My Third Tournament

Tonight, I played my third live tournament. I placed second. So far, I've got a pretty good track record. Thank you, Lady luck. A guy that I met in Atlantic City last week invited me to this private club in Chinatown where the buy in for the tournament was $65. Most of the tournaments in NYC that I know about are $200+ buy-ins which is why I haven't played any over the past year or so. $65 I can handle, $250... not so much. There were about 20 people who signed up and a few people re-bought in a few times over the first 3 levels which left the pot at a nice $1200. The breakdown: $700 for first, $340 for second and $160 for third.

I played a tight game for the most part, folding Ace Ten off-suit UTG (under the gun, i.e. first to act) and Queen Nine off in late position. I picked my spots carefully and managed to make it to the final table with an average stack of about 20BB. I went all-in a few times and picked up some blinds, won a race or two, knocking out a few players. It was shocking to see how many people weren't playing their short stacks appropriately, calling off half their stacks and folding, letting the blinds eat them up. I was chip-leader with 5 people left in the game, third in chips when we got 3 handed. I flopped a set of dueces against the guy who was in second place at the time and pretty much knocked him out at that point. Going into heads up, the stacks were pretty close with me having a little less than the leader. He wasn't a strong player though, I could tell, and I was pretty confident that I would win the tournament. I managed to get my stack up over his by a couple thousand chips but at this point the blinds were so high (5 thousand, 10 thousand) that that just meant I had one big blind more than him. The hand that cost me my tournament life was a pretty shitty one. The flop came King Queen Seven and I had a queen with a nine kicker. He went all in and for some dumb reason I made the call. If I had thought about it for even half a second it would have occurred to me that he wouldn't go all in without at LEAST a king, but I made the call anyway. He had King 2 off. Whoops. I was left with about 1 big blind left and that was the end of that.

Still, I cashed for $340, making a profit of $275 . Considering the fact that this was only my third live tournament to date, I guess I'm doing okay. I don't know that my tournament style of play (super conservative, super tight. I bluffed twice the whole tournament.) will hold up and win every time (especially against more aggressive players) but if my luck stays the way it's been the past two weeks and I keep getting the right cards.... who knows!

I'm definitely going back next Monday to play again. The more practice I get, the better I'll be. Eventually, entering into some bigger buy-ins and cashing for a lot more. Goodbye, debt woes! Hello, poker money.