Monday night live poker

A friend of a friend had a "fundraiser" tournament Monday night that I played in, along with Hawkette. 56 players, $55 buy in. Pays top 3 places. Normally, I would not play somewhere that doesn't pay top 10% but this was a fundraiser, and I knew several of the players from the industry I am in. They also raffled off several donated prizes and had free beer and food for the first hour.



Now, if you have ever played in a charity or fundraiser tournament (I play in 2 or 3 a year), you know it is very different from any other tournament. You have players that are uncles or friends of the organizers or "donors", that will pay the money as a donation and then sit and "learn" hold'em as they go. There is nothing wrong with that, except when they play 23 o/s all in and beat your KQo/s. . . Actually, I Keeed. They are great to have at your table because you can time your plays right to win big pots and build your chip stack with relative ease.

In these same tournaments you will have the "shark-wannabees" that show up to prove that they should be playing with the pros in Vegas and will just have to take down this little tournament in the meantime. They can be very annoying with their raise 5x BB 8 out of 10 hands in a row. Again, you can take down some nice pots when you do get some cards.

At my first table, starting on my immediate left, we have Mr. Mouth ("man, I love these cards, but not enough to call that big bet"). Miss Knows-how-to-play-but-not-how-to-bet. A Weak Male player. A Calling Station. An Online Donkey complete with ipod and earbuds. An Aggro-idiot. And then an Aggro-donkey. Now this last player, the Aggro-donkey was actually a pretty decent player. He ended up telling me he lived in Vegas for six months and tried to go pro, but he couldn't limit his spending in Vegas. He couldn't have been older than 24. He would raise a minimum 4xBB and most times 5 or 6xBB. And he raised early and often. I was fortunate he was to my right and not left. He definitely ran the tempo of the table. When he would leave to smoke and miss 4 or 5 hands, the whole table slowed down and actually saw some flops.

Some notable hands: I got Kc3c from cutoff and I bet 3xBB to steal the blinds. Calling station does what he does best: calls. Flop comes Ac10c3d. CS bets out 1/3 of pot, and I raise to a pot sized bet to attempt a steal, again. The CS thinks for a long time and eventually folds. Must have had a 10?

As5s from button, and again I attempt a steal. CS calls me. Flop is 2s3sJc. I have nut flush draw and straight flush draw. I bet pot sized bet and CS calls. Turn is Ad, so I now have TPWK so I bet pot sized bet, CS calls. River is a Qd which scares me that he was chasing the straight. I check, he checks and shows KingJackoff for 3rd pair. I win the pot with Aces.

I get KQo/s on the button and CS (UTG) limps in. Online Donkey (UTG +1) limps, fold, fold, I bet 3x BB. SB folds, Miss Knowhowtoplaynothowtobet (BB) calls and is all in. CS and OD fold. She flips over 23o/s. 3 on the flop holds up and I miss out on a $1600 pot while blinds are 150/300.

One hand, I get 82o/s in SB. Easy fold hand, but in these tournaments I really should broaden my range when given an opportunity to limp in. CS limps, fold, fold, I fold and Mr. Mouth (BB) checks. Flop comes 8K2 rainbow. CS bets, Mouth calls. 2 on the turn. I almost fell backwards out of my chair. CS bets big now (surely on a very strong K10) and Mouth folds. I miss another big pot opportunity.

Online Donkey was first one to go out when he realized we had a calling station and got "caught" all in with 2nd pair. CS had top pair -not a drawing hand as the OD thought. Buh-Bye.

I try to limit my aggression to when the Aggro Donkey is on breaks. Luckily, he took a lot of them. I did try to push back on him once when he was stealing my BB from the SB and he simply went "all in". He had me covered and I had to fold my re-steal with junk hand.

AD took a big hit when he got caught stealing against the CS. CS was playing A2 when two 2's hit the flop. AD put the CS all in and then doubled him up when his draw from the flop did not improve over the set of 2's. That was a 19,000 pot to the CS. Surely, I could work some of that out of his hands. Consequently, the AD was out very soon afterwards.

I took Mr.Mouth out when I limped from the SB with A2o/s. Flop comes AAQ and I check. M&M goes all in and I instacall. He says "oh no. you must have one of 'dem bullets. you tricked me." His 88 does not improve.

The people running the tournament had no experience and struggled to keep the tournament running efficiently. My wife's table actually played 3 hands over a 45 minute period (while we played several hands) and they ended up skipping an entire blind. Some people were getting ignorant and complaining. I let it go, since it was a fundraiser. By the time we got down to 13 players, we had been playing for 4 1/2 hours. From 56 to 13 in 4 1/2 hours was just way too long. I was getting shortstacked relative to the blinds (1500/3000). The guys running the tournament sped up the blinds because it was lasting too long. A knee-jerk reaction which made things worse, IMO. I think the average chip stack at our table now was 15,000 and so we were just pushing chips back and forth to each other. "All in", fold, fold, fold then deal again. This happened several times as few people wanted to risk a 1/4 of their stack just to see a flop.

I have a new guy to my left who is short stacked and goes all in with AJo/s and does get a caller. Caller has 88, but an A on the flop doubles the short stack. A couple of hands later someone raises to 3x BB (6000bet) and guyonmyleft goes all in and buys a nice pot. Now he is chip leader at our table. The very next hand, I am in the cutoff and look down to see 33. With 10,500 in chips, I can't see calling or minraising to see a flop, so I shove and guytomyleft instacalls with AQo/s. Ace on the flop and I am out 13th. Don't you play 33 there also? I figured I only had two orbits left in me and could possibly steal the blinds here. Only the Calling station and the Weak Male Player were left from my original table.

Hawkette actually lasted a few hands longer than me. She had been sitting to my immediate right when we got down to two tables. She had 2500 in chips when the 4000 BB came to her so she went all in with "the Doyle". She was not as fortunate as Mr. Brunson so went out in 10th place.

We were actually glad to be going home as it was almost midnight and we told the grandparents we would be home around 11pm to get the kids. All in all, it was a long night, but we were happy the money was going to help some kids sports team.