Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Big Game - high and dry, plus WPBT updates

The bad news: my video for the PokerStars Big Game TV show was not chosen as a winner, so I won't be appearing on the show in the near future. I have played in a couple more qualifying tournaments but have not progressed to the final round again (yet). I have some ideas for a new video but will keep them under wraps until I get to the point where I need to make one.

The good news: in case you haven't been marking off the days on your calendar, the 2010 WPBT Winter Classic gathering is only 16 days away. This year, my wife will be along on the trip for the first time, and it will be interesting to see her reactions to the motley group that is the poker bloggers. We arrive Friday afternoon and depart Monday.

If you will be in Las Vegas for the fun that weekend but haven't yet signed up to play in the WPBT tournament, contact Texas April ASAP, via Facebook or her blog, to get on the list.

In other WPBT news, I am pleased to announce that I have joined a team for this year's Last Longer Challenge.

Presenting, TAG Team:

BrainMc
Mike G. (friend of BrainMc)
Yours truly

Opponents, get ready to be smacked down.

Saturday, November 06, 2010

Poker Stars Big Game update - in the pool

As I mentioned in my last post, I qualified to play in the second round tournament towards the PokerStars Big Game TV show. So, I played in the second round tournament, finished in the top 1,000, and won an entry into one of the third and final round tournaments. I played in the final round tournament, and just squeaked into the top 200 to make it into the contestant pool. I almost let myself be blinded out of the final round, but woke up to the fact that my chips were disappearing faster than I thought just in time to survive.

Having made it to the contestant pool, I was waiting for the e-mail from PokerStars telling me what I needed to do next. I knew that it involved making a video telling them why I should be the next "Loose Cannon" on the show. However, several days went by and I didn't hear from them. I finally e-mailed PokerStars support asking when I should expect to get the e-mail. The reply said they were sorry I hadn't received it, and gave me the instructions, which are:

• Make a video of yourself explaining why you should be chosen to go on the show to play with $100,000 of PokerStars’ money!
• The video must be a digital movie not larger than 32MB in any of the following formats: .avi, .mp4, .mkv, .h264 • The video must be no more than two minutes in length.
• Audition videos must be submitted within ten days of the satellite in which you placed in the top 200. (They let me off the hook for this one.)

After tossing around some ideas in my head, I decided that I wanted to keep it simple, but do something to make it at least mildly interesting visually without jumping through a lot of technical hoops. You can see the results at the website where the contestant videos have been uploaded:

http://memelabs.com/pokerstars/

At the site, look for the Search box below the main viewing window, type in yestbay1 (my PStars ID) and press Enter, and it should bring up the thumbnail for my video. Click on the thumbnail to select it and then click the play button on the main screen.

It took me several tries to get the video the way I wanted it, and I still would have liked it to turn out better in some respects, but I think it came out OK, and definitely better than some of the others that have been submitted. I do wish that I didn't sound like I have a mouthful of mush. Nevertheless, it's hard to tell what the producers are looking for in these vids, so I will just have to cross my fingers and hope they see something they like in mine. If the long shot comes through and they pick me, you can bet that I will be blogging about it here.

EDIT: I didn't realize it before, but you can vote for the contestant videos by clicking on the "Vote" button in the upper right hand corner of the viewing screen. I don't know if the number of votes has any effect on who gets chosen, but I encourage you to vote for my video, just in case.

In other news, I won a bar league tourney recently for a whopping $50 first prize, and I finished ahead $20 playing $3/$6 LHE up at the Riverwind in Oklahoma on a recent visit with my son up there. I'm on a roll; maybe I should start up those plans to turn pro. Or not.

I'm also counting the days (38 as of today) until I fly to Las Vegas for the WPBT Winter Classic. I have one teammate for the Last Longer Challenge, BrainMc, and we may be looking for a third. Let me know if you are interested in joining us.