Vegas Poker Dome Challenge
My Experience
August 16, 2006, by Paul Svelmoe
While researching poker sites for my WSOP Articles, Mansion Poker caught my attention for 2 reasons. First, there were the 1 cent buy-in $500 prize fund cheaprolls and at the time I started playing there, there were only about 350 entrants to these tourneys. A great inclusion for the early steps of the articles, but a bit too late for the 2006 version, because the World Series of Poker Main Event was only a few more weeks from starting. Mansion Poker is growing by leaps and bounds and although they still have the 1 cent buy in tourneys, they now draw 800 players or so, usually twice a day. The 2nd reason, was that I noticed these freeroll 
tournaments, with 600 players, top 6 make it into the weekly qualifier and the top 3 of the weekly get an all expense paid trip to Las Vegas to play in the Mansionpoker.net Vegas Poker Dome Challenge, a series of TV tournaments, taped on a Saturday and aired the next day, Sunday on FSN (Fox Sports Net). You may have seen the show, it airs rather late at night Sunday with a repeat on Wednesday afternoon with additional repeats in some cities. I didn't give myself much chance to score big in the freerolls, but when I had time, I entered some of them anyway, usually while playing other tournaments at the same time or while working. The freerolls are 6-player tables, just like the TV tournament, which I actually enjoy more than 9 or 10-player tables because it allows me to play more hands. Well, lo and behold, I came in 6th in one of the preliminary freerolls, which at that time was limited to 600 players and has since been maxed at 1,000 players. I then went on to win the 147 player Sunday final and all of a sudden I'm gonna be on TV with a 1 chance in 6 of winning $25,000, a 1 chance in 36 of winning $75,000, and a 1 chance in 216 of winning $1,000,000!
They flew me down to Las Vegas from Missoula, MT, where we live during most of the summer months, and I also bought a plane ticket for my wife, which was more than paid for by the $500 in real money chips they gave me at the fancy dinner they had for the contestants on Friday night. They gave us a room at Caesars Palace for 2 nights. We stayed there a total of 3 nights, the 1st night at our home in Vegas. At noon on Friday, I showed up at Caesars for my interview. There, in addition to the questions and answers, they filmed me doing all sorts of corny scripted things like flinging my blazer over my left shoulder with my right hand, then deciding maybe it would be better if I flinged it over my right shoulder with my right hand, then finally deciding it would be better if I flinged it over my left shoulder with my left hand, while facing the opposite direction. They were all great people, the producer, camera guys and helpers, they all made me feel at ease. But the things they made me do seemed kind of out of sync with my personality. But I guess that's TV. At 12:45 PM on Saturday, they picked us up at Caesars 
in a limo and took us downown to the brand new Poker Dome, constructed out of part of the fledgling Neonopolis shopping mall and movie theaters on Las Vegas Blvd and Fremont St., a couple blocks east of the action at the Fremont Street Experience. We were taken into the "Green Room" which is a converted office around the corner from the entrance to the Poker Dome where we had lunch and talked awhile, then they took us to the actual set for rehearsal, where we were shown exactly what the high tech poker table, chips, and cards were all about. The cards and chips have computer chips in them so the audience and graphics people know what your hole cards are before the contestants do (they don't even need the infamous lipstick camera, but had them anyway for effect and I suppose in case of technical trouble). An exact chip count is available for the players and the pot at all times. Signals or shouts from audience members concerning opponents' hole cards are denied by the use of one-way mirror glass and sound-proofing. This being speed poker, they showed us how the 15 second timer worked which is how long you have before you must make a decision. Then we played 
a few practice hands. Then it was back to the green room for makeup (right). That's Johnny Vincent in the background, a poker pro from down under who claimed to be a writer for a living, but the rest of us knew better. After makeup, there was an hour or so before the show began where we just sat around getting more and more nervous, most of my opponents went to the bar and came back with drinks in containers shaped like life-sized footballs and other monstrosities. I don't drink, so I just sat around some more, we had our heart rates measured so they had a "normal" heart rate to compare with the elevated rate during the excitement of the crucial hands and my "normal" rate was 120, that's 2 beats per second! The director said "I'm going to lie and say it's 107, cause 120 is absurdly high". So they put me down for 107. Finally it was time to go play poker and we were led in and went in one by one, just as we had rehearsed, and took our seats. The first thing I noticed was I could see and hear the audience through the glass and I waved to my wife. It only closes up for the players during actual play. It seems to me, there should be no contact whatsoever with the audience, even between hands, and especially during the break, but that's not how they do it. During the break, the players used the same restroom facilities as the audience. We were told not to talk to anyone, but there was no way to enforce that. I hope it's more secure when the finalists come back to play for $1,000,000 in March. Otherwise, during the break, a friend in the audience could tell the player exactly what cards his opponents had every step of the way and that player could gain an unfair advantage by learning how his/her opponents handle situations.
