"I'm Trying to Save You From a Penalty!"

I finally got a chance to play in a tournament I've been looking forward to playing in for a long time last month. 

Back in July, 2016, the Venetian made some changes in their regular tournament schedule and changed the Saturday Noon tournament.  I was intrigued by this tournament as soon as I saw the structure sheet for it.

It's called the Doublestack and players start with a nice stack of 24K.  The levels are 40-minutes.  There's a $25K prize pool guarantee. And there's actually a 45-minute dinner break after the 9th level.

You readers must know how much I appreciate the fact that it had a dinner break.  For that reason alone, I wanted to try it.

The only issue was the buy-in.  It's $340.  That's a bit more than I'd like the pay for a regular tournament.  But I knew I had to try it at least once.

But because of medical issues, I was MIA for the rest of the year, until my Xmas trip.  And when I was there for the holidays, the Venetian had a special tournament series going for the occasion, so I couldn't try it then.

April was actually my first chance to give it a shot.  So on my first full day in town—which also happened to be birthday—I did indeed give it a shot.

My birthday wasn't the only big celebration going on.  It was also the day of David Wang's Bachelor Party.  

Anyway, I have to say that I was really impressed with the tournament.  I could easily get spoiled with the 40-minute levels. It's a wonderful thing. That, and the huge stack you start with, sure gives you a lot of play.  If you're a tournament player and that price is in your range, you should definitely consider giving this one a try.

Now, I have to say, the first weekend I was in town, Vegas was dead. The excuse given was that this was too close to April 15 when everyone's taxes are due.  I'm usually in Vegas on or around my birthday and although it is a slow time for Vegas, I don't ever recall it being quite this dead.  You could actually drive on the Strip on this weekend if you wanted to (I didn't).  Perhaps people are staying away because of parking fees?  BTW, the Venetian still offers free parking.

So, there were only 30 or so players when the tournament started.  That would have resulted in a huge overlay.  Of course there were six levels of entry and re-entry and they came pretty damn close to making the guarantee.  The final total was 80 players so they did have a $2,600 overlay.

There were a few interesting brouhahas early in the tournament while I was still at my original table. A new player came in, still late in the first level.  He had only been dealt a few hands when the small blind got to him. A guy on the other side of the table from him raised to $250 (the blinds were 50/100).  But this new guy didn't see the raise.  He put out two more green chips to call $100.  The dealer quickly explained that there had been a raise and pointed to the raiser's bet. So the guy said OK and took back all his chips and mucked his cards!  Or at least he tried to but the dealer didn't put them into the muck just yet.  She let them stay in front of him.

The dealer said he couldn't take back his bet, he had to leave the $100 out there.  "What are you talking about?  I didn't know there was a raise. You didn't say 'raise.'"

The dealer insisted he was responsible for the $100 and then called the floor.  The floor said that he had two options.  Muck his hand and forfeit the $100, or take his hand back and call the $250.  He was quite upset but he accepted the floor's decision.  He ended up forfeiting the hundred. Oh and yes, it was mentioned by a player that even if he been allowed to take back his call, he was still of course obligated for the $50 small blind.

After the floor left, the guy said he'd never seen that before. We discussed it.  I said that usually, at least in a cash game, they let you take back the bet if you don't see the raise.  At least that's been my experience.  I have seen it the other way a few times...where you're stuck for the extra money.  But in a cash game it's only a buck or two so no big deal.  I can't recall the hard line taken in tournaments for that matter....I just can't remember.  I'd have to guess that I've seen people allowed to take back money though.  But this house, they are apparently hard line on the rules.  As long as they are consistent, I think it's fine.

Then there was a very disgruntled guy who came to our table and apparently this was already his second or perhaps third buy-in (he showed up during the second or third level).  He spent the entire time bitching and moaning about some supposedly horrific bad beat he took to bust out.  A guy made a call he never should have made and caught his card—you know the story.  The thing was, he tried to explain it to us (not that anyone asked) and it didn't sound like a bad call to me.  But I probably just didn't hear the explanation properly.

