PART 1
It’s just a saga of another poker player but this time it was ME. I flew out to Las Vegas on Sunday July 4 to enter my 1st WSOP Bracelet Event at the Rio. I had some great backers—my family as a Father’s day gift.
As an affection-ado of Tournament hold em it was something I always wanted to do. I had won my share of sit n gos and even once won a Tournament at Caesars in Atlantic City besting 150 players. So Monday morning I threw on my Terp gear, proudly wearing a #72 US Football jersey (Joe Vellano) and of course my Terp Talk hat, drove over to the Rio and entered a $1000 event along with 1300 other players.
Exactly at 11 AM PST the call was made to shuffle up and deal and the tournament started. Early on I had a rude awakening, every time I was in the big or small blind, the player directly acroos from me (5 seats away) was rasing on a 4 bet. He played almost every hand and his chip count went up and down like a roller coaster. After about the 3rd cycle, a French guy to my left informed me we had some bad luck landing at the table with the constant raiser.
To even make it much more difficult, I was seriously card dead. This was a turbo tournament where the blinds virtually doubled every half hour. That means by the end of the 4th level the blinds were up to 200–400– with a 25 ante. The starting chip amount was 5000 which meant there was not much time to wait for great hands, but being 3 or 4 bet and having 9 4 was not comforting. Even in the 1st half hour, people were getting knocked out. To the PROs this was just a tiny event and most took every possible gamble to increase the chip count.
Well, it was time for me to play or I would just be virtually blinded out. Finally, a decent hand–A 10 Suited and I raised, naturally the Frenchman to me left takes me all in. I went into the tank for 2 minutes nad folded. He showed me AK suited–good fold. A few hands later there was and early raise, I re-raised with AK and was snap called by the aggressive bettor as everyone else folded. He also turned over AK —we chopped the pot but it was a plus for me as many other bets were in the pot. A few hands later, he raises me again and I call with KQ off. Hit a blank on the flop but I had 3 hearts. Check Check. Turn was a heart–he bet I called. River was a heart giving me a K high heart flush. He bet –I raised –he folded. Now I started to feel my oats.
A few cycles later, I looked at QQ in my hand. The aggressive guy bet, I raised he called. Queen rag rag flopped giving me trip Queens. He bet I raised he folded.
In the meantime, players were getting knocked out all over the place.
END OF PART 1
Tune in to The Sports Maven today at 920 and I will continue the story.
No comments have been posted yet, be the first!
Post a comment by filling out the form below.
