Santa Claus Came Early This Year

Golden Nugget $150 Tournament, Part 3

As we pick up the story (see here for part 2 and here for part 1), I had survived through dinner and the redraw when we reached 27 players.  Now we were down to 26, maybe 25.  I guess we were going hand-for-hand at this point.  Despite my dislike of the min-cash, I couldn’t help myself here….I tightened up.  It isn’t so much the small money I want….it’s the notion that I’ve played so damn long, I have to get some money to show for it.  Like I said, tournaments make me crazy like that.  It was approaching midnight, I believe.  I’d been at this for 11 hours.

Anyway, after the redraw there was a huge stack two to my left, possibly the biggest stack of the tournament.  He was an older gentleman, with a distinct British accent. In my first notes about him, I referred to him as “British Bully.”  But by the end, I was referring to him as “Santa Claus” for reasons that will become evident.  Going forward, let’s just refer to him as “SC” for convenience sake.

SC liked to take advantage of his huge stack.  From the moment I got to the table with him, he would open raise 3X the big blind every single time.  He must have done that 6 or 7 straight times.  If there was a raise in front of him, he might fold, or he might three-bet.  But his open-raising range was, it appeared, ATC (any two cards).  Except finally, at one point, it folded to him, and he announced, “Believe it or not, I’m folding.”  And so he did.  But the next hand, he was back to open raising 3X the big blind.

So, with pocket Queens, it folded to me and I decided to raise to $10K instead of shoving.  I had seen SC fold to a preflop raise and since he must have noticed by now that this was the first hand I’d played since we got to the same table, I figured he’d likely fold.  Thus, I was pretty shocked when he announced “all-in.”  He had me covered many times over.

Damn.  Since I had seen him fold in that situation, I couldn’t just assume he was trying to bully me because we were so near the bubble.  But I did have an awfully good hand.  Did he have a better one?  Did he have Ace-King?  I tanked for a bit.  In almost any other situation, I’m going to call there.  But with only one or two more players to go before the bubble would break, I just couldn’t bear the thought of busting that long into the tournament with nothing to show for it.  I mean sure I was pissed that the min cash was only $253.  But that was at 6PM.  Six hours later, after 11 hours of poker, I would have been even more pissed bubbling.  Yes, yes, I would have called with the dreaded Kings.  But Queens?  Gulp.  Any other time, but not then, not there.  I folded.

I couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if I had shoved instead of just raised?  Would he have risked losing a decent amount of chips and called?  Or would he have folded?  Hell if I know.

And sometime around this point, we were down to 25 and the inevitable discussion of paying the bubble came up.  Now I must say, the folks at Golden Nugget were not at all helpful in this.  In fact, they were downright unhelpful.  They said any arrangement we made would have to on our own.  They would not adjust the prize pool because “Accounting already knows how many spots we are going to pay.”

OK, that’s not too bad, I’ve seen this before, where everyone takes out $10 (or whatever) and we just give that pile of cash to the next person who busts.  But they wouldn’t let us really negotiate.  They not only wouldn’t stop the clock to let us all talk about it, but they wouldn’t let anyone from one table get up and go over to another table to talk and try to strike a bargain.  Usually they are willing to stop the clock and stop play and let us all talk, which was kind of necessary since three tables of players were involved. Usually the TD will actually poll the players to see if we all agree to pay the bubble.  But they would have none of it. And whenever one of the players went to another table, they forced him to go back to his own table.

So we did the best we could.  We stayed at our own tables and shouted and talked it through.  I had one of the shorter stacks so I was definitely ok with it.  To my surprise, SC, still the biggest stack at this point, said he was fine with paying the bubble.  If everyone kicked in $10, the bubble prize would be $250, three bucks less than the min cash (or technically, $13 less than the min cash, since $10 of that would be the bubble’s own money).

So everyone at my table and one other table was agreeable, but there was a hold-out at the third table.  He said they would kick in $5 each, not $10.  Huh?  That would be less than the buy-in and really, how much difference does the five bucks mean if we’re all gonna cash?  SC was aghast.  “I’m the damn chip leader….I’m bullying everyone here.  If’ I’m willing to pay the bubble, why aren’t you?”

