Comment Freeroll Champion and Partying It Up With Snoop Dogg! - 07/11/10
Waking up to catch the Netherlands vs Spain World Cup Final, I was partly sweating it because I laid a bet at the start of the World Cup for Spain to win.
With the game locked up at half time, I decided to head to the Strip so that I could get some of the pieces needed for the prank I was going to pull on my boss Matt at the freeroll later on in the day.
My plan was to get a t-shirt printed that read Matthew Parvis Direct To You In 20 Minutes 702-340-MATT – which turned out perfectly – while also getting a photoshopped photo of Matt printed off and stuck on some girls direct to you-esque cards (thanks to my buddy Carey who did the photoshopping for me).
On my return to the Hard Rock, I quickly raced upstairs to the room to shower and change before wondering down to the poker room to munch away on the nibbles that had been prepared for us. A total of thirty-two PokerNews employees were in attendance of the annual WSOP freeroll as I danced round for the first dozen or so hands attempting to get this prank sorted.
With plans of getting an extremely hot female to walk into the room, give Matt a huge kiss and then get him to sign the picture before she would take the t-shirt off and give it to him while also slipping him a room key, was difficult. For over ten minutes no one decent walked past until Kirsty managed to find someone willing to help us out.
The result . . . plenty of laughs, a red-faced Matt and pure satisfaction on my behalf!
Finally being able to return to the freeroll, there was cash prizes (minimum of $50) on offer, but the major prizes were the five iPad’s up for grabs. I managed to knock out Greg when in a limped pot against Mike I flopped bottom set of sevens against Greg’s top two and the board bricked out. I really started to get things going when we were down to the final two tables as I accumulated chips a lot easier through simple preflop raises since everyone was playing so tight for the iPad. Once we lost Sarah on the bubble, I had accumulated a top three chip stack as the final table was formed.
Seat 1: Ben Conoley (blogger)
Seat 2: Chad Holloway (blogger)
Seat 3: Matthew Parvis (da boss man)
Seat 4: Kristy Arnett (presenter)
Seat 5: Andrew Bogner (marketing director)
Seat 6: Adam ‘Snoopy’ Goulding (blogger and master of puns)
Seat 7: Tim Duckworth (blogger)
Seat 8: Elissa Harwood (blogger)
Seat 9: Alex Villegas (field reporter)
Seat 10: Adam Brown (cameraman)
The pros to this final table was the fact that Matt and Andrew were ineligible for the iPad which meant that we really needed to lose only three players, and since I didn’t want one, there was a good chance I could do a deal to get money instead.
We lost Adam and then Elissa to leave us with eight players as I began the negotiating. I managed to score $75 from the five eligible iPad players along with some of the leftover money which meant at least $375 plus between $100 or so on top. Once we all agreed, I went on a tear chipping up at ease before knocking out both Alex and Andrew in one hand. There is some background in this hand where Alex pushed me off a pot I was expecting to check down with him since we had Elissa all in. Chad then folded for his last chip in the small blind – while holding an Ace – because Andrew would be all in the next hand on the big blind and they were both involved in the last longer.
Consequently I attempted to double up Andrew by smooth-calling 4,000 only to have Alex move all in for 15,500. I told him that this was payback and called with the powerful 4♣ 2♥. Andrew tabled his 9-5 while Alex slowrolled us with his Kings. Justice prevailed as I dinged two fours on the flop to BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA his ass!
I then eliminated Parvis with Kings against Ace-King before dispatching of a short-stacked Snoopy as Ben and I went heads up with me holding a roughly 70,000 to 25,000 chip advantage with blinds at 2,000-4,000.
We probably played fifteen or so hands before he limped for 6,000 (after the blinds went up) and I checked my option with 4♣ 5♦. The flop fell down 4♠ 7♥ 8♣ and all the money went in with Ben well in the lead holding Queens. The turn blanked out, but the river landed the 4♥ to see me spike another set of trip fours; but this one being for the title of 2010 World Series of Poker PokerNews Freeroll Champion!
Congratulations to Tim Duckworth, Winner of Event 58: PokerNews Freeroll ($to be decided)!
Unfortunately the PokerNews team was unable to shell out for a diamond-encrusted gold bracelet, but the victory and some cash on the side eased the pain as we all ventured home and to our rooms upstairs to prepare for the PokerStars Player Party in just a few hours time!
Brett, Ben, Chad, Martin and I all split a cab to the Rio to look for some people as well as picking up Brett’s phone charger before we waltzed into the Palms just before the doors opened at 9pm.
While waiting in line, Ben and I decided to go on a Maccas run to grab some cheeseburgers as Brett called on us to bring him one to. Once we returned to the line, Martin, Chad and Brett were no where to be seen, and after a few phone calls, we discovered that they had decided to enter ahead of us!
Once inside, the beers flowed freely . . . but not for me . . . as I was sticking to water since I was starting to feel slightly better for the first time in a long time.
The newbies to the PokerNews team: Brett, Ben and Chad
Rich, Donnie, Remko, JonBon, Me and GG
Snoop Dogg’s support act Esthero came on at around 10pm or so, and she wasn’t that bad at keeping us entertained – even swigging a bottle of Jagermeister mid set to the cheers of everyone on the dance floor.
Since my plan was always to go home earlier then everyone else, I made my way back to the dance floor at around 11pm to wait patiently for Snoop Dogg with Ben and Brett. People slowly trickled onto the dance floor making it extremely squishy as I vowed to wait for Snoop just so that I could say I’d seen him perform from a few metres away – although I had no real interest in him or his music.
As the clock ticked past midnight, Brett was on about his sixteenth beer and decided that it was time to punch me in the face a couple of times. I didn’t even feel the urge to punch the kid back, since he was so wasted, and consequently just shrugged it off and continued to wait not so patiently for Snoop.
Finally at 12:30am Snoop came on and erupted the audience into cheers as the smell of weed that had been floating in the room for the past hour started to get stronger and stronger. Three songs into his set I pulled the pin and headed upstairs to say goodbye to the rest of the bunch before making my way back to the Hard Rock to get some rest.