Chris Halverson’s Blog

I rolled into Case de Dirk on Friday night with a bottle of vodka (Jason was responsible for bringing the Red Bull and thank God he was on time) and a bag of puffy Cheetos (which proved to be a huge hit despite the fact that it made everybody wipe their hands on their pants), ready to show people how a Professional Poker Player (TM) plays tournament poker. Fortunately for the rest of the people, sometimes luck is involved and therefore I did not win as I expected to do. *sigh*

As usual, the tournament was very well organized and extremely well run. $30 buyin for T3000, $20 rebuys at T500 or lower for another T3000. At the first break there was a $20 add-on for another T3000, but only if you had not done a rebuy. I’m not sure on that rule, but whatever works.

There were eventually 21 people who showed up and we started pretty much on time which is saying something on a Friday night. I was at table 2 with a couple people I recognized from previous tournaments.

Nothing too exciting happened for a while. I lost a (large relatively given the blinds) pot when I did a very weak bet and was raised and had to fold my bluff. We had one guy who was on a tear and was quickly the mega-chip leader at our table.

First notable hand was when I had AJo, and at the turn the board was 599J. I bet big trying to push chip leader off the hand as and to try to see where I stood. He min-raised me and I called. The river brought an Ace and he led out enough to put me all in and I called.

He flipped over 55 for a flopped boat.

Rebuy, Table 2!

I then proceed to go on a rush, busting one player with AKs (he had KQo and we flopped a K). At the break I had T7800 which was above average, so I was feeling pretty good. Of course, once people did the add-on I was closer to average than above.

After the break, the blinds started increasing pretty quickly and I lost 80% of my stack in one hand. I had AJs and raised. I was called in one place. I missed the flop but did a continuation bet (maybe utilizing a “q” or “m” or something, who knows, but it sounded good), was raised and I raised back but was quickly called. Hmm…Not good. We both check the turn and the river brings me an Ace which means I’m pretty much screwed. He throws out a bet that’s probably half the pot and I call only to find out he flopped a set.

I’m now crippled and am basically only thinking two words: “All” and “in”.

I don’t even remember the hand I busted on, but I think I had A8o and never improved and lost to a baby pair when my pre-flop raise was less than 3x the big blind.

I finished 14th out of 21 and $50 poorer. I was pretty tired and watched Jason for a bit (who ended up in 4th and in the money) before heading home.

The best part of the night was when Dirk, while explaining the rules, chip colors, etc. points to his 6 year old daughter and says, “Don’t worry about swearing in front of her, she’s heard it all”. She then proceeds to be the beer runner for everybody, collecting bottle caps and tips along the way. It was great.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 19th, 2005 at 1:50 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.