Hands were being dealt (hand-for-hand) and we kept talking and one of the guys at our table said OK…take $5 from that one guy and $10 from everyone else.  If the $5 guy is the bubble, we give him $5 from everyone, but otherwise, every gets $10 from everyone (but him).  Close enough, right?

Well, as we were in the process of doing that, another guy from our table someone convinced Mr. $5 to cough up $10 like everyone else.  And I think we still had to go hand-for-hand a little longer because the Golden Nugget was not part of this arrangement (and it wasn’t quite the same as the min cash anyway).  But eventually another person busted, took the $250 in cash (it wasn’t the $5 guy) and we were now all officially in the money.

Still at the same level, in the money, the eccentric lady I mentioned earlier shoved for less than I had, and I woke up with pocket Kings.  I didn’t dread them.  I shoved.  SC tanked forever.  Hmm…..I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to call or not.  Obviously he didn’t have Aces, but did I want a call from him if he had any Ace?  Well, he finally folded.  The lady had deuces.  I actually hit my set, and then the board paired, giving me a boat.  SC said he folded Ace-Queen.  Damn, I would have gotten a lot more chips if he had called.  As it was, I added about $37K to my stack.

That got me to level 16 (500/2000/4000) with over $100K.  A little breathing room, but not that much.

I raised to $13K with pocket 9’s.  The big blind shoved for about $17K more.  I figured I had to call, so I did.  He had 10-9 off.  I was a solid favorite but he caught a 10 on the flop, and, for good measure, a 10 on the turn.  Ouch.

Now, of course at the outset I explained that this was a two-day tournament, as were pretty much all the GPS events.  But in addition to it being unusual that a $150 would play out over two-days, the tournament fliers the GN produced said nothing about these tournaments being two-day events.  You had to review the structures to see that.  Of course, if you got your info from PokerAtlas, you would know that this was a two-day event, as I had entered that info on our site.  But a lot of people enter tournaments without doing their due diligence. 

One of the ladies at the table with me from the beginning was from Wyoming and during one of the breaks I heard her talking to her friends.  They were asking her what she was going to do if she had to come back the next day.  It seems she was booked on a flight to return home in the morning!  She kept telling her friends, “Don’t worry.”  Hmm….imagine if she had to come back, earned the smallest Day 2 prize possible and it cost her more than she won to rebook her return flight?

Her problem was solved when she busted soon after the bubble broke.

But there were several players there who were intended to play in the WSOP seniors event, which was starting at 10AM the next day.  These people also had no idea when they entered that it was a two-day event.  They also didn’t figure it would last this long even if it was a one-day event, as it was now quite past midnight, and I’m sure they had planned on being in bed by then if they were going to make it to the Rio for the 10AM bracelet event.

One of those players was SC.  And suddenly he realized he’d have to come back the next day at 2PM if he made it to the end of this evening,  He talked about playing the Seniors Event until 1PM, taking a cab over to the Nugget, and then returning to his stack at the WSOP after he was done. 

But he started playing very differently and pretty much decided to give his chips away instead.  OK, what he said was that he was going to play to either build a huge, huge stack or lose it all.  So I suppose he would have been ok if his wild play got him a stack that was 3 or 4 times bigger than the next biggest stack.  But basically, he started shoving with lousy hands, and more importantly, he was calling shoves with lousy hands. At one point, after making one of those incredibly loose calls, as he flipped over his cards he said, "I'll play Santa Claus."

Example….I shoved with pocket 8’s and he called my shove with….Jack-3 off.  He had me covered, hadn’t committed a dime to the pot (other than the ante) and certainly didn’t need to do this.  But he had already made similar plays against other players at our table.  Sometimes even worse hands than Jack-3.  I think 3-2 once.  He even said to another player, “OK, I’ll double you up.”  Since he seemed to be friends with that player, it almost bordered on collusion, and one player at our table, who knows me from the Binion’s tournament I play, whispered to me that this wasn’t right.  But he was an equal opportunity Santa Claus, giving his chips away to almost anyone and everyone.  On the hand in question, he hit his 3 but that was it, and I got a double up.

Between the blinds, antes, and maybe a few small losses that I didn’t write down, I made it to level 17 (1000/3000/6000) with just $90K.  And then SC helped me out again when he called my shove again.  I had pocket 10’s, he had Ace-5. “Does the Ace scare you?” he asked.  Yeah, it kind of did.  But he didn’t catch in, the 10’s held.  SC was pretty close to being out, and I’m not sure when he busted but had managed to lose a remarkable amount of chips in a relatively short time.  I had $135K after that (those blinds and antes were killers).

