O-Poker

I can't remember the last time that I went 4 days without online poker. (I even played online when I was in LV last for the WSOP and when I was in the Bahamas for the PS tourney.)

I went to a convention for work from Thursday through Sunday and didn't play online poker the entire time. I did play in a charity poker tourney and consumed liquor like I was a freshman in college.

The charity poker tourney was scheduled for Thursday night from 10 pm - midnight. A group of us got back from a long dinner around 10:15 and were a few of the first people in the "poker room." The "poker room" consisted of several round banquet tables with table cloths. There were 20 plastic chips at each seat. I was trying to figure out what each chip was worth and asked the guy in charge. He said that they were each "1 chip" - didn't matter the color.

I asked how many people were playing in the tourney and he said that 50-60 had registered. About 35-40 people actually showed up to play. When I asked what the structure of the tourney was I received a blank look. After pressing further and asking when the blinds would go up from the starting 1 chip/2 chip, the guy running the tourney said, "We'll increase the blinds when we get down to a couple of tables and then again when we get down to one table. If there are still a lot of people let after an hour, I'll raise them - but I sure hope that doesn't happen."

The $30 entry made for a take between $1,500 and $1,800 and the fabulous amazing prizes were as follows:

1st place - a poker chip set and a plaque
2nd place - power saw
3rd place - a director's chair
4th and 5th place - hand crafted (crouchetted - sp?) coasters :)

We started with 4 tables. Every table had 8 or 9 people and our table started with 6. No big deal. We lost two players and were down to 4 players for about an hour until they moved players to our table. The players that they moved to our table each had more chips than the sum of the chips in play at our table - Fun!! Fun!!

I won't go into the details about how horrible the play was. I'll just say that this tourney made a bar room free tourney look like the NFL vs. Peewee football.

I busted out in 7th. I was in the BB with 35 chips and everyone at the table limped to me. There were 42 chips in the pot. I look down at 88 and shove, thinking that I probably have the best hand and someone with an ace with probably call me. The big stack folds (I'll call here seat 1), Seat 2 immediately flat calls leaving himself with about 25 chips behind, Seat 3 folds, Seat 4 calls all in with about 10 less chips than me, Seat 5 calls with about 30 chips behinds, Seat 6 folds leaving himself with 5 chips. Um, I guess the first preflop all-in that I had seen didn't scare anyone.

Four to the flop - two players all in.

Flop AKK - two players left in bet and call each other.
Turn 3 - again the remaining two bet and call each other.
River A - I'm dead; remaining two finally check; check

Hands
Seat 2 - QQ (had cold called into a dry side pot and a AKK flo)
Seat 4 - K10 (winner - he said he thought he was going to lose on the flop b/c he thought I had AK)
Seat 5 - 55 (was betting into a dry side pot on turn and river)
Seat 7 (me) - 88 (doomed from the start)

I tried to get a cash game going after the tourney, but couldn't scrape one together. Too bad, because it might have been just a little profitable.

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Head Shaving

A good friend of mine was running the hospitality suite during the convention. (After daily trips to the liquor store, he ran through $1,600+ worth of liquor and beer during four days at a convention that had 80 registered attendees + guests.) On the last night they somehow managed to talk him into shaving his head for $1,000 collected for the scholarship fund. That was fun and entertaining to watch.

All in all a fun weekend - at least everything that I remember.