Tournament Report - Waterloo - Sat. Aug 7th
My roommate, Tye, had told me a while back about a $50 buy-in game hosted by a friend of his. He wasn't too keen on the format, but mentioned that he'd tell me about any in the future if I wanted to try.
Fast forward a few months and the next one was this past Saturday. I wasn't too fond of the format (and, as you'll read, it got worse as the time went on..) but I was itching to try out some learned lessons against all new people, so I opted to go.
The Format: $50 buy-in, unlimited re-buys, $2,500 in chips. Blinds started at 25/50 and doubled every hour, on the hour. (Working that out in my head if you expect the tournamnet to end approx. when the BB=buy-in, the tournament was scheduled to last 6-7 hours) Oh, yeah.. did I mention that the unlimited re-buys were good for the first three hours?!? (Though, to me, it seemed worthless to re-buy in the third hour as the BB was $200)
Even more annoying were the chip values. If you guys thought mine were a tad off, you'd love this.. white: 25, red: 50, blue: 75, black: 100. Continually posting blinds and betting at the 200-400 level was really fun for me at one point where I had nothing but blue chips. Argh. There was another part of this that was wonderful, but I'll save that for later in the report.
As we were getting ready to deal, the tournament host came in and asked what we thought the payouts should be. I asked how many people we had, he said "16 or 17" and so I replied that a 4 person payout sounds fair. He went into the other room... (aside: the tournament was split into 2 tables of ~8, my table was in the garage because the smokers wanted to be able to smoke, but I don't). ...and came back a few moments later saying that everyone inside wanted to only pay Top 3: 50/30/20. Remember that it was the tournment host that finally decided to pay top 3. (That's right kids.. fore-shadowing!!)
So, I sat down with my $2,500 and tried to figure out how I wanted to play. In the first rotation there was not a single hand that was shown down. This table was going to be tight. It finally began to loosen as we continually heard, from the other room, people busting out and rebuying. I decided I wanted to present a safe/rock image (which felt the best in a room full of people I didn't know)
By the third rotation (blinds still at 25-50) I picked up AA on cutoff. UTG bet out 300 (which, at that point in the tournament, was one of the largest raises we seen.) I raised to 1,000 and everyone folded. To begin the image of a rock, I decided to show the Aces.
The player to my right immediately pipes up with, "Woa! You don't want to slow play those, man?" (Did I mentioned that a few minutes earlier he had left the garage and the unmistakeable aroma of pot came rushing in?)
I looked at him and said something like, "Are you kidding? Aces are one of the most dangerous hands you can play after the flop. You have to make sure you take pots with big raises when you have good cards." I swear it was this hand and comment that got my raises respect for the next 2-3 hours.
In fact, here's one hand where it was used well; I was on the BB with KTo. 4 Players call to me and I check. The flop comes KTx with two hearts. Everyone checks the flop and a hearts falls on the turn. The SB immediately bets out 750. The SB was a good player and I figured if he had something REALLY good, he would have slow played the high flush. So, I went over the top all in (for a good chunk of change on a semi-bluff, the King was a heart so I figured my outs were any heart, or any K or J), and he went into the tank.
Finally he said, "I can't believe you made the higher flush" and laid it down. He said (though he could have been lying) that he had a flush but with two weak cards. I let him know he made a good lay down and got a nice sized pot out of the deal.
The rest of the first few hours were uneventful. My roomate, Tye, busted out after too aggressively playing middle pair one hand, and the table slowly lost players. No one in our table rebought, but everyone inside apparently rebought *at least* once. It was going to be interesting once we collapsed into a final table (at nine players) as there was more than double the number of chips on their tables vs. ours.
Finally, we had two EXTREMELY short stacks and looked to be close to a merge. With my stack being average I was really hoping for a good double-up before we merged. And it came! Once again, I looked down to see AA and I limped in. The person to my right and left were the only two in the hand and there was some good action on both their parts, which I was happy to call.
There was nothing dangerous on the Board and when the turn came, the person to my right bet out, and I made a very weak raise. The player to my left folded and the only player left re-raised me (sensing weakness! After all, if I had something good, I would have made a really strong raise!) I was worried that he had two pair, but I re-re-raised all in. He called and showed top pair, weak kicker and the river helped no one, giving me a nice chipstack going into the final table.
So, up until this point, the game was going well. I survived the re-buy period with an above average stack (~8,000 at that point?), the players were decent, even though some were stoned and/or drunk, and everyone was really nice. The blinds *at that point* weren't too bad as there was still a lot of play left in the chips.
Then the tables merged.
