So I had not played poker in a while as this would seem obvious from my lack of post. I did go play the Main Event at the IP a few weeks back (the one Reid final tabled), but to be honest I played so poorly that I didn't feel like reliving it on this little blog. I will some it up by saying that it was by far the poorest I have played in years and to be honest I was ashamed and embarrassed by my play as Reid was at my table the entire time and had to witness it. Enough of that though.
I was excited to get back to it finally so I rode up Sunday and decided to give the mega a shot. It was a rather cheap tourney w/ an ok structure and the reward was 1k chips for the tourneys. W/out going into a bunch of detail w/ 23 or 24 players remaining and 18 full chips being given away and 20 placed total getting paid I knew I needed to win 1 more pot and I would be in. Knowing that was the easy part. Actually winning the hand would prove to be not so easy. Sparing all the details the player utg ships his stack in the middle. He was short and I knew he would move w/ any connector, Ace , or face card for that matter. It folded to me and I thought this would be my shot as I was holding A10dd. The big blind would have to have a monster(more on that later) to call my shove as he barely had me covered and it would be his tourney if he lost the hand. I shove and the big blind decided to call also. I felt sick and just knew I was smoked. Everyone reveals there hands and I almost ashamed and upset turnover my A10dd and the bb proudly turns over K9off followed by the K10 off of the utg raiser! Could I possibly win this. HELL NO. The flop comes K high and then the part that pissed me off was the 9 on the turn to give the moron in the BB the whole damn pot. Oh well that is poker as they say. Who is they by the way? One tourney, One close call. Always tomorrow right.
So I go sit in a 1/2 for 300 and play for a few hours and recoup my loss from the satellite and another 220 for the next day's tourney. I then had to drive home so that I could wake up at the crack of dawn to bring my daughter to the babysitter. I accomplish all of this w/out getting much sleep b/c I am excited about Jason "Juice" Lipscomb and his new and improved tourney structures. Bahahahaaa what a joke that turned out to be!
So I get the baby to the babysitter bright and early and to my office to make sure I didn't have anything going on. What a shock, a pretty light day! Tex and I head to New Orleans and get registered for the tourney and grab a bite to eat at Mothers. We go to Ruttley's room from the previous day to relax and eat b/f the tourney starts.
Tex and I both fell asleep after eating and I woke up at 12:15 and headed to the tourney. I got there just in time to play QJ suited on my first hand turn a straight and lose a 1/3 of my stack to a guy's flush. I suppose I should have slept a few more minutes huh?
I eventually get my chips back by picking a few spots here and there. My table breaks and I move to a table w/ a mix of active players and absolute morons. This is about the time when GCP's newest blogger the Juice starts to show off his new and improved "Lets see how fast we can get this tourney over " Structure. After completing the 50/100 level we go to 100/200 which is normal. The only catch was that they introduce the ante right away! Everyone at my table(that had a clue about poker) was kind of upset, but we figured hey no big deal if they skip a level at least they gave us 3k in chips(sarcasm). So we next move to 150/300 w/ a 50 ante. Again I was pleased as this would be a logical jump after the 100/200 level.
But what happened from here on out was an absolute joke. At this point I believe there was about 95 players left out of 185 or so. The next jump was from 150/300 to 300/600 75 ante!
Did someone just decide to take out 200/400? We play this level and I figure we have to go to 4/800 next right? Boy am I a moron. How about 500/1000 w/ a 100 ante. By this point the avg chip stack is around 6000 or so and it is costing us 2500 to see one orbit of hands! That is by far the most absurd thing I have ever seen.
After this level, we go to 800/1600 200ante and just start to mow the field down. Why this is a 2 day tourney is beyond me, as it is 4:15 and there are only 35 players left out of 185 or so. Yes for those keeping track we lost 2/3's of the field in about a level and a half. The tables were breaking so fast that we had to play 7 handed most of the time b/c the 8 floor people couldn't collect the seat cards fast enough. This is the level I busted in w/ about 30 or 32 players left. I busted in a shitty hand where I raised the button from the small blind b/c I thought he was weak. I held 55 and wouldn't you know the BB is holding aces and has me covered. The guy making the move has Q6cc and is committed, as they say, so he calls and loses more chips.
When I got knocked out there were 30 players left give or take a couple and the blinds were 800/1600 w/ a 200 ante. That is 4200 a round and the avg chips stack is 10500 or 6 BB's as Gene would say. This is terrible as far as I am concerned. What is the goal of this? Do they want to end this thing as soon as possible or do they actually want people to play and enjoy themselves? The fact that someone thinks this is an improvement boggles my mind more than anything. In a time when all casinos are increasing starting stacks and improving structures and increasing the length of them you would think that Harrah's would jump on board. But instead GCP's newest addition THE JUICE takes out a black marker and decides to start having levels vanish. I really would like to know why. The structure for the main event is awesome and I really don't see what the problem would be w/ using that structure for all the events and just changing starting stacks and the time of the levels. Juice if you read this could you please answer this for me? Another point that is stupid it that the level for the mega satellites are the same blind levels and starting stacks, but they have a better structure. The 200/400 and 400/800 levels are still in those tourneys. Maybe I just don't get it, but I would really like for someone to attempt to make me understand it. Any takers out there?
Til next time,
Lata
5 years ago