"Luck"
“Oh dear God. Is it really 6:45 already?”
That was about the only thought I could muster this morning as my alarm blared the new Green Day single off the radio to alert me to the fact that I was running late. Very late. Usually my alarm goes off twice – once at 5:30, once at 6:30. If I’m really tired, I’ll hit snooze for five minutes, but then I have to hurry or I’ll be late for work. Today, I hit snooze, multiple times, which is always a bad idea, but especially when you consider that I didn’t go to bed until almost 3:00AM.
“But D, it was a work night! Why would you stay up so late?”
Oh, dear friends. I assure you I had a good reason…
Today’s word of the day is “Luck”. Luck can do a lot for you in life. Personally, I know it’s cliché, but I’d much rather be lucky than good. Luck can also be a bitch, like when you play in three straight coin-flip poker hands and lose all three. Sorry, I’m rambling…
Back on July 14th, I wrote to tell you about the first live poker tournament I ever entered – a $150 NL Hold-‘Em Re-buy / Add-on tournament at Foxwoods (It was also my mid-season MLB post). This is a weekly event that is held every Tuesday night at 8PM. Last night, I entered another one. And I was still playing five hours later.
A little background on this event before we go any further. There are usually around 200 entrants into the weekly NL game. Some are pros looking to get some cheap practice or dispense free poker advice (as was the case last night – more on that later). But most are just like me – working-day stiffs who play in their spare time. Given the choice, I’d play poker for a living. Well, given the choice, I’d play baseball or golf for a living. But none of these are options, yet.
So anyway, there are about 200 or so entrants each week. There’s a $150 buy-in ($20 of which Foxwoods takes as the rake – nice gig), but because it’s a Re-buy / Add-on, if you get busted out in the first hour you can reenter the tournament for only $60. And, during the first hour, if you’re ever at or below the 500-chip level starting point, you can also re-buy for $60. So most people pay the $150 to start, then immediately shell out another $60 for another 500 in tournament chips. All money from Re-buys and Add-ons goes directly to the prize pool – no rake. Essentially, you should plan to spend about $350 for your $150 entry.
Back to last night. Remember the word of the day? Right: “luck”. My lucky number, if there is such a thing, has always been 29. It was my old baseball uniform number back when I pitched, and I’ve always considered it my lucky number. Anyway, Foxwoods allows you to “pre-register” before the actual registration so that you can guarantee yourself a seat (they’ve been limiting the number of entries to 250 max to make sure the tournament ends at a reasonable hour – like 2AM). So I pre-register at about 5PM when actual registration starts at 6, and I am given a card with a number to hold a place in line for me. My number? Yep – 29. No lie. I had a good feeling almost immediately.
After dinner and a short (long) bathroom break (my stomach still isn’t speaking to me directly, but rather going through an arbitrator – my small intestine), I made my way to table 2, seat 1. Nice spot. Right next to our dealer, a cute chick that looked disturbingly like my cousin of the same name. It wasn’t her, but it did creep me out for a couple of minutes. There were 213 entrants last night, meaning that they were paying the top 25 finishers. 25th place got $650, first place got a little over 20 grand. Quite the spectrum.
Within the first five minutes, we already had an 11th person stuffed into our table, leading to a rather loud and absurd argument being lobbied by only one member of the table to move our chairs in order to accommodate the new guy, and he wasn’t even complaining. Damned poker players – if they can’t win, they’re going to make sure you don’t have fun either.
About five hands in (and after I was already down 200 of my 1000 chips), I got moved to Table 1, seat 10 – directly behind where I had just been seated. I said goodbye to the cute dealer and a guy I knew at the table and moved. This is where the fun started.
In these tourneys, blinds start at 25-25, then go to 25-50, then a break, then much faster blind levels with antes. I had yet to play a hand past the flop, but I was able to avoid the blinds at this new table for awhile. After the second level of blinds (25-50), I finally got a playable hand. I moved all in after the flop gave me Aces up with a Q-10 kicker (A-10 unsuited in my hand) and got no callers. 48 minutes to win a hand. 48 minutes to even see one hole card over a 10. I am so glad I played smart poker and didn’t just get frustrated and start playing 7-8 suited or some shit like that early on.
