Okay, I thought I'd start a blog (ala Cre8tive) about the Fall Classic tournament series at Caterbury Park in Minnesota. It should help me reflect on what I'm doing well and what I could work on in terms of live tournies, so it's mostly for me but if people enjoy reading it, so much the better. I plan on playing all or most of the NL hold 'em events, of which there are 10. The first event was tonight, a $300+40 event. The Classic runs from Oct. 10-23.

281 entrants, starting stack of 12,000. 26k to 1st. Blinds start at 25/50. 40 minute levels. Decent structure (especially for a MN tourney), but not great. Tables are 10-handed (rolls eyes).

First hand I play is 88 from MP. Raise it to 150. Asian kid (who is from LA and plays at the Commerce, Bike, and Whitegarden [I think that was the name, haven't heard of that one]) flats me on my direct left. Flop is Q44. I bet out 200. He calls. Turn is a K. I check, and call his 425, thinking that he's probably got a mediumish pair as well, as he seems to be a typical aggressive player that thinks he can just push people around. River was a J and we both check. He rolls over 77 and I take it.

A few orbits later, I get KK in MP and raise to 150. A garrulous man in a cowboy hat flats me from the CO and the BB also calls. Flop comes 7s6d9s. Not exactly ecstatic with that flop but I bet out 300. Garrulous man raises to 800. BB folds, I call. I figure he's either got like JJ or a set, because the few hands we've played, he doesn't seem to be the aggressive type that would raise a draw. Turn is another 6. I check, planning on checkraising, and he bets out like 1800, close to pot size. I still should have check raised here even though the bet size was large, but it was still pretty early so I decided to play conservative and call, planning to value bet a blank river if it comes. The river is the Ts. That completes a bunch of draws obviously, so I plan to check call but we both check it down, and he shows QQ. I don't think I played this hand the best, although I'm not completely unhappy with the way I played it, I think I still should have checkraised the turn.

I get moved tables and my stack is at 18000. Blinds 100/200/25a.

I get KsQs and a younger blue sweatshirted guy raises from EP to 600. He had been quite active recently. The lady to his direct left calls, and I call two to his left. Two more players come into the pot, including the BB. Flop is 6x6h2h. BB checks, and blue sweatshirt bets 2000. I decide to float him cause I just don't see him having much here, I sort of felt like he was just betting at an extremely dry flop to take the sizeable pot in the middle. Turn is a K. This changes my strategy, as I was planning on betting any turn except for a K, Q, or A. He checks and I check behind. River is an offsuit 9. He checks, and I take my time counting out 3425. He hems and haws over it for probably almost a minute, then mucks, claiming I probably have 66 or 99.

About an orbit later, the exact same scenario plays out, blue raises to 600, lady flats, and I flat with AQ. No more callers. Flop is QQ6. They both check, I fire 1100, and they both fold.

Blinds are at 200/400/50a. Stack is around 25k.

Old scowly nit limps in (a horrible habit that seems to be prevalent among old dudes) from the CO and I look down at 88 and make it 1400. He calls. (They love limp calling...then folding). Flop is J65 and I fire 1425. He calls. Turn is a K and I two-barrel him: 2500. He sort of grumbles and folds. I have no idea what he had. He might have even folded QJ or something.

I get JJ under the gun and raise to 900. Two callers, sunglasses guy and smiley guy. Flop is T74, I bet and take it down. By this time, I building quite an image as an active aggressive player. (I don't think most of these people pay attention to table images that much though, I swear 90% of the field is probably level-1 players).

Blinds go up to 300/600/75a

I get 88 in I think the hijack and I raise it up to 1425. Smiley calls out of the BB. Flop is 87s3s. Bingo. He bets out 1600. Now, I make a bad mistake here. Smiley, like almost everyone playing this tournament, only likes to get his chips in with the nuts pretty much. When he's putting money in the pot, he likes his hand. I raise to 4200. He sits and thinks, gets the call together, sees how much he'd have left (he probably had around 12k-14k behind I think), then gets all the chips together and puts his hands around them *exactly* like he's going to put them in. Of course I'm like, please shove, please shove, please shove. Then he seems to change his mind at the last second and folds. FUCK. I definitely think this is a mistake looking back on it and even in the seconds after I raised I was thinking the better play was to smooth call, try to get him to bet out on the turn and shove on him. I mean, what am I really afraid of here? If a spade rolls off and he has two spades, so be it. So, anyway, bad play but I'll move on.

