Sorry Charlie
St. Patricks Day Weekend, 2007

The five of us, Jeremiah, Gunnar, Brian, Robert, and I arrived in Tama for the Heartland Poker Tour about 2:30pm on Saturday and met at the hotel where we stayed. After a quick settling, we checked into the Poker room at the Meskwaki casino. The poker room was noisy and had some 19 playing tables. 187 people playing for 37 spots in the main tournament on Sunday. The winner of the main tournament would take home over $80,000. I was anxious to get started.

Pocket fives felt especially nice when another appeared in an Ace, Five, Ten flop. Players checked, so I bet 600 (6-times the ante), and another player matched the chips. The Turn gave us a Jack and I bet 1200 after my opponent checked. I put her on Aces or maybe two pair, but I was sure my set was better. She called. I bet another 1200 when a deuce came on the river. It was a very queasy feeling when she showed a straight, and raked in about a third of my chips on the first hand of the qualifying tournament.

I held on, though, and did well in following hands with trip-tens, a flush, pocket-aces, etc. Cards were good, maybe a little too good. I was a little worried. Usually winning early (for me) means I will not do as well later. Gaining back my losses and more, at one point I was the table chip leader, but it was still early in the game, and the chip lead did not last long.

This is a different game. I found that it is mostly about timing and ‘the blinds’. Blinds go up regularly -doubling each half hour, or so. Players are much more conservative. Not like playing at the local bar, where folks don’t worry too much about losing. Better than half the hands are never seen as blinds and bets trade around the table. No one wants to commit too much unless they have a pat-hand. Yet ya have to play, and ya have to win, or the blinds will swallow you whole.

Later, I was moved to another table and was seated next to Gunnar on my left. I noticed that Jeremiah and Robert were also seated next to each other at another table. With the number of tables in the room, you’d think that random-seating would be a bit more random, but there ya go… Gunnar looked like he had been holding is own and we had about the same number of chips. We were careful not to play against each other too much.

It’s surprising how quickly you can get to know some of the ‘habits’ of other players around the table. After a while each has his (or her) own personality that you can begin to read. Maybe not on a level of twitchy fingers or sweat, but you can pickup on hesitation (or none) as an indicator of how a player feels about their hand –and stuff like that.

Later in the tourney, in addition to the increasing blinds, we also had to ante-up starting at 100 a hand. Doesn’t seem like much, but it adds up quickly, especially if your short-handed.

I don’t recall any ‘bad-beats’ or making any poor decisions in play, but unfortunately, it seemed like I had seen the last of my ‘good hands’ later in the game and slowly my chip stack began to dwindle –until around 10:30pm or so, the blinds ate me up and I was out of the tourney after a last-resort ‘all-in’. A little disappointed, I finished 56th.

It was around midnight, with three of us still in the mix, when Gunnar got taken out ‘on the bubble’ (38th place!). It was treacherous… but like I said, it is about timing, and ‘the blinds’. Gunnar was semi short-stacked and just ahead of the blinds when they went up to 5,000 / 10,000 with 500 antes. There were other players with only a few chips left, but Gunnar got beat by the blinds first. I was frustrated for him!

Later still, with Jeremiah and Robert heading for the main tourney, we found ourselves at a little place called Bumblebee’s –tipping green beers and cheering while Jeremiah sang karaoke and Robert rang the shot-bell. We all got t-shirts to commemorate the bar –and our time partying in ‘somewhere’ Iowa. The guys say the picture on the t-shirt looks a lot like me, but I say it looks more like Robert! Especially after seeing him crawl out of bed the next morning for the tournament –still drunk. You be the judge!

None the less, I was proud of both our guys, when a very quiet group of 205 players started the main tournament back at the casino. I hoped they would both win big!

Final note: Thanks 5th Street Poker Parties, for a fine time!