I went to Vegas to play some live tournaments and test my skills against the various casino regulars and tourists.
Las Vegas is always fun because you can see all kinds players. And you can play all kinds of games. The table make-up changes a lot based on the casino and the buy-in amount. It makes for a very different experience depending on what type you choose to play.
My first tournament was the 9am $70 NLHE tourney at Caesar's Palace on the Las Vegas Strip.
This tourney is sort of a donk-fest. I mean the blind structure is so fast with 15 minute levels that even the chip leader gets short stacked very quickly. This makes for an exciting game if you don't know what you are doing and you are happy to throw your chips in with little or no hope of winning
I sat down and doubled up twice in three hands with a flopped full house and top pair hands. It was a good start. Of course, since this was full of people that didn't know how to play, I had to expect extra donkiness. I raised a short stack with pocket sixes, and he comes over the top all in with 2-3 hearts... OMG.
Of course, he makes the river flush and doubles up. Then he doubles up again through me and now I'm an average stack at the table. So I play tighter and make it from the original 32 down to the final 9 players.
Short on chips, under 5 BB and 3 away from the money, I shoved with pocket 77 and, of course, the good player beside me wakes up with KK and knocks me out.
Oh, and that donkey? Yeah, he called a huge reraise he hit an ace on the flop against a tight player to knock out pocket JJ and become a chip leader. Here's hoping he comes back to play me again.
Poker wisdom, stories, and anything that runs into my mind. I used to talk tactics, but now I use tactical thinking applied to poker.
