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I have heard pros talk about sitting at the table longer than they anticipated because the table was “Juicy”. I have been in some pretty bad games, but this one rewrote my definition of “Juicy”.

I was in the Bahamas for the World Poker Tour’s “Battle for the Season Pass II“. There were special cash games just for the people in the Boot Camp. However, a few people in the casino found the poker tables and sat down to play. Technically, only people that were attending the camp were permitted to play, but nobody really complained.

The last night there, I did not plan on playing too late - perhaps until midnight or so. I ended up at a 2/5 NL table. Nine of the ten players were WPT Boot Camp Attendees. The tenth player was a guy who turned out to be an Ambassador from Canada, and he was REALLY REALLY drunk.

The first time I locked horns with him was on this hand:

I am in seat 5. The drunk Ambassador is in Seat 4 - I have GREAT position on him

Seat 4 (Mr. Ambassador) straddles for 10

I have:

I know that I am out of position, but if this hand hits, I can win a large pot. Additionally, I know that more people than normal will be playing because the Ambassador is in the hand. So, I limp in for $10. Four more people call. The Ambassador puts in $30 more. Everybody calls. Six players.

Pot: $240

The flop is:

Seat 4 leads out for $75. I picked up a flush and a gutshot straight draw. I have twelve outs, so I make the straight-forward play and call. My reasoning for just calling was to get more money in the pot. Tricky play will not work against the Ambassador. He is not that aware. Seat 1 calls and everybody else folds.

Pot: $465

Turn:

This card did not help me, but it should not have helped anybody else either. The Ambassador leads out for another $100.

With 12 outs and over 5:1 pot odds, it is an easy call. Seat 1 picks up on my weak play and makes a raise to $300. Mr. Straddler calls. I have $437 left in my stack. At this point, I will only have $137 left if I call, so I just push all-in. Both Seat 1 and the straddler call, but is it them who are all-in (I have them both covered - but not by much).

Pot: $1450

River:

I get flush and take down a $1450 pot.

I offer an unused drink ticket to seat 1 (who was a pretty good player). He politely declines, but Mr. Ambassador chimes in and says he will take it. So, I oblige and give him the unused drink ticket.

Several hours pass and Mr. Ambassador displays just how bad he is. On one particular play, he CALLS an all in bet with a mere Jack High. Wow!

The Ambassador was literally an ATM. He would lose $500 and rebuy. He would get felted again, go to the ATM, and bring back another $1000. He would lose that, go back to the ATM and bring back another $1000. He must have done that five times through the night. Each time that he got felted, I would offer him an unused drink ticket. After one felting, he said that he had to go back to his room to get more money. As he left, I checked my drink ticket supply and found out that I was out. I explained the predicament to the table and everybody GLADLY gave me the rest of their unused drink tickets (which totaled another 6 or 7). We wanted to keep him at OUR table at any cost.

I continued to buy the Ambassador drinks into the wee hours of the morning. He kept getting felted time after time. At one point I had so many red chips in front of me, I could barely get my arms around them ($4500 worth). Around 3:00 am, the guy said that he was done for the evening. Comically enough, when he left, the table broke. Nobody wanted to stay around any longer.

In this game, I bought in for $500 and cashed out well over $4000. Now I know exactly what the pros mean when they say a “Juicy Game”.

I made my way down to the poker room, and I saw that the chip counts were posted outside.  The first thing that I noticed was that the chip leader had about T81,000.  Second place had T60,000.  I had T42,900 - so I was not too far off the pace.  Donna quickly noticed that there were about 25 people who were under T20,000.  All in all, it looked like the people were going to fall quickly today.

I was pretty disappointed that they did not reseat everybody.  My table had gone from pretty easy to tough.  I was expecting it, but having a table full of tough people is no fun.  Since I was not too far out of the chip lead, my plan of attack changed a little bit.  I planned to wait it out for premium hands, then attack.  I wanted to let everybody else knock each other out.

As the tournment started, there was some jockeying for position on my table.  I tried to stay clear.  I wanted to get to a different table.  I was at table #9, so we should be the first table to break up.  To my utter disappointment, they broke all the tables around us.  They left table #9 in tact!!!  To complicate the problem, I was card cold.  I could not catch two cards from the same planet.  The button kept going around.  Once, twice, thrice, four times.   On the fifth orbit and three levels in, I finally got two cards from at least the same country.  By this time, I was down to about T27,000.  The guy who was under the gun went all in for T7200.  The blinds were at 2000/4000 at this point, so it was not even a full raise.  I had:

With the blinds being at 2000/4000, I only had enough to last 3 more rounds.  I had to move.  There was no calling this bet.  I had to push all in.  I figured that I had the under-the-gun raiser beat.  He had to move this hand with any two cards.  So, I push all-in.  The guy to my left is in agony.  He wants to call, but this is a large portion of his chipstack.  He asks for a count, and finally says that he calls.  everybody else folds.

