Riviera stories

There's a pool tournament going on at the Riviera, as happens a few times a year. Such occasions are basically the only times that I play there, because the games become extra juicy. Tonight was no exception. In addition to being profitable, it generated four stories that I thought were worth telling.

1.

I had Qc-Kc and raised to $10. Two callers, and I had position. Flop was 5-9-7 with two hearts. Both opponents checked, so I bet $20. One folded. The guy on my right called. I thought a flush draw was his most likely hand. Turn was an offsuit 8. He checked again. I bet $40, hoping to dissuade him from chasing his draw further. He called again. I didn't think he would do that with a naked draw, so concluded that I had probably been wrong and that I was up against some sort of made hand. On that basis, I decided that unless I caught a pair with my overcards, a bet on the river would probably just be throwing more money away. I planned to bet at a jack or queen, but otherwise give up. River was an offsuit 6. I just glanced at it long enough to see that it wasn't one of the cards I wanted, then focused my attention on my opponent. He thought an unusually long time while I stared at him, then checked. I checked behind.

At that point, my only hope was that he had, in fact, been on a flush draw and had missed. I waited for him to show his cards. J-9. Top pair. Well, that's it, then. I lose. I flicked my hole cards back to the dealer, who buried them in the muck.

I turned back toward the center of the table, took another look at the board just before the dealer swiped it away, and realized to my horror that I had completely missed the fact that the 6 on the river had completed a straight on the board. My cards were good for half of the pot if I had just turned them face up.

D'oh!

That mental lapse cost me a bit over $70. My only consolation is that I make this sort of mistake at an average rate of about once a year (as far as I know; I suppose there could be other instances of it that I never notice). Given the number of hands I play, that's an error rate that is small enough to be forgivable, and just large enough to prove that I'm human.

2.

In one hand, I got all in on fourth street against another player in a dominating situation: My K-Q versus his K-9 on a king-high board, with him having no straight or flush possibilities. (I don't remember the other cards. I write down the details of hands that I think will make good blog stories, but I didn't think this one would at the time that it happened.)

River: 9, giving him two pair to my one--a pure three-out hit for all the marbles.

Sigh. Oh well. Rebuy!

About 15 minutes later, there was an eerily similar recurrence. He and I again managed to get all of our chips into the pot on the turn. This time, however, he had the dominating situation: Q-7 versus my A-K on a board of A-Q-7-3.*

River: K, giving me a higher two pair than his.

To make the sweet revenge even sweeter, this pot was much bigger than the previous one, having been swelled by a bunch of pre-flop action.

After paying me off, he began grumbling about his rotten luck, getting screwed by a three-outer. (I had actually had eight outs, but I didn't bother correcting his math.) After about 30 seconds of his little tantrum, I decided that I could have a bit of fun with it and simultaneously maybe give him just enough extra needling that he'd go well out of his way to target me for payback later, which tends to make for very profitable situations.

So I smiled sweetly and said, "I don't remember you complaining this way a little while ago when you rivered the three-outer against me."

His face clouded, and he insisted, "I never caught a river card against you like that!"

Some people have amazingly short memories.

3.

I noticed this part of the sign announcing high-hand bonuses:



I'm not much of a believer, but I would sure pray to a Saint Flush if one really existed.

4.

In a hand that did not involve me, the flop was A-6-6. The pre-flop raiser bet at it, folding his opponents, and showed his A-K before mucking. A player next to me told his neighbor, "Dammit! I folded A-6! He had top pair/top kicker. I think he would have put all his chips in against me, and I would have won!" He then paused a second and added, "Unless he caught his king, of course."

Well allrighty then! Nice to know that I'm not the only one capable of putting his inner moron out on public display!

* I'm acutely aware that this makes twice in a short period of time that I was all-in with just top pair, a practice I normally try to avoid. In terms of both how the action unfolded and who was involved, there were extenuating circumstances in both cases that made it more justifiable than it would otherwise be. But an exposition of those additional considerations would just bog down the story, so I'm omitting them.

