Hey Gang! I'm not sure how many of you serial re-clickers are around on weekends, but I send you my warmest regards for taking a moment to check in on me.
Here it is, 6:30 on Saturday morning, and I'm just getting home from another successful night at the poker table. Last night, I was kinda half-assin' my way through my chores, putting in a load of laundry here and there, messing around in the kitchen, moving boxes from one place to another, and decided to take a break. Falcon Rob and the Mrs. came by around 11:00 to pick up his computer and the last of his stuff--he's basically completely gone now except for tomorrow night's scrubbing party we've got scheduled. Me--I'm not quite there yet. Most of my stuff is gone, but I've still got plenty to do, and it actually looks worse than it is. But I managed to get a bunch of stuff thrown out, including saying goodbye to my worn-out coffee maker.
Sometime after midnight, I bailed on my relocation chores, took a shower, and then headed down to the bright lights of the Strip. After consulting one of my reference sites, I saw that Planet Hollywood offers a pretty good tournament four times a day, one of which is at 2:00 am. That was right up my alley, so off I went.
I got there with plenty of time to spare, hoping not to get locked out of the tournament like at Treasure Island last weekend (and almost at the Mirage too--I got the last available seat). Now, I haven't been back to Planet Hollywood since last summer when it was still the Aladdin, but now, it's quite the swanky joint. I really loved the look and the vibe of the casino, and the working girls were quite the step up from the skanks I've seen trolling around at the Tropicana.
Anyhow, I got to the poker room, and the cash games were absolutely packed. Inquiring at the desk, I was told that they may not have a tournament at all, since they were short of dealers, but that they'd know for sure in maybe a half hour. So I parked myself at one of the empty tournament tables with a complimentary copy of Bluff magazine, and did a bit of reading. A half hour later, they announced that they'd do a tournament but it was limited to just two tables, first come-first serve. You should've seen the mad rush to the desk--it wasn't quite up to the stampede level of the Who concert in Cincinnati, but it was close. Luckily, I was sixteenth in line and got a seat.
But the tournament started late because of high demand, and they had their floor people sit in the box and deal tables, too. There ended up being 43 entrants, each paying $60.
When the cards went in the air, I was again flabbergasted at the absolute crappy players that showed up. I was just shaking my head at some of the calls I saw being made, thinking that it really shouldn't be this easy. I mean, it was almost comical in the ridiculousness of it all. One guy next to me started going off on one of the other really bad players, saying something like, Why would you call with just Ace-high when somebody's betting into you and there's a straight and a flush on the board?
All I could do was nudge him under the table and say Dude, quit tappin' the glass--you don't wanna wake up the fish!
A few hands later, I was on the button, and three people in front of me went all-in. The action finally got to me and I had a chance to look at my hand, hoping it was junk so I could throw it away and side-step the obvious train wreck that was about to unfold.
But no, the Poker Gods were testing me, and happened to bestow two big fat red Aces on me. I honestly thought about folding, thinking there ain't NO WAY Aces are gonna survive against three all-ins. Somebody probably has Ace-King already, taking away one of my outs, and some other jerkoff with a low pocket pair is probably gonna make trips on the flop...
The thing was, I had them all covered, so even if I lost, I wouldn't be out--I'd be crippled and gasping, but I'd still have a pulse. Besides, I reasoned, if you can't go all-in with pocket Aces, just what can you go with? So I joined the party and went all-in, also.
I thought I'd be the last to get in, but the guy on the big blind agonized for at least a minute before showing and then folding his pocket Queens. I told him he was beaten with Aces, and four hands went face-up. Everyone else had junk except for one guy with pocket Jacks. Nobody paired up, nobody made a flush or a straight, and I damn near quadrupled up, making me the tournament chip leader.
Woot!
Soon thereafter, we were down to two tables. I put one guy all-in and he beat me, costing me about a third of my stack, and then just a few hands later, the last hand before the break, I totally misplayed a hand against the worst fish at the table, raising him before the flop, but Planet Ho's tourney chips are different colors than what I'm used to at Binions, and I made it too cheap for him to see it. I had pocket Jacks and he had like King-Eight offsuit, and like a complete doofus, he called my initial raise and my continuation bet. Of course I thought I had him all in on the turn, but those were $500 chips he had, not $100s, so once his dumb ass figured out that he'd still have money left even if he lost, he called with absolutely nothing.
Of course, his three-outer King came on the river, and he finally made his first bet of the hand. I knew I was beaten and it cost me about half my stack. Ouch.
I was a little steamed after that, and the blinds were going up to $400 and $800. Just before my big blind came around again, I was short-stacked and had Ace-Queen of diamonds and went all-in with my last $6000. One guy had the exact same amount and called me, and he turned over Ace-King.
Damn. I thought I was about to get knocked out of yet another tourney with that dreaded Ace-Queen, but I got lucky with a Queen on the flop, doubling up and getting the blinds too. Whew! I could breath a little easier.
It didn't take long after that to get to the final table, but they were only paying the the top six players. I got pocket Kings at one point and managed to triple up, and by the time we got down to the in-the-money group of survivors, I had the second-biggest stack. I thought I'd probably win the thing outright at that point.
But by then, the blinds were getting ridiculously high, like $3000/$6000, and people were agonizing over every call, and the clock just kept ticking, making it seem like the levels were going up artificially fast.
Once we got down to the final three, there was talk of a chop, but I kinda wanted to play it out and see how I did. One of the other guys felt the same way, so we agreed to just keep playing. Unfortunately, that's about the time I went card-dead for about a half hour and then lost about half my stack to the chip leader when my Ace-King couldn't improve by the turn and there was all kinds of trouble on the board.
My last hand of the tourney found me on the big blind with 10-9 unsuited, and the small blind limped in. I called, and the flop came out 9-6-3 rainbow. With my top pair and overcard kicker, I went all-in. The small blind called entirely too fast for my liking, and showed the two-pair, nine-three offsuit.
I was like, Are you effin' kidding me--calling a $4000 bet with that crap before the flop?
All he could say was "I was on the small blind..."
My hand never improved, so after almost four hours of poker, I went out in third place, earning $276 for my troubles. Not bad, but again, I thought I played pretty well. I got lucky twice, but you can't win a tournament without a little bit of luck, it doesn't matter how good you are. But I got extremely unlucky right there at the end.
Still, it confirms my suspicions that I'm getting to be a pretty good tournament player, and if I could just get over the hump and actually win one outright, I'd probably be insufferable for at least a week.
Anyhow, I stumbled out into the bright morning sunlight, thankful that I had the foresight to bring my sunglasses with me. I came straight on home, and I'm pretty tired right now. I'm supposedly on-call today at work, but I checked the schedule before I left yesterday, and they're way overstaffed today, so I won't be getting the call. I'm gonna go ahead and go to sleep once I get this posted, and then spend the afternoon/evening finishing up around the house, getting the rest of everything stacked in the living room. If I'm not too tired, I may go back down to Planet Ho once again and take another shot at poker glory.
Mikey
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