Fortunately, qualifying for the 2005 WSOP was just the beginning for me in terms of poker success.
You may remember the WSOP Teammate Bonus (Perk #1) that I mentioned in a previous blog. Well thanks in large part to a 26th place Main Event finish by Team PokerRoom.com member Tom "musicboy" Sartori - a score that netted him nearly $305k - everyone on the Team received a cool $2,500 bonus in their PokerRoom accounts about a week after the WSOP. In total, Team PokerRoom.com accounted for 0.9% of the 2005 WSOP Main Event field (50 of the 5,619 entrants) and 1.6% of the players who cashed in the tournament (9 out of 560). Of course, Australian Joe Hachem emerged victorious from a Final Table that featured Mike "The Mouth" Matusow to win 7.5 million dollars and the coveted WSOP gold bracelet.
With a fresh $2,500 bankroll, I hit the $50 and $100 SnG tables and got absolutely steamrolled, losing $1,400 over 3 weeks time. Discouraged, I took a 10 day break from poker until PokerRoom hosted its anticipated "Team Bounty" tournament (Perk #2) on 8/20/05. This tournament was open to all PokerRoom players at reasonable entry ($20) and featured a $100 bounty on each Team PokerRoom.com member who participated. The incentive for Team PokerRoom.com members was $1,000 paid to the Team member who lasted longest in the touranment, $500 for 2nd-longest and $250 for 3rd-longest. Naturally, I was one of the first Team members to bust, and I immediately slipped back into my self-imposed poker exile.
Three weeks later, I returned to the tables refreshed and rejuvenated, this time for PokerRoom's exclusive "Become a Poker Pro" tournament (Perk #3). PokerRoom had been hyping the BaPP tournament for weeks, and rightfully so given that the winner would receive an full year's endorsement package valued at $250,000 (which at the time, was the greatest freeroll prize in the history of online poker). The endorsement package included a $60,000 cash prize (paid out at 5k/month over 12 months), travel expenses (hotel and airfare) and buy-ins to over a dozen major poker tournaments including the WSOP Main Event, WPT Bellagio 5 Diamond Classic and the WPT Final. Not only was this a tremendous opportunity for me to make a name for myself in the poker world (something I failed to do at the WSOP), it was an opportunity to earn some life-changing money as well.
That said, 69 of Team PokerRoom.com's finest gathered on 9/10/05 for the online portion of the BaPP tournament. Those fortunate enough to make the Final Table would then finish the tournament off-line, at a later date and location TBD. Making the Final Table would be no easy task, as Team PokerRoom.com was comprised of some of the toughest, most accredited players in all of online poker. Not only that, I was riding a nasty losing streak that had forced me to question my ability as a poker player. Determined to overcome those obstacles, I treated the BaPP tournament like it was the WSOP. Only this time, I was focused and played with a renewed passion for the game. Sadly, I didn't keep a blog of the online portion of the BaPP tournament, but I did end up playing my best tournament to date en route to making the Final Table! When the FT bubble burst, PokerRoom paused the tournament and left the finalists in the dark as to where or when the tournament would play out. With intrigue and speculation abound, we all received an email from Vanessa (the Events Manager at PokerRoom) two days later stating that the Final Table event would be held in January or February (2006) and that she was evaluating different venue options. Adding further intrigue and excitement, she recommended that we all get passports, which led us to believe that the Final Table would be played overseas. Still, this was just speculation, and with the BaPP Final Table still months away, all I could do was make use of my time and prepare.
To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment