Posted by Johnnymac 9:11 AM
I played last night in a weekly tournament at a (relatively) local dive bar called the Yorkshire Pub. Jayson had told me about it last week and said it was good so it happened fit into my schedule to go check it out and I was pleasantly surprised. It was a very well run tournament – the organizers knew what they were doing and all of the dealers (as near as I could tell) were very friendly and somewhat skilled. The structure of the tournament was also good – a $30 buyin and unlimited $15 rebuys during the first hour of limit poker, then a one time add-on after the break and no-limit holdem after that. The rapidly escalating blinds and relative short stacks made for a format that required some fast play and a little early luck, but the relatively cheap dollars involved made for something a little more fun than it was pressure-packed. Jayson also promised lots of bad players and dead money and there certainly was plenty of each.

One aside – an easy way to generally evaluate the quality, or experience, rather, of strangers’ play is by taking the inverse of their propensity to drop ESPN poker lingo into their conversations with other players. When someone goes on and on about “pocket aces” and “ducks” and getting “beat on the river”, that’s usually a sign that they think they know more than they really do. I call this “first level” poker lingo because anyone can pick it up quickly, and if I sit down with strangers who start talking like this it’s usually a good sign for my chances. However, if I meet a stranger who correctly knows that “aces up” and “aces full” mean two different things or who can properly tell the difference between having a set and having trips, then I’m a little more wary when I first go up against them. There were lots of the former type at my table last night and only a little bit of the latter, so it was a nice situation. That is, it would have been nice if I had been dealt some cards.

As with all tournaments you have to catch cards to succeed and I didn’t catch any cards. In fact, I didn’t scoop one pot all night and the best starting hand I ever had in the two hours I played was J9s. That particular hand hit the flop fairly hard and ended up with 14 outs on the river against what I correct figured was KK held by the guy across the table from me, but I missed my draw and mucked against his bet and that was my only chance to really garner some chips and start rolling in the tournament. Around 10:00 I purposely threw the rest of my chips into the pot and gave up and went home.

I will say though, that I was pleasantly surprised by just how good a tournament it is and I am likely to play again someday soon.

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