Not First, but Good Enough

A couple of us played a in poker tournament this past Saturday at a local fire company - it was Dave and I along with 2 other people that play at our regular monthly poker night. It was a fundraiser for Ride for Life/Muscular Dystrophy. Last week, we heard there were about 80 entries - given it was less than the amount of people at the Legion last week, and I finished somewhere between 30 and 40th place at that tournament, I wasn't feeling too bad going into it.

Turns out only about 35 people showed up, so we only started with 4 tables. I became a little concerned when I saw how people were playing, though. We'd get to showdowns where people seemed to love high cards (no matter what the kicker), aces, anything suited, and anything in series (like 3-4, 5-6, 8-9, etc). There was really no room for getting creative - it was either play the best hand or lose to a suckout.

I began doubting the skill level of the players even more when I was dealt J-Ao and the flop came out J-rag-rag. I was out of position, but I had top pair and top kicker, so I put in a decent bet. I had one caller to the river (which happened to be an Ace). When we flipped over our cards, my opponent had J-5 in the hole. One of the other people at the table commented that I "sucked out the Ace" on the river. I was a little irritated (ok, a lot irritated) at the whole suckout comment, especially given I would have beaten my opponent whether that Ace came out or not. Whatever, more money for me if you think that way.

The blinds were quite aggressive. Unfortunately they also weren't posted, so we had no idea when the blinds were going to increase and what exactly they would increase to. I made it down to the final two tables, where the blinds were $500/$1000. I just joined the new table, I had about $2800 left and I got stuck in the big blind. Pisser - that is until I picked up A-Ks. There were a couple of callers, but then I went all-in from the big blind and everyone folded. Sweet! I folded the next hand, but then I got K-K on the button. I went all-in again and picked up the pot. I had probably the largest chip stack in the room at the time and I was feeling pretty good.

When we got down to the final table, I was happy to see that the four of us that usually play together were all there. Unfortunately I was getting cards that were complete shit. Honestly, I think if I didn't get those two good hands at the last table, I probably would have been out already. Everyone was going all-in because the blinds were so high in comparison to our chip stacks - given I was getting shit, I decided to just sit back and wait for everyone to knock everyone else out. Not a great strategy, but given the cards I was getting, it's what I had to do.

I ended up finishing in second place - the guy who won was at my table all night and I swear I think I only saw him fold 3 or 4 hands before the flop all night long. He had more chips than I did at that point, and I was pretty much screwed. So he won, and even though I only came in second, I was ok with that. The guy who won was very nice, and he said he never won before. He told me he was usually the first one out... I refrained from saying that playing so liberally was probably the reason for that. One of the prizes for first place was a bracelet, and he was so thrilled to win it - and hell, he was wearing a "World's Best Grampa" shirt - how can I not be happy for him?

The absolute funniest damn thing all night long was one of the guys that we usually play with was absolutely beside himself at how people were playing. He only plays online and at our usual monthly game and never played with so many people. The week before the tournament, he borrowed our Annie Duke and Phil Gordon DVDs because he was nervous to play with more people. After the tournament, we were all talking in the parking lot and he's completely losing it about how he can't believe "all the callers". "Nobody respects the RAISE!, he says! "I get Ace-King SUITED and I raise THREE TIMES the big blind and EVERYONE onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnine CALLS!! Oh my god, what's WRONG with these people??? They don't respect the RAISE!" I'm laughing so hard I'm nearly peeing myself because he's in utter disbelief. Inbetween hiccuping laughs, I point out that I had this exact same conversation with him at poker night a couple of months ago. I reminded him that he told me that they all play by feeeeeeling and not by the book and that's why I was so irritated then. Hell, when we got home, there was a message from him on the machine asking us to call him back. He was still going off about this - venting to his wife, a quite formidable player, who usually plays with us, too. It was just too damn funny. It will be interesting to see how poker night at his place goes next month.

So we didn't do too bad - Dave got fourth place... we got some cash, prepaid phone cards and iTunes cards as prizes (donated since it was a fundraiser). Now Dave can use the phone card to play poker for money online! As for me, I'll stick to the regular tables instead of the online ones.