I took part in the WPT Boot Camp last summer, which was great. After the 1-day session, I was able to do some serious damage in the online poker rooms that I frequented. But I never had the chance to enter a real world tournament.
This week I was able to attend a couple tournaments at the Mandalay Bay poker room. I am fairly happy with the results. I was a little nervous on the first day, everything seemed to move differently than I remembered. Plus, I hadn’t even played online for months. But overall, I did well. I made it to the final table on both days. The tournament only consist of 30 people at Mandalay, so it’s not a big deal. On the first day I ranked 9, and second day 8. I think the fact that I beat out 22 other people out of 30 isn’t too bad for my second tournament. Most of these people seemed to be pretty experienced players.
On the first day I got knocked out when I went in heavy with a Q-8 unsuited. I was the short stack and was quickly running out of options. I had been trying to play it tight, which did get me to the final table, but obviously as the short stack.
The second day I was actually the chip leader for quite a while. I got much more serious with my sunglasses on and didn’t say a word to anyone. Which according to my girlfriend, made people believe that I actually knew what I was doing. I went in heavy on a stupid move. The second chip leader was a big mouth asshole who kept telling me how I play, which he was completely wrong on. The hand started off well when I got dealt big slick. I went in moderate with a triple blind raise. The asshole called and we saw the flop, which had a queen, but no king or ace for me. I checked, and the asshole went all in. I knew he had the queen. I also knew that he knew I didn’t get the flop I wanted. He may be an asshole, but he was not without talent. I should have just bowed out of the hand, but I really wanted him out. Not only was this guy a major jackass, but if I scored his chips I would have a big enough lead to not get blinded out right through to the money. I could actually ride out to #2 or #3 position, without risking another bet. So, I got reckless and went for it. And of course I didn’t get anything through the river. It was a dumb move, but not without some thought. After that hit, I was close to the short stack. I did pretty well for a while, but the blind was moving up and I was hurting. I finally went all in on a pair of 8’s to try to make some sort of move, but got knocked out by a pocket pair of queens.
Overall, I had fun at a relatively low expense. It helped that I really kicked ass on roulette and baccarat, especially baccarat. I’m pretty damn good at baccarat these days.
