Reno
Hilton World Poker Challenge - Day 15
Today
was the 1K Limit Holdem, I didn't play
as they only had 33 players (I'd decided
50 minimum before I'd consider it), and
it turned out lucky I didn't play because
my nemesis, Kheim Nguyen was there, he
is employed by casinos throughout California
and Nevada solely for the purpose of busting
me out of tournaments, I think he won
the event (after they'd made what I think
was a 5 way deal to chop up the three
places paid).
Instead
I played the $225 Omaha hi/lo. I was chip
leader at the dinner break with enough
chips for the final table with three and
then two tables left, then came back from
dinner, played three hands, and I was
out. Must have been something I ate. Actually
the problem was the blinds were increasing
too fast, there were 85 players, so 85,000
chips, I had 10K at my highest, blinded
down to 8K, but the blinds were already
400-800, so even as chip leader I couldn't
just sit around. Getting involved in a
hand meant you were risking most of your
chips, and not playing meant you were
getting blinded off. So people were willing
to gamble it up, and I lost two of those
gambles, and missed a huge draw on the
other. Still, I think I could have played
better, maybe got away from the draw and
maybe called more and raised less with
my good hands until I saw the flop.
The
day had already started off badly with
my anti-luck continuing in my first satellite
with my JJ losing to A9 with the obligatory
A river, but I can't complain because
tonight I played 3 satellites, won one
outright with my own major piece of luck
with my heads up K9 against A8, with a
9 on the river, and then I chopped first
in the other two for a nice profit for
the day, finally.
They have had a free slot tournament running
all month, I only recently found out about
it (you just show your slot card once
a day for a free play), prizes up to about
$350 and winners go on to a bigger tournament.
People don't realize the skill involved
in a slot tournament, first you have to
pick the lucky machine, then you have
to tap the button at just the right moment,
plus there is a strange ritual where you
must tap the button rapidly and continuously
even when it is running up credits so
each tap doesn't do anything. My friend
was on another machine, I had finished
my tapping so went over to watch him tapping,
he lacked my slot tournament skills so
asked me to tap a few for him. Within
seconds security (or it could have just
been the guy running the tournament, but
he had a tie on) had rushed over to inform
us that I could not tap the button for
another player. They obviously had marked
me as a professional and were invoking
the 'one player to a machine' rule. Not
wanting to be thrown out of the casino
I complied and never did get to ask him
how the machine would know it was me doing
the tapping.
Tomorrow
is the 1K no limit holdem, I won't be
playing that, but I will be playing the
2pm $225 limit holdem, that's my game...
Paul
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