HugePoker

(Ask and you shall receive.)
By Peter Burford

I’m not sure who first thought this was a good idea, but I will go ahead and blame Dan.

Planet Hollywood offers the best (by far the best) poker tournaments for under $100 in Las Vegas. And they offer it 4 times a day. At 10:00am, 2:00pm, 7:00pm, and 2:00am. Dan and Maya had been playing this tournament at least once a day for their entire trip, and I (Pete) had been playing it ever since finishing my ‘big’ tournaments at Wynn and Caesars. (These “big” tournaments for me are the “little” tournaments that Laurence had been playing when the Super Satellites weren’t going.)

Most of us had done very well at this Planet Hollywood tournament: Dan had agreed to a 5-way split in one tournament winning himself $650. And Maya had been the chip-leader in one of their other tournaments when the other players wanted to do the split. She agreed to take $500, giving the rest of the field $375. I didn’t cash in anything.

Deb was scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas Saturday evening, just in time to catch the Cirque du Soleil show “Love” with the rest of us. In a couple last-minute changes, “the rest of us” did not include Laurence who instead played one of those super-satellites, but it did mean upgraded seats for everyone else when we switched from 7 tickets to 6. We were finishing dinner when Deb arrived and we told her of our ‘great plan’ to play the 2:00am tournament at Planet Hollywood because that was the only chance for all (most) of Team Huge to play a tournament together. This, specifically, was my fault because I flew out Sunday morning early. Dan and Maya didn’t fly out until Sunday night so they could play the 10:00am. Deb thought that playing a tournament at 2:00am was a stupid idea and I can’t really fault her for that. It seemed as though this great plan may fall through.

And we’re off to “Love.”
If anyone reading this hasn’t seen it, go see Love the next time you are in Vegas. It is Cirque du Soleil set to Beatles music. It is truly an amazing and awe-inspiring show. Even if you aren’t a Beatles fan, you probably will be by the end of the show.

After the show, Dan and I were jazzed and decided that we were going to play the 2:00am tourney regardless of what anyone else did! Maya made clear that she was NOT playing it no matter what anyone else did. By this time, Laurence had (sadly) busted out of his satellite so we started working on him to come down and slum-it with us. He ultimately agreed, and so did Deb. As the 4 of us were driving over PH, we wondered how many people would play a 2:00am tournament. 15 to 20? Certainly no more than 25, right?

We got there and the poker room was packed! The four tournament tables were full (40 players) and there was an alternate list. We all signed up as alternates. About 15 minutes into the tournament, I (Peter) got a seat. About 5 minutes later, they opened up a 5th table and brought in most of the alternates—this meant that Deb, Dan, & Laurence were all starting at the same table—indeed they were all seated right next to each other. This is not good. While none of us have a problem taking chips from each other, we would much rather take them from strangers initially and then fight each other at the final table, once we’re all guaranteed some money.

At the first break (3:00am), they announced that there were 61 players total.

Shortly after the break, Deb busted out. She said she was exhausted and was taking a cab back to her hotel.

Let’s say a half-hour later, Dan busted out and decided to go play cash-poker for a while so he wouldn’t abandon Laurence and me (since he had borrowed the car we had, and was driving.)

A while later, I busted out. It’s now about 4:00am. There are maybe 25 players left; Laurence is still in, but very short-stacked.

I’ll digress for one story from my table. A nice girl from Olympia was seated to my left and we had been chatting for the first part of the tournament. There was also a talkative frat-boy guy seated to my right. Frat-boy clearly thought he was a good player, although I disagree with him on that—and he regularly offered advice on my and Olympia’s play. Anyway, on this hand, I was in the big blind. Olympia-girl is first to act and she limps in (calls the big blind without raising) and then the next player makes a standard raise. While the rest of the table is folding around, Olympia-girl slides her cards closer to her, right up to the rail around the edge of the table. She plops her card protector on them, and then combines her stacks of different chip denominations into one big pile. It doesn’t take a…well…a Laurence to figure out what this sequence of actions means. When the action gets back to frat-boy he calls the initial raise. I fold. Olympia pushes all in…

Frat-boy says, and I quote: “YOU COULD HAVE TOLD ME YOU WERE GOING TO DO THAT!!”
I bite my tongue to keep myself from yelling “SHE DID!”

A while later, I shove from late position with A-10 of diamonds, and one of the blinds ended up having J-J and I’m out. Let’s call it 4:20am.

So now they’re down to two tables. Dan has quit playing the cash game, and he is down another $30. Blinds are 500-1000 and Laurence has something like 2500 or 3500 chips. Quietly, Dan and I both wish he could just lose a pot so we can be done with this and go home.