40 to 740 in nothing flat

I played at Planet Hollywood last night. I started with $200, and within 15 minutes or so was down to about $50. I was playing horribly--as badly as I ever do. Apparently somebody had slipped a drug into my water bottle which transformed me into the world's worst calling station. I was playing every hand and calling every bet when I had any piece of the board, under the misguided impression that everybody else was bluffing. These weren't huge bets, but I frittered away the money $10 and $20 at a time. It was embarrassing and not at all my usual style.

The first thing I did was make a firm determination not to rebuy. On the rare occasions that I play that badly, at least I have the good sense not to keep at it until my wallet is empty. I recognized that I was being a doofus and had no business throwing good money after bad.

With that decision made, I told myself that I had three options: (1) Give up now, preserving the last $50 against further awful play. (2) Keep playing badly for one or two more hands, at which time the chips would all be gone and I could drive myself home feeling stupid and miserable, with a giant "L" visible on my forehead in the car mirror. (3) Buck up, play right, and see if I could turn things around. If I could find good spots to put in my short stack, then even if I didn't grind my way back to a profit, I could at least go home feeling good about having played smart with my last couple of bullets.

#3 being clearly the best choice, I mentally slapped myself for having stupidly given away $150, then let it go and settled in to play the best that I could.

My first opportunity came with an A-J offsuit. Raised to $10, three callers. Missed the flop completely. Out of position against three people who all see me as wounded, vulnerable, and possibly desperate is not the spot for a continuation-bet bluff, so I check-folded. Down to $40.

I no longer remember any of the specific hands, but I slowly worked that $40 up to $91 over the course of an hour or so, at which time came a remarkable series of three hands.

1) Three seats to my left was a fast-and-loose player. He played every hand, called light, bet at every orphan pot, straddled every opportunity, etc. He was doing a button straddle of $10 every time he was dealer. Surprisingly, nobody had ever tried to raise him when he did this. I had Q-T offsuit. The big blind and one other person had called the $10 straddle. To my left I could see both of the players between me and the button with their cards cocked, ready to fling into the muck. By this point, my table image had been adequately rehabilitated, so it seemed like a likely spot to pick up the dead money. I declared myself all in. Mr. Fast-and-Loose called, the others folded. Flop was 2-2-2 (oh, to have my beloved 2-4!), turn 7, river queen, miraculously turning my trashy hand into deuces full of queens. It was good for the pot. I never saw the other guy's cards. This put me up to $200, plus or minus a few bucks. Back to even, which was in itself something of a victory. But I was feeling good about my ability to play well, the table was soft and juicy, and so I decided to keep going.

2) A short time later, I had 8-8 under the gun, limped, and then became the last of five players paying $25 to see the flop. It came 8-3-4 rainbow, which was the loveliest sight I had seen the whole session. I was first to act and checked, knowing that there would be plenty of action that I could check-raise. Sure enough, there was a $30 bet and two calls before it was back to me. Raising all-in to about $175 from $30 is a big leap. I very much wanted at least one call, and wasn't sure I would get one if I went all the way like that. I considered a smaller raise, hoping to lure in two or three callers, who might all then feel pot-committed to my inevitable push on any turn card. That might have been better, but in the end I went for shove-and-pray, hoping that at least one would look me up. And one did. I never saw his hand, but when another 3 hit fourth street, giving me top full house, he must have been drawing dead, or nearly so. That put me up to about $530.

