Live tourney at the small casino

After an interesting Saturday night of poker, I decided to enter the Sunday tournament. Word was that they usually have somewhere from 30 to 40 people playing in them. Buy in is $30+5, with $10 rebuys in the first two levels. Starting stack was 1200 with 25-50 blinds. Rebuys got you 1000.

I was playing mainly out of curiosity. I was wondering if the same chasing in the ring games would occur in the tournament. But for a decent price, I had a chance to walk away with about $900.

I pulled the 9 seat at table 7 to start. My friend Arn was in the 1 seat. I did recognize a guy I played with the night before in the 5 seat. He wasn't a player that impressed me. The guy on my left was quiet, focusing on the football game at first and then quickly bullying the table when he got a stack. The guy on my right claimed he won the tourney last week.

But the guy in the 8 was was the one that annoyed me. Constantly yapping away in between hands. It was bad enough he had a Bears jersey on. Before we started he was going on and on about how his strategy for the tournament was well thought out in advanced. Thankfully I had a buffer between him and I.

I didn't do much in the rebuy period. I believe I raised one pot and took it down preflop. I had cards so far apart you could drive a truck between them. That didn't matter though. I was content to watch and get a good feel for the table. Being a rebuy tourney, I had a feeling this would be interesting. Like watching a guy call an all in with a gutshot straight. He ended up rebuying 3 times before being knocked out. Or the other who bluffed at a pot and got called by 2nd pair. Even Bears jersey made a play by raising preflop with 4 5o. He showed his hand after he flopped a straight. Unfortunately that meant he had to explain his system for raising with crap in order to confuse everyone later on. Yeah. Really tricky there dude. I would put that bit away for later.

I just won one uncontested pot in the first round. I took the add on at the break and hoped to see the table tighten up. While Bears jersey was trying to look like a guy who raised with nothing in hopes that he could spring a trap, I was doing the exact opposite. I had established my tight image. I was hoping to get a couple cards to use it to my advantage. In fact, Bears jersey even helped me establish the image. After about 15 hands, he made a comment to the guys on both sides of him to watch out for me. He pointed out how much I had been folding. When I finally entered a pot with a raise, he quietly (but not quiet enough that I couldn't hear him two seats away) said "watch out".

I started firing away after the rebuy period was over. The table got quite stiff. The loose play was over and everyone was getting ready to play "real" poker. Problem was, most of these people had little idea what real poker was. I got A Ko in EP and raise it up 3.5xs the BB. A guy in the cutoff re-raises the minimum. I decided to just call and see a flop. Flop comes A J x, rainbow. I pushed my stack in (just above pot) and get called after he say he feels he is dominated....by K J? He re-raised with K Jo? No help and I double through. I had watched him make some stupid plays and was happy to get some of his chips. I felt like telling him to take the Superman sweatshirt off and give it back to the store cuz he wasn't worthy.

I continued to makes some moves and quickly got my stack above 6k. I was beginning to feel like I had a great chance to make some money. I was pounding small stacks and knocking people out, including my friend. But then my luck ran out.

It started with a great chance to catapult myself into the table lead. With 5 7 clubs in the BB, I saw the flop for free. 4c, 6c, 5d. The SB pushed, a bet of 2300. I looked at my chips and realized it was just a third. I could call and still be healthy. Then I counted my outs. If I am not mistaken, I had 21 outs. Twice! I made the call. My opponent showed J 6. I wasn't dominated at all like I thought I might have been. But I didn't get any of the outs and saw the pile go to my right.

A couple hands later, I lose a race with A K to a pair of 10s. Then I lose some more when I make a move with 8 8 and run into J J and A Q. Why the A Q called from the button is unknown to me. I had quickly gone from 6k to just 1200.

Soon I would be out in 18th when I pushed UTG with A 5 and was called by K K. Maybe I should have waited one more hand. But if I had won just one of those races, I would have still been alive. Except for that last hand, I was satisfied with the way I had played. I got my money in with the better hand most of the time. I didn't have any lapses of judgement and did ok.

If I can get a bit more time, hopefully I can get back in the groove once again. I need to find time to reclaim the top spot in the POY standing. Congrats to lucko for taking over the top spot.