Had a really bad limit session on Sunday, starting at Gold Strike Tunica, moving over to Hollywood Tunica. Hollywood was the toughest to bear, since I was clearly at a very soft table where I would have collected a decent pot with any winning hand. I bled slowly for the first three to four hours, then I'm afraid I loosened up, and made more calls on the flop against long shots, so I was then bleeding twice as fast. In the space of 8 hours, I may have taken in three decent pots, and three tiny pots, which seems like a statistical anomaly. The guy in the 3 seat was taking up the slack, seemingly doing no wrong, playing at least 60 percent of his hands, and winning at least half of the hands he seemed to be in. It was very demoralizing, but I did put in my hours to play the 'free roll' on Tuesday night.
So I come back for the free roll, which has the following chip structure:
Entry and 1000 chips - Free with 10 hours of playing time at their casino.
Add on 5000 Chips at start - $20
Add on 10,000 Chips after the fourth level - $40
As you can see the add-ons are pretty obligatory.
In the first four levels, I pick up a couple of small pots, very few playable hands. I did get some very accurate reads on my table mates, who could be bluffed, who would pay me off when I had a hand, and who would defend their blinds. I was down to 6M at the break, and buying the 10K in chips brought me up to 15M.
Then I had a QQ v QQ confrontation. No flush, but we got some limping chips. I pushed in SB w/A9s when a much smaller stack had pushed from mid-position, and BB folds and it's A2s I'm against. Board pairs and we chop. I also pushed against the same player in the same circumstance w/T9o one round later to flop a pair and beat 88. Then I get QQ to beat 33 and double up, and KK to double up when a flush draw pushes on the flop and fails to make their flush. We're down to the final table and I'm a chip leader.
Most of the final table was either very short stacked and/or very predictable. The one loose cannon pushes JJ against AA and wins to become chip leader, which means that I've got some work to do to win this. We're down to four, and the second time one of the low stacks survives an all-in and suggests a four-way chop, I agree, and the other low stack agrees. The loose cannon isn't happy to do so as he's got my by 2 to 1, and everybody else by 3 to 1 or better, but states that he doesn't want to be the jerk, and agrees.
I should also mention bluffing success frequency. I think I made five bluffs or semi-bluffs during the tourney and got away with three of them. The ones I didn't get away with were against the loose cannon.
The prize was about a hundred more than I bled through on Sunday, the overall net was about 50 bucks (add-ons $60) for 14 hours of play. Whoo-hoo!