I raised to $18K with Queen-Jack offsuit, no call.  My note says we were now down to 14 players.

I opened for $20K with Ace-King; no call.

At level 18 (1K/4K/8K) we got down to 10 players, did the redraw and I had $124K. 

So we were down to one table but not technically the final table.  The final table would be 9-handed. So we needed to lose one more player to break for the night.  Clearly we would lose another player before completing level 20, which would trigger the end of the day if we still had more than 9.

Except…the TD on duty (definitely not the one we started with at 1PM…this was now after 2AM the next day) said that if we wanted, we could keep playing, even to completion.  The reason was that the Heads Up tournament that had started the day before ours (at 11AM I believe) was still going on, and would last until the wee hours of the morning.  So since they weren’t closing up shop anyway, if we wanted to, we could keep going after we lost #10.

I had very mixed emotions.  Of course I was tired, but honestly, at this point, adrenaline was kicking in and I wasn’t nearly as tired as I should have been (especially since I had gotten a really lousy night’s sleep leading up to this tournament). So I could have played on…and avoided the necessity of coming back to the Nugget for what figured to be a relatively quick day 2.  I was the short stack at this unofficial final table. So that would have appealed to me.

OTOH…..if we broke for the day, I’d have a new experience.  This would be the first time I’d ever “bagged and tagged” my chips and had to have come back for a Day 2.  It was kind of a bucket list item.  Of course, I’d played in very, very few tournaments that would have given me a chance to come back for a Day 2.  So I was thinking it would be cool to get that experience under my belt.

In fact, I would say the odd desire to try to experience the “bag & tag” affected some of my play.  I might have called a few shoves, made a few more looser raises or shoves myself if it wasn’t in the back of my mind that I wanted to do the “bag & tag.”

That and the fact that I really wanted to move up the pay scale and see if I could get some “real” money.

Anyway, even before we lost #10, I heard a couple of the players—much younger guys than me—say they were too tired and wouldn’t want to play any longer than we had to.  And it had to be unanimous that all were willing to make the exception and play on, rather than call it a night.

On the very first hand once we were down to 10, I was the big blind with Queen-Jack.  It folded to the small blind who just completed. I checked.  The flop was Queen high.  He checked and I shoved, he folded.

That was the last hand I noted for the night.  I started level 19 (1K/5K/10K) with $91K.  That was the short stack but two of the moderately sized stacks got into a pot together.  The smaller stacked shoved with trip Aces. The bigger stack thought long and hard and finally called with the nut flush (but a paired board, two Aces).  This was the turn and the flush was at risk of the other guy catching a boat…..but he missed and he was gone.  Nine players left.

And that brings part 3 to a close.  Yes, we will actually conclude this story in the next chapter!  And that next chapter can found right here.

"I Don't Want to Do Something That Feels Good for 12 Hours"

Golden Nugget $150 Tournament, Part 2 

So in part 1 (here) I ranted about tournaments and pay scales and structures.  It took me a whole post to rant.  Now I finally get to the tournament report.

First level (25/50) with a starting stack of $15K, the very first hand I played was pocket Kings!  The nice lady from Wyoming to my right raised to $150 and I repopped it to $450.  She called, we were heads up.  The flop was Ace-Jack-x, all clubs.  My Kings were both red.  She checked and I bet $600, and she called.  The board ran out Jack, Jack.  There was no more betting and she didn’t show when I showed my hand.  Dodged my very first bullet with the dreaded hand.

Level 2, (50/100K), $13K.  I called $225 from the big blind with 9-8 offsuit because there were already five players in for that and I closed the action.  The flop was 9-8-4, I led out for $1K, no call.

I raised to $225 on the button with Ace-10 offsuit.  It was four ways.  The flop was all bricks, but it checked to me and I bet $600.  The table’s nittiest player checked raised me to $2K and I had to fold.

Level 3 (75/100), $13,250.  I woke up with pocket Aces in the small blind.  The same lady who had raised when I had the Kings raised from the button to $450 and I made it $1200.  She called.  The flop was Ace-Queen-Jack, two spades.  Pretty scary board for my set of Aces. I bet $2,500.  She tanked for a long time and then folded.  And probably wondered why I had it in for her.

