Afternoon Updates:

• Chatting with one of the hotel poker bosses that was monitoring the tournament brought about this comment, “… these guys are really serious. On a typical Wednesday night we may have four tables going in the poker room. Last night there was a line to get in. That’s always great to see both for the hotel and the players, in this case these Continental players.”
• Now that we’re in the afternoon session, Miller Lite is starting to overtake Starbucks as beverage of choice.
• Of the 29 players starting the tournament who were wearing sunglasses, 8 of them have been knocked out so far. Not sure what that means other than 21 of them are still wearing their sunglasses.
• Four hours into the tournament, a player just arrived from Hawaii. As with all other late-arriving players, their original chips are there for them minus any of the blinds (bets) that would have been put up for ante. One of the more experienced players commented that in theory, a person might win a tournament without ever playing. Now that is something i should have tried rather than watching the money, er …. miles flow by.
• According to the pit boss (a term I saw in a Vegas movie one time), there is a wide variety of players in this tournament, from those who have never touched cards before to some very experienced players. This makes for a very difficult play since the more experienced players never know what the “rookies” are going to do. They are referred to as “the great unknown.”
• Interesting, the chip stacking habits of some of the players. For some, it’s the organized method by chip type and by stack height. Others, chips are simply scattered all over in front of them with no apparent measure of value. Some even use the chip trays from the dealers to keep themselves organized.
• Also noticeable are the table dynamics. Some tables appear more like Friday night poker at a friends house with everyone talking and joking. Others are far more reserve and serious with almost no words exchanged.
• Some poker players appear to be quite the multi-taskers, juggling all-in bets and card counting with reading and replying to email and text messages on their Blackberries and iPhone. No one really even seems to notice.
• And finally, I love watching “the stare.” This is when someone plays to the limit on a hand and out of nowhere one of the players slips in that winning card. That winning player gets “the stare” from which you can only guess what they must be thinking to match that look. While this game may be fun, there is little doubt it is also serious.

Afternoon Updates:

• Chatting with one of the hotel poker bosses who was monitoring the tournament brought about this comment, “… these guys are really serious. On a typical Wednesday night we may have four tables going in the poker room. Last night there was a line to get in. That’s always great to see both for the hotel and the players, in this case these Continental players.”
• Now that we’re in the afternoon session, Miller Lite is starting to overtake Starbucks as beverage of choice.
• Of the 29 players starting the tournament who were wearing sunglasses, 8 of them have been knocked out so far. Not sure what that means other than 21 of them are still wearing their sunglasses.
• Four hours into the tournament, a player just arrived from Hawaii. As with all other late-arriving players, their original chips are there for them minus any of the blinds (bets) that would have been put up for ante. One of the more experienced players commented that in theory, a person might win a tournament without ever playing. Now that is something I should have tried rather than watching the money, er …. miles flow by.
• According to the pit boss (a term I saw in a Vegas movie one time), there is a wide variety of players in this tournament, from those who have never touched cards before to some very experienced players. This makes for a very difficult play since the more experienced players never know what the “rookies” are going to do. They are referred to as “the great unknown.”
• Interesting, the chip stacking habits of some of the players. For some, it’s the organized method by chip type and by stack height. Others, chips are simply scattered all over in front of them with no apparent measure of value. Some even use the chip trays from the dealers to keep themselves organized.
• Also noticeable are the table dynamics. Some tables appear more like Friday night poker at a friend’s house with everyone talking and joking. Others are far more reserved and serious with almost no words exchanged.
• Some poker players appear to be quite the multi-taskers, juggling all-in bets and card counting with reading and replying to email and text messages on their Blackberries and iPhone. No one really even seems to notice.
• And finally, I love watching “the stare.” This is when someone plays to the limit on a hand and out of nowhere one of the players slips in that winning card. That winning player gets “the stare” from which you can only guess what they must be thinking to match that look. While this game may be fun, there is little doubt it is also serious.

Four hours into the tournament the chip leader at this point has roughly $320,000 (read – 320,000 miles) stacked up in front of him.

Note: At this point, nearly 50 players of the roughly 230 have left the game.

Sure, you need to eat to keep your strength up to win this thing.

We asked around the tables to find out who the heck is risking missing work for a chance at 21 million miles. Here’s the results:

• 40% of the players are from Texas (why do you think they decided to play Texas Hold’em?)
• Players represent 23 states and three other countries (Germany, Costa Rica and Mexico).
• 70% of the players are elite with OnePass, all evenly distributed among the various elite levels.

