Huntingdon Firehouse Trip Report

[Andrew Fletcher]

My buddy and I decided to buy-in the local firehouse tournament in the town where we go to college. The town is tiny—about 6,000 people and located in central Pennsylvania. We’re forty minutes away from the nearest Taco Bell. Our college is pretty much hated by the locals, so we’re looking forward to a fun afternoon of poker and general belligerence.

The tournament was a $60 freeze out with a guaranteed first prize of $750. That’s right. $750. They pay out the entire final table, but with 50+ people playing in the tournament, the firemen are making out like bandits. Whatever. As much as I don’t like the town, I guess I don’t really want it to burn down. We’re going to have fun, not make +EV decisions about tournament juice.

On a side note, the firemen DO make really good polish sausages, hot dogs, and hamburgers. And that buffet is complementary for all poker players. Eating that stuff was +EV for sure.

Anyway, my table was pretty classic. One guy who wouldn’t stop talking and I would label “Authority Artie” from some of the older poker books. Another guy who loved to go all-in prefolp and draw out. My favorite was a sixty year-old woman who was pretty drunk from the night before. They all knew each other and had nicknames. Two guys who were cousins and would check down any hand that was just the two of them. Awesome.

With blinds at 5/10 and starting stacks of 1000, we lost two people within the first two 15 minute rounds. Awesome. I was quickly nicknamed “squeaky” because I didn’t play any hands for the first round—I was the ultra-tight college kid. When I folded A10 sooted in EP, it accidentally flipped up as I pushed it towards the muck. I got a nice long lecture from the entire table.

Nothing exciting for me in the tournament. I was completely card dead and eventually had to push with air due to the blinds. Got called by KK and that was it. I smiled and checked on my buddy who had amassed a nice stack by having AA twice, KK three times and JJ twice.

Needless to say, I was desperate to get a cash game going. I found some other guys who had busted out and procured some non-tournament chips from the organizers. Most people wanted to buy-in for $20-$30, so I suggested we play .25-.50 or .10-.25. However, there were a limited number of chips. People argued it would be too difficult to play those stakes with the amount of chips we had. I said we could make the different colored chips different values, but everyone thought that would be too confusing. The table decided to play $1-$2 no limit. All the chips would be worth $1. That way, it would make cashing out easy. Okkkkkay.

Everyone bought in for $15-$20. In a $1-$2 game. I bought in for $50 and was scolded by the entire table. After running my stack up to $90, I was forced to cash out and rebuy for $20. Meanwhile, everyone was going all-in and rebuying like crazy. Oh, and the game went from 7 handed to 5 handed as people lost their money. After an hour and half, the game stopped because everyone was out of money except me and another guy. After that, no one would play.

It wasn’t a particularly big day for me—although my buddy did take 2nd place for a nice $500 (sort of, given how large the actual prize pool was), but it was one of the most bizarre and fun day of poker I’ve had in a long time……