Play started, pot-limit before the flop, no-limit afterwards. I was in Seat 3 with the poker pro, Johnny Vincent, to my left in Seat 4, and Ed Bentson to my right in Seat 2, a guy who qualified in the same qualifier as me, and who during that qualifier, I had the most respect for out of any of the final table. Turns out he's been playing since he was 9 years old. I picked up pocket 8's the first hand, raised and everyone folded, the first pot was mine. Later, I had pocket 6's, and pocket 9's and one more strong hand, I think, and won those hands, but not a lot of chips. Seat 6 busted out, then I took a hit when I picked up QJ and flopped an open-ended straight draw with 2 overcards on a flop of 10 9 6. Here I made a huge blunder which seemed to go completely unnoticed. I was the small blind, before the flop it was folded to Seat 1 who called, I completed, and the big blind checked. After the flop, I came out betting, the bb folded and I mucked my cards just past the line, thinking I had just won the pot, completely forgetting that Seat 1 was still in the hand. I immediately grabbed my cards back saying "whoops" and nobody said a word, not even on the edited TV version which I watched the night after flying home, so I saved face. As it turns out, Seat 1 had flopped a set of 6's to go with his 66, went all in, and I folded. After that, I never caught any more cards and I didn't attempt any bluffs because I was always afraid of Johnny raising me after correctly reading me for a bluff. Ed Bentson eventually busted me out in 5th place after I caught him bluffing with 8 6 and went all in with my K 9, he called for not that many more chips, then he flopped an 8 and down I went. After watching the game on TV, I have one thing I can be proud of and that is my heart rate. During my opponents' crucial hands, their heart rates would jump to the 155 range and Ed's went to 170 at the very end, the highest mine got was 133, lower than all my younger opponents except for the seasoned Johnny, who has played with World Champions. I calmed down right after play started and except for my one gaffe, which nobody really knows about except you, I took to the experience pretty well, considering I'm kind of the "nervous" type.
Ed won the $25,000 and another trip later in August for a semi-final, $50,000 if he wins that one and a chance at the one million $$ in March 2007 at the live telecast of the final. Just before we climbed back into the limo to go back to Caesars, Ed mentioned the 11 pm Caesars tournament for a $70 buy-in, a freezeout, we all thought it was a great idea to play in it except for young Johnny, who wanted to go clubbing. My wife played too, the Mansionpoker contingent did admirably well. There were 72 players, paying 10 places, Jim from the show finished 12th, my wife bubbled at 11th, I took 6th and Ed continued to clean up, he probably won the damn thing because he was near the chip lead after I left. It was nice to make a few new friends. We got to sleep at 3:30 and got up 2 hours later at 5:30 for the limo ride back to the airport and we were home in Montana about noon.
They gave us everything they said they would and more. The Mansionpoker.net logowear jacket is the finest piece of clothing I've ever owned. They gave me a $50 food credit, which combined with the fancy dinner Friday night and the lunch at the Poker Dome, was just enough to feed my wife and myself and breakfast on Saturday for 3 of us. I was assuming the $500 in casino chips would be of the type that had to be used at the blackjack/craps/roulette tables or slots or something, but they were just regular chips which is the same as handing us $500 in cash. On Friday, they delivered a bottle of champagne to our room, something they never mentioned we'd get. Mostly it was the people working the gig that was the best part. My thanks go to the producer Alan Goldberg, our beautiful hostess Suzanne, the travel agent, a coordinator Judy Kulis, the many other great TV people and of course to the folks at Mansion Poker. (Oh, don't tell my wife I said this, but the models are hotter in person than they are on TV!) If this kind of experience appeals to you, I would highly recommend you download Mansion Poker and give it a shot, they've got quite a thing going with the Poker Dome. I just so happen to have a link to their poker site right here.
The preliminary freerolls, held 7 days a week, 2 or 3 times a day, now are maxed at 1,000 players instead of 600 when I played. Don't let this discourage you. The bigger the field, the more most players have a tendency to play looser because they feel they must accumulate a big load of chips to have any chance of reaching the top 6. Most of the players with this loose attitude are gone within the first hour. I recommend playing a bit tighter than most players would play, but look for your opportunities. 6-handed play is different than full-table, allowing you to play more hands, but there is no need to play the type of risky poker you see at most ordirnary freerolls. Don't be impatient, use your position wisely, play solidly, and you will find yourself getting past most of the field soon enough. Save the bullying for the late stages. If you find yourself with a lot of chips late in the tournament, be relentless, especially against the short stacks and especially in late position. At this point in the tournament, be as aggressive as you were tight at the beginning and you'll soon have that chance for a top 6 finish. The hardest thing to do is avoid bad beats. When you reach the final qualifier, you'll only have to dispose of 140 or so players. Now, you're thinking, it's a different tournament, only the top players from the prelims are there, so they must be all good players, right? Well, maybe, but if you're good enough to make it to the final qualifier, you'll be good enough to make it to the top 3 of that one if you're a little lucky. I was lucky, you might be too.