Well, the bunch of tired players slowly walked away from their first day tables – all talking about the hand that got away. Whether it was the $65,000 hand where the straight flush beat their four-of-a-kind or how they got beat in a bluff by someone with no cards, every player had a story and every player that counted up their chips at the end of the day was hoping they could change tables because there was at least one player at their table that intimidated them. But, with new gold wristbands as the rewards for surviving to Day Two, they all will be returning to the same seat, same table until the losers outnumber the winners.

One of the cool rituals of a multi-day poker event is the counting of the chips. Each player was given a large plastic bag (much more customer friendly than the quart size restriction from the TSA!) in which their winnings go once counted.

The chip leaders at the end of the first day: $376,100 and $375,700. There are times when maybe money is more valuable than  miles, but alas, at any currency, a nice day’s haul.

Of the 230+ players that began this day, 144 of them remain to see another deal.

Daily ritual: The counting of the chips.

Tonight’s event was a grand dinner and live music sponsored by none other than Chase, credit card partner extraordinaire for OnePass. A couple highlights:

• The surprise of the evening was a public debut to members of the new “lie-flat” BusinessFirst seats. There was a line all evening long to lay down, stretch out and test these out, either for earning miles or burning miles in. While the trays seemed a little RJ-ish, there was no doubt that these seats were following the family tradition and will certainly be welcomed to those who never got used to sleeping or resting with the former 170/153 degree incline. And watching the 15.4 inch monitors is a real pleasure.

• And there was the now famous OnePass 21 poker chip etched into an ice sculpture, and into a handy dandy key chain with the member’s very own picture on the back. Me thinks we’ll see plenty of those used as good luck charms at the tables tomorrow.

Here we are with Day Two of the pursuit of 21 Million frequent flyer miles.

Here’s what we have:

• They will play until only 40 are left – no matter how long it takes.
• Top five chip stacks: 381,000, 375,000, 267,000, 251,000 and 217,000 miles.
• Lowest five chip stacks to start the day: 14,000, 12,000, 11,000, 10,000 and 10,000 miles.
• The ritual of cutting open the plastic wrapped chips from the day before takes scissors since most players are still so exhausted from the day before they can’t tear it open, though some try.
• Some haven’t changed out of their “lucky” shirts, and none have changed out of their lucky hats, their lucky charms and as the day before, iPods, sunglasses and hats remain as before.
• Note: Starbucks overtakes water as the most preferred way to start a poker day!!!!

Chips in Plastic (the sequel)

More factoids from the start of Day Two:

• The average chip stack for the start was 80,000 miles.
• There are 15 tables to start the day.
• In the first five minutes, there were five bounties awarded (a bounty is awarded when the play of one player knocks another player out of the tourney).
• The first player to be knocked out of the tournament on Day Two was out after only 2:28 (two minutes and 28 seconds), the second after 3:18 (three minutes and eighteen seconds). Note: Both players were knocked out on the first deal of the day.
• The strategy of the high chip holder: “Bait and Beat the low chip holders.”
• The strategy of the low chip holders: “Don’t be road kill for the high stakes guys, wait them out and let them play against each other until the chip tally improves.”
• Wondering what the pot play is like: 4 pots of 100,000 miles or more … and growing.

The chip stack average passes 100,000 miles.

And if you’re keeping track. Of the remaining 90 players at this point:

• 19 wearing baseball caps.
• 1 cowboy hat.
• 1 Panama hat.
• 1 visor.
• 1 Kanjol cap.
• 16 wearing sunglasses.
• 8 still listening to their iPods.
• 1 still listening on his headphones: He’s got an eclectic music list of Crosby, Stills, Nash, thrash metal, Brahms, Beethoven and  Nora Jones.
• and … 4 bald heads.

Here’s an interesting fact regarding the 21 Million miles: The Continental OnePass program database actually does not go higher than 9,999,999 miles for an individual account (Hey, who ever thought we’d get this far in collecting miles?). So, the winner will actually have THREE OnePass accounts set up for themselves to account for the 21 Million mile prize (two with 9,999,999 miles and the third account having the 1,000,002 miles plus whatever miles they might have won in other gifts during the tourney such as bounties and of course their normal OnePass account). See, winning the miles is only the start of the challenge, managing those miles is the next part!