Vegas Poker Story

As some of you may know, I just got back this morning from Fabulous Las Vegas. I also promised some of you a good poker story, and I hope I haven't over-hyped it. I think what makes it good is that it's not about just one hand so here goes...

Here's the setting. I'm playing in a $65 buyin NL Holdem tournament at the Paris. They run tournaments there pretty much every 2 hours and this was the 11:30 AM one. You know, the perfect after breakfast buffet tournament ;) . To my surprise, there were only 9 players in this one which was the smallest tournament I'd played in during my trip. I played in 4 tournaments during this trip, and this was the only one in which I managed to get a chip lead early on and play big stack poker pretty much the whole way. I was playing pretty well, I was getting good enough cards, and the table was a bit weak. All good things. You don't want to get ahead of yourself early in a tournament, but I felt that if I just focused I had a good chance of winning.

At a certain point, we went on a 10 minute break, I think we were down to 6 or 7. One of the players was late coming back and we started to blind him off, but he came back eventually (he had to check on the fiancee). We'll call him Steve. At some point, there was a 3 way hand. I forget the exact details as I was not involved. It was something like player A goes all-in, and gets called by Steve who is also all-in and by player C who had them both covered. Player C ends up winning the hand and player A and Steve are eliminated. But wait, as Steve gets up to leave the dealer stops him. It turns out he had player A covered by a $100. One little blue chip and at this point we were at the $200-$400 level (maybe 100-200). So Steve sits back down and is UTG the next hand. Everybody starts cracking the 'chip and a chair' jokes and sure enough, he proceeds to go all-in the next 3-4 hands and win them all. All of the sudden, he's back in! He comes all the way back and in the end it comes down to me and him heads up.

They were paying 2 places, about $350 for first and $150 for second. By the time we got to heads up, we were pretty even, and the blinds weren't that high, so we actually got to play heads up for a little while without having to go all-in every hand. It was a pretty even match-up and we took turns going after each other. We were pretty even when I picked up 9-7 offsuit in the big blind. He called, and I checked. The flop came 10-9-X. We were at the $500-$1000 level. I bet a $1000, he re-raised me to $3000. I felt he might have a 10 so I decided to call instead of pushing all-in. On the turn came a beautiful 7. I push all-in. I've got him covered so I think this might be it. He thinks about it, and decides to call with a 10-3 offsuit. Yes! I read the situation right. I checked the odds, and depending on what the X card is, I'm anywhere from an 80% to 70% favorite to win here (70% if the X card gives us a good chance of chopping with a straight). The river of course, was a 3. Yikes! Oh well. I had him covered by something like $1500 and there was 18K in play, so barring a miracle I just lost the tournament. C'est la vie. But yes, chip and a chair so who knows. The next hand I pick up A-7 offsuit. Well that helps! I of course push all in and he of course calls and shows a J-9 offsuit. The flop comes A-7-X! I'm about a 90% favorite to win. The turn comes a 9 and I'm still a 95% favorite to win. The river comes, yup, you know it, 9. Runner runner 9s! Right after the previous bad beat, and after being down to one blue chip! Those 2 hands cost me $200 but all I could do was shake my head, smile, and congratulate him on a great comeback. Sometimes you just have to admit it when it's not your time to win.

That's my story. Every poker player has a good bad beat story, this one has to be my current favorite :)