[ZeeJustin]

Bay 101, $2000 NL tournament. 10,000 starting chips with 40 minute levels. 250 players. Blinds are 500/1000 with a 100 ante when the following hands occur. I have 55,000-60,000 chips and the average is about 30,000.

My table is down to 6 players, and the floor men tell us to spot. We wait for 6-7 minutes before they FINALLY bring us a player (making the following hands 7 handed), and it’s Miami John (although I didn’t recognize him at the time).

He has 3 racks of chips (well over 100,000). He is under the gun his first hand at the table, and makes a motion to put a rack of 1,000 chips in the middle. He then smiles, laughs, and throws his hand away as he pulls his chips back.

Next hand, there is an LP raise, and John defends the BB. The flop comes 953 rainbow, John bets out 5500. The LP raiser (a recognizable tournament player that is better than most “TV pros”, but not a “TV pro” himself) thinks for a minute, playing with his chips, pondering an all-in, but folds. Ok, we have a new table captain.

Next hand it folds to me in the HJ, and I make it 2500 with A?o. John calls in the SB, and the BB calls as well.

As the preflop action is going on, Ron the floor-man brings over racks and sets some of them down on the table. We are the next table to break (good thing too, because it was a pretty tough table).

Flop (8200 in pot): A[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] 5[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] A[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

It checks to me, and I c-bet for 3,500. After a few seconds and a little bit of playing with his chips, John decides to raise to 8,500. The big blind folds. I think for 4-5 seconds and call.

Turn (25,200 in pot): K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]

John thinks for about 5 seconds again, and checks to me. I ponder a check, but I think there are 3 likely scenarios.
1) He has a flush draw (betting is obviously superior to checking)
2) He has a pair (2 outer that won’t pay me off on the river unless he hits, so betting is better)
3) He has an ace. If this is the case and I check, and he bets the river, I have a somewhat tough decision of raising vs calling. If I bet, I put him to that decision, although he can put me to a tough decision if he raises.

I decide to bet out 10,000 in an attempt to leave the tough decision up to him. John does the whole routine of feigning to put a large amount of chips in the pot as he watches my reaction. I am an emotionless cyborg, so I doubt he gets much of a read off me. After about 30 seconds of this, he says all-in. The dealer tosses him a blue all-in button.

I think for about 15 seconds, and John starts racking up his chips. He has a ton of chips (3-4 racks worth), so it’s understandable that he wants to save time. After less than 30 seconds has passed from the time John moved all-in, Ron the floor-man says something to the effect of, “Clock, you have 1 minute to act.” There is still a lingering doubt in my mind that John might be some local yahoo who thinks he’s the [censored] because he has a ton of chips, so I ask him his name. He says John and asks me mine and I answer. I say something like, “Oh, are you Miami John?” (Note that I suck at recognizing faces, so I am forced to ask people their names more often than I would like). He chuckles and nods. Ok, that’s all I wanted to know, although it would have been nice if I actually watched the WPT and knew how he played.

About 30 seconds has passed since Ron said clock. I then realize that no one at the table said clock, so I ask Ron who called the clock. He looks over at Matt Savage (who is across the room), and says “The tournament director.”

Damn. Matt’s word is pretty much God’s, so that didn’t buy me any more time to make my decision. The last thing I want is for my hand to be declared dead, so I go into turbo think mode, without any time to do any relevant math (which is unfortunate, since there is a lot of deduction that could be done in this hand if I had another minute or so to think). With a matter of seconds remaining, I call. I won’t reveal the hands just yet since I have some questions.

1) What is the worst kicker you call with? (I don’t want to hear any jabbering from anyone that would call with a hand that can’t beat or tie A2)

2) What is the best kicker you fold? (I don’t want to hear any jabbering from anyone that would fold a hand that can beat AQ.)

After the hand, I asked Matt why he called the clock on me. He looked at me confused and said, “I was all the way over here” (approximately 40 feet away) and then said that he never called the clock.

3) If you won the hand, should you bother complaining to anyone?
4) If you lost the hand, should you bother complaining to anyone?

Any thoughts on both aspects of the hand are welcome.