3) On the very next hand, I looked down at Ad-As in the big blind. Practically the whole table limped in, so I raised to $17. Three callers. Flop was 7-8-10 with two clubs. I bet $60. The player two to my left moved all-in for $90 more, followed by folds. Of course he might have me beat here with a flopped set, straight, or two pair. But I thought it more likely that he was semi-bluffing with either a pair and a draw (straight draw or flush draw), or some sort of a combo straight/flush draw. Against such a hand, a call should be mathematically correct. My read was right; he had 9-10 for top pair and an open-ended straight draw. It was a good move on his part, given that he should have decent fold equity against my range, and, failing that, an excellent chance of improving to the winner. Sadly for him, he caught no help with the last two cards, and another pot was pushed my way before I had even finished stacking the previous monster one.

When I finally got the chips straightened out, they looked like this:

I never did an exact count, but it must have been right around $730. Over the course of the next couple of orbits, I won one small pot with a pre-flop raise, peaking at about $740, then lost about $20 before deciding that I had probably gotten as lucky as I was going to get, and cashing out for $718.

Of course there was a hefty dose of luck here: an all-in steal shove that turned into a full house, then flopping top set in a bloated pot and managing to find somebody who had caught enough of the ragged flop to call my all-in check-raise, then dodging 13 outs twice to have my aces hold up. But in spite of that nice streak of good fortune, I was proud of having started off playing so wretchedly and yet finding the discipline to snap out of it and play smart.

It won't be every day that making that kind of mental turnaround will be so richly rewarded, but I'm happy to pocket the results when it does.

Black Chip Poker withdrawal, Step 4

FedEx guy woke me up about half an hour ago with a knock on my door. I had no been expecting any deliveries, so I was puzzled what was in the envelope.

It was a check:

That's 9 1/2 days from submitting the request to getting the check. Not bad, Black Chip Poker. not bad at all.

Two license plates

It's been a long time since I posted any poker-themed license plate photos. I have spotted two in the past 24 hours.

I saw this truck at a red light today while on my way to brunch with a friend at The Original Pancake House (an excellent breakfast place). It made me wish I had his plate. (Apologies for the dirty windshield. I need new wipers, obviously.)

And this one I saw on the way home from buying groceries after my session at Mandalay Bay tonight. It may be hard to read, but it says, "LOVPOKR."

Stupid rule

I was playing at Mandalay Bay tonight. Over time, one just comes to accept that MB has a bunch of bizarre house rules that don't make any sense. I thought I had heard them all (and documented them all in these pages as I encountered them). Nope. Tonight I learned of one that had previously escaped my notice.

I was in seat 6. During a hand in which the button was on seat 7, the guy in seat 1, having just taken an ugly beat, stormed away from the table with his few remaining chips. Nobody else had requested a seat change, so I moved to 1. Next hand, the button is on seat 8, seats 9 and 10 are the blinds, and I am under the gun. As he started dealing, the dealer said something about putting out $2. I wasn't completely sure he was talking to me, and assumed that if he were, he was simply mistaken. I.e., he had erroneously thought I was the big blind, or failed to notice the direction around the table that I had moved. So I didn't do anything.

As he delivered my second card, he more pointedly said, "You need to post because you changed seats." I pointed out that I was moving toward the blinds, not away from them; i.e., I would be paying the blinds sooner than I would have if I had stayed put (on the next hand, in fact). He insisted that that was their house rule--moving past more than two other players required posting, no matter which direction one moved.

Even if the dealer were correct about this being a house rule, he should have given me the option to post or wait one hand for the big blind. (I would have chosen the latter, of course.) But now that the situation was upon us, I didn't want to slow down the game for everybody else by asking for the floor person to come over and address the issue, so I just tossed in the $2 then folded my crappy cards after somebody raised. As poker room annoyances go, this one merited one roll of the eyes, but nothing more dramatic than that.

The usual rule in Vegas poker rooms is that if you move past one or two players in either direction, it's a freebie. If you move past more than two players in the direction that delays when you will pay your next set of blinds, then you have to post the equivalent of the big blind, or wait until the big blind comes around to you. But if you move into the blinds, so that you will be paying them sooner than you otherwise would have, no posting is required. I have never before encountered a situation in which moving towards the blinds requires early posting.

