Tournament Report

I really need to bring a note pad to these things, or something. I get home and can't remember everything that happened. Here's my best recollection of how tonight went down.

Went out to a friend of one of my co-worker's place for a tournament. There was supposed to be 30 people there, but we only had 17. I'd say that's about par for the coarse. We split into two tables of eight and nine players. I was a the eight player table.

I played a little looser than I've been playing lately, and it seemed to work out for me. I got into a few more pots early on and was able to win a few before the blinds got out of control. I didn't win any monsters, but at least I was staying above water, and not letting the blinds slowly take me out.

We had an interesting table. There were a bunch of people, including a couple of high school kids who weren't necessarily bad, they just played way overly aggressive. It seemed to work for them though, as they were able to get lucky when they needed it, and force people to fold at other times. At one point early on, the kid to my left goes all in after the flop with an open ended straight draw, and top pair. He gets called by the guy to his left who already made the low end of that straight. The kid then proceeds to runner, runner a full house, and gain a massive chip lead. Going all in there wasn't necessarily a horrible move. He had plenty of outs and may have been trying to force everyone else out of the pot, but backing into a full house was pretty lucky.

So like I said, I pretty much stayed even or up a little for a while. Then the blinds jump from 15-30 to 25-50 to 50-100, and everyone but the two high schoolers are feeling short stacked. That jump from 25-50 to 50-100 was a bit harsh. We only started with 500 chips. Pretty soon we were down to three at my table, and they had six at the other table. We had decided not to merge until only eight remained. Sounded like a good plan at the time, but not so much now. I'm getting screwed, because I'm the super short stack at a three person table with blinds up to 75-150 and 100-200. We really should have rebalanced the tables once there was a two person discrepancy.

I get some luck of my own as I go all in a few times to steal some blinds. I also get dealt big slick twice in a row, and have them fold 9-10 and J-10 when I go all in. We dealt out the board just to see what would have happened and I would have lost both times. I'll take it.

Finally, we get down to eight, and the tables merge. I soon become the chip leader when I raise one of the high schoolers big blind with J-Qs and he puts me all in with Ax. I pick up queens on the turn and river and he goes on tilt. Shortly there after I'm dealt pocket rockets and raise him again. He thinks I'm still pushing him around, so he goes all in and the aces stand up. We're down to five. My boss can barely cover the small blind, I'm in the chip lead, the guy to my right is a close second, the other high schooler is a close third, and another co-worker is hanging around somewhere in the middle.

After a few rounds of passing the blinds, I get dealt AK of clubs in the big blind. The small blind calls because he says he's sick of just giving me the blinds. I raise, and he calls. Flop comes three clubs, and he makes a big bet. I raise all in and he calls. Down to four. My boss is grateful because he just made the money with his tiny, tiny stack. Unfortunately for him, that's about as far as he goes, as the blinds finally get to him.

At this point I am a huge chip leader, but that leads me to make a few careless plays, and double up my other co-worker a couple of times. I had so many chips I figured I'd try to knock him out, and he took advantage of that to assume the chip lead. He then makes some crappy moves and gives most of the chips to the high schooler.

Now it gets exciting. I don't remember what the exact progression was, but somehow all three of us end up going all in pre-flop. I'm in second by a small amount of chips over my coworker who's in third going into this hand. My co-worker and I both turn over AJo and the other kid has A8o. No-one pairs anything on the board, and I breathe a sigh of relief. My co-worker then decides to point out that his cards and the cards on the board have different colored backs. We play with two decks, a red and blue, to speed up the game so that we will be shuffling one while playing the other. Somehow we managed to mix them up mid hand. Why my co-worker decides to point this out, I have no idea. The chances of any result better than the one he just had is so small I can't imagine why he couldn't just let it slide. So we replay the board and again nothing hits. So now I'm the chip leader again, with my co-worker a very close second. The high schooler gets knocked out shortly there after.

The ending is pretty anticlimactic, as we are pretty much even going into heads up. We trade blinds for a while, and no one really makes much of a move. Then I try to make a play at a pot on the turn after both of us checked on the flop. He calls, and then bets on the river forcing me to muck my garbage. He now has a definite advantage, and I get crap cards the next few hands, forcing me to fold my blinds to him. I'm pretty much down to either raise all in or fold, when I am dealt 23o. I fold it and hope the next hand is somewhat better because it will probably be my last. The next hand is 4-8 clubs, and I try to bluff all in, but he has pocket sixes, and calls for the win.

So I get second place and $80 for my troubles. Not too bad. I would have stayed to play in a second game, but our client managed to screw up their system less than 8 hours after we left KC last weekend, so I had to work this morning, and couldn't stay out late enough for another game.