Another trip to Tunica

[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.

[Chipr777]

I'm curious about one hand. An aggressive player in 6 seat made it $300 to go with the blinds $50-$100. You re-raised to $800. I'm having a hard time remembering positions. 8 hours of dealing they all seem the same at the end of the day. What did you have? If you held a large pocket pair did you consider a smooth call to try to milk a few extra chips out of him or was this a situation where you didn't want to see a flop and just take it down there?

[Chipr777]

Also, what did you think of the makeshift room? We won't be out there too much longer before we move to our new room. My concern is the comfort level. Does is have a more chaotic feel? Opinions please. Anything we can do to make things easier for everyone while we're back there would be a great help. Also I think 28 players in the tourney today was a fairly good turnout for the first week of a tourney. Next week should be 40 or more and I think we'll be well over 60 or 70 in 2 weeks. They were having that tourney at the Grand today giving away two WSOP seats so that hurt a little.

[d10]

I'm glad you remembered that hand cause I actually wanted to get some feedback on it. I had AKo. I preferred to take down the 450 that was out there without a flop, but if I only managed to get it heads up and the original raiser called another $500 that wouldn't be too bad either. I certainly didn't want to call and maybe get some gambling type behind me coming in cheap with any decent drawing hand thinking the pot was going to get huge. Obviously folding wasn't considered either. Raising to 600 might have been reasonable but then he would have had the odds to call with almost anything, and unless I hit the flop myself I wouldn't have any idea how far ahead or behind I was. I decided if I was going to raise to 600 I might as well make it 800 and force him to make a tougher decision. Depending on how he reacted to that, the extra 200 could either win the pot right there, or I'd know if betting a flop that missed him could pick up the pot, or I'd know if I was behind and needed a good piece of the flop myself to continue. I thought that if all I did was pick up 450 chips and managed to get everyone at the table thinking "This guy is expensive to play with, I'll need to throw away more of my marginal hands against him" that would be fine. But when it got back around to the raiser it didn't look like he had a very hard decision to make, as he folded pretty quickly. So that got me thinking maybe I overplayed it and that a flop wouldn't have been as bad as I thought? AK is a pretty good hand, just hard to play sometimes, maybe I threw away an opportunity to make some extra chips there. If he had a small pair I could have bought it out on the flop as long as he didn't make a set and there were overcards. If he had 2 smaller cards then certainly I would have welcomed a call. I think in that individual situation I would have been better off just raising to 600, but in theory I'm not sure if my larger raise was incorrect. Also, I'm not sure if I realized this before or after that hand, but that guy who raised was pretty easy to run over. I stole plenty of chips from him throughout the tournament, but I can't remember if I knew that at the point I had AK and it influenced my decision, or if I figured that out later.

[Chipr777]

It may have been best that he folded. You and I both know that hand will get you bust more than it will double you through.

[d10]

I didn't notice much difference in comfort level between the two rooms. I like the fact that it's more open. There were plenty of times in the old room when I was stuck in the 5-6 seat and I'd have to squeeze past a few people every time I wanted to get up from the table. So I like the openness. I didn't really like the podium in the middle of everything. Anyone working there would naturally have their backs turned to me when I needed help so it took just a little extra effort to get someones attention, but I didn't see any better place for it and it's a very small issue anyways. I wouldn't even bring it up but it's the only thing I noticed that was better in the old room. Overall I don't think the new room is any worse than the old one, and considering it's just temporary I think that's pretty good.

[RacersEdge]

OK, you asked for opinions - you're a dealer there?

I hate the setup they have now - it's not even a room - just an area. Very chaotic and noisy. I went over to play but decided against it. I like the poker room to be more secluded. When does the new room open?

[Chipr777]

My job decription at Horseshoe is a little weird. My boss, Ken Lambert, is the director of poker at the Horseshoe. He is also the director of poker for all the Harrah's circut events around the country. I'm a dual rate dealer/floor when he's in town. When he goes out of town, which is often, the shift manager on days who is also the Ast. Mgr. is the poker mgr and I become the shift mgr on days. Confused yet? Me too. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
Back to your other question. We expect the other room to be completed in 6 weeks from the start of construction. Construction hasn't started yet because they are going to remodel the OLD room and the front bar before they start on our room. We think they start our room next week. The temp room in all honesty hasn't been bad at all. It's in a nice open area and we put up a few ropes around the room today. It's still non-smoking but it does make things a little easier for the smokers not to have to walk so far out of the room for a smoke. The air circulation is very good so you don't notice it at all. We still stop people from smoking on the rail. If you have any suggestions as well for things we can do to make things more comfortable while we're in the temp room please let me know. Every suggestion so far, within reason, I've done.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
If you have any suggestions as well for things we can do to make things more comfortable while we're in the temp room please let me know.

[/ QUOTE ]


Free hookers??


[ QUOTE ]
Every suggestion so far, within reason , I've done.

[/ QUOTE ]


Oh well....so much for that good idea.

[Chipr777]

Only for 10-20 and higher. Sorry. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]