An hour or so later as I was leaving, I pulled the shift supervisor aside to ask if the dealer had been correct. She confirmed that he had been; their house rule is that one must post the big blind (or wait for it), no matter which direction one moves, if it is more than two seats. I suggested to her that this was non-standard and probably unique among Vegas poker rooms. She allowed as how that was probably true.

Upon arriving home, I checked my rule books and confirmed that it is indeed non-standard. Here's Lou Krieger and Sheree Bykofsky, The Rules of Poker (Lyle Stuart, 2006), pp. 32-33:

For moving counterclockwise (toward the blinds and against the flow of the dealer button), jumping over intermediate players to the new seat: There is no penalty for changing seats and the player who moves is entitled to receive a hand immediately.

For moving clockwise (away from the blinds and in the same direction as the flow of the dealer button): The player is required to sit out a number of hands equal to the number of players jumped over during the move.... If the player does not wish to wait out any hands, he may be dealt in immediately, provided he posts the big blind in his new seat.

Maybe some day somebody will explain to me why Mandalay Bay is such a maverick about idiosyncratic house rules. I really don't get what it is about the culture of that poker room that causes it to go against the grain on so many things. In almost every instance, the weird rule that they come up with is clearly, demonstrably worse than the standard practice everywhere else.* In this case, the standard rule about posting when moving away from the blinds exists to prevent nits from seat hopping frequently to avoid paying the blinds. (If you doubt that such uber-nits exist, you have not spent much time in Vegas casinos.) No comparable purpose is served by imposing the same requirement on a player moving the opposite direction. It's just stupid.

*The one exception is how they handle must-move games, which I discussed here. It is perfect, and is a system that should be imitated by all other poker rooms.

Rakeback

Because of my recent surge in online playing, some people have asked me whether I'm enrolled in a rakeback program. The answer is yes. I mentioned it in passing here when I first signed up for it.

But the truth is that until the last 30 days, I played so little on Black Chip Poker that I never checked on whether the rakeback system was actually working. In fact, I didn't even know the mechanics of how it was supposed to work--would the affiliate send me a separate check, or what? I was not even sure that I was eligible for rakeback on tournament entry fees; for all I knew, it might have been only for the rake on cash games. (You can see that I was not exactly a careful shopper when I signed up.) Now that I've been putting in enough volume online that it matters, I looked into it.

I found that it is being credited to my BCP account every day, shortly after midnight, for play of the day before. To find it, open your Merge software, and under "account" click on "real money ledger."

I'm still a little confused on the percentages. The offer I signed up for was 41% rakeback in perpetuity. But look at how it is actually being credited (the "positive balance adjustment" entries):

By coincidence (not planning), on each of the past four days I have entered exactly $44 worth of tournaments, of which $4 has been the tournament fees. This is presumably the amount on which the rakeback is calculated. But the rakeback amount credited has been $1.40, $0.35, $2.45, and $1.40. This baffles me, first, because this works out to 35% rather than 41%, and, second, because of the variable amount each day. Maybe part of the second day's rakeback got delayed somehow and added in to the third day, which would even them out to $1.40 per day. But even if so, I don't understand why it's 35% and not 41%. I will have to look into this. At these levels it's not much of a difference, but if I start increasing the buy-ins and/or volume, the difference will start to add up.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Is there anything in poker more aggravating than being the bubble boy?

Black Chip Poker withdrawal, Step 3

Email received today:

Your $685.00 Black Chip Poker Check withdrawal has been approved.

If you should have any questions regarding your Black Chip Poker account, please check our Frequently Asked Questions. Our support team is also available 24/7 to help with any questions you may have.

Kind Regards,

Black Chip Poker Support Team

Notice that the amount is $15 less than my request was for, presumably reflecting the $15 withdrawal fee.

Now we'll see how long it takes.

