Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Pechanga and the 'free' tournament

Hello, readers!  I know my posts have been scant, but that doesn't mean I haven't been playing.  For 2013 I'm up roughly $1K, but my record hasn't been so great at the non-destination casinos (Commerce, Bike).  In Vegas I've done well, but Pechanga, well - it has been very, very good to me.

Pechanga is about an Atlantic City-NYC drive, so it isn't ideal, but it seems I head down to the SD area a lot, so it is a natural fit to stop there on the return trip.  So, yesterday I headed down for an evening audition, and using my trusty Bravo Poker Mobile App, I spied an interesting promotion Pechanga was running - log ONE hour of play between midnight an 10:30 am and you will be entered into a FREE tournament with a 2K guarantee! Who can beat that?  So, after my audition I stayed with a friend in SD and then headed to Pechanga to log my hour.  When I got there there was only a 2/4 limit game going so I took a seat at about 8am. Shortly thereafter came a LOT of people and games started firing up all over the room - so despite the juicy 1/3 NL action I've experienced there, I exercised discipline and stayed at limit for about 90 minutes, losing $20 of the $60 I put down.   I went dowanstairs, had a nice little breakfast, and then settled in for the action.

Now, let me just say now that I final tabled out of 68 runners and we chopped it 9 ways for third place money($200).  I thought that because this tournament was free, people would be splashy, and in the beginning, they were.  My first double up occurred when my QQ bested a Q9 (??) He had a nine on the board, he thought that was good?  Then this annoying Asian dude who is a regular, and liked to say checkcheckcheck over and over to confuse the table,raised my 200 bet with another QQ, with some sort of odd hand like 48, I put him all in and took his stack - so I'm up from 4500 to about 12K two levels in. Then it seemed apparent that the splashies were disappearing and the nit-work began.
Aside from the beginning I was never really at risk for all my chips, but at 400/800 I did run a little good.  I bet out 1600 with 10s.  Smaller stack, a meek Asian lady, shoved for about 2300.  I go all in on top to isolate, but then this loose dude goes all in too, with a stack of about 5500?  I'm at 17K and have them all covered.  Meek asian lady shows KK, and loose dude JJ.  10 on the turn, and I send two to the rail.  I didn't fault that isolate - I didnt expect to run into that kind of trouble, but the structure was fast and you pretty much either have to go big or go home. 

I then took a hard beat with aj against ak that dwindled me down to 10K at 500/1000, so it was shove time.   A really short stack shoved and I went all in over him with Aq.  He had 44 and hit a set, but another guy with lots of chips shoved too, and though 44 guy took the side pot, the other dude shoved with Q9(again?) and I took his chips.  So this landed me at around 19K, and to be honest I dont think I got involved with a single pot again after that.  the drop from 18 down to 9 came pretty quickly, and when I heard the tournament folks really pushing the chop as we bubbled, I knew I didn't really need to worry about my stack size entering the final table. So, I drove home about $180 richer.

If this promo continues, I think I'm going to make another trip!