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April 29, 2006

Link: Bicycle Casino Stars & Stripes Tournament Series Main Event
Link: Poker Pages

Buy-In: $500 + $50
Total Entrants: 271
I Win: $34,150.00

I have pictures of the hoodie top that I got, and also the stacks of money I need to secretly get hauled to my bank lol.

The tourney started promptly at 4:15pm.








My tax form *cry* and the money, my hoodie top and all items...

My significant and I both entered this tournament. Scary thing is that while he and I registered at different times, we ended up at the same table sitting right next to each other. He was assigned Table 26, Seat #6 and I was right behind him at seat #7. We would be on the blinds at the same time, and when I have played heads-up with him in the past he's a tricky bastard on those blinds.

We ran into one hand against each other on the blinds right at the beginning of the tournament where we both had an Ace and an ace flopped. Ugh. Well I had actually flopped top two pair with A9...I took down a nice pot off of my partner there. I was betting so aggressively, and he was sitting there trying to determine what I had that was making it look like I was trying to push the guy off of the pot.

I have to fast-forward through a lot of stuff here. The tournament went well past 2am for as far as I got into the tournament.

I don't know how many women played, but I did see that by the time there were 17 tables left I was the only woman left in the tournament. Go me!

I had some very nice pots, and pulled off some super bluffs. I had three critical bluffs during this tournament with shit...and I mean shit... I took one pot down preflop with 4-8o vs. AK (he showed), and of course turned my cards over to show the table. Heh. Another one I did the same with 6-8s to get the table a little bit frustrated. (I'm kinda mean like that, and yes I did get lucky but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think the guy would fold)

Forwarding some more, payout started at player #27. Players 19-27 would win $680.00

I ended up in the money and with 3 tables to go, I was looking at the payout structure and saw that the payouts weren't worth anything much until getting to the top 3. 6th and 7th place at the final table payed out $3,000.00 or so. Together, (Significant-Other bought me in to the tourney) the investment was $1,100.00 so seeing the 3k payout wasn't good enough for me. I was like omg no way.

I cannot even tell you guys how many people I busted off of the tables. Three times I took out two players at the same time, but all throughout the tourney I kept busting players and had a dominating chip stack.

Three tables left: (during this portion of the tournament there were antes in addition to the blinds)

I had a critical hand vs. someone with an even stack. He was trying to bluff me off of my hand and this is how it went:

We both had about 100k in chips at that point and I had 89 suited of diamonds. The flop came 767 with two diamonds. He made a decent bet and I felt that I wanted to stay in to see at least one more card. The Turn came Jc and he made another big bet at me. At this point in the hand there was so much money in the pot and so much invested...I had a flush draw with a redraw to an open end AND gut shot straight. It was the first time I separated out my chips to see how much I would have left if I actually called here and had to call for time to figure out how many outs I had. So like yeah, I had enough to make the call. Rivered a flush, and the guy pushed all in. I called and busted him off of the table. He was stone-cold bluffing the whole way and tried to represent the flush when it hit. He showed down two crap clubs, no draw, no pair. And then it was break-time. And it was 12am in the morning.

Forward a little, with two tables to go, they reassigned our seats. Between the two tables, Table 1 had all of the chip leaders at it, and table 2 where I was at had all of the rest of the players. They passed out cards at random, so it wasn't something intentional, but as if I weren't stressed out enough by the pressure of getting that far and wanting to really make it worth my while, I was beginning to become intimidated that having all of the big stacks over at table #1 busting each other off, that by the time there was only one table left the chip leaders would have an incredible advantage.

Shortly after with 13 players left, I busted two short stacks off of the table at once with QQ vs AK and AQ. 11 players left and I had an incredibly dominating chip stack left.

I got to the final table.

There was another break while the seats were being reassigned. I was outside smoking like a fiend and people were coming up to me congratulating me for being the chip leader.

What?

I was in my own head at that point going over my game. As I started listening around, I kept hearing, "The girl is the chip leader! The girl is the chip leader!" and omfg it wasn't registering in my head. My man was playing a ring table at that time and I had called his cell phone to tell him the news. I couldn't freaking believe it lol. I told them that the people kept saying I was the chip leader but I didn't know for sure. All I knew was that I had a very big chip stack and that I was at the final table.

