Another one opens. Last night, as I touched on in the forum, I played in a little $10 buy in home-game style tournament at a local Army-Navy Garrison. Just as I was having doubts about my game, and thinking things like "Can I actually play this game anymore?" I go and turn in one of the most dominating performances I've ever seen in a tournament.
The structure there is a little strange--I was invited by my father-in-law, who is a member, and they start with T100k in chips, with 500/1000 blinds, and the blinds double each half-hour. There is a 3 1/2 hour time limit, so with a 7 pm start time, whomever leads in chips at 10:30 is declared the winner.
These guys have no idea about me (or at least they didn't), so I figure I go in there and play a little weak. It's a rotate-dealer game, all NL Holdem, so I make a couple mistakes dealing cards, recognizing whose action it is (to make me appear fishy), and play starts in earnest. I play the first 5 hands I'm dealt (all junk) and watch the other players take pretty much everything to showdown. Bluffing won't work here (as you'll see later), and if you're seeing the flop, if you want to win, you're showing your hand down. No problem. I'll adjust.
I start to accumulate chips and I'm up to about T130K when the first victim falls. He's played every hand so far, so when he limps in, I'm not shocked. I am shocked to see KK though. I raise (with 1k/2k blinds) to 10k and am actually surprised when he calls. The flop comes Jack-high, and he insta-pushes the flop. Reading him for weak, and maybe a set, but having him covered (he had about 50k left at the start of the hand), I call and he shows 22. My kings hold up and he's the first guy out. The first of many to fall at my hands.
To make a long story short, I had 6 at my initial table. I knocked out 4 of the other 5 when they moved players to make another 6-man table. I knocked out two players in the same hand when they pushed into my turned nut-flush, and two hands later, I knocked out two more players when my 87s flopped the nut straight. We were down to 2 at my table, and there were 5 left at the other table, so when the other table made it to 6, we combined to the final table.
I had almost T1.3 million when I went to the final table, my nearest competitor had about T200k. I actually had to use CAFETERIA TRAYS to carry my chips over to the final table. I drew ooohs and aaahs when I brought my tray over, and drew "Omigod"s when the TD brought over the SECOND full tray.
The only bump in the road that I hit was about 4 hands into the final table when I raised to 100k (being a big stack is awesome) with ATs UTG and the remaining big stack pushed over me with his remaining 180k. I called him and he showed (I kid you not) T7o.
We flopped a ten, he rivered the seven, so I doubled him up and he had life. We got to three handed with me having a significant lead (about T1.2 million to about T400k each for the other two), and soon enough, the other two ended up all-in. The T7 guy above flopped a straight, then pushed into a turned flush, so I was heads up.
Heads up went back and forth, and we decided to chop (after I ran card-dead for almost the entire heads up period and gave up the chip lead). Not too shabby, eh?
They figured out just before the final table that I was a pro...Here's the conversation:
Guy 1: "Oh, look at this show-off. All these chips...(sheepishly, kidding around)"
Guy 2: "Yeah, he's been either real lucky, or he's a ringer. Isn't he Bob's son-in-law?"
Guy 3: "Yeah. He's either lucky, or a pro."
Me: "Hmm. Who told you that?"
Guy 2: "Oh shit."
Me: *smiling ear-to-ear*
Shockingly, I was invited back weekly.
