WCOOB 2024 - Plandemonium

"Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance" ~ The military, apparently. 

I have been planning and preparing for this day for weeks, months even. Since becoming a ardent badugi player I knew today would be a big day before it was even announced. I researched previous WCOOPs, I played the WCOOP Bootcamp warm up series, I tagged literally every player in every badugi tournament I played, all to enable the best possible chance at a deep run in one of the few big money badugi tournaments of the year.

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley, an' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, for promis'd joy!" ~ Rabbie Burns

Despite all my planning and preparation, the fates had other ideas. Having been unsuccessful in the pursuit of a Power Pass package, I was going to have to play the satellites which take place on the day of the WCOOP events and, if following the Bootcamp format, would be 1/10th of the event buyin. I played a few $4 WCOOP spin and go's and a couple of $20 ones and won two $11 tickets and one $55 ticket which would give me a shot the medium and high events without going bust. My wife was due to be working in the office all day, my daughter would be going to an afterschool club and I was able to finish work early giving me a good few hours clear for the satellites. 

That was until I got a call from the school to say my daughter had fallen down the stairs and was now unable to move her arm. So it was off to the school to collect her, with a possible trip to the hospital on the cards. The school staff, while nice, were completely useless in accessing the injury, which I suppose was part of the reason for off loading the problem, and if anyone has tried to get information out of a child they will know how fruitless that can be. My daughter has previously broken her arm, a number of times in fact, so it is the conclusion I jump to everytime there's an arm injury, however, given our past experiences that didn't seem to be the case here. No crying, no swelling, no bruising, no odd shapeyness, I am hopeful it's just a sprain, and so have postponed a trip to the hospital for now to see how things go. Needless to say, I did not get the afternoon of poker I had anticipated. But there is only so much a child can do without use of their main arm, so once settled, medicated and fed, I put on a movie and we chilled on the couch until bedtime. 

WCOOP 16-H Badugi $55 Satellite

Long after the WCOOP events had begun, I had an opportunity to play the last of the satellites during late registration. I opted to single table the $55 high event satellite, as the most exciting of the options, with the backup plan of buying in direct to the smaller tournaments should I fail. 

The tournament started well, after 15 minutes I had added 50% to my stack. I was lucky enough to have been dealt a number of good 3 card badugis, which improved to decent 4 card badugis early on, and I'm guessing people simple didn't believe me because I was so active and seemingly aggro? In reality, I just had a run of good cards and people paid me off. Eventually, people seemed to figure out I always had and they started tightening up, which gave me the chance to blast away and pick up chips without a showdown, before winning a couple of big pots when I had the goods once again against non-believers. Within the first hour I had reached the 'target stack' for the satellite (total players stacks divided by number of tickets awarded). 

I would say the play in this $55 buyin was a bit softer than the nightly $4.40. Players as a whole were a lot more solid in terms of ranges but were more passive unless strong which made it easier to play against generally. While I was able to maintain my stack, others busted or doubled and I dropped from chipleader down to 4th place by the time there were 10 left. Top five won entry to the $530 High event, I was still in decent shape, but it was beginning to get dicey. As we inched closer to the bubble, I lost a pot with a dealt queen high against an opponent who decided to defend a short stack for their tournament life on a 2 card draw and got there. I dropped down to 7/7. I held on for a while but it got cagey, with me and one player with just 5bbs left and the rest on 10bbs or more and I needed to double up if I was going to make the money. My chance came or so I thought when it folded round to me in the small blind, I had a K974 badugi. Obviously a king high badugi isn't great but with 4 point something big blinds and a badugi, what else can I do but raise? Alas, the other small stack 3bet out of the big blind and again, what could I do but go with the hand? I stood pat, so did the big blind. I was done for. It would have been an insane spot to snow here so I have to assume they have a badugi and pretty much any badugi is better than my king high, so I broke it in an attempt to improve, but I did not, and my opponent's queen high badugi took down the pot and me with it. I pondered if I had stood pat for the rest of the draws if my opponent would have broke their hand figuring the queen high badugi was no good but, I dunno, don't know if they would. I finished in 7th, just two spots from the $530 High event.

WCOOP 16-M Badugi $109 Event

After playing the satellite, we were almost two hours of late registration into the actual tournaments, the starting stack was worth less than 10bbs, and while I had been willing to take a punt at this bigger buyin, that was a punt too far and didn't seem like great value, I decided against it.

WCOOP 16-L Badugi $22 Event

While I wasn't going fork out $109 for 8bbs, I was willing to pay $22 for one last chance of WCOOB glory, and max late reg'ed the low event. I had expected to see a lot of familiar faces in this tournament, it overlaps with the usual nightly badugi MTT, the buyin isn't wildly more, and yet despite tagging literally every badugi player I have come across for months, I only encountered two or three of them in a 610 entry field. I even scrolled through the player list to see how the regulars were doing, but didn't spot any more of the usual suspects. Yet more wasted preparation out the window. 

My assumption that the non regular badugi players wouldn't be very good held true though. I didn't see anyone spaffing it off with a flush or anything, I suppose those players had probably already been eliminated in the hours of play before I even joined but there was a lot of very clearly weak play. The nightly $4.40 MTT has a tougher field. Despite my short stack, I chipped up steadily without any drama, even reaching the average stack size before we approached the bubble. Top 101 players were paid, I floated around either side of the average stack from about 200 players down to the last 100 and into the money.

Although not my final hand, I think the key hand in my downfall came when I lost a pot with a 9 high badugi vs a better 9 high badugi vs one of the very few players that turned up tagged, Banez86. I had them noted as being decent but playing very straight forward 'cards face up' kinda style. They limped UTG, I raised from the button with a 987A badugi, they called and drew one, I stood pat. They bet out and I called. They stood pat and bet out again, I called again. They stood pat and bet out again, but I kept calling. I really should have realised sooner that there weren't any hands they were betting that I was beating. I got too attached to my hand, seemingly thinking I was entitled to the pot because I started off ahead. But Banez just isn't betting into me time and time again with a bluff or a 10 high badugi, so 987A is never good but I paid then off anyways and losing a good sized pot.

I battled on, I still had 15bbs after that hand but I never accumulated any more chips. Ultimately, eliminated 67th for $45.21 with the 3rd best badugi in a multiway pot having got short. 

WCOOB 2024 In Review

I had high hopes for my first ever World Championship Of Online Badugi but nothing quite went to plan. A lot of my assumptions and plans were correct but things didn't quite pan out as I had envisioned. 

Over the course of months, I won five $109 'Bronze' Power Path tickets, spun up from the 50 cent to $1.50 stages. I haven't kept track of those daily dollars over that time but I might hazard a guess at a $50 region of outlays? Could be more, not really sure. I have one $109 ticket left.

I spent $80 on WCOOP spin and go's, winning back $48 cash, plus two $11 tickets and one $55 ticket. I bought into the low event for $22 bought won $45.21. 

• Overall outlay: $102
• Money won: $93.21 + two unused $11 tickets 

It was a rollercoaster day of badugi (and other things) and yet I'm very boringly somewhere either side of even, depending on how you want to view those unused tickets. I had hoped to take a shot at the $1k Championship of Badugi event on the 26th but unless I can pull a Power Pass Gold package out of the bag, there's no way I can even satellite in, so apart from those $11 tickets, that concludes my World Championship Of Online Badugi experience, until next year!

Oh and my daughter's arm is fine, kind of.