Holdin’em In Vegas
The week before Christmas I took the wife to Vegas. It was our first trip there and I was looking forward to lots of gambling and hopefully some poker as well. By the end of our 2nd day my wife had drug me through the malls at the Monte Carlo, Caesars Palace and the Bellagio. I attempted to explain to her that I didn’t come to Vegas to walk through a bunch of malls when we had perfectly good malls back home, and…….well, we had a bit of a communications problem.
Fortunately for me, I discovered that our hotel, the Monte Carlo had daily $40 Texas Hold ‘em tournaments at 9:00am. It was worth every penny just to be able to sit down for awhile! It was also a great learning experience.
On my first day at the tables, Tuesday, the power went out thirty minutes before the tournament was supposed to start. A few minutes later the power was restored to part of the gaming floor, but the sports book and lobby area and half the slots stayed dark. So did the poker room! But poker doesn’t require a lot of electricity and they already had our registration fees, so we played by the emergency lighting. It was dark enough that the dealers had to read the cards to some of the players half the time. I evidently had Vegas jitters because I played hands I shouldn’t have and was busted out within 40 minutes. So of course I went back for more the next morning!
Wednesday went much better. Before the tourney I re-read Phil Hellmuth’s Texas Hold ‘em Tips book to see if I could pick up on some tidbit of strategy that might help me improve my play. Probably the one thing that helped was the simple maxim “supertight is right.”
I moved tables twice. A small contingent was there from Wisconsin and a Brett Favre look-alike was leading the witty banter. At one point he asked another player how much he had in chips, then laughed and folded and said “I saw that on TV.” Hardy-har-har. On a later hand he thought that the betting had ended for some reason and turned up a very nice pair of pocket Aces. Oops! The other players folded and he left a lot of money on the table. I asked him, “Did you see that on TV too?” Everyone laughed but him. I won a nice hand when I flopped a set of Jacks and eventually ended up on the final table! I was beginning to look for the sponsors in the crowd who would, of course, want to bankroll me. Unfortunately my supertight play and lack of good hands caused my chips to dwindle and I was forced all-in on the big blind with a pair of sevens. Four other players stayed in that hand, with two others all-in. They had pairs of 10’s and Kings. We all three got busted out by another player so I tied for sixth place. Unfortunately only the top three positions paid out but it was a great day!
On Thursday I lasted about an hour. Hey, on fourth street I had KKQQ - how was I to know the other guy flopped a flush? Yes, I know - I should have seen that one coming and bailed. Ya live, ya learn. Friday was a blur as I was out in 20 minutes. I can’t remember a single hand from that day. Next time I’ll take better notes!
Overall I felt pretty good about my play. These were my first live tournaments and tying for 6th in a field of 56 wasn’t too bad. I came home ready for more and will soon be entering some local tourneys and cranking up my online play. Wish me luck!
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