ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

Last weekend, myself and about 17 of my readers had our inaugural private poker tournament.  We had been talking about it for months, but this was the first time we managed to get everyone in the same place at the same time to actually get the show on the road.

While most any poker room in town will give you a private tournament if you have enough players and can pay the dealers … the Excalibur makes the process much easier because there are no dealers to pay or tip.  It also combines the best of both worlds of Internet and live poker.

Some of our players had played only on the Internet.  Some of our players had only played on felt.  Despite the differences in style, pretty much everyone was comfortable with the hybrid Excalibur model. It was Internet Poker … in person.  You could look down at your electronic cards, and then look up to see the human expression on your opponent’s face.

It’s also a great place to have private tournaments because they will program the game to your exact specifications.  You set the buy-in, you set the number of places to be paid, you set the number of players … and after about 10 minutes of programming … the cards are being dealt and friends quickly turn into enemies.

We decided on a relatively low buy-in for our tourney … $45.

$40 went to the prize fund, and $5 went to the house.  We all started out with $3,000 in chips, and the blinds went up every fifteen minutes.

As I have mentioned before, I have a very big problem whereby I simply cannot play cards against people I know.

Anyone who knows me, knows exactly how I play.  Hell, they don’t even have to be friends of mine.  Anyone who has ever read a word I have written knows what I do.

I wait, bet big with monster hands at a loose tourist table, then leave.  It doesn’t always work, but it works often enough to keep doing it.

Ironically, had this tournament been a cash game, I would have succeeded in my normal style very quickly.

Just a few hands into the game, I got an Ace-high straight, went all-in, and doubled up.   My opponent caught the lower end of the straight, and pretty much had to call as he was pot-committed anyway.

Under any other circumstance, I would have taken the chips and walked with my profits.  But, of course,  I had to continue playing.  It’s part of why I hate tournaments.

But hey, at least I had doubled my stack at the beginning of the tournament. This put me in my favorite tournament position … playing nothing other than premium hands, and hoping to hell that the other players knock each other out.  I got up early and quick.  This particular method of play has enabled me to at least cruise into the money a few times over the years.  Many Vegas tournaments, especially tournaments with low buy-ins are “All-in Fests”.

I used to play the $33 tournament at the Luxor every weekend, and it was unheard of to go around the table once without at least three all-in showdowns.  I like to let other people eliminate the competition for me.  It’s almost impossible to win a tournament this way, but I was surprised at the number of times I could small-stack my way into some kind of payout.

However, that didn’t work on this day.  After that first big hand, I did not win another hand for the rest of the tournament.  I believe I went an entire hour without seeing a face card.  I had a pair of 7’s once, I bet, got called, and had the flop come out with all face cards.  I electro-mucked. That was the closest thing I had to a hand.

I finally went out with K-6.  The blinds were rising, I was two spots out of the big blind, and I only had two or three more trips around the table.

I called pre-flop and the flop came K, rag, rag.  I pushed in, and was called once.

The electronic table flipped my cards over, and then my opponent’s … who was holding K-4.

A nice thing about the table is that the running odds are shown for the hand.  It immediately pegged me as a  60% favorite.

But I had a bad feeling.  For some reason, I never  win 60% hands.  If it’s not 90%, I don’t have a shot.  Sure enough, the turn brought a 4, and the river brought a rag.

I came in either 7th or 8th.  Since only the top 3 places were paid, I may as well have come in last.  The prize was the same. Nothing.  It was quite an unceremonious exit.  Hell, if I knew I was going to go out like that, I would have played more hands.  Hindsight …

If this tournament taught me anything, it is that my readers are good poker players.  I like to give them a hard time for being tourists, but absolutely none of them are douchebag tourists.  Not one.  Unless I have a great run of cards, I don’t see myself winning any reader tournaments.

Surprisingly, this game with only about 20 people took a whopping three hours to play.

I was quite impressed with the staff at the Excalibur Poker Room.  They were excited to show off the electronic tables to the players, and they periodically came by to make sure everything was running fine.  They even printed up a prize sheet specifically for our tournament.

There was one snafu.  A player named Karen was sitting on a monster hand, and her screen decided to die at that exact moment.  If you don’t make a play on the screen within 30 seconds, the computer automatically checks your hand, or folds if there is a bet in front of you.  Given the situation, we all agreed to fold around the table, but she probably could have milked more money out of that hand.

The room manager halted play for about 2 minutes as he re-calibrated Karen’s screen, and we were back in business.  The screens can be brought back to proper working condition in an impressively low amount of time.

Anyway, because of the generally positive experience, we will be having regular tournaments roughly every two months at the Excalibur Poker Room.  Tentatively, the next one is being planned around March Madness, but as this is Las Vegas … everything is subject to change.

This also only gives me a month or so to work on my tournament play. Coming in 7th is kind of embarrassing.

I plan to extract my revenge in Tournament #2.

If I practice 8 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next several weeks …  sixth place is mine for the taking.

I can feel it.

• Keep updated through Newsletter or on Facebook

  E-mail:
  

  Subscribe
  Unsubscribe