A detour on the drive back to LA

After a short night's sleep, I knew I had to make the drive to back to LA sometime that day but I also wanted to try out my new poker skills one more time. So headed to downtown Vegas, home of Binion's Horseshoe, the home of the World Series of Poker. I drove to Golden Nugget, where they have a daily morning tournament. I played in that tournament back in August and had finished 3rd. I wanted to see what would happen if applied my camp knowledge to my play.

It was busy that morning and there were 65 players, about 50% more than usual for a Monday morning. As I sat down, I tried to gauge my competition. Immediately I looked for people who were playing with any type of plan or used poker terminology. But mostly what I saw was a lot of callers and very loose play. For the first 2 hours, I probably played 3-4 hands total. As the blinds kept going up, I was trying to find times to possibly "steal" blinds but those times were few.

As reached the final two tables, I knew my time was coming to make a play. The first or second hand after the break, I went all-in with Ad5d and was called by 2 other short stacked players. We all turned over the cards and I saw a pair of nines and a pair of kings. The flop came K93 with two diamonds. So I had a nut flush draw while the nines were down to one out. A blank came on the turn and a diamond came on the river giving me the flush and the pot and new life in the tournament.

A few hands later, I had a situation that I thinked the camp prepared me for. We were down to 14 players, so everyone knew that the final table was a few players away. Players that were short stacked were very cautious and I knew a big raise in front of them would probably produce a fold. So, a player that I had played with the entire tournament, after much thought, went all in. Everyone folded to me, so I looked down and I saw A10 offsuit. I knew I probably had 2 over cards because I put him on a small pair. I knew if I called, the blinds would fold and it would be a race.

However, if I fold, I was stil in pretty good shape to make the final table and would have enough chips at this table to still play any hand. So after considering all the possibilities, I folded. The blinds folded so I did not see his hand at that time. He later told me he had a small pair. We ultimately both made the final table and while we busted out first and second, we did collect some money. I kept thinking about this hand but one poker writer emailed to me that he thought it was the right play because I did not have a strong enough hand to call a raise.

With another positive experience to fall back on, I drove off, leaving Vegas in my rearview mirror. I stopped off in Primm to have dinner with my grandmother, aunt and mom and also to take a quick nap before making the drive back.

So there went my poker weekend, I met some nice people, made some friends, and played and talked a lot of poker. While not the Sistine Chapel or snorkeling off Maui, it was very nice vacation.