The first thing I noticed was the mass of chips on the table. Several players needed multiple racks to hold their extra chips. Blinds were at 300-600. (oh, yeah, the group, on a whim decided not to double the blinds this round but instead move from 200-400 to 300-600, but it did make it easier to use the 75 chips.) With no possibility of bets not being a multiple of 100, I begged the host to colour up to something more playable. If you think about there, there were almost $60,000 in chips at the table made up of nothing but 25,50,75,100. In total each player recieved 50 chips to start the game which meant, after rebuys there were One Thousand, One Hundred and Fifty individual chips on the table.
Unfortunately, the tournament host was wasted and decided we'd keep playing with our chips. The tournament host was also one of the nine players remaining on the final table.
We redrew seats and as I sat down I was getting the odd feeling that there was a lot of pissed off people sitting down. The first hand was dealt...
TO BE CONTINUED!
Fast forward a few months and the next one was this past Saturday. I wasn't too fond of the format (and, as you'll read, it got worse as the time went on..) but I was itching to try out some learned lessons against all new people, so I opted to go.
The Format: $50 buy-in, unlimited re-buys, $2,500 in chips. Blinds started at 25/50 and doubled every hour, on the hour. (Working that out in my head if you expect the tournamnet to end approx. when the BB=buy-in, the tournament was scheduled to last 6-7 hours) Oh, yeah.. did I mention that the unlimited re-buys were good for the first three hours?!? (Though, to me, it seemed worthless to re-buy in the third hour as the BB was $200)
Even more annoying were the chip values. If you guys thought mine were a tad off, you'd love this.. white: 25, red: 50, blue: 75, black: 100. Continually posting blinds and betting at the 200-400 level was really fun for me at one point where I had nothing but blue chips. Argh. There was another part of this that was wonderful, but I'll save that for later in the report.
As we were getting ready to deal, the tournament host came in and asked what we thought the payouts should be. I asked how many people we had, he said "16 or 17" and so I replied that a 4 person payout sounds fair. He went into the other room... (aside: the tournament was split into 2 tables of ~8, my table was in the garage because the smokers wanted to be able to smoke, but I don't). ...and came back a few moments later saying that everyone inside wanted to only pay Top 3: 50/30/20. Remember that it was the tournment host that finally decided to pay top 3. (That's right kids.. fore-shadowing!!)
So, I sat down with my $2,500 and tried to figure out how I wanted to play. In the first rotation there was not a single hand that was shown down. This table was going to be tight. It finally began to loosen as we continually heard, from the other room, people busting out and rebuying. I decided I wanted to present a safe/rock image (which felt the best in a room full of people I didn't know)
By the third rotation (blinds still at 25-50) I picked up AA on cutoff. UTG bet out 300 (which, at that point in the tournament, was one of the largest raises we seen.) I raised to 1,000 and everyone folded. To begin the image of a rock, I decided to show the Aces.
The player to my right immediately pipes up with, "Woa! You don't want to slow play those, man?" (Did I mentioned that a few minutes earlier he had left the garage and the unmistakeable aroma of pot came rushing in?)
I looked at him and said something like, "Are you kidding? Aces are one of the most dangerous hands you can play after the flop. You have to make sure you take pots with big raises when you have good cards." I swear it was this hand and comment that got my raises respect for the next 2-3 hours.
In fact, here's one hand where it was used well; I was on the BB with KTo. 4 Players call to me and I check. The flop comes KTx with two hearts. Everyone checks the flop and a hearts falls on the turn. The SB immediately bets out 750. The SB was a good player and I figured if he had something REALLY good, he would have slow played the high flush. So, I went over the top all in (for a good chunk of change on a semi-bluff, the King was a heart so I figured my outs were any heart, or any K or J), and he went into the tank.
Finally he said, "I can't believe you made the higher flush" and laid it down. He said (though he could have been lying) that he had a flush but with two weak cards. I let him know he made a good lay down and got a nice sized pot out of the deal.
The rest of the first few hours were uneventful. My roomate, Tye, busted out after too aggressively playing middle pair one hand, and the table slowly lost players. No one in our table rebought, but everyone inside apparently rebought *at least* once. It was going to be interesting once we collapsed into a final table (at nine players) as there was more than double the number of chips on their tables vs. ours.
Finally, we had two EXTREMELY short stacks and looked to be close to a merge. With my stack being average I was really hoping for a good double-up before we merged. And it came! Once again, I looked down to see AA and I limped in. The person to my right and left were the only two in the hand and there was some good action on both their parts, which I was happy to call.
There was nothing dangerous on the Board and when the turn came, the person to my right bet out, and I made a very weak raise. The player to my left folded and the only player left re-raised me (sensing weakness! After all, if I had something good, I would have made a really strong raise!) I was worried that he had two pair, but I re-re-raised all in. He called and showed top pair, weak kicker and the river helped no one, giving me a nice chipstack going into the final table.