Around this time, Dan and I become aware of the tournament’s chip-leader. He is a very active and talkative guy. Friendly, and having a good time. On one big pot, he had another player all-in and he made 2-pair. No one at the table (including the dealer) noticed that the opponent had made a random flush using 4 of the board cards and maybe a 2 or 3 from his hand. The chip leader stops the dealer as the chips are coming his way and re-directs them to the opponent. Clearly, this guy does not have a care in the world. And with 3-4 times the chips as 2nd place, he doesn’t need to.

And yet Laurence still was hanging on. I may even remember something like him getting all-in with A-5 vs. A-Q (something like that) and catching his 5. “The Luckbox is open.”

Let’s call it 5:00am now, and we finally get to 1 table. Blinds are 1000-2000 and Laurence has 4500 in chips. He can’t push anyone around, he HAS to catch cards. He raises all-in (2.5 times the big blind—a very small raise) from 1st or 2nd position and the ENTIRE TABLE FOLDS! Well, I guess he can still push people around. Come on, table, I’m tired bust this guy already! Oh, wait, I guess I should still be pulling for him.
Meanwhile, as Laurence holds on for dear life, the chip leader (Let’s just call him Chip) goes about the easy task of busting most of the rest of the table. He seems to pick up pocket pairs every other hand, gets in with them and wins the coin flip. We’re in the money.

Dan and I each had 10% of Laurence’s “Action.” (He would have had 10% of ours if we had won anything.) So we start calculating what place he has to make for us to break even. For me, if he gets 2nd then I’ll break even. Dan needs him to win (without chopping) to only be down $10—since he had the extra loss from playing the cash game.

Players keep falling, and for some reason Chip never wants to stand up to Laurence so he’s sticking around. It’s down to 3 players and Laurence gets it in against the 3rd player with A-Q vs A-8 or something along those lines. Other-guy is busted and we’re heads-up, but Laurence still only has ¼ or so the chips of the other guy.

I don’t remember what the cards were at all, but Laurence won a big pot to double-up. At this point in the tournament, they were using yellow 1000 chips, and orange 5000 chips. And they guy paid Laurence off using ALL of his 1000 chips! Although his opponent didn’t realize it, this made Laurence’s pile of chips look much bigger than it actually was—since the number of chips in front of him was increased so much, despite the value of them being lower. This is a great psychological tool that I have begun using myself in live tournaments.

After this hand, the opponent had changed… He was no longer happy. No longer talkative. He sat there glaring and angry.

For many hands, Laurence would limp when he was the dealer. The other player would check the flop, Laurence would bet small and the other guy would fold. Laurence was relentless in this. His opponent was out of his depth here, and I think (for the first time) he realized it. I whispered to Dan “Look at him! Laurence has completely broken his spirit! And now he’s just going to grind him down–unless he gets unlucky. Which means we may be here a while.” I especially knew that Laurence would use the “Grind down” technique after his big draw missed at the Wynn two days earlier. I didn’t think he would want to repeat that…

I remember two hands that Laurence Lost: In one, Chip covered his face to block his view of the board, and then checked all the way to the river. On the river, Laurence bet (having made trips!) and so Chip looked, and saw that he had made a full house, but then just CALLED! If he had raised, then the tourney would be over, right there.

On the other hand, Laurence had A-A and made 3 aces on the flop. But Chip made a straight on the river—again, letting Laurence off the hook in the end by betting too small.

Despite those losses, Laurence managed to hold his own by stealing and stealing. He had a slight chip lead when this happened:

Laurence either raised small on the button, or limped—I can’t remember. Chip called or checked. The flop came down K-6-K. Chip bet and Laurence called.

“CALLED!!!!???” A little alarm started ringing in my head. That seemed very out of character for Laurence. It would have been very much IN character for most of the rest of us with a wide range of hands, but it seemed like Laurence would usually raise or fold there.

Chip said something like “I may have a kicker problem,” and Laurence smiled and chuckled.

The turn brought another King. Chip checked. Laurence said “That should solve your kicker problem,” and checked behind.

At this point, several things happened at once: As the dealer began to deal the final card, Chip quickly pushed the rest of his stack into the pot. The dealer paused with the final card only ½ off the deck. Laurence’s hands made the tiniest twitch in the direction of his own chips. Then he stopped, and he remained perfectly still…

The alarm in my head was beginning to sound like fireworks.

The final card was dealt. I think it was a Queen.

Laurence waited, perfectly still. He made sure that Chip’s chips really were in the pot and then called. Chip showed a 6 for the full house. Laurence showed the 4th King.

$800 later we walk off into the sunrise. $80 of that is mine, $80 is Dan’s, $80 is Deb’s, $80 is Mark’s.

When I got to my non-palace-not-even-a-normal-suite-just-a-regular-room hotel room, it was about 6:00am. I had set my alarm for 7:00, so I did not bother sleeping, but showered, packed up my stuff at headed for the airport.

-Pete

PS: I heard that Dan cashed for $250 a few hours later in the 10:00am version of this tournament, and that Deb was still in at the time and and would win even more. But I never got Deb’s final result…

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