EPTI went down to the 40 dollar ten am 1000 dollar guarantee tournament at Green Valley Ranch Casino down the street from my house with a friend because he had just turned twenty one. I must say I was rather shocked at how far I managed to advance. It seemed like everyone knew the dealers or each other and my friend and I just kept our heads low and played solo.
Friend got knocked out at the first table (we were seated together since we signed up at the same time). Some guy pushed a 1500 bet (start w/ 3500) with a pot of like 300 pre-flop (friend had small stack at the table with 1750). My friend had QQ so he went all-in (guy calls of course) and they flip up QQ v KK. So boom he's out within the first hour and I'm like there's no way I'm going to make it all the way to the end.
Apparently there were rebuys and you're allowed to show up late and start with 3000 in chips so this guy named Frank walks up with all this swagger and just goes all-in first hand, loses, and the guy who beat him starts talking about how stupid Frank was. Frank looks at him and goes, I'm a multi-millionaire I don't give a fuck. Dealer knows Frank and tells him to calm down its just a friendly jest, Frank re-buys in and we start up a convo. Just watching the news playing poker, talkin' about how fucked up shit is (I credit Frank with allowing me to keep my cool) yada yada. Frank gets knocked out and gives me his card (more later).
So I go to another table shortly after first break, my friend took off to go watch a movie while waiting on me. Play some more, and I find myself the low stack on my table with about 5000 in chips. Dealer gives me QQ so I push pre-flop with a 1k bet. Guy ahead of me goes all-in with 8k, no blinking, no sweating. Everyone who was left folds and it comes to my decision. I'm like... how do you toss away QQ... this is my chance to double up. I had been playing conservatively all morning and just decided to throw my hand away (face up).
The guy looks at me and says how could you fold such a great hand, that's so fucking stupid. Throws his hand up KK, I was so happy. I started shaking and had to go grab a drink of water. So I lost 1k in chips and I'm down to 4k, very next hand I get AA. So I push 1k again and two people call. Flop comes K J 9 and I'm like ok I still have high pair, and I push all-in (probably not the best choice here idk). One guy calls me, he has AK I was like yessssss, but still a straight chance. Turn is 8, river is 5. I was now chip lead on my table and got the first 5k chip of the tournament from the dealer.
Tourney continues, I'm down to the final table now, we decide to pay the bubble (top 5 get paid, bubble is the 6th guy so everyone agrees to take 45 bucks from the 1st place prize and give it to the bubble). I just maintain my place, wait for suited connectors (10 J came into my hand) and I push pre-flop 2k. Three people call me so I'm like ah shit at this point. Flop comes 8 9 A. At this point the final chick at the table (low-stack with something like 15k) goes all-in. I was sitting on 45k at this point (chip lead due to bought blinds and a lucky win) so I call her. Other two drop, turn comes the Q I needed and her pair of kings she had in her hand loses. At this point I'm VERY FAR in the lead, so I decide to play it safe and fold any non-pair hand.
Well at this point the damn blinds are 3k/6k and I'm bleeding chips. I drop to something like 30k and we're down to final 6. Hawaiin to my right goes all-in and I call with JJ. He had 99 and loses in an uninteresting flop, turn, river. So this kept me alive, at this point chip lead has like 65k and is buying EVERY pot. He manages to bleed dry two other people so now it's final three.
This is where it got interesting, they proposed a chop and we split the money three ways, which sounded fair to me until I found out they wanted to chop based on stack size (this might be standard idk). So I said no along with the other guy, I was sitting on around 35k while chip lead had managed to move up to 75k ish other guy around 40k. Lead starts playing loose buying pots (blinds are now 6k/12k wtf). So I get low pair 44 and push all-in. Lead calls me with 2 J suited. Seriously? wtf?
I won, thank god I would have punched him out if I had lost, and that put me up to around 60k, the other two hovering around somewhere. So now I propose a chop and while middle guy says yes, the guy who had been former chip lead now says no b/c he's low stack (even though he said not to worry about it when he was lead). Finally I draw Q 10 suited, call big blind, and wait for the flop (all three of us are looking at this flop). Flop comes 9 J 3. Small pushes all-in, low stack calls him, and I am not sure if this was the right decision but I decided to call as well. We all turn up, and I see KK and 77. I go awwww fuck. There's some kings I need ugh. Turn comes up an 8 and at that point I'm like well this was dumb. River comes up a K and I just about shit myself haha.
I was like FUCK YEAH WOOOOO my friend comes over and pats me on the back. Meanwhile short stack dude with the KK is convinced his 3 Ks won and he's yellin at the top of his lungs GO BOSTON (He was decked in celtics gear). Dealer just looks at him and shrugs while pushing all the chips to me. I felt like king of the world walkin' out of there with 600 (I gave my friend 200 of it since it was a birthday celebration for him after all).
I thought I'd share this with TL since it was my FIRST poker tournament and I know many like/watch/play in this community. One thing I need to get a hold of, though is a TL cap and jersey, because everyone at this thing was wearing a jersey of some sort and a cap. I wanna fit in >.<
Oh, and Frank was there too when I won, came up and congratulated me... AND OFFERED ME A JOB. Is that not the coolest thing ever? I start tomorrow tech support for one of his businesses doing some coding/helping customers with coding a 3D CAD/vector works program. I feel pretty cool right now
Sorry for this being jumbled, I probably missed some stuff and the grammar is probably atrocious. <3
Edit: UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
Didn't feel like this deserved a whole new blog to itself since it covers poker as well, so I'll update here.
I went out to Boulder Station and sat down with one hundred and left with three hundred ninety three. Gave my friend a hundred so he could play with me tonight so that leaves me with total earnings of... 193!!! Btw between the time I sat down and left the clock only ticked by an hour and a half. So it was a pretty good night :D not for my friend, though, who lost the hundred I gave to him, and not even to me :<
I doubled up once on slow played AK (flop was A Q K) and from there I beat pocket aces with two-pair 5 3 (I was big blind and all the aces did was call blind, his fault for not pushing me out pre-flop) and bluffed another guy into losing a hundred faking a higher flush (he threw his cards face up showing 5 high spade because there were 4 spades on the board, I had a pair of 10s...). Having a blast going out and playing poker, never thought it would be this fun, then again I keep winning so it probably isn't as fun when you're losing :O
Maybe the joker was right, my friend IS a leak. Hahaha
