Time was running out. If there was any chance of getting to EPT Prague for my 50th birthday, last weekend was pretty much make-or-break time. The second starting day kicks off at noon on December 6 (St. Nicholas’s Day); I’d have to catch a flight on the 4th to get there in time, which meant having the money and arrangements made the week after Thanksgiving at the latest. To do that, I needed to to get to an event (or series) with a potential prize large enough to cover the €5,300 ($7,125) entry fee and expenses for a nice little Yuletide vacation for Ms. Poker Mutant and myself (which only got higher as the date got closer). Not that I hadn’t been trying before.
I suppose I should have kept notes on what turned out to be the biggest win of my poker career so far, but I’m back in the mode of not being obsessive about it (plus my iPhone was low on charge). And after the whirl of the past couple of days, I’m not sure how much or how accurate my recollections of the event are.
I started off the night at red table 2 in seat 7; we were ten-handed, as usual in Encore’s $10K games (the same table was used for the final). My stack made its usual ups and downs, the first thing I can remember of any significance was when I’d managed to chip up to about 35,000 and a player in seat 1 pushed all-in from BB for the third or fourth time after raises in front of her. I stood to lose about a quarter of my stack calling her with [kh 6h] and she flipped over [9x 9x], but got knocked out.
The older guy to my immediate left reacted with indignity with the usual cant about how it was a stupid call. I didn’t point him to my calculator. In a nine-handed game, a pair of nines is the best hand 17% of the time. K6s is good 13%. My “relative par” rating—comparing each hand’s win/tie percentage to that of a pair of aces—for K6s is 19.19%; it’s 26.87% for nines (for nine-handed play).
Before I knew that the player I’d knocked out was related to my neighbor, I tried to explain why I’d called: that she’d made the same move several times from the blinds, that I had her stack covered substantially, etc. but he actually flipped his hand at me and said something like “Stop talking. Phffft, phfft, phfft.” I had a hard time suppressing outright laughter at the performance.
My own feeling is that I had at least a 33% chance of taking out a player without losing more than a quarter of my stack. Not good odds in a cash game, but tournaments aren’t cash games. I think people forget that sometimes. Every player knocked out gets you closer to the money in a tournament. UPDATE: Essentially, this is the same situation described in this Card Player hand matchup between Pius Heinz and Phil Collins at the WSOP Main Event final table earlier this month, right down to the pocket nines, with the difference being that the player with the draw—Collins—was the one at risk. Maybe Mr. PhfftPhfft would like to take his point up with Collins.
I don’t remember exactly where the tipping point in the game came. Unlike some other games, I never seemed to be significantly stacked higher than anyone else; but somehow as the night progressed people kept leaving and we eventually ended up at the final table with more or less even distribution of chips. Play was exceedingly friendly, although one of the players to my right said almost nothing throughout the night.
Then, once we got to the final table, something kicked in. I think I play my best short-handed (naturally it helps if I’ve started to pick up chips). Action got down to me and the quiet guy, with us trading blinds back and forth without flops for quite a while until he was all-in with two high over cards ([kx qx] if I remember correctly) against my [2x 2x]. A pair of sixes hit the board but I wasn’t counterfeited and there was no chop.
I thought there might be trouble when quiet guy dropped a $20 on the table and asked where he got paid. He took the payout and headed for the door, leaving the volunteer dealers grumbling. I spread the love, gave something to the security guard for walking me to my car, and headed home to figure out how to try to capitalize on the win.
And the one time I forget to take a picture of the tournament screen…here’s one from earlier in the night that Encore posted on their Facebook page.
Eight-and-a-half hours. +568% ROI (including entry, door, add-on, tips). 1st of 75 players.
Probably a longer write-up in the next couple of days, but early this morning I took first place in Encore’s $10K Guarantee tournament, a belated first step in my “plan” to be playing at EPT Prague on my 50th birthday in just over two weeks. $4,275, my biggest win ever by far.
To get to Prague, I needed a number of wins of that size (more or less in the ballpark of the maximum you can win on a regular basis in Portland) or I needed to get to a tournament series where I could enter several large events in the hope of hitting one. The wins didn’t come regularly (or large) enough to make the first option work, and with less than two weeks–including Thanksgiving–between now and the big day, there are a limited number of events with large enough prize pools that I could enter.
So most of the winnings are going into a buy-in at The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza’s $2,500 final event, which meant buying an early ticket to Vegas after I cleared the plan with B, and hoping the flight’s not delayed too long. At the airport right now.
