Well after a tough river card, I was done with no-limit poker. I just wanted to survive the rest of the weekend and have a good time. Toby, Brian, and I were getting hungry so we headed to the Sahara for some breakfast. After breakfast it was about 6am and Brian was tired. Toby and I were planning to play in the 9am tournament at our hotel. So we all headed back to the room for a quick nap.

I rested until 8am, and then headed down to the poker room. I paid my $25 and waited for the tournament to start. As I sat at my table, I took a look at the competition. I started to feel confident. These players looked green. Like it was their first time playing. You could see it in their face. It was weird. I’ve never felt so comfortable at a poker table before. I added my $20 re-buy. More ammo.

So the game started. I waited for some decent cards (pocket pair 8’s or better) and watched the table play. I was correct; there were a lot of rookies playing at my table. It was like a kiddy table (but those are the worst). Started to feel real confident when the person to the left of the big blind called the $50 big blind, I called, then two other players and the small blind called (five players). But the big blind raised it to $100, the guy to the left of the big blind folded and I re-raised to $350. Everybody folded and I took down a pot that I was originally going to slow play. At that point, I felt I could do anything and get away with it; and I did. I bluffed, I semi-bluffed, I raised with the nuts, every hand I played I won and never showed cards. I finally showed a hand when I put a guy all-in and I won that hand. Going into the brake I was table leader. Then they broke our table.

At the new table, I had pocket 5’s in the big blind. One player raised all-in (short stacked) and a second player re-raised his stack all-in (also short stacked). Being in the big blind, I was the last to act. Everybody folded and it was only $800 more to call. So I did. I was a huge favorite as one player had A Q off-suit and the other player had A J off-suit. I won the hand and we moved down to two tables. Then we were at the final table. Only five players were between me and my first “cash”.

Slowly the players were eliminated. Nine players left, then eight, seven…etc. When we got down to five players, I was in the money. First time in a live tournament for me; I was feeling great. With five remaining, I had the second best stack, I could win this thing. Fifth player eliminated, I knocked out the fourth place finisher, we were down to three. The other two guys wanted to make a deal and split the pot among the three of us. I was the lone dissenter. If I was going to split, I wanted to split top two. We played a few hands and I knocked out the third place finisher. I was in the top two and guaranteed $400. We played a few more hands and decided to split the pot. Each player got $575. I tipped the house 10% and cashed in my chips. My first tournament win (tie for first) felt great. Now I just need to hold onto the cash for 48 hours

Vegas – part Three tomorrow