Marie, Gary, and I met for lunch at Marilyn’s (coffee shop) at the Tuscany, around 1 p.m. The free roll started at 2. Lunch was nice, although a bit of a headache because Marie and I arrived first, thinking it would be the two of us, we were seated in an area that is high traffic to and from the kitchen – at a small table with two chairs.

When Gary arrived, we were told we couldn’t sit there, even though we had already received part of our food and we pulled a chair from the table behind us – and Gary snuggled in close to Marie where he wasn’t blocking anything in the traffic pattern. Then our waitresses said it was OK.

Gary left to do something in the casino, someone came by and pushed his chair back to the original starting table. We got the rest of our food and Gary had already ordered his. Then our waitress came over and told us we had to move…for real. Yipppeee! We did, we packed our plates, utensils, water, etc., over to our new home.

What part of it did I hate the most? The fact that of the two people that spoke to us about it could barely speak English. If you live in the US, learn to speak the language. Especially when you are in customer service. You would have to be there to get the full brunt of the whole thing, including a complete inability to understand a question that Gary asked our waitress about getting a senior’s discount using his visa card, in which he told her he would take it up, when she came back by to pick up the payment and check. She said “No,” that she could take it up to the cashier for him, then started explaining about discount coupons, then finally – after some sharp jabs to the brain – figured out that we were talking about a SENIOR’S discount, at which time she informed him that she couldn’t take it up, he had to.

NO SHIT, Dick Tracy? We lost five minutes of our lives on gab that didn’t need to be gabbed about due to the inability to speak and comprehend our native language.

We were never in any ill humor about any of it, it was more like a comedy hour and we were laughing about it all the way to the poker room where Gary left us and we went in to do battle on the green felt.

We specifically asked for different starting tables, and agreed to give up 10% to each other and if we came in 1st & 2nd, we’d just split. We went to check in and there is no ‘draw’ for seating, all the tickets are face up and you just pick the one you want…well…OK! I got one of my favorite seat choices, 2-3-8-9, I chose the 9s. We were both doing the $50 for an additional $5K in chips and Marie had an additional $1K tacked on to her chips because she got 20 hours in for the free roll.

This structure is pretty brutal, it’s probably like any low tournament free roll and definitely like the satellites for Bellagio’s tourneys, the blinds double every 15 minutes. The play was kind of like a jaw dropper to some extent. I went all-in (a huge over bet at the time) with A-K off, when the blinds were at $100-200 and four people called $200 in front of me, I chunked $6K+ because I really didn’t want a call. When the blinds were at $200-400, five people called $400 and I chunked again with 7-7…no one called me. Those were the only two hands I put any $ in the pot on, other than blinds, in the first two hours. Our table broke shortly after that, we started with four tables.
We colored up and went to $500-1000.

Our table broke, new faces, except the heavy guy I played with when I qualified. A guy at our table made quad Kings – not against me, I was in the pitch mode and had been since the beginning of the tournament. Apparently this same guy had made quad Aces earlier and a straight flush.

I did something really stupid, but it worked out. The extremely heavy guy that sat next to me during the qualifying play in this post was at my table, he raised it to 9K preflop. I look down to 10-10 and go all-in for 8K. The Quad guy jimmer-jammered for five minutes before he released his hand, “…I know I have the best hand. I’m laying down the best hand…” and then it was me and heavy guy. He rolled over 6-6, I rolled over 10-10. The dealer ran out the board, I thought it came 2-4-3-9-5.

At the same time, Marie was getting busted at her table in the midst of a bunch of screaming and yelling. I stood up, sure that I had lost (because it happens so much that it’s like a way of life for someone to catch runner-runner-gutter-gutter), picked up my hand and threw it in the muck. After I stood up, I realized the board was 2-4-4. People started informing me that I had the best hand, heavy guy told me my hand was dead – and so did the guy next to him. Heavy guy told the dealer that he won because my hand was dead. Over all the screaming coming from Marie’s table, I told the dealer to call the floor man…my hand was tabled during the whole hand and at showdown.

