Tournament play Played in a hold'em tournament in Westwood last night. Ed knew this kid Balus (sp?) who used to hang out with my cousin Fred. I don't know how they did it but they managed to find and cram a field of 32 into 2 bedroom apartment. 4 tables, $25 buy-in, 5 boxes of 400 clay chips. My first poker tournament.

Mostly current or recently graduated college kids. Quality players, exciting pots, good fun all around.

There's this one pot where I limped in pre-flop with 3/4 suited, and by 4th street I made my belly-buster straight but with 3 low clubs on board. There was only one other kid in with me, the chip leader at the time, and I made a slightly less than pot-sized bet of 200, hoping just to get called and not lose huge to a flush, he came over the top for another 500. My instinct told me that if he had a flush draw on the flop he would've raised, which he didn't. Took me a long time to call it, which I eventually did. Imagine his disappointment when he flipped over trip 9's against my straight. That pot put me in the lead for the first table.

Before we left the table I wanted to make a big score, and the same situation arised against Balus' brother Craig. I bluffed with an open ended straight draw on 4th street, representing a flush with 3 clubs on board. He took his time, talked and asked me this and asked me this and that, trying to pick up something, which I think should have been illegal. Well I wasn't sure if he picked up something from my attempted poker face or just felt like gambling, but he went all-in over the top and I folded my straight draw. He had Q/J suited. Had to hand it to him.

Well that beat put me in an extremely short stack against an extremely huge one at the next table. Went all in on several occasions without doubling up, but stole enough blind to keep myself afloat. The entire night I had to play a lot of small connectors, one of which I went all in on (2/3 suited), had the chip leader folded his A/J suited just before I showed him my bluff. Nice. Earned respect all around the table, couple that with a nicely slow-played big slicks, I thought I was starting to pick up some steam.

Then I caught pocket queens. Raised the big blind, the Asian kid from first table, a sucker whom I have been pushing around all night, just called. The flop came ace 10 8, no flush possibilites. I was on the button, and he checked. At this point I didn't think he had an ace and I feel like leaning on him was the best play (I also needed to double up in the worst way) since I didn't think he had the aces, at most a straight draw. He called. OH shit.

Whew, I was right. He had a pair of 10's against my queens. He also had the kings, so he has a 6/45 chance of beating me, pretty good odds for doubling up. Then of course, he caught the other 10 on 4th street. Fuck.

10th place out of 32, not bad for a first tournament. Still, getting outdrawn after playing my hand and reading his hand correctly hurts bad. Now I know how Phil Helmuth feels after being outdrawn by that Vietnamese guy Toto.