I had just come back Thursday, from a weeklong business trip, where I put in a lot of overtime. The Monthly Deep Stack Tournament at Choctaw Casino was Saturday morning at 11:00 am so Merlotgirl and I decided we should give it another shot. We really loved the structure the last time we played it, and while we didn’t cash last time (she got close, and she probably would have won it this time if not for a couple coolers she ran into), thought that we’d be back to play it as often as we could. So we arrive at the casino a half hour before start time and pay our $300 + $30 each. For us that’s the largest buy-in tournament we’ve ever bought into, but we love the format so much, we think it’s worth it.

You start with t8,000. Blinds go up every 30 minutes (going to 40 minute blinds at Final Table), there are no antes and the structure is as follows:
25 / 25
25 / 50
50 / 100
75 / 150
(10 Minute Break and race off t25’s)

100 / 200
200 / 400
300 / 600
400 / 800
(10 Minute Break and race off t100’s)

500 / 1,000
1,000 / 2,000
1,500 / 3,000
2,000 / 4,000
10 minute Break and Race off t500’s)

3,000 / 6,000

42 players started for a total prize pool of $12,600. Paying out 5 players. 1st - Approx. $5,000 down to Approx. $1,000 for 5th.

Merlotgirl and I are both well rested and feeling good about how we’ve been playing lately. We wish each other good luck and take our seats at different tables. I really like my seat at the first table I’m at. Seat 7. The 2 most aggressive players at my table are in seats 4 and 5. Solid player in Seat 8. Rock in Seat 9.

Ten minutes into the game we have our first big hand. I’m SB with AhKh. UTG+1 (seat 1) makes it t150. Seat 4 calls. I debate re-raising, and decide to just see a flop. 5 6 8 rainbow (1 heart). I check. