Survivor, the Super Stack Concludes

I suppose I need to finish up my column about the Orange Park Kennel Club and Poker Room. I don't like it. How is THAT? I just don't feel comfortable there, and I'm not sure why. It's all a combination of things, I suppose. I would just rather play at my usual card room. The action is nearly the same at both, so what's the difference? I'll go to the place that is both closer to my home and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. What I really want to talk about is the Player of the Month race that concluded with a Final tournament this weekend. The buy-in was $350, and everything was riding on this tournament.

Before I had to leave for the tournament on Saturday, I was sitting in my dining room reading a little bit of Facebook. I was thinking about the month long Super Stack Series, and just how bad I was getting the shaft. I was, and I don't know how else to put it. I was getting skahroooooed. The staff at the poker room, when they were all sitting around doing bong hits, failed to realize they had inadvertently placed so much emphasis on this weekend's Grand Finale. As it turned out, it did not really matter what you had done in the tournaments leading up to the this weekend, because whoever won Saturday's $350 buy-in was going to also win the Player of the Month award.

That kind of stinks for someone who has been playing pretty good, and running even better, in the previous tournaments. I mean, imagine if someone had run so well that they played in four tournaments and finished 1st, 2nd, 2nd, and 1st, do you think that person might feel a bit let down once he realized it didn't matter one little bit? Yes, that was me. I talked with one of the floor guys the night before, and I had actually asked him for a calculator, so I could point out what I thought was a big problem. How can you have a month long series if nothing leading up to the last tournament even matters?

I was calm about it. I figured it all out on the calculator, with him standing there watching me, and do you know what he said? He told me they realized their error, but that it was too late. He admitted they made a mistake, but there was nothing they could do. He also said next month's race would be a bit different, and he apologized. Now, I don't know about you, but that is enough for me. I smiled, made some stupid joke about the intelligence of he and the rest of his crew, and told him I'd better figure out how to win on Saturday.

I was sitting there thinking about this issue, and I think I may have even posted something about it on Facebook, when I began to realize the negative thoughts I carried were going to cause me problems. I did not want to get wrapped up in something I had no control over. They had printed the rules, and it was not changing. Once I consciously noticed this tension I was able to set it aside and think about the important things. Like, how was I going to play this baby?

The buy in was $350, and we would each receive $10,000 in tournaments chips. This is a pretty big stack. The blinds would begin at 25-50, and each level would last 30 minutes. Having that many chips is the equivalent to sitting in my usual game, 2-5 NL, and having $1000 in front of you. This represents plenty of room to maneuver, which means the more skilled players will find more opportunities to collect chips. Of course, although half an hour per level sounds like a lot when you are used to 18 minutes, it really still is not. The blinds escalate, and they will catch you. You must collect chips, somehow. You must.

Of course, one should not use the collecting of chips as an excuse to go broke really early in this thing. There is a lot to be said for survival. Half of the people will be gone before the first break, which is in two hours. That means, that out of 54 combatants you can beat 27 of them by not doing anything at all. Most people lose sight of this seemingly trivial fact. That means that 27 people will have put $350 dollars into the tournament as essentially 'dead money'. That is over 9k in dead money. Dead money is a reference to someone who has NO chance to win. Don't be dead money. If you lose your whole stack very early, at least when the starting chips are 200 times the big blind like this tournament, you probably played pretty shitty poker.

At the beginning, in the first couple of levels, I like to play pretty apathetic. I try to keep pots small, and If I sense some weakness I may try to take one down, here or there. I'm not splashing around much in these early pots though. A lot of people, who are not used to tournaments, will go for every draw, and play every pair to the river. If you pump up the action too early in the hand, than you could end up the short stack when your opponent catches that 7 that he needed. Besides, doubling up now does nothing. In this tournament there is 540,000 chips in play, and going from 10k-20k in chips is meaningless. The big pots are much later, and those are much more important. Too many people get married to a hand early on in tournaments, when survival matters more.

Early on I had pocket aces, and won a pot worth 800, maybe. Those pocket aces later in the tourney could win 80,000 in chips. This is one reason why I don't really care for tournaments, at least not as a means to an income. It's too volatile for my liking. Anyway, the first hand of significance I played went something like this:

I think the blinds were 50-100. I still had about 10k in chips, but my two opponents had been faring much better. The one young man had about 20k, and the young woman had around 15k. The young man limped into the pot in early position, just calling the big blind of 100. Everyone folded around to the woman who made it 400 to go. I looked down at pocket Kings. Nice. I decided to not re-raise, and in true apathetic form, instead just called her bet. The big blind folded and the young man also called. We took the flop three-ways.

