Bubbles

After that quick $100 hit to my bankroll, I decide to try something different, so I joined a $1000 Guaranteed tournament that was starting in 20 minutes. $10+1 buyin, with rebuys and a $1500 add-on at the end of the rebuy period.

I had never played in a rebuy tournament before, so I don't have any real strategy for them. I decided just to try to play fairly tight and not lose my initial funds so it would hopefully not come up. About 60 players joined, and we got underway. I played tight and didn't see much action before the first break - I got no good cards so I mostly stayed out of everyone's way. I won small pots with 88 and 99, but other than those the best cards I saw were unsuited Ace-rag, which I chucked.

At the end of the rebuy period, I had about 900 of my original 1000 chips. The average stack was listed at around 2500, so I took the add-on to bring me up to 2400. Once we got underway, I got a string of good cards. AA, KK, AK, JTs with a good flop, and I bet them aggressively and suddenly I was chip leader of the remaining 40 players with about 19000 chips. It all happened in about 10 minutes of play. At that point I look over the payout structure and see that first place pays $354. Woo! That would go down nicely - pay off my earlier ring game losses and push me over that $1000 mark!

As the new big stack at the table, I began putting pressure on the other players. I would be sure to raise a good amount pre-flop with any reasonable hands, and with some pretty unreasonable ones as well, just to pressure the blinds and limpers. And it worked very well. They gave in to me uncontested time after time, and in the times when they came back at me, I actually had some reasonable cards and stuck to my guns. Bet big again after the flop hit me, and they crumpled. I did my job, calling small-stack all-ins if I had playable cards to try to knock them out. Some I put back in the game, but I eliminated a good number of players too. It feels good to be the big stack.

But it was not to last. I had the dinner I had promised to make for the GF to think about, so I began rushing back and forth between the kitchen and computer room, mashing meatloaf between folding hands. I finally dumped it in the oven and could get back to the game, but it's hard to stay on top. One of the other players at the table had been amassing chips and then busted out a player with a good stack to seize the lead from me. It was still close between the two of us as we hit the second break, two hours of play. The GF came home from work, too, and I had to explain that dinner might be a little late because I was in the middle of a poker tourney and had a good chance to win that $350. She took it as well as could be expected, I guess.

So we fought on, and players dropped... Payout was to 8 players, so once we hit about 15 remaining everyone got really tight and it slowed to a crawl... We were down to 11 players left, and I had lost a fair sized pot to drop me to maybe 4th or 5th in the chip standing. My girlfriend was getting impatient for dinner and calling in, "are you STILL playing that game?" I was tired too - 2.5 hours of play so far with no letup in sight! Then... I was dealt KK. I placed a big bet and the new chipleader called. Flop came A-8-5. Shit... Well... what the hell. I pushed and he insta-called me and flipped over pocket 5s. Boom, all done.

I don't normally play in tournaments, so I felt that I did pretty well. It's still frustrating to be that close to the money and then bust out for making a stupid play mostly because you're tired of playing poker for 2.5 hours already and looking at another 1.5 hours of play after that as well, just to try to make that money, meanwhile dinner is waiting in the oven and your girlfriend pestering you about when we can eat... I guess I was just not ready for that kind of commitment. I think I'll stick to the cash games for a while.