Shuffle up and deal!

Last Friday was my first real attempt at trying to be a real poker player. I played in a satellite event that was supposed to lead to some sort of cash money prize and perhaps even a seat in the World Series of Poker.

Long story short – neither the money nor the seat happened. But, I did get a couple of good stories for my tournament buy-in fee. I finished 48th and I needed to be in the top 20 to move on.

As soon as I sat down, I knew this wasn’t going to be the same kind of game I play online or during house games with the core group. To make it here I was going to have to be a mixture of cocky, relentless, aggressive, passive, and weak. In other words – I was going to have to mix it up or I was dead in the water before I even started.

I will say this – I can’t play poker any better than I played it, especially during the first hour of the tournament. I couldn’t have asked for better cards either – which should have put me in a good position.

I can still see my chip stack; I can still hear the air getting sucked out of everyone at the table every time another player pushed in a $500 bet or more. I can see the dealer flinging cards around the table like he was throwing cards in a hat – every time both hole cards landed in the same place next to my chips – stacked perfectly on top of each other.

The biggest hand I remember was a winner for me, but I should have gotten more out of it than I did.

Early in the tournament – the third hand of the tournament actually – I was dealt pocket tens and raised the bet from $20 to $60. I was in the 9th seat – one to the right of the button. The big blind called, as did the guy in the 6th seat.

The flop came up 10, 4, and 4. I just flopped a full house! The two guys in front of me checked and I came out with a bet that was less than half the pot -- $100. I didn’t want to scare them off, but I did. They folded. A full house should have earned me at least $500 but it didn’t. Not good times. If this hand would have come to me during the third hour of play, I would have been the chip leader at my table because everyone was playing loose compared to the start of the game when everyone was tight.

I was done in just over two hours. The tournament lasted less than three hours. I was close to moving on, but I didn’t win enough hands and eventually had to go all-in a couple of times before getting blinded out of the tournament.

I got the nickname “Bowling Green” from the tournament director since I had the BG hat on. We got into a discussion about sports related things before the tournament started and that got some of my nervousness to go away.

My table was featured a few times on the big screen and every time I went all-in, the camera focused on my table and the tournament director got on the microphone and said “Bowling Green is all-in on table three.”

The good news is I won some hands I shouldn’t have won. I bluffed a couple of times and won, I laid down pocket pairs when I knew I had no chance. It was fun. It was terrifying.

There is another qualifier at the end of April and I might do it again.