I got into the game just as the button was finishing its first trip around the ten-handed table and was seated at black table 2 seat 5, with a couple regulars I knew by sight on either side of me. There’d been some significant action already, with one player in the middle of a re-buy as I took my place. Seat 6 welcomed me to an interesting table.
It got even more interesting in short order when a player sat down in empty seat 2 and started complaining that she couldn’t get her chair closer to the table—always a problem when they’re ten-handed. She was jerky and abrasive, and seemed a bit amped-up as she demanded the table be squared up. The dealer and several of us mentioned that we were squared, with the cupholder across from the dealer right between me and seat 6. Seat 3 suggested moving the chair for the currently-empty seat 1 back from the table and she responded by saying someone could be sitting there soon. She got up from the table after the button went past and stalked off. Eventually, the floor director came back when she was there and she brought the subject up again. He just pulled the chair in seat 1 back and that settled the matter for the moment.
Things only got nuttier when a guy showed up for seat 1. From the way things had gone a little earlier, you might have expected fireworks to fly but suddenly seat 2 was cordial as hell, at least to the guy in seat 1. Seat 1 started flinging in raises and raking in chips, and nobody was in much of a mood to push back. I can’t remember at what point seat 2 went all-in but she got stomped and rebought, which didn’t seem to make her mood much better.
Some of the other players’ suspicions were tracking along with mine, and someone asked if seat 1 knew seat 2 (not that most of the people regularly playing in a $100+ buy-in game in Portland don’t know most of the other players by sight, at least) and he claimed anything but the sort, pointing down to an older player in seat 8 who’d just put in a raise and exclaiming: “But this guy, I know this guy….”
Not too long after that, seat 8 was working on his action (seat 9 and 10 were out pre-flop) when seat 1 jumped in with a raise and the dealer tried to redirect. Seats 1 and 2 got puffed up and started jabbering on about how it was up to the player to keep action from passing them by and the rest of the table weighed in that acting out of turn wasn’t proper procedure. According to Roberts’ Rules of Poker:
To retain the right to act, a player must stop the action by calling “time” (or an equivalent word). Failure to stop the action before three or more players have acted behind you may cause you to lose the right to act.
So they were wrong about the action moving on because there hadn’t been enough players acting behind seat 8 but more importantly:
Deliberately acting out of turn will not be tolerated.
If seat 1 knew seat 8 hadn’t acted, then the action was deliberate, which is a penalty offense. The second time he did it, the dealer warned him.
None of that had anything to do with me. I was doing reasonably well at the break, up a little from the starting stack. I went out and talked to JB and a guy in a brony shirt in the rain. JB was sitting right behind me on black 1 and not long after things got started a couple players at the high end of the table were knocked out and the brony guy joined us. I went long for a straight draw that I had to fold when a second ace hit the board. Brony flipped pocket aces. Two hands later on BTN, I raised all-in withb [2x 2x] but my stack didn’t have much in the way of power to blow anyone off. I got called by the brony who had an ace high. I got a full house but it was aces over deuces, which made two quad ace hands for the brony. Can’t argue with that kind of luck.
Two and a half hours. -100% ROI. 54th of 71 players.
Started the day off well with a win, then played three more tournaments without a cash.
Encore Club Noon $1,000 Guarantee (5,000 chips)
Got chopped down in the early going of the game and rebought after I lost a race. The second starting stack went a little better. The field was small—only going to three tables—and I started to pick up some momentum, holding over 50,000 chips (out of about 180,000) while we were still at two tables. By the third break, I had more than half the chips in play at the final table, with seven or eight players in. Just missed taking two players out at once with [8x 8x]; both of them had aces and managed to catch one on the board. I was still chip leader at four players—even after losing 22,000 in another attempt to knock a player out—when a chop was proposed with me taking 30% of the pot and the other players splitting the rest. Didn’t keep notes, walked out without tipping for the first time—got distracted by a need for food—and forgot to take a screen photo.
Four hours. +200% ROI. first of about 26 players.
Encore Club $1,800 Guarantee (8,000 chips)
Made a horrible misread early on and thought I was getting bluffed by an ace when I was holding fourth pair on with [5c 6c] the turn. I’d put in a bet of 1,500 and it was down to just two of us with a bunch of chips in the middle, but he shoved and my call revealed his aces. At least I wasn’t the first one eliminated.
30 minutes. -100% ROI. 40th of 43 players.
