Wednesday Poker Results

I played at a new place last night after getting my hair cut next door. My buddy Sonny plays there and he suggested I try it out while his girlfriend Donna was taking about two pounds of hair off my head at the salon next door.

The name of the place was Sean Patrick's and the tournament was run by Poker Players, Inc. We got there a few minutes late so I was put on a waiting list. I ended up sitting down finally with the blinds at level 2 so I payed a 400 chip penalty out of my 5k starting stack.

You'd pretty much have to call this a Turbo style Hold'em Tournament. The blinds were doubled every 15 minutes and a countdown to the next level was displayed on a large projection screen. I didn't so well to start even though practically everyone at the table were what I call "Small Calling Stations." They really liked to see flops and got really frustrated when I'd raise 2000 pre-flop on the button after everyone else had called the 400 blind. I did this with hands like A6o and A8o and took it down several times after getting some ugly looks.

The only player at the table that I respected was an older guy sitting to my left. He finally called one of my large raises when I actually had something like KQo and he hit a pair on the flop to take it down. I'd still consider him a calling station, but he did at least seem to choose decent starting hands.

I pretty much limped my way to the final two tables and eventually to the final table of 8. Just after the final table started, the chip leader, who was sitting to my right, pushed all in UTG. I hadn't even looked at my hand yet. I took a quick peek and saw AA. I started counting up my chips. She finally asked if I was calling and I said "Yes." She looked pretty happy about it.

The two short stacks at the table also both pushed in, making a tiny main pot compared to the monster stack that the chip leader and I were about to contend for. She almost gleefully flipped up pocket Kings, but soon started cussing when I showed my Aces.

No Aces or Kings all the way to the river, so I took it down and was chip leader. One of the small stacks had gone all in with something like 57o and ended up with two pair, so only one of them was knocked out.

Soon we were chipped out to only gold chips, and I had 13 chips compared to the chip leader who had 14. At this point we were down to 5 people. I lost a few chips by the time we were down to four people, decided to push them in with an A6o. My old nemesis from the first table called me and showed A8o. So I got knocked out in 4th, but felt pretty good since it was my first time to play there and I definitely wasn't used to the blinds going up so fast.

I enjoyed it for the most part, but so many people were smoking that I stepped outside a few times when I wasn't in the hand to catch a breath of fresh air. I probably won't play there much just because of that. They finish tournaments so fast there because of the blinds going up quick that they actually run a second tournment starting at 10:30. I decided not to stay since that would put me staying up too late.