Level 4 (100/200), $14,400. After one limper, I raised to $650 from the cut-off with Queen-Jack off. One caller, I missed on a King-high flop but a $1K c-bet took it down.

Very late in the 4^th level, I called $550 from the small blind with Ace-King off, it was four-way.  The flop was King-high and I led out for $1,500.  The short stack to my left, the big blind, shoved for about $4,500 more. It folded to me. Losing there would have really hurt, and I considered folding.  But I called and he flipped over King-Queen.  My kicker held and he was gone and I had my first nice pot of the day.

That got me to level 5 (25/100/200) with $21,300.  My very first hand of the level was pocket Kings again.           This time I opened the pot, for $525, and didn’t get a call.

I limped in with pocket 8’s, then called $1K.  Let it go when I didn’t hit my set.

Level 6 (50/150/300), $20,200.  From middle position, I open to $800 with 9-8 spades. There was one caller.  The flop was Ace-8-x, I led out for $1,300, no call.

I opened for $800 with Queen-Jack clubs, no call.

Then I opened for $800 with Ace-Jack off.   Short stack shoved for over $5K. After tanking for some time, I decided it was too early to risk that much with such a marginal hand, so I folded.

After one limper, I made it $1,100 with King-10 hearts. No call.

Level 7 (50/200/400), $23K.  From the cut-off I opened to $1,300 with Jack-9 off.  Both the blinds called.  The flop was all bricks but the small blind seemed to like it, he shoved and of course I folded.

I opened to $1,400 with pocket deuces.  But the big blind shoved for $8k and I had to fold.

Level 8 (75/300/600) $16,500.  That’s an “M” of around 10, so I was in trouble.

I raised to $1,600 with Queen-9 offsuit and the lady on my right (who had limped in) called.  She was the one I had three-bet with Kings, then Aces, earlier.  It was heads up. The flop was Ace-high and I couldn’t bring myself to bet.  We ended up checking it down, and she took the pot with Queen-Jack (no pair, just Queen high with a better kicker).  I dunno why I didn’t bet.  She even said, after pointing out that this was the first time she beat me, that she would have folded to any bet.  I guess I put her on a weak Ace and felt she’d call me even if she wasn’t strong enough to bet.  Dumb.

Then the same woman raised to $2K and I shoved with Ace-Queen off.  She had me covered and I believe this was the first time I’d put my tournament at risk.  She folded.

Then, last hand of the level, I open shoved with Ace-King of hearts and no one called.

That took us to the second break, also the end of registration.  I could see that there were over 200 players but I was eager to see the price pool distribution.  At this point, I was fairly short stacked and was at the point of thinking I needed to take some big chances to really increase my stack or be fine with calling it a tournament and still have the evening to play some cash.  I didn’t have enough time invested in the tournament at this point to think it “owed” me anything, in other words.  And since I was quite short stacked, with an “M” of around 8, I didn’t like my chances of having a deep run.

That’s why I was so interested in seeing the payouts.  Was there any chance a min-cash would be worth fighting for?  Or should I just throw caution to the wind and shove with anything, prepared to bust out but hoping to pull off a near-miracle?

It took awhile for them to post the figures, and I’ve already described my disappointment in part 1.  That gave me another consideration.  We were now at 45-minute levels, with breaks every 3 levels.  And the next break would be the hour dinner break.  Did I really want to be stuck downtown for dinner, with a really short stack and about a gazillion-to-one chance of even getting the min cash, let alone some significant money?  Not really.  So….time to become a maniac.

Except…there’s one thing that prevents me from being a real maniac in these situations.  Embarrassment.  I mean realistically, I should just shove any two cards when it’s folded to me, no matter what.  Maybe even three-bet with really questionable cards.  After all, I want to bust out, right?  Well, I mean, I don’t want to bust out but I kind of do (again, tournaments make me crazy).  And if I get called with my 7-deuce and catch a miracle board and double up, that’s fine too, right?  But I can’t bring myself to do that.  I don’t want to get called when I shove with some total garbage hand and have to show and then look like a complete idiot.  I’m ok with looking like a partial idiot.  But not a total one.