The flop came a queen and two small cards, with two of them being hearts. This board is not too worrisome for a three way hand, and I decide to check, to see what happens. The young man bets out 1000. Nice. I immediately think he has a queen, and I pray I am not wrong. I'm hoping the woman is going to fold, but she does something even better. She calls.

This is her worst option. She should be raising or folding here. A call, for her in this situation, is bad poker. I know she does not have the best hand, but since this pot has grown to 30% of my stack I need to win it, and therefore push her out. I raise it to 4k. Almost half my stack. If Young man has flopped a set I hope he decides to let me know now, and raise all-in. I may still call though because of the possibility of him going nuts with a flush draw. Let's wait and see though. I really expect him to fold because I don't think he has too much at all.

He calls the extra 3k, and the woman folds. HMMMMMM, this is interesting. I've never played with this guy before, so I'm not sure if he has a big hand, or is now just playing badly. I pray it's the latter.

The next card off the deck is a small card, and not a heart. I look at my stack, I look at his monster stack, and I push all-in. I had about 4.5k left. When he doesn't automatically call I know I have the best hand. Now, I want him to call. I try to hide my eyes behind the bill of my cap. I hunker down a little bit to give the impression that I am hiding something. I start to think to myself that I want him to fold, really hoping he will feel the vibe and decide to call. I can feel him looking at me, sizing me up. Finally, after a minute or so, he calls.

We flip our cards up and he has QJ, and I have pocket kings. No queen or jack comes on the river and I collect a nice pile of chips. This guy was pissed at himself, and maybe a little at me. I don't know what I did! I mean, I'd be pissed too, If I were him. How could your pair of queens with a jack kicker NOT be good in this situation! Bad play buddy.

Right before the first break, after I had built my stack to around 28k, I made a bit of a mistake, and it costs me a third of my stack. I had AK, and I raised. I was called by the same young woman from the previous hand I described. I come to find out her name is Nicole, and she's a nice woman, although she plays a bit differently than I. The flop brings all small cards. She checks, I bet, she calls. Now, a queen comes on the turn. She checks, I bet, she calls.

At this point I'm concerned because she may have a queen. But, based on how she checked I don't really think she does. I was surprised when she called on the turn. The river rolls off a 10, and she checks. I think she has next to nothing, so I bet. Big! I bet almost the size of the pot. She calls quickly. Shit.

I turn over AK, for no pair. She rolls over pocket 4's. There was a 3 on the board, but the other four cards were ALL higher than the 4's. I spent 9k on that stupid hand, and 2 minutes before the first break! Now it was my turn to be pissed! I started to be angry at her, but I caught myself. I caught myself before I asked her just what she thought she could beat with that piece of crap pocket pair. I had given her way too much credit. Either that or she was a strong player and had picked up on something I had done to tip off the true strength of MY crap hand. I decided to save judgment, but vowed to bet her only when I had the goods. I will not be bluffing her any longer.

Of course, about three other people decide to run a bluff at her. Each time she showed them some weak pair, and they just mucked their cards. When I saw this I knew she was a calling station. She was getting lucky that no one had anything. She was a non-believer. I made a note of this as we went on our first 10 minute break.

As I sit in my car, chastising myself for giving up a third of my stack, I try to look at the situation as though the loss of 9k in chips hadn't happened. I decide that if I hadn't just given back those chips, then I would be feeling very good about my situation. I had doubled my starting stack, and was never in any real jeopardy of disaster. I was in a good spot, and a lot of folks were already gone with a bunch more on the verge of bowing out of this thing. They were paying five spots, with first place receiving a whopping $7900. Our break was only 15 minutes in length and I needed to get back inside. The blinds were going to 200-400, and my stack of 19k was right where I needed to be.

As I walk back inside I pass a few friends playing in the cash games. A couple of them ask me how it's going. My only reply is that I'm still alive, and we have a long, long way to go. I keep reminding myself, over and over again, that this is a marathon and I need to trust that my decision making abilities will give me the advantage I need to go very deep in this deal. Once we get to the final table, anything is possible. My next goal was to get to that final table. There was thirty-some people left, and the pace was going to start to pick up a little bit as short stacks tried to get chips or die trying.

