trip report (warning live tourney)

[JKratzer]

the votes in my previous post were 13-12 for the donkament at the time of departure.

so i'm all ready to beat up on the typical live fools that populate prarie meadows, the local casino about 20 minutes from my place. stepped out the house, stopped short, oh no
I went back in, I forgot my indo. smoked some performance-enhancing drugs and i'm off.

i get in my car (bikes and public transport are for peasants) and start cruising. the first song on the radio is by metallica and i decide it's a good omen. about 20 minutes later i arrive and park as far away from the front door as i can. you see, i was feeling optimistic and the walk from the casino to the car allows one time to reflect on how the casino trip went. i planned on kicking ass and wanted to savor the feeling. anyway, walk in the front door and head up to the second floor (where you get id'ed). all the fat slobs were stinking up the escalator so i took the stairs. at the top of the stairs is the security desk, i had my id ready and handed it to the dude. he checked it out, scanned it with a little machine which printed out a wristband for me. it had my name, driver's liscense number and b-day. cool.

so i'm an hour early and i head up to the poker room on the 3rd floor and get signed up for the tourney. $100 nl hold'em, $10 fee and $5 dealer tip. ok, got my seat assigment (table 6, seat 7) headed back down to the pits (ring games were getting broken up in 10 minutes). i decide i'll just win $115 before the tourney starts and i'll be free-rolling.

$100 to the blackjack table, about 25 minutes later it's zero [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]. ok whatever blackjack is boring anyway. look around for another game, 3-card poker it is. $100 -> $0 in about 20 minutes. 3-card poker is rigged and a very stupid game. tourneys getting close to starting, i head back up to my $315 tourney seat. not straight.

we get 2500 chips, blinds start at 25/50, ok that's fine. rounds are 15 minutes, break every hour. play pretty tight for a while, feeling out the table. after about 5 hands i'm pretty sure everyone else at my table came to the casino in the short bus. so, i stay pretty tight since people are calling river bets with A high. take a nice little pot when some dude calls my reraise for 1/3 of his stack then c/fs the flop (i had KK).

i get A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]Q[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] and raise. the only female player at the table calls from the sb. flop is A high, i push after she donks into me and she calls with AJ no draw. AQ>AJ ship it. i basically double up as we were close in chip count.

first break, 10 minutes. that seems a bit much, we've only been playing for one hour but whatever, the geezers need to take their medication i guess. i go downstairs and get two slices of pizza. it was decent.

it's announced there were 107 entrants, i guess they allow alternates for the first hour. first place is $3100, final table pays out. play a couple rounds, nothing important happens. new dealer sits down, i'm in the bb. folds around to the sb shortstack who pushes. i call with A5o in the bb and A5o>QQ lol. very next hand i get QQ in the sb, uh oh. folds to me and i complete (shut up). bb and i have about double the average stack, he's a drooler. we see the 9 high flop, i bet 500, he makes it 1400 and calls my push of about 3k more. QQ>J9o. sucka.

i'm chip leader at my table, we get a couple of new players, one of the being a middle aged lady wearing an eyeore shirt and sporting a wicked mullet who sits directly to my right. shes talking with someone else about how shes still in it thanks to a two outer. i plan on absorbing her stack soon.

before that can happen the blinds are 500/1000 and i'm in the sb. i was listening to my ipod since the conversation at the table is the typical live droolers pretending they know something. "the unforgiven" starts up, obviously a good sign. a shorty UTG+1 pushes for 3500, new guy that has a lot of chips thinks (j/k) then calls. i look down in the sb and see K[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. jackpot. i push for 10k more, new dude is faced with a tough decision! he takes a while before calling with 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]. i'm all-in for the first time in the tourney. K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] flops and KK>KQo(shorty)>98s. ship it biatches. new guy busts out next hand. haha. couple hands later mullet's 99<my QQ.

from there not a whole lot happens for a while, we get down to 11 players on 2 tables and start hand-for-hand play. i'm chip leader and decide to start stealing blinds 'cause no one wants to be 11th. i steal for a little while then make my first big mistake. blinds 1500/3k i make it 6k with 88 in MP (standard raise which had been taking it down). folds to bb who pushes for 29k more. he hadn't been at the table long but i felt like he didn't have a big pair. i think about it for a while and finally call, leaving myself with 21k chips. 99>88 [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]. after his hand holds up he executes the cheer/fist-pump combo then with a very serious face lets me know that he knew he had me when it took me a long time to call. thanks dude, you're a genius.

shortly after someone gets knocked out and i head to the final table with 21k, average stack is ~26k. lame. there's 3 ultra-shorties with about 1bb each. three of them get dropped quick and we're down to 7. blinds 3k/6k, utg goes allin for 19k, i push for 29k with AQo, everyone else folds. AQo=AK on double paired board. i survive my second all-in of the tourney.

short stack (20k) kid who is very nervous to be playing at the final table tries to call for 3k in ep and is informed a call costs 6k. he asks if he can take it back, can't so he calls. middle-age dude who has minraised half the hands pf at the final table minraises again. another shortstack calls the minraise, being exactly allin for 12k. folds back to nervous kid who finally pushes for 20k total. middle-aged lagtard folds for 8k more. lol. nervous kid's tens are good. next hand folds to me in sb, i push (~24k) with Q7s. bb finally calls with KQo, it holds. i have 3k left. i fold around to my bb cause i don't get anything and am all-in for 3k. everyone folds to the sb (which is 3k) and we flip them up. i have J7o, no problem right. bleh, sb has QQ and gg thank you very much.

7/107 for a $321 prize. after my expensive ticket i've got a happy meal for my troubles. the walk out to the car is pretty mediocre. i bacically broke even so that's ok, but i feel like i played pretty well with the possible exception of the 88 hand. i think it might have been ok vs his range with the price i was getting, but i don't play tourneys really so i don't know. maybe one of the you mtt'ers can say what was correct.

i got some decent cards and it was pretty fun for live play. anyway, this is my first live trip report, hope it wasn't too tl;dr and comments/suggestions are appreciated.

jkratzer