The tourney is starting anew....

Final table is MLK weekend in January in the Big Easy. High Noon on saturday. Table captains, I need a winner and $1100. You can also give him travel money.

Let me know who is in this year.

Here is the report from last year's winner NYC's Ross Wallin:

Unfortunately, this will be a short trip report.

I busted out during the 6th hour of the tournament. We started with 20,000 chips. I was running extremely card dead but had built my stack up to 29,000 through a couple of well timed bluffs. After the second break, I learned that I would not be playing again until Wednesday if I survived Day One. I didn't want to be in Vegas all week only to bust out on the bubble, so I decided that I would step on the gas and try and take over my table.

When my Waterloo hand arrived, I was in third place at my table with approximately 26,000 in chips. The table was very weak tight overall. The largest pot at the table to that point had been approximately 10,000 in chips.

A reasonably competent German player raised to 1600 in first position. I was 95% certain that he had a big pocket pair. Two players in middle position called and I called on the button with 7d 8d. My preflop call iss debatable but probably OK. The flop came Jh Jc 8h. Pretty good for my hand. The German player led for approximately 3000. I made a decision at that point that I was going to call a bet on the flop and make a play for the pot if a scare card came on the turn.

Turn was the 7h. Probably the perfect scare card. If I was playing hearts, I just made my flush. If I was playing 9-T, I just made my straight. If I had a J, he has been behind the whole way. In addition, I picked up four clean outs (the remaining 7s and 8s), in case I was called. He led for approximately 4500. I raised all-in, for approximately another 16,000 in chips.

He went in tank for a while and then called with Ah Ad. The Ah gave him a redraw in case he was behind and that obviously clinched it for him. Without the Ah I think that he would have folded. I'm not sure if he would have called with Kings, even if he had the Kh.

Oh well. It was good time notwithstanding the poor result. Greg Raymer and Phil Ivey busted out before me, which goes to show that there is a hell of a lot of luck involved.

Oh yeah, Greg Schwegmann our runner up didn't have much luck either. He played in the 1k deep stack event at the Venetian that was running the day before the Main Event. He battled for four or five hours and if I recall took a pretty bad beat. I want to say Jacks were involved also but my memory is fuzzy. Greg if you like email me with you tale.

Table Captains and prospective TCs email me to give me an idea of how many tables we'll have.

Thanks,
Bill