Now, I have to admit, I don't remember a lot of individual hands from this point forward. I do want to point out that it is usually about this time, when folks start to feel the pressure of the increasing blind amounts, that my strategy changes, and drastically. The tournament essentially becomes the large stacks pressuring the small stacks, and the small stacks struggling to find some resemblance of a hand to make a stand with. Every once in a while, when a couple of inexperienced Big stacks clash, there is a monster pot and one person emerges as the chip leader. I looked over my shoulder to table #1, and could see that one lady had a vast majority of the chips. Her name was Pam, and she had on all kinds of garb from the WSOP in Las Vegas. I'd played with her in a couple of other tournaments and hoped I'd get the chance to challenge her.

As a rule, there is no pre-flop calling of the big blind. It's raise, raise, raise. Constant pressure must be kept up. So, with this strategy an aggressive player, like myself, can find himself in some tricky spots being forced to call with a very bad hand. On two successive hands I raised the blinds, someone went all-in, over the top of my raise. Both times I had an ace with a small kicker. Both times my opponents had an ace with a bigger kicker. Both times I was forced to call their bet because of the small amount of their re-raise (due to their short stacks), and both times I hit my kicker and knocked them both out. One of the players I knocked out was my buddy Dom. Dom was pissed! Dom should be happy as hell. He won a tournament earlier in the month which gave him a 12k prize package to the WSOP! He was leaving for vegas early next week. He needs to calm down a bit if he is going to do anything out there. He's been running very well, and should thank the Poker God's every day.

We get to the second break at around 6:30 pm. This is our dinner break and they decide to give us twenty minutes to grab a bite and get back to it. I'm starving, and since I'm off bread I decide on a salad. I'm still eating as we start up again. We go to the final table and I'm holding about 90k in chips. There is 540k in total chips spread out between nine people. We quickly lose 3 of them. We settle in to play until one more person is eliminated and we can all get paid something.

I am second in chips, but Pam, the woman who has been barnstorming through this thing, has me well covered. It was at this time that the head of the poker room was speaking to one guy, named Rem, who was in the tournament. They were discussing the Player of the Month race, and how whoever won this event would win the first place prize for the month of June. We were still playing as this was going on, and this is the point I knew my concentration levels were at their height. I could hear what they were saying, but for some odd reason I had no desire to add my two cents. For those who know me well, this may be a first. I wanted to win. We were getting close, and I want to win this mother! I don't care about how you guys blindly screwed this up. I'm going to win and that will be that.

Rem goes out after about 20 minutes and we are now five-handed, and we're all in the money!!! Fifth place would receive $800, and first pace would receive $7900. This is a huge difference, and I was determined to get to the top three spots. Third place paid about $2500, with second at $4200. At this point the Floor man stated that any payout over 5k would result in a w-2 form needing to be filled out, for tax purposes. Jesus. Another wrinkle. As I'm thinking about the payouts it occurs to me that we could all be very happy with a split. Here it what I proposed to my competitors.

I suggest the winner gets 5k, and the other four split the remaining 12k. We could play for the win, and the Player of the Month points, but essentially the money would be decided. I was thinking that we could all get better than 3rd place money, and the winner could avoid government paperwork. How perfect! Right? Everyone readily agrees, except for one dissenter.

Pam, the chip leader, does not like the deal. She gives it a flat "play on". Of course, everyone else wants to deal. I want the deal just because I know how one turn of a card could put you out, or nearly out, collecting $800 instead of a guaranteed 3k. For someone who plays for an income this is a big difference. Pam must feel pretty confident. Well, good luck. I'm second in chips and playing on isn't all that bad of an idea.

We go from five to four shortly after that when Jim, a poker player I am very familiar with, bows out when his KQ loses to an A4. I was pulling for Jim. He's an older, Asian fellow, and I think he has been ill of late. He hasn't been around much, and he's lost a lot of weight. I hope it's not cancer. I think it may be. I play with him in the 2-5 cash games, and he is a strong, tough competitor. That is the best compliment I can give a fellow poker player. If you hear me refer to someone as "tough" then you know I respect his game. I hate playing against tough competitors. They never just fold and give you the pot. They are quick to recognize you may be trying to be "tough" and they will take that strength and throw it right back in your face. Secretly, I'm glad Jim has gone out. I would not like him having chips.

