Vegas Day 2
After a restless five hours of sleep, during which I was awakened at least four times, I crawled out of bed and took a shower. Rob was soon up after me, and after he showered we hit the mid-Strip Denny's for some breakfast. Nothing like a little grease to start off the day!
As I mentioned yesterday, my initial plan was to catch the Jets game with other bloggers and then jump into some cash games, but Rob wanted to try his hand at his first ever NLHE tournament. With a copy of Poker Player picked up at the ST poker room, we decided that the 2pm tournament at the Horseshoe seemed like the best bet: $60 buy-in, one $40 rebuy and no concerns that I would miss my 11:30pm flight.
I have to say that whoever was in charge of running the tournament was very friendly and helpful. He answered all of my questions about the tournament and generally gave off a positive attitude. Unfortunately, I didn't ask the right questions. Most notably: it slipped my attention that up to $200 of the prize pool would be set aside for a drawing one hour after the tournament concluded, AND that to win the drawing you had to be seated in a cash game or tournament. Boo, Binions. This is an awful policy. Find better ways to get players into your poker room than holding part of their prize pool ransom.
The other question I should have asked was how much juice was taken. The tournament was advertised simply as a "$60 buy-in" with a $40 rebuy. At registration, you could pay an extra $10 for an extra 50% in chips. I assumed (bad idea, asphnxma!) that the structure was 50+10(+10). Upon seeing the prize distribution, however, it seems more likely that it was 40+20(+10). 50% juice! What a rip-off. Probably, though, even if I had known, we would have played because Rob wanted to get his feet wet. If it had been just me, though, I would have told Binion's to take a flying leap.
Be that as it may, we registered and took our seats at 2pm. A total of 89 players were in the tournament. I've played enough of these small live tournaments to know what to expect -- a few players who had a clue, and a bunch who didn't. I needed some patience, but I also needed to hammer those players.
I started in the cutoff (T1500, 25/50). On the first hand, I picked up TT. Two limpers to me, and I slightly under-bet, raising to 200. Both limpers called. The flop was A-4-3, two hearts, but I didn't put either player on an ace. It didn't matter when the player to my right pushed. I chuckled and folded. He showed 43s.
I picked up one small pot to get back to even before the blinds went up to 50/100. Late in Level 2, in my big blind, I picked up 44. There was a pot-sized raise to 350 from MP, a guy who had shown up late enough to miss all of Level 1. Everyone folded to me. The player had been tame up until that point, leading me to believe he had either AK or a big pair. What to do. I decided to call and then push the flop if no ace or king showed up.
My plans changed when a four, but no ace or king, fell on the flop. With about 1000 in my stack, I was trying to decide how to get him to double me up. The logical course of action was to check, assuming that he would feel obligated to bet the pot because of his preflop raise. I checked, and he complied with a bet of 450. I thought about pushing -- was he the type who was unable to let go of AK? The better course seemed to be to call and did so. When a king showed itself on the turn, I happily put my last 600 in the pot, which he immediately called. He did indeed have AK, with no redraw on the river. Very good.
I caught a few more good hands -- AA which took out two small stacks (one of whom rebought), another small hand -- but three players at my table rebought and busted before the first hour was over, dumping lots of chips onto my table. With 5 minutes to go in Level 3 (75/150), I used my rebuy for an extra 1000 chips. This proved fortuitous a few hands later when my button brought AQo. Four players limped in for 150. I raised to 1000. The SB mulled it over before folding. Only one player, in MP, called the raise.
The flop came J-high, unconnected. I missed. But I was watching the other player as it came down, and he didn't seem to like it much either. He checked. I asked him, "How much do you have?" He fumbled with his chips and counted out "about 1200", and then frowned and mucked his hand! I shrugged and took down a big pot. At the first break I was around 6000 in chips. During the break, he approached me and told me he realized afterwards that he had folded before I bet, and that he thought that he "probably had me". Tough noogies, pal!
Meanwhile, Rob was hanging on. He used his rebuy to increase his stack, and at the first break was about even with 2600.
In Levels 4, 5 and 6 I turned up the aggression. A caught a couple of pocket pairs which I brought in for raises. Few people were inclined to call, leading my stack to grow some more. I busted another short player. Things were going pretty well. Rob's table broke, and I soon joined him, seated immediately to his left. He was nursing a small stack into Level 7 as the blinds went to 300/600/50. He had a few opportunities to push -- folded to him in the CO, for example -- but passed, concerned about the strength of his hand. We discussed it afterwards, and I pointed out that blind and ante stealing is crucial in the middle stages.
Finally, he pushed 1800. I looked down and saw the black tens. Poor Rob! It looked like I would be the one to take him out. I reraised to 5000 to isolate him. He opened A5o. He had a chance. I groaned when the flop came A-5-6. A spade on the turn put three spades on board, however, and Rob didn't have any spades. Wouldn't you know, a spade fell on the river! I felt bad about eliminating him in such an ugly fashion, but that's poker. Rob went out 22nd out of 89, not a bad showing at all.
By the time it got down to 15 players, we hit another break. Blinds were about to go up to 1000/2000/200. I had about 9,000, not enough to be comfortable. There were a few big stacks, including one woman who kept hitting hands. She wasn't a very good player, and certainly didn't know how to play her big stack. She just kept making monster hands that got paid off. Anyway, with most of the chips so evenly spread, it was going to become shove time.
On the first hand after the break, I caught AKs on the button. Someone with about 14,000 actually tried to limp in from MP. LOL! I pushed my stack in and got no callers. Between the antes, the blinds, and the extra 2000, I practically doubled up. We slowly whittled down to 10 players, the final table. There was a redraw for seats and the button; I picked up seat 3, starting 3 to the right of the button. Blinds soon went to 2k/4k/400, and I was just looking for something to push. I didn't find it, and my big blind found me with only 4300 behind after posting the ante and the blind. MP raised to 8000, the button called for 6800, and with Q5s I figured this was as good of a chance as I would get. My hand was fairly live: AK and AJ were what I was up against; twodimes had me at 33% equity. I didn't improve though, and went out in 10th. My reward for 4 hours of work: $131 back on my $110 investment. Oh well!
By that time, it was after 6pm. Rob and I picked up our friend Charolette and her current beau at Bellagio, then headed back downtown to the Main Street Station buffet -- which was reasonably priced and quite good. As we were headed back to the car after dinner, Charolette received a phone call from her ex-boyfriend, Andy Bloch, who agreed to meet us for drinks at Quark's in the Hilton. His current girlfriend was in tow, which of course stressed Charolette out to no end. When we all assembled at Quark's, we discovered that Quark's was closed for a private party. After chatting for 15 minutes, Charolette was so stressed that we decided not to accompany Andy over to the Bellagio. Instead, the three other members of my party drove me to McCarran so I could catch the redeye back to New York.
The story doesn't end there, though. At McCarran Airport, I ran into Mas, who was on the same flight back to NYC as I was! We chatted it up until boarding time.
Final thoughts, wrap-up and odds and ends later tonight.