Author: James Dodge

Well I haven’t been playing too much poker lately.  I’ve been so busy with work that I just haven’t made a lot of time to play.  But there have been a couple of tournaments I’ve played in the last couple of weeks that have turned out pretty good for me.

The first game was at the Stratosphere a few weeks ago.  I really like playing this tournament.  Always a lot of people there which leads to a pretty decent payout.  Average for first place ends up being right around $1,400.  Buy-in is $45 for 4500 in chips with the option to add-on in the first hour – $20 for $4000 more chips.  Blinds start at $25/$50 with 20 minute levels, so this ends up being a decent tournament you can kind of take your time in.  Kurt and I have played this several times and Kurt has cashed a few times, but I’ve never been able to.  This last time though things really started going my way.  I kept hitting the cards I needed and had a great time.  I ended up making it to the final table and we chopped the money 5 ways.  I figured this would be the best to do since the blinds by this time were out of control.  I had about $150,000 in chips, which was close to the lead, but the blinds were $10,000/$20,000 which could swing the game in any direction.  And since chopping guaranteed close to the second place payout, it seemed like the best choice.  Would hate to not chop and get knocked out before 2nd!!

Second tournament was this past weekend at Aliante Station.  Wasn’t really planning on playing this weekend, but a friend of mine, Richard, was in town so Kurt & I headed over to play in their Friday night “Beat the Boss” bounty tournament.  Buy-in is $65 for $5,000 in chips plus $5 for staff appreciation gets you an additional $2,000 chips.  This tournament also start at $25/$50 with 20 minute levels.  There is a $15 bounty on each player and the poker room manager plays also with a $100 bounty on his head.  Since he didn’t get beat the week before, the bounty on his head was carried over for a total of $200 for knocking him out.  Kind of an interesting dynamic to throw into the game.

I started strong with this tournament – within 15 minutes I hit a full house on the river – Queen of Diamonds – which gave the guy I was up against the nut flush.  I was able to get him to put all his chips in so I almost doubled up.  He had me covered by $300, but I ended up getting him out 4 or 5 hands later for the first bounty of the night.  I was able to play pretty strong the whole night, but wasn’t able to finish in the money.  I did make the final table though, and Kurt went on to chop the prize money as one of the top four.  I ended up knocking out 2 people total and got my bounty back once we got to the final table.  All in all – playing the whole night and paying only $25 was good by me.

OK – so I started this blog to keep track of the poker games I’m involved in, but I haven’t posted to it in almost 5 months.  What a waste!!  Totally not what I intended for this blog.  I’m going to try and fix that and start putting up a quick post every time I play.  Anyways – this last week I went over to Aliante Poker Room to check out the new tournaments they’re offering.  Very cool tournaments in my opinion.  The tournament I went to play is a $45 buy-in for 4500 in chips.  For a $5 Staff appreciation add-on you get an additional 2000 chips for 6500 total.  Plus, you can re-buy anytime in the first hour for $20 and get another $4000 in chips.

So I get over to Aliante Station, meet up with Kurt & Elena, only to find out we’re the only 3 signed up for the tournament!!  Wow.  I know they’ve just started up these tournaments, but I was hoping for more people to be there!  By the time 7:00 got there, we only had 10 people signed up, but we decided to play anyway.  I really try to support this poker room as much as I can – I’m hoping to see more and more people there.

As we start out, Jodi is dealing which always makes me nervous.  The joke with Jodi is that she deals bad beats to everybody.  Lately though, Jodi has actually been dealing some pretty decent hands to me.  As we get going, I hit a few really good hands in a row.  Ended up getting myself up to around 11,000 in chips in the first level (up from 6500 since I hadn’t re-bought yet).

I was feeling pretty good after level one, but I cooled off pretty quick.  I tried making a couple of moves in a couple of different spots, but was constantly finding myself second best.  During this first hour I think the table saw pocket aces get shown about 5 different times.  It was crazy.  One of the times I had pocket kings, but luckily the board scared the guy holding Aces from betting throughout the hand.  Could have lost a lot on that hand.  Of course if I hadn’t been too scared myself, I could have probably bet him off his hand.