He left his ring table to be ring side and watch me at the final table as soon as we started up. I was in fact, without even knowing it... the tournament chip leader with 40% of the chips.

O-M-F-G

After the break was over and I was looking the table over at the chip stacks, and the ante and blind levels I was concentrating on just how to hang on to placing.

One of the first hands after the break I had 89c MP. I am sitting in seat 6. All of the other big stacks were out of the hand. I raised the usual raise with the smaller stacks behind me. Seat 9 calls all in. (Nobody in seat 10) Seat 1 re-raises all-in. The amount that it was for me to call was too easy with the amount of chips that I had, so I made the call pretty quickly.

I turned over 89 suited and the table went WTF. I was up against KQo and 55. I turned my flush and knocked two players off of the table.

...before I knew it, there were 5 players left. The player to my left in seat 5 had just taken the chip lead by a super small margin and wanted to discuss a chop.

The actual tournament payout amounts for top 3 were as follows (approximated):

1. 50,000.00
2. 24,000.00
3. 12,000.00

If we made a deal to Chop it 5 ways I would have ended up with $22,000.

One and only one person out of the 5 of us said no deal. So we continued to play.

I busted one more person off of the table, My QQ vs. AK (I had QQ quite a few times in this tourney)

Four players to go, chop-option is discussed again.

I am now guaranteed $26,000 with a 4 way chop between the prize pool based on the amount of my chip stack. The same guy as before says no deal again, and we continue to play some more. One more person busts shortly after.

Three players left. It doesn't register in my head until this point that holy shit, I am in second place, at the final table of a tournament series main event.

We get the numbers for a 3 way chop. The guy in third place would get about $18,000. He says he wants to make a deal for a chop, if and only if he gets $24,000. Between the chip leader and I who had all of the chips, both of us said no. The guy had enough chips that if he didn't make a hand he would be blinded off shortly anyway so fuck that. Chip leader had about 700k and I had not too much below 600k. Third place chip stack had 119k in chips, so like yeah...

We continued to play. AGAIN.

Talk about nervous you guys, any wrong hand with the blinds so high would put me in third and that was a HUGE cut from where I was currently at. It was already after 1am and I had been playing since 4pm. I was tired and wanted to go home lol. I wanted to hang on to second position for a chop,hope to take first of course, but it was super scary.

Break time was coming up. I was on the button. The short stack guy raised half of his stack with 75,000T, and the clock beeper was going that alerted us about the break.

I had 66 in my hand. I raised over him to make it 200,000T to go and he thought about it for a good two minutes I think and then folded. It crippled his stack to where, after returning from the break if he didn't make a move he would be blinded off, in just a few big blinds if he didn't pick up any pots. HUGE mistake on his part, and very much to the favor of the chip leader and I who just wanted to get it overwith lol.

Break time:

It appears that I had a cheerleading section on the rail-side. During the break I had one person ask for my autograph in case I ever became famous, and everyone wanted to talk to me and give me advice and find out what I had in my hands when I was raising and re-raising over people, and where I learned to play, where I was from and everything.

My significant-other said that people in the audience were really rooting for me, and when I was in hands at the table from about 6 people left, I could hear them cheering for me. During the discussion breaks to calculate the chops, the people at the rails were waving at me and giving me thumbs up and it was just really awesome. :)

Back from break:

The antes and blinds at that level were: 3000 ante, 10,000 sb and 20,000 BB. It was eating chips *fast* as the button kept getting passed around which was FAST. Ugh. Did I say the button was moving around fast? lol

The chip leader and I were still almost even at that point. He had about 200,000T more than myself, (1 nice pot basically) and we were just hoping to get rid of the one dude that was being persistent about not wanting to chop while he had the chance.

A hand came up where the chip leader had the other guy all in and the "no-deal guy" was busted off of the table. OMG.

Chop was discussed again, and as the managers were calculating it out, everything just felt surreal. The chip leader wasn't ahead by much but he did want the event trophy that came with first place. I didn't even know there was a trophy involved but it wouldn't have mattered lol.

