A Little Live Tourney Action

Since I am now living in AZ, my local card options are a bit limited. The closest casino/cardroom is in Tucson, 1.5 hours away. It's not that bad, but I can't go everyday. I manage to make the trip every few weeks. Well, today my dad wanted to play the 10AM (really 11AM) tournament there, so we both wake up early and go. It's $10+5 with $5 rebuys. The juice seems steep, but you end up spending $35 on average, so $30+5 isn't that bad for live play. 90 people play, top 10 pay.

It was also interesting rebuy setup. There were no addons, but you start with 1K in chips, and you can rebuy for 1K more at the start. What made it different is that during the 2nd level, you can rebuy for a total of 4K (2K+2K double rebuy) and during the last level, it's 6K. So you are never really behind at the last rebuy level as you can catch up fairly quickly. The blinds started at 25/50 and doubled every 15 minutes. So for the first few levels, you had a decent stack. I rebought twice: once to get the initial 1K and once after I decided to gamble with 45 in a multi-way pot at the 2nd level for 2K chips. There were only a few minutes left until the next level, so I figured I could wait and get an extra 1K for my $5. I didn't need it as I tripled up with AK vs. A9 and 53 and then I trapped two A-high players at the 100/200 levels with KK. I finished the rebuy period with 16300 with the next level being 200/400. So I had some room to maneuver.

Over the next few levels, I built my way up to 36K when I flopped quads with AA against TT and took down a few small pots when the blinds started to catch up. By the 1K/2K level, everyone was going in when I was the big blind and I made crying calls getting over 3-1 with every hand. I lost a lot of them as I just wasn't winning them. By the time it got to be 2K/4K, I was able to steal some blinds and get back to the 30K range. Lo' and behold, my dad comes to my table! And he plays better than I expected him to. He made some pushes with K2o and A7o when he was short stacked. He played aggressive to keep afloat. Before I knew it, we were down to the last two tables.

I had just lost a coinflip with KQ vs. 66 and I was down to 15K with the blinds at 5K/10K. In the CO, I pushed with my favorite hand, 55. Of course both blinds called and I had a sinking feeling (the SB was playing tight enough that I was hoping to get it HU). Presto held it's part for me and gave me a nice 5 on the flop. The BB moved all-in with a pair of Aces (there was one on the board) and I tripled up nicely. Of course, players started moving in when I was the BB (I think I had more all-in confrontations after the rebuy than anyone else by a good margin) and of course I would call the 5K more or then wouldn't even have enough for the BB. And I would keep losing. My random hands have to win some of the time.

With 12 players left, I found my self with 50K in chips UTG with the blinds at 20K 40K. I looked down at A2o. I hesitated because I hate pushing UTG with that hand when I have no fold equity, but I knew it was the right thing to do, so I did it. The BB called the 10K more and I was off against 97o. Luckily I won that hand and crippled the BB. Of course, we lost two people the next hand, so off to the final table I went! But not before a much needed break.

We redraw for seats (we were staying at my table) and I drew the same seat. I laughed and showed people before stretching my legs. My odds for staying at the same seat for the entire tourney was 1/90, so I guess I was feeling lucky. It also nice that my dad also made the final table. When we got back, we tried to get a deal for $200 a pop (the blinds were getting crazy and I felt like doing some else than folding and flipping). These two guys decided against it and off we went! I was actually sitting third in chips, but the blinds were so high that it didn't really matter. Two guys had 10K left in chips, so I was forced to play the waiting game. A few guys busted out, and a deal was offered again. The same two guys declined and off we went (again). My dad finished in 6th for $155 and the 5th place guy busted out. At that point, I was chip leader with 340K, but with the blinds at 80K/160K, I really pushed for a deal and finally got it. We just split it up equally and I walked away with $392.

Not bad and the competition was pretty bad. It ended up being pretty basic monkey poker (post-flop, what is that?), but my experience helped carry the day because even though the decisions were binary (push/fold), I was able to make the best decisions. I was able to pick on the smaller stacks and try to pick up pots preflop-flop against tight players. I was only all-in once after the rebuy the entire tourney, which is a pretty good result.

There is a very, VERY soft NL game in town, but it's only on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, so I've got to wait it out. Luckily, I'm in the game, so I have the hard part done.

On an aside, I'm going to see Transformers tomorrow, and I can't wait! I am super psyched for the movie.