Vegas Day 1 - Harrah's Tournie
It’s 7am here and I can’t sleep due to jet lag. I may as well stay awake till the Caesar’s tournie at midday now I think.
Last night we found a pretty well structured tournament at Harrah’s to play. $150 got you 10k in chips and a 20 minute clock which is an excellent deal. They play this tournie nightly at 8pm, so whenever I bust early I’m going to play these I think, as some of the casinos have ludicrous structures for similar buy ins.
Surprisingly there were only 30 runners (although Sir Mike and Deven were not allowed to play after being told of a dealer shortage), so with $30 juice coming off the top from everyone it only paid 3 spots. The standard was pretty mediocre - people playing big pots with Ace rag, and calling down big pots with QQ on an Ace board occurred several times.
I was card dead for the first 2 hours so stayed between 7k and 13k by winning and losing small pots. The Professor slow played pocket Aces, and received his exit visas from someone who flopped a set, and soon we were down to 2 tables. This is where things became interesting.
One of the women at the table had an annoying tendancy to say “One time!” during every hand she was involved in. Blinds reached 1k/2k and I only had 14k in chips, so I was in all in or fold mode. I began to steal every time there was an unraised pot - at one point I had gone all in 3 hands in a row and picked up the 3k in the middle. When I did it on the 4th consecutive time with on the button (we were playing 6 handed), the “one time” lady had a good think in the big blind. She folds AJ face up.
“I just think I was dominated"
"I had AQ"
"One Time! I knew it!”
After this hand I was giving serious consideration to pushing all-in every hand until the end of the tournament. By the time someone called with QQ+ I would probably have half the chips in play! Unfortunately, we were now down to final table, so I had to revert to 9 handed play again.
And so to the exit hand (I now have about 34k after several all in moves at the 2k/4k blind level).
Folded round to the small blind who limps (40k stack).
I check in the big blind.
Flop 789 rainbow.
He bets 6k, and I shove for 22k more with my 2 pair. He instacalls with Q9.
Turn is a Queen and I am done for the night.
Opponent fist pumps furiously and shouts “Hoo-Yah! Woooooo!”. Can’t wait to see what the Volcano makes of the bad beat cheering :)
I feel a lot better than yesterday after getting a few hours sleep, although I am sure I will be knackered again early evening tonight.
Good luck to Shazbo in WSOP ladies event today :)