Sunday, August 25, 2013

Above: From the parking deck at the Horseshoe Casino Tunica, you take the elevator to the gaming area.

The Horseshoe Casino in Tunica has a nice Saturday tournament at 3 p.m. $160 buy-in for 12K chips and 30-minute levels. The hosts guarantee $10,000 prize pool. They normally get 100+ runners, so the guarantee is no problem for them. I haven't played much live poker lately, so decided to shoot over there.

There were 78 other players with the same idea. Apparently, Harrah's was having a special tournament and some runners were diverted there.

I nursed a short stack all day. When the blinds were 600/1200 (and an ante I don't remember), I had 6600 and was in the big blind. Linda, good local player, raised to 2900. I was in the big blind with K Q. I probably should have called, then shoved the flop (stop and go), but decided just to shove. She called with pocket 10s, a king came on fourth street -- I had some chips again. That was the only time I was all in and called except for one (see below).

When there were 11 left (10 to get paid), we agreed to give the bubble person $160, their buy-in back. I agree with this as it loosens up the game and speeds things up. By far, the best player in the field was Dina (see here.) It folded to her on the button and she shoved with a short stack. One of the blinds had A-Q and called. She turned over 9 7. Do you agree with her shove? If you don't you need to rethink playing tournaments. You absolutely have to accumulate chips. You can't let your stack get so low that others will call with anything. She was eliminated and that was a relief not to have her at the final table.

At the final table, Thomas (another good player) raised to 14K when the blinds were 3000/6000 (and an ante I don't recall) and a second player called. I peeked down to see J J. My stack size was 65K, so no room to three-bet, I just shoved. The original raiser had a ton of chips. He thought for a while and finally called. The other guy went away and Thomas shocked me by turning over 7 7. I supposed he put me on high cards (A-K most likely) and there was extra money from the first call and the blinds and antes, so I guess his call made sense mathematically. As it was, he was crushed, my hand held up and I had a big stack.

When we were down to four, a fairly big stack asked the Tournament Director what the chop value was. We were told we would each get $1832. He proposed a chop. The big stack had 450K, I had 140K and the others were in the middle. The big stack countered with: The three of us take $1800 and he would got the extra (which would leave him with $1928). We were all good with that. I still had a playable stack, but being the shorty, that was particularly good for me.

Remember when I was all in with K-Q suited? That king on the turn was worth $1800 to me, and that's how tournament poker goes -- sweet when things work out and sucky when they don't.

7 comments:

  1. Very nice! I haven't played that one in a long time, it is a good one. Congrats on the cash!

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  2. Two versions to poker. Talking about it and living it. Today, blog was a nice example of living it.

    And, it does suck when it don't... :)

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  3. I don't have the patience or stomach for live poker tournaments.
    I also don't have the skill set so that kind of helps out with my first sentence.

    Too many hours played with no return waiting for the good scores.
    I'd rather play cash where I have instant gratification

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  4. I've decided that one must have a tremendous lot of patience, an uncanny memory, and the decided ability to multi-task to be a good poker player.

    I'm not going to learn 'cause I can hardly remember to tie both of my shoes in the morning. I mean, one shoe tied is good enough, right? Then I've got to remember to eat breakfast, too. It's tough.

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