A Nice Birthday at The Orleans

Last Wednesday, I just got the itch to play some poker. I headed down to the Southpoint Casino where a good tournament was starting, but the roads have been jammed lately and I got stuck in traffic (I hope this isn’t Las Vegas turning into the SF Bay Area). So I turned off and went to the Orleans Casino. They were having a cheap bounty tournament where you get a get a cash reward for each person you bust out. That would have to do.

Well, it started off great. My first hand was pocket As and the board ran out 9A629. I got a lot of chips from an aggressive player who kept betting and I kept calling, and I even said out loud, “looks like my luck has changed” as I scooped up the pot. And it had changed… kind of. Over the next 2 hours, I got pocket Ks and flopped a set, only to lose to a flush. I got pocket Ks again and when an A came on the board and the other player bet really big, I folded. He showed me that he’d been bluffing. I got pocket 3s, flopped a set and rivered quads, which won a small pot. But I got pocket 8s that lost, pocket 10s that lost, and other combinations of A, K, Q, and J that all lost.

There was one player who kept talking nonstop, alternating between how he was a great player but kept getting the wrong cards and how he was still just learning the game. I thought maybe he was drunk but he was drinking sparkling water. He was dressed nicely, well-groomed, dressed in business attire, and spoke well, but he played really badly. I didn’t want to engage him in conversation, but his conversation was all about him and poker. He would fold hands on the river after betting each round and say, “I would have won that hand if my card showed up.” Well so would everyone else who’s ever played poker. He said how he would have won the last tournament except he busted out on one hand. Again, I’m pretty sure that applies to everyone who’s ever played poker. At least he was pleasant and not angry like some excentric players. Unfortunately, for him, he decided to shove in the hand where I got pocket As for the second time. I busted him out and collected $50. He smiled, thanked me, got up from the table, and immediately bought back in.

But then I got J2 in the big blind. One player did a min raise pre-flop and four other players called, so it was worthwhile for me to call the bet and hope. The flop was AJ2. I bet. Everyone folded but the original raiser who raised me. I reraised. He shoved. I thought this was great. I put him on a big A, so I called. I was right, except his big A was AJ, giving him a better two pair than me. I needed a deuce but it didn’t come, so I busted out.

I bought back in (using my $50 bounty plus another $100 in my pocket) and got pocket As, only to be beaten by a royal flush. Then I bought back in again. Since it was late in the tournament, my stack was immediately short. I got A♦Q♦ and shoved. I got called by a very loose and somewhat intoxicated player who had J♠6♣. A 6 showed up and I busted out.

But there is a happy ending. Two days later, the day before my 65^th birthday, I felt like I needed a cash to once again boost my sagging confidence in poker. As a birthday present. So I went back to the Orleans for a bigger tournament. I didn’t take notes on specific hands, but essentially I got a good spread of cards and managed to stay in the game as others were busting out. I kept a roughly average size stack the entire time, neither large nor small. I always seemed to get a good hand when I needed it to keep my stack sufficient.

The tournament started at 6:05 PM. In all, there were 195 players and 24 would cash. I was still in it when registration ended and no more buy-ins were allowed. I was still in it when we were on the bubble. My stack was a bit small, but I seemed to get winning cards when I needed them. It took about 20 minutes for the bubble to burst around midnight. I was in the money!

Then there were two tables left and still, my stack wavered around average. At the other table, players kept busting out every few minutes. When we got down to 9 players, the final table, I found out why. They combined the tables, and one player from the other table sat down with a monstrous stack, 2 million in chips, almost half of all the outstanding chips. When he sat down, he said to me, “Hey, how you been? Good to see you.” I remembered we met a year or two ago at the Orleans. He was an immigrant from Vietnam and a great player who took a liking to me and always came over to me when we ran into each other. We caught up a bit and I congratulated him on his gigantic stack.

I don’t think he necessarily did something wrong, but I would have played his stack differently. Whenever he had a decent hand and someone shoved, he’d call them. They usually had a big pocket pair and he would have A10, AJ, or a small or medium pocket pair. He could afford to lose the chips, but not five times in a row, which is what happened. He busted out in 5^th place. And I was still in it!

I had joined the final table with a small stack and proudly announced that I would settle for second place while the big stacks fought it out. I’ve used that strategy in the past, and it’s worked before. As the smallest stack, I didn’t actually have much choice.

As the next hour went on and the next hour and the next, it worked. I was able to maintain a small but viable stack while the other players battled it out. At about 3:30 AM, there were three of us at the table. The other two players’ stacks were many multiples of mine. Then came the critical hand. I folded and one player shoved. The other player said, “time to gamble” and called. I don’t remember the cards, but I remember that my chances of getting to second place had suddenly increased dramatically. The smaller stack busted out, leaving me, with my 400K stack, against the remaining player with about 5M. After a few hands, holding my own, I got pocket 6s and shoved. He called with Q4. When the flop was QQ8, I knew I was nearly dead and when the turn card was 8, I was officially dead.

My second-place finish gave me a nice profit for the month and yet another morale boost. I had hoped for first place (the winner gets a cool silver ring) but second still felt good. And at 4:00 in the morning, it was a nice birthday present before I head off to Dubai tomorrow to speak at a conference about intellectual property.

About the author

Bob Zeidman is a high-stakes recreational poker player. He created Good Beat Poker, a free online poker site using patented technology for audio and video—see and hear the other players at the table if you choose.

Note: if you want a reference to poker lingo, click here.