Chris Halverson’s Blog

Saturday night was Drac’s NLHE Tournament IV, a $20 (unlimited rebuys plus add on) NLHE tournament. I’ve been to the previous two tourneys and this was the biggest one yet, 15 people showed up to suburban Minneapolis to play some poker.

First off, some pimapge. Drac himself has joined the poker blogger ranks. Go check out his new blog at Drac’s Blog and remember, he’s just starting

Secondly, I played in four different tourneys over 8 hours. Couple that with a couple large Red Bull and Vodkas, and my recollection about particular hands and situations is a little sketchy. I’m trying to remember some, but I’m getting confused in regards to which game they were played. Therefore some of the situations may be a bit off, but in general they’ll be close enough. Basically I am spoiled by playing online and being able to take notes while playing and even more importatnly, being able to load up hands into PokerTracker and replaying them. I don’t know how Pauly does it.

Like the Championship Poker at the Plaza, the tables were setup shorthanded. There were 3 tables of 5 which was interesting. Personally, I liked it even though I’m not as good shorthanded as I am at a full table. The nice thing was that there were a ton of hands per level which gave a lot of play for the money and time.

My first table consisted of Jason, Drac, Dave, Jim and myself. Jason is my friend that I’ve mentioned many times before. Dave is a longtime friend of Drac’s who played in the last tourney. Jim was new, to me at least. Our table was full of smack talk. Jim was the quiet one and didn’t really get involved, but between Drac, Jason, Dave and myself he didn’t have much opportunity to get a word in edgewise. Our table was a blast and it was a great time.

I went on a rush early and doubled up (started with T1000) or close to it by catching some decent cards. Fortunately this kept me above water for a while. There were unlimited rebuys for the first 6 levels. We had a couple at our table and a total of 6 or 7 before the break. Everybody did the add on and therefore the first place was worth about $300. I was sitting around the average after the break, but unfortunately I didn’t get many cards after that. I ended up have to do a couple desparate all ins and eventually was busted.

Update Jason just took great pleasure in reminding me that it was he that busted me out of the first tourney. I was short stacked and had Q9o UTG. I push and am called by Jason’s AJo. I wasn’t happy to see that until I flopped a Q. Turn was a blank and I’m looking at 3 outs to bust me out. Of course, the river brings an A and I’m out and Jason basically doubles up. Evidently he didn’t get the memo about softplaying me (I’m just kidding, Jason took advantage of his position on me a number of times, no softplaying happened.)

The key thing here was there there were NO rebuys for me this time! W00T!! I thought I played pretty well until the break. After that I the blinds started getting too high and they were eating into my stack, so I had to make some questionable raises and such which basically knocked me out. I went out in 12th or so. Not very impressive after my strong start.

Key hand here was watching Dave raise UTG with A5o. He caught hell for it the rest of the night. I’m not sure I had any notable hands, just regular ‘ol hands.

Once five people got knocked out (and who stuck around, a couple people left), we got together and had a $10 winner take all tourney. It got down to Izzi and I HU and we wussed out and decided to chop. We were about even and we wanted to be finished when the main game broke. We played it out and I “won” when I flopped a set of 5’s, but who knows if he would have called my all in if real money had been on the line. Either way we go in some more hands and had a good game.

After a short break we decided to have another $20 buyin tourney, this time no rebuys or add ons. I got seated at Drac’s table again. Once again Jason and Dave were there to put the smackdown on me. I didn’t do much here and while I wasn’t the first out, I was close to it. I know I made it into the top 12 because we had collapsed one table.

My worst play here was when it was Drac and I in the blinds. Folded around, Drac completes and I check my JJ.

Yes, you read that right, HU, I checked my JJ.

Of course, a terrible flop came. I know there was a Q involved. Drac checked and I threw out a decent sized bet and was called. The turn brought even a worse card, a dreaded A. I think Drac led out and I called. River didn’t matter and in the end I didn’t believe that Drac actually had an A, which of course he did. I lost a big chunk of my chips there and was crippled, in fact, that may have been the hand I went out on. It was a pretty bad play and I should have just taken the blinds and been happy with it. I figured with a MONSTER HAND like JJ there was no way I could lose. I dug the hole and put the branches on top, but he didn’t fall in. You know, if it weren’t for luck, there was no way I should have lost that hand

After busting out of the second big tourney, we got another side game going. This was basically a $20 SNG, paying the top 2 places 70%/30%. I played pretty well during this game, at least for most of it. My big hand of the game was when I was in the SB or BB and had 84o (Edit: I had 88 to see a flop of 448.). I got to see a cheap/free flop of 884. SB checked, I threw out a small T50 bet. Al called and we lost the other caller. I don’t remember what the turn was, but I think it was a high card. I looked, a threw out T100. Al called. On the river I threw out T400 and was called again. I either crippled or busted Al on that hand (sorry, it was really freaking late by this time, the details are a bit sketchy). He said what confused him was that I led out betting each time instead of just checking feigning weakness. Part of this was a little “lesson” from the JJ incident, the other was part of trying to mix up my play a bit.

I decided I needed to lead out after screwing up a couple slow plays earlier in the night. My JJ limp on the BB hurt me and I learned from that. I also let in a couple other hands throughout the night by playing them slower than I should have. While I flopped a boat, and was hoping for big cards and/or flush possibilities that never materialized, I decided that getting something was better than nothing. I was out of position and could not count on a check raise opportunity, so I just went for something. I never overbet it and in fact underbet each time. I’m not sure if that was the right strategy, but I probably extracted as much as I could with no face cards on the board.

I took some more off Al when I had Qh5d and caught a two hearts on the flop along with a Q. I bet and was called to see a A or K of hearts on the turn (IIRC). I didn’t like that but bet anyway. Al called and I caught my flush on the river. I led out betting again (T400) and Al eventually folded (there ya go Al, since I wouldn’t tell you last night, I had a Qh5d ).

By this time I had a large chip lead. I started throwing around my stack, raising at every opportunity. NO LIMPING! This allowed me to win the blinds quite a bit for a while. Agressive betting also let me win some pots after the flop without showdowns. I eventually took Izzi out of that game and we were heads up. I had a decent lead, and I kept the agression up in hopes of whittling him down. Unfortunately I got caught once when I was called and I caught a part of the flop. I kept getting more and more (flush draw plus a high pair), but in the end I lost the hand and it got us to about even. We went back and forth for a while and eventually I lost the hard fought match.

Anyway, I know I’m missing a ton of things here, I honestly cannot remember what happened in which game. If anybody who was there wants comments on anything, leave me a comment and I’ll address it. Sorry :-/

Tally for the Night:

Main Event #1: $20 buyin + $10 add on: $30 Winnings: $0
Side Game #1: $10 buyin Winnings $25
Main Event #2: $20 buyin Winnings: $0
Side Game #2: $20 Winnings $30

Total Outlay: $80
Total Winnings: $55
Total Net: -$25

While I would have obviously rather to have come out ahead, $25 for 8 hours of poker was not too bad. Plus I had a great time, so all in all it was a good night. I also didn’t rebuy, much less twice

I was kind of hoping that we’d get a side cash game going instead of a tourney. Three of the five of us were wanting to do that, we even got chips set aside to play that (the “Red Chip Incident”), but we couldn’t convince the others to do that instead of a tourney. Oh well, maybe next time. Of course, if I would stay in the tournament long enough I wouldn’t have to worry about this type of thing…

All in all it was another great night. It was a lot of fun and there were no problems. While I didn’t actually win any money in the main events, the side games helped to make up for it. I can’t wait until next time.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 31st, 2004 at 7:09 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.