So, up until this point, the game was going well. I survived the re-buy period with an above average stack (~8,000 at that point?), the players were decent, even though some were stoned and/or drunk, and everyone was really nice. The blinds *at that point* weren't too bad as there was still a lot of play left in the chips.
Then the tables merged.
The first thing I noticed was the mass of chips on the table. Several players needed multiple racks to hold their extra chips. Blinds were at 300-600. (oh, yeah, the group, on a whim decided not to double the blinds this round but instead move from 200-400 to 300-600, but it did make it easier to use the 75 chips.) With no possibility of bets not being a multiple of 100, I begged the host to colour up to something more playable. If you think about there, there were almost $60,000 in chips at the table made up of nothing but 25,50,75,100. In total each player recieved 50 chips to start the game which meant, after rebuys there were One Thousand, One Hundred and Fifty individual chips on the table.
Unfortunately, the tournament host was wasted and decided we'd keep playing with our chips. The tournament host was also one of the nine players remaining on the final table.
We redrew seats and as I sat down I was getting the odd feeling that there was a lot of pissed off people sitting down. The first hand was dealt...
TO BE CONTINUED!
Comments
And, as he sat there, talking to himself, several people who had been at his table earlier were saying things like, "Just make up your mind, ok?" or "For crying out loud, just go all-in, would you?"
Ah ha!! This is why I was getting a pissed off vibe. It was super-drunk-tourney-host and his amazing powers to piss everyone off. Imagine sitting at a table with someone who must continually ask how much the blinds are; how much it would take to stay in; etc, etc. and watch him spend at least a minute, EVEN when it would come to folding 49o. (Yes. I saw him do this once because of a habit he picked up later.. read on!)
By the second hand a small side game had started up and SEVERAL players at our table mentioned a strong desire to be playing there. My strategy immediately went into survival mode and I believed that I could outlast people by remaining calm and not doing anything stupid to "end the pain" -- though it was tempting!
Case in point. Third hand comes up, super-drunk-tourney-host, takes another minute or two to fold an unplayable hand and preflop we get three people all in, with most of the saying "I can't take this anymore". The cards turned over were KT, K8 and A3. All *ahem* worthy all-in hands at a 9 player table. A ten came and the player to my right (same as before) collect 6 trays of chips. That's right, he had 600+ chips sitting in front of him.
We were down to 7 and a couple hands later another two people went all-in with junk hands and we were down to 6. This was both pathetic and beautiful at the same time. The guy was an ass, but he was putting the entire table on tilt!!!
Finally, at some point the superdrunktourneyhost found himself all-in against a hand that was dominating him.... until a miracle card hit the river and doubled him up.
I had mixed emotions. I really, really, wanted him gone, but his presence really was putting the entire table on tilt - no one was playing good. There were several times that I wanted to stand up and punch him in the face myself, but then I'd sit back, relax and say to myself, "everyone else is feeling this way too. Calm down, let them tilt and I'll win".
Down to 5, there was one extremely short stack and he was soon gone leaving four of us; The player to my right, (who had been the player to my right all night), another guy to my left, and the ultrasuperpartydrunktourneyhost sitting directly across from me. Did I mentioned that he also didn't stop drinking at the final table. Continual beer. Continual "enjoyment".
I took a quick look at chip stacks and realized that I along with the host were the two short stacks. The players, to my right and left, between them had a good 3/4's of the chips and the horrible thought of me busting out on the bubble went through my head. I couldn't stand the lost of losing to this guy.
The bubble was hell to burst. Not only was there a drunk player taking hours to make any type of choice, but the blinds were so small that there was no incentive to risk chips. The difference between 4th and 3rd was $0 vs $210 so play became very, very tight for the next hour.
I started off playing scared; taking no chances and slowly getting chipped to death. Blinds rose to 600-1200 and I looked down and realized that I had maybe 5 or 6 BB's in front of me. The ultrasuperdrunktourneyhost had me covered and I saw the beginning of the end for me. I realized that in order to place in the money I had to change gears.
I decided that I had to play a little more agressive as I need the blinds to stay alive and, since I had been folding alot, raises were once again being respected. One VERY well timed bluff, earned me a good chunk of change and over the course of a half hour, I had clawed and scraped myself above the host in terms of chip count.
At this point something else was happening... the host was taking longer and longer to make decisions and was playing with his cards "like the pros on the WPT", flipped them end over end, sliding one under another, with the unintentional side effect of showing me exactley what he had. So, up until the bubble burst, I always knew what he held. (Which was good when I laid down AQ to his AK, after he re-raised me once all-in.)
The bubble burst... finally. Action folds around to the host who's on the SB. (Blinds of 600-1200). I kid you know when I say that he went into the tank for 3 minutes to decided if we wanted to call this specific hand. (And no less than three times did he ask how much he needed to put in to stay) As he was doing this, I saw that he held pocket 2's. He couldn't even count the 600 chip needed to call and needed help getting the chips together.
