Last Thursday in Vegas I entered the evening Texas Hold ’em tournament at the MGM Grand casino. The MGM is kind of unique in how they feature a nice poker room and their sports book prominently near their entrance, whereas most casinos tuck them toward a back corner. In the poker room they run hold ’em tournaments most days in addition to the on-going cash tables. The night I played there were about 45 players in the tournament. A buy-in of $80 got you 3000 in tourney chips. They run their tourneys pretty aggressively, the blinds doubling every 20 minutes, and after 80 minutes, an ante is added for all players which also doubles every 20 minutes. They force the action pretty strong and I was a little worried how my usual tight play would hold out. By 80 minutes in, after our first break, the blinds had reached 400/800 and I was barely hanging in with 1200. I had been in a few hands and had to get out of a few I knew I was behind in. Luckily my next hand was a good one, a nut flush, and my all-in took down a good pot.
Not a hand or two after, all the players redrew for seats at two final tables. Within 20 minutes, the blinds were up to 800/1600 and I was short stacked again with 900 in chips. I don’t call the blind of the next hand and the dealer leans over, sees I’m down to less than the blinds and asks “what are you waiting for”. I tell him “better cards”. The next hand I get dealt a big slick (A-K) and go all-in (which after the ante of 200 is only 700 – less than the SMALL blind). There are plenty of callers, and even though I only get a portion of the pot, it floats me way back up.
A few hands later and we redraw for seats as we are down to the final table. A couple more players fall out. A little later, the blinds are up to 1500/3000 and I make another desperate all-in push, pull in the pot, and come back from the brink AGAIN. As we get down to four players we know we’ve all made it to the money. With blinds now at 3000/6000 (not to mention an ante of 500) I have only a couple hands worth of chips left once again. I go all-in with pocket sevens and the chip leader calls me with pocket 8’s. With no help for either of us on the board, I finish in 4th and make $288 (10% of the pot). It’s a shame I couldn’t outlast one more player or I would have had double the payout, but I counted myself lucky to make it as far as I did. That was my first casino tourney and even though it was a small one it was awesome to finish 4th out of 45 and make some dough.
Tags: poker
