Matt Savage at Commerce, FTOPs

I am on or should I say in an airplane heading to New York City, I would guess that on the plane is pretty windy and cold at 37,000 feet going 0.82 mach. The way the airline industry is cutting back on services that just might be the next class of service, the ultimate in no frills. Anyway, I am going to be spending the better part of a week in NY City doing a little work, but mostly hanging out with the family.

I was at the Commerce this morning and had breakfast with Matt Savage and his wife Maryanne. It was there anniversary, and it was a pleasure to dine with them at one of the poker tables in the high stakes room. Boy, that Matt really knows how to spoil his wife. For those of you who don't know yet, Matt is taking over the job of tournament director at the Commerce. He shared with me his thoughts on the upcoming LA Poker Classic and some of the changes we might expect. The Commerce has been the capitol of poker for live action; any game you want to play at pretty much any limit is available 24/7. Now with Matt at the helm, I expect the tournaments will match that same level.

The initial LAPC schedule, which will take place in February is well thought out and has something for everybody. It begins with a couple of weeks of lower buy in events and includes more than just no limit holdem. Now don't get me wrong I love NLH tournaments, but having other choices makes it much more interesting and fun. There will be two HORSE events, a $1,500 and a 10k, and there is a 10k heads up event in addition to various other events as well. He is also doing three things which needed to be done, 1st he is starting the events at 1pm instead of 3pm, which means they will end at a more reasonable time; 2nd he has re-organized the starting chip stacks and blinds into a better format; 3rd he is finally replacing the chip set with a new one. I have mentioned this issue before and it protects the integrity of the game.

I played the FTOPS event a couple of nights ago, which was a 1k buy in NLH hosted by David Singer. There were just shy of 1,500 players and with a 1.5 million guarantee there was a significant overlay. It started slow for me and I felt like I was just hanging around. I was playing a satellite for one of the upcoming events. I usually only like to play two or three games simultaneously. It was one of those events where I didn't get any big hands, and the pots I won were by well-timed bluffs. Sometimes not having to play big pots and playing small ball seems to work well. I wound up 22nd, lost under pair to over pair getting short. I'm ready for the next one.

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