♠ Sunday, August 08, 2004
LordGeznikor = bust, therefore Midwest Blogger Open = bust
Notes from Halverson left it clear he wasn't going to arrive at the Trump in Gary before Saturday, and recent downswings have left me again shortstacked, so I scotched my original plan of going to play Friday night and staying over.
Instead, Gil and I left Grand Rapids on Saturday morning, arriving at the Trump a bit before noon local time. The only $5/$10 table running at the time featured a giant flaming maniac, but even though people were leaving that table not enough left to get us onto the table. I wanted to follow the maniac onto $10/$20, but I didn't have $500 to buy in comfortably.
They opened $3/$6 before they opened another $5/$10 for us, so we sat $3/$6. My intent was to sit there at least a couple of orbits before moving to $5/$10, but I don't think I was ever positive at this table. Eventually I blew $184, mostly through getting poor cards. I did see a few decent hands, but they all ended up losers, even a KK late in the day. The hands I did win were gifts to my obviously tight nature, because I totally missed the flop but so did everyone else, and so they folded to a bet by Mr. Tight. Unfortunately, these were all tiny pots.
The pot that finally busted me is wholly my fault. I had KQo, and the flop was Kxx. One of the blinds bet out, and the player on my left spotted a tell: "Look how his hands are shaking." Now I, in my stupidity and my eagerness to finally win a mother-grubbing pot, called him down to the showdown even though I knew he had KK. Okay, yah, I was right, points for me, but why on God's Green Earth didn't I lay those cards down? I was playing my cards, not his, like a total newbie, and busted out of the game thereby. Damn me.
Gil, on the other hand, was getting hit in the face by the deck. He had to post a kill about six times in a row, amassing a huge pile of chips in the process. He colored up his white chips three times and still had $100 or so of white, standing up when they called the no-limit game having pulled $325 out of a $3/$6 game. He said many of those pots he bought, as people didn't want to go up against the rush, but it was still impressive.
Gil then went to sit the no-limit game, when they called it. He bought in for the minimum, $200, while others at the table bought in for as much as $1000. The game has changed to $5/$10 blinds rather than $5/$5 as it was last time I saw the game spread there, which changes the game a lot more than you'd think. Gil won a $50 pot early, but then a few hands later he ended up all-in with AQ and a Queen-high board, having the best of it, but a JJ who called for some reason hit another Jack on the turn or river, wiping Gil out. There was someone else who was in the pot, too, and Gil had him dominated as well. It was a huge pot; Gil would have profited over $500 if his Queens had held up, but as it was he was suddenly ready to go home.
This wasn't cool, because Halverson wasn't there yet. I borrowed Gil's cell-phone to call him, and it turned out he had just got to Metro Chicago, having pulled onto I-294 (the Tri-State Tollway). This put him about 45 minutes or an hour from the casino, barring traffic delays. I talked Gil into getting back onto one of the Limit lists, $3/$6 and/or $5/$10, and we were ready to continue and to play with Halverson and any other bloggers that showed up. (BG and Casino Gosain were possible attendees, but I didn't know much about when—or if—they were expected.)
Unfortunately, it was only about fifteen minutes later than this that I had the stupid hand above that busted me out, and we really didn't have much choice other than to call it a day. I called Halverson again, and he was now about half an hour from the casino, and we resigned ourselves to missing one another. Gil and I got buffets comped, though, so we ate dinner, and when we were done Halverson had got to the casino, so we were at least able to say hello. Not an auspicious occasion, this Midwest Blogger Open, if its promoter (me) ends up leaving early.
Anniversary Special
I won a seat in tonight's Anniversary Special tournament, a $300+25 tournament on PartyPoker where the Friday and Saturday events each drew just under 1000 contestants, for nearly $300,000 prize pools. While it would be nice to money this tournament, the reason I tried so hard to qualify for it (I probably spent $100 in satellite entries) is that there are two freerolls attached to it. Merely being one of the first 2000 people to register across the three tourneys gets me into a $25,000 freeroll next weekend, and a top-40% finish in this tourney will gain me entry into a $100,000 freeroll the following day. So, this tourney is like a three-in-one shot. It would be exceptionally nice to money the main tourney, but if I don't I've got (hopefully) two others that I can take as second-chance tournaments, all for one low, low price.
But man, it'd be nice to money the big tourney. In Saturday's, 60th place was worth $1000, and the top prize was over $60,000; I could use a nice little windfall.
