Tournament Update

An update on my big tournament day. I did not play in the $10,000 tournament. Early in the morning, I played some cash games to warm up and found myself not playing very good cards and losing money. I also learned that this tournament can last until 8pm at night, which would cause me to miss the ESPN tournament. I felt like my chances were going to be better in the ESPN tournament, so I found someone to buy my seat at the Tulalip tournament and went home early.

The ESPN final tournament went okay for me, but no grand prize. Out of 411 entries, I finished 114th. Not quite where I wanted to be, no grand prize, etc. But hey, I think I did okay considering the day I was having. I was in what Harrington calls the Green and Yellow zones during the first hour of the tournament. For a final tournament, I would have figured they would have given each player more than 1500 in tournament chips. I found myself running behind for most of the second hour. Harrington calls this the Orange and Red Zones. I shot myself in the end going all-in with ATo, found one caller who paired his J on the board to knock me out even though I had paired my T.

So I just don’t feel like I was playing good cards today. I’m not playing academically lately and I think I’m playing the game itself and not playing the cards. I think I need to take a little time away from actually playing poker and work on some of the fundamentals. I think I’ll read my books for a few days and not play at all. See you in a few days... maybe.

Bright and Early

Didn’t play in a tournament today, but I did play in a $3-6 limit cash game at Muckleshoot. I think its fun to start playing a cash game early in the morning like 5 or 6am. Oftentimes you can catch a few folks that have been there all night – some just keep throwing their money away, drawing dead, chasing hands they shouldn’t even be in. Being the early riser today earned me an extra $208. Maybe I should have played the tournament, but I didn’t want anything to distract from my focus on tomorrow.

Tomorrow I have two big tournaments. Tomorrow morning is a $150 buy-in no limit tournament at Tulalip. They pay the top 10% of the field (normally 20 players), and first place is a guaranteed $10,000. They have these big tournaments every month at Tulalip and every seat in the house is full. Last month, the first place prize was $12,000.

Later Sunday, I have the final tournament on ESPN Poker Club (the free site). First place is a travel package to a WSOP Academy class in Vegas.

So tomorrow will be a big day. Bright and early. J

Wish You Were Here

Went and played the $90 Saturday tournament again at Tulalip. On the way up to the casino, the radio station played a few cuts from Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”, the title tracked followed by Welcome to the Machine. It put me in a great mood, so I was inspired to stop by the WalMart next to the casino and pick up a copy of the CD, even though I already own it a few times over. I just had to listen to more of it before the tournament started. It may soon become a pre-tournament ritual for me.

This is a qualifying tournament, where if you can finish fifth or better you can return on October 20th for a chance at a freeroll into one of two WPT events – the Bellagio Cup or the Bay 101 Shooting Star events. They have these qualifiers every Saturday.

Last week I busted out just way too quickly in the third round. Today I made it to the fifth round. One the way up there, I had told myself I was going to lay off the first few hands. Well, the first hand I was dealt was TT. I limped in, but the flop and next round of betting chased me out. The second hand was 33 and after betting 3 times the BB, I landed a set of 3’s with the flop. But I was sandwiched between better hands. The turn brought a second spade and large betting caused me to throw away my set. My suspicion was correct, two spade flushes were made with the river.

In this tournament, I fell behind with my chip stack and stayed that way. I went all-in three times and survived each one. Even tripled up on one occasion, but that only brought me back to my original chip amount – 4000. But my luck was soon to run out. With only $1100 in chips left I went all-in with KT. As it played out on the board. I made paired both the K and the T, but fell to a Ace-high straight on the river and was knocked out along with another player who is usually pretty agressive.

But hey, made it to the fifth round. Out of 149 original entries, and I figured I went out somewhere between 60-70th place. So I made it past halfway through the field and never had a decent chip stack.

I’ll likely play again tomorrow in the Sunday tournament. I did pretty darn well in that tournament last week. Fingers crossed.

Cheap Sunglasses

This morning I woke up and decided to go play in Tulalip’s $50 tournament. I arrived about 90 minutes early and decided I’d look at the outlet malls for a pair of sunglasses. I thought it might improve my tournament game. I first stopped in the Oakley store. The staff there were busy talking amongst themselves and hardly had any time for me. None of the shades had any prices on them. That combined with the lack of any attention of the staff got me to walk. Found another place (PacSun) that sold cheap ($15) sunglasses. But they didn’t have any cords to keep the shades hanging off my neck. So I had to go to yet another place. Finally geared up properly now, I headed over to the casino.

