Player's Stories

The Education of a PokerSchool Online Player: Part 10

By Randy Glover

Sun Cruz NLHE, June:

The NLHE tournaments run the last 2 Sunday nights of each month. That is when there are 4 Sundays in a month. When 5 Sundays hit in a month, as it does this June, there is NLHE the last 3 Sundays. I make plans to hit all 3 NLHE tourneys during June.

I should have stayed home. As it turns out QQ is my hand of death this month.

In the June 15th tournament I watch 3 limpers ahead of me at the $200/$400 level. I am in the SB with QQ. $1200 in the pot. I push all in, not wanting to see a flop. The first two limpers fold, the 3rd limper thinks for some time before committing about half his chips to my all in.

He flips over JTs and catches a flush. I make the first of 4 rebuys. I make it to about 12th in this tournament and find myself with 53 suited in the BB and only $2000 left. Binds are $2/$4K. David is in the SB and, not surprisingly, raises me. He likely has nothing, but his nothing is likely bigger than my nothing. There is $10,000 in the pot. If I fold I leave myself enough for my SB. If I call I am playing for a $12,000 pot.

I call, am up against 66…. Good move or bad move, it was only chance to make it to final table with a shot at making the top five.

In the June 22nd tournament I am slowly getting anted out after the break when I catch QQ with only 4,000 in chips left. A player ahead of me bets out $6000. I got no choice at this point. He could easily have TT, JJ, AK… I push my last four chips in. He turns out to have KK and I am gone. I stand saying, "What are you going to do?"

David, the guy who won the time I finished 3rd, and the one who knocked me out of the last tournament says, "Exactly what you just did."

I make the mistake of buying into the Pot Limit game. It is supposed to be 10 hands of Hold em then 10 hands of Omaha. I win two hold em hands, maybe $80 before it switches to Omaha and stays Omaha by consent of the table.

Omaha High is a gambler's dream. Anything can happen and you can bully your way through. After staying in on couple of Omaha pots to the turn and then being bullied out, I put my chips in my pocket and leave. I am not ready for a game where the pots can quickly escalate to $3,000 or more.

I am down only $40 when I leave the table and figure this to be a cheap lesson: Don't play in a game where you are uncomfortable with the stakes.

The June 29th tournament points out that you got to be able to take bad beats. I am winning pots and am up to about $10000 shortly after the break. I find KK on the button, the third time tonight I have had it. Both times earlier I won a decent pot with them.

A player in the middle position raises all in for about $4K. I push all in. Everyone else folds.

He flips over TT.

The board is good: AQAQ. Then the only card that can hurt me (a ten) hits on the river.

I am coming to realize this will happen hundreds of times to me in my poker playing life. There is nothing to get upset about because it is going to happen over and over again and there is just nothing you can do about it. Still….. I don't have to like it.

The rest of the tournament I just stay alive. I push all in on some reasonable hand when I get to the final table and am out 10th. I collect $105. Ah well, always next time.

Sun Cruz NLHE, July 27th:

A gorgeous day, small seas; still, I take my Dramamine one hour prior to boarding.

The poker room is packed. It is the monthly Freeroll (the more you play, the more chips you get for entering the Freeroll. The winner usually get $4,000 or more, so interest is high). They have put an extra two tables in the poker room. They don't have enough poker chairs, so my seat is on a chair normally facing a slot machine. I am 8 inches higher than most of the other players.

I execute my strategy of no rebuys and play fairly tight. I catch a set and get a decent pot. But nothing big happens before the break. I do make a betting error though. I plop out one $500 chip for a raise and forget to say raise. This is taken as a minimum bet. It is the first mistake of three I will make tonight.

At the break I have $7900 in chips. Not too bad. Just under my buy in of $3000 TCs ($100 cost) and my add-on of $5000 TCs ($50).

I make my second betting error shortly after the break. I carry a Silver Dollar with me, and I have a terrible habit of tapping it against my chips or cards.

I limp with 66. The flop is 237. I would be surprised to see if this helped anyone. I start to toss out $1500. I am told the dealer took my nervous tapping as a check. I set down the Silver Dollar.

Naturally, everyone else checks. The turn is a 6. This time everyone folds to my bet. I show my 66. A couple of players who have pegged my play as super tight laugh. I think this helps my image. I am not sure.

I have a decent stack of $9,000 or so and the limits are $500/$1000. I am dealt AA on the button. An older guy named Jimmy raises ahead of me $5,000. He has a ton of chips. I push all in. He calls. My AA holds against his AK and I am up to $20,000.

A few hands later the blinds go to $1000/$2000. I check from the BB with AQ of diamonds, following two earlier limpers. The flop is beautiful, 3 diamonds: 10,5,3.

Two checks ahead, I check.

The turn is a black 7.

Jimmy bets out $10,000. I push my $18,000 or so in.

I look at him and wait. He thinks, grabs his chips, sets them down. I look down at the felt, waiting, hoping I have no tells.

