Vegoose - Day 2A

I get it now.

8:30 rolls around and the alarm goes off. I didn’t realize it was even set. When I tried to un-set it for the next morning (I thought I would do it while sober) I couldn’t figure out how. Todd finally accidentally got it turned off. Hotel alarm clocks really should come with clear instructions.

Anyway, we got up and got a hold of our buddy Ramsey, who came to town from Phoenix to hang with us and gamble. He wasn’t going to the shows. We all decided to register for the Rio’s 12:00 poker tournament and get some breakfast. The tourney was $40 with a re-buy – which means you could get a second set of T1500 chips before the first hour was out for another 40 bucks. Once we paid, we drew cards for table position. Todd and I ended up at table 7 and Ramsey at table 5.

Breakfast was done, the board at the sports book explained to me by Ramsey, and we were ready to play some poker. 83 people had signed up to play – 70 people playing at seven tables and 13 alternates. I was sitting two places to the left of Todd in 7th position.

This was my first time in a real casino tournament (vs. home tourneys or freerolls in the bars) and I was really nervous. One of the most obvious tells in poker is the hands shaking – it is the body’s natural way of releasing tension. At first, when I had a hand or was stacking the chips from winning a pot, I was shaking like a madman. I got better as time went on, mostly from having beers and resting my chin on my hands almost all the time when the cards were out.

I’m not good at remembering hands like the poker bloggers are, so I don’t have any hand details to provide. So, I will just summarize what happened. I was playing tight/moderate the whole tournament. This means I was playing only good hands and playing them semi-aggressively. I was pretty good at throwing “good” hands away when I felt they were beat, rather than playing them to the end because they were “good”. I busted Todd out after the first break – which I also believe is the first time I ever bested Todd in a heads-up hand. I mostly stayed out of all-in conflicts for the rest of the tourney – taking in big pots here and there to increase my stack.

Eventually I made it to the final table (10 players left). The dealer told us about one of the deals that usually happens at the final table in the daily tournament. The tournament structure says that the top seven places pay. Many times, the table makes a deal were the 8, 9 and 10 positions get $100 for making the final table – taking the money from the top three places. I liked this idea because I was one of the short stacks (either 7th or 8th in chips.) It was an all-or-nothing vote for the deal. At first I was worried that the deal wouldn’t go through. The chip leader was from somewhere in east-Asia. English was obviously not her forte. I was worried that she wouldn’t understand the deal and say “No”. Fortunately, everyone agreed to the deal, and we were set to go. It turns out I didn’t need the deal anyway, as – with the help of an all-in blind (not looking at my cards) when I was on the bubble helped me to secure 7th place and a $202 payout. WOOHOO!!!