Ok, yes the title was to entice you to read on…
Played in my first church basement style one time buy in tourney this weekend. This was weird but I did ok.
I arrived 1/2 hour before start time, got in line and made it to the registration table. You signed your name, then paid $50 for 5000 chips… for an additional $5 you received 5000 more (duh, who isn’t buying that)… so that was odd to start. Then they said they would pay positions equal to 10% of field… you got your chips and drew your seat… I drew… Table 1 Seat 1. Of course.
Now, there were 135 entrants so that means they should pay 13 places. They decided to pay 10.
Next, the announcement came that in stead of the standard blind structure, they were going to do the following: 100/200, 200/300, 300/400, 400/500, 500/1000 take a 20 minute break then color up.
So the tourney starts off and I’m doing ok, chip leader at my table at the end of the first break, with around 45 thousand in chips. Then they color up. All 1,000 and 5,000 chips now. If you have 1100 chips, you received 2,000. If you had 44100 you received 45,000. So I walked back to the table with 45,000.
The next round starts and they have been moving everyone that gets down a few people around. I am table 1 though and we ran with 8 up until just before the break. Now we are back to 8 and the tables are down to about 10. As the game progresses, we see 1000/2000, 2000/4000 and then 5000/10000 blinds over a 60 minute period and then another break. I had some good hands and some bad ones, one coin flip that sucked (A-Q suited against A-T off) and he caught the 10 on the river…. in general the players here sucked, they would bet in with anything higher than a Q and any two suited cards. Low pairs were popular. I won a blind showdown with a ten high… why he called I have no idea.
Ok, so second break happens, we are down to 30 players. I have 60,000 in chips, blinds are 10,000/20000 to start. Of course, I am BB right off the bat. Dealt crap and another player goes all in. I fold. Next hand, I’m SB and still have crap… another all in and I have to fold. Down to 30000 in chips and now second to last at the table. Two hands drift by with nothing then I have A-8 suited… seeing that I am in MP, with no callers in front… not knowing what else to do, I Shove it. I get 3 callers, of course, two of whom are all in also. The winner? Q-3.
So in retrospect, I don’t know that I would have pushed A-8 if I had any cushion at all, but I didn’t. I finished 29 out of 135, not a bad showing for my first real live event. Except it was weird being in the basement of a church…