The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is value-packed ride through the mid-afternoon poker news world with three very special stops.
Leave comments for future 3-Bet pieces in the comments section below.
in today’s 3-Bet we’ll take a look at Chino Rheem going MIA at the WPT World Championship, a new low buy-in, big prizepool tournament by the WPT and using poker as the ultimate secret weapon in job interviews.
1) Chino Rheem Skips WPT World Championship Freeroll
It’s not often you get a $15,000 freeroll in the poker world but Chino Rheem actually made the decision to pass on one.
You may remember that Rheem won the 2013 WPT World Championship for $1.1 million but it also included a free seat in the 2014 World Championship, giving the winner a chance to defend their title.
Rheem didn’t show up on either of the starting days of this year’s contest, however, which prompted Robert Mizrachi to contact Rheem over Twitter about the freeroll.
Rheem responded that he decided to skip the tournament and was instead doing “choice” (which we’ll assume is Choice Leadership Program, of which Daniel Negreanu is a huge proponent.)
It’s kind of tough because Rheem can make his own decisions but at the same time he allegedly owes a lot of money to poker players, who might be miffed that he missed a chance to win $1.3 million.
The weird thing is that Rheem didn’t seem to initially know about the freeroll. You’d think someone at the WPT would have reached out to Rheem at some point over the year.
2) WPT Announces Low Buy-in $1M GTD Event During WSOP
In other WPT news the tour has decided to introduce a very interesting tournament smack-dab in the middle of the WSOP.
The WPT has teamed up with Aria Resort & Casino to run the WPT500 from July 1-6.
Here’s the really interesting part: the WPT500 has a $565 buy-in with a massive $1 million-guaranteed prizepool.
While not exactly a direct competitor to anything on the WSOP schedule, the WPT500 is really a more extreme version of the $1,000 Millionaire Maker.
$565 is a rock-bottom buy-in level for a tournament with potentially big money up top and could certainly shake up the Vegas live tournament scene (the WSOP has said in the past it won’t go below $1,000 buy-in for bracelet events).
Low buy-in tournaments certainly seem hot right now (ahem) so it could be a move that pays off big for the WPT.
The WPT500 will begin one day before the WSOP Little One for One Drop, which also has a relatively small $1,111 buy-in. Players could still conceivably play both although it would be tricky.
Of course the 2014 WSOP Main Event begins July 5 with three starting days so players will easily be able to play the WPT500 and the Main Event.
3) Listing Poker Skills Nets Elite Interview with Venture Capitalist Firm
It’s a common question for poker players moving into other careers: Should I list my poker achievements?
For former UK poker pro Thomas Page the answer was yes.
In a recent blog post Page recounted how he emailed billionaire Michael Moritz at Sequoia Capital and actually scored an interview with the big boss.
Page talked in detail about his numerous successes in poker and how he believed the skills would help him become an excellent employee at Sequoia Capital. Check out this great passage from the blog:
"I drove down to Sequoia Capital on Sand Hill Road the following Friday for the first job interview of my life.
We shook hands, and then Mike stared straight at me sooooooo I just looked straight back at him. He didn’t say anything so I went into a monologue on who I was and what value I could bring Sequoia.
I don’t think either of us looked away for 25 minutes straight.
I had made bets for thousands of dollars bluffing and had opponents stare at me trying to gain information so I was actually relatively comfortable with this".
In the end Page didn’t get the job but eventually got work as a Venture Capitalist. From there he launched his own start-up called Blonk, which is for finding jobs. Page credits the interview with Moritz as a major turning point in his professional life.