At the first break five minutes later I was riding a mini-rush, winning three straight hands and nursing my anemic chip stack back to about 3000, which was close to the average. It was during the break that I noticed there was at least one big professional poker player at this tournament – Greg Raymer. Yes, that Greg Raymer – 2004 WSOP Champion. The $5 Million Man himself. Pretty nice guy from what I could overhear at his table. More than willing to dispense poker advice to anyone that asked for it. He had quite a mob around him at all times, so it wasn’t worth it to be one of the crowd and gawk at his every move. Besides, I’d get my chance soon enough…
Back to the tournament. I kept my rush going for a couple more hands, getting 88, AK and AJ suited to add to my stack and push it up over the 6000 chip mark. The 88 was another example of a lucky hand – I went all-in against JJ (I had him covered), and I made a straight on the river. Better lucky than good. He was visibly pissed, and walked away muttering to himself. I felt bad.
The first break is the last opportunity to Re-buy or Add-on to your chips. The most you can add is 1000 chips for $120, and most everyone does. I don’t really believe that the 500-chip add-on really helps that much unless you’re severely short stacked, or unless everyone else at your table is doing it. In this case, everyone else added 1000 chips, so I did too. Hell, it wasn’t that much more. After this point, I was committed to $330 for my $150 entry. Well worth it.
I started catching a cold streak and didn’t want to jeopardize my stack on bluffs, not this early. After the first break people start dropping out very fast, as “All-In” takes on a little more meaning. In fact, there were probably only two or three interesting hands for the next two hours, so those are the ones I’ll pass along.
In the Big Blind, I got J-6 suited spades. I also got to see a free flop, since there were only three callers. At this point my chip stack was around 10k – high for the table, but still about 10th overall. Anyway, flop came Jc-Kd-6c, giving me 2 pair. I checked. Next seat bet 500. A short little Asian man (think Kurt’s father if he was about 5’2” and Vietnamese – that’s much funnier if you know Kurt or his dad) decided to raise to 1500. The third caller folded, and I went into acting mode. I thought about it, thought some more, gave him a short stare, and then called. If he had K-J or K-6, he’d played it well and deserved to beat me.
The first bettor called with his short stack of only about 800 more. The turn came up with a five of diamonds, making 2 clubs and 2 diamonds on the board. This time, I bet 500 to give Kurt’s dad the idea that I was chasing a flush and wanted him to go away. He looked puzzled for a minute, trying to figure out how he’d let me trap him so badly. Of course, he came over the top for about 4000 more all-in, and I beat him into the pot with my call. He had A-K unsuited. The river was a blank, I knocked out both players, and Kurt’s dad looked at me and just smiled, then muttered “Sonofabitch” through a very broken accent. Probably the funniest moment of the night.
At this table, before getting moved, I knocked out 21 players. I knocked out 10% of the field in my four hors at the table. And only one was on a bad beat (the straight on the river with my 8’s). There was a nice kid there who was very arrogant, and a hell of a player. He also dispensed free advice, although most of it was along the lines of “Here’s what you should’ve done so I wouldn’t have steamrolled you…” But he made two mistakes – telling anyone who would listen that he hated it when people came over the top of his bets, and telling us that the best advice he ever got was not to mess with the chip leader.
After the midnight break (with about 55 players left) I was overall chip leader with a little over 22,000 in chips. This kid was second – with 11,000. I had double the amount of chips of the next in line. And I got into a monster hand with him, violating his best advice.
We had been talking all night, stopping only to play a hand, and sometimes not even then. I was on the button with my very nice stack. Fifth position raised all-in with a short stack of about 4000 or so with the blinds at 600-1200. The talkative kid (Chris) called, as did I with my A-K unsuited. The flop was junk, something like 5-4-2 rainbow. He checked; so did I. The turn was a queen. Check-Check. The river was a King. Chris bet 4000 into me. I thought about it for a second, and then moved all-in over the top of him. Not only did I go over the top, but I had him more than covered, so he didn’t really want to mess with me. I drew quite a stare-down before he mucked his Q-10 suited, which he showed. I took the pot (the all-in had pocket 7’s), and went over the 30,000-chip mark. Then it got interesting.
Our table got broken up, which was about the worst thing that could have happened to me. I was doing so well at my last table – I had learned the tendencies of the only four players that had survived with me long enough to study them, and I was killing them. I got moved to Table 3, only to find myself sitting directly across from Greg Raymer. I was still chip leader, although another guy had just doubled up to get around 25,000, so the margin wasn’t quite what in once was. We were down to fewer than 40 players total, meaning that I was in good shape to cash, if not win outright.