By the time we got to the third level, I was back down to around the starting chip count.  Then came the hand that pretty much ruined me for the rest of the tournament.  Nick was dealing at this point and I looked down at AcKc.  Blinds are 100/200 and I’ve got about 6000 in chips. I’m UTG and decide to raise to 600.  Guy to my immediate left calls and everyone folds to the small blind who also calls.  Big blind (Elena) folds and we go to the flop 3 way with 2000 in the pot.  Monster flop of Qc10c8c hits giving me the nut flush and a royal flush draw.  After the small blind checks, my first instinct is to slow play and check also, but  I think the correct play is to actually bet out.  With the pot at 2000, I decide to lead out with a bet of 1000.  I’m just hoping to get someone to call.  To my surprise, the guy to my left raises me up to 3000.  Small blind folds and I look over at what the guy has left behind.  He has another 1200 in chips so I raise him all in.  He calls and flips over pocket 10’s, giving him a set against my monster.  Turn comes 3h which is perfect for me.  Then the river comes……….3d – giving him the full house and kicking my butt all over the place.  Wow.  All I could do was laugh.  Only about 1200 in chips left but I still have the rebuy.

Anyways – I lasted a while longer, but ended up going out 7th.  Really not a good showing, but I had a great time.  Kurt went out 4th and Elena lasted until the final 3 where they decided to chop the prize since it was getting late.  I’m really hoping to see a lot more people start to show up to these tournaments at Aliante Station.  The buy-in is not too bad and the Aliante Poker room has the best staff anywhere.  I love playing there.  You should make it over ASAP!!

So I’ve been working on getting this portion of my blog up and running all week so that I could start posting about this event. This last weekend Kurt and I had the chance to go play at the first ever live Zynga PokerCon event, held at the Palms Casino on March 18th and 19th, 2011. For those that don’t know, Zynga offers many different online games like Farmville, Cityville, Mafia Wars and of course Poker!! I started playing Zynga Poker a couple of years ago through Facebook. I’ve always liked playing online – it’s fun getting online with different family members all over the country and being able to play. And since it doesn’t cost anything to get started, it’s been a lot of fun for all the family (especially my Dad who is currently kicking all our butts with over 24 million chips). Kurt was the first to see that Zynga was going to be hosting this event and he asked me if I wanted to go. We were both a little leery – not sure if it was actually going to happen – we were wondering if it was just a big scam. I thought we might sign up and then lose all our chips – lol! We paid the $125 to register and showed up Friday morning not quite sure what to expect.

As we got there on Friday, we went to Registration where we checked in, got our badges and had a chance to look around. In our registration bag was a coupon to exchange for a free Rise Poker hoodie – very nice!! Zynga had everything set up really nice and it was cool to be able to meet people who had come from all over to play in this thing.

At 10:00 we started our Zynga Poker University with Annie Duke. She was way cool! Everyone sat around poker tables while she stood on stage and put on a slideshow for us. She talked for approximately 2 hours giving advice and tips on how to play – paying the most attention to pre-flop play (not enough time to get into post-flop play). She addressed stuff like how much you should raise if you’re first into the pot, how much to re-raise if someone before you has already raised, hand selection for even being in the pot, pot odds, etc. It was way cool being in there with her and getting some advice from someone who has done so well in her career. I felt like I learned tons for the limited time we were in there. She’s got a new book coming out in the next couple of months – can’t wait to get it!!

After this, everyone had a professional poker player come to their tables to play for an hour. Ours was Mark – but I forgot his last name! It’s too bad, cause this guy was awesome!! Basically what we did, is he acted as dealer and we would all play a hand. Instead of throwing our cards in the muck for folding, we would just put them up on the rail to signify a fold – this way at the end of a hand, everyone could flip their cards over and he would analyze what everyone did and all the action all the way through the end. Very cool!! He had some great insight for all of us and it was very informative being able to sit there for an hour and talk about various situations with someone who has played professionally for over 15 years. That’s my dream!!

After the class, we heading next door where they had an awesome lunch laid out for us. When we were done eating, there wasn’t a whole lot left to do, so Kurt and I took off. We both agreed that the $125 we had spent was well worth what we received this first day…………and we still had the tournament to play!! We were very anxious to play and start applying the things we had learned. We ended up going to Aliante Station that night and playing in their tournament. We both tried playing utilizing some of the things Annie mentioned during the class. Even though we’ve both played very well before, and have both won and/or placed in the money in this tournament, we both talked later about how the different mindset affected both of our games. Kurt ended up going out 8th, and I made it to 3rd – they paid the top 3 places. Bonus!!

The next day, we got to the Palms early to get ready for the Tournament which started at 9:00 AM. The tournament structure was set up in 2 flights of 250 people each. The top 3 of each flight would make it to the final table, to be joined by 4 online qualifiers. All 10 at the final table would get paid, starting at 1,200 for 10th and up to 26,000 for 1st. In each flight, they paid out those that made it from 4th to 27th place. So out of 250 people in our flight, we both wanted to get to at least the top 27 – 27th would pay 425 and up to 1000 for 4th. This made the prize pool exactly 100,000!! Not a bad payday for a 125 buy-in. Especially with all the other stuff that came with it. Everyone started with 2,000 in chips and blinds started at 25/50. The first 2 rounds lasted 20 minutes, and every round after that lasted 15 minutes.

