Monday, March 14, 2005

Saturday we went for a game at a house that I found out about on poker forum. We had two tournament games, 1st was with 9 people, 2nd was with 12 people (when a couple friends arrived). This was the first real game I've been in outside of close friends - never played at a casino. My only real experience outside of close friends has been redhotpokertour (which has a lot of green players, and no prizes) and pokershowdown (once, finished 15/50), which aren't really the same.. The first game I didn't do well - dropped out quite early on a bad call (set vs straight - too focused on my own hand). The second game we had two tables going, and I was doing well at my table. I busted pocket aces with middle suited connectors (got the straight, 1 card from the straight flush!), which was pretty sweet. I had a couple of ups and downs, but was in good standing chip-wise when we merged tables (up a bit over the avg). I played steady, though mixing in some different styles to ensure I wasn't too predictable...I busted 4 of the 9 people out (somewhere around 4)....by that point I had probably double the total of everyone else! I was trying my best to make sure I didn't make any mistakes and drop bad hands..which I didn't. Running on a couple hours of sleep from the night before (then looked at new places all day) had me actually quite focused (and not much drinking, as I was driving). Yes.....I won the tourney! It was a sweet win - probably 3-4 hours long...and against some very good players! I chalk this one up to the right cards at the right time, mixed playing styles, reasonable reads (not always, but enough), not much booze, and generally a bit of luck!

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