the very last second last week, they were shocked that such a move could cause such rancor amongst the players. Obviously, they had never witnessed the start of a re-buy event before, the first several hours of which can turn fine upstanding citizens into lunatic gamblers.
The $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em event with Re-Buys kicked off at noon today, and the Amazon Room instantly morphed into some place that more closely resembled the inside of the casino proper. Daniel Negreanu, who has always gone out of his way to take advantage of the re-buy period in the past, made 13 re-buys in the first 45 minutes of the tournament. While the blinds were still at $25/$25 Daniel was raising to $200 from any position at the table… blind. Not once did he ever look at his cards.
“We do $25/$25/$200 here,” he explained. “That’s the $25 blind,” he pointed at the big blind, “and this is the $200 blind,” pointing at his own bet. Taking the strategy one step farther, Daniel was habitually betting $500 on the flop, still without having looked at his hole cards. He was also more than willing to go all in and didn’t need a hand to do it. On several different occasions he made all-in reraises and only after his opponent called did he bother to look at his cards. The result of all this madness? Daniel claimed to have spent $42,000 on re-buys and the player sitting to his immediate right, James Bechtel Jr., was the main beneficiary, having vaulted into the early chip lead with over $30,000. When Daniel couldn’t produce a single dollar bill with which to tip a cocktail waitress for a bottle of water, Bechtel bought the water for him. It was the least he could do.
Following the same strategy, Erick Lindgren had over $100,000 in real-money chips sitting in a rack on the table which he dipped into whenever necessary. One table over Mike Matusow was whooping it up for the benefit of all the railbirds gawking from the other side of the ropes. Further inciting the masses, E-Dog offered a $500 reward to anyone who could bust Matusow. Every time a player did so, Erick would flip him one of his $500 chips. With a real-money reward as inspiration, some players adjusted the odds in their heads and started chasing Matusow down with any two cards. He subsequently lost five coin flips before the flop and after the flop with the nut straight and a set (twice). When Erick heard about this woeful streak, he took the bounty off Matusow’s head.
Beyond the desire to win a bracelet, Matusow is hoping to outlast Gavin Smith. If he does, he stands to earn an extra $5,000 from the side bet they made just prior to the start of the tournament. You would think Daniel has a similar bet going and that is the inspiration behind his maniacal play, but rumor has it that he doesn’t. He just loves to re-buy.
