Winner Winner Chicken Dinner
I finally won the damn Saturday tournament at Turning Stone casino.
No limit hold 'em, $90 buy in, 130-odd players, pays 16 places, $2,814 first place.
I say finally because I have played in that tournament and failed to cash three times and was starting to feel a bit frozen out of it. You win when you feel like you'll win and when you think you'll lose, you usually do, and I was starting to feel like I'd lose int hat tournament.
I played almost perfectly all day long. I was keeping a high level of aggression (betting my good hands, cutting off draws, bluffing down pots when I sensed I could, and continuation betting) without becoming reckless at all, and I made several very important lay-downs and at least one pivotal "just call"s when an opponent with pocket eights flopped a full house but slowplayed it until I made a full house with my pocket sevens on the river, I bet it, he raised, and I was about to push all-in with fewer chips than he had but got the read that he had a monster so I "just call"ed and thus was still in the tournament. One of the best laydowns I made was with pocket aces against a flop of Jc Ts 4d, which would seem to be a great board, but one player called a small raise from the button and raised from $1,000 to $2,500 and I just knew he had JT for two-pair, so I folded but someone else called him and by the showdown, his two pair would still have been good versus my aces and he had exactly JT, just like I thought.
I was never all-in all tournament long, and I never had 50% of my stack committed in a pot.
Continuation betting and controlled bluffing probably accounted for how I got about 70% of my stack at any given point.
By the first break I was the second-biggest stack with around $25,000, by the second break I was the chip leader with $90,000, and when they consolidated the last two tables to make the final table I was the chip leader with $199,000 while the next biggest was $120,000.
I bullied the final table as assertively (aggressively but not recklessly) as I could, and wound up with over $400,000 in chips. When it was down to six, the other players all had around $50,000 apiece to my nearly half-million and wanted to chop. I of course told them that was impossible as I was nearly guaranteed to win, so they decided to give me the first place prize and divide what was left between themselves. Since I'd be getting the same prize either way and since it was guaranteed this way, and since it's what everyone else wanted to do, I agreed, and as the last person at the table nodded his assent to this deal, I shot my first into the air and yelled "Yes!" having just won the tournament.
Everyone looked at me oddly but I explained that I had indeed won the tournament and they all realized it was perfectly justified.
They each got around $950 and I got the $2,814 first place. The dealer and the deale we had before, and the floor supervisor all shook my hand and said things like "Great tournament," or "You played great," o "You played like a champion," or other great things for them to say, which is a drastic difference from when I won $1,100 for first place in the Tuesday night tournament at Seneca Niagara and they handed me a paperclip full of cash and walked away wordlessly, without even second-place still there to shake my hand or anything. Even though I'd won, I still felt sad that night cause no one was there to recognize me for it.
Then I accomplished the hardest thing of all, I took the money and walked past the blackjack tables straight to the parking lot and went home without throwing it all away.
This tournament lasted five hours. My MP3 player holds about an hour and 20 minutes of music (it's from the 90s). Having listened to each song at least four times made me take some of the momey and buy a 1GB mp3 player (I insisted upon non-Apple merchandise as I hate that company, all it's products, and all it's software) that will hold eight times as much music. It cost ninety bucks, but it is my official trophy or this tournament. I paid $1,000 to my parents, to whom I owe a low of money, and that leaves $1,600 for me to pay a speeding ticket and stake myself for more poker.
I'm going again today, I still feel like I'm on fire after having beaten the game at 1/2 NL Friday night and winning the tournament yesterday morning, and I'll see if I can press on.
No limit hold 'em, $90 buy in, 130-odd players, pays 16 places, $2,814 first place.
I say finally because I have played in that tournament and failed to cash three times and was starting to feel a bit frozen out of it. You win when you feel like you'll win and when you think you'll lose, you usually do, and I was starting to feel like I'd lose int hat tournament.
I played almost perfectly all day long. I was keeping a high level of aggression (betting my good hands, cutting off draws, bluffing down pots when I sensed I could, and continuation betting) without becoming reckless at all, and I made several very important lay-downs and at least one pivotal "just call"s when an opponent with pocket eights flopped a full house but slowplayed it until I made a full house with my pocket sevens on the river, I bet it, he raised, and I was about to push all-in with fewer chips than he had but got the read that he had a monster so I "just call"ed and thus was still in the tournament. One of the best laydowns I made was with pocket aces against a flop of Jc Ts 4d, which would seem to be a great board, but one player called a small raise from the button and raised from $1,000 to $2,500 and I just knew he had JT for two-pair, so I folded but someone else called him and by the showdown, his two pair would still have been good versus my aces and he had exactly JT, just like I thought.
I was never all-in all tournament long, and I never had 50% of my stack committed in a pot.
Continuation betting and controlled bluffing probably accounted for how I got about 70% of my stack at any given point.
By the first break I was the second-biggest stack with around $25,000, by the second break I was the chip leader with $90,000, and when they consolidated the last two tables to make the final table I was the chip leader with $199,000 while the next biggest was $120,000.
I bullied the final table as assertively (aggressively but not recklessly) as I could, and wound up with over $400,000 in chips. When it was down to six, the other players all had around $50,000 apiece to my nearly half-million and wanted to chop. I of course told them that was impossible as I was nearly guaranteed to win, so they decided to give me the first place prize and divide what was left between themselves. Since I'd be getting the same prize either way and since it was guaranteed this way, and since it's what everyone else wanted to do, I agreed, and as the last person at the table nodded his assent to this deal, I shot my first into the air and yelled "Yes!" having just won the tournament.
Everyone looked at me oddly but I explained that I had indeed won the tournament and they all realized it was perfectly justified.
They each got around $950 and I got the $2,814 first place. The dealer and the deale we had before, and the floor supervisor all shook my hand and said things like "Great tournament," or "You played great," o "You played like a champion," or other great things for them to say, which is a drastic difference from when I won $1,100 for first place in the Tuesday night tournament at Seneca Niagara and they handed me a paperclip full of cash and walked away wordlessly, without even second-place still there to shake my hand or anything. Even though I'd won, I still felt sad that night cause no one was there to recognize me for it.
Then I accomplished the hardest thing of all, I took the money and walked past the blackjack tables straight to the parking lot and went home without throwing it all away.
This tournament lasted five hours. My MP3 player holds about an hour and 20 minutes of music (it's from the 90s). Having listened to each song at least four times made me take some of the momey and buy a 1GB mp3 player (I insisted upon non-Apple merchandise as I hate that company, all it's products, and all it's software) that will hold eight times as much music. It cost ninety bucks, but it is my official trophy or this tournament. I paid $1,000 to my parents, to whom I owe a low of money, and that leaves $1,600 for me to pay a speeding ticket and stake myself for more poker.
I'm going again today, I still feel like I'm on fire after having beaten the game at 1/2 NL Friday night and winning the tournament yesterday morning, and I'll see if I can press on.
posted by Hegemon at 8:44 AM
2 Comments:
Congratulations. I for one am particularly impressed by the walk past the blackjack table. :) I hope things go well for you tonight as well and you don't tilt too much.
congrats!!!
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