Going South

Writing in a hurry -- again -- as I’m gathering up what I need for this quick trip down to Jacksonville for the WPT event at the bestbet. Will be there for the next few days including while the November Nine is happening early next week, so I expect as that tourney is winding down I’ll likely have an eye on the PokerNews live updates and perhaps ESPN, too, if there’s a television screen nearby showing it.

Not quite sure what to expect in terms of numbers for this $5K buy-in event. Here are the event details, if you’re curious. It looks like another one of those with unlimited re-entries plus a couple of starting flights. Additionally there’s that little-used option to play both Day 1s and then carry only one’s best stack forward (should a player survive both Day 1 flights).

Darrel Plant wrote an interesting article on “The Economics of ‘Best Stack Forward’ Tournaments” for PokerNews a few weeks ago, concluding that if players were compensated in some way for abandoned stacks (as happens sometimes) that strategy could be profitable, though I don’t believe it really can be otherwise. (I don’t believe this tourney will award any cash for abandoned stacks.)

This past spring there was a $3,500 WPT event at the bestbet that drew 258 entries, and a year ago I was there for the last WPT bestbet Scramble that was also a $3,500 buy-in tourney for which there were 358 entries all told.

Should be a smaller group for this one, I’d imagine. There is a $1 million guarantee on the prize pool, making 200 entries the goal to exceed. There are some $2,500 bounties on selected players as well as that $5K chip leader bonus for the players ending Day 1a and 1b on top, a couple of elements that should add a little excitement during the early stages.

As I mentioned, I’ll check in here when I can along the way. Will talk to you again from F-L-A.