So I shove light, but not ridiculously so. 

I began level 9 (100/400/800) with $18K.   I open shoved with pocket 7’s and took it down.

By the time I got this next hand, I had seen the payouts.  Otherwise, I might not have open shoved with Jack-10 offsuit. At least not in early position.  Late position, maybe.  But there were a lot of people behind me.  They all folded until it got to the big blind, a guy who had just gotten to the table a few hands before with a really big stack.  He called and showed pocket 9’s.  It could have been Queens or higher. OK, I was only a slight dog. 

Until I saw a 9 in the window.  I stood up, ready to take my leave.  I was ok with that, I could be on the Strip in 30 minutes, having dinner at the place of my choosing.  I didn’t even really pay attention to the rest of the cards.  After the dealer put out the river card, I said “nice hand” to the guy with the set of 9’s and continued the process of exiting the tournament. 

Except, the player with the set of 9’s pointed out that I had won the pot.  “You’ve got a straight.”  Ooops….I did indeed.  There was an 8 and a Queen on the board.  I honestly didn’t see it, I never even noticed I had the draw.  I was in “let’s get out of here” mode as soon as I saw the 9 in the window, and not all that upset by it.

Oh well….maybe now I had enough chips to play poker again.  Still over 90 minutes before the dinner break.

I’ll pause to tell a couple of stories about the players.  After I busted the first player to my immediate left, a rather attractive, middle-aged woman took his seat.  She kind of reminded me of someone from my past.  She was a very nice woman too.  When the guy who lost to me with a set of 9’s came to the table, the lady said, “Oh you found me, and you bought my chips with you.  Thank you, I need them back now.”

Later, there was another guy joining our table whom she had obviously played with at another table as well.  She said to him, “Are you on your second bullet, like me?”  The guy was a total jerk.  He said, “No, I would never re-enter a tournament.  That’s just stupid.”  Nice of him to in essence tell this nice lady she was stupid.  Of course, he was the stupid one, and he was about to prove it.

He raised and the nice lady from Wyoming to my right just called.  On a low flop, the guy shoved.  The lady snap-called and showed pocket Aces which she had obviously slow-played.  The guy groaned and angrily showed King-Queen, which, for this board, was absolutely nothing.  Two cards later he was gone and muttered something about how badly the lady had played the hand.  But she picked the perfect time to slow-play those Aces!

After the nice lady to my left busted, she was replaced by a rather eccentric older woman. From her talk, she had a lot of weird interests (like wondering where the words “moola” and “lollygagging” came from).  She also had obviously been playing poker for a long time, and knew her stuff.  Anyway, at one point, a dealer pushed in and somehow indicated that he was very tired and said that he had worked 12 hours so far this day.  And the lady said, “I don’t even want to do anything that feels good for 12 hours non-stop!”  We all got a laugh out of that.

Hmmm….maybe she was referring to playing this very tournament?

I got a walk from the big blind with Jack-8 off, but other than that, the rest of the level had nothing going on.  I didn’t note when, but sometime a bit earlier in the tournament I had gotten a much less welcome walk when I had pocket Aces.  Damn.

Level 10 (100/500/1000), $34K.  I lost $5K with pocket 10’s.  I called $2K pre. The flop was Ace-King-Jack, and there was no bet on the flop or the turn.  I should have bet the turn right?  Well, instead I called $3K on the river and the player showed me Ace-Jack.  He played that rather oddly, slow-playing two pair on a dangerous board.  But I never got the Queen and I thought checking the flop and turn was a sign of weakness, not strength, and that my 10’s might be better than his pocket pair.  Ooops.

I raised to $3K with pocket Aces.  One player called, and I shoved on the flop, which was a rather dangerous Queen-Queen-X.  But my bet was not called.

Level 11 (200/600/1200) $28K.  In the big blind, I called a min-raise of $2,400 from the button with King-Jack of hearts.  It was three-ways and I thought it was cheap enough to see if I could catch a flop. I did, it was King-high.  I shoved and didn’t get a call.

It was getting towards the dinner break.  I didn’t have a healthy stack, so even though there was a raise to $3K in front of me, I shoved with Ace-6 of diamonds.  But no one called.  I couldn’t find another hand to shove with and there I was, on the dinner break.  So much for busting before dinner. 