We realized going in that we would need to start acting fast to accumulate enough chips to last in this thing. As I sat down at my table, there seemed to be a lot of nervousness in the air. Luckily, Kurt and I have played in many tournaments in the past, otherwise I would have been pretty nervous. As people started talking, it was easy to see that this was the first live event for A LOT of the people here. Everyone was nervous, but very excited also.

Once we got started, I tried wasting no time to start gathering my chips. With the exception of a couple hiccups, I was able to roll right along. I doubled up my chip count within the first round, and was up over 6,000 not long after that. It was amazing to me that everyone had access to the exact same class that I did the day before, but no one was applying the principles that Annie taught. I loved it!

The tables really got broken down quite quickly and Kurt and I both were hanging in there real good. After getting a nice pile of chips to begin, I really started suffering after a while. And the blinds were going up quick. 15 minute intervals is not very long!! As we were down to 7 tables, I really started to wonder if I was going to be able to make the money. I started really tightening up and just trying to hold on. Pretty soon we were down to the final 5 tables – that’s when I saw what I thought was a great opportunity for me. One of the guys at the table who had a large amount of chips had started hitting a real bad run. You could tell he was getting frustrated. He was down to 4K in chips where I had 5K. Blinds were at 1K/2K. Not a lot to work with. Anyways, I was UTG and looked down at pocket 10’s. Everyone was pretty tight at this point, so it seemed like an easy shove for me – hopefully I don’t run into a bigger pair. Everyone folds around to this guy I’m telling you about on the button and he is looking like he really wants to call, but is unsure. He keeps thinking, which is making me feel great – if he had a bigger pair it would have been an instacall. Finally he puts all his chips in as well. The blinds fold – so I’m looking at more than a double up if things work in my favor. I turn over my 10’s and he turns over…………..3/4 off suit. YES!!!! About an 84% chance that I’m going to win this hand. I’m thinking I’m going to get enough to make it to the money now – as we’re playing out the hand, they are in the process of breaking down to 4 tables. I can make it!! Then the flop comes, 6-4-4. You’ve got to be kidding me!! Wow. As I sit there in disbelief, the dealer flips over 2 more cards and I’m stuck there with my 1K chip. Oh well – still a chance right? Chip and a chair, as they say. After this hand they move us to the final 4 tables – now I’m sitting across from Kurt, who isn’t doing great, but definitely looking better than me!! As I sit down at this table, I’m on the button, so I’m looking for any opportunity to triple up in the next few hands. None came – ended up busting out 31st – 4 from the money. But hey, I think I played really well, and I had a lot of fun. And like I said earlier, the event was well worth the money, just with the stuff from the day before – so all this was just a bonus!!

After I got knocked out, it started getting really intense watching Kurt. He didn’t have a lot of chips and they started playing all the tables hand for hand so no one could stall – as the blinds got around to him, I was getting nervous, but he made it through the bubble OK!! He went on to take 19th out of the 250!! Way to go Kurt!!! He kicked butt – he can fold like nobody’s business!! LOL – just kidding!! He played a real solid game and I couldn’t have been happier for him to make it there (unless I was there too, of course).

So after Kurt cashed in, we started walking around to see what else was going on. We had heard about some celebrity sit-n-go’s happening, and we went to sign up for that. We had the chance to sit with Vanessa Rousso who was way awesome. We played like the day before, with us all playing hands and then Vanessa analyzing the play afterwards. It was a lot of fun and very cool to sit there with her for a while. Also teaching were Scotty Nguyen, David Williams, Mike Sexton and Evelyn Ng. Everyone was awesome. My only regret during this time is that I guess Doyle Brunson was in the next room at some point, but I didn’t realize it. I saw a picture on Zynga’s Twitter feed the next day of him there with books to sell and autograph. I had heard that he might be there, but we missed him!! I was totally bummed!! But oh well – maybe I’ll get another chance to meet him.

Kurt and I watched a little of the final table, but we ended up leaving before the end. Zynga was throwing a party that night in one of the clubs for all the players, but we decided to head home instead of going. Next year we’ll stay for the whole day. The weekend was way cool – we both had a lot of fun and we’re really hoping Zynga decides to do this again. We’re ready to sign up!!

To see all the photos we took from the event, click to go to the Flickr Set.