Tournament Play

When Barry called and told me to meet him at the Eastside Cannery Casino I expected to see something right out of a Steinbeck novel. Opening in August just last year, the modern architecture put that image to rest. Once inside, the decor does lean toward nostalgic Americana and the music is constant oldies, but not swing. Of course, everything is new and really nice and much less expensive than on The Strip. The value needs to be there to draw tourists six miles to the east. Two reasons for coming: The lunch buffet was on special for $5.99 and the Poker Room was holding a $27 buy-in No Limit Hold 'em tournament.

There were twenty players in the tournament. Two tables. I decided to try my hand at a wild and aggressive style that could either build a huge stack or bust me out early. Whenever an opponent showed weakness I was right there with a raise to apply the pressure. As you would expect, eventually somebody would catch on and try to trap me. All the money goes into the middle and I catch a straight on the river to bust a big pocket pair out of the tournament. It is early enough in the proceedings that he buys in again at the desk and gets a new starting stack. I kept the pressure on and had another player all in when I held two spades including an ace and sent him down the river having caught the unbeatable nut flush on the last card.

Enough players busted out that we combined to one final table. We were now playing 200-400 blinds and I had a stack of over 8000, double the average. First hand, I was in the Big Blind. After a couple of players fold a lady with a smallish stack calls. I am thinking she must be weak or have a drawing hand. Two players behind her also call. With all this weakness showing I started thinking that a big raise might get everyone to fold. There was 1800 in the pot, so it would be a very nice pot to steal. I peak at my cards and verify that the only way I can win this juicy pot is to steal it. I had a seven-deuce off suit, mathematically the worst possible starting hand. I announced, "All in!" The lady calls me and the others fold. She showed ace-ten both spades. I sheepishly showed my cards and the table erupted with guffaws and cries of "Oh my God" and "Unbelievable!" The dealer put out the flop. It came out all red with a seven to pair me up. No help for her on the Turn or the River and my lowly 7-2 takes the pot. She stormed out of the poker room mumbling to herself.

Winning this pot is not as outrageous as it first seems. If you run a simulation pitting 7-2 against A-10 it comes out that the 7-2 is just a little worse than a 60-40 underdog. Maybe 65-35 because the A-10 were the same suit and can make the flush about 5% of the time. Besides that, I was thoroughly convinced that I was not going to get a call.

The more unlikely hand came on the very next deal. Now I was in the Small Blind. Gun shy, the table folded around to me. I have A-8 and raise to 2000. The man in the big blind had been playing very tight and aggressive and had 4200 chips left. "This should be a no brainer," he announced and after a few seconds of thought pushed all his chips forward. It would cost me 2200 more to try to win the 6200 already in the pot and this time my hand is a lot better than seven-deuce. I called. I was getting almost 3 to 1 on a call. His raise was a no brainer because he had a pocket pair of queens. Flop-Turn-River and the board showed 5-6-7-9-10. Another amazing come from behind victory with a lot of comments around the table. We shook hands and shook heads and smiled and shrugged, "That's Poker!"

I tried to tighten up after that but after another orbit I saw queen-ten and re-raised, the raiser went all in and I had to call. That raiser was the same guy that had bought back into the tournament earlier and had built a sizeable chip stack since then. I lost a big chunk of my stack to his ace-king, making him the new chip leader. I guess I was simply steaming because the next hand when that same player just limped with a call and I had another queen-ten I pushed all-in. He called and showed pocket Aces. Oops. I quickly went from second place with an excellent chance to win a few hundred dollars to busted.

Hopefully, I learned something about tournament strategy from this experience. The lesson was not free.