I'd been craving some live tournament action and finally got a chance today to play. The WSOP Circuit's latest event is in Tunica, Mississippi, which is the closest thing I have to a home court advantage, and I was happy to see they had a $300 tournament. Cal and I got into town last night, and after meeting up with some friends, including SamENole, Denny Lemieux, and yngmanN4quiki, we got started with the tournament.

My first table was absolutely donk-tastic. I've never seen such bad play in a tournament with a buy in this big. I was shocked when on the second hand at my table, someone raised to 300 under the gun (blinds were 25-25, so this was a 12x raise!!!), another player went all in, and the first raiser folded, having put 20% of his stack in cold.

Things were not going well for me in the first level. The first hand I played, a few people limped in and I found a pair of tens in the big blind. I raised another 125 and got one call. The flop came A K Q....ouch. I checked and my opponent checked, and then the turn came a 10. I made a feeler bet of 150, and he immediately raised another 500. Yuck....bad start. A few hands later, I raised to 75 in middle position with K Q offsuit and got 2 callers---one on the button and one in the small blind. The flop came K97. It checked to me, and I bet 150. The button folded and the small blind called. Turn was the J, he checked, I bet 275, and he called. The river was the 6. He did some big acting job where he tried to look all upset and checked, and I of course checked behind him. He proudly turned over J4, and I was all of a sudden down to about 600 chips....not my best start.

I wouldn't normally be playing hands like KQ so early in a tournament, but with the blinds starting as big as they were, I wanted to try and get some chips fairly early. Unfortunately, my involvement had the opposite effect...

I somehow made it through the second level (there were 40 minute levels, with a break after every two levels), and when I ran into Cal, I saw he was sitting at a table with Jon Lane (G6Dragon online). They were both doing better than me, which I was happy to see. I decided I was going to tough it out and try to fight my way back into this. My time to go all in was coming soon though, as the blinds were going up to 50-100 and I had 525 in chips at the break.

At the start of the new level, I didn't play any hands, and then the big blind hit me and I was raised out of it. Immediately afterwards, I was moved to a new table in the other room. I figured any change was good at this point, as long as they weren't putting me near the big blind again, so I happily accepted my new scenery, especially when I saw I was getting seated in the cutoff.

I had 425 in chips, and it was the happiest I've ever been to see AJ a couple hands later, which was more than good enough to push with at that point. A guy in late position turned over QQ, and I hit an ace on the turn to take the pot. I could feel things starting to turn around for me, and I didn't feel too bad about my suckout, considering how things had been going up to that point.

The next blind level came quickly, bringing us to 100-200, and my 1075 was once again a fairly desperate stack. I found AQ under the gun and pushed in my chips, and the guy on my left reraised all in. After the rest had folded, I said, "I hope you don't have ace king," and he immediately turned over exactly that. The board came with two pair, so we chopped the pot, and I had once again sucked out to stay alive.

I continued to get very few good hands, but I noticed my table playing very tight, so I started stepping up the aggression a bit. After stealing the blinds in consecutive hands, I found myself at 1675 in chips, which was the first time all tournament I had been above the starting stack. When I found Cal at the next break, I was back down to 1475, after hitting the big blind just before break, and he told me he was hanging around with a little above 2000. He had been cold decked too, but he was fighting.

After the break, antes were introduced, and the blinds stayed at 100-200. There were now 550 chips in every pot to start, and I knew that getting involved was crucial. My cards weren't really agreeing, but I was able to take advantage of my opponents' tight play to steal some blinds.

Shortly into that level, G6Dragon was moved to my table, and he had brought with him about 5000 in chips, which was a bit above the average. He made a few excellent reads at the table, which I'd like to note here. First, a very tight player raised to 900 of his 3000 (blinds were now 150-300) from early position, and Jon decided to push all in from the big blind with JJ. The tight player called immediately with 99....it was the worst hand I'd seen him show down all day. That brought Jon to almost 10,000 in chips. In the following level, Jon raised in early position to 1200, and two fairly loose players called his raise behind him. The flop came 5 5 7, and Jon bet 2500 of his 9000 or so he had left. The first caller folded and the second, who had been overplaying some hands but was mostly getting involved when he had at least something pretty good, pushed all in for another 6k+. Jon thought for a long time and finally said, "we're really close here." I was pretty sure they both had overpairs and that he was trying to figure out whose was higher. He finally called, showing 9 9, and the other guy had 8 8. What a read, and just like that he was up to 20k in chips, making him one of the tournament leaders with about 180 left. He later told me he was fairly sure the guy had 8s or 10s.

Meanwhile, I had been chipping up a bit, finishing the 150-300 level (which brought us to the third break) with about 3800 in chips. I had only shown down one hand in the past two hours, which I had won, and I was winning pots mainly through preflop aggression. After the break, several new players were brought to the table, and I was not thrilled when my 1100 chips raise with TJ was called by 3 people to see a flop, which came 8 high. I didn't put any more chips in, and another player pushed all in, so I lost the hand.

In retrospect, my preflop raise here was my single biggest mistake of the tournament. There were 1100 chips to start in every pot, so there was a huge premium on winning the blinds and antes, but I lost almost 1/3 of my chips this hand, which really hurt me. I had been mostly raising in late position and against players who I knew were tight and were likely to fold to my raises. I wish now I had waited to see how these new players were playing before getting involved with a marginal hand.

After hitting the blinds again, I was down to 1600 in chips, and I ended up pushing on the button with K 5 offsuit, and fortunately, nobody called. The next hand, I got A5 in cutoff, and I decided that my 2700 in chips was still low enough that I had to go with it. The big blind, who had been folding to my raises all day long, finally looked me up with a pair of 10s. His hand held up, and I was down to 400 in chips, barely enough to call the big blind. I knew I had to get in quick, since the 50 chip antes would eat me up, and K T on the third hand was more than good enough to throw in my last 250. G6 reraised from my left with A 3, and we were off to the races. Neither of our hands improved, although I note here that I would have turned the 300 chips with which I started that hand pre-ante into into 1450 in chips, which would have given me a little more hope.

I called Cal and found out that he had pushed on the button with pocket fives about an hour earlier and was called by king queen, which won the race. Neither of us saw a pair higher than jacks all tournament, so I felt pretty good about both of us getting as far as we did. I busted out about 160th out of 873 people, and 81 spots were paying. All in all it was a fun tournament, and I felt that I played pretty well.

Later on, I got a call from my friend Mike Postle (yngmanN4quiki online), who was still in the tournament. I went to the Grand to check him out a little while later, and he had busted out around 40th place when his KK lost to AQ after getting all in before the flop. Not a bad tournament for him, but the pay scale was so top heavy that he only got a little more than 2x his buy in. I also noticed that G6 was not around, and I'm not sure if he made the money, though I assume he did.

GL to all these guys in the upcoming tournaments.