Back from dinner, level 12 (200/800/1600), $39K.  Still under an “M” of 10 ($44K) but not completely hopeless.  After a raise to $6K, I shoved with pocket Queens; no call.

I open raised to $6K with Ace-6 diamonds.  No call,

Level 13 (300/1000/2000) $39K. In early position, I open shoved Queen-Jack offsuit.  No call.

King-9 offsuit, this time I didn’t shove, I opened to $6,500.  One caller from the blinds.  The flop was Ace-10-10.  He shoved, first to act.  Obviously, I folded.

It folded to me in the small blind with King-Jack offsuit.  I shoved and the big blind folded.

I open shoved with Queen-9 off and didn’t get a call.

Level 14 (400/1200/2400) $31.5K.  I open shoved with pocket 8’s, and was called by a bigger stack with Ace-King.  I caught an 8 and that was my first real double up in a long time.

It folded to me in the small blind and I raised to $6,500 with Ace-8 off.  The big blind folded.

In early position, I shoved with Ace-King off and didn’t get a call.

Now, I had amazingly been at the same table the entire time.  But soon after this hand, we got down to 27 players and as per the structure, we did a redraw.  The very first hand after the redraw, I woke up with pocket Aces and raised to $6,500, but no one called. 

Down to 27 at three tables, we were getting real close to the bubble and play tightened up.  Again, they were paying 24.

Level 15 (500/1500/3000) $71,500.  Open shoved with Ace-Queen offsuit, no call.  A hand or two later, same hand, same play, same result.

Getting close to the money, you might be wondering if there was talk about paying the bubble.  Of course, and you’ll read about the fun we had with that in part 3, which you can now find here.

 

Sam, You Made the Tournament Too Long

Golden Nugget $150 Tournament, Part 1

Alright, so I just finished writing this 4-part post, and even before I started to proof-read and edit it, I realized that in presenting it to my readers, I think I’m going to sound a little bit crazy.

Maybe even a lot crazy.

But you know what?  Poker tournaments do that to me.  And so maybe not editing out all the parts that will make the readers think I’m crazy is actually the best, and definitely most honest, way to present this story to you.

I have a love/hate relationship with poker tournaments.  And after this long trip from Vegas, where I played in nine events (and cashed twice), I have to say that the “hate” part is kind of clobbering the “love” part.  All of that is just another way to say….poker tournaments drive me crazy.

As usual, it’s taking me a while to get to the point.  And to get to that point, I have to talk about Sam Minutello, Sam was the poker room manager at Golden Nugget until late April (he left of his own volition) .  You might remember I did a profile of him for Ante Up when he started at GN, which you can see here.  As a result of that profile, and our working relationship through his GN gig and my responsibilities for PokerAtlas, we became buddies.  I liked Sam even before he told me he’d read some of my blog posts.  The blog post in particular I recall him telling me he had read was the one here, which dealt with min-cashes in tournaments being too small.  Sam expressed at least a little bit of sympathy to my point, but made no commitment to taking my concerns into consideration when constructing future prize pools.

Interestingly, after Sam left GN, he was a part-time Shift Supervisor at, of all places, MGM.  So I saw him quite a bit during the early part of my recent trip.  I understand he recently moved back to Florida to start his own business.  While I wish him well, I do hope that he can somehow find his way back into the poker world.  Poker needs more good people like him.

The one thing I don’t want this write-up to be viewed as is any kind of criticism of Sam. I sure hope he doesn’t see it that way.  To the extent that we are disagreeing about anything, it is that Sam did something that many of you will think impossible—he made his poker tournaments too good.  I bet most of my readers will think I’m crazy…wait, isn’t that what I started out saying?

Sam announced the schedule for the Golden Nugget Grand Poker Series very early this year, before any of the other rooms released their schedules.  Of the summer series, only the WSOP was announced earlier.  Even more impressively, he was done with the structures for the series just a few weeks later, in early March.  I need the structures to enter the tournaments on PokerAtlas.  So it was not only great for the poker world at large but for me personally that he had them ready so timely.

