Twenty-third in the WPT Invitational

Wil_day2b
I finished 23rd (or 21st, depending on who you ask) out of 317 players in the WPT Invitational last night, and I was the last "celebrity" player left standing, so I won $10,000 for the City of Hope in Duarte. It was really weird when I did my exit interviews, and they kept trying to get me to say I was the best celebrity poker player. I told them that I was probably the only player in the entire field who hosts two poker tournaments a week at PokerStars, and I owed a lot of my success and confidence to honing my skills online, and discussing the game with the WPBT.

I’m working on a write-up of the event, but this has been a rather hectic morning and I doubt I’ll get a chance to post anything in-depth until later on. Until then, I absolutely have to thank Ryan Kallberg, aka Absinthe, who sent me a Dannenman-esqe strategy sheet that seriously helped me out. In fact, I’m confident that I wouldn’t have made it past the first level of the day without Ryan’s advice and support. There’s a reason he cashed five times in the LA Poker Classic, including a first place finish in event number one. Thanks, Ryan. I owe you several beers.

If you missed it yesterday, and you’d like to retroactively view the action, you can head over to Pauly’s blog, and read the live-updates from last night.

(Photo Credit: Dr. Pauly)

43 thoughts on “Twenty-third in the WPT Invitational”

  1. Nice job Wil. I read through Pauly’s updates this morning and was happy to see you staying in it.
    Got a taste of your own medicine running into those aces though, eh?

  2. Hey, Wil. Glad to hear you had fun. Love the picture. The monkey’s cute! Anyway, since I don’t know anything about poker, I’m gonna shut up now.
    Shauna

  6. Hey Wil,
    Love the monkey, it’s a Think Geek monkey right? Hey, I would love to hear more audio blogs from you, they are always really fun and interesting too. Have a good one.
    Tim

  8. Congratulations! I would never in a thousand years make it that far in a poker tournament; I am so awful at it. lol btw – LOVE the pictures. The monkey is cute, too.
    Hate to go off topic, but I finally watched the CSI episode ‘Compulsion’. It was on Spike TV a few days ago. I was impressed with your work. You pulled off the role really well. : )

  9. Congratulations, Wil! I would never get that far in a poker tournament even if I tried. lol btw – LOVE the pictures. The monkey is cute, too.
    Hate to go off topic, but I finally watched the CSI episode ‘Compulsion’. It was on Spike TV a few days ago. I was impressed with your work. You pulled off the role really well. ; )

  13. It was exciting to watch you go so deep into the tournament. And yeah, you looked good doing it! haha. Too bad you couldn’t cash, but in a way you did, anyway.

  14. Congrats on a great effort at the tourney, Wil!
    Now… how does one get a copy of Ryan Kallberg’s strategy sheet???
    [I only play live with friends. No online acct. Certainly, no live tourneys.]

  18. Congratulations Wil! Excellent job going deep and nice reads. Always a pleasure to see you have success. PokerStars should be proud of you. When will the show air? See you on Tuesdays.

  25. Glad to help, even if my advice ultimately may have boiled down to, “take coinflips – and win them!” And free advice is easy – execution is the hard part. You did us all proud.
    I think it’s technically City Of Hope that owes me several beers but I am rarely all that particular about the source of a beer.

  29. Hey congrats – I’ll bet that City of Hope was very happy that you won them some money – That really is a good cause to pick. I know that wasn’t high enough for you to get money but considering who you were playing, I figure top 100 would be really great.
    crazy question – do you think about putting your left hand on top or is that just something that you do?? I got asked myself but I do it from being left handed(kid lost my band, & hubby hasn’t cared to get me a new one, so I was accused of letting guys think I wasn’t married).

  35. Well done, Wil!
    $10,000 for charity is pretty awesome.
    Every once in a while I hear people moan and groan about how celebrities are famous and they do only enough to get them in the public eye.
    Those people suck.
    You didn’t have to participate in this tournament. You didn’t have to do your best. You didn’t have to play a tournament with the winnings going to charity.
    But you did it anyway.
    And it’s a cool thing, what you did. It’s heroism of it’s own right, I think. Not everyone can be a cop on the beat protecting the city streets, or a firefighter racing into a building to pull out whatever poor soul is trapped inside. You don’t mope and whine about how that’s not you. You found another way to make a difference.
    You rock. Or in Shane’s lexicon, “You’re hawesome.”

  36. Wil… It was either the new strategy, or the repeating of the phrase, “Would you like to touch my monkey?” that helped you go so deep in the tournament.
    Seriously, dude…have you lost weight? Flipping through the channels today I saw you on “Deep Core” on Sci-Fi Channel, and it looks as though there’s some definite weight-loss going on there.
    I hear teenagers will do that to you.

  39. Dang, Wil, that’s a good picture! Get the rights to it and use it for your poker book, when you write it! It’d work well on the back cover, or on the dust jacket flap.
    If I had any semblance of a game at all, I’d have to join one of your tournaments…but I’ve gotten rusty while waiting for the release of Stacked with Daniel Negreanu for Xbox…

  41. I must agree…that’s quite an attractive picture. What’s even AWESOMER *because that’s a real word* is that your wedding ring is BLING BLING-ing right there! Anne is an amazing lady to have snagged you. And vice versa.
    Just letting you know, you still have a nice young demographic captured out here….I turn 20 in a month-ish!!
    Oh…and good job on the poker stuff…I know NOTHING at ALL about poker, so all you get out of me is good job. lol

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