Day 8

Day 8 

I wake up planning on playing the main event. The buyin is $1675 and I'm guessing they'll have around 500 entrants. I had the option of playing today or Saturday, but chose today, as I have tentative plans to explore the city with friends tomorrow night. In tournaments, you draw a table and a seat and there's luck involved in that as a bad table draw makes it harder to accumulate trips and last longer. When I sit, by stereotyping people (younger usually means better, and people that don't look like they are good players, usually are not), I can see I drew a bad table relative to the other tables. I have 3 kids that look competent. I was right, The table turns out bad. One of the kids turns out to be some kid named Cord, who's considered a very good tournament player. He had won the Wsop Colossus a couple of years ago for $600k ousting 22k players! We tangle in a lot of hands throughout the day, usually me besting him (mostly because he plays an inordinately large number of hands...2-3x more than me, and I tend to play a lot of hands during tournaments to capitalize on the poor play of my opponents, so his range is usually weaker than mine when we played together).
Cord on the left.

Starting with 20k in chips, I chip to up 40k, but hit a bad level right before dinner losing every and go to dinner with 20k.

My longtime good friend (who I met in poker) Joe and I grab dinner at the Grand Isle cafe across the street. Joe's in the tournament as well but faring slightly better with around 50k in chips. We order oysters, grits, Mac and cheese, and a shrimp poboy sandwich and split everything. We sit at the bar and get to see how fresh the oysters are, as they're prepared right in front of us. I'll say they were the best oysters I've ever had! Also at $9/dozen, the best deal as well. Joe eats healthy but claims the food is so good he's gonna let loose for this meal (as I've been doing pretty much the whole trip. I've resigned to the fact that I'll get fat on this trip, oh well).

Poker: A few hands after dinner, playing 400/800/100 blinds, co, a competent kid, opr to 2k, I 3bet the button with TT to 5200, he shoves and has me covered, and I snap call my remaining 15k knowing I'm ahead of his range here, but I'm only a 55-45 favorite when he shows AJo and the board rolls out 8445J and I'm out. There's something said for just 3b shoving my entire stack of 23bbs but I think that's a little too large to shove, as it allows my opponent to play mostly perfect, and by 3betting smaller, he may shove a range I'm doing well against (all pocket pairs 22-AA, JT+, all Ax, estimating I'm about 3-2 fav vs his 4b shoving range).


That's the frustrating thing about tournaments, you can play well all day and because of the structure (increasing blind levels), you're out in high variance spots that you have to win in order to do well in them, and that negates some of the skill. They still require skill, but there's so much short term variance, it's extremely difficult to play exclusively tournaments and do well for a living. I don't mind playing them once in awhile, but by no means do I rely on them to pay the bills. They're more of a luxury or bonus if I win anything in them (and I've had some big scores, a couple of 6 figure scores that have enhanced my life).

A lot of times, people bust tournaments and their mindset is ruined for the day. I can understand that. You pay a large amount of money (in this case $1675), and feel like you wasted x hrs playing them all for naught. Again I'm realistic and understand the expectations. A good pro will realistically cash (make a profit) in a single tournament 15-20% of the time, so I'm a favorite to lose money most of the time. Joe and I have a line we say to each other as we register for a tournament, "yeah I'm playing this stupid tournament so I can bust, lose x $, and waste x hours". It's in jest but also as a buffer against feeling like crap if and when we bust because we are likely to bust. We're professional enough to not let the negativity of the statement affect our play at all though.

Anyway, I'm feeling fine and normal (unlike most people after a tournament) and jump into a $2/$5 game and win $400 after a couple of hours. Our friend Benton is in town as well and the plan was for the three of us to hang out after 11pm (when day 1 of the tournament ends). Benton had already busted and I was in my room chilling. I get to the casino a little later than expected and Joe and Benton had gone back to their place to get ready to go out. Since I'm not planning on playing any poker the rest of the night, I only bring about $170. As I wait, I decide to gamble for the first time on the trip. Craps is really the only pit game I enjoy so I head that way. The table minimum is $15, which isn't small, and the odds are 10x, which is large and nice for guys like me that look to reduce the house edge every way possible. Given that I only had $170 on me, that's not much compared to table stakes and I could lose it all in a minute. I buy in for $140 and was fortunate enough for the first shooter to be fairly hot and I cash out when he sevens out for $725, netting almost $600 in profit. Since this is money made actually gambling, I don't count it towards my business losses and profits, since my business is poker. Money won in the pits (outside of poker) always feels much better than money won in poker, because we're expected to lose in the long run in the pits. I get a text from Joe and Benton they're too tired to come out so I head back to my room. I'm not mad or anything because Joe had busted out on the last hand of the tournament and he had plans to play Saturday as well if he busted and he needs sleep. Also winning $600 while waiting for them softens the disappointment.

Recap: I lose $1675 for the tournament but win $400 in the cash games. I add $600 to my pockets from craps but that's not job income, that's just getting lucky.