Charity Tournament Last Sunday

[shipitfish]

Yes, indeed, I have not been up to speed on my entries regarding my recent poker happenings. I had some personal and "real work" matters to attend to in the last ten days, and that has kept me from having all the free time I would like to make these entries. Of course, I've kept up with the poker games, particularly this past weekend, but the post-mortem work required for journal entries is something I haven't had time to do.

In my usual fashion, now that I've picked up again, I am going to go a bit out of order and start with a game that was just this last Sunday. I'll go back through and fill in the gaps as time permits.

This Sunday, I played in a charity NL HE tournament run by a local poker player, Andrew. I had seen lots of advertisements for charity tournaments lately, as it seems to be replacing the "casino nights" that many NGOs used to do as fund-raisers. Poker is popular and it draws people in these days, and can help fund charitable organizations.

This benefit was for a church, held in their hall. The buy-in was $100, and according to the receipt I received, all of it is tax-deductible. So, I went in thinking that even though this is more expensive than my typical online tournament (I usually play $20, $30, or at most $50 buy-in NL HE or limit HE tournaments), at least I'm playing with tax-free dollars.

About 80 people entered the tourney; I forgot to write down the precise count. Nine seats were to be paid, with the top prize of $2,500 (which was guaranteed) and the rest of the payouts substantially lower. (I think 8 and 9 just got a little more than their buy-in back). Andrew had mentioned to many of the local poker players that the field was soft, because many church members came simply to make a donation and had just learned the order of the hands, having seen poker on TV.

In an effort to make the event run quickly, the blind structure was quite fast. There were 20 minute rounds, and the event was self-deal, so the blinds went up every 10-13 hands. We were given only $1,500 in chips, and the blinds started at $25/$50 and moved to $50/$100 and $100/$200 in the first two rounds. Thus meant that if I didn't have a good hand in the first 40 hands, depending on how unlucky I was with regard to button placement, I might have paid $825 in blinds, leaving me with only $675 (only about 3.5 times the big blind). I decided that doubling up early was the best (and perhaps only) move.

I drew seat 2 at table 7, and discovered quickly that was the most unlucky draw of the day for me. Also at my table was Carlos, a local player who runs a home game out in the suburbs and plays primarily tournaments, as well as two older gentleman who played regularly online and were talking about "what Foxwoods was like in the early 1990s". Just before starting, we were joined by Vinny, whom Carlos identified quickly as someone he knew from other tournaments. Nearly all the church folk were at other tables; we had only about one or two at ours.

And the play confirmed my concerns about the toughness of the table. Most players were making correct and standard tournament preflop raises, only a few pots ended up as large multi-way affairs, and most of those were taken down on the flop. The one real calling station at the table got some chips in the first orbit, and proceeded to leak them off to some of the better players who did pick up hands.

For my part, I didn't get a good starting hand until it was almost too late. With the blinds at $100/$200, and on a $1200 stack after posting my small blind, the action was folded to the button, Vinny. Vinny had just busted someone a few hands earlier by hitting a flush draw and getting the inexperienced fellow all-in with top-pair, weak kicker. Since then, Vinny had raised almost all of the past few hands and had an air of running over the table. He raised his button to $300, and I got a sense that he held a hand with which he didn't want to see a flop. I figured he likely had big cards, and if he did have a pair, it was probably TT or JJ. I looked down to find 9 9. I realized immediately two things: (a) I need to decide quickly what I was going to do so that I could represent more strength than I had and (b) that taking a flop was pointless; I was either all-in or I was folding. After about 10 seconds, I had decided that given my stack size, and that I had a rock-tight table image, that moving in would probably be my best option. If I got called, I felt I had a coin-flip chance of doubling through the table's chip leader, and then I could relax for a while. I made the bet, and counted my stack for Vinny.

When I made the bet, I saw from the corner of my eye that Vinny was surely going to call. I became pretty sure that I was in a coin-flip as he began deliberating, figuring that he probably had AK. Then he said, "there's only one hand that beats me", and I actually wondered if he really had KK, because I had a feeling he might make that same statement with AK and fold it with a K face up.

However, he quickly said "call", showed the K K, and the best hand had held up when all five were out. I did the table the favor of my last deal, as I wondered if I'd made a terrible move. After all, despite my short stack, I had seven more hands to see and wait for a better spot. It didn't help that Carlos said: "you had no choice with the blinds like this", because I knew he'd say that whether it was true or not, as he likes to coddle "fish". OTOH, Vinny would have probably raised his button with everything from a KJs, 66, and everything in between. As I often do when I play tourneys, I wonder if I picked the right spot to make my stand.

Fortunately, a side game got going quickly, and I began to deliberate on how much more I prefer cash games to tournaments. I think it's only because I am so much more used to cash games, because tournament strategy does intrigue me in its own right. OTOH, the "all or nothing" feel to it does bother me. While I was glad to do something for charity, I think, for "real tournaments", I'll stick to the $30 buy-ins in which I feel more comfortable.

There was a small NL HE cash game afterwards in the church hall while the tournament finished, which I'll write about later. I should note the tourney was won by two very young guys who chopped it after shipping lots of chips back and forth heads up. I got the impression they were not used to a win that big.