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July 14, 2004
Orleans Open Day 3, Part 2. Evening Rebuy Event.
Well I think I will end up at least even for my trip to Vegas, probably up enough to cover expenses. Tournament poker is funny that way. One minute you see this hole you are sinking into, the next minute you paid for your trip and all of your buy-ins. Here is how it happened.
After my bad beat in the tournament earlier I came home and relaxed for a while, trying to cool myself off. It seems that every time I get bad beat out of a tournament the period of time after for which I am fuming mad gets a little smaller. This time my post bad beat tilt period was only an hour or two, and I simply read a book and watched some TV during that time. Unfortunately I also got to think about my bankroll, which has stayed the same for almost 3 months now. Granted staying the same means I am winning my expenses, which are considerable, but nobody ever got rich just making their expenses, so this put me in a bad frame of mind.
So at 6 I got in the Party Poker $162 tournament, and did not play well. I made a bad move at someone pretty early for half of my chips. The guy played his hand very oddly whatever he had (I never saw) so I decided to take a stab at him. It didn’t work, leaving me with about 450. Also I was annoyed because of this dialup connection. For some reason there is no trouble playing on any site other than Party, but playing there is agonizing. I click bet, it waits a minute, and then it bets. I got disconnected twice in the first 20 minutes. So all of these things were agitating me greatly, and with my low stack I started thinking about the nightly tournament over at the Orleans. The structure in those events is terrible, though the payout structure is phenomenal. They give 40% to first, which I am a big fan of. I think 20% and something like 13% for third is the breakdown, with other prizes below that. So in the Party tournament I flopped a top pair with J 8 and just decided to shove (there was decent money in the pot) and lost to JQ. I was annoyed at my own bad play, but after being bad beat out of so many tournaments in the last 2 weeks it was nice not to lose to a 2 outer for once. So off I went to the Orleans.
Today 180 people played. It is a $125 event with a $100 rebuy. The total prize pool after the 3% taken for dealers was $32k, and top 3 was over $22k of that, with the breakdown being something like $12,500, $6,500, $3500. I started off very slow, only playing a couple pots in the first 3 rounds. Those are the rebuy period, and they are only 20 minutes long. At this point there were a couple rocks, a maniac, a few loose players, and then a couple average players. I finally got a hand in the second round. The maniac raised from middle position and I 3 bet him with QQ. The flop came A 9 x, he checked and I bet. He called and from his look I could tell he didn’t have an ace, so I thought maybe he just had JJ or 10 10. The turn was another ace and he checked, so I bet again and he called again. I knew I had him but somehow I got this gut feeling that the river would be a king and cost me the pot. Oddly enough it happened. I'm not a believer in psychics so I’ll just chalk it up to an amazing coincidence, but somehow I knew it, though I had no idea he had K 9. I thought he was just being his typical idiot self with KQ or KJ.
Then I had to rebuy. Right after the rebuy I got 3 3 under the gun and raised it, since most people at my table (other than the maniac) were playing tight preflop. I got one call, and the flop came A 8 3. the caller had AQ and doubled me up. I won another small pot or two and got back to the 2300 I had had before the first bad beat from the maniac.
A few rounds later (when the blinds were 100/200) I got QQ again and 3 bet the same maniac again. This time the board came 10 6 6 rainbow and the maniac said “I’ll give you a hint” and bet. I took his hint and raised him, and he called. I was positive he had crap, but I didn’t know what his crap was. The turn was a rag but it put a second club on the board and he check called me again. The river was a third rag, but it put a third club on the board. He check raised me, and I called only for him to roll over A 2 of clubs. WOW what a bad beat. First the guy 5 outered me, then he called with a 3 outer and runner runnered a flush. Now I was down to 300 with the blinds being 100/200. I was getting rather upset at this point, but decided I would hold my rage until I was out.
Under the gun I got J8 on the next hand and went with it. I decided that it was probably going to be better than my next hand. Everyone folded to the BB who called with 10 7, and I hit an 8 to win it. Now I had 800. How I had 800 I didn’t know, since I should have had 700, but I wasn’t going to complain. On the big blind I folded, leaving me with 600, and on the small blind I picked up Q J of clubs. Someone raised in early position and some idiotic Russian guy (an absolute nut case) reraised all in for 600. again I figured what the hell and called the rest of my chips. The other people had KK and QQ, but the flop was 8 9 10, which made my stack almost back to 2k, where it was both times before the maniac cracked my queens.