And as I started to enter the series into PokerAtlas, I was extremely impressed with the structures.  All the tournaments—no matter how small the buy-ins—started with eight 30-minute levels, then jumped to 45-minutes at level 9.  The final tables were all 60-minutes.  A glance at the structure sheets indicated that there were more intermediary levels included than for almost any similar priced tournaments I could recall.  In fact, the structures were so player-friendly that virtually all of the events (if not all?) were two-day events.  Even the lowest buy-in, $150 NLH events were two-day tournaments.  The Day 1’s would play 20 levels, or until the final table was reached, whichever came first.

I couldn’t believe the value that Sam was putting into these tournaments.  The price points were $150, $240 and $350, with the main event being $560.  The $350 NLH tournaments all had $100K guaranteed prize pools and the main had a $500K guarantee.  The other events generally didn’t offer guarantees, which put them at odds with most other series events around town, as I explained here.  But it was an impressive schedule with excellent structures. 

And I swear, I would have said that even if, as it turned out, the GPS this year was an Ante Up Poker Tour event.  Yes, the fine publication which publishes my monthly columns was sponsoring the Golden Nugget series this year.

When I got to Vegas, playing a few of these events was very high on my priority list.  I really thought I wanted to play a bit above my comfort level and try a few of those $350 NLH’s with the $100K guarantees.  But those all started at 11AM.  For reasons that I don’t want to go into, playing a tournament with a morning start time is really, really difficult for me.  Even Noon events are tough.  That’s one of the reasons the Saturday 2PM tournament at Binion’s appeals to me…now 2PM is a time I can deal with.  Aria’s 1PM is just on the border of being ok.  And yes, btw, late reg on those 11AM events was to 3:30PM, so yeah, I could have come in late.  But to me, it totally defeats the benefit of having a great structure to come in so late you are no longer taking advantage of that great structure.  I hate entering tournaments late.  A few minutes late is ok, but missing multiple levels?  No thanks.

Before I could try to re-arrange my life enough to make one of those 11AM starts, I tried to find a $150 1PM event to play in the meantime.  And for awhile it seemed like every time I could make one of those tournaments, they weren’t running one!  They of course didn’t run every day.  One issue was the cold I caught (see here)…..it took me a week to feel well enough to commit to playing a tournament (as opposed to a cash game where I could easily leave if I suddenly starting coughing uncontrollably).

But finally, on a Thursday in mid-June, I got my ass over to the Golden Nugget in time to play the $150 NLH tournament, Event #38 of the series.

By close of registration at 5:30PM, there were 229 runners, and a dealer told me that this was the biggest turnout for this particular tournament that he’d seen.  I wasn’t at all surprised. I’d checked the other events around town that day and realized that this tournament didn’t have much competition.  The 11AM event at GN was a limit hold’em tournament.  Most of the other afternoon tournaments around town were either much bigger buy-ins or non-hold’em events.  If you wanted a moderately priced NLH hold’em during daylight, this was pretty much it.

As such, when the prize pool was finally revealed, it totaled $27,480.  I was sure eager to see what the pay scale would look like.  The trouble was, that wasn’t revealed until long after registration closed.  I guess this all depends on the software poker rooms use for their tournaments.  Because some list the pay scale almost from the beginning of the tournament, and you can see it change as new players enter.  This is what happens at Aria. 

But most poker rooms are more old-school, and the Nugget’s software didn’t show this.  Actually, they were running three tournaments and three tournament clocks simultaneously, and I think this info was listed in the “main” tournament of the day—the $240 limit hold’em event that started at 11.  But we had to wait until nearly 6PM to see this info and when they posted it, I was disappointed. 

First place was over $7K, that seemed fine.  I was more interested in the bottom of the scale, since that’s where I all too often end up—if I even make that.  Twenty-four spots would be paid, that seemed right.  But the min-cash?  Only $253.  Wow, that seemed even worse than usual.  Not close to the double-the-buy-in that I advocate.  A measly $100 profit?  For a $150 buy-in and what figured to be 8-9 hours of time, at least?  Seriously?

In my mind, I kind of have a “magic figure” that makes playing in these long tournaments with $100+ buy-ins worth it.  And that is $1K.  If I don’t walk out of there with a $1,000 in my pocket, I feel like a loser.  Now, I don’t mean I expect to get $1K for a min cash, of course not (unless I’m playing much bigger tournaments).  But I kind of felt, intuitively, when I saw how many players and what the prize pool was going to be, that everyone making the final table—everyone coming back for Day 2—should get at least the $1K.  Am I crazy?