The floor man arrived, decision was made that my hand was OBVIOUSLY live, and nothing had happened until showdown was over. Kee-rist! I felt like an idiot but I knew my hand was definitely live. it was a cheap shot by heavy guy to get the pot.

Marie busted, and came to tell me g’bye. A few minutes later I was moved to another table – we were down to two tables, we had an extra player jammed into our starting tables, playing 11 handed for a bit. I picked up Q-J on the first hand – I was the big blind, the blinds were $2-4K, call, call, and the button went all-in for around $12K…pshaw! I pushed all-in for about $16K. One caller folded, the other one twitched and jerked for about two minutes, and finally called. I had them both covered. I flopped Q-J’s and turned a full. Nice! No one had any chips, so to speak, including me for the blind level.
This blind structure, and the amount of chips out, leaves no room for play, it’s pretty much all-in or nothing.

I got moved again, we were at two tables now. Here’s the part where these small room tournaments are ridiculous, there were three buddy, buddy guys at this table. They didn’t want to break each other, they wouldn’t raise the other one’s blind, nor would they bet against each other. It wasn’t hidden. It was very obvious…”I didn’t mean to raise just you, I thought he had a hand down there. I’m sorry.” And more. You can’t play in a field like this, one guy that should have been out at least five times, made it to the point where we chopped. When he was the BB, his buddy folded the SB to him, even if he only had another few chips, and should have been taken out, the buddy left him in.

Once when I was the $8K blind, the buddy that should have been knocked out long ago, went all-in for $9K, I would have called without looking at my hand so that part didn’t matter. He had A-9 off and I had J-8 off, he hit a 9 on the flop and his buddies were cheering for him, he caught an A on the river and was back in the mix.

When we were at 10 players, they wanted to do a $50 rebate to anyone from 10-5 place as 4th on up were the money finishes. Everyone finally went for it, me too, I knew with the type of play, the amount of chips, and the buddies soft playing each other, that I would do well to even get any kind of rebate out of the tourney.

We lost a player – not one of the buddies. Everyone started talking chop. One guy had very few chips, I had $50K – the most at the table but it’s nothing, blinds were at $8K-16K, so what if we lose a couple of players and then I tangle with someone and they dechunk my stack? I’m the bubble? BOO HISS! They decided the short guy would get $100, several of them made deals to give each other $50 to sweeten the deal for one guy that didn’t want to chop one minute, then wanted to chop on the other. I agreed to all of their noise and wanted to leave with some $$ and get the hell out of there.

One of the noisy buddies, was one that wanted to chop and then didn’t and then did; he had some chips so it wasn’t a ‘short chip’ decision, I tried to tease him by saying, “Are you going to chop? You’re acting like a little bitch. Make up your mind.”

He was highly offended that I would call him a bitch. LMAO. He asked me how I would like it if he called me one. I told him I’d take it as a compliment. There was so much railbird noise and player noise going on that it was close to comedy hour. I later hunted him down and told him I was only joking. He said he accepted my apology but he didn’t really like being called a bitch. YIKES! A guy with old fashioned ideas? Or someone that just doesn’t want to be referred to in terms of gender?

One thing I hated about the whole chop, was after everyone agreed, we would all take the same amount except $100 to the one short stacked player, the dealer got into the mix and asked if everyone wanted to take 10% off the top for the dealers. UGH! The prize pool was $4,480 because of $50 rebuys. I’m not above the dealers making something but this is too much. If I disagreed, I would be the only one so I went with it, but this is not a good thing, the house is taking their vig, and the free roll really isn’t a free roll because they take a $1 out of each pot in live action to fund the free roll…the players are paying for it, not the house. WTF?

I don’t believe I will go back. But I do know that as poor as the play was in this tournament, I need to be playing more of these. I may not win, but I like my chances over theirs in the long run. I ended up with $400 clean, in my pocket, after buy-in and Marie’s 10% and I tipped out to the floorman. It was fun, it was profitable, and I’m going to start hunting good value tournaments, and playing at least once a week – I hope I can free up the time to do it. I need target practice and these are the best way to get it.