Well ...
I started typing this when I returned home but due to some critisisms I have of BetFair I have delayed the publishing of this to make sure I"m not being unfair in all I"m going to say.
I have just arrived home from my day at BetFair offices for the Annette_15 Training day. For those of you who just want to know if it was a profitable trip, I"ll start by telling you that I did cash in the $1,000 SnG after cutting a deal with winner Nick when I had 10.5k to his 15.5k - just one hand before I shoved with K4o with an M of 6. I brought home £170 and Nick (given the current exchange rate), took home £230 from the deal and the remaining £150 from the prize pool.
Right from the start and with Matt, Leo and Annette from BetFair all playing with Bounties on their heads, it was clear to see that each of the other 4 guys were gonna be happy to fold their way to the money. I had no intention of doing likewise so stepped it up even from my normal LAG game to something bordering on maniac / suicidal. I was showing T3o and Q6o type hands that I was raising from early positions to try to entice some action but still no one would play back at me. I took an early lead when I took Leo out with JTs UTG after he"d re-raised me pre-flop. The flop came a magical 789 and with 57o (yeah, seriously!) he shoved from the BB. Easy call and an easy bounty of a WSOPE BetFair ChipSet. It begs the question; Did having three players in the game who had nothing to lose ruin / lessen the experience a bit ... ? Somewhat, yes.
I continued to push my stack around and had a healthy lead by the time it got to push-fold poker and my card-dead period. Saif and Alan went out quite shortly after each other and by that time Matt sitting to my left, had started to push over my 3xBB raises forcing me to fold.
I was the best player of the five winners IMO and deserved to take it down but Nick, who took out Annette after she pushed with AQs and he woke up with QQ, and who doubled up through Steve (a Punter"s Lounger) when he caught him making a play at the pot with a weak A2o type hand. To finish Steve off, Nick pushed OTT from the SB with K9o I think it was to force me and my 44 out. Only after a lengthy consideration I did reluctantly fold face up - you know that way when you just KNOW you"re gonna hit??? And true to form, although folding was clearly the correct play, the 4 came on the turn - even without it I would have had Steve out and Nick crippled!
So that"s the story of the cards ... now onto the trip as a whole ...
We were advised that InsidePoker may request a phone interview with us so I thought it would advantageous to get my thoughts down on screen first so that I don"t miss anything.
Starting with the lack of contact from both BetFair / InsidePoker which I"m sure you"re fed up reading about now, I and the others remained very unimpressed. And the same could be said for the hassles about the expenses situation that wasted hours of our days leading up to the day we were supposed to be looking forward to.
Please let me reference again how this Prize was advertised both in the magazine and in subsequent emails sent between 3rd and 15th September;
A VIP trip to London
including Travel and Accommodation (residents of UK and ROI only)
personal tuition from Annette
on STT and MTT strategies
in Annette"s pre-WSOPE Training Camp
Collection from Novatel to BetFair offices
given a buffet lunch
then we"ll play in an exclusive $1,000 SNG
be taken for drinks and meal at "Fire Station"
and we would be "well looked after" throughout
Right, I"ll start at the start ...
"A VIP trip to London"
Budget Airline and underground (booked myself) and a 10 minute walk (no escort) to Novatel Hotel. I text Estelle from the Underground to ask if she would still be able to meet me at the station. Aparently they were short staffed so I had to make my own way there.
"including travel and accommodation"
BetFair"s first email denied us this, then after each of us emailed Alun Bowden of IP, £50 per person was offered, more emails back and forth before my full £150 was eventually OK"d. Hotel couldn"t confirm our reservation when we called on the night of 15th as it hadn"t been booked until 16th - just 24 hours before.
"personal tuition from Annette"
"on STT and MTT strategies"
Our tuition took the form of a 5 man no-one-goes-out Sit"n"Go with Annette dealing. Our cards would be kept in front of us until each hand was finished and Annette would disect them and comment on our play. As each of the other winners appeared "scared" to get their chips in - 88 was folded after a flat call, A8s was folded on the button after it had been checked round - it would be fair to say that such tight play didn"t make me feel as if I learnt as much as I wanted or expected to.
"in Annette"s pre-WSOPE Training Camp"
Erm ... this was a hallway in the BetFair offices
"collection from Novatel to BetFair offices"
A 10 minute walk for the three of us who met in the Hotel lobby with Leo the BetFair rep.
"a buffet lunch"
Laid out was a tray of sandwiches, 6 packs of crisps, a small selection of fruit, a dish of cold chips and some bottles of juice
"playing in an exclusive $1,000 Sit"n"Go"
Some of the guys had expected this to be a $1k Buy-In Event (a winner take all prize of $6k) given that 2nd to 9th places in the Freeroll got a $212 Token into Annette"s 20k GTD Tourney. I read it corectly in that it would be a $1k prize but having re-read the adverts, I can see how they got confused. Some were MOST upset hearing this.
"Drinks and meal at Fire Station"
"we"d be well looked after throughout"
Fire Station was closed for refurbishment so "Pizza Express" was booked. For someone who doesn"t eat cheese, this was far from a welcomed change. Not being told about it until 90 seconds before we walked through PE"s front door was pretty pish. I had taken the time to research the Fire Station online and knew that finding something without cheese wouldn"t be a problem. Not so in a Pizza and Pasta only joint
In fairness, the pasta dish that I had specially made was very acceptable and within the hour we were there, we each had about two drinks. With all that was going on with WSOPE and in the personal lives of Matt and Leo, they excused themselves from the rest of the night"s action and said goodbye at 8:30pm after pointing us in the direction of a pub where we could watch the footy.
Annette herself was very pleasant and exactly as I had expected her to be. If you like her from what you know of her from TV / YouTube / PokerPlayer Mag whatever, it"s fair to say that you would like her if you met her. If you"re adverse to the various reported outbursts directed at Marc Goodwin, Isabelle Mercier etc., you probably wouldn"t. I liked her and it had nothing to do with being invited to her 20th birthday party and being on the same guest list as Phil Hellmuth, Layne Flack, Vicky Coren and Sorel Mizzi - she didn"t mess about, took her role as trainer seriously enough in that she didn"t suffer the idiotic plays of the BetFair staff lightly; "**** off if you"re not going to take this seriously" she told Matt during training when he decided to donk around. I think we all considered the invite a very kind gesture indeed seeing as we had only "known her" for about 45 minutes. Unfortunately, as I had already booked my return flight etc., as the hotel was going to cost me £140 for the extra night and as Julia was having a rough Wednesday with HBOS announcing that they"d be axing 40,000 jobs, I quite happily returned home as planned.
It"s now Saturday morning and I haven"t received my £170 prize or £150 expenses in my BetFair account yet. All things considered, I suspect I"ll be having to badger them for this pretty shortly. And when my BetFair WSOPE chips arrive, I"ll give some of yez a shout for a home game to show them and my new skillz off.
