Tournament Time

Full Tilt recently sent me a please-come-back free money offer. While checking it out I again came across Chris Ferguson's article on his $0 to $10k project and noticed he had played some tournaments during the endeavor. This got me thinking that it might be fun to toss a few tournaments into the mix.

Checking at Full Tilt, I discovered they do offer SnGs for poor folk, but the rake is pretty steep. The 25% rake at the $1 SnGs is ridiculous, but at $2 it's down to 12.5%. Still higher than normal, but acceptable.

So, Saturday night, already tired enough to be thinking about going to bed, I signed up for a Turbo $2+$0.25 1-table SnG. The cards weren't terribly kind. With the rapidly increasing blinds I quickly found myself shortstacked. Then I woke up with AA. I put in a small raise and get one caller. Flop comes ten high. I check. Other guy bets more than half my stack. I push. He calls and turns over AT. Of course, he rivers a third ten and I hit the rail.

Sunday I decided to give it another go. This time I got into a non-turbo, so the blinds increased at the normal 6-minute intervals. This was a fairly typical cheap tournament. A couple people played it like it was a turbo freeroll. We got down to six rather quickly, but we stayed at six for a long time.

The tight play allowed me to steal quite a few pots. I even played the hammer a couple times. Eventually the blinds caught up and people started dropping off. I made a nice push back at the one other mildly aggressive player and he backed down, allowing me to take a very nice pot and the chip lead.

I had some trouble figuring out my opponent when we got heads up. I will often make a min-raise from the small blind as a way to put pressure on the big blind and to send a message that I think my cards are decent. Several times this guy came back with min-reraises, which really baffled me. I suppose he's making a statement, but I'm getting 5-to-1 on my call. Heads up I'll make that call with almost any two cards.

The other guy had the chip advantage going into heads up, but I quickly rectified that situation. I kept chipping away until he was in serious trouble. Then I find myself in the big blind with the Brunson. He makes a min-raise. I debated a bit, but eventually made the call. Then I got lucky. Flop comes 22x. Now I'm trying to figure how to get all his chips in the pot. I check, he checks. On the turn I get even luckier as a ten falls. Deuces full of tens. And there are three diamonds on the board. I'm praying he's got a couple diamonds. I make a small bet, he calls. The river brings another diamond. I again make a small bet, he pushes all-in. I'm sure he figured he was back in it as his king high flush was revealed, but, sorry, Charlie.

I'm not sure playing at this level is doing a lot for my skills, but it is kind of fun.