Peppermill
Spring Tournament - Day 0
I
promised myself no trip report this time,
so '- day 0' may be superfluous, sort
of like "Joe Dirt 1".
Well
the buzz is that they have 200 rooms blocked
off for the tournament, and they are all
sold for this weekend! That would make
for some amazing turnaround from the dismal
showing last November (when there were
three Reno events back to back and the
weather was lousy). This time the weather
is great, I had a wonderfully easy ride
over Donner Summit, no need to pack body
parts in case I got stranded in a snowstorm.
I
got off to a good start when I went down
to check out the room and make sure they
have the equipment in place for my clock.
Also I wanted to see if I could pick up
a Poker Digest as I heard that Debbie's
article about the clock is in the latest
issue, but alas they have no magazines
out yet. They were just starting another
satellite (apparently they had been going
well all day), $60 No Limit. We got down
to 4 with me steadily getting blinded
off and having to fold to reraises whenever
I tried a move, started with 500 and I
was down to 200 with the 100 blind next
hand. So I took my shot with a suited
King, got called in two places, aiyah!
893 flop, no diamonds, ITIGHN ('think
I'), but the first guy shoves it all in
on a draw with his JT, the other guy mucks
his Ace, first guy doesn't improve and
I'm back in the game with King high, wooohooo.
Next hand I get AQ in the BB, the Ace
guy is now desperate and shoves it in
with KT, I call, and now I have 1100 and
we are down to 3. Chip leader knocks out
the other guy and it's heads up, he has
me 2 to 8. I get back a little to 3-7,
then raise with A3, get called, slow play
the Ace flop, he moves all in on a bluff
(gut shot draw) on the turn, and I've
doubled up. I get a couple of good hands
and inch ahead when he asks if I want
to chop. Normally I would but I think
I can beat him heads up, except I also
like the idea of starting the week on
an up note, so sanity takes over and I
say OK, with him getting the tip, and
it's +$210 for me so far, which happens
to be almost exactly what it costs for
tomorrow's $120 + 100 limit holdem. I'd
like to proclaim that I'm going to win,
but I've already spotted my nemesis, Khiem
Nguyen, hot from his back to back firsts
at Hilton in January, so I guess I'm shooting
for second.
One
wonderful thing here is that phone calls
from the room have been reduced, now it's
just 50 cents for a local call, and it's
UNLIMITED time, I've had my laptop connected
for 7 hours so far, teehee.
On
a totally unrelated note, I won my first
EBay bid today, it was the second time
this item had been offered, I missed out
last time when my bid in the final seconds
got re-raised by one of those EBay pros.
This time, again with seconds to go, I
put in my bid, but it failed because someone
had already bid higher on an automatic
bid (that kicks in for the next increment
when it sees he has been outbid), and
I was pretty sure I'd missed my chance
again, but I upped my bid anyway and miraculously
got it with 3 seconds to go, sort of like
when the hero stops the countdown on the
bomb clock at 00:00:03! and to make it
even sweeter, my bid was only $1.07 more
than the other guy's bid. This was at
least as exciting as putting a bad beat
on your opponent to win a tournament,
maybe I can repeat that feat at the final
table tomorrow...
Paul
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