Tuesday, March 2, 2004

Things are getting crazy. Every tournament is a sold-out mess before 6pm even comes (open registration). People are grumpy that they can't get seats, locals are grumpy that they aren't given preference, seniors are grumpy because the nine-handed tables are seating ten.

I'm just wondering if I'm ever going to win a hand. It's been four tournaments. Four Hold'em tourneys without winning one hand. Some of my cracked classics are: AA, AA, KK, KK, KK, QQ, JJ and AK so many times I can't even count.

I'm down to 5th in the WPT challenge, and falling further behind 1st-4th almost every tourney.

I had to take the seven seat, since we came in rather late. The eight seat was a cowboy from Texas. He had never played casino poker before, much less a tournament. I joked around with him, because he had a good personality. I asked him if he was from somewhere up north, his accent gave him away. Maybe New York City?

The guy in the six seat was a newbie from Phoenix. He was up in Laughlin for a baseball game his son had to play. He tried to project experience, telling me about all of his tourneys in Phoenix, and how the WPT has made Casino Arizona go mad, but it was extremely obvious that he was new himself. At one point he said, "You know, I want to learn all of those chip tricks so that people will think I'm a pro and respect my play." I usually just smile and nod when people say things like this, but I've been running so bad, and I had lost every hand I was in thus far in this tourney (this makes five in a row), that I looked at him incredulously and asked, "Why in the world would you WANT people to think you're good???"

After the first hour, I was already down to about 500 in chips from our original 1000. Nothing new under the sun.

Almost immediately after the break, I went all-in, at nine-handed, in EP, with AKo. I got two callers. One was this elderly lady who is very, very kind, but told me a couple of months ago that she "lacks the killer instinct," unlike me, and has a hard time with tourneys. I had knocked her out of the Pineapple tourney right on the bubble with a complete suckout. She is so passive and quiet that I never know if she has 72o or AA.

I figured I was beat already. The lady had QQ, the other caller had JJ. The flop was 543. I was getting up to leave. The turn was a ten or something that helped no one. I sucked out on the river with a deuce, lol.

The lady got the sidepot, so she wasn't upset with me, but it was a bad beat, nevertheless.

After that, I just kept getting good enough hands to go all-in. I got AA, and it held up for the first time in the last several times I've had it. I pressured the table, especially once we got shorthanded, and before I knew it, I was up to about 3000.

When we were down to six-handed, I was the SB and the elderly lady was the BB. Not having any clue what she had, I made a big raise with AJo. She immediately called all-in with QQ again. Yipes! She only had about 1000 left, due to the earlier beat, and a bad beat someone else put on her. Flop was harmless, turn ditto. River I sucked out with the ace. She said, "You did that to me last time, at the Pineapple tourney!" I told her I was really sorry, that I had no idea she had such a great hand. She is very, very sweet, and I felt bad putting about three bad beats on her during this tournament alone.

Our table broke and I was seated immediately to the left of Glenn at one of the final two tables. Blah! Glenn was knocked out almost immediately, as he was short and had to take a chance.

My never-winning-a-hand grim reaper came back to find me. He was so disappointed at having lost me for an hour, but he had other business to attend to, like putting a pineapple up Hitler's butt, so he left me alone for a bit, and I actually started winning again. Well, Hitler was in mortal pain, so Death found me at this table, and made sure I lost every hand again. I went from practically the chip lead, to OUT in about five hands. All were premium hands, all were beat. The only sub par hand I held was when I was in the BB for 400. A very shortstacked player went all-in in EP for his last 700. He'd just been handed a horrific bad beat the hand before, so I knew he was tilting. It was passed to me, I looked down to see A4o. I probably would have called with anything in this position, as it was only 300 more to me, against a probable nothing. I called and he had QTs. He got a ten.

After that, Death stayed by my side, filling up Glenn's vacated seat, and taunted me with premium hands regularly, only to make sure they were busted. When we got down to 14 players, suddenly I was the short stack, and then was out.

At least my never-won-a-hand all tournament streak was broken.

The top six players decided to chop the prize pool. Among them were Ionizer Bob, Carl and JJ, a Korean guy I've spoken about before. Way to go, guys!

James told me that he has decided to move the 4/8 FK game over to the Edgewater, and make our "high stakes" game a 5/10 FK. No problem there. Of course, we will have to literally pull teeth to get Glen to spread it, but whatever.

I sat into the game after I busted out of the tourney. Glenn was already there, and looking like a cat that ate a canary. I knew the game must be good. Sure enough, it was a fish fry. Great game! I couldn't win, but it was great nevertheless. Extremely loose, mildly passive, horrible play. You would have thought it was a 2/4 game. Yippee! James is going to try to promote this game by making the max rake $1.00 for the first hour. We'll see.

With floormen like Glen, in the evenings, it will never get going :( He just absolutely refuses. He will do anything within his power (which is considerable, being that he runs the cardroom in the evening shift) to keep from spreading that game.

Glenn did very well in the 5/10. He wishes that it would be spread regularly, because he likes cash games more than I do, but he knows it might be extremely inconsistent.