$550 Lucky Chances Tournament Recap

I wanted to get in a tournament or two of in person play before I headed off to the WSOP and sure enough Lucky Chances in Colma is running a series of tournaments this week.

Sunday's event was a $550 10 handed NL hold'em event that drew just over 200 players. I played against about 30 different players in this one and 25 of them couldn't carry a bag of shit if it said poker on the side. I feel like I've never had higher positive expected value in a $500+ tournament in my entire career.

I played well and ran my starting stack of 6,000 up to 10,000 without ever making a real hand or ever having to show my cards. Everyone was so transparent that I just waited until I was confident no one hand anything and then fired at the pot.

About 2 hours in I got one of my legs cut out from under me. The blinds were 100/200 and I was in the cutoff with pocket tens. The player to my right made it 700 to go and I made it 2,100. He thought for a long time and he was not the type of player who would do this as an act. After a solid 60 seconds he moved all in for 5,000. Getting 7 to 3 on my money with only half my stack at risk I couldn't see folding to an opponent who honestly seemed unsure. When I called he acted like he was dead, but then he flipped up JJ and happily took the pot when no tens showed up.

I bounced around a little bit, but eventually went down the tubes almost 4 hours in when my JJ lost to AT. I finished about 100th. I played great all day and got my money in with way the best of it. I can't ask much more of myself than that.

Tomorrow I expect to face a lot of the same players in a $330 NL tournament with the same structure and then Tuesday it's off to Vegas!