Hey all,
I was working from AC for a few days this week, and got some time to play poker. Nothing of much interest happened. Except the following:
1) Three separate people @ the Taj asked me, "Do you have any rolling papers?". It was only after the second time I was asked that I found out this is slang for, "Do you want to buy some weed?". I guess the fact that I'm no longer hip to drug lingo is a surefire sign that I am, indeed, an old man.
2) We played 20/40 at the Taj for about 4 hours with two rocks. No, I don't mean two nitty old men...they were all sitting in the 10 game. For those who don't know the term, a "rock" is ostensibly designed to loosen up a tightish game. If everybody agrees to play w/ the rock, you take two big blinds out of a pot (like time from a time pot) and wrap them up in a rubber band. The winner of the pot now owns the rock, and has to put it up as a blind raise next time they're UTG. The next winner of the pot with rock posted now owns rock, and they're obliged to post it next time they're UTG...and so on (i.e. the rock stays in play, and just gets passed between winners of pots). Playing with two rocks is exactly the same, except you end up with twice as many blind raises.
So, on selling the rock...what's the right price to take if somebody offers to buy the rock from you? The generally consensus at the table is that it's worth about $25 (1.25 Big Blinds) in equity...
3) Some youngish guy playing the 20 game yesterday was there with his mom. She was really out-going and, honestly, really nice. She offered to buy the whole table pizza, and the young guy, obv embarrassed, kind of yells at her that everybody will get their own food. She ignores him, shows up with a large pizza anyways, and is actively recruiting people in the poker room to have a slice or two. Anyhow, it was odd, but refreshing, to see a genuinely nice person in an environment where such folks are rare.
4) I don't usually post hands in trip reports, but this one was crazy enough to write about. 20 must move game @ Taj.
I raise AA UTG and get 5 callers.
Flop comes 7 T J rainbow. I open and it comes back to me capped!! I call 3 in the face praying my 2-outer will actually be good.
Turn bricks off. I check, it comes back to me for 2 or 3 bets (can't remember exactly), and I fold.
River bricks and checks through. 4 people showdown the following hands:
77 (Flopped set of sevens)
TT (Flopped set of tens)
JJ (Flopped set of jacks)
QK (Flopped open-ended straight draw)
So I would have needed to go perfect/perfect to make quads for my aces to be good on that flop FWIW, this is the first time I've ever seen set over set over set...live poker is rigged.
5) Found out that the Taj comps $3/hour for playing 20/40
6) A 40 hold-em game got started @ Taj yesterday evening just as I was leaving
That's it. Thanks for reading.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
UMTerp's weekend tournament
I included you on this email if you played on Saturday, or if I thought you'd be the least bit interested in the results. Everything went smoothly as far as I could tell, and I think everyone had a lot of fun. We'll probably do this again in a few months, either in late January or early February. I'll try to give more notice next time, as I know there were quite a few of you that expressed interest in playing, but had other obligations this past weekend. Again, for those who have friends that played, feel free to forward this email along to them.
We ended up with 18 players for a prize pool of $1,080. 1,500-chip starting stacks, for a total of 27,000 chips in play.
The structure worked as I anticipated, and nobody busted out before the first break over a hour into the tournament, so hopefully every felt like they got their money's worth. The tournament finally ended around 12:45, at the 400/800 blind level.
I think I got all these results right, though I may have flip-flopped one or two spots because I'm doing this from memory. The final table standings were as follows:
1. Jeremy ($460) - Jeremy won a few timely coin flips (which are detailed below), and never lost a significant pot that I can recall at the final table. His stack seemed to be moving in the right direction the entire tournament. Congrats to Jeremy!
2. The Who ($300) - The Who was the short stack almost the entire time at the final table, but patience was a virtue with this structure, and he rode his stack into second place and a nice payday. He couldn't overcome a ~23K to ~4K defecit heads up though, and succumbed to Jeremy after 10 or 15 hands of heads up play.
3. Pat ($190) - Much like The Who, Pat was one of the shorter stacks throughout much of the final table. He oulasted a few of the more aggressive larger stacks, and cashed in third place.
4. Damon ($130) - Although Damon came up short in his bid to become the first player that I'm aware of to finish a marathon and win a poker tournament in the same day, he did hang on to cash. Damon and Jeremy played the biggest pot of the tournament 4-handed at the 200/400 blind level, when Damon's JJ went up against Jeremy's AK all-in preflop. The winner of that hand would have had a commanding chip lead with a stack over 20,000 chips. The first four cards were no help to Jeremy, but a cruel ace on the river sealed Damon's fate.
