I won a poker tournament last night. It wasn't a big tournament: 20 people playing at an American Legion Hall in North Portland, with the rake mostly going to charity. $20 buy-in, with payouts of $225/$125/$75. By the time I bought a round of drinks and threw in some charity money, I came home with about $150…
I felt pretty good about winning, though. Lately I haven't done well at poker, and have been thinking about giving it up, so having something hit was pretty satisfying.
About 1/3 of the players were from my regular Tuesday night game. One of these had to leave to play a gig with his band near the start of play at the final table. He had such a big chip stack that he blinded into third place anyway! Needless to say, while I felt bad for him, I wasn't sorry to see him go.
Needless to say, I had a lot of luck: a necessary ingredient in winning a poker tournament. I didn't get a bad beat all night that I can recall. A couple of times I was all in on desperation with a really short stack and a weak hand and came out ahead. At one point I won a hand with nine high. I was the only one I saw power-fold: came to the showdown first to act with just one other player in and a five-high hand, having coasted there on the big blind. She looked at me funny, but I'd do it again.
If I recall correctly, I held one set (of sixes) and nothing else bigger than a pair (and an occasional pair on the board) all night. At one point I went to the river with pair of 2s K kicker before I had to go away. The next hand the flop came down K2 and the turn was 2—made me wonder why I couldn't have held my K2 a hand later.
I really won the tournament with four players left (counting the one who wasn't actually live). Second stack had been ahead most of the tournament, and I think he thought he was still top stack. He pushed all in before the flop with A6. I'd seen him do things like that before and called with my pair of jacks, which held up. After that I held about 95% of the chips, so the whole thing was sort of a foregone conclusion.
The tournament was scheduled to start at 5PM, although it was maybe 15 minutes late. I had told a friend of mine that I would meet him before 7:30 or so for dinner, since I surely would bust out by then. He was pretty cool about waiting for me until I showed up at 10:00; we exchanged a lot of text messages.
Earlier this week, I busted out of our Tuesday night $20 game for the sixth time in a row. It has turned into a truly tough game. Wednesday night I was one of the first to bust out of the 45-ish Software Association of Oregon monthly tournament. The glacial place, ludicrously steep blind structure, and seriously amateur players make that one a total crapshoot. Last night it was really, really good to feel both lucky and competent at the table for a change.
Big fun. (B)