After an eternity, he FINALLY called, and the BB immediately went all-in. I was REALLY hoping for a higher pocket pair, but no luck. The BB was on tilt and raised all in with "Big Lick" - 69o. The host called and made fun of the BB for moving all in with crap.
A 9 fell on the turn and the host was GONE!!!!!!! And man was he pissed. The final action was continually punctutated with "Six. Nine. F'n off suit. You piece of sh!t went all in with f'n 69. Are you stupid? I lost because some idiot went all in with trash".
At that point I wanted to stand up and say. "No. You lost because you got yourself comepltely trashed ruining the enjoyment of everyone at your tournament. You were an embarrasement to everyone here and you deserved to bust out on the bubble. Perhaps, had you been able to stand, count chips, speak english or many of the other skills that relatively sober people have, you'd be in the money."
Of course, I kept my mouth shut caused I was guaranteed at least $200 and wanted to get the game over with ASAP. (At this point it was approaching 1:30am)
As this point, I had built myself up to $10,000 but was still short of the other players. The game got MUCH more enjoyable after the bubble burst and play got much more loose and friendly.
My end came when I flopped a double-ended straight draw and went all-in against middle pair. No hope for me meant I was out in third with a respectable $210.
I took over the tournament at that point, colouring up the remaining two players, raised the blinds to 1000-2000 and dealt the remainder of the game. During heads up the superfunultradrunkbuddytourneyhost went out on his back porch, slammed the screen door shut and we heard glass smashing soon after.
It was a sad and pathetic display and he should be embarrased at his actions.
All in all, it was an interesting experience. Looking back on my report it was less about how I played specific hands and more on how I played specific people which I guess is the lesson I took away from the night. I wasn't fond of the structure (or the ability of the host) but in the end it was an experience.
Seriously though, if you're offering to host, have the common decency not to make an ass of yourself. Make decisions on the format ahead of time and be prepared!
It is sooooo true. You have to be prepared. Ask the questions before the night of.
I have hosted tourneys as well. It is always in your best interest to have everything mapped out before everyone arrives.
Question Zithal
When you colored up for the final 2 players, were there other colors available? Or did you reuse the lower denominations?
Is it okay to use the lower denomination over again when different colors are unavailable?
Glad you suffered thru the night. Congrats on your placing.
I had an experience that was not nearly as bad as this, but it still put me off. I'm trying to make a long story short, but a friend who had been at one my home games invited me to one of his. He asked for the blinds schedule and links on the net about running a tournament. When I showed up he had abandoned all of that and was running it by making it up as he went along, in a way that suited him best in the game. It was very badly organized, and had I known the structure (or lack thereof) I would never have gone. He basically dragged it on forever, with the blinds increasing about once an hour after a lot of prodding from myself (i.e. after two hours we were still at 15/30!!!) and after hours and hours, with no end in sight I finally just said "fuck it" and started being overly aggressive with the idea that I would either get lucky and win or finally get out of there. I don't regret how I played, because I really just wanted to get the hell out of there even if it meant losing.
I learned a lesson though. If the game isn't what I agreed to and it's not something I'm into, I won't stick around next time.
The tournament you describled is *clearly* on the opposite end of the spectrum in this respect, but a lot of the flaws in tournament organization you have spotted here often pop up (if you're lucky, only a couple per tournament) at most typical home tournaments.
It's a fine balancing act with players who are ultra-dead money yet insanely irritating, no?
ScottyZ
oh well after killing the guy i'm sure you would have found a decent hold'em game in prison
chugs
That being said I generally try to play in every tourney I can make...lol.
Here's to beating our heads against the WALL!!!!
Jamie.
I had to do this for some of my earliest tournaments, but I definately wouldn't do it again now that I have the chips.
For example, the white "1" chips would become the "100" value chips later in the tournament. I didn't like this because, while I don't think any of my players would cheat, it seemed to easy to pocket a small 1 chip which would then later become a much higher value chip. Or even worse, a white chip is found on the floor after colour up. Was this chip dropped before or after it's value changed? I got complaints from the players too, which is another reason why I stopped doing it.
Now if I can just eliminated the non-standard chip colours from my collection.
I think a better choice is to work within your means and use the chips you have, reducing the starting chips and blinds if needed. While it's less glamourous to start with 100 chips and blinds at 1-2, sometimes that's all you have.
I wasn't so much angry and annoyed. What got me into the money was that I was able to control those emotions and not fall victem to them like the first four players who dropped out of the final table did.
I was one of the short stacks going into the final nine and it would have been a much different outcome if the drunk host hadn't have been there.
stp
Glad your tournament was the extreme opposite of this one.