Tonight was my big poker tournament to benefit the American Cancer Society. Yeah, the same American Cancer Society that banned me from one of their events 2 years ago. That’s a long story that I’m not going to get into, however you can go back to June of 2005 and read all about it. Anywho, it started at 7 with dinner at 6. At the last second……….and I mean the last second, Dave texted me about 10 to 5 saying that he was in, which was funny because he kept saying that he did not want to play for charity. But, I guess in the end, gambling is gambling, so why not? Plus, this was a good way to gage how good we actually are at poker. I told him I would pick him up about 5:30, since he had not paid yet he would need to pay at the door, so I wanted to make sure that there was a spot for him. I arrived promptly at 5:30 which meant that we left about 10 to 6. Now, it was in Joliet, so it was not that far of a drive. We stopped off at Walgreens so he could use the cash station and I could buy pretzel rods……………I can’t play poker without Rold Gold pretzel rods. For some reason, though, they were out of rods. And since we were almost out of time, I had to go without them. I swear, its just not the same without rods. When we went in, it was not raining, yet we were in the Walgreens for not even 5 minutes and came out to discover that it was raining, which really sucked because I left my window open. Still, I’m hoping for lots of rain, after all, it is the only way for the shit that I planted to grow (even though, I know they won’t grow).
Anywho, we made it to the poker place about 6:15. They had some raffles and shit that we could do. For example, you pay $10 and have what’s called a 50/50. Those of you that go to Bulls games might be familiar with this. Its raffle, in which have the money raised goes to charity, the other half goes to the prize winner. Another thing they were doing is you pay $5 and if you have the highest called hand at the end of the night, you win that jackpot (although, I think some of the money goes to charity). As it turned out, none of the money went to me, as I bought into both, but did not win either. The buy-in for the game itself was $100, which I had already paid.
We walked in and of course, I went straight for the food. They had some really good beef sandwiches, which I wound up having 3 of. I got assigned to table #8, Dave was at table 3 and Rusty was at table 5………….unless he was at one of the other tables, I really don’t remember, the point is that the 3 of us were all at sperate tables. There wound up being 8 tables with about 8-10 people per table. I thought there might be a younger crowd, but it turns out there were a lot older guys. I would guess most of the guys were in their 30s and 40s, some in their 50s, even a couple (but very few) in their 60s and only a handful in their 20s. There were also only a few females playing as well. I was at a table with some good guys, one of whom looked a helluva lot like former Cubs pitcher Greg Maddux. We started playing about 7:10. This was by far and away the biggest game I have ever been a part of, so I was concerned about how good I would do. I won the first hand which really got my confidence up. As it turned out, I would go on to win 3 of the first 4 hands. I never want to be that asshole that bullies and bets big at the start of the game, but I wound up being that guy for the first few hands, because, hey, I had the cards. I even had Ace/King on back to back hands, I won the first hand and lost the 2nd. I quickly cooled off, but it was nice to get off to a good start.
We took a break about an hour into the game. I was holding my own at that point, Rusty was a little down and Dave seemed to be on a roll. He told me that he was at a table with a bunch of rookies who had not played much. This might sound good, but the problem there is that those types of players don’t know when to fold, so they wind up staying in on hands they have no business staying in. Because of this, they tend to win hands that normally, aren’t hands one would win on. But, up to this point, Dave was doing very well. As for myself, I was starting to get a little down when finally, more then an hour and a half after we started, the first players from my table lost. We were down to just 5 at our table. It was right about then when I heard my name announced. Turns out, I won a door prize, which was a Texas Hold-em poker set along with 4 decks of World Series of Poker cards. They are very nice, good quality cards.
Anywho, back to the game. Shortly after we came back from our 10 minute break, Rusty wound up losing. We wound up having 2 people from another table join us, one of them was a guy who was short stacked (meaning, he didn’t have a lot of chips) and a lady who was kicking ass. We had a hand in which 3 guys went all in and I called them, leaving me with just a few chips if I were to lose. This was pre flop (meaning, before the community cards are dealt up) and also, the lady called us as well. I had a good hand, a Jack and a Queen. It was kinda of crazy while everybody tried to figure out who would win which pot, since the guys that were all in could not win as much as me or the lady could. Honestly, this took about 5-10 minutes to sort it all out, but finally, we saw a flop. A jack came up on the flop, which was good for me. However 2 Queens came up on the flop and in the end, the rich got richer as the lady with most of the chips had a Queen and beat the rest of us. After that hand, we had just 3 or 4 people left at our table, so we all split up and were sent to different tables. I wound up at a the table Rusty had been at. I checked in on Dave, he was down to just one $500 chip. Even though he had one chip and I had a lot more chips, he still had more money than me. Things were not looking good for us, Dave kept saying that he was down to just a chip and a chair. As for me, I didn’t even have enough to cover the blind, but I have seen people make miracle comebacks being that far down. Did either one of us have a miracle in us?
I sat down at my new table and looked around the room. Within the past 15 minutes, we lost a LOT of players. In fact, it looked like we were down to about 30-40 people, which means that more than half were out. I felt pretty good about myself then, knowing that I had done more than just show up and donate. Still, I knew things were not looking good for me at all. The first hand at my new table, I was dealt a Jack and 8 of diamonds. Not the best hand to stake all that I had left on, but not a bad hand either. After all, they were both the same suit, which gave me the chance for a flush, also, they were was is called “connecters” which means they have a potential for a straight. And of course, a Jack is a high card, so that was another plus. The minimum bet was $400, but this was totally a chance I had to take. I had 2 guys call me, which means that if I win this hand, I would triple my money. Really, this was a good way to get back into the game, or at least find a way to outlast another 5 or 6 people. Soon, the flop came and it was nothing that I could use. Neither of the other 2 guys bet, which was a good sign for me. Next came the turn and the river, and still nothing I could use, but no betting. At this point, I had a Jack high and I knew I was toast. My fears were confirmed when the guy next to me turned up his pair of sixes and I was done. I stood up and looked across the room at Dave and saw him stand up. We had both gone out at about the exact same time. We sat around for a few minutes talking to Rusty before we left.
We stopped off at Mark and Amy’s for a couple of beers before heading home. All in all, it was a pretty good time, I look forward to doing it next year.
