Tourney Day

Saturday was tourney day for me in Vegas. After a whole 3 hours of sleep I got up and went to sign up for the free slot tournament. Free breakfast with it as well which included runny scrambled eggs, cold sausage patties and luke warm bacon. Well, at least it was free. Looks like they had around 100 for the slot tourney. I racked up three blue 7's in my 5 minutes and am sitting on 5600 going into the last round today. They didn't post standing but it looks like I should be in the top 10. I am now considering becoming a professional slot tournament player.

After the slot tourney I signed up for the 10am tourney at Binions. They had 6 full tables and it paid the top 6 with 3k starting stacks. I saw a dude wearing upside down sunglasses and complaining to his buddy in the first level how his A,K lost to J,10. Not like it was all-in pre or anything. Stupid fucker. I also saw one dude get so excited that he won a pot that he knocked his seat over. Take it easy Phil.

In the second level of the tourney playing 50/100 I raised to 250 UTG with AKss. Next player behind be who was a decent playing older gentleman flats. A mid-position woman raises to 750. I decide to flat and the guy behind me ships for over 3k. The lady snap calls and I turbo-muck my hand face up. Guy had A,A and lady had K,K. If you are results oriented I would have turned the flush. Feeling good about the fold I played the next few levels and steadily increased my stack. We got down to two tables and I had 9k playing 1k/2k. I lost in the all-in fest and busted around 13th.

The main event started at 3p at Venetian, the Winter Blogger Gathering. There were a total of 82 runners. We had a decent structure till late, which I will get to. We had 10k in chips and 30 minute levels. From what I can remember my starting table included Joanada, Emptyman, OhCaptain and professional keno player Neil Fontenot. The line of the day was soon to become "You've been kenoed".

I was repeatedly hit by the deck in the first three levels. Unfortunately it didn't mean shit since the blinds were low. At the first break I had 12k. The only fairly interesting hand was when OhCaptain and myself both had A,K on a K,6,5,A,5 board. We both managed to only get 2900 each into the pot. Our table was definitely playing a non-blogger like way.

Levels 4-6 were a roller coaster for me. Almost immediately back from the break I took two hits to drop down to 9k. I then lost another pot to knock me down to 7k. I was able to rally a bit to get it back to 10k. Then with around that stack I played my biggest pot to date. Playing 300/600 there was a raise to 1800 or so and I called with A7ss. Flop comes 5,4,3. Original raiser leads for 2500 with about 6k behind and I had him covered. I thought it through to a minute and the double gutter with the A was good enough for me to shove and was called. He had 1010 but I hit my A on the river for the pot. Going into the 2nd break I had 23k.

In levels 6-9 I was able to steadily accumulate chips and had 36k headed to the break. I was able to take a lot of pots pre-flop and whenever someone called I flopped top top or a set.

Level 10 was the death of me. We went from 600/1200/100 to 1000/2000/300. What the fuck! I was the co-chip leader at my table and I had 18 big blinds. The second hand into the level I picked-up 1010 from the cutoff and raised to 6k. The other chip leader at the table called. Flop comes 8,7,4 and I cbet for 12k. He ships and I just cant fold it in this spot having over half my stack in already. He showed the 4,4. I turned a straight draw but missed everything on the river and was out just like that. If I could have sucked out there I would have about 75k and by far the chip lead in the tournament with 32 left. Oh well.

I had a hell of a time. One of the more fun tournaments I have played in ages. One of the highlight was myself being able to throw the hammer 3 times all for wins. I have one thrown back at me. I said there is no shame in bluffing off all of your chips with the hammer in a blogger event. Luckily nobody had anything when I threw it.

So who ended up winning? When I left they were down to 7 handed.