Thursday, October 24, 2013

What if no one came?

I decided at the last minute to play poker last night. Saturday I'll be in St. Louis, so wanted to get in a game. The Wednesday game at the Horseshoe Tunica (temporarily being played next door at the Road House), is a $60 buy-in for 10K in starting chips with no antes. No antes makes a big difference, actually.

When I signed up and went to my table, there were only seven runners! Seven! They stated they need 12 to hold the event and a normal turn-out is 35 or so. The TD (Chris) said, "We've never not held a tournament in the four years I've been running these things." Sure enough, they had 16 entrants and one of them was blogger Jusdealem.

I played fairly tight, although I did steal one pot on a missed straight draw. Mostly I treaded water until this deal: There were four limpers to me (blinds were 100/200) and I made an overbet by raising to 3000 with A Q. It folded back to the guy on my right who went all in. Amateurs play pocket aces this way, so that would be concerning except that he had gone all in twice before with trash. I called and he showed 8 7. My hand held and I moved from 11K to 19K. Where do they get these people?

When we were at 10 players, we reconvened to one table. "Welcome to the final table," the dealer said (as they usually do), and we laughed. Somehow it didn't feel like much of an accomplishment because we'd only eliminated six players.

When the blinds were 400/800, an older guy raised to 4000 from a stack of around 9000. What does his bet size mean to you? I figured he had a vulnerable pocket pair like 9s or 10s or jacks or big slick -- something that he wanted to win the pot with right then. I had 10-10, so what would you do? You have more than twice as many chips as he does.

I moved all in. I'm not going to fold 10s, so let's get the money out there. He had A-Q and he flopped two pair, ouch.

When we were five-handed, Jusdealem busted out. It paid five, so she ca$hed. You can read her blog post here

There was a young guy sitting to my right who was active and he was my target. I'd like to say I trapped him, but instead I busted him with a cooler. When we were three-handed, he raised to 4000 with the blinds at 1000/2000. I was in the big blind with K K. I just called. The flop was all low cards and I heard music to my ears: "All in," he said. He showed Q-Q, my hand held, and he was down to a single 1000 orange chip.

Two hands later he was gone, and there were two of us left. The other guy offered to chop. I noticed he had more chip$ than I did, so quickly agreed. Small pay day, but fun to win.

4 comments:

  1. Where do they get these people?
    He got intimidated on the playground. Now it is his turn. Where else can you do that and not risk a tooth?

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  2. Ho-hum, another tourney, another win. Nothing to see here folks :)

    Congrats MOJO!

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  3. Man you just real 'em off! Good job on the win!

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  4. I thought it would come down to you and that guy for heads up, I was right. :) Congrats again!

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