Poker News

Peter ‘The Poet’ Costa

I must apologize for taking a few weeks away from writing articles for Poker Player, but the truth is, I have been busy with a couple of projects that required a lot of travel and commitment. This also limited my tournament play over the last six weeks. However, when I did play, I felt hungry and determined to do well. My main focus during this time have been the two PPT events - the one at the Commerce Casino in LA and the other at Bay101 in San Jose. What joy these events are!

Apart from the obvious fact that they are freerolls, it’s just so good to play with the established pros. Nothing against online qualifiers here, but life is so much easier when you don’t need to tiptoe through the minefield. It’s also great to see the overseas stars put in the effort and expense to play the events. This leads me to a point that was raised by a well respected and high profile player (from the US though, not Europe) about the payout structure of the PPT events.

The concern of this player is that these events just pay the top six only. His reasoning was that it left too many players out of pocket due to the expenses that they occurred in traveling etc..The funny thing is, he mentioned this to me before the San Jose event in which I finished on the bubble in 7th place. I actually agreed with his views that perhaps the WPT (the people behind the PPT) should consider stretching the payout structure to include the final eighteen. Better still, the could, even at this late stage, consider adding a further $36K to cover the another 12 places. Considering the never-ending costs that players face - I would suggest that it would become a very popular change or addition. After all, not all pros have sponsorship deals or big bankrolls.

As for the San Jose event? Although I was obviously disappointed at my bubble finish - I was delighted by many other aspects - including a long over-due win from Tom McEvoy. Although Tom went into the final with a low stack, he had impressed me with his overall play. His tight and aggressive approach before the final six, seemed to do the trick. The other low stack going into the final was Marsha Waggoner. She also played a very similar style to Tom’s and very much deserved her second place finish.

Another player to impress was Hoyt Corkins. I hadn’t played with Hoyt before but I obviously knew of his previous successes. Based on what I saw, I can understand how he achieved his wins and that it’s certain that other wins will follow. He also happens to be a true gent at the table. It’s hard not to cheer for players with such table manners! My performance? All I can say that I could not have played much better than I did. I struggled for most of the two days without any assistance from the cards. I guess that sometimes, you have to play your”A” game just to make the bubble! Oh, by the way, as someone pointed out, the final consisted mainly of what you might call,”old-timers.” Nice to see that the young guns have to sometimes take a back seat.

Until next time - play well, get lucky and enjoy life.

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