Aces Players Club Turbo (5,000 chips, 1 re-buy)

I didn’t keep notes on this tournament, although I really should have.

Started off at table 2. This being a late-night turbo game, there were multiple all-ins from the beginning. I tried to stay out of it for the most part but got tangled up in a hand with (if I remember correctly) a good pair after losing several raises and ended up re-buying.

I moved to newly-constituted table 4 immediately upon buying back in, sitting in seat 9. There were a couple of young what-seemed-to-be-foreign-students in 6 and 7. Then a dapper guy with a lot of chips was moved into 8 and my cards hit a cold spell. Fortunately for me, he was moved again within a few minutes. Seat 6 was on a bit of a tear, but not a good one for him as he ended up felted not long after 8 was moved away. He re-bought but before he could play a hand the tournament director informed him that he’d already re-bought and the late-night turbo (in the interests of shutting down before dawn) doesn’t allow more than one.So a dead stack was placed next to his friend, who seemed very unsure of himself. It was just then that I caught a great run of cards, the blinds started reaching the dead stack, then the unsure foreign guy, then me, and within four hands unsure foreign guy’s stack (which he’d just replenished with a re-buy) was in front of me, along with a lot of chips from elsewhere on the table. We hit the break, played a few more hands, and then the table broke and I moved to table 1 seat 9.

This table is sort of like a blur at this point. I had one of the bigger stacks at the table and just slowly grew things. Mr. Loud was seated in 6, across from me again, yammering on about how I was going to double up his chip stack. He almost seemed to lick his lips when I went to showdown holding [3s 4s] on a flush draw with a player from the other end of the table for about 5K. He and a loud guy who’s a regular seated in 4 were harassing seat 1, who was partially blind. When seat 4 asked him what he thought he was doing at one point, he mentioned he had a hard time seeing, got a quick apology, then the harassment continued. He was busted not long after and left with a sarcastic “Thanks for making the evening fun.” The pair focused their attention on me at one point, when Mr. Loud called me “son” and I said that I was probably a good bit older than he was. Loud, Jr. started in about how Loud had seen way more hands than I ever had (probably true). The bravado was pretty ludicrous considering that my stack was several times larger.It’s not the quantity of the hands that counts.

By the final table, when I just moved to seat 7, I had about 60K in chips. Seat 6 was a guy from Alaska who’d been the big stack when he was next to me at table 3, where he’d started a long discussion/argument when one of the guys he’d knocked out refused to shake his hand. Most of the table (loudly) endorsed the non-shaking position. By the final table, Alaska was on the ropes and a bit down from his cheerful demeanor a couple of hours earlier. He was out in ninth place not long after the table voted to pay all nine. I picked a couple of prime spots and kept building. The turning point was probably a hand in which Mr. Loud (now seated in 9) was involved. He’d doubled up a couple of times, the blinds were 5K/10K, I had about 90K, I think, and was on the BB. My hand was [ah 6h], there was a raise from down the table to 20K, I called, Loud called, and the flop was something like [4x 7x 8x], rainbow suits. I believe it got checked around to Loud, who went all-in for 28K. The guy from down the table folded, but I had enough chips to make the call and leave me with 40K or so. He flipped something like [jx tx], a [qx] hit the turn, then [2x] for the river and my ace-high took the pot, much to the consternation of Loud and his railers, not to mention the folder, who I overheard telling one of his friends that he’d have hit a hand if he could have called the raise. Over my shoulder, I heard cries of “He wasn’t supposed to call me!” but with 60K in the pot pre-flop, I wasn’t letting go of the ace or the straight draw.

I was sitting on a stack of 195,000 by the time we got to three-handed play: 78% of the chips in play. Not quite the disparity I’d had in my last tournament, but then there were only 35 players in this game. I honestly don’t remember the last hand. I think it might have been [kx qx]. I called UTG’s all-in from SB, BB called, with exactly the same number of chips in his stack as UTG, and when the cards were out I’d knocked both of them out so they split the pot and I took home first place again.

I wish I knew what I was doing right.

261% ROI on the evening, above entry fee, buy-ins, dealer tip and (ugh) Diet Pepsi.