Mess with the Bull...

...and eventually you'll get the horns.

I've been on the receiving end of those horns a few times (usually due to my own stupidity). It's not a good place to be. But for what it's worth, I'm behind the bull all the way on this one. And when you mess with *my* bull, you get *my* horns. I may only be 135 pounds soaking wet, but that's 135 pounds of righteous, vindictive fury. Don't fuck with me.

If that didn't make a lick of sense to you, don't worry about it.

***

After a day off on Wednesday, it was back to the Amazon Room yesterday to cover Day 1 of Event #9 - $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em / Six-Handed. This event was not nearly as exciting to cover as the donkament I covered last weekend. I think it was because of a dearth of names in the field (most were in either Day 2 of the $10,000 Super Mix or the O/8 tournament. In addition, 6-max tends to just be an aggro-donk pushfest, and that's not very interesing.

Oh well, they can't all be cherries. Some are going to be lemons. Next week I'll be covering the NL 2-7 Draw, which should bring out more names and be infinitely more interesting.

A few problems I've noticed with Event #9:

Problem No. 1 -- at least 200 people were shut out of this tournament. Because there are a fixed number of tables in play, and because of the multitude of events running, Harrah's could only spare 206 tables for this event. That meant 1,236 runners. An additional 65 tables in the Brasilia room are supposed to be put in play at some point next week, but that didn't help the people who got turned away from the registration line yesterday. As a result, this event had fewer runners than last year. Oops. Bad move on Harrah's part. Not only did they cost themselves about $20,000 in juice, but they didn't help the perception that poker is on the decline.

Problem No. 2 -- the structure kinda sucked. I know I said the other day that the strutures seemed better this year, and I know that 6-max players are more prone to pushmonkey poker than most, but many of them complained that there just wasn't much room for any real play in this one. Players started with stacks of 60 big blinds; all it took was for one hand to go south for a player to wind up in Short Stack Land.

Plus side to the structure: I got out of the Amazon Room at 1am, with just 71 players of the original 1,236 remaining. That allowed me to head over to the IP for a few hours of 2-4 HORSE with bloggerati. There were no seats at the table, but StB allowed me to play his stack while he took a piss.

First hand: I raised Js8s in late position after a bunch of limpers and whiffed on the flop.

Second hand: I called 5c7c in middle position after several callers. Flop came 6-8-9 and the betting was capped five ways on the flop. I led out the turn Q and got 3 callers. The river 8 trashed my hand, and into the muck it went. Two players made full houses.

I just can't win at the IP. At that point StB returned to the table and I informed him that his piss had cost him $22.

Prop Betting Update: Garry Gates refused my over/under last night on players left at the end of play. I set the line at 69; he said if he had a gun to his head, he would take the under, but he couldn't pick a side that he liked and therefore "no bet". Of course, we finished with 71. Man, I suck at prop bets.

***

I'm giving some serious thought to playing the $1,500 Razz event that starts next Friday. I don't know if I'm really up to snuff to play it, but I also don't know how I can refuse, since PokerNews has encouraged us all to play events (and can flex us the time off if we want to). Thoughts?