My First Live Tourny Cash

[lwestatbus]

I played my third $35 buy in tourny at the local dog track today. There were 29 or 30 players to start and the top 3 get paid with respectable payouts. I knew from tourny players joining cash tables at the track that chopping was common and sure enough when we were down to six talk started and we eventually ended up chopping when we were down to four. I ended up with $210 for my $40 investment (there was a $5 dealer add-on I've written about before). Plus it was a friendly game with a lot of geezers like me and two fiesty youngsters of 22 or so.

I made a big score with a king-high flush on the very first hand that let me ride out three levels of trashy cards and still remain near the chip average. Picked up blinds once after a long tight period when I raised in early position with QT suited. An orbit later I doubled up when my pocket aces ran into a nonbeliever and not only beat his (really weak--see below) holding but rivered the nut flush. This let me ride out another lengthy dead period.

We got down to a single table and then things really started to happen for me. I woke up to 78 suited in the big blind when two short stakes went all in for 3x the big blind. I had some buffer and called for a 3-way flop. I turned the nut straight but the river put four to a flush in the wrong suit but out of six hole cards nobody had that suit so my straight held up. Then there was ANOTHER all in by a short stack with one caller and I called from the big blind for one BB more with K9 off. It checked down and my pair of nines took the pot against AK and AQ and another elimination (wish it was a bounty tourny). Took the chip lead a short time later when an old gentleman open limped in the cutoff, the small blind called and I checked with what was fast becoming my favorite hand of the night, K9 in the big blind. I flopped top pair, the small blind checked and I shoved all in. The limper thought a LONG time and then called with pocket queens and was all but out and was out a few hands later. I ended up flopping top set as the last hand giving me enough of a chip lead to wrangle a larger share of the pot (without being greedy) and ending as the chip leader.

Sorry for the lengthy play-by-play but this was a nice milestone for me.

The Chop: I thought a lot about the chop since by the time we did it I had a good sized chip lead but 2nd and 3rd could have gutted me if they got lucky. I really wanted to lock in a win with cash in my pocket and this was, in fact, my second largest winning session (the first being an amazing FL $3-6 online ring session about four years ago). It was a friendly crowd and I'd played with about eight of them before in just three tournys so I was willing to go along to get along. No regrets. I might do things differently the next time.

The Play: Very loose. Lots of preflop limping from the geezers but not from the two youngsters at the final table who weren't shy about raising. What amazed me most of all is the willingness of some of these guys to call down and/or even all in with weak hands on the off chance it might be a bluff. Now I'm not a great hand reader but when the tightest guy at the table shoves on a King-high flop I would lose a lot of faith in pocket queens. I had three good sized pots from guys who were willing to call off chips with weak hands. The guy I hammered with the pocket aces called with second pair and no spades on a low 3-spade flop vs my all in.

It wasn't until after I was leaving that I realized that I never lost a showdown.

The whole thing took about 2 hours and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[HalfSugar]

It took two hours to get a field of 30 down to 4

Nice work Larry.