ZeroGee
11-19-2003, 07:16 PM
Tournament at Diamond Jim's in Rosamond, CA, way out in the desert.
It's a $45 + $5 freezeout NL Hold'em tournament. Last week had 76 players, paid 13 (got their money back), with first prize being $1170. A friend had suggested I check it out, so I went up there and gave it a try. The "casino" is just a small poker room that has games that on a good night might get up to 4-8; it's essentially just a bunch of 3-6 hold'em and omaha tables, with people who actually enjoy living in the desert. There aren't any real cardplayers in the room.
Start with 6500 in chips, blinds at 25-50; sounds pretty good. Here's the catch.
To keep things simple, every 20 minutes the blinds basically double. 25-50, then 50-100, 75-150, then 100-200, 200-400, 400-800, 800-1600, 1600-3200, ... the blinds were actually 32000-64000 when the winner got crowned. 6500 in chips doesn't seem like so much when two hours into the tournament when the blinds are now 400-800. 40 minutes after that, and you're facing 1600-3200. Yeah, I know you can do the math, but the point is how much of a crapshoot is this thing?
I consider myself a good tournaemnt player -- played tournaments four times a week when I lived in London, and fared well. I am almost always in the money in home game tournaments, but haven't really played many at American casinos.
I played tightly since everyone was going nuts to start, until I finally built some chips by winning a big hand with quad 10s. At that point, the blinds were 400-800, and I started betting fairly big and built a good stack. I was the chip leader with 59,000 in chips when we were down to about 17 people. I tightened up, but raised with AQ from the button, ran into Aces in the big blind who went all in for a bit more than my raise, and I lost 20 grand... and then after picking back some money up, similar thing happened when the big blind player picked up kings. So now I go into the final table of 10 people exactly in the middle of chips.
Blinds are now 8000-16000, and there are three players with less than 16000 that have to face the blinds before it even gets to me. They all win their forced all ins, and I'm now two away from the blinds with about 50000. I pick up AJ suited, and make it 25000 to go, and everyone folds except the big blind, who calls all-in for 2,000 more. She had 8 3, hits a 3, and now I'm down to 25000. On my big blind, under the gun raised everyone else out, I call all-in with sixes, and I lose the coin flip again to AQ and am out 10th, making $25 after my few hour investment.
Is this tournament worth playing again? The players here are _soooo bad_, but I don't think it matters how well I play, I can't possibly beat that blind structure. It's goign to come down to dumb luck at the final table every time, right? I was very happy with my play all night. What would you recommend?
It's a $45 + $5 freezeout NL Hold'em tournament. Last week had 76 players, paid 13 (got their money back), with first prize being $1170. A friend had suggested I check it out, so I went up there and gave it a try. The "casino" is just a small poker room that has games that on a good night might get up to 4-8; it's essentially just a bunch of 3-6 hold'em and omaha tables, with people who actually enjoy living in the desert. There aren't any real cardplayers in the room.
Start with 6500 in chips, blinds at 25-50; sounds pretty good. Here's the catch.
To keep things simple, every 20 minutes the blinds basically double. 25-50, then 50-100, 75-150, then 100-200, 200-400, 400-800, 800-1600, 1600-3200, ... the blinds were actually 32000-64000 when the winner got crowned. 6500 in chips doesn't seem like so much when two hours into the tournament when the blinds are now 400-800. 40 minutes after that, and you're facing 1600-3200. Yeah, I know you can do the math, but the point is how much of a crapshoot is this thing?
I consider myself a good tournaemnt player -- played tournaments four times a week when I lived in London, and fared well. I am almost always in the money in home game tournaments, but haven't really played many at American casinos.
I played tightly since everyone was going nuts to start, until I finally built some chips by winning a big hand with quad 10s. At that point, the blinds were 400-800, and I started betting fairly big and built a good stack. I was the chip leader with 59,000 in chips when we were down to about 17 people. I tightened up, but raised with AQ from the button, ran into Aces in the big blind who went all in for a bit more than my raise, and I lost 20 grand... and then after picking back some money up, similar thing happened when the big blind player picked up kings. So now I go into the final table of 10 people exactly in the middle of chips.
Blinds are now 8000-16000, and there are three players with less than 16000 that have to face the blinds before it even gets to me. They all win their forced all ins, and I'm now two away from the blinds with about 50000. I pick up AJ suited, and make it 25000 to go, and everyone folds except the big blind, who calls all-in for 2,000 more. She had 8 3, hits a 3, and now I'm down to 25000. On my big blind, under the gun raised everyone else out, I call all-in with sixes, and I lose the coin flip again to AQ and am out 10th, making $25 after my few hour investment.
Is this tournament worth playing again? The players here are _soooo bad_, but I don't think it matters how well I play, I can't possibly beat that blind structure. It's goign to come down to dumb luck at the final table every time, right? I was very happy with my play all night. What would you recommend?