He picks up his chips once more, then shows 105 and mucks. I show my hand. Across the table I hear, "Laying in wait in the bushes, huh?

I now have $30,000 and we are down to 11 players. I get my BB raised from a very aggressive player who has been stealing all night. I flip over my AJ and toss it into the muck. It is not worth it. We are minutes away from the final table and I don't want to get there shortstacked.

The final table moves fairly quickly. With blinds at $3,000/$6,000 even a middle stack has to quickly make a move. I watch and wait as we get down to 6 in about ½ hour.

I make my third betting error of the night sometime in here. I have KQ and am in the SB. I have about $28,000 in front of me (I think I stole once earlier, and reraised with JJ, taking down a decent pot on that one). All fold to me and the BB. I set down my cards to reach for my chips and fail to protect my cards.

My attempted raise without any cards does not proceed smoothly. Maybe TJ Cloutier could carry out this kind of bluff, but I can't. I get the oddest stares from the other players. I look down and see no cards. Where the heck did they go?

The dealer says, "You put them out there, I am going to take them."

I say, "My fault, I did not protect them."

I struggle at this point to regain my composure.

I am soon down to $20,000 and the blinds are up to $5,000/$10,000. And we are down to 4 players. No waiting for a pocket pair or AK.

I shove in against David who is to my immediate left, and who, as usual, has the biggest stack. And, as usual, he is playing sheriff. And he plays sheriff to me when I have AJ. He says, "You got a big Ace." Good read, David. All he can show is K7 and the board is a blank.

The same thing happens the next round with my AT vs. his K6. Eventually, I know, he will likely pick me off. He has too many chips.

Jimmy is hanging in there and is to my immediate right. He limps from the SB and I come over the top with 55. He folds. I show my hand.

David says, "Nice move."

I am up to $60,000.

I think I may be showing my hands too much. But I look at it this way. I am having fun and I enjoy playing against these guys. The buyins and the money won in this tournament are not going to make my life significantly different. Sure, I want to win. ALWAYS.

Ah well, I will give this some more thought.

The final four are all decent or very good players. David is an incredible player, knowing exactly how to play his stack. And I have seen Jimmy in the final 4 or 5 people too often not to give him credit for being a good player. Plus I have watched him play tonight and have not seen one mistake.

Jimmy gets short and has to push in on a less than stellar hand. David picks him off.

Down to three.

I stand, trying to wake up for the final push. We are still at $5,000/$10,000 and my $60,000 is now $30,000. I got 6 hands left.

I briefly chat with the woman who got 5th tonight.

I look back 30 seconds later and see the number two guy, not David, without chips and looking like he just saw his dog get run over.

[I find out later that David made 9s full on the turn and Aces full on the river. The other guy, seeing all these scare cards, tried to steal with all his chips. David slow-played it all the way.]

I am number 2. A very very distant number 2, but number 2 nonetheless.

I estimate David has over $300,000 in front of him. I tell him I got to get lucky 2-3 times.

The first hand I have the SB. Q3. I think about it a little too long and end up folding. The next hand is my BB. I look to see JJ. Lucky hand number 1.

David says, "All in."

I shove my chips to the center.

A crowd has gathered.

Wow, drama here.

David flips over A3. I flip over my JJ. The flop, to understate it just slightly, is not good. 33Q. The turn is a T.

I am drawing dead to a Jack. I don't get it.

I say, "Nice hand," and David reaches around the dealer and shakes my hand.

I talk to him a bit later as the ship is returning to port. I am wearing my World Poker Open hat from my 2002 trip to Tunica.

He asks how I liked the WPO. We talk about the side games and the satellites.

And later, with no hint of bragging, he says he got first in the Omaha 8 tournament there in 2001. He shows me his bracelet. Impressive to say the least.

I get his full name, David Eller. He is from Daytona Beach and owns an electrical contracting business.

I ask him about the Pot Limit game on the ship. He tells me, "Unless you can play in it for 5-6 hours straight, don't go near it."

He is correct. No matter how juicy this game may be, you have to have time at the table to see how these players are playing that particular day. You also have to have that much seat time to survive the inevitable up and down swings a table of gamblers is going to induce.

So as I said earlier: this tournament is fun, it is well run, the people are nice, and, now that I have my Dramamine, I can enjoy it.

Until the third Sunday in August...

Randy Glover

A Postscript:

PokerSchool Online has paid off. Here is what I am talking about: At PokerSchool,

• I have seen approximately 45,000 hands. Mostly NLHE (A statistic my wife is certainly not proud of).

• I have made 125 final tables at Poker School.

• I have made the final 5 players 75 times.

• I have made the final 3 players 43 times.

• I have finished first 12 times.

All of that adds up to a lot of situations and hands: a lot of experience in a short period of time. I am no means an expert (I have only been playing hold em for about 1 year now). But my playing experience has been accelerated. I feel that if I can control my tells, pick up on some tells occasionally, I have a shot at playing (someday) at a little higher level.