Portland Players Club $200 Guarantee (2,000 chips)
It was hopping at PPC with ten-handed action right off at a couple of tables. Lost big with a ragged ace that could have filled up two different straights on the river but didn’t and I was out shortly thereafter.
30 minutes. -100%ROI. 21st of 22 players.
Encore Club $500 Guarantee (5,000 chips)
Zipped back over to Encore in time for their last tournament of the night. This went a little better than the freezeout, but I still didn’t make the consolidation into two tables.
I got off to a very hot start, with some semi-strong holdings that encouraged me via Kill Everyone to a lot of three-betting. I managed to take down five of the first seven hands with only one showdown. I had [7x 7x] and was heads-up with a player in the blinds Several over cards appeared on the board and we essentially walked it to the river, when he showed [ax 6x] which had paired the lower card but I had him beat. Then again, I broke off one hand where I’d flop-paired [kx] after [ax] showed on the turn and another where [2x 2x] was up against a pair of queens showing, so I was only up to 12,925 at the end of the first orbit despite having won a majority of the hands.
I sat quetly after that rush and waited for my opportunities. [ac js] won a big pot for me when it made two pair on the turn and then a spade flush on the river. Fifty minutes into the game I was up to 15,625.
I was saved from a huge loss with [qx qx] when I pushed back on a 1,600 re-raise pre-flop with a 3,200 four-bet and was called. [ax kx] on the flop reined me in and I showed my queens when I folded. The guy in seat 10 flipped over [kx kx] and said something about “thanks for the chips.”
I got it back and more almost immediately. I picked up [jx 8x] and paired the jack on a queen-high flop. He three-barreled it and tried to push me off the hand, but my pair of jacks ended up costing him 6,000 chips.
Then I got my own comeuppance trying to get tricky with [ac 7c]. I only hit middle pair on the flop and a flush beat me. Seventy-five minutes in: 14,600 chips.
Just before the first break, a hand had one of the players in the tank for a couple of minutes before folding as the clock ticked down to less than a minute. A couple of the players headed off to get pizza or get in line for the bathrooms. I wasn’t expecting much, but I was in CO and when I looked at my cards I had [kx kx]. I raised and ended up heads-up with SB. The flop was jack-high, SB bet, I raised all-in and he called, to show [ax ax]. The board gave me no solace and his aces held up, leaving me with only 925 chips (my profit from the first orbit of the button).
I was still in, although extremely short-stacked even with the 8,000 chip add-on. Early on, I doubled with [ax kx] v [kx kx] when an ace hit on the flop. at 2:22 into the game, I had 17,800 chips.
[qs 4s] gave me a moment of deliberation from BTN before tossing it. When the hand played out, I would have hit a flush and beat the single pair that took a large pot.
Blinds were up to 300/600/75 when I called a raise of 1,800 from BTN with [as 9s]. I hit top pair on the flop and pushed after a raise to win the hand. Then I lost several thousand playing with [kx tx] v [9x 9x] which made a set on the flop. At 2:50 I was back down to 14,000.
A push with [8x 8x] on an ace-high all-diamond flop took down another hand, then I picked up blinds and antes at 400/800/100 with a raise and [9x 9x] from HJ. Up to 16,125 at 3:10, then 19,000 at 3:30.
All-in from middle position with [kx tx] took blinds and antes again at 1,000/2,000/300, but four hours and forty minutes into the game I was still at 18,700 chips, below the amount of the starting stack and add-on.
I pushed on a 6,000 re-raise with an all-in holding [ax 5x] in BB and managed to suck in some more chips, then I got extremely lucky with [tx tx] when I pushed pre-flop from BTN and doubled through SB’s [8x 8x]. We both made sets on the flop, but I stayed ahead. That catapulted me to nearly chip average, with 53,000 chips at 4:50.
Sliding back down, I called an all-in of 13,600 with [6x 6x]. He had [ax kx] and I almost got free, but he hit Broadway on the river. At 5:10 I was back down to 41,000. There were fifty of the original 154 players left.
Another river did me bad when I called another small (11,600) all-in with [kx jx]. We both paired out top card on the flop, then I paired the jack on the turn. Then the river gave him another four.
Right after that, I shoved on a 9,000 raise with [kx tx] and after some thought, the player gave it up. With that, I managed to get back up to 40,000 by 5:25, with 44 players remaining.
I doubled again by hitting my ace with [ax 9x] v [kx jx]. and fifteen minutes later was sitting on 69,800 chips, which sounds great, but with only 38 players left after the start of break 3, was only 90% of the chip average. With blinds at 3,000/6,000/500, each orbit was costing 13,500. Not a good time to go card dead, but that’s what I did. I was down to 45,500 at 6:15 and there were 29 players left, with eleven spots to go before the money.