So close

Small win

But the first time I've taken a first place in about three weeks.

"Average" tournament chips

A few years ago I wrote about my observation that having an "average" stack in a poker tournament puts one ahead of more than half of the field, which, on first blush, is a counterintuitive proposition. See here and here for the full explanation, along with examples taken from chip counts at the World Series of Poker to illustrate the point.

I have continued to notice this phenomenon while playing online poker ever since writing those two posts. The tournament lobbies make it trivially easy to see where one stands relative to the current average and, at the same time, figure out where one's chip stack ranks relative to all of the other players.

Every time I have checked, without a single exception, has confirmed the rule that I discovered long ago: The mean chip stack size is always greater than the median chip stack size. If you have an average (mean) stack, you are ahead of more people than you are behind. If you are at the median (i.e., there are just as many players with bigger stacks than yours as there are players with smaller stacks than yours; this is usually impossible to know in a live tournament, but easy online), then you have a below-average stack.

Here are two recent examples that demonstrate the point:

In the shot above, you can see that I exactly define the median; 50 players have more chips than I do, and 50 have fewer. But my stack, at 3535 chips, is significantly below the average, shown as 3979.

Conversely, in this shot you can see that I have a chip stack that is almost exactly at the current tournament average, but I am ahead of more than half of the field. (The difference is small because it's such a small field.)

The point is this: When you see that you have a stack that is at or near the current average for the tournament, it doesn't imply what you would tend to think. It means that you are ahead of most of the field.

Black Chip Poker withdrawal, Step 2

Last night (August 7) I used BCP's document-submission web page to send them a scan of my license and a signed copy of their identity verification form. I did not include any credit card information, since the funds I used to start my recent balance build-up were not a card payment, but rather a transfer from another player, as explained here.

We shall see if taking this step speeds up the process any.

Black Chip Poker withdrawal, Step 1

Last night (August 6) I submitted a request for $700. This is the only withdrawal option, and they charge a $15 fee for it. No "one free per month" like other sites tend to do.

The instructions also said that it would go faster if I were to do photo verification in advance, but, of course, there was no explanation of exactly what that involved or how to do it. (Hint to BCP: That would be an excellent place for a link to a step-by-step explanation of what you would like a customer to do.)

It should be interesting to see what hoops I have to go through, and how long it all takes.

SHIP THE BROWNIES!

As the post below this one details blow by blow, I actually pulled it off. Last night I was highly pessimistic that I would be able to replicate yesterday's results and get myself to $1200 before the end of the night. I put my chance of success at under 10%.

When I got up today, I found this email from Josie, apparently in response to my closing comment last night that I was waiting for her to tell me which events to play:

Now I want you to win another token. And then play another tourney. Having a small party for evan's bday, which is actually tomorrow, so I won't be around until early evening my time. Like not before 7pm. Don't let that stop you from doing your thang though. It would be great if you had your token won by 7pm so I can watch you play a big tourney with sharks. I fully expect the bloodshed to be shark blood.

1.) Win the token
2.) Win big cash in a big tourney

Hop to it!

Well, I didn't do that. I wanted to play in the big Sunday $11 tourney with guaranteed prize money. When I busted out of that, there wasn't a token tourney soon, so I jumped into something else, then another something else, and another. Nothing to show for any of it.

So I decided I had better do as I had been told, lest I incur the wrath of a Sicilian. I entered an $11 token event, and pulled one out fairly easily. It was for a $109 tournament, which I was going to use to play the only $100 event left on today's schedule--the same one as I did last night. While waiting for that to start, I eked out two small cashes, one in a HORSE, one in a no-limit hold'em.

Then it was time for the sink-or-swim tourney. I did even better than last night! I finished in 4th, and likely could have gotten at least 3rd if not for an ugly beat on the last hand. That scored me $620 on my $11 initial investment. I spent quite a bit (well, maybe $70-80) during the afternoon on that bunch of tournaments that yielded nothing, but this one more than compensated for it.

