Portland Players Club $1,000 Guarantee Freeroll (4,000 chips)

I hadn’t been in PPC since the middle of last May, preferring the comfier chairs of Aces, but a Facebook invite from their new owner and the potential for nearly-free money lured me in. The format allowed for re-buys during the first hour and an add-on, all for 4K in chips. About 70 players started.

I caught a big break early on in a four-way all-in holding JxJx. Two players had drawing hands but the guy in seat 1 had AxAx. The board had other ideas, however, and drew out to a jack-high straight, giving me a pot of about 17K. By the time of the first break I was at 19K.

Playing J♦Q♦ and the board turned up some more diamonds. A king-high flush gave me another win that put me up to 30K. At the 140-minute mark, I was up to 40K.

I thought I’d lost a big stack with QxQx when an all-in matched the cards in his hand for two pair, but a pair of twos on the board gave me a second pair, as the dealer pointed out. He got a good tip later. That hand put me up to 75K and I was starting to dominate the table. I took a look around during the second break and I’m pretty sure I had the biggest stack in the room.

An hour after I was at 40K I hit the 100K mark. We’d started with eight tables; by the time it was consolidated to two I had 101K.

The blinds were getting up there and several of my hands failed to connect, with me just letting my raises go rather than trying bluffs, but at the four-hour mark I was down to 89K and there were a couple of other stacks at my table that were close to or possibly even larger. I lost another 6K to the woman on my left when I tried to play bottom pair on the flop from K♣5♣.

At the third break, I was down to 83K, but still one of the larger stacks. Not dominating any longer. The first hand after the break, though, I picked up AxKx and managed to bust out two smaller stacks, boosting me up to 110K.

Got into it with the big stack on my left with 5♥3♥ that double-paired on the turn. The woman on my left was all-in, I had called and had 30K in the pot and was ahead of her 8x8x until she made a set on the river and took it down. Even so, with some more wins I was sitting on 170K when we redrew seats for the final table four hours and forty-five minutes into the match.

The woman who’d doubled up through me earlier had been seated directly on my right for the final table and had a healthy stack. She went all-in with about 70K and I called her with JxJx. She flipped over 9x9x, I made a set on the flop and I was up to 247K.

I caught another player all-in with 9x9x while I was holding TxTx, then took out the second-largest stack at the table when he shoved with AxKx and I had AxAx in the big blind. Incredibly good luck.

By the fourth break I had about 475K in chips. The blinds were 4,000/8,000, we were down to three players, and I was raising every hand I could with opening bets of 25K, which was over half the stack sizes of either of the the other two players. Barring a double-up, they had only a few hands each left before they were blinded out, and they proposed a chop that left me first place with them splitting second and third. I had no problems with that.

After paying the door fee, an add-on, and a tip for the dealer (plus a couple of Diet Cokes) my ROI was +450%.

Portland Players Club Shootout

Since I’d already paid my door fee for the day, I figured I’d go back over to PPC for the last tournament, but while their 7pm game was going strong, I was only the second person signed up for the 9pm turbo when I got there at 8:45. It wasn’t promising and I waited around for one of the shootouts to start, playing Tonk with the owner and a couple of the dealers.

Supposedly, you buy into the shootouts for 25-50BB but it seemed as if some of the players re-loaded above the top level after the game had been going for a while. Just sayin’. I bought in for 30BB. The game was set to play for 90 minutes.

Took a massive hit on my first hand holding 2x2x in the BB. Hit a set on the flop, got into a bidding war with a 50BB stack at the end of the table and he beat me holding 6x6x when his set made it on the river. I lost about two-thirds of my stack right there.

Not too long afterward, though, I played 7♥9♥, went all-in after making middle pair with the nine, made a set on the turn, and got back up to 20BB.

Another suited gapper (6♣8♣) made two pair for me but another player’s pocket QxQx tripped on the flop and cut me back down to less than 8BB.

I slow-played JxTx on a flop of JxJxTx and managed to get two callers for a triple-up on my full house.

Another JxTx doubled me up against a two-paired AxKx and KxKx when I hit a Broadway straight.

My hand of the night was JxJx but it beat me when someone else played it against my AxQx. I lost 20BB but was still had over 25BB in my stack after the previous windfalls. Lost another 5BB on A♦8♦ when I missed the flop completely and utterly.

Three spades on the flop and K♠Kx in my hand meant I was all-in against a big stack. He called, the A♠ hit on the turn and I was way ahead for the night, with a half hour to go on the timer I had nearly 90BB, triple my buy-in. I should probably have just sat on it, paid my blinds, and waited for the buzzer.

I was sort of intending to do that, and dumped AxKx with two all-ins ahead of me. Pocket 8x8x took it down, but there was a Kx on the flop and I could have made more. That’s probably what got me antsy.

I called a 30BB all-in holding QxQx, they showed AxKx, pulled an ace, and I was still ahead of where I’d begun but not as much.

Time ended soon after. I’d paid my door fee earlier, after a tip to the dealer and a Diet Coke I had +85% ROI.

Overall for the day: +262% ROI.