The BB hit me at 4,000/8,000/500 and I had [jd 9d]. Not exactly something you’d write the Internet about, but the best thing I’d seen for a while. BTN raised to 24,000 and I went all-in for a total of 36,000, knowing the best I could expect were two live cards. He had [ax qx], he was the favorite as I expected, but it was still only 3:2. I almost made a straight with the series of mid-level cards that flopped, but his ace took the day.
Six-and-a-half hours. -100%ROI. Finished 26th of 154 players.
The club email announced this as the last of the monthly $10Ks. Once you got there you found out it was because they’re changing up their schedule after the summer and running it every week. We’ll have to see if the prize pools stay the same size; this one ran to $23,500, with a top prize of $5,675.
I got to the game halfway through the first hour, with the blinds already in the second (50/100) level, although the dead stack I bought into didn’t seem affected. Supposedly, I got one of the last two seats of the night, back in the “Batcave” among the employee bikes and personal items.
My first play was a rather tricky [kd 2d], calling 350 pre-flop. I made bottom pair on the non-diamond flop and folded to a bet of 700. Following [ah 7h] to four hearts on the turn, I folded again to an 800 bet.
More speculation with [kc qs] cost me 500 to see the flop along with four others, three of whom folded along with me to a 400 post-flop bet. [as 6h] (was I getting frustrated?) and 200 more chips were gone once there was a 525 bet after the flop. My stack was down to 8,050 at one hour into the game.
Blinds were 150/300/25 (level 4) when I got my first premium hand—or at least [jx jx]—in CO position. I re-raised pre-flop to 2,000 and pushed all-in after the flop, inducing a fold from the one caller. That put me back up just over the starting stack, with 10,500 chips at ninety minutes (or an hour after I’d arrived).
I didn’t even have to think about tossing [kx 3x] pre-flop on the last hand before the first break, but it would have made Broadway and taken down a nice pot if I hadn’t. With the 7,000 chip add-on, I started round 2 with 16,825.
Had to give up 1,600 on [ax tx] after seeing the flop. Likewise, [jh 2h] was a loser of 1,200 when the flop showed no heart (although I did make bottom pair). Another [ax tx] on BTN paired my [ax] on the flop, with [qx] and [kx] showing up by the turn. I bet hard and fast and got a fold before the river to take the hand. Still, at 2:30 into the game I was down to 14,975.
Suited JT has become a sort of favorite lately, and in the last hand before the Batcave table broke, I won a decent pot from S—the manager of the Encore—with [jc tc].
My first win at the new table was one step down: [9h th]. I’d made a straight by the turn and hit the flush on the river. With a couple of wins I’d doubled up to 30,100 before the third hour of the game.
Payed an unsuited [jx tx] and hit top pair on the flop, with a bet taking the pot. Then I hit a set on a flop with [3x 3x] in my hand and pushed to take it down, bringing me up to 36,500 by 3:15.
There was a post-flop bet of 3,500 ahead of me with [ad qx] on BTN. I had top pair and pushed all-in. BB called with [kd qd], hitting the flush by the river. One more diamond…. That cut me in half, to 17,275.
I was saved by the Mutant Jack. I called a smaller stack’s all-in with [ad jd] and was up against [ax tx], getting a knockout and a chip infusion. Then a couple of big rounds of betting with the guy who’d hit the flush against me led to my [jd td] making Broadway. In twenty minutes I’d made up my ground and then some, with 48,225 chips.
Blinds were up to 600/1,200/200. and I speculated 6,000 to see the flop with [ks 8s]. I missed entirely. Two of the other callers went all-in and it was [6x 6x] v. [ax jx], with the pair winning with a six-high straight.
At break 2 there were 77 of the original 141 players left.
I lost big drawing to s ten-high spade straight flush from the bottom end and was down to 20,500 at 4:05.
Called with [ad td] in UTG (at 800/1,600/200) with three more in the hand behind me. I bet just 2,000 after pairing the [ax] on the flop and took the pot. Then I lost 4,800 in SB to see the flop with [kx qx].
Seriously short-stacked, I called a larger all-in from BTN with [ac 4c] hoping to have my [ax] live, at least. Instead, I was up against [ax qx]. I managed to get a [4x] on the flop, though, and doubled up.