Above is a screen shot of my end-of-day balance on Black Chip Poker. Josie had originally challenged me to double my balance, which was then (July 25) sitting at $660.72. She later amended that to a threshold of an even $1200 balance--but I did both! That $1485.98 you see above is about $286 over the second, lower goal, and about $164 over the original goal. Of course, I needed every last little bit of the extra five days that she tacked on to the original terms, but the past 15 days is still the fastest I've earned money with online poker. A body just needs to have a goal and sufficient motivation, I guess.

My deepest thanks to Josie for providing both the goal and the additional incentive, as well as for opening my eyes to how profitable the MTTs on the Merge network can be. As you can see, there isn't much that I won't do for brownies. Well, brownies and money.

Now SHIP THE BROWNIES!

(And please remember: No nuts.)

Live blogging updates (sort of)

OK, I'm about halfway through both tournaments that I started right after last post. In the $33 HORSE, 27 started, 14 left, I'm in 3rd place. Four spots pay, ranging from $105 to $324.

In a NLHE tournament, $15 buy-in, 103 started, 50 are left, I'm in 5th. 18 spots pay, ranging from $19 to $428.

Will post updates here as warranted.

8:57 pm

Ugh. Brutal HORSE level. Down to 9/9 left. One hand went bad in NLHE, enough to take me down to 12/35, but still a little above average. Not in danger there.

9:16 pm

Redemption in HORSE, now 2/7. Slippage in NLHE, now 23/25, push or fold mode.

9:25 pm

2/6 in HORSE. Major suckout in NLHE. Shoved with Q6, called by KK, made straight with the 6 to stay alive. 10/21.

9:27 pm

Now on both bubbles simultaneously!

9:33 pm

In the money in both.

9:36 pm

Lost an all-in race in NLHE, my 10-10 vs. A-Q. Out in 16th for another %^&*#@ min-cash! $19. That's about a $2 profit, and is only slightly less annoying than bubbling. Ugh.

I'm 2/3 left in HORSE.

9:43 pm

Out in 3rd place in HORSE. $154.

That puts balance up to $861, which is only $30 more than when I started playing almost nine hours ago. Ugh.

OK, one more tournament tonight. Do or die. Fortunately, it's already paid for. Starts at 10:00. Right now, only 13 are registered, but I'm sure lots more will come along. $6000 guaranteed prize pool, $2400 for 1st as things now stand, but that will change.

10:25

56 registered, 42 left, I'm in 5th with more than double starting stack already. Played A-K with far more daring than I usually do and forced folds both times. I think I was good, but I was not at all sure when I moved in either time. Turbo event, gotta ratchet up the courage factor.

10:32

Doubled up when a guy with stack just a hair shorter than mine got in raising war with me. I had QQ, he had JJ. The ladies held up. 57 started, 44 left, I'm in 2nd place.

10:57

First break. Late registration over. Final tally: 62 runners, 24 left, I'm in 7th. 9 places will pay, from $186 to $1984. I need to make at least $339 to reach the $1200 mark, which means getting to 6th place ($372) or better.

11:08

Caught a gutterball against the aggressive chip leader on my left, he shoved, I called with the nuts. Now 3/16.

11:13

Guy pushed with AJ, I called with AK, held. Then somebody tried to check-raise me off top/top. I smelled a rat and was having none of it, and shoved. He instafolded. Now in 1st place with 14 left:

11:21

Wow! My AK versus AJ, flop AKJ. I won, now massive chip leader.

11:26

9 left. We're in the money. Still way out in front with about 1/3 of all the chips.

11:34 pm

Down to 6, which means that even if I go out next (not likely, still chip leader by a large margin), I will make enough to break $1200. I have won Josie's brownies!

11:48 pm

4 left, still small chip lead.

11:56 pm

Break. Still 4 in. I'm down to 3rd place.

