Benson Tourney

Rick and I made the trip to Benson for the Sunday tourney today and both played extremely well I thought. We both made the cut to the final table with reasonable stacks. I had doubled-up early while Rick and I were at the same table. I believe the blinds were $50/$100 and was on the button with 9h, 10h. There was a small raise and there were a couple of callers of the big blind's raise to $200. The flop was 8h, Qh, 6s. The big blind bets $1200, everyone folds and I call. The turn is the Kh and big blind bets $2400 and I push all-in. He calls and turns over Ace, King and no hearts! Yippee.....

Over the next couple of hours I went all-in probably 5 times and in every instance I was way ahead when the chips went in. I had Ah, Kh and raised to $2400 and had a guy push all-in with about $700 more. I called and he turned over Ks, 9s and the river made his flush. Another time, I was in early position with Qs, Qh and raised to $4000. The small blind pushed all in for $150 more and turned over Gretsky, 99. He turned trips and the river made me a spade flush but paired the board and he won with a boat. LOL. Nice..... Probably one of the biggest hands of the tournament for me came when Lee in the small blind pushed all in for another $6500. One of the guys in late position announced call, but didn't realize that Lee had pushed all-in for another $6,000 or so. After much debate, house rules determined that he had to complete the bet. I've got Ah, 10h and thought that I might have the best hand, but it would have been over half my chips and I wasn't willing to risk it against two players. In hindsight, I should have re-raised all-in. Lee, the raiser, turns over As, 9s and the other guy had Kh, 8h.... Crap! At any rate, the flop was the Kc, Qc, Jc.... yep, I would have flopped the nut straight. Lee was eliminated and I would have almost trippled up.

The hand that knocked me out of the tourney in 7th place was shortly after I had taken another bad beat and was down to about $10,000 in chips. I've got Kh, 10d and in late positon and raise the $1,600 blinds to $5,000 (half my stack)... unfortunately for me again.... the big blind wakes ups with pocket Aces. He pushes and I think that he's bluffing and make the call and the Aces hold up.... It was almost an hour before Rick busted out.... He went out 6th and then almost immediately the 5th guy busted.

I'm sure he'll post some about the games as well. I really do like the game, but I don't like the smoke, the ride or the late start and game delays. There are a bunch of nice guys there and I enjoyed playing even though I lost.... Oh well... Another day!

Back to the felt!