I bought into the tournament right away and sat down to a cash game while I waited. I played for roughly 40 minutes or so, and was down by $6. Yes, a whopping $6.

The tournament was interesting. I was fortunate enough to be able to keep the same table throughout my tournament run – table #16. There were 187 entrants in this tournament, about the same number as yesterday. Yet today’s outcome was far different than yesterday.

I focused primarily on keeping my emotions in check. The blinds in these tournaments move fast, so frequent coasting isn’t going to be a long-term winning strategy. Yet a large chip stack compared to your peers allows you to choose from a couple of things, coast for a few hands and pick the right spot to attack or maybe try to bully others off their hands. I noted that many who had shades didn’t wear them. I kept mine on whenever the cards were in the air.

After the first hour of play, I got farther than I had on Saturday. Monitoring the size of my chip stack, I realized that I had to pull the trigger on a few hands just to keep my average up. Getting behind on chips causes me to be in the mindset of “now you have to find a good ride before you get blinded out”. With each hand you get you ask yourself “Is this the best hand I’ll get before those blinds come around again?” and more importantly, “Is this one winnable?”

Of course I took several of those chances. Make a mistake here and you’ll head home early. I took four (maybe five) of those chances in this tournament. One of the most memorable hands of this tournament was an all-in I did with Kevin, a very dominant personality and intimidating body frame. If he’s not the chip leader he’s close to it. I have position on him and we both limp in to see the flop. What he doesn’t know is that I have pocket 3’s and the flop completes a set. He makes a big raise, about 1900 chips. I have maybe 1700 in my stack. I push my stack across the line, sit back and freeze for a moment. I then stand up to watch the turn and the river. My set holds up and I draw back a lot of chips, which takes me well above 5000 in chips. This allows me to go much farther in the tournament. I think I established enough dominance that anytime I pushed in chips, look out. I know I kept Kevin off some marginal hands.

About two and half hours in, I started paying attention to how many tables were still filled with tournament players. Six tables soon turned into five, then four. Blinds kept increasing every 15 minutes and then soon we were down to two. That’s when I started thinking I might make the final table. I had to put that aside though. I needed to win another good hand to get to that table. Almost as soon as I that thought registered, I found myself sending two to the rail with one hand. This was a bounty tournament and that earned me two chips (and a large stack) at once. I ended the tournament with three bounty chips.

Well, soon enough found myself at the final table. Thankfully, the final table was located right at the first table I sat down to in this tournament – table #16. Never moved the whole time. Kevin, my all-in nemesis, was right there along with me. Soon the final table of 11 became 4. The chip leader knocked out two more including Kevin, and soon it was just me and the chip leader.

First place pays $1600 and second place pays $1300 in this tournament. Gary the chip leader offers me $100 to simply volunteer to go out in second place, he really wanted the special encased button that says ‘tournament winner’ and was willing to pay for it. I wasn’t going to give that chance up. I already had second place locked and I wanted my chance to play for the button. After all, I think heads-up is one of my best games. We battle back and forth on a few all-ins, and I manage the chip lead with a well-timed spade flush. I have him covered by at least 2:1. The blinds are 20000 and 40000. I’m in the small blind, I limp in and Gary goes all-in. I call with A-8. Gary turns over A-Q and he prevails. This turns the chip counts around and I’m now at the disadvantage. A few more hands go by and I’m out in second place with $1300. No button.

But I think I did get my tournament game back that I thought I had lost Saturday. My wife reminded me that in just two weeks, I’ve entered my first seven tournaments, and found the final table in four of them, cashed three, and won one. The month’s tournament winnings, $1,832. So far.

I love my cheap sunglasses.

Another tournament under my belt

Played a lot of $4-8 limit today. Within a good hour or so, I was up exactly $90, just enough to enter a qualifying tournament. The last tournament I played was the $150 at Caesar’s, in which I busted out at the first level. Well, at least this time I made it to the third level.

I then played some more $4-8 after I busted out. There were some good players around. I think I played for a good 6 hours and found myself down about $300. I had a series of good hands, and before I knew it, I had clawed my way back to down by $100. A couple of hands of pocket Q’s helped, too. Kind of reminded me of the three hands of A-A earlier in the week.

Maybe I’ll go back and play the Sunday tournament tomorrow.

Mini-satellite at Tulalip

I may go and play at Tulalip this weekend. They are having a mini-satellite for the Bellagio Cup, $90 buy-in. Why not, I say.

I've not played a single hand since the 3 straight pocket AA's. I may have forgotten how to play this game.