Orleans OSO $100K Guaranteed NLHE Sunday Special

The good thing is, this tournament went better than the rest of the weekend. The. bad thing is, I was still short of the money.

The Orleans Sunday Special is a regular feature during the series, with a low buy-in ($300 for 25K in chips, though there’s an $100 add-on of another 25K). Still, for $400 bucks, you’re playing for a guaranteed $100K.

As usual, I was there at the beginning, even after staying up a little late Saturday night (not Vegas late, just well after midnight watching part of The Thing Expanded). I went ahead and got my add-on at the table, since everyone else seemed to bet doing it. The second hand was a little exciting; I looked down at jacks and got a call, flopped an ace, c-bet, got another call, and by the time we got to the river with a decent sized pot, my opponent flipped over jacks and we made no money.

Managed to spread half my add-on around the table in the first hour; not the most auspicious beginning. Unlike the Seniors tournament the day before, I wasn’t catching hands at all (not that it really helped me there). It wasn’t until 90 minutes in that I had a hand I could play, which managed to get me back up to my 50K post-add-on stack, but I was back down to 32K by the first break.

I was still under 50K three hours in when I limped from early position with 5x 5x and managed to flop a set. The player I’d split the second hand with raised, and continued betting on the flop and turn with a king and queen on the board. I was all-in on the river and got called, she said “I guess I was right you didn’t have a king or queen.”

I got queens in the small blind not long after I reached 100k and made a 4K raise over several simpers at the 800bb level, only to have there eldest of them re-raise to 18K. I called, then he jammed 32K on the jack-high flop. Calling would have put me back down below starting stack; I just laid it down, though I had to send a message to Brad Press questioning my judgment.

I folded a couple of other hands to the same character over the next ninety minutes, both times where I raised or called a raise pre-flop and then he made a large re-raise or bet after the flop when I didn’t have a pair. Then, I raised Ax Tx when he was in the big blind, and after the Ax Qx 9x flop, he check-raised my c-bet and made another big bet on the 7x turn. This time I stuck with it, even though he’d put in more than a third of his stack, and he just folded when we both checked the 4x river. That got me up to 150K, about three added-on starting stacks.

Nick Getzen showed up at the table and the table banter picked up nicely, as we caught up a little. I kept climbing slowly, until I opened with 6♠ 7♠ and flopped a gunshot straight flush draw that I tagged along for about 40K in after one player (A♠ K♠) got all in against a set of jacks on the turn.

It took an inordinately long time for the clock to get updated with payouts after registration closed, but finally the numbers. Finally the numbers were posted, 601 entries, with 81 payouts and $35,131 at the top.

After a table change, I went from being one of the bigger stacks at my table to not, and a dearth of playable hands as everyone’s stacks were getting shorter ate into my now-little stack until I was down to barely more than what I’d bought at the start. It was still enough that I was able to pick up some with a shove (K♠ J♠ in early position over a raise, I went from 70K to 100K) and I caught a little wind to climb back to 200K, though that was still only about 25bb, and we were 40 places from the money.

Then…disaster! I shoved about 20bb with Ax Qx from UTG and got all the way through to the big blind…who had Ax Kx. We were still 20 from the money, there was no way he was laying that down to ladder. He flopped a king and it was more or less over. I was down to 7bb, which only lasted about 10 minutes.

Beaverton Quarantine NLHE Bounty

My live poker n Vegas was done for the trip. It was 8pm, I had a 7am flight back to Portland the next morning so I could go to work. There were still a couple of potential games on my schedule (the $200 Deepstack at WSOP, a Crazy Pineapple tournament at South Point) but I still had to pack and wake up at 5.

But I got a text that there was a special Sunday night game with my Friday online group. It started at 8, but by the time I noticed it after busting out at the Orleans and ordering a rideshare, late reg had almost finished, so I logged in while I was riding back to the Rio and played as I walked to the room (and rode up the elevator), getting a flush in against a flopped set of threes that turned into four of a kind by the river, leaving me with less than 2bb.

And that was all Vegas wrote.