After play broke at 2 AM Friday morning, it was back to the Rio for a few hours of sleep before the 4 PM restart. With the excitement of surviving day one, it took me an hour or so to fall asleep; yet looking back, the most remarkable part of my tourney experience was the general absence of nervousness. As (nervous and flustered really) as I was on Monday for TD, I pretty much remained cool and level headed for most of Thursday and Friday.
My starting table on Friday was a mix of stacks, with mine right about the table average. Within the first ten hands, I was all-in for the first time all tournament in a series of three hands with one of the shortest stacks in the field.
On the first, I raise to 3xBB in EP with QJs (which looks like an even sillier raise in print). Short stack pushes over the top for a total of 7 BB. Folds back to me, and I call. He's got AJ, and I double him up. A few hands later, I am dealt QQ in LP. I raise, and the formerly short stack (who has won several pots and now has me covered) pushes over the top. I call (putting myself all-in for the first time all tournament). He's only got AQ, and I double up. On my next BB, short stack min-raises. I have KQ and call. Flop comes Queen high. I check, and short stack pushes. I quickly call, and he angrily shows AJ and starts complaining how I outflopped him. A little bit of a roller coaster, but I was up to 348k in the first twenty minutes of the day.
Unfortunately, that was the last action I got for the next hour level and a half, and I had fallen below an average stack with three tables remaining. The new table was still tight; but there was a bit more action pre-flop, and it was more difficult to find the right spots to accumulate chips. My one hand that went post-flop at this table was either my boldest or dumbest move of the whole tourney. A guy in MP min-raises when I am in the BB. I do not think he had played a single hand while we had been at the table, and I put him on a very strong hand. Despite only having about 20 BB at this point, I decide to call with 42o and play it aggressively if I get the right flop (and get out of the hand as quickly as possible). Flop is 568 with two clubs. This is almost exactly the kind of flop I was looking for. I am pretty sure it did not help him, and I have a double gutshot straight draw (and a very bad backdoor flush draw which I didn’t even think about at the time). The look on his face seems to confirm that the flop missed him, but he still could have an overpaid. I bet out 4BB into the now 5BB+ pot. He thinks for a few seconds and just calls. Turn is the nine of clubs, and I move all-in for my last 13 BB. He insta-mucks in disgust, and I collect the pot. The result here was good, and my read was right; but I just don’t know if it really made sense to put my whole stack at risk with 4 high (knowing even pre-flop that the only way to take down the pot was likely going to be with a move all-in at some point in the hand).
I am still below average when we are broken down to two tables. I knock out number 17 when I get all-in pre-flop with QQ against his KK. The turn is a Q, and I am back above average. By the time we get to the final table an hour and fifteen minutes later, I am again below average with 540k (8 MM chips in play). A few minutes later, the short stack (who was the first person on my left at my starting table) pushes under the gun. I elect to min-re-raise with pocket kings (rather than push), but I don’t get any callers. He shows either king-high or under cards (I can’t quite remember – just know there wasn’t an overcard), and my kings hold. With the table now 9-handed, I have 800k in chips (with 20,000/40,000/5,000 blinds and antes), and the payout structure has had its first big jump.
My stack goes between 700k and 850k until the final hand of the level. On that hand, UTG (a very aggressive player who raised with any ace from any position) raises to 100k with another 625k behind. Everyone folds to me in the button, where I have TT and a nearly identical stack of 720k. In retrospect, this should have been an easy push, but I convinced myself that he would call with any ace, so I should wait to see a flop before pushing. I call, and to my surprise, SB (with only 220k in his stack) calls too. Flop is a queen with two low cards (two of a suit on the board though), and SB pushes in his last 120k. UTG angrily folds (there was a lot of that at the tourney), and action is back to me. Again, this probably should be a fold given the size of SB’s stack and what I would have left after the hand, but I call the 120k in the 450k+ pot. SB turns over KQ, and he almost triples up while I fall to the short stack with 500k.
Coming back from the break, I know I am once again in a position where my only move is pushing all-in (and that with blinds going up to 25,000/50,000/5,000, I have lost my ability to re-steal). Surprisingly, it works. It’s all kind of a blur now, but while I don’t win any big pots, I don’t get any calls either, so I am able to keep up (barely) with the blinds. And while I am staying afloat, other players start dropping. Two players go do shortly after we get back. An hour later, two middle stacks go at it, and we’re down to six. All this time, I have managed to stay between 500-600k. As a result of the big stack on my right turning over pocket pair after pocket pair, most of the other stacks have been dwindling. (He had come to the table second in chips, but he had a great run of cards. Players also seemed to be avoiding pots just so they wouldn’t have to deal with them, and recognizing this, he started pushing a lot of hands.).
Before blinds go up to 40,000/80,0000/10,000, the table agrees to an early break. I now have 550k, and the guy on my left (the short stack from the TT hand) has 205k. The remaining three stacks are much bigger, with the big stack close to half the chips in play. An orbit in to the level, the short stack pushes and gets two callers. The callers check it down, and short stack busts in fifth. The next orbit, I get my first call at the final table when I push with AQ. Second stack shows AT, and I double up. One orbit later, third stack (who came in to the final table as the chip leader) raises from the button, and big stack (the card rack) pushes all-in from the SB. Third stack thinks and calls with 99. Big stack shows QQ, and we are down to three players.
Stacks are now 6 MM, 2.5MM and 500k, and I don’t have many hands left. In the first orbit, big stack manages to take 1MM off second stack, and I double up (after paying my blind) to almost 800k. Second stack gets some of that back though, and I am back down to 600k after a couple orbits. With blinds about to go up to 50,000/100,000/10,000, big stack pushes again from the SB when I am in the big blind. I have king high and make the call. Big stack turns over jacks. I hit the king on the flop, but the turn is a jack; and I am out in third for a $21k payout after over sixteen hours of poker.
Epilogue:
F-Train arrived shortly after the bust-out hand when I was about to collect my payout. (The Venetian pays in casino chips, so I had to deal with the surly cage attendant to get cash.) The cage had nothing into which I could put the cash though, so F-Train and I navigated the casino room floor with $20k stuck in the pockets of my jeans ($700 shorter after apparently having double-tipped the dealers). I was certainly more nervous carrying the cash than at any point during the tournament. (Unfortunately, the next day was a Saturday and all the Citibanks in Vegas are gone, so I was going to have to figure out a way to get the cash home.) We grabbed dinner at the Venetian’s souped-up Cheesecake factory, and I ate my first real food since before the tourney. I was rather stunned by that point. It still feels a little bit unreal a week later.
Figuring it was then one of the safest places in Vegas to carry large amounts of cash, I decided to hang out in the Rio poker room until I left for my flight (dodging the ever-present Rio working women on the way to the poker room). This was my second best decision of the trip, as a drunken kid on my right kept coming after me with nothing. After having bought in for $500, I cashed out six hours later for over $1800 and set out for the airport. As it turned out, Vegas airport security did not care about the cash at all, and I had a rather uneventful trip home with winnings intact. Final tally for the trip, after tournament buy-ins (I may be done with the big TD tourney), hotel, airfare and local travel expenses, was $17.7k in profit. Pretty good for a week.
