Tuesday Night

I wasn't going to play tonight. I already had a guaranteed spot in the finals next Tuesday, so I thought about just sleeping early tonight. In the end I decided to go to try out a few tips I picked up over the weekend from studying poker. More on those in a later post.

I started out good. The button started at the player to my left and I won two pots before I even had to post the big blind for the first time. Then I started playing loose and lost a few thousand in chips. So I tightened up and won it all back. Then I'd play loose a few hands and lose a few thousand. This went on a few times until it was down to two tables and I finally started playing tight for a while.

When there were 10 people left, a buddy of mine named Sonny told me that if I got 8th place, he and I would tie for points for the final points spot next Tuesday. If I went out in 7th, he wouldn't have a spot. I thought about losing on purpose so Sonny would have a spot, but then someone else gave him one of their extra spots.

Startime is doing a strange thing this time around in the tournament. The 10 weekly winners earn a guaranteed spot. Then 8 or 10 other spots are awarded based on points. If you come in 8th one week, you get 1 point. Seventh is 2 points and so on. It would make sense that weekly winners wouldn't get points, but they decided to still give 8 points to the weekly winners, so a lot of them actually have 2 seats. You can either give the extra seat to a buddy, or just eliminate on spot to cut down on the competition.

I came in 7th tonight. After eighth place was decided, I decided to play maniac style since it was 11:30, I was tired, and I had already earned a second spot. I went all in with A10o and got called with something stupid like K7o, which of course won on the river. It's all good though.

I'm pretty much guaranteed a spot next Thursday just on points at Startime, unless a lot of people just below me all make the final table. I'm going to play this Thursday to try to cement it, but it looks like I'll have two chances next week to win a vacation package for two to somewhere.

I did come up for a great slogan for a poker T-Shirt tonight.

"I went to the river and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt."

OK, maybe not that great but it was funny at the time when I said it at the table. Maybe the shirt would be funnier if it had cards on it showing a busted flush draw.