Nov 16
Update: Cardplayer updated the results page for that tournament. Click on my name – Player of the Year points, baby! Geez, look at the past results of the other people I was playing against. Almost all of them placed well in other tournaments. Apparently when they asked on the bio sheet for ‘major poker accomplishments’ they weren’t kidding (like I thought they were). If I knew that I wouldn’t have made the tournament director read out loud, “Well one time… when he was playing online…”. Weird, I wouldn’t have guessed that any of them were serious card players.
The final table had photographers and reporters taking notes. Matt found where they were reporting the event. Check out the final table coverage over at poker pages. I got my picture taken too.
I went into the final table with a lot of confidence, but I apparently forgot to bring the luck. I went completely card dead after the second hand of the table. I raised under the gun with AQ of diamonds and stole the blinds and antes, but those would be the last real cards I saw for a while.
With the blinds at 3000-6000 with a 1000 chip ante, I was paying 17000 chips for every orbit of blinds. My starting 66,000 chips was good for fourth place, but as I folded my garbage and watched the bigger stacks grow bigger I eventually realized that just by folding, and without making any mistakes, I had just lost over 30% of my chips. I decided that if I wanted any shot of winning the event I would have to start making moves, with cards or without. Pretty soon it would get to the point where I wouldn’t even have enough chips to make a serious raise. While I still had a decent stack (around 48k) and the blinds at 3000-6000 I waited until the big blind was in the hand of the old lady whose blinds I had been stealing all day long yesterday. She is a super conservative player and would only call with a premium hand. I checked my cards to find an unimpressive Jack 5 offsuit, but at that point I didn’t expect any better, and opened for a raise up to 20,000. The action folded around to the lady, and to my great dismay she pushed the rest of her chips in. When the chips were counted I was told that it would be 16,000 more to call. Now, I really don’t like my hand, but I DID pay attention in my math classes. Playing 8-handed there was 17,000 in chips already in the pot before my raise. I threw in another 20,000, and she put in another 30,000. So with all that together the pot was holding nearly 70,000 chips and it would only cost me 16,000 to call. As long as she wasn’t sitting on an over pair, my 4-1 odds were impossible to get away from. I threw in the rest of the chips and sheepishly flipped over my cards. The lady was holding a pair of 9s and my jack high never improved.
Down to around 10k in chips I was effectively in a race the player next to me, also sitting on about 10k. With the blinds fast approaching the guy did what he had to and went all-in (I was fortunate in that his relative position meant that he would be blinded out before I would). This is an obvious place where you should fold any two cards and move up in the money. Just for kicks I checked my cards and was astounded to see two beautiful aces – the very first time in two days that I had even been dealt them. Despite the chance of moving up a spot (worth a cool grand), you can’t toss those cards – and so I went all-in as well. I ended up winning the hand and more than trippling up, because of the antes.
I folded for a little while after that hand, but my cards went back to the garbage from whence they came. With that lone exception, I didn’t see a single ace or any king with a kicker higher than 4. When it came to my small blind the action was folded around to me and so I just pushed all my chips into the middle. The big blind was pissed that I was trying to steal his blinds and remarked, “I’m calling you with any ace.” He shook his head in disgust as he showed me his 4 6 offsuit and mucked. I quietly mucked my cards, the 2 and 3 of diamonds! I was tempted to show, but I had already been forced to play my jack high and didn’t want to lose whatever respect the other players still gave me. In retrospect I should have folded face up just to be a bitch. It would have been good for a laugh I’m sure – from everybody BUT the guy at least.
A lot of players kept going all in, but every time they were called, the short stack would win and double up. This happened at least six times in front of me, but nobody would be eliminated. Instead of cruising my way into the top 4 as the all-ins should have allowed, I was forced to actually pick up cards to win. I quickly gave up on the idea of trying to move up in the money and focused instead on making moves. I wasn’t going to allow myself to be blinded out so when the button came to me I looked down to pocket 6s – outside of the aces it was my best hand of the day – and went all in for 30k straight. I only needed to fade the blinds but as my luck was running today, the small blind woke up to pocket jacks.
7th place – $4,749
I’m disappointed with the results today but with the blinds that high there was nothing I could do but try to make something happen. Since the cards weren’t cooperating I had no choice but take matters into my own hands. I take a little bit of comfort in the general acceptance of the players and spectators that my cards were total crap. As they wrote on Poker Pages – “Jason Alt who just didn’t have any luck today does get $4,749 for coming 7th in this event.”
7 of 408 is still pretty good, though. Maybe I’ll do better next time.
I decided against getting paid out in cash, but I still took some pictures with the check. We can only imagine how sweet the pictures would have been of me and the ring.
