Heartland Poker Tour Take Two

You'll never believe what I did today. I played poker! More poker than I've played in the last five or six months combined. Of coarse that translates to about 15 minutes and maybe 12 hands, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I had to go to a client in Indiana today, and about halfway between my house and there is the Majestic Star Casino, home of a Heartland Poker Tour event. Last time the tour came through I wasn't able to make it, but a number of friends went to the first round satellites and qualified with ease. My plan was to get there around 5:00, place in either the $105 or $150 satellite and then play in the $440 at 7:00.

I did manage to get there around five despite the Indians Highway constructions best effort to reroute me to Ohio or Michigan. I was sixth on the list for the $150, but the other four people didn't sign up until almost 6:00.

Here's an observation. Casinos in Vegas = Fun and Exciting, even when killing time waiting for a table to open up. Casinos in Indiana. Sad, Dirty and Pathetic.

On the plus side I turned a dollar into a fat two dollars and twenty cents playing five cent video poker. That's 120% ROI. Beat that. I forgot to turn in the ticket though, so I might as well have lost, but that's not the point.

So the tourney finally starts around 6:00. Little to no chance it will be done in time for the 7:00 qualifier. We get T$1700 with blinds starting at T$25/T$50 and going up every 10 minutes. You basically get one chance to win a pot otherwise your out.

I think eight of my ten hands in the first orbit were K and something in the range of 2-6 offsuit. I'm not trying to complain about my cards, but it was odd that I had King almost every hand.

In the little I saw, the players weren't as terrible as I had been led to believe, but they made up for by being annoying. There were a few of the same players in most pots and they felt the need to give us a play-by-play of each hand. Even when they weren't in a hand they had to tell everyone what they would have gotten. Just shut and play. Is that too much to ask?

I hadn't put in a chip other than the blinds until the hand I went out. I had AKo in late position with a limper or two. I put in a big raise and the BB went all in over the top. She was one of the play-by-play analyzers and had already gone all in with weaker aces, and just complained about how she should have gone with her gut when she folded QKs to two all-ins, and AK and AQ. She would have flopped a flush.

So anyway, I thought there was a pretty good chance I was ahead and I was pot committed regardless. Of coarse she had aces. So I'm out third. I'm also reasonably confident that I could have just folded every hand and made it into the next round. Or at least to 4-5 where I could have played the all-in or nothing game.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com