Tenth place (not technically the final table since the official final table would be 9-handed) was getting $504.  A nice $350 profit for probably 12-13 hours of poker.  How sweet is that?  To me, not very sweet.  And 9^th was $625.  Someone would be making a second trip to GN the next day to pick up a $475 profit.  Then 8^th was $795.  Finally, finally, 7^th place got into four digits, with a $1,014 take away.  Sixth place was $1,309—finally an actual profit of more than $1K.  I believe 5^th was something like $1,700 with 4^th getting over $2K.

I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was.  I should be used to it by now.  But no, it really disappointed me to see that I could play all day, all night, into the morning and have to come back the next day and get not get anything better than a $475 profit.  Oh and by the way…..I’ve been assuming that the tournament breaks for the night when the final table is reached.  But if there are more than 9 players at the end of the 20^th level, it will stop there and even more players, some of whom will get even less than $625, will have to come back the next day.  Suppose we completed level 20 and there are still 16 players left?  The tournament would halt and one lucky person would have to return the next day for a $351 payout!  $200 profit for two day’s work!

Aside from my usual gripe that tournament payouts are too top heavy, I could draw one other conclusion based on my feelings at this point:  Sam, you made the tournament too long.

Now this is entirely subjective.  This is just my own opinion, and, as I said, I’m sure others would feel quite differently.  I’ll bet a lot of my readers do think I’m nuts (I’m sure Sam does), “complaining” about a $150 tournament that gives you so much play for your money.  Isn’t that what players want? 

Yes.  But then, it really depends on why you play a tournament. If you play strictly for fun, then getting 8-9 hours of play for your relatively small investment is a bargain.  Where else could you get so much entertainment for so little cost? 

Maybe the problem is that I’m just no good at poker?  I mean, if I was consistently finishing in the top 3 of these tournaments I play in, I’d be rather happy, right?  Maybe I should shut the fudge up and try to be a better poker player?  So I wouldn’t have to worry about min-cashing?  Yeah, maybe.

But for now, I’m just really frustrated that you could invest a not insignificant amount of money (for me), play for so, so long and have so little to show for it.  Which brings me back to a flatter pay scale (more money at the bottom) that I’ve ranted about before.  But honestly, am I wrong in thinking that if you’re going to bring people back for a second day, you have to give them enough money to make it worth the return trip?

As it happens, not long before I played this tournament, I saw a tweet from a friend of mine who “complained” about playing in a GN tournament (a $240 one, I believe) because it was a two-day event.  And she said that two-days was too much tournament for that price point.  I mentioned this to Sam when I saw him next time at MGM, and he was a bit perturbed, especially since she was a friend of his as well.  At the time, I scoffed, as he did, at the thought of their being basically too much value in a tournament structure.  But after playing in the $150 NLH I’m about to describe, I definitely understood what she was saying.

My guess is that for next year’s GPS, the then-current management team will make the structures a lot less player-friendly.  For me, a perfectly viable alternative (and even a better one) would be to flatten the pay scale.  You want to have a two-day tournament for $150?  Make sure that everyone who comes back for Day 2 gets $1K (note: in all honestly, that would have to depend on the total prize pool—if there were only 100 runners, you surely couldn’t do that, it would have to be proportional).

But you know what?  I’m prepared to admit that maybe what I’m asking for just wouldn’t be practical….that maybe it would make no sense to flatten the pay scale the way I want.  Maybe the perfectly correct to response to my concerns is simply, “In that case, Rob, don’t play tournaments.  Stick to cash.”  And yet, I continue to play then, don’t I?  Like I said, I’m crazy. 

The starting stack was $15K, with blinds at 25/50.  There was a 75/150 level, unusual for a tournament starting with 25/50 blinds.  The antes didn’t kick in until level 5, where it was 25/100/200.  Those are the same blinds, minus the antes, as level 4.  And remember, these first eight levels were 30 minutes.  See what I mean about a great structure?

Yeah, I’m done with part 1 and didn’t even get to any hands.  Sorry about that.  But I needed to write all of the above to help set the stage for how I felt at various stages of the tournament, and it will even help explain how I played certain hands.  Next part I will actually start discussing hands that I played.  Promise. And that part 2 has now been posted, see here.