There is no discussion of a chop. The guy who knocked out Jim brings it up, but no one says much. Pam wants to play on, and I'm up for it too. Deal, let's go. After about ten minutes, once the button went around a couple of times and the blinds eat into his ever dwindling stack, the man who knocked out Jim now goes all-in. I look down to see A9. This is way good enough and I call. He tables K7, and when he does not improve there are just three of us left.

It is me and two ladies. A nice predicament for any situation. Pam, the chip leader, myself, in second place, and Nicole, the woman from the beginning of the tournament. You remember, the one who called me down with pocket 4's? She was quiet, readily agreeing to any chop discussion, and therefore exploitable. Nicole was the short stack, and I just hoped that Pam knew enough to pile the pressure on her by raising, raising, raising. This was my plan and I hoped it was not going to backfire.

Pam does not raise though, ever. She is content to sit back and let me do the dirty work. This is all well and fine because I pick up ace after ace after king after queen. I am raising nearly every hand and they are both folding to my obvious (in my mind) overaggressive behavior. Neither of them is willing to do anything about it though. I'm not sure if they are getting really bad cards, or are just too timid to play back at me. It is wonderful though, and I eventually take over the chip lead from Pam.

Nicole is able to stay alive when she goes all-in, and is called by Pam. When Nicole wins that hand it is now Pam who is the short stack. Something interesting happens now. Pam, who did not ever want to chop, wants to discuss an even split of the prize money. This is the woman who was totally against any chop earlier, when she was healthy in chips. This is the woman who told everyone that she makes 300k per year and the little bit of taxes from winning the $7900 first prize was not going to change anything for her. You can imagine that I was feeling a bit of "you must be high" towards her. See, once we got to guaranteed 3rd place money of $2500 I became obsessed with winning. The $2500 represented my total nut, that I had to cover, for the month. Once that is covered I really could care less if I went out now or won the damn thing. So, I may as well try to win it. Besides we still have the Player of the Month race to think about. I give her a stern "We're playing". I look at the dealer and say "Deal".

There are at least two separate instances of each of them being all-in and surviving. At one point I raise, which I did 75% of the time, and Nicole goes all-in, but for less than my raise. The blinds were 10,000-20,000, and my standard raise was to 45k. Pam folded. Nicole won the hand when she paired her king. I think I had 7-9 off suit, or something similar. Pam makes the comment "I would have beaten her if you weren't always raising!!". Really? You had a king? She confirms she did and would have made two-pair. I ask her why she didn't call. She doesn't answer because she and I both know the reason is that she can't believe, after having the chip lead for so long, she was now on the verge of being knocked out of this tournament. I love it.

Eventually, Pam makes a stand, and I knock her out. I don't remember the hand, but I remember her reaction. It's customary to shake hands with the person when you have just sent them packing, especially this deep into a tournament. I reach across the table to shake her hand, and she does not readily offer it up. Finally she does, but she is not happy about it, at all. She is actually bitter, and she is not hiding it with her poker face. Oh well. Next time maybe she'll agree to a chop. Either that or bring a stronger game.

The heads up battle does not last long between Nicole and I. I continue raising, and she keeps folding. At one point she raises! I fold, choosing to wait for a better spot. Two hands later I look down at one card, and it's a queen. I look at her stack and announce all-in. She folds again! She must be getting really bad cards. She is almost to the point of having to make a stand. The very next hand I decide to not even look at my cards. I raise. She has barely two times the big blind left, and finally she calls, and is all-in. We flip up our cards and I have a monster 2-6 offsuit. She had K7, or something similar. The flop brings a 6, and it is all over when she does not improve.

I have won! I shake hands with Nicole, and she is genuinely happy. My palms are sweaty, and I now realize the tension in my neck as it begins to fade. Tournament poker is stressful, and I play this game every day! Nicole must have been very nervous, and her smile reveals her relief that the end is finally here. Her 4k+ payday is adding to her joy.

The Floormen offer congratulations and even walk me to the bar to open a tab, on them! What? This is an odd development, and I'm not sure if I can buy drinks for everyone or not. I didn't, but I should have. I also have some sushi, and after calling home to announce the victory to the little lady, I wait to get paid. They take some pictures for a magazine, and hand me my check.

As I drive home to the sounds of Franz Ferdinand on the radio, I cant help but sing out loud "No, you girls will never know, how you make a boy feel"!