A dual victory

Last night, Lee and I went to a local card club and played in both a $20 sit n' go and a $1-2 mixed cash game. The SNG was a lot of fun, but had a quick (in my opinion) blind structure, at 20 minutes per level. The starting stacks were 10K with blinds of 100-200, and unlimited rebuys during the first three levels for anyone below 2K in chips willing to pay $10. Also, there was an optional add-on at the end of level three.

There were ten players in the tournament, and of course I started off playing tight, sound poker until I had an idea of how my opponents were playing. However, the blinds got up there pretty quickly, and eventually I made a move, coming over the top of an open-raise for all of my chips with pocket tens. I was called, and lost the ensuing coinflip, ending up pretty short on chips by the time the rebuy period ended. For this reason, as well as the fact that seven other players were adding on, I decided to take the add-on option and spend $15 for 15K more in tournament chips. Although these chips were slightly more expensive than the starting chips, I was looking at a stack of only 6-7K with blinds at 400-800. Even with the add-on, I was still technically in Harrington's "yellow zone." Blinds kept escalating, and eventually it got down to five or six-handed play.

I was opening my play up at this point, since there was 1.5K or so out there before anyone had acted. This enabled me to pick up the blinds quite a few times, and when I was called by the (slightly larger than my own) short stack, they held QJ against my A7s, and when I caught my ace on the turn I picked up a nice pot. After stacking off an opponent whose TT vs. my AK lost to a brutal river ace, we were very soon three-handed. A player asked to make a deal for a three-way chop of the prize pool, and everyone obliged, being nearly even in chips with blinds of 4K-8K.

After the game, a $1-2 mixed side game opened up, with one round of no-limit hold'em followed by one round of pot-limit omaha. I waited two rounds after the game began to see how the players were playing before buying in, as well as to give myself a mental breather after the end of the tournament. I bought in, and played less than three or four rounds of the button when my ride took back-to-back icy beats in Omaha and went bust. After a fortunate hand for me in which I turned the nut straight with a flush draw to the queen, I stood up from the game $15 winner plus the money from the tournament, and went home feeling I had done particularly well.