12:05 am

Out in 4th place. I shoved with suited AQ, called by slightly bigger stack with A-10. He flopped one 10, and rivered a third one just to rub it in.

Payout: $620.

End of live blog. I'll go do a wrap-up post.

Call Bob Costas

Cuz this one is coming down to the wire.

I just won another $109 tournament ticket:

Again it took just one try. The Mozart violin concertos were my secret weapon, and put me over the top with a miracle 3-outer at a crucial moment.

But I have entered five other tournaments today with not a penny to show for it, which has taken my balance down to $705. I'm registered already for a $33 HORSE tourney that starts in a few minutes, and may do one or two others, depending on how this goes.

But the only $109 tourney offered yet today is a repeat of the one I did last night, starting at 10 p.m. my time. (I assume that I have a grace period, and money won in a tournament starting before midnight still counts.) So unless I get ridiculously lucky and take first place in a lower buy-in event before then, that will be my last opportunity. Winning $500 in the next six or seven hours is a steep hurdle, but not unthinkable. I'll be giving it my best shot.

How is it possible that The Brownie Challenge is not an Olympic event?

"Show pool"

Bob Ciaffone is a columnist for Card Player magazine. In his column for the July 25 issue, he is describing a cash game in which he played recently:

About an hour later, I got all-in onA-K again (this time unsuited) in a three-way pot against Q-Q and 2-2. Trip deuces won this pot and I "won" the show pool.

I've never heard this phrase before, and can't figure out its meaning from the context.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

From now on, Josie is in charge of my career

I had another min-cash in a Black Chip Poker tournament this afternoon. It was an especially frustrating one because when we got into the money, I had the biggest stack. But then I misplayed a couple of hands and got unlucky in a third, and I was the first one out after the bubble. GAAAAAAAAAAAA!

I griped a bit about it to Josie via email, since I considered it her fault that I've been on this flurry of online tournament play lately. She quickly wrote back, telling me to enter a coupon tournament. That's where the top finishers don't win cash, but pick up a prepaid entry into a more expensive tournament. Given the frequency with which I've been min-cashing, her logic was unassailable: "I'd like you to play for a token. That way when you min cash again it'll be for substantially more money. Size of token is up to u. $33 - $100. Go do it."

Well, my way sure hasn't been working to get me any significant progress towards that elusive $1200 and batch of brownies, with the deadline looming tomorrow. So I might as well try it her way.

I looked at the tournament lobby, and one such event was starting just a few minutes later. It was an $11 buy-in, and the top eight finishers would all win a ticket to get into any $100 + $9 tournament. So I did it.

And whaddya know? I won one on my first try!

So now what to do with it? Josie had apparently gone to bed (what with the east coast time and all) and wasn't responding to emails, so I was on my own. There were basically two choices: I could hang up the pokerz for the night and tomorrow enter the Merge network's version of a Sunday major. This is a big deal with a guaranteed prize pool of $125,000. That obviously gives potential for an enormous win, but it's also a tournament that attracts all the sharks. It would be a much tougher field than I usually have to face on BCP. It would also likely take many hours to complete, and I might well be left empty-handed after investing that time.

The other choice: In about ten minutes, they were going to start a $6000 guaranteed deep stack turbo event. (If anybody can explain to me the logic of having a tourney be simultaneously deep stack and turbo, please do. It has always seemed to me to be an illogical structure, trying to simultaneously achieve two mutually inconsistent goals.) Only 24 people had registered, which meant that there might be a huge overlay. (There wasn't in the end; a bunch of late registrations put us just past the threshold, at 61 runners.) I was still feeling reasonably fresh, and had been playing smart and carefully through the coupon event. So even though I don't like turbo structures, I decided to jump in. I was willing to take the higher probability of a cash rather than try to gamble on the big one tomorrow.

