One More Table...

Last week was somewhat hectic. My co-worker went on maternity leave a bit earlier than expected, so I've had a trial-by-fire crash course in doing the parts of her job that I agreed to pick up on during her leave. We're re-decorating the little ones' room (we have a 3 year old and a 6 year old daughter); so I've been assembling all sorts of stuff from IKEA, including a new bunk-bed. We took a road-trip to Portland, OR to clear out the mother-in-law's storage space, now that she lives in Seattle. This week's going to be just as crazy. I'll be doing the work of 2 people at the office every day. I'll be moving and assembling furniture every evening. And my weekend's going to be spent clearing out the garage for a yard sale (which will include a good portion of the cleared-out storage space junk).

But I'll be doing it all with a smile on my face and a spring in my step, because I qualified for the final table of the Vegas Freeroll! Come late November, I'll have a 1-in-9 shot of winning an all-expense paid trip to Vegas, which includes a buy-in to the $3000+100 satellite tournament on Dec. 11 during the Bellagio's Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Winner there gets 40% of the prize pool, estimated to be over a million dollars, as well as a free ride into the WPT Championship!

My wife asked me if I made it to Vegas, if I'd give her my seat. C'mon now... I love the woman and all, but an opportunity like this so early in my 'career' is not something I could give up, even to the woman I vowed to give my life for... luckily she understands. I told her if I finished in-the-money at the Bellagio, I would just go ahead and buy her the $25,000 seat into the WPT Championship. But that's a lot of "if"s... I'm pretty sure the competition in Vegas is going to be exponentially tougher than it was here.

So here's how it went down: the Midway has a sister location, the Cascade Lanes, Lounge, and Casino (a 24-hour bowling alley with a built-in cardroom). Both locations are doing the Vegas Freeroll, so they are actually giving away 2 Vegas trips and satellite tournament seats! The Poker Room hours that a player accumulates can be used at either location. Shawni and I both had 40+ hours, and the Cascade tournament started at 3pm, so instead of it just being a Freeroll Sunday Night like the previous week, we turned last Sunday into an entire Freeroll Day!

We'd heard from other Midway players that Cascade didn't have as many players as Midway, and they were right. Cascade was a smaller place and they only ran 2 tables of 9 for the Freeroll (they have a 3rd table, but it was being used for their daily $25 buy-in cash tourney), so right off the bat my chances were 100% better! I played tight, folding Paint/Rag if it got raised pre-flop - a few times it would have been the best hand but I didn't let that affect me and stuck to my guns.

About 4 hands into the tourney, I limped in with QTd, and got to see the flop for cheap... 89J. I checked it, someone bet T200, and I just called along with 2 others. The Turn came a 3, no help for anyone, so I was the first to go All-in. The guy sitting to my right called, and showed Q7o. I flipped mine and said, as apologetically as I could fake, "Sorry, I flopped it..." As the dealer was getting ready to burn and turn the River, the guy started calling for a Q. I had to scratch my head at that one, as only another T could have saved him.

So I got lucky to double-up early, and then just rode it out and folded almost everything, just observing and trying to get a read on some of the other players, since I'd never played with any of them before. People began dropping like flies, and within an hour we were down to one table. We redrew for seats, and I got seated next to my wife, and Eric, another player we know from Midway.

A few hands in I got AA and decided to play it safe. Made a decent raise, scared some limpers off, and saw a flop that had two Qs. One lady seated to my left shook her head in disgust, so I knew I had made her throw away her Q. One down, only one more to worry about. The other two still in the hand didn't look too excited, so I made a small bet to test the waters. Got some hesitant calls and saw a third Q on the Turn. Now the lady to my left began to really fume. It didn't matter if anyone else noticed her 'cause I had the nuts and my All-in bet took the pot. I made two other All-in raises, once when I caught two-pair on the Flop, and again when the Turn made my Straight.

