Chris Halverson’s Blog

As I was driving down Highway 100 on my way to Pete’s house on Friday night, I told myself I was going to: a) have fun; b) actually try to play well.

Going .500 isn’t all bad, right?

Pete is a friend of Drac and is putting on two tournaments over Friday and Saturday night. I had planned on only going to the Saturday one, but then Mrs. H reminded me that we had a wedding to go to on Saturday. This then required renegotiation and I was able to head out on Friday.

There were 38 people who showed up for the $20 buyin, unlimited rebuy and $10 addon tournament. We were spread across 5 tables throughout Pete’s house. It was crowded, but Pete had bought a keg, so people were happy.

I’m there about 10 minutes and recognize a guy from the Minneapolis Club tourney and start talking to him. He’s a headhunter and after some smalltalk he sees that I’m not drinking anything and asks if I wanted a beer. I told him I’m more of a scotch drinker and his eyes light up. He had secreted in a bottle of Macallan 18, hidden in a tube that reflected a much lesser scotch. He went and poured me one and offered me access to it all night. OK, my plan of not drinking has suddenly gone out the window.

Chalk one up for “fun”. Of course, this has the direct effect of putting a “-1″ on the “play well” side of the equation.

Drac is the TD and starts yelling out table assignments. I draw table 1. Unfortunately that’s with Drac and Al. Shit. I know they know what they’re doing. Also at the table are two people from the Mpls Club tourney. One is an older guy who knows what he’s doing and is very friendly, the other is a guy about my age who played in the side game with me. I’m sandwhiched between them in the 2s.

My tournament can be boiled down to about 4 hands.

Hand 1 came in level two or three and I’m dealt aces. I am excited about finally getting something and try to act calm. I’ve collected a couple small pots along the way, but nothing to write home about. I decided to pop it to T200. This is way too much at this point in time, especially at our tight table. I basically spaced on what the blinds were because I was talking to the guy to my left and I was trying to look like it was no big deal. I didn’t get any callers, although the 1s took a lot of time before folding.

In retrospect, while I would have liked a caller, overbetting sometimes works well. People think you’re making a move an will call you with lesser hands. I still wish I had made a normal sized raise and seen a flop.

Hand 2 and I’m dealt pocket 8s. Al throws out a 3x raise and I am the only caller. The flop comes down AQ8 and I check raise Al. I do a dumb ass min raise which leaves me with only about T300. Drac gives me this weird look and I just roll my eyes because I knew it was a dumb raise. Obviously I should have pushed or smooth called, but leaving that little bit back was just dumb. Al thinks for a while and then folds.

Hand 3 has me in the big blind and am dealt cowboys. We’re after the break and have antes going on, so there is some decent money in the pot pre-flop. It also means that going all in is the correct play or a lot of people due to the size of the blinds. I’m trying to figure my raise when Drac goes all in. I have him covered and see there’s only one other person who may be in the pot so I just smooth call and the other guy thinks for a minute, then folds.

As soon as I say “call” Drac sighs and says, “He has one of two hands”. When the other guy folds he asks me, “A’s or K’s?”. I say, “K’s” as I flip them over. He flips over queens and I’m a huge favorite. Bad timing for him as the board doesn’t help anybody and I knock him out and almost double up.

Shortly after that I’m dealt AQo and raise in LP. The big blind calls. The flop brings Queen high, he checks and I push. He calls and flips over QJo. I’m feeling good about doubling up, at least until the river bings another Jack and I go home in approximately 25th place.

It was a well run tourney and Pete made a gracious host. It was very busy and things were kind of hectic, made more so by the fact that one of the tables was downstairs. Overall it was a good time and I did not have to rebuy, so that’s a good thing. I did the add on so my outlay was $30. I’ll definitely be looking forward to the next one.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 26th, 2005 at 10:48 am 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.