Road Tripped

Let me make sure I understand this correctly,

You're having a Poker Tournament, WITH Bounties if I knock out certain players, PLUS a Playboy Playmate there hosting? Oh and there IS a bar right? So hmmm Poker, cash, hot chick, and booze...have I died and gone to heaven? (No because you're in Tacoma for one, two she's blond and maybe 90lbs, and c. if there is a heaven, you're DEFINITELY NOT going to it!)

So Palace Casino in Lakewood of all places, (basically drive to crap town and keep going till it sucks more, and it's on your right) was holding a $20,000 Tourney with bounties for $220 which is pretty big for this kind of venue and I thus assumed people would be playing out of their element, so I'd have a little edge. (Besides the fact that mere mortals aren't accustomed to being around Playboy models on a regular basis, so they may be a bit distracted, unlike of course yours truly), so with Protege in tow I made the trek.

I'm going to cliff note this for you. I didn't win.

I got to about 25th out of 78 and got taken out by one of the many HIGH QUALITY players there with his AMAZING ALL IN call of 17,000 chips with K8 off suit vs my A10 of clubs, (and if you think he had a read on me, I'm pretty sure the Sunday comics were above his capacity, so no. AND NO. I'M NOT JOKING.)

That being said, I wasn't the least bit surprised. This was one of the most stressful tournaments I've ever played in, and not because of the usual pressures involved, because this was one of the worst run, disorganized, amateurish tournaments I've every had the misfortune to attend, and with one of the weakest fields to boot. (BESIDES the hour and a half drive in rush hour traffic in the boiling sun, yeah besides that.)

Here is the part where I bore and baffle you all with the many ways this casino did not understand how to run a tournament this big, (or maybe even ANY tournament) and...ACTION:

Nobody knowing who was in charge, wrong number of seats at the tables, not preparing for players to come in after we started, dealers who had OBVIOUSLY never dealt a tournament EVER, a random draw for bounty players where a selected player didn't want to be the bounty and THEY LET HIM DECLINE, no tournament clock, not stopping the clock when there were issues, letting moved players skip blinds by not making sure they were in their seats when being moved, not understanding how to race chips, the Playboy bunny being WAY less attractive than advertised, arbitrarily not enforcing the "over the line rule", but most importantly of all these stupid things was the EXCRUCIATINGLY SLOW PACE OF THE DEALERS.

Suffice it to say, I've seen smoother run tourneys AT MY HOUSE full of drunken fools after 17 shot's of Austrian Kryptonite and 2 hours sleep the night before.

The snails pace of this thing was KILLING ME! The thing about tournaments as opposed to live play is that you are on a clock. The blinds keep rising round after round, so you need to get some hands you can play and you need to try to see as many hands per hour as possible in order to just stay a float. Well when your only getting about 9-10 hands a round, it's a bit tough to pick up any steam, (compared to approx 18-28hph average.)

Maybe $220 isn't a lot of coin in Lakewood, but where I'm from it buys a lot of bourbon, so I'm pretty confused at the ridiculous level of play of these people. I mean they sucked. They may as well have thrown their cash into the pull tab bin and hoped to god they got a fist full of redlines.

After I saw the field, and if I was a betting man (ahem) I would have set the line somewhere around 3-1 for me to win it and "No number was too big" to bet I would definitely cash at the final table.

After a few rounds, I knew I would never be outplayed here. I would just get screwed over by somebody saying "Well you gotta gamble" or some shit like that. Which is precisely what happened, but since this is my year of NEW zen like tranquility, I wasn't bugged a bit.

(It could have been worse, my Protege only got to play 3 hands before he was out when he out flopped AA with two pair, only to have the board pair on the river (back to back) leaving him to get drunk for the next four hours by himself. 

Well just like a great man once said,  "Sometimes Shit Don't Go Right.".

At least I hit a bounty on the way out, bringing my tournament from a $220 investment to only $20, so it ended up not being as horrible as it could have been. (So even with the $10 I gave Goldie to fill up on booze while he waited for me and tried to avoid getting knifed), less than one buy in at my daily "Office" tourney, so no big deal.

Dear Palace Casino,
Get your people some training, buy a tournament clock, learn how to use it, AND PLEASE DEAR GOD GET STACY FULSON A SANDWICH!
Give me a call when you do.

Today's Hourly Rate: -$7.00hr
I figured in gas in my hourly rate this time since it was so very, very far.

That's all I got,
raychihasspoken