Lessons Learned

The day started out right. I got an email from Full Tilt confirming that Guin had finally sent in his money for the HUC. Everything was set. Matches were established. Passwords were sent. Instructions were posted. I had even arranged for DuggleBogey to fill-in in case of a no show. And last just in case something needed to be covered before I was home, I got WeakPlayer to agree to cover for me during the day. He is always online and can be easily reached. Plus he had my cell number to call if something was up. So before I left for work, I sent the last update out for the 32 Competitors. Then I was off to start my daily drive to work which lasts over an hour. Yuck!

While making my commute, I started up my yahoo IM. Okay..not the smartest thing to do...but that is what I do sometimes. I find AlCantHang on and send him a message. He didn't get to warm me up for the HUC as planned. I'm sure he will make up for it another time. He tells me all about his weekend plams and him and a few other getting to go the Playboy Mansion. Well isn't that special.

As for warm up matches, fortunately, I had Surflexus and DuggleBogey to get me ready for this event. For those who may have confused Surflexus with Fluxer, this was our first HU match. Suflexus finally met with my Poison and lost on his first encounter. Duggle on the other hand was better prepared for me on this meeting and didn't get me get away with my usual tricks. We are now tied.

The first group of competitors started their matches at 4 pm EST on Full Tilt. They discovered that the format was not correct. Instead of a Heads Up Match, it was a freeze out. I got a call from WeakPlayer, sometime after 4 pm to tell me what was happening. And an IM message from Ingoal. Well, needless to say, I was utterly disappointed.

What to do now? I could not access email from work (against the rules), but I had my cell phone with email access. Such a pain to use, typing on a cell phone key pad is a royal pain. And I had to be quick because remember, I was working. So I sent an email to Full Tilt asking for help.

I just kept thinking that things were doomed. How could I count on Full Tilt to fix everything in time. The players needed to be informed. So with great dismay, I resigned myself to the fact that things were not gonna work as planned. The event would have to be postponed. That was soooo hard to decide. I had planned, worked, and been so excited for this event. Very disappointing!!!

So I asked WeakPlayer to send out the word via email.

Later during the day, Weak called me to say he heard that Full Tilt had fixed things. I checked my email. But it just said they were confused. I sent out a last response to Full Tilt attempting to explain in abbreviated text what was needed.

And guess what? They did it. I was amazed. It was down to the wire, but Full Tilt came though. I must compliment them on their great service throughout this event. They have been responsive and helpful in everyway. In comparison to many of my experiences with online ow most online poker site support they were fantastic. I must say I have been very impressed. But it was less than an hour before the next set of mathces were to begin.

WeakPlayer was such a great help. He took care of all the communications during this ordeal. Thank you soooooooooo much!!! I know..you need cookies...cookies...I must bake some cookies. So he sent out the word. And the first round of players made it to their games 100%.

We were not so fortunate for the next group. In order to fill up a few of the tables, we had to scramble and use some of our players from the 4 pm slot who never got to play their official match.

But in spite of it all, we managed to get everyone hooked up. It was a lot of fun. We had a full chat room going on Yahoo IM. Make sure and check the HUC sit for an update of the winners from the first round. Only one group of 4 players remains. So we will work on getting them together.

As fate would have it, I got matched up with one of my all time favorite bloggers, the original HUC Commissioner, the one and only High on Poker, Jordan. It was not one of my better games. He ended up losing to L'ariste in the second match. But on the upside, he won the Veneno bounty and gets to rename my blog for one week.

We also had a nice group playing in the HUC Lounge game. I managed to make to major blunders by folding hands that I intended to play when I clicked the wrong button. One of the pittfalls of my switching between chat and my table. I folded a nut flush against BoobieLover, then I folded a A Q when I reraised Hammerplayer preflop and guess what he had? You got it the hammer. Ouch. I had the pictures posted but they were messing up my pages.

In managed to hang on and bust out 5th, two spots from the money. I lost a race with 55 vs KQ.

I got a chance to meet and play with some new bloggers. And had a great time!

So what did I learn?

1. Poker bloggers are an awesome group of people. Almost everyone was supportive and cooperative when things were changed around and rearranged. Thanks everyone!

2. Full Tilt is great. I will definitely think of this site first when planning any events. They were helpful and responsive.

3. I should have found a way to check the table format before hand. Perhaps setting up a test table a few nights before to make sure everything is in order. Not sure.

4. As my mentor Jordan has explained. Just tell people what to do. You can't please everyone, so don't try.

Now for some poker....