In all three of those instances, I made it a point to show my hand and not just muck it. This was to my benefit as people started fearing my raises and I could steal the blinds and small pots with stone-cold bluffs. I wasn't quite the chip leader yet, but I made sure to win enough to keep up with the blinds, and decided to stay out of the way and let everyone else take each other out.

When it got down to six players, my rush came and from there things went by in a blur. I took out two people at once when my KQ made the Broadway straight - one of the people who went out on that hand was my wife, and she was holding Pocket Aces. Sorry honey. I was holding an A when the Flop came Axx of clubs. Eric immediately jumped All-in. Since I knew him from Midway and knew his playing style, I recognized his bluff attempt, so I called and took him out.

Then there were three. I was at about T10,000 and trailing by 5000. Short-stack went All-in on my BB of 58h and I called. He showed Pocket 5s. I smiled and said, "Well, there's one of the 5s you were looking for." But even if he got the other 5, it didn't matter as 2 more hearts flopped, and then I got my Flush on the Turn.

Now I was heads-up with an older guy, and that scared me. I'm sure this guy has seen a lot more Poker tables than I have. I'd only been in 3 other NLHE tourneys (2 cash and the Freeroll last week at the Midway), and obviously this was the first time I'd made it this far. We went back and forth folding our SBs to each other; and we saw maybe 3 Flops out of a dozen hands. It seemed that any raise would be followed by a fold, so I began min-raising my BB after he'd called the SB and this seemed to be effective at really chipping away at him.

The blinds were up to 1600/3200, with 2 minutes left to go before doubling. I was holding one of my favorite hands, K2o, and we were going to get to see one of those rare Flops! It came all low cards and we both checked. Turn was a K, and the old guy pushed All-in.

I honestly don't know when it happened or how, but I had taken a major chip lead. The guy had his chips tucked in close and his arm over his stack most of the time so I really didn't know his status. When he called All-in, I obviously considered folding, but I almost fell out of my chair when he put out his stack of only T2900. I had to ask the dealer, "Is that all?" I eyeballed my chip pile, saw I had two stacks of T10,000 each and then some, and said, "Yea, let's see your kicker... I call."

I expected to see AK, or KQ, and I knew K-anything would beat me. 36o. The old man chuckled, "Ah... you had the King! Nice call." And that was that. I pumped my fist once, high-fived my wife, and shook hands with 2nd and 3rd place. There was no cash prize involved, but still, what a rush! Now, I only need to do this a few more times and maybe I'll do some jumping and screaming.

Somewhere between the final 6 and final 3 at the table, the Seahawks had blown their 17 point lead to the Rams in less than 5 minutes. I blame this on Anisotropy because he decided to jump on the Seattle bandwagon and jinxed us. But that loss pretty much summed up the rest of our Sunday night after we left the Cascade.

I signed up for the Freeroll at Midway, trying to give myself two shots at a Vegas trip; and if by some miracle I won both locations, it'd cover taking the entire family to Vegas. But the first hand I got involved in, I had JJ, and called an All-in after a 9-high flop. The guy who went All-in said he was trying to bust out so he could go play in the live 3/6 game, but he had just won two all-ins with crap by catching the River card. Then he did it again and took me out when his 89 hit a third 9 on the River.

Then I got beat by T25 in the Semi-finals of the Pai-Gow tournament by another last hand Bonus payout. Shawni was already in the 3/6 game and it was full, so I took the $60 I was going to buy-in with and played some Blackjack. I actually made $100 profit, and I cashed out and went to see if I was any closer to getting a seat. I had told one of the dealers I would be out in the Pit and to call me when a seat opened, but apparently he left and didn't pass that info on, so I was overlooked and had to start at the bottom of the list again. What did I do? Like the Seahawks throwing an incomplete pass when the Rams didn't have any time-outs left, I went back to the BJ table and blew the $100 I had just made. I went back into the Poker room and waited like a good boy to squander away my $60.

All in all, we lost $120 between us, but we probably would have spent that much on dinner and a movie and we wouldn't have had nearly half the fun we did last night, so it was well worth it. And of course, one more table, and I'm going to Vegas, baby!