I had the [as qx] on the next hand and re-raised all-in from CO. The original raiser had a slightly smaller stack than me. He called and flipped [ax kx]. There were four black cards on the deck by the turn and I held my breath for a minute but only three of them were spades. That cut me down to 2,000 chips.
Back to [ax 4x]. All-in with four limps ahead of me, got called by [tx tx] and I was out.
Four-and-a-half hours. -100% ROI. 61st of 141 players.
Encore Club $3,000 Tournament of Champions (8,000 chips)
Walked into Encore about 8pm thinking I’d be buying into a game running alternately to the monthly TOC. Apparently, if you show up on the first Saturday and they’ve still got space, you can freeroll for the $20 entry fee. I had a full players card and got on for just $10. The August TOC was my last big win; it’s been a couple of lean months.
Blinds were already 75/150, and the first hour was unpromising. I had to lay down [kx kx] from BB after an [ax] showed up on the flop when. I managed to pick off a bunch of raises and calls with [8x 8x] and an all-in and even luckboxed into a flush holding a [5d]. But the 5,000 chip add-on at the break got me just back to the starting stack.
Managed to double up after our table broke, then lost a good chunk in a split pot holding [tx tx] v [ax kx] and [ax jx] when the shortest stack matched their [jx] on the flop. Shortly after, the no-longer-shortest stack took me out. I’d raised with [ks jc], the board was [kx 7x 4x] and I went all-in. NLSS called, flipped [kh 7h], the last [kx] came on the turn, and without a [jx] at the river I was out.
Played three tournaments yesterday(ish), which brings my total since 1 May to 98, including both live and online games.
Aces Players Club $10K Guarantee (10,000 chips)
I haven’t cashed in this tournament over six attempts. But at least I usually make it to the add-on break so that I can donate another $50 to the prize pool. Not last night. I picked up [kx kx] as BB and hit a set on the flop. I was so busy hoping for the board to pair on the river that when a mid-position player who’d been calling my raises shoved, I snap-called and was easily beat by the Broadway straight I missed seeing. I just said “Not tonight” when the dealer asked me if I wanted to rebuy, but what I was thinking on my way out the door was “Not after a stupid call like that.”
Twenty minutes. Didn’t even bother to check the entries or my position but I think I was first out among about 45 players although some likely showed up after I was KOd. -100% ROI.
Encore Club $3,000 Guarantee (10,000 chips)
I thought of variations on the theme of what I should have said as I drove across town to the Encore. I still had enough in my pocket for a buy-in in their Friday night 8pm freezeout, and I even managed to get a spot in their parking lot.
Sometime about three months ago I stopped keeping notes on my live games. It seemed distracting, I wasn’t always finding time to post the results here (I’ve got several games from June and July I never got around to), and I felt I wasn’t able to concentrate on my game as much. On the other hand, I was cashing more often while I was keeping notes, so I decided to do it again for this game. Did it make a difference?
Early on I lost 1,300 chips with [qh jd]. I needed a [9x] for a queen-high straight but folded on the turn bet and the other two players still in the hand chopped my contribution, as they were both holding [ax tx] and made a pair of tens.
Hit a pair of queens with [qx 9x] and took a small pot, then tossed [jx tx] post-flop which would have made a jack-high straight on the turn. By 15 minutes into the game I was down to 8,600 chips.
[jc 7c] lost me 250 when I folded after an unpromising flop. I pushed 1,200 into the pot holding [9x 9x] in position after a limper who called but [ax] on the flop and a bet from the limper made me throw it and he showed his [ax]. Down to 7,575 at 33 minutes.
Called a raise to 425 with [qx 8c] but tossed it after another ungood flop. Three-quarters of an hour in, I was down to 6,950.
Finally, my flushing strategy worked with [ts 8s]. I hit on the turn and pulled in enough to bring me back up over starting level, to 11,825.
Overbet [ax tx] and lost 1,200 when I didn’t connect by the river heads-up and my opponent bet another 1,200. At the first break I was holding just over the starting stack: 10,125 chips; just a little below average with only one player out.
I went card-dead for quite a while and slipped slowly to 9,100 after the return to play, then shoved from BB with [jx jx] (the strong hand of the night) and was called by [ax qx] (which was consistently losing last night). The woman who called me had me covered by only about 600 chips and the loss was crippling. On the other hand, I was up to 17,800 by the two-hour mark.
I called an all-in with [ah 8h] and was outmatched by [ad 9d] but the board gave me a low straight and I knocked out a player, taking me up to 23,200 at 2:15 into the game. By break two that had increased to 25,800.
