Thursday, September 28, 2006

I cashed in my first REAL Tourney!

No fan fare... no cameras, no autograph hounds.... just lots and lots of hours of boring card play.... I mean, it was fun.... and I definitely learned from it, but boy it should sure puts a different spin on how hard it must be for the guys who make their living on the tournament circuit! There were 132 entries at $300+$50..... as we were getting near the bubble, 18.... there was a lot of nervousness and chatter about who had the chip lead and who was going to bust out.... We ended up tossing in $10 a piece for the 19th guy out so he wouldn't spend all day long and most of the night for nothing.... apparently with no concern for that very unlucky 20th guy!

At any rate, there were a couple of very nice plays.... a couple of excellent calls, a couple of nice races that worked out and several very, very, very good lay downs.

When we were at the dinner break, I was sitting in about 2nd or 3rd chip position with about $35,000 or so in chips. The chip leader was at another table with approximately $90,000 in chips. There were several players at my table in the $15,000-$22,000 range. A couple of times I raised in late position with big aces and took the pot and there were a couple of times that I raised with big aces or middle pair and got re-raised and made the right lay down as the guy who re-raised me showed me the hand...... Sweet! At any rate, again, when we were down to 12 players, I was the big blind with a limper and the small blind limped. I've got Kc, 10h and the flop comes K, 9, 8.... The small blind checks and I make a bet of about $9,000 into the pot created from $1,500/$3,000 blinds plus $300 antes. The limper in late position re-raised for all his chips.... about $10,000 more. He's made a couple of moves and either has gotten very lucky with them or got caught and folded. At any rate, I put him on a pair, but I figured my kicker was good...... so I call and he turns over K, 6..... and rivers a 6. Although not out, I'm pretty much crippled.... I've got about $14,000 left and the blinds are antes are over $6,000 every 7 hands..... not good. There's about 3 hands left before my big blind and I'm really hoping to catch a big ace to try to steal some blinds/antes.... nothing comes. 7,2 - 9, 2.... then my big blind. I'm pretty much all-in.... With the $3,300 for the blind and ante, I've only got a about $4,000 more. The guy under the gun limps so I push all-in for another $4,000ish hoping to make him lay down... unfortunately he's got nines.... and really unfortunately, I've got 7, 9os.... I don't remember the cards right now, it was all kind of a blur, but I do remember almost sucking out on him with 3 cards to the flush. LOL. Dave could have done it, I'm sure!

At any rate, it was my first cash in a real tournament in a real casino! Tomorrow is a bigger tournament with $500+$50 buy-ins. Oh, the guy that knocked me out ended up getting blown out in about 10th place. Sweet!

Rick was across the poker room in a cash game getting sucked out on pretty regularly.... I bought into a $2/$5 no limit table to kill time while I was waiting on him and won about $100 in about 10 minutes but just couldn't get into it. So I talked him to into quitting and getting out of the casino for a little while......

Blogging time! Well, I hope to bring great news tomorrow with a much better showing in a much larger tournament with a much bigger payday!

Back to the felt!

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