I had the UTG raiser beat (just as I suspect) as he shows:

The guy to my left shows:

I gotta give him credit.  He called with the best hand.  I do not know if I could have called an all-in and another re-raise all-in with a mere unsuited AK.  as the board played out, nobody matched anything and the AK held up.  I was out around 50th place.

Donna and I went and played tabled games for the next two days (and we did VERY well at Three Card Poker).

Pre-tournament thoughts

The tournament restarts at 12:00.  According to Harrington, I am in the Yellow Zone:

1000/2000 blinds = T3000 per orbit

M = 42,900/3000

M = 14

My Q is about 2.  This should make for an interesting day.  I think people are going to go out pretty quick because the blinds escalate quickly from here.  Also, my table went from bad to fairly good over the course of three hours - and they do not plan to redraw for tables to start today.  I would much rather be at a different table, but I have to deal with what I have.  I am at table #9, so all in all, I should be moved fairly early on.  They will break table #10 first, then we will be next on  the list.  I would expect to be moved within the first level or two. Play continues until 4:00 or until the final table.  The final table starts at 4:30 in the old poker room.

Right now, I must go eat - and get in the Poker Zone.

After we got up from our long day of travel, we made our way down to the casino to register for the poker tournament.  We registered and got a T-shirt, a hat, and a pen.  They said that they were expecting about 200 people for the tournament.  We also received a copy of the rules and blind structure.  The rules are the pretty much TDA rules, so there were no surprises.  We ran into several people last night who were playing in the tournament as well.  Most were pretty cool, but there were a few arrogant schmucks.

The final structure looks like this:

25 minute blinds

T10,000 starting stack (I think - there was no indication of the starting stack in the papers we got)

Play starts at 6:00pm and goes for three hours today.  Tomorrow we start at noon and go until 4pm at which time there is a 30 minute break.  The final table starts at 4:30 in the poker room.

Prizes are as follows:

1. $10,000 cash + $1000 lodging allowance + championship bracelet ($10,000 value) + WPT Battle for the Season Pass Entry ($4200 value)
2. $5000 cash + Championship ring ($4000 value) + World Poker Showdown  Bahamas Main Event Entry ($2500 value)
3. $2500 cash + Championship Ring ($4000 value)
4. $1500 cash
5. $1000 cash
6. $600 cash
7. $500 cash
8. $400 cash
9. $300 cash
10. $200 cash

When 5:30 rolled around, Donna and I made our way to the Salon.  We found our tables and got settled in.  The tournament started with 100/100 blinds.  An announcement also said that they planned to play 6 levels or down to 100 people. 

I scoped out the table.  My initial reads said that there were 4 good players (including me).  It was not more than 10 minutes into the tournment when I picked up this hand in the cutoff:

A person from early position made it T500 to go.  I called.  Everybody else folds.  The flops comes:

The guy in seat #4 (who raised preflop) bets out T500.  I really need to find out where I am, so I raise it up to T1500.  He smooth calls.  I think he has a Queen, but is unsure of his kicker.  I do not like mine either.  A Jack kicker is not exactly a hand I do not want to go to the mat with.  The turn is:

This gives me a flush draw in addition to the top pair (with a crappy kicker).  Seat #4 checks.  I make another probe bet of T1000.  He calls.  I do not like my hand anymore.  The river is:

This card is definitley good news.  It gives me the second-nuts.  Seat #4 immediately goes all-in.  Wow - was he playing AQ or does he have the king-high flush?  He cannot have KJ of spades because I hold the Jack of Spades….  I put him on two pair and make the call.  He flips over:

I bust the first person in the tournment!  Way cool.

For the first two levels, I got hit over the head with the deck.  I could do no wrong.  It was a pretty good feeling.  We played 4 levels and then took a break.  At that time, Donna had T6000 in chips and I had T47,500.

Not more than 10 minutes after the break, Donna came over and tapped me on the shoulder.  She was out.  As for me, I did not get any cards to play in the next two levels.  We played down to 100 people, then the tournament was stopped until the next day.  I ended with T42,900 chips.  We started with 213 people, meaning the average chip stack has about doubled to T20,000.  I have twice the average stack, so I am in healthy shape.

Tomorrow we start at noon sharp with the blinds at 1000/2000.

More updates tomorrow!