Late April Tournament Summary

What's this? We actually had enough interest in our monthly tournament series to get two in this month? Inconceivable!

Game 1 - 21 Players
I don't have a lot to report about game one, other than I'm still frustrated with our starting chipcounts. Lose one big pot early and you have to rely on a whole lot of luck to catch up.

I didn't have much going for me in the first game. I went back to my try-to-see-a-lot -of-flops-early-in-hopes-of-hitting-something-big strategy and bled chips instead. And whenever I would try to steal a pot that looked like it should have missed everyone I got reraised.

My big downfall game when I was in the big blind and flopped top pair and a inside straight draw with JTo. The small blind bet and I raised. Early position called, and the small blind reraised. She was playing real tight all night so I had a feeling I was beat, and didn't want to try to draw to the straight, so I folded. Lucky for me I guess as early position went all in and small blind called. EP had pocket queens, and small blind had flopped the straight that I was thinking about drawing to.

That left me with enough chips for all-in or fold, but I was card dead and it seemed like the pot was always raised before it got to me so I had no fold equity whatsoever.

I finally tried pushing when I got 54o for the third time in four hands. Unfortunately I was called by a medium ace, and I didn't improve so I was out fairly early.

Game 1 - 20 Players

Only 20 players for game two. My starting table was almost the same as the starting table for last game. I had the same people on either side of me, and Pwerna(sp?) who had been my nemesis last game was across from me again.

The whole table was card dead, with the exception of one guy who pretty much ran over the rest of us. By the time we combined I think he had more chips than the rest of our table combined.

I basically just sat there and folded as the blinds slowly ate away at my chip stack. The only exciting thing that happened, was that I successfully pulled of a Hammer play (is that still cool with the in poker crowd?) which impressed most of table. The sad thing is that hand wasn't significantly worse than most of the other cards I had seen in the past three or four orbits.

The only reason I lasted as long as I did is as follows. Our friend Seabass (C-Bass?) had invited one of his friends to play, but he was going to be late, so we just blinded him in. I guess there was some road construction and detour on his way because he was considerably later in arriving than we expected, and he didn't have many chips left. He finally got there in the big blind, I think at the $T30/60 level, with me on the button. I looked down to see big slick, suited, the only decent hand I'd seen in over an hour and raised to $T200. He called. And then pushed all-in with his remaining one or two hundred on a ragged flop. I called more out of frustration than anything else as I was tired and ready to go home, and pissed that the only good cards I had seen weren't going to hold up. He turned over 83o grabbed his beer and said "thanks for the game guys". He had me covered by $T75 though, so he got to stick around, and actually built up his chipstack to rather impressive size before ultimately donking it off with a similar play at the final table.

The hand of the night involved a few of my coworkers who had been trading verbal assaults all night. We're at the final table with six or seven players remaining, and Aaron in was in the big blind. Jason raises 3BB preflop, which at this point in the tourney is a pretty sizable amount. Aaron looks genuinely offended that his blind was raised. To make matters worse, Jason flexes his arm looks over and kisses his bicep. I don't know if he wanted the call, but he got it. Aaron flexes both arms and asks Jason if he has tickets to the gun show. (Note, neither of these two will be confused for athletes/body builders by anyone with at lest partial eyesight in one eye.)

And we're off. The flop is JK7, two clubs, and it goes check check. The turn is another jack and Aaron leads out. Jason calls. The turn is a queen. Aaron thinks about it for a while then asks Jason if he has the stones to call as he lays out a rather large bet. Jason calls for nearly all of his remaining chips and turns over AKs for the rivered straight. Before he has too much time to gloat Aaron turns over his JQo for the rivered full house and Jason goes into shock for a while. Aaron says the only reason he called in the first place was because Jason pissed him off with his little pre-flop routine.

For the remainder of the night Jason offers Aaron a chop, or else he'll have to settle for second. And Aaron refuses every time, until ultimately Jason ends up winning the whole thing beating Aaron heads up.

My demise came with five players remaining. I had a comfortable chip stack, probably in second, but way behind Aaron after his gun show performance. I haven't played a hand for a while, as I've been card dead and hoping some of the smaller stacks would bust out. I was in the big blind with $T2900. Blinds were $T200/400 and Aaron min raised to $T800. My wired fours were the best hand I'd seen in a while so I called hoping to either flop a set, or be able to steal the pot with the right flop. The flop was AAx and I lead out for $T1000, hoping he didn't have an ace. His reraise told me he did I folded, going from comfortable second place to struggling to stay alive in a few quick seconds. I held on to get fourth place which got me my money back, but that hand was the one that did me in. I don't know how else I should have played it, other than check folding the flop, or not calling pre-flop, but if I do that the blinds are just going to bleed me dry in a few orbits.


Barney Frank

I was glad to hear that I wasn't the only one that knew about Barney Frank's new bill, although I'm either overly pessimistic or everyone else is naive or overly optimistic as the general consensus was that they were overturning the anti gambling bill. No one seemed to consider that submitting the bill doesn't actually make it law. It still has to be approved by both houses and signed by the President, so it still has a long way to go. Maybe they can sneak it onto some must pass bill like they did with the AIGIA

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com