After that things started picking up. I won a couple small pots and a few blind steals. I got a pair of aces against the maniac and actually made it hold up, winning me 6 big blinds. I had a pair of threes hit a set for me on the big blind when someone neglected to 3bet their pocket queens, and I busted them. Pocket threes turned out to be the hand of the day later too, when I hit another set to bust another person who neglected to raise their pocket queens preflop.
Fast forward to 2 tables. We are now down to 18, all of us in the money. Me and one other schlub, who I think was named Steve (I had played with him at Binions during the WSOP and knew he was just another overly aggressive chump) both had about 55k in chips. The entire chip count was 120k or so, so we had over 40% of the chips between us, even though we were at separate tables. One guy proposed that we split first and second ($9k each) and everyone else split the rest, which would have been about $1200 for each of them. I was of course game for this since I felt I had a great shot of winning, but I think 9k was more than I deserved by at least 1k or 2, even factoring that I was much better than Steve. The blind structure was rather rough, and even my 50k was only 33 big blinds or so at the time. Everyone agreed to the deal except for one person, who happened to be the next person out. After that one more person objected to the now slightly better deal, and he objected all the way until we were down to 5 players.
By the time we got down to 9 people for the top table I still had about 55k in chips but Steve had over 100k. also another player at my table who I thought was actually a very solid player had grown to 30k, with the others all being in the 10-15k range. Again a deal was proposed which would give me 8k, Steve 10k, and all the rest splitting evenly except for the guy with 30k in chips who would get the extra 600 from me and Steve’s chop of first and second (which added up to $18,590). Again I thought this deal was unfair in my favor so I agreed to it but the old man objected. I was annoyed that he wouldn’t take it, but only because it was so much to my advantage, so I actually ended up sticking up for the guy when the others got annoyed at him. As much as I wanted the deal I understood his wanting to play and he was well within his rights to do so, so I got angry when 4 or 5 people wouldn’t let up on him. He actually turned out to be a very cool guy, and a reasonable poker player. He ended up getting 5th for $1600, so it was to his advantage that he turned down the deal which would have given him $1200.
When down to 6 players I lost a bunch of chips to Steve. I raised AK suited preflop and he called. The flop came k q 4 and he check called me. The turn was an ace and he check raised me. I thought about coming back over because he is a vanilla maniac who was obviously highly overrating himself, but I decided against it since a reraised by him would kill my stack. I called him there and on the river and he rolled over 44. I was now down to 25k or so, which put me below the solid player and ruined any further shot I had of a deal. Also Steve bled off a bunch of chips to the solid player. They both knocked other people out and there we were 3 handed, me with 50k and them with about 110k (for Steve) and 90k for the other guy. The solid player had never won more than $1000 in a tournament before and was practically begging to make a deal. They figured out based on chip count that I should receive $4600, but I knew I was much more skilled than Steve so I declined. Steve then offered a chop of something like $11k for him, $6k for the guy to my left, and $5k for me. This was a bit of a premium for me (though a tremendous ripoff for the guy to my left as he had almost as many chips as Steve yet would receive not much more than half. He probably would have agreed to it to, but not me. I really didn’t care about winning an extra $1500, I wanted first for the trophy and $8k more. I told them that I wipe my ass with $1500 when I run out of toilet paper so we continued.
I kept going all in against Steve with the favorite, and somehow kept winning. I didn’t like this because even if you are a 2-1 favorite every time, when you do it 10 times you are a severe underdog to survive. But the blinds were so big and the solid player was using his stack very effectively against me so I never had a choice. Finally one of his bad hands, a 3 outer, came through for him and I got 3rd, for $3400 after the tip.
All in all I am not too unhappy. I have some more thoughts on the tournament, but I am tired and have to be awake in 7 hours or so for tomorrow’s event (thank God I already registered) so they will have to wait. I will also post the couple pictures I took from the table.
Posted by themaroon at July 14, 2004 11:17 AM
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