With the blinds at 400/800/100 after the chip-up, I raised to 2,000 with [qx jx] from UTG and managed to take the blinds down. With [kh 5h], I raised from BTN to 2,400. There weren’t any hearts on the flop and BB won the pot hitting jacks over nines right off the bat.
A player with [9x 9x] went all-in with 14,000 and I called with [kx kx], which held up. A little more than three hours into the game, I was up to 33,800. I promptly slammed down again calling an all-in from a 5,000 chip short stack with [jx tx]. They tripled up.
Clubs failed me again with [ac 5c] on BB. There weren’t any black cards on the board by the turn when another player bet out and I folded, losing 1,600 chips. Twenty minutes after being at neatly 34K I was down to 24,600. Another twenty minutes had me cut down to 20,600, just under the average stack.
Two kings on the board by the turn forced me to fold [ax 8x] and forfeit 1,600 more chips. The slide continued, down to 18,800 at the third break.
Four hours into the game and it was an even 14,000. I took the blinds and antes with [kd tyd] but a pre-flop all-in with [qx tx] got called by a big stack with [ax jx]. I had an up-and-down straight draw from the flop, but nothing else materialized and I was gone.
Five hours. Finished eleventh of 44 entries. Six places paid, with $4,400 in the prize pool.
Carbon Poker $150 Guaranteed Pot Limit HO (2,000 chips)
What better to cleanse the palate of five hours of play, only to bust out short of the money, than some mixed-game online action? I joined the game with only four other players at one of two tables, playing Pot Limit Hold’em. I lost a couple of early pots, laid down a [kd js] after missing the flop that would have cleaned up on the fifth hand, then finally turned [ac 8c] into enough to get me back up over starting stack on hand 8.
The very next hand, I paired my ace in [ah 7s] on the flop to win a small pot, then lost a little back. We lost a player on hand 10, then the tables consolidated on hand 14. The sixteenth hand was the beginning of our switch to Pot Limit Omaha Hi-Lo.
Hand 21 was a turning point. I picked up [ks 9h 3h 2d]. Seemingly not a particularly good hand, but with low possibilities if there’s an ace on the board. I raised to 90 (from 15/30) UTG, was re-raised by UTG3 to 315, and called after BTN called. The [7h jd kh] flop gave me a heart draw and top pair; I bet the pot: 990. UTG3 went all-in and I was all-in to call. He had [7s as kd ah] for two pair as it stood; we were 40/60 with me on the short end. But I made the flush on the [5h] turn and his only hope was to catch[7c], [7d], or [kc] on the river. I went from 2,295 to 4,920 and a more than 1,000 chip lead.
I didn’t win anything through the next round of PLHE, actually managing to lose the 1,000 margin I’d had. By the start of hand 40 I was down to 3,285. That hand, I got [3d 4d ah 7c] in SB and called the 60 chips of the big blind. The [qd th 3h] flop gave me a gut-shot Broadway draw; I had a backdoor nut flush. I checked it and BB checked. [kc] on the turn gave me the nuts: Broadway. I checked, BB bet 225, I pot-raised to 1,425 and he called. A pointless [7c] showed on the river. I checked, BB tossed in his remaining 515 chips and I called. He just had kings and threes. He was KOd, I was up to 5,945.
Hitting trip nines on the next hand (the last of that round of Omaha) put me over 6,000 chips. [as qs] on hand 47 dragged in another nearly 4,000 chips. At nearly 8,500 chips, my nearest competitor was 2K below me. I lost a bit on a few hands, but a split high pot ([2d 2s kd kc] on the board and two of us with aces) on hand 54 (PLHE) got me up to 8,088.
My nearest competitor and I went head-to-head in hand 56 (PLO8) with me taking the low and earning a couple hundred in early bets and calls.
The next hand, I picked up [6c 6d kd ac] in HJ at 75/150. Action folded to me, I raised to 450 and got called by BTN and SB. The flop of [9s 5d 2c] missed me completely and got checked all around. [2s] on the turn didn’t do me any good, either, but when SB checked to me I bet 750 and both the others folded. I was up to 9,288 and I was invincible with a nearly 3,000 chip lead.
I lost 825 speculating with one of those unrecommended hand that I nevertheless enjoy in PLO8: [9c tc 7d 8h]. SO good if you manage to hit a bunch of mid-range cards on the flop for a straight, not so good when it’s [5h 5c jd] and someone bets 1,330. I folded and watched nothing that would have improved my hand show up.
