I don't have illusions that I'm going to win the main event of the World Series of Poker, but that doesn't mean I don't want to give it a shot. Unfortunately I don't have, nor do I ever foresee myself having, $10,000 that I am willing to plop down for my shot. So a while back I noticed that the Tulalip casino was hosting a $90 buy-in event on Saturdays where the top five finishers each week would advance to a tournament where the top prize is a $10,000 and $5,00o for travel and lodging. $90 I can do. So last weekend I made the trip up to Tulalip to play.
Now I haven't played in a live tournament since last July in Las Vegas, so I was mostly playing to get my fix; that itch that needs scratching. My goal going in was to play solid poker, not make any stupid mistakes and have fun. Five hours later things had changed.
Not having been to the tournament before, I headed out early to make sure I arrived with plenty of time. Nothing would have been worse than me having drove 45 minutes only to find out that the tournament had already filled. Once registered I decided to head to the coffee shop and have a nice, big breakfast before the tourney. Unfortunately the coffee shop, that according to the sign opens at 10:00AM, was closed at 10:10 and my only option was the Buffet.
Nature abhors a vacuum and I abhor buffets (except in Las Vegas).
When it comes to food, I am a quality over quantity kind of guy; I like my food made to order, not food that has been expecting and eagerly awaiting me (for the past hour). As I glanced around the Tulalip buffet, it appeared that many of my fellow patrons did not share my senitments, judging by the ample amounts of food they had ladled on their plates. To make things worse, they didn't even have an eggs station where I could order some eggs. The salad bar was woefully pathetic but suprisingly their pot stickers were digestible. Barely satiated, I returned to the poker room to begin play.
I can't remember the hands, but I know I never got aces, had Queens at least once and Kings once. I got lucky a couple of times and somehow found myself at the final table as one of the bigger stacks. When we got down to 7 (10 places paid), a chop was proposed that I agreed to. At this point, there was only one player who I was wary of. Luckily I had position on him and managed to bluff him off one hand that set me up to take it all. I sucked out while busting both the third and second place players. In the final hand, with about 500K of the 600K chips in play I raised on the button only to have my opponent go all in. Pot committed, I sheepishly turned over 7c9c to his AdAs. 6d-8-Qd flop, 5d on the turn and a black 2 on the river sealed the deal.
My first place finish is good for T5,000 in starting chips in the final tourney. Fingers crossed.
