Last year, the Wynn started a “mystery bounty” tournament. A bounty tournament is when you get a cash prize (aka “bounty”) when you knock another player out of the tournament on Day 2. This year, the bounty was determined by a random drawing that can be anywhere from $500 to $100,000 per knockout. The buy-in fee is $1,600, and the Wynn guaranteed a prize pool of $3,000,000. That means minus the bounties, first place is worth at least $200,000. It turned out that there were more than the minimum entries, so first place was worth $250,000. I was looking forward to the tournament.
Last Thursday, I entered Day 1A of the Mystery Bounty poker tournament at the Wynn. I busted out before dinner break. I entered again Saturday and busted out again before dinner, but I bought back in a third time, and that was the charm. I made it into the money Saturday morning at 1:30 AM. I came back Sundayfor the final day. Unfortunately, I scheduled a work call that morning at 9 AM, so I was operating on little sleep. There were 228 players left out of 2072 overall entries.
My stack was $203,000 (in play money), which was about average. At one point on Saturday, I was down to $12,000 late in the tournament and was sure I was going home again, but brought it way back up, starting with getting pocket 9s and flopping 749 for top set and the nuts (best possible hand). A short stack player went all in, which didn’t worry me, but another player also shoved. I couldn’t fold the nuts, so I had to call. I’ve played the other player many times at the Venetian, and he’s very loose (i.e., takes a lot of risks and often bets too much, in my opinion). He had the nut heart flush draw, meaning he held two hearts including the A, and there were two hearts on the board. The turn card was another heart, giving him the nut flush and beating me. He was jumping up and down until the next card was a 7, pairing the existing 7 and giving me a full house to beat both of them and roughly tripling up. He was pretty upset and walked away quickly. I forget what the short stack had, but he was out too.After that, I had some good wins and some losses, to make it to the end of Day 1 with an average stack.
[Interestingly, the last time I played the player with the flush, a couple months ago, I had A♠K♠ and the flop was K♥8♥6♥. To avoid allowing him to get a flush, I shoved. But he called because he already had the flush, with two hearts in his hand. However, the next cards were AK, giving me a full house to beat him then too. That time, he took it pretty well and shrugged and took a picture of the hand. I had given him a very bad beat, meaning the odds were way in his favor, but I managed to win anyway.]
On the first hand of Day 2, a player with about 12 big blinds (minimum bets) shoved. The player in the big blind called. The short stack had A♦5♣. I commented that I wouldn’t have shoved with A5 off-suit. Another player said, “you have to do that.” You don’t actually have to do anything, and A5 is not usually a winning hand. Some players think there are rules about what cards to play and how to play them. I think some of these rules are just wrong, but I like knowing them, because they help me play against these other players. The short stack could have waited until he had a better hand, especially since he was out of position—he was one of the first to act, and many players after him could have had a better hand. Any pair or any bigger A (e.g., AK, AQ, AJ, A10) could have beaten him easily. It’s one of those hands where it will only be called by a better hand, so he better hope no one calls him. Everyone folded until the player in the big blind was the last one left. He called with… 6♥8♣. That’s such a bad hand, that it was really stupid to call the bet. Some players think you “have to call” a shove by the short stack, but that also doesn’t make sense. then you’re just flipping a coin, and with 68 off-suit, the coin has more losing sides than winning ones. The short stack won and doubled up.
In the second hand of Day 2, I had AK and raised from $8K to $25K. I got one caller with a very big stack. The flop was Q83. I bet $25K, but the other player raised to $79K. It seemed that he had hit something with this flop, so I folded, and my stack was now somewhat low. If I were to guess, he had AQ or pocket 8s or pocket 3s.
Here’s where I’m not sure I did the right thing. My stack was still about 20 big blinds, so I could have waited, but I got AJ on the next hand, and I shoved. I thought that AJ was a pretty good hand, and it was unlikely someone had a better one or, if they did, they would hesitate to risk all those chips. Unfortunately, another player had pocket Qs. He did hesitate to call, but eventually did. I think calling or folding could both be justified but calling made a little more sense for him since he had a bigger stack than me. I paired my J, but that was it. I was the first person to bust out in the tournament. My opponent got a bounty, and I got a small cash. I was pretty disappointed.
Every time I seem to be doing well, my luck changes for the worse. I have a couple tournament wins and a number of cashes, but I’m still waiting for that one big win. Unfortunately, once again, it wasn’t today.