I tried not to be intimidated by Greg, which is quite hard considering the publicity he’s gotten in recent months. And yes, his shades are even creepier in person. I only stayed at his table for six hands before getting broken up again. Tough six-hand stretch though.
I am proud that I knocked him off a pot with a big bet, using his “be aggressive and take every advantage, no matter how small” strategy. When I first sat down, I head him say “Damn, that kid’s got almost four times what I’ve got”. It was actually closer to 6 times – 30,000 to around 5,000. Of course, by the time I got moved again, I was in bad shape.
I had three straight hands to play, and I doubled someone else up each time. AK suited - didn’t hit anything. AQ suited – didn’t hit anything. And then an open-ended straight flush draw off the flop for free – didn’t hit anything. I went from 30,000 to under 13,000 in three hands. It was rather funny watching Greg coach the players around him against me – I even had to tell him “Hey, no free poker lessons here Greg” from the other end of the table. He yelled back that he’d help me if I wanted, but that it didn’t look like I needed it much. Felt pretty good about that.
After a little while longer at the next table, I moved all-in with my pocket 4’s – only my 3rd pocket pair all night (3’s that I folded to two big bets pre-flop, the infamous 8’s, and now 4’s), only to see my triple-up washed away by a flush on the river. And that was that. I finished 23rd of 213, in the money (barely) and doubled my money. Greg, Chris, and a couple of other guys that I had been talking with finished just after me. Quite a fun night, overall.
I’ll be back to play another day. Hell, I’ll probably be back next Tuesday. But my alarm might get tossed out the window on Wednesday morning. I need a nap…
So I realize that there is quite a bit happening in the world of sports right now, from the Pacers/Pistons disgrace last weekend to the baseball free agency period (Kris Benson just got 3 years/$22.5 Million dollars. I should’ve stayed in shape and kept pitching…) to Ricky Williams’ pending NFL re-instatement. But I don’t feel like making this a 10,000-word column, basically because I’m exhausted and still kinda sick. Maybe I’ll talk about them later, maybe not. Let’s just say that the NBA thing was probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen in sports, and Ron Artest should be banned from the NBA for life – go play in Europe, then tell me that American fans are rowdy. Ricky Williams is more a punch line than an NFL running-back at this point, and if he gets back in the league this year it will be a disaster of Daryl Strawberry / Steve Howe proportions. And the free-agents? Well, not enough has happened yet to give me any reason to stay on the topic.
Personally, let’s just get this week’s pick out of the way so I can find a nice quiet place to sleep…
I had a GREAT week last week, going 11-4-1 to raise my overall record to 90-65-5. I was hoping to get to 30 games over .500 last week – I guess I can settle for only 25…
Colts (-9) over LIONS: Suddenly, the team that hadn’t won on the road in the past two years (Detroit) is a road machine, but now can’t win at home. Won’t matter – they could play this game underwater and Peyton Manning would still throw for 330 and 4TD’s
Bears (+3) over COWBOYS: Last week, the Giants started an unproven rookie QB against a very strong defense. At least they have a running game. The Cowboys really look like they’re in trouble – I don’t think having a healthy Julius Jones is going to make much of a difference against a very strong Chicago defense.
PATRIOTS (-7) over Ravens: And it won’t even be that close. Teams like St. Louis, Kansas City, etc. are the kinds of offenses that can take advantage of the Patriots’ injury-riddled defense. Baltimore is not. Think there’s any chance that Bill Belichick and Romeo Crenell show Kyle Boller something that he’s never seen before?
Eagles (-7) over GIANTS: Kinda like the home dog here, if only because Tiki should have a nice game and keep the possession times pretty even. But in the end, Donovan McNabb (who probably gets my imaginary vote for league MVP right now) is just too good this year. Plus, I am looking forward to seeing T.O. on the New York stage…
Redskins (+11) over STEELERS: This is the week that Ben Roethlisberger’s 150 yards with a TD and no picks looks good, just not good enough. Washington actually has a defense that can slow the Steelers’ running game, and if Big Ben has to win it on his own, I’m not convinced that he can.