Competent player on my immediate right (who just had his AA cracked a few orbits ago for a monster 60bb pot) raises up to 1500 on the CO with about 13k behind. I look at AA and and make it 4200. Sunglasses in BB looks, winces and folds. Competent guy thinks and shows me 66 as he's mucking, telling me he doesn't want to race. Sunglasses guy wants to know what I had and says he had 99. Competent guy and Sunglasses both heartily agree that I had AK for sure. I don't tell them, I just said I would have called if competent player went all in (something he already knew of course).

At this point I have around 40k, I get to buy everyone's 25 green chips, and life is good. People are afraid of me, and I haven't even showndown a hand, even though I had it most of the time. I was either close to or had the table chiplead. Blue sweatshirt had a ton of chips from the aforementioned competent player's AA when he raised-reshoved from the CO with 99 once the competent player reraised in the SB.

Blinds 400/800/100a (the 10-handed structure and large antes made for some juicy pots every time the cards were dealt)

Snappily dressed man (had a cream colored ralph lauren sweater vest on) gets moved to the seat formerly occupied by old scowly nit. He begins lamenting how he hasn't had any cards all tournament and plunks down around 4000 onto the table. A short while later he moves all in for around 3200 either UTG or UTG+1. I look down at JJ and iso to 10000. He flips 33. Flop J57. Well, you can see where this is going. Snappy man gets up and starts to leave. Turn is a 6. He begins leaving. I say, "Hey, you still have a 4." And out squirts a 4 from the deck like Cain from Eve's tainted womb. Hahaha, it was actually really funny. Sunglasses man actually tried to tell me how "sick" that beat was on dinner break (which was after the 400/800 level). I wanted to tell him that I've seen beats that will make his hair turn white in only the past 3 days, but I of course would've sounded like an idiot (pretty much cause I'd try to say it like Winston in Ghostbusters for comedy value and miserably fail). And I don't really want to let on to anyone that I play a lot on the internet. Let him try to figure me out as they play me; that's one thing I've always done really well is to figure out how the other person plays before she does the same to me.

Anyway, I'm down to about 38k at this point. Thin Dude shoves UTG with a pretty small stack. I look down at red JJ in the SB and shove on the BB, who folds. He has AcKd. Board comes KcKTc7sQd. Down to 28k after I find out that he had around 10k. Well, now the table sees I'm fallible.

Final hand before dinner. Sunglasses raises to 2000 UTG+1 and guy two seats to the left (sort of a simple-looking type) calls. I squeeze out AA OTB and make it 6500. I figure this is a perfect spot to juice it up more than 3x the original raise and make it look so much like a squeeze. Sunglasses seems an aware enough player to think that I might be steaming from the JJ hands and just looking to chip up, especially since the Simple Guy was incredibly easy to read and to push around. Sigh, so much for multi-level thinking, they both muck. Simple Guy shows 77, and Sunglasses says he had 88. Again they are obssessed with what I had. I tell them that I never show anything (ok RARELY anything) so nothing personal.

DINNER BREAK

Blinds 600/1200/100a (around 150 players left) My stack is around 33k.

I steal the blinds here and there, and get into a hand with A9o from the hijack. Make it 2800 and Smiley calls from the BB. Flop is 5x3d4x. We both check. Turn is the 5d. He bets out 2500 and I call. River is the 7d and he bets out 5000 and I fold. Badly played on my part, I should have c-bet the flop and shut down if I met resistance. The only reason why I called that turn is because I felt like my ace high might be good. Arg, so weak.

Blinds 800/1600/200a. My stack is around 27k.

I get AQo on the button and raise to 3800, praying to get shipped on. Ultranit lady calls from the SB and Thin Dude in BB also calls. We all have roughly even stacks, except Thin Dude had a little more than Ultranitlady or I. A small aside about Ultranitlady: Whenever it would fold to me in the SB, I would just throw in about 2.5x the BB without even looking at my cards and she would always fold (the dealer was between me and her, so that's why I wouldn't look) and one of the times I had done it, I turned over 72o without thinking and obviously ruined my image a little, but she was so tight it didn't even matter. The one time she actually did call I just c-bet the flop and it was golden. Back to the hand: Flop comes Q95 and Ultranitlady bets out 6000. I ship it in on her and she insta calls. I figure she's got the same hand. Just kidding, it's 99. I get crippled to like 1400 or something. Obviously her flat, donk-bet line is fucking terrible with 99 but it would've turned out the same way if she would have played it correctly so whatever.

