Registration starts in a little over an hour and play starts an hour after that.
100 players. Everyone starts with $10,000 in chips. No blinds, ante structure as follows:
No checking pre-flop.
The tournament’s part of a ten week series of 40 tournaments. Winner of each tournament, plus the top 40 non-winners, get invited to a championship tournament in August with a grand prize of a trip for two to Las Vegas.
Of course I can’t formulate a complete strategy ahead of time, but going into it I’m planning on playing pretty tight, not starting hands much less than a “blackjack,” mid to high pocket pairs and mid to high suited connectors up to one gap. I don’t expect to win so my immediate goal is to stay in long enough for the first table consolidation (however long that takes).
I went out second at my table of eight on the last hand before the first break. I think I played pretty well considering my experience level. I won an early hand and was up to about $13,000 and then hit about four hands with no cards. Next playable hand I pick up is A-J off suit and after the first round of betting we’re down to three players. Flop comes A-K-Q with two diamonds. I don’t have a diamond but I have top pair and the nut straight draw. I check, second player bets, third player folds and I call. I put her on a straight draw and an outside chance of a flush draw, certainly she doesn’t have pocket Qs or Ks. Turn is a black 9; she bets and I call. River is a black duece. She bets and I call. She has 9s and 2s which beats my pair of Aces. I think in hindsight I might have been able to move her off the hand on the flop if I’d have raised. That’s the only mistake I think I made but I took a fairly big hit.
After that I never saw anything decent to play. I think I called pre-flop on one more hand after that until the break. Meanwhile $1800 is going out of my stack every time around the table.
Next to last hand I was in the dealer flipped up the next-to-last player’s second hole card for a misdeal. If he’d have landed that card face down and his own face down we’d have played them. Even though I had a feeling I shouldn’t I looked at my hole cards. Pocket freakin’ Aces. Pocket Aces on a misdeal. I about jumped across the table and throttled the guy.
Last hand I was down to $2900, second to act. Guy in front of me bets $200, the minimum. I look down at a K-Q off suit. It’s the last hand before antes go up to $500 so I’m out in five hands anyway so I go all in. Everyone folds but the bettor calls me. He has wired 5s so it’s a race. Flop is no help to either but on the turn a 5 comes so I’m drawing dead.
I’m signed up for next week’s tournament and there are others throughout the week that I’m looking at too.
So, poker pros, go ahead and rip my play to shreds. I can take it.
No, there’s no buy-in. It’s $10,000 in play money; the tournament is for points and prizes.
The tournaments are run as part of the Badger Poker Series. I don’t know anything about the people who run it, why they’re doing it, how they’re making any money, etc.
That’s a pretty over the top crapshooty tournament structure. With those antes, there’s no way you want to play a conventional tight game - you can’t win playing tight when the antes are so ridiculously high. You have to get in there and mix it up and hope to get lucky.
I think the ante structures are the way they are because the games are all held in bars and everything has to be wrapped up by 2 AM closing time. Since this was my first tournament and I’m not an experienced player I didn’t feel comfortable playing too loose if for no other reason than I didn’t want to go broke right away. I also didn’t do any bluffing. I’ve loosened up a little and am trying some bluffs (which when you check out the other thread you’ll see worked out less than beautifully tonight).
But darn it, the most important thing is I’m having fun! The second most important thing is that I’ve taken a couple of huge pots off this super-aggressive asshole who last week sought me out twice so he could plant himself on my left. Which was pretty fun.