5. Brian - Brian was actually down to about 150 chips in the second level of play after taking a brutal beat when getting all-in against Big Chris with AA against AK on a K43 flop. A king hit the turn to knock Brian almost down to the felt, but he almost came all the way back before being eliminated in fifth place.
6. Hogie
7. Jason
8. Aaron - The second big hand Jeremy won at the final table was very similar to the first. Jeremy's AK was all-in preflop against Aaron's JJ, but in this case, Jeremy didn't need any river heroics when an ace and a king came out on the flop. This one was for about a third of the chips in play, fairly early at the final table.
9. Peter
If anyone has any constructive criticism about the setup, the structure, whatever, let me know, and I'll consider incorporating it for next time. One thing a lot of folks did mention was the possibility of a small cash game on the side, but it simply wan't feasible his time given who was out early and the timing of the bustouts. It's possible we'll set something up next time. It's also possible we'll expand the tournament a tiny bit and start with ~24 players and three tables, though that depends on the demand. We'll see.
Also, thank you to a few folks that helped me run everything - Damon/Coop, who came through with a few players for me when I was running a bit short, Pete, who helped me deal the final table, and my wife A, who was a gracious host and had a good time playing her first tournament. See you all next time - thanks for playing!
-Phil
We ended up with 18 players for a prize pool of $1,080. 1,500-chip starting stacks, for a total of 27,000 chips in play.
The structure worked as I anticipated, and nobody busted out before the first break over a hour into the tournament, so hopefully every felt like they got their money's worth. The tournament finally ended around 12:45, at the 400/800 blind level.
I think I got all these results right, though I may have flip-flopped one or two spots because I'm doing this from memory. The final table standings were as follows:
1. Jeremy ($460) - Jeremy won a few timely coin flips (which are detailed below), and never lost a significant pot that I can recall at the final table. His stack seemed to be moving in the right direction the entire tournament. Congrats to Jeremy!
2. The Who ($300) - The Who was the short stack almost the entire time at the final table, but patience was a virtue with this structure, and he rode his stack into second place and a nice payday. He couldn't overcome a ~23K to ~4K defecit heads up though, and succumbed to Jeremy after 10 or 15 hands of heads up play.
3. Pat ($190) - Much like The Who, Pat was one of the shorter stacks throughout much of the final table. He oulasted a few of the more aggressive larger stacks, and cashed in third place.
4. Damon ($130) - Although Damon came up short in his bid to become the first player that I'm aware of to finish a marathon and win a poker tournament in the same day, he did hang on to cash. Damon and Jeremy played the biggest pot of the tournament 4-handed at the 200/400 blind level, when Damon's JJ went up against Jeremy's AK all-in preflop. The winner of that hand would have had a commanding chip lead with a stack over 20,000 chips. The first four cards were no help to Jeremy, but a cruel ace on the river sealed Damon's fate.
5. Brian - Brian was actually down to about 150 chips in the second level of play after taking a brutal beat when getting all-in against Big Chris with AA against AK on a K43 flop. A king hit the turn to knock Brian almost down to the felt, but he almost came all the way back before being eliminated in fifth place.
6. Hogie
7. Jason
8. Aaron - The second big hand Jeremy won at the final table was very similar to the first. Jeremy's AK was all-in preflop against Aaron's JJ, but in this case, Jeremy didn't need any river heroics when an ace and a king came out on the flop. This one was for about a third of the chips in play, fairly early at the final table.
9. Peter
If anyone has any constructive criticism about the setup, the structure, whatever, let me know, and I'll consider incorporating it for next time. One thing a lot of folks did mention was the possibility of a small cash game on the side, but it simply wan't feasible his time given who was out early and the timing of the bustouts. It's possible we'll set something up next time. It's also possible we'll expand the tournament a tiny bit and start with ~24 players and three tables, though that depends on the demand. We'll see.
Also, thank you to a few folks that helped me run everything - Damon/Coop, who came through with a few players for me when I was running a bit short, Pete, who helped me deal the final table, and my wife A, who was a gracious host and had a good time playing her first tournament. See you all next time - thanks for playing!
-Phil
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