[d10]

My 3 day weekends are over for a while, but after 4 straight weekends in Tunica I've lost interest in playing online. When I try I usually get so bored I end up losing money. So I needed to find an excuse to go back just for 2 day weekends. The Horseshoe started up weekend tourneys, and I thought that might be a good reason to go back down.

I hardly ever play tournaments. I also hardly ever play no limit. My best game is limit cash games. But I figure I can make the right adjustments and be a good NL tourney player if I just learn what adjustments are necessary. And I get tired of grinding out limit cash games so I felt I needed to try a tournament. I had done a few online, but never had great results with them. So a couple weeks ago I went out and picked up a copy of HOH and read through it. I try a few tournaments online and try to apply what I learned and bust out of all of them. But, I'm busting out on hands that I was a solid favorite to win when I got my money in, so I felt that if I can get most of my hands to hold up I should do alright in a tournament.

The plan was to play the Horseshoe's Saturday 11am $200+$30 NL holdem tournament, and then afterwards play some 10/20 until I got tired. I found out on Friday night that I have to work on Sunday morning (and by morning I mean early, like what some people would still consider Saturday night), and it's a 4 hour drive to Tunica, so that kind of screws up my plans. But I still want to play this tournament, so I'll just have to cut my 10/20 session short and bear out the 8 hour round trip in 1 day drive.

So I go down on Saturday morning and register. There were 28 people who ended up buying in. I don't know what I expected. I kind of wanted to see more cause the prize pool was a bit weak but at the same time this gave me a much better chance of finishing in the money, since top 5 paid out. Being the first time ever playing NL live, and also the first time ever playing a tournament live, I figure it's better to have a good chance at winning than trying to hit a big payout. I need confidence right now, and as I sat down I realized I didn't have much of it. It reminded me of the first time I played B&M. Lots of different colored chips were being thrown all over and I had a tough time keeping track of how much was in the pot, how much the blinds were, how many players were in, what my odds were, really simple stuff. Also playing with green and black chips was a bit intimidating, even if they did say "No Cash Value" on them, and none of this was helping my game. The first 2 rounds went by and I had nothing playable. I started to worry cause if you sit around for 2 rounds online half the table has already doubled up and you're up to the 3rd level of blinds. But then I realized that things were much slower paced in live play, and that helped a bit. Not enough though cause I looked down and saw AQo and I got all nervous like I had just flopped quads for the first time or something. I settle down enough to figure out how much I want to raise. I get 1 caller and the flop comes Q high. I'm first to act and the guy next to me has been pretty aggressive, and so far I know I have a tight image, hopefully it's a weak image as well and I can check and he'll bet thinking I missed the flop. But he checks behind me and I think of how stupid that was. Fortunately the turn is a rag so I bet about 1/2 the pot and take it down. The other guy had AK, so I got lucky on the flop and I got lucky that free card I gave didn't kill me. Gotta bet at that next time. And the next time comes up pretty quickly. I get AQ again and the flop comes out AKQ, 2 suits. Scary flop against 2 opponents but I bet and 1 guy calls. Turn is a rag so I bet again and this guy raises me all in. He didn't seem too sure of himself though and he was short stacked so maybe he's just hoping his hand holds up or he hits a draw. So I call and he's just got a QJ. No T comes on the river so I take down that pot. A bit later I get AK and the flop comes Q high but I put in a good sized bet and take that pot too. At this point I'm a little over 2x my buyin, and we move down to 2 tables.

At this next table I'm not getting much, but when the blinds get up to 25/50 I steal a few of them here and there and slowly build my stack that way. I decided to get a little too crazy with some garbage in EP, I looked around the table and no one looked like they had any hands they were proud of, so I raise it 5x the BB and some short stack reraises all in. It's only another 5 BBs and I might have had the odds, and it would be nice to have a chance to knock another player out for almost nothing, but I don't want to show this hand, and I shouldn't have come in in the first place. I paid this short stack off 250 chips, I don't want to give him more, so I fold. The dealer looks at me like I'm crazy and asked me about it later. Yeah it might have been the worst all around play ever. It cost me a good bit of my stack but I'm still in good shape. After the break, I get A8o in late position, it's folded to me so I put in a raise, the same short stack (now not quite as short though) reraises all in again. It's not too much more to me, so I think I have the odds to call here, and I won't be quite as embarassed to show down this hand unless he's got a bigger Ace. But he had 77, so actually I have 2 overcards, which is a lot better than what I was hoping for. I catch the smaller one on the river and move to the final table with a pretty good amount of chips.

I catch a few good hands at the final table but mostly I'm just stealing blinds and using my chips when I can to steal a bit more than just blinds. Todd finally deals me a premium hand (he hasn't been good to me in the past), KK UTG, but everyone folds to my raise. I raise when it's folded to me in the small blind with JTo, but the big blind calls, then calls again on the J-high flop (which was pretty much all in, unfortunately I didn't see how many chips he had, he was in the 1 seat and I was in the 10 seat, so I just made a standard 1/2 pot sized bet which was I think 50 less than what he had, so he just threw it all in. Of course I called the additional 50). He had a 4 flush, which he didn't quite have the odds to call with, but if he was getting desperate and felt like risking his tournament life here I can't say I disagree with his call. It was close. Anyways he catches his flush. I still have a lot of chips though so I'm not too worried about it. One of the small stacks (but still a nice chunk of change) makes a stand, it's folded to me and I look down to see QQ. I reraise all in and it's heads up, he turns over a smaller pocket pair and gets no help.

As it turned out I was a strong 2nd in chips with 7 players left. I had about 4800 at the 100/200/25 ante level. Chip leader had about 5800, a couple were around 3000 and the other 3 were about 2000 or less. Then one of the guys tries to get a deal going. I am a stupid noob so I eventually accept the deal after a small protest. I figure if the guy with 5800 doesn't mind, why should I? We decide to split the prize pool equally between all 7 of us. Only 5 were supposed to pay out, so 2 people (and chances are I wasn't one of the 2) were +$770 on that deal. But I don't think I realized that at the time, I was just thinking I was going to take home around a 3rd place payout, which probably wasn't to my benefit, but it wasn't too bad of a deal for me. But I wasn't thinking about all the reasons why I was getting the shaft on this deal, and the more I think about it the more I realize I got a horrible deal here. I guess I was just thinking I could walk away with a guaranteed $770, which isn't too shabby for my first live NL tournament. I know what you all are thinking. But, I'm a live tourney noob and it seemed like a good deal at the time (well, not a good deal, I knew all along it wasn't to my benfit, but I didn't think it was absolutely horrible and I figured to make more at the 10/20 tables in the time it took me to negotiate a better deal. It was later that I realized exactly how much EV I was giving away in this deal). So I'll take that as an expensive lesson: Learn how to recognize good and bad deals before my next tournament. The more I think about that deal the more it ruins an otherwise great day. I'll definitely be studying the art of cutting deals before I play again.

As an aside, HOH is a great book. Were it not for this book, I would have left this tournament with $0. So my copy has more than paid for itself. I can't wait for Volume II.

After that I gave myself about 3 hours before I thought I needed to start heading home, so I get on the 10/20 list. Unfortunately it takes almost 2 hours despite the fact there are 2 tables going and I'm 4th on the list. So I only get to play that for like an hour. I get a lot of hands that don't hold up, drop a little over $200, then catch a few good hands to end the hour +$105. Nothing spectacular there. I think someone tried an angle shot on me trying to pass off a 6-high as a straight, or maybe he truly misread his hand (but I don't think so cause he never got aggressive in his betting). But I made sure to count it myself before mucking my measly pocket 3s and only saw 4 cards out there.