O-Poker

Day 1 (2nd Table)

I think my first table broke right after the dinner break on Day 1. I was moved to a new table that had not been broken. Most of the players at the table had been at that table all day.

Seat 1 - Florida-retiree type - lives in Tampa. He seemed like he probably plays a decent amount of poker; very confident in his game; liked to talk up the other players. He and Seat 10 had obviously played some big pots against each other from the conversations.

Seat 2 - Old, very tight guy. He had his pants up to his chest - no joke!! Seat 10 commented on the pants height and Seat 1 said something like, "Let's see how you look when you are 70."

Seat 3 - Me

Seat 4 - Short stack that was pushing a lot of hands hard, even when he had chips.

Seat 5 - Typical solid tight (bordering on weak-tight)

Seat 6 - Youngest mayor in Minnesota. He is older now and serving his third term. (He said someone else recently took over the youngest mayor title) Tight, tight, tight.

Seat 7 - Don't remember much about

Seat 8 - Absent player that never showed up. Wonder what happened there. My guess is that someone told him that he was registered for a later starting day.

Seat 9 - Tight

Seat 10 - Loose aggressive with a decent amount of chips. Liked to talk and bet at a lot of pots.

I don't remember the exact order of these hands now, but the following hands all occurred at this table:

Key Hand 1
I hadn't been very active at the new table. I was trying to get a feel for all of the players and was also pretty card dead.
Blinds 100/200 w/ante (i think)
I was dealt AK in late position.
Seat 10 raised to 3xBB (600).
I flat call with the intention of raising his continuation flop bet on just about any board. (He had been raising a ton of pots preflop).
Flop was J53 rainbow.
He bets 800.
I make it 2,000. He looks at me and says, "I can't believe you flopped a set of 5s.", thinks for like 5 minutes and folds.

Key Hand 2
Blinds 100/200 with ante (maybe no ante yet)
I am dealt AK in SB.
One limper
Seat 2 (Old man - tight chest pants) makes it 800 to go.
I raise to 2,200 (pretty much screaming that I have AK or a big pair)
BB folds, limper folds.
Tight Chest Pants thinks for a few minutes and folds.
I am pretty sure this set Chest Pants up for paying me off on a later hand. I had made a couple of big bets here and there and taken down pots without ever showing my whole cards.

Key Hand 3
Blinds 100/200 w/ante
Chest Pants raises to 600 preflop.
I call with on the button with KdQd.
Flop is Ks7d4d.
Chest Pants bets 1,000. I am now almost 100% certain that he has AK. The pot is 100 (SB)+ 200 (BB) + 250 (antes) + 1,200 = 1,750. He is definitely giving odds (not to mention the implied odds) to draw to my 12 outer (3 Queens plus 9 diamonds). I would probably raise a lot of other players here, but I knew I was behind, had position on him and could get paid off if I caught up.
Turn was something like 3 of hearts.
Chest Pants bets 1,500. I have to call now because of the odds he is giving me.
River is 10d.
He checks.
I think for a couple of minutes trying to look a little weak (really just trying to figure out how much of a bet he will pay off.)
He is pretty freaking tight, so I bet 3,500.
He insta-calls with AK and my flush wins. I think he only called here because he hadn't seen any of my hands that I bet strong go to showdown.

Key Hand 3
I have around 24k. Seat 1 (Retiree) only has around 3.5k.
I am dealt (surprise, surprise) AK on the button.
Seat 1 bets 700.
I raise to 2,100 after asking him how many chips he has left.
SB and BB fold.
He goes all in for the remainder. I call
Seat 1 - 77; Me - AK
Board comes JJ992
I win the hand. This puts me over 30k.

Remainder of time at 2nd table
I am the big stack at the table. I raise about every third hand preflop and take down the pots uncontested since no one wants to mess with me and everyone seems to be tightening up with that "get through day 1 mentality."

I wind up with about 33k when the table breaks.

Day 1 (3rd table)
Up and down - a couple of very solid TAG players at the table and a few stacks around the same as mine. I didn't get much going and had to lay down a few hands that I knew were beat.

During the last level, I was a little punchy after 14 hours of poker and was playing pretty loose. Everytime that I was going to make a move the guy 2 to my right would raise preflop. I never got a hand better than AJ and finished Day 1 with 28,000.

End of Day 1
After the end of the last level on Day 1, we bagged our chips and headed over to our Day 2 tables so that they could bag the chips for the whole table. I had discouraging news when I arrived at Day 2 table - not only was David Chui going to be sitting to my left, but he was top 10 in chips for the day with 78k. Two to his left was a guy with 58k and there were a couple of other players with around 60k. I would have to start Day 2 with a "relative" short stack and hope for the best.

I'll post the final part, Part 3, early next week.