In the poker-world there is a famous adage, "Poker is hours of boredom punctuated with moments of terror," after grinding Las Vegas cash games for over a week now I can honestly say I've lived and breathed that tagline. Cash games* can be gruelling, both mentally (as long hours can go by without anything much happening at all) and emotionally (the bankroll swings, both ups & downs, can turn your stomach inside out). So, with the previous night's cash game loss heavy on my conscious I decided it would be a nice change of pace to enter into a tournament where I would only have to risk a small amount of money for a potential big pay-day! After a speedy Google search at tournaments running that afternoon, and a shower, I was off.
I took a cab to the Golden Nugget in Downtown, Las Vegas. Downtown is what's considered 'old' Vegas, with the famous Fremont Street Experience it's main hub, an open street mall of Vegas's oldest casinos and attractions - Elvis impersonators, transvestites + a myriad of other street performers pave the street. Arriving at the Nugget I marched across the casino floor, through a haze of cigarette smoke and past the Nugget's outdoor poolside/aquarium area (complete with perspex water slide that slips through a shark tank!), to the tournament hall. Registering for the 5pm $125 No-:Limit Hold'em event I took my seat. By my best guess I was the youngest player at the table, dealer included, by about 20 years and by the way my competition handled their cards and chips I knew I'd posses a healthy advantage over these fish.
Sure enough, as the tournament edged on the number of players in the field shrunk but my chip stack grew. From four starting tables came three, then from three came two and I still survived. However, in the 4th hour of play I had come into a run of bad cards and found myself on the short stack. With only enough chips to make it through another 2 rounds of play at my table I came into an interesting spot. Sitting in late position I was dealt a pair of 9s in the hole. "Perfect!" I though to myself, exactly the hand that can double me up and get me back in the running for a shot at the money. But, before I could make a play the gentleman in first position made a raise to 2700 (with the blinds at 400/800) then a snap raise by the guy immediately after him to 7000! It folded across to me, and with a mere 5700 and already almost 10,000 worth of action in front of me I knew my 9s were no good. I reluctantly slid them into the muck and to my great relief a woman left to act behind me pushed in her stack for a 4th raise to 17,000 total. The action played out as expected - the original raiser A-K, the next guy with a pair of Kings and the woman a pair of Aces. No 9 came on the board, and thanks to my careful read I lived to play another hand. Two hands later I got 10-9 in against 10-7 and doubled up, then doubled up again a hand later with A-J into J-7.
Play continued to the final table, where only 5 players out of the 41 entrants would make money, I was 2nd in chips at my table determined to take it down. With 10 players remaining I have 52,000 in chips out of 328,000 chips total in play and I feel I still have a BIG edge over the other players. We play it down to 6 and I take out the 6th place finisher with my pair of Jacks to his pair of 7s. With that I make my first ever live tournament money, I'd won tournaments online before but there's something special about having a castle of chips in front of you to help you feel like you've truly conquered the competition. However, ready to start the next hand (and a thing new to me that I'd only heard about but never come across online) all the players at the table stood up and started shaking hands announcing that this was the perfect time to strike up a deal. With the prize pool at just under $4,000 they said that if I and the other chipleader (sharing the lead at about 90,000 chips a piece) took $1,000 each that would leave $600 and change for the remaining 3 players to share evenly. With 1st place only paying $1,300, and 2nd $900, anyway as it was I was happy to take the deal, taking down my first live cash in a tournament for a chopped 1st place of $1,000 - also my first 4 figure score!! ^_^
... So, I know I haven't updated much recently and the reason being is that it hasn't been the easiest week-and-a-bit in terms of poker. Losing, as I've mentioned in an earlier post, is a part of the game and to be expected even for the best players. It's just I haven't had a lot of good news to report on this past week and as a result I hadn't found it in me to write about any of it - I wanted to wait until I did have something good to write about. Also, the thought of 'letting you down' for those reading back home was also on my mind. I know that's completely ridiculous and the exact opposite of why I had decided to come out here alone in the first place (so that the consequences of my actions wouldn't affect anyone else but myself), but I found myself feeling ashamed nonetheless.
Anyway, it's all out in the open now! At least today I had something positive to write about, and the win made a big difference in moving my bankroll in the right direction. With renewed confidence I'm looking forward to more wins to report on in the posts to come.
PS - Again, apologies if all the poker talk bored you guys. I'll try and mix the next one up a bit more...
PPS - Here's a quick look at what the Fremont Street Experience is like!
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*Where poker chips in play represent real cash values, a $5 bet is worth 5 real dollars won or lost. The goal of cash game play is to finish a session with more money than you started with. Opposed to tournament play, where a nominal entry fee is paid up front in exchange for tournament chips, chips that have no cash value but are an indicator as to your progress in the tournament. The goal of tournament play is to accumulate all other player's chips in play.
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