Anyway, he was across the table from the guy in seat 1—who actually won the previous day's tournament.  In a hand I don't think the disgruntled guy was in, a flop came and there was a bet.  When the action came to Seat 1, he said something like "I played this all wrong....look at this." And he held up his cards so that only Seat 2, who had folded preflop, saw them.  I was in Seat 3 and could almost see them, but not quite (I too had folded preflop).  And then he mucked his hand. 

The disgruntled guy went nuts.  "You can't do that!  You cannot do that!  Don't show your cards!  You're not allowed to do that."  Seat 1 was taken aback but he said, "Sorry, ok, I won't do it again."

Now, I've played a lot of poker.  I've seen this happen a lot, the player shows his hand before folding to a player who is already out.  Sometimes it's an accident, sometimes it's hard to tell and sometimes it's clearly on purpose.  And yes, sometimes it has annoyed me that I didn't get to see the hand.  But I'd never  seen anyone complain about it before. And this guy was making a federal case out of it.          

That should have been the end of it but the disgruntled guy wouldn't let it go.  "I'm trying to save you from a penalty.  You could get a penalty for that.  I'm trying to help you."  But it wasn't exactly a friendly, avuncular tone he used. It was hostile.  He kept badgering him.

Seat 2 got pissed.  "What do you want from me?  I folded, I said I wasn't going to do it again."  The grouch said, "Well, I'm trying to save you from a penalty.  You should be grateful to me."

It go to the point where the dealer said, "OK, that's enough.  Let me call the floor."  The floor came over quickly.  He agreed with the disgruntled guy that it was wrong to show his hand like that.  He said that the first time, it's just a warning.  So he gave the guy a warning.  Next time there will be a one- round penalty But he also said that what the dealer is supposed to do is put the guy's mucked cards aside, and then after the hand is over show everyone the hand.  Makes sense.  I've just never seen that before.  I had to admit the disgruntled guy was right.  He was just incredibly obnoxious about it.

And there was a funny incident involving me.  I wanted to raise to $500 preflop.  Well aware of the single chip rule, I grabbed a $500 chip and said raise so it wasn't seen as just a call of the big blind.  I had already seen a few times dealers not hear players say raise and think it was a call in that situation.  The bachelor party tournament was getting started behind us and there was some noise from that, plus general casino/poker room noise.  So I took the chip, held it up in front of my face, and said, rather loudly, "Raise!"  Then I placed the chip out in front of me.

The player two to my left said, "Wow, that was a really loud 'raise.'  What is that?  Is that information about your hand?"  I laughed and said that I was just trying to make my action clear since I was using a single chip.  Another guy at the table actually said that too—that I was trying to be clear in my bet.  But I decided to have some fun.  So I added, "actually, yes....I've got quads."  That got a laugh, but not as big as the laugh the dealer got we she said, "Floor!"  But there was a smile on her face and she did immediately add, "just kidding."

Of course before the tournament started they had announced the rules and had emphasized that players were not allowed to talk about their hands.  And we had already seen how strict they were in enforcing the rule regarding not taking chips back when there was a raise that a player hadn't noticed.  Technically, I had violated the rule about talking about my hand!

The dealer was just joking but the floor actually heard her and came over. So even though she didn't think there was a problem with what I had said, she now had to explain to the floor what happened.  Naturally she made it clear that it was preflop and I was obviously joking. The floor said ok and moved along.  One of the players joked, "one-round penalty!"  You know, I did purposely say a hand I couldn't possibly have there.  If I had said, "I have Aces," I would have gotten in trouble (I actually had Ace-King). 

Well that's all for now.  I guess I will discuss some poker hands from this tourney at a future date.  Hint:  Pocket Kings played a key role.  That's not really a spoiler though because half the posts on this blog have the label "dreaded pocket Kings."  But I'm not sure if I'll get back to this tournament in my next post or do something else.  So I'm not calling this a part 1. Hopefully this post can stand on its own.