I put on some Mozart (scientific fact: Mozart is only slightly less powerful than Elvis Presley at bringing the poker run-good) and dug in. I was determined to concentrate, rather than play with the divided attention that I admittedly do most of the time. That nearly $2K first prize was singing its sweet siren song to me, and I wanted it. So I turned off the Olympics, checked Twitter only during breaks, stopped taking my turns in Words With Friends games, and studied what my opponents were doing.I got a rush of big hands right at the beginning, had a double-up within the first orbit, and was on my way.

And it worked! I didn't win, but I made it into the money--and not even a min-cash this time:

You know what that is? That's a $488 payback on my $11 investment. It's also my biggest online tournament score since Black Friday, more than a year ago. For somebody like me who has invested essentially no time and effort in studying contemporary concepts of online tournament strategy, that's not too shabby.

There were a bunch of hands that I took snapshots of, but, really, I don't think they're particularly interesting, and right now I'm that weird combination of too tired and too excited to talk about them. Suffice it to say that I both took and inflicted my share of ugly beats along the way. I was consciously being more aggressive than my usual style because of the turbo structure, and that increased my variance. Ah, hell, why soft-pedal it? It was a freakin' roller coaster! I swung between chip leader and being on the verge of elimination more times than I could count. But it worked out well enough. Not a complete takedown, but still quite satisfying.

It also moved my marker a long way toward the goalposts: My BCP balance now sits at $831. Hitting $1200 by 24 hours from now is still problematic. It basically means repeating today's performance, which is demonstrably an outlier. But it's not impossible.

I'll give it a fair try anyway--as soon as Josie tells me what events to enter.

Brownie update

As reported here, Josie has given me until August 5 (extended from the original deadline of July 31) to get my Black Chip Poker account up to $1200 in order to earn a batch of what she claims to be the world's best brownies. This challenge was issued when the balance stood at $661. I have been trying mightily, but with little to show for it. I've had a couple of min-cashes, but that's about it. It has been fail, fail, fail, several tournaments a day every day. Deeply demoralizing.

Tonight was the first glimmer of hope I've had. It was an $11 freezeout, which is most of what I've been doing, with the $2000 guaranteed prize pool well exceeded. My stack was below average for most of the tournament, but never in dire straits. The lack of flexibility that a cramped stack brings forced me to just play solid ABC, not get much out of line.

Just before the money bubble burst, I cracked aces with tens by flopping a set, won an enormous pot, and took over the tournament chip lead with 27 left. But then I entered the card graveyard, and was dealt a never-ending string of J-2, 8-3, etc. The big stack gave me the ability to just ride out the flurry of all-ins that inevitably occurs for a while after the bubble bursts, but that meant that I was not the one profiting by knocking out other players. I was just coasting. By the final table bubble, I was down to below average.

But I got a big opportunity. At a four-handed table, the short stack open-shoved with what turned out to be A-2. I re-shoved with Q-Q, expecting that to end the action. But the big stack in the small blind called, showing A-K.

Here's how it played out:

As soon as I flopped the set, I relaxed and actually missed the fact that Mr. A-K turned the straight. When my table disappeared, I thought it was just because with the elimination we were on to the final table. But the new table didn't pop up. That's when I looked at the hand history and realized what had happened. It made me want to throw up.

So I finished in 8th:

If I had won that pot, I would have had about 198,000 chips. I would have been way out in front with the chip lead, and would have been in a prime position to go for the $625 first prize.

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"

I've done so many buy-ins with so little reward that the $82 I won only brings me back up to $415. This is still more than double what it was a couple of weeks ago, before I had those two nice scores back to back, but obviously still well down from my peak. It seems impossibly far from $1200, given less than 48 hours left to get there.

Along the way, I had two opportunities to prove the power of the Mighty Deuce-Four, and it did not disappoint. I flopped two pair both times, bet and won both pots:

I'm afraid it's going to be back to brownie mixes from the store for me. So sad.

A picture is worth 1000 words