Very next hand Simple Guy makes it like 3400 from UTG+1. I put my 1400 in blind and Ultranitlady calls the 3400. Board comes A9Q56 and I figure I'm toast with Ultranitlady in there even though they check it down. I flip my first card and somehow it's the Ace of clubs, good enough to take it. T of clubs for the other card, pretty good for sticking it in dark. UNL had 22 and SG had JJ. Most of the table can't believe I stuck it in dark like it's some sort of crazy play, and I'm just laughing while the three guys to my right who seem to know at least a little of what they're doing chuckle, too. I'm back up to 7800. I stick it in the very next hand with KQ, Smiley almost calls me (probably folded AQ lol) and I'm up to roughly 12k just like that.

I get blindanted (pronounced blyn-DAN-teed) down to 8400 and Sunglasses raises UTG to 3800. The lady on my right next to Blue Sweatshirt goes all in for 5400 or so. I ship 88. Sunglasses moans about how he hates "this hand" and how he shouldn't have gotten himself into this spot. I figure him for AQ but hope it's 77. He calls, and turns over AcQd. Lady on the Right has J9dd which she furiously defends by saying "I haven't had a hand in forever!" It's funny how often I heard that just today, lol. I think her play is completely standard for the blind levels and antes. There's so much in the pot and she's sitting there with like 3.5bbs. Ship it in there lady, hell yeah! Side pot 6400 or so and the main pot must've been around 20k I guess. Flop is 4x6d7d. I call for the 5. The poker gods cackle with malicious glee and kindly deliver me that 5 complete with a fresh coat of diamonds. River is a Q and I win the side pot for 6400 while Lady on the Right scoops the main. And then coquettishly offers to buy me a drink somewhere tonight as she twists the wedding ring on her ring. Okay, I made that last part up.

I ship the 6400 very next hand with Q6 when it folds to me in the CO and Sunglasses (now shortstacked as well, prob around 10k, a small part of the reasoning for shoving [most of the reasoning consists of: I have no chips, I need chips, there is an assload of chips in there already relative to my stack]) seems to want to call but can't bring himself to. Fine with me. I'm up to 10600 and Simple Guy comments: "Wow, you almost doubled your stack right there." I reply: "That's why I shove there." Then immediately bite my tongue. I have to work on fighting the reflex to educate the donks.

Blinds 1000/2000/200a

I steal another set of blinds a few hands later and proceed to wait for a spot to get 'em in again. I get KsKd UTG+2 (we were 8 handed at the time) and stick like 10800 in. Thin Dude calls in the CO and everyone else folds. He groans when I flip my KK and he turns over AsJh. Flop is 8x8h9h. Turn is the best card in the deck for him besides an ace, the Th. I make a comment to the tune of "Oh gotta make it interesting huh." (By the way, my table chatter, when it happens, is all in good fun and lightheartedness, I have no tolerance for dealer abuse or even the suggestion that the dealers have control of what cards come) But I have to learn to shut the hell up. He binks the queen and I'm out. I get up, say good game, good luck, and Thin Dude makes a deliberate point of making sure he catches my eye and apologizing. I smile at him and say no worries, I would've called too. His call is completely standard (he had probably around 65k or something at that point), and how am I going to get mad or need to get apologized to for something I would've done and think is a perfectly fine play. And I was being sincere in smiling. I felt good. Overall I felt I played well and didn't make any huge mistakes.

So, yeah, that was a lot longer than I expected and I think I went a little overboard. I can probably cut out some of the smaller, more insignificant hands for my future entries but I feel like there are a lot of little hands that contribute to your table image and how you are perceiving your table opponents; both are aspects that I feel are magnified in live poker versus online. Hopefully you enjoyed and give me some feedback if you like, or flame me if you don't. And feel free to give comments and suggestions for improvement on any of the hands, especially the very first KK hand. My line versus checkraising on turn? I'm starting to like the checkraise more now. Bleh.

One final thing: I am calling my shot and saying that I will win one of these Fall Classic tournies. The average skill level is just way too low. Obviously I'm being optimistic with a sample size of 10 tournies, but I would actually put money on me to final table at least one.