BENGALS (-6) over Browns: In the least interesting intra-state game of the year, Rudi Johnson has a big game against a depleted Cleveland defense. Butch Davis had very little shot of returning even if he posted a winning record – the Browns are 3-7, almost guaranteed a losing record. How are his chances looking now?
VIKINGS (-6) over Jaguars: I really don’t want to pick this game, because it depends entirely on if Randy Moss plays or not. If he does, Vikings win and cover. If he doesn’t, it’s a close game, but the Jags cover, if not win outright.
PANTHERS (+3) over Bucs: There’s that home dog again. This time, I’m going with it, even if Carolina is starting about five guys on offense that were probably bagging groceries at this time last year… Tampa is that inconsistent. And about last week when I said that Carolina was a bad 2-point favorite to the Cards… umm… oops?
Chargers (+3) over Chiefs: Further proof that the odds makers still favor offense over defense. It’s supposed to be cold and wet this weekend in most of Missouri following a snowstorm today, which means that running will be awful difficult. The Chiefs couldn’t expose a secondary of Randall (I’m not really) Gay and Earthwind Moreland on Monday night, what makes anyone think they can beat a secondary made up of actual NFL players?
TEXANS (+2) over Titans: Never underestimate the revenge factor.
FALCONS (-9.5) over Saints: God I love picking against the Saints, week after week after week. It’s almost too easy sometimes. I’m torn about starting Peerless Price this week – on the one hand, he’s the #1 WR going against an abysmal passing defense. On the other hand, Mike Vick seems to have forgotten that Price is on his team, preferring to either run or toss it to Alge Crumpler. Tough decision…
Jets (+3) over CARDINALS: The Jets need Chad Pennington back in the worst way – Buffalo actually has a shot to pass them in the standings. As for the Cardinals – they keep finding new and inventive ways to screw me over. Who in the hell is Nick Goings anyway (aside from my new starting fantasy RB…)?
Bills (+4.5) over SEAHAWKS: The Seahawks looked like they could care less against Miami last week until about the last five minutes of the game, when they suddenly realized “Oh Crap – we’re about to lose to a one-win team!” I think Buffalo hangs tough in this one, and maybe even takes it outright.
Dolphins (Even) over 49ERS: Seriously, why even play this game? 1-9 versus 1-9… Oooh, there’s a TV ratings bonanza! The funniest part of this game, aside from seeing if AJ Feeley howls in pain after getting slapped on the ass again, is the fact that ESPN isn’t even giving an Over/Under line. Does that mean they expect a 0-0 tie? I think I’d take the over…
BRONCOS (-10.5) over Raiders: You all know how I feel about double-digit spreads. That’s how bad the Raiders are right now. And in Prime Time, a Mile High (no, not Ricky Williams – see, I told you he was a punch-line), there’s no way the Raiders keep this close. And if a damned garbage TD late makes it less than an 11-point win, I’m gonna be pissed.
PACKERS (-6) over Rams: Lack of defense versus lack of defense. Hmm… Well, when in doubt, which is the home team? Oh, it’s in Green Bay, after Thanksgiving, and Brett Favre’s making his 200th consecutive start, on Monday Night? Yeah. Check please…
Recap: Colts / Bears / PATRIOTS / Eagles / Redskins / BENGALS / VIKINGS / PANTHERS / Chargers / TEXANS / FALCONS / Jets / Bills / Dolphins / BRONCOS / PACKERS
Oh, one last thing. If you clicked the July 14th link at the beginning of this article, you may have noticed that it didn’t link to my personal archives site, but rather to a new site on BlogSpot.com. In the coming weeks and months I will be migrating all of my old article off of my web server and onto BlogSpot, because they provide a free autoarchive service. All of my current articles will still be on Xanga for the time being, but I will probably move to BlogSpot for good before the next baseball season. Nothing is for certain yet, but I like their site a little more. Although I may just choose to post on both sites, thereby increasing my readership numbers and chances of getting picked up for real…
QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
From Mr. Greg Raymer himself: “You look like you’re handling yourself pretty well on your own…” Yeah – I’m pretty proud of that.
Oooh, I managed to keep it under 3700 words today! Although I suppose I could keep typing for about eighty more words just to hit my mark…
Eh, never mind.
Lata.
posted by Big D @ 11:00 AM
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