Two weeks ago kat and I went to the Poker Bowl USA - Austin event. This was definitively the stupidest excuse for a poker tournament I’ve ever participated in. I knew it was going to barely be a step up from an internet pyramid scheme, since it was sponsored by Razor magazine, a men’s magazine that I’ve never heard of. It was more realistic for us to play $5 poker at thomas’ house when we were all drunk beyond repair and had no concept of money. I knew we were in trouble when we showed up at the event and the guy was seating everyone in order as they came in (as in first one here is seat one table one, second is seat two table one, etc). He asked kat and I if we wanted to sit at the same table (because that makes sense). We asked to be seated at different tables, but ended up at the same table when there weren’t enough to make a 14th table. Each of the tables had 8 seats, with one seat taken by a “dealer”. I put dealer in quotes because these guys were far from being dealers. I’m not sure where the tournament orgainizers hired these guys from, but they were terrible. The only “dealer” quality about them was that they were wearing tuxedo shirts. The “dealer” at our table consistantly flipped up everyones cards so you could see what each person’s hand was after every hand, whether it was called down or not. There were 98 players in the tournament, and the tournament was scheduled to take 4 hours. How do you end a 100 person tournament in four hours? You start every with 500 chips and start the blinds at 25/50. So that means, if you want to raise the minimum in the first round, you’re betting 20% of your stack. I saw four flops. FOUR. My played hands were KJo, 92o (big blind for no raise), J10s, and JJ. We outlasted roughly half the field; I had one table change; kat had two changes before we busted out. I won one hand. It was the J10s. I was all-in on the big blind and up against a much bigger stack with AJo. I managed to squeak out a straight on the river to stay alive. A couple hands later kat came by to inform me that she had busted out. By the time the blinds got back around to me, I was all-in on the big blind again (because the blinds were raised as I hit the small blind previously) and lost on JJ against A3o when and ace came on the turn. It was a complete waste of time in the end, but still worth checking out since there was a free trip associated with winning and no entry fee. The confirmation email I recieved said “Please plan to arrive at least 45 minutes prior to the beginning of play to check in for your table assignment and meet the models of RAZOR magazine” which we luckily didn’t pay attention to because the tournament was so disorganized that I would have been severely pissed if we had sat there for an hour before getting started (we waited 15 minutes though we actually arrived after the tournament start time) and the “models” were not the ones from the Women of Razor. The “models” were nice, but they weren’t what I’d consider model material. I felt sorry for them at one point because one of the “dealers” confused her for waitress and placed a drink order with her. If there’s one thing that’ll make you feel uncomfortable when you’re trying to act hot it’s having someone treat you like a waitress. Kat agrees that this was definitely the stupidest tournament ever.

Last weekend, I played in the GCue year-end tournament. The grand prize was a trip for two to the WSOP. The tournaments at GCue are the most “professional” live tournaments I’ve ever participated in. Kevin and his crew understand the rules well enough and manage to keep the tournament running at a decent pace, considering there is no money involved. There are a couple frustrating things about the tournaments though. First, GCue is probably the smokiest bar I’ve ever spent an extended amount of time in. And that compounds itself when you’re sitting there for 10 hours playing cards with a bunch of chain smokers. Also, since it is a pool hall, you have to play poker on the pool tables, which are a far cry from the tables you’d see in a casino and are a hell of a lot more uncomfortable. The players themselves weren’t terrible, because in order to qualify for the year-end tournament you had to have placed in the top 20 in one of the previous events. There were only two ridiculously stupid plays worth mentioning. Both occurred at my first table, which was a particularly tight one. For the most part, everyone’s tables were tight but there was at least one crazy player at most tables that either busted out or busted someone else out on a lucky draw. We had one loose player at our table, but I didn’t fully understand how loose a player he was until a few rounds into the tournament. The loose player is livid due to a misdeal where he would have definitely had the nuts. I redeal the hand and both the loose player and the guy who caused the misdeal call. The flop comes out 10-9-3. Everyone checks to the loose player, who makes it 500 to go (into a 100 pot) and the guy next to me raises it to 1000. Loose player quickly goes all-in for another 7000 chips. The guy next to me thinks about it for a while and then calls the all-in (which has him covered), with J9o - that’s right, he went all-in with middle pair. Tthe loose player turns over …. Q8o: all-in for an inside straight draw. 5-J for a turn and river and the loose player gets lucky. Hispanic guy across from me was another story. I couldn’t figure out whether he really knew what he was doing or not for most of the tournament. Until he checked out a nut flush because he was afraid that the guy he was up against might have made a straight on the river. We were five hours into the tournament and this guy didn’t know that a FLUSH BEATS A STRAIGHT. I wasn’t surprised when he busted out of our table second.

I was up and down the whole tournament. I didn’t get any good cards until well into the tournament and when I did, I saw a lot of folds. I did manage to make it up to 25k at one point, which would have been average size for day 2, but toward the end of day 1 I was fading fast and I made some stupid decisions. In the end I was at the low end for day 1 finishing with 11.4k. Considering that the average stack was about $27k and we started with $10k, I can’t be too proud. When day 2 started, I was once again seated at the tightest table (of three). I hit on one hand and I stole a couple blinds to stay alive before I got moved to another table. The new table was the end of me. I hit some pretty good hands when the following play occurred. I was in the SB with blinds at 500/1000. I had K8o and called the blind. BB checked and the flop came out 2-3-8 (one spade). I made it 3k to go, BB thought about it for a while and then called. Next card was K spade, I checked, BB checked. Last card was a blank spade. I bet 2k, BB raised to 6k. Of course, he had sucked out a flush. That was really the end of my tournament life. I lost 10k in that hand and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. A few hands later, I caught QQ in middle position and went all-in for 4.1k, figuring with two large stacks behind me, this was going to be my best chance to get back in it. The flop came out AAx and it was over for me.

And that’s my poker story. The End.