We agreed on the chop. He got about $42,000.00 and change, and the trophy, and I got $34,150.00 (+$10,000.00 from second place payout if we had played it out completely)

Filled out the forms, and I also got an event hoodie top! The guy counted out $34,150.00 in chips to me and I felt like I wanted to pee my pants or cry or...something. The reality of it had still not hit me yet, but starting to deflate from all of the stress was just overwhelming.

Dealer tip was 3%, (about $1100) so I just tipped out to make my earnings an even $33,000.00.

I had to have security walk my honey and I to the cage with the chips to cash them out. People were following us and wanting to talk to us and even as I filled out the rest of the forms at the cage and we walked to our cars people still followed us. Freakish.

I'm still reeling from the experience. There is so much that happened. I'm still tired. Everything was over at 2am. We didn't get home until amost 4am and didn't get to sleep until after 6am trying to come down from all of the hype and adrenaline. It was a long day. With the move and my surgery and the attorneys and our 16 sponsored kids among all of the other stuff we have going on we're trying to get a handle on where and what to apply the money to. Right now with all of the expenses of the move and everything, it already feels like it doesn't exist. I expect about 8k of it to go to taxes, and then the rest of it is already spent on stuff for the move and other stuff. Heh.

I'm a very happy camper, and very very grateful that I got to where I did. I think I will always be curious as to how the final heads up game would have played out, but being first was not important to me at all. I really honestly was just happy to get to where I got to.

May 1, 2006 - Transferred from my blog.

Significant Other found this link that had the actual payout structure and stuff about the tournament at Poker Pages which I thought was pretty cool.

The actual tourney results for the one from Saturday is listed on their web page here.

I really had no idea what a major tourney that was. I'm now listed in category pro2 with a ranking of 207 out of 5637 ranked players. Nice!

A couple of things about that: The listing shows what the official payouts were, had the agreement of a chop not happened. (Making a chop is sort of an under-the-table-ish deal)

My driver's license had the address listed from where I lived about 10 years ago lol. They didn't ask me for updated info when they took my I.D., they just wrote down what was on it, so I didn't get to represent Fullerton/Anaheim, but I guess that's okay. :P

Unfortunately, the address that they did use is the address of the ex that I lived with for 4 years, so hopefully the Bicycle Casino will not be sending flyers and magazines to my ex's home. lol :x

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...After the tournament when my other half and I were escorted to the car by security. I got in the car and sat down, and took a deep breath, and I started gagging like crazy. He wanted to get out of there and so did I, (safety and security reasons) but I also didn't want to throw up in the car. My nerves were just coming down from all of the stress. The realization of the event on Saturday still hasn't sunken in I think.

When we did get home we discussed the tourney, got some sleep, woke up, and discussed the tourney some more.

I haven't made the time to visit the emotional stuff that I have attached to the tournament. April was full of stress and tears for me...with the big move and just having paid taxes and having this surgery coming up in the near future, I felt an incredible sense of pressure about my own personal income and being able to pull my own weight where all of the financial stuff wasn't solely on my boyfriend's shoulders. He has also been stressing out big time.

I remember first sitting at the final table with 9 other players and looking over at the payout screen seeing that even if I got to 7th for about 3,000 I would have felt let down. The cost to enter the both of us was $1,100. My honey busted out just out of the money. He did very well that day, and it was great to see the both of us get so far into the tournament levels. But for the things that I wanted for my life and our life, I couldn't see that the payout of 3k was good enough, and I was driven to get to the top 3...

As the love of my life was out at the rail side watching me at the table...I don't know if I can explain it, but I really wanted for him to feel relieved of the financial pressure that I had put on him to get us moved out of this place among other things. I just really wanted the big prize money to help us both out, considering all of the stuff that went on in April.

After setting aside the taxes that will be taken out ($8k), the money for the sterilization surgery ($12k), and the move and everything ($26k)...the money doesn't exist. It's technically gone. I lucked into it to help cover the things that he and I had plans for and it's being applied.

So anyway, yeah...I know I need to take care of the things in my life first. I'm glad that I'm able to share it with you guys. Thank you all for the congratulatories. I feel a lot less stressed about some things, and yet still angsty about a whole other can of worms. Meh.

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