I speculated with a couple of more hands, dropping down to just over 6,000 chips by hand 63. Then I picked up [5d 2s ah 7d] and everything went to hell. A player starting with just under 5,000 raised to 425 from UTG1, and I re-raised to 850 for some reason. SB folded, BB called, then UTG1 raised to 3,475. My hand wasn’t strong—even if a low came along I could be easily counterfeited— but I called anyway. The [kd ks 8d] on the flop gave me nothing, but I still called an all-in bet of 1,450. My opponent flipped over [as ad 6h 4s] for a pretty good two pair. The [kh] on the turn sealed my fate. With no possibility of a low and a full house in his hand, I was drawing dead for a pot of 10,775 chips. I started the first hand of a round of PLHE with just 1,101.
My last hand (at 100/200), I potted pre-flop from UTG to 700 with [jh ts]. BTN re-raised to 1,200, then BB pushed to 4,400. I called with my remaining 401 chips and BTN folded. BB flipped over [ks ah]. He had over cards and both my suits, but I still had about a 35% chance. That dwindled to 22% when we both paired on the [td 9s ac] flop. Neither the turn or river cards improved my lot, and my implosion was complete. Top to bottom in five hands.
67 minutes. 67 hands. Finished seventh of 10 players. Three places paid; $190 prize pool.
Despite the fact that it’s supposedly now the top tourist destination in the state (and that’s a state where half a million people a year visit a bear-infested fish hatchery) I’d never been to the Spirit Mountain Casino in Grande Ronde since it opened fifteen years ago.
For one thing, I’m not much of a gambler. Despite the poker fixation, I have no interest in games of pure chance like roulette and slot machines, or card games where you have absolutely no control, like blackjack. I’ve built roulette and slot simulators, I’ve even worked with some of the people who design real electronic systems, and they just don’t interest me.
It’s a long drive down to the Mountain. Sure, it’s the closest real casino (sorry La Center, but “8 tables” doesn’t cut it) to Portland, but it’s more than half-way to the coast. Sixty-five miles by the shortest route, which takes you through the ugly traffic jam around Dundee; more than 80 miles if you go south on I5 to Salem and across.
And I’m not a cash game player. I really prefer tournament play, the bigger the field and the slower the blind structure the better. Without knowing more about the games at Spirit Mountain, there wasn’t any real draw for me.
But this weekend they are running their “Summer Showdown 2011,” a $440 buy-in tournament for 20,000 chips with $100 bounties. It was tempting with the money from the Champions game last week rattling around in my pocket. But it was too big a hunk. However, Friday they were running a $90 satellite tournament, and 20% of the field would get seats in the big game. Easy-peasy, right? I headed down there after getting some work done in the morning.
Spirit Mountain $1/$3 NLHE
Since I arrived more than an hour early (expecting more traffic on the I5 route than I ran into), I bought my tournament entry (getting a bonus of 500 chips) and then stood around a bit. Two tables of $3/$6 Limit Hold’em were running—not my game—but one of the hosts asked me if I wanted to join in a $1/$3 No Limit HE game that was starting up. I bought in for $100.
I picked up about $25 early on, then lost it a bit later after I had to lay down a straight draw to a re-raise. Then I got very lucky with a [qh 9h] and a flop with two hearts on it. There was money from four players in the pot pre-flop, I pushed all-in when another heart showed on the turn and got called, hoping that the other guy didn’t have [ah] or [kh]. As it was, he apparently didn’t even have a flush and I more than doubled up. A little after that I left the table for a bite to eat and cashed for $241. I’d just paid for my satellite buy-in and gas and then some.
It was supposedly an “event” but it was actually just a satellite to the big game on Saturday. The room filled up pretty quickly, a lot of the folks at table 12 where I was seated (table draw was from unlucky table 13) seemed to know each other and the dealer (with whom I discussed the relative “safeness” of the Encore and Aces; with her opinion being that she liked the neighborhood around Aces better—she’s the second person I’ve talked to whose car’s been broken into at Encore). Signing up over an hour early got me an extra 500 chip to go with my Coyote Club 100 bonus. I was feeling upbeat after my performance at the cash game, but I needn’t have bothered.
I lost a couple of smallish pots through the first half-hour of play. The levels were 30 minutes and we started at 25/50 but a couple of players busted out, with everyone looking their way in disdain. Just hold out, dudes! One in five gets through to the big game tomorrow! 20,000 in chips!
The last hand before the blinds went up, I was on the BB and drew [8s 4s]. There were five limps and the flop rolled out [8x 7x 4x]. One of the mid-position players raised to 300, got a call, and I re-raised to 1,500 with my two pair, only to get a check/all-in from the first actor. Everyone folded out of the way and I made a stupid call. She showed [5x 6x] for the flopped straight I hadn’t even seen. I was crushed and when the hand was over I had a single 25 chip which went into the small blind.
[ax tx] managed to quintuple me up, but a few hands later I was completely out.
So, a long drive to Grande Ronde on a sunny day, half-an-hour of good cash game play, and an incredibly stupid move in the first half-hour of a marathon tournament. Driving back to town I was kicking myself for the call but when I ran the numbers I saw that it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it was. Oh, it was still bad—especially when my tournament life was on the line—but I had between a 27% and 30% chance of winning the hand, which was better than I thought it was on the drive back.
Encore Club $3,000 Guarantee Monthly Champions Freeroll (7,000 chips)
After it was all over, I told the manager at the Encore that it was a good thing I’d spent some time establishing my table image as a complete fish earlier in the week, with two noon games where I busted out in the first round. Then again, it was a victory in another noon game that got me into the “Freeroll.”
Now—particularly considering the way things turned out—I’m not complaining, but the Champions event (open to winners of the six daily events through a calendar month) does have a $20 door fee. Six games a day, thirty days a month, minus duplicate winners and people who don’t make the event, and you might get around 150 players. (Last Saturday it was 138.) That puts the take in door fees within a couple hundred dollars of the freeroll guarantee, which sort of means the players are funding at least half of it themselves, given that a bunch of degenerate poker players are likely to be putting out a $10 door on a Saturday night anyway.
I got a good start in the first few levels with a full house holding a low pocket pair and managed to pick up about 1,600 chips before [ax jx] let me down as I was drawing for Broadway against an older gent. I needed a [qx] but got a [jx] on the river and bet my two pair, but that made Broadway for his [ax qx] and I was down to about 6,000. I held the line through level 3 and managed to double up just before the first break.
That’s pretty much where I stayed through the next three levels as the blinds leapfrogged from 200/400 to 300/600 to 400/800. At the second break (when I took the photo above) I still had only 13,000 chips even though I’d bought 5,000 in add-on chips. I’d gone from 30bb to 13bb and was at only two-thirds of the average stack.
Another two levels passed without any movement on my part, which was bad, because the blinds took a big jump between level 7 (500/1,000) and level 8 (1,000/2,000). I managed to hold out to level 9 (1,500/3,000) with only four big blinds left then shoved with [kx jx] twice and managed to take the blinds. Pushed again with [jx tx] on a dry board with [tx] as the top card and bets on the table and the take took me up to 35,000 before the third break. I was still a couple thousand chips below average (with 47 players left), and was about to start a level with just eight big blinds, but it was better than my position at the previous break.
The fourth session is sort of a blur for me. It would probably be a lot better if I could remember what happened. All I know for sure is that I sent DV an email during the fourth break just after midnight saying: 2 very good hands in last rounds up to 225000. No idea what those hands were or how they played out, but I did somehow manage to sextuple my stack over the hour. Don’t ask the centipede how he keeps all those feet coördinated.
An hour later and we consolidated to the final table. Incredibly, I was the chip leader, with 510,000, just ahead of the guy to my right who had just under 500,000. Between us we held over half the chips in play (about 1.8 million). He rather quickly set to knocking out other players, and in short order he’d added another 800,000 or so onto his stack by removing five players. I was holding relatively steady at (relatively being the operative word when the blinds are 30,000/60,000).
My only real mistake of the tournament came, I think, in proposing a deal to award the prize money based on current chip standings. The big stack was obviously a good player. I had more than twice what the next player had, and she had half again as much as the fourth player. There was no doubt the big stack was going to hold out for the first prize money. Nobody but me liked the idea of awarding by chip rank, and I probably should have just played it out and seen how the 90,000 chips/orbit affected the small stacks rather than accept the ICM deal for second through fourth, which effectively took $210 from me (assuming I would have kept second place) and gave it to two other players. Nothing’s certain in poker, though.
It may not look like much, but there are sixteen black chips stacked in front of me below adding up to 400,000, with five pink 10,000 chips on the side. If my picture is going to keep showing up online, I’m going to need to do something about my hair.
Seven hours. Second of 138 players. +714% ROI (including entry fee, add-on, and dealer tip; I probably should have counted the diet sodas and something called a Titanic I ordered when I got to the final table, but I didn’t).
