Tournament Report

Last night was the $10 tournament with unlimited rebuys. I'm happy to say it was a partial success. The action was fast, the prize pool was big and everyone had a good time, however we all felt the structure could use some improvement. This was a wild tournament which was fun for all, but definitely had some faults.

We began with 8 players and things got off to an interesting start for me. The second hand of the night, I'm in the big blind with my full stack of 1000 chips. With 5 limpers, I look down and see JJ. I raise 4x the big blind to 100 and get 2 callers. The flop comes 4 7 T rainbow, and I fire out 200. Next to act, a short stack calls, and the last player folds. Turn is a 3, and I fire out 200 again. The short stack reraises me all-in 150 more, and I'm priced to good to fold. He shows 94o and my Jacks hold up when he fails to improve on the river.

I played fairly conservatively for the next couple rounds, winning a big pot with trips when two short stacks moved in with overcards on the flop. Then the hand of the night for me came up. I'm one off the button with about 4500 in chips, blinds at 100-200. A good player raises UTG +2 to 600, it folds to me and I find KK. I reraise to 1200, the button calls and good player calls. The flop comes 3 7 Q, and early position announces all-in. I insta-call, and the button calls as well. When the early player turns over QQ, I'm in bad shape. I fail to catch my two-outer and am crippled to 1300 in chips while watching the queens rake in a massive pot. Looking back on this hand, I made several mistakes:

1. I spent far too much time thinking about my raise pre-flop. While looking at pocket kings I should without a doubt raise, but thinking too long after a raise gives my opponents a reason to believe I am holding premium cards. Pushing all-in after almost no thought would've been a better play then the one I made, as I'm a big favorite against anything except AA.
2. My raise was too small. I'm not completely convinced that raising all-in pre-flop is the correct raise amount, but raising the minimum was definitely incorrect. After the button calls, the early position player is priced just about right to call with any lower pair, or any ace. In hindsight, I think the proper raise would have been 2400 to go.
3. I didn't spend enough time thinking post-flop. When any player with a sizeable stack moves all-in in a tourney, it's not a decision to be taken lightly. I really should have tried to put my opponent on a variety of hands, and looked for tells to help me decide which of those possibilities was the most likely. I'm still not sure if I would've been able to make this laydown, but after the first two errors I had dug my own grave on this hand.

This hand really sucked the life out of me. As my stack was decimated, so was my table image. I had to play super tight-aggressive to try and improve my chip stack. The cards weren't helping either, and I found myself moving all-in a few times with nothing but ace-rag. My run was finally ended when my KT was beat by Q5 when a 5 hit the flop. I finished 4th after 1 rebuy, which awarded $25.

The tournament concluded nearly an hour later, with Dane as our champion! He played aggressively, and needed to hit a few draws on his way to the title. Everyone agreed the tournament was fun, but didn't last as long as we had hoped. We also felt the opening level of blinds (25-50) was too high in comparison to the starting stacks (1000). I think in the future, we will probably start the blinds lower, and give players more chips to work with in relative to the blinds. Another solution would be to double the starting stacks. Starting with 2000 in chips and blinds at 25-50 would give players more leeway. I'm already looking forward to the next tournament - I'm coming for you Danger!