My First Live Tournament Win, My First Online Tournament Win

Poker is a combination of luck and skill. People think mastering the skill part is hard, but they're wrong. The trick to poker is mastering the luck.

--Jesse May, from "Shut Up and Deal"

Well, I have had quite a week at the tables. In the span of four days, I have notched my first live tournament win and my first online tournament win. I will say that it seems that I have the best luck when I'm down to the felt with sky-high blinds. I was in that situation in both tournaments.

We'll start with the live tournament. The tournament was one of the free-to-enter bar tourneys that are held in the Atlanta area. This particular one was at Buffalo Wild Wings in Alpharetta on September 29, 2005. I finished second in the tourney on September 22, so having had decent luck I decided to return the next week. Two tables to start, with prizes of $40, $20, and $10 house cash for the top three finishers.

I started off playing my normal tight aggressive game, folding most hands and watching everyone get crazy with less than premium hands. I did have one great hand in the first half-hour. I held AK suited and with blinds at 20/40 raised to $200. I got one caller. The flop came with nothing higher than a ten. I bet $500 and got called. It was at this point I was pretty sure I was beat. I was putting the guy on AT or JJ. The turn was no help to me, so I checked. The other guy bet $1000, and I folded. I think I made the right read on this guy, and am happy with the decision that I made to lay my hand down.

I played a few other hands, never hitting anything on the flop. I was in danger of getting pretty short, with about 1400 in chips at the 50/100 level when I looked down and saw Aces. I was under the gun, and I raised to $300. Everyone folded around to the big blind, who called. The flop came K97 rainbow. The big blind checked, and I bet $300. She put me all in and I called in a shot. She showed K2 offsuit. I have to say that up until that point I had been pretty impressed with this lady's play. She always showed down strong hands, but I don't know what she was thinking there. She had to put me on a big hand, and even if I had K3, she was in big trouble. I won't complain, though, because it really got me back into things for the next hour.

Coming to the end of the next hour, I was getting really short. It was final five players, blinds at 400/800, and I had 1100 in chips. The break hit just as I was about to pay the big blind. When we came back from break, we had been colored up, and since they round up the chips when they color up, I had 1500 in chips with the blinds at 500/1000. I decided that I had to do something, so I just posted all-in blind. I got two callers who basically checked it down to the river. I had 72 of spades, and the flop came all spades. The turn was a blank club, but the river was the queen of spades. At this point I was sure I was beat, but the other two opponents turned over hands full of red cards! I had tripled up.

I folded until I was in the big blind again. There were two callers. The flop came K-Q-10, and I was holding J9! The small blind checked, I checked, and UTG checked. The turn was a blank. Again, the small blind checked, I checked, and UTG called out "All In". The small blind folded, and I called. He turned over K6, and I took it down. Over the course of the next ten hands, I flopped another straight to knock out one opponent, and turned a straight to knock out another. We were finally heads up, with me having about 20,000 in chips to my opponent's 2000.

Heads up only lasted three hands. The last hand had me in the big blind with QT. My opponent went all in and I called. The flop came KJA, and it was over. My wife had been sweating me all night, and she actually took a picture of me "WSOP-Style" with me standing behind the chip stack holding up my cards and the house cash certificates.

The online tourney was on Sunday afternoon. I was sitting in the living room watching the race and basically just killing time. I entered the 2:30 $5 Turbo tourney on PokerChamps. There were 39 players, for a prize pool of $195.

Just like the live tourney, I played a tight-aggressive game, but thought it was all over when I got my AK all in against AJ, and the guy spiked a jack on the flop. I was left with $54 at the 50/100 level. I managed to double up several times, always picking the best spots to put it all in. When we got down to heads up, I had a 25k chip lead. Several hands later, it was all over. To be quite honest, online play happens so fast that I rarely remember exact hands, so I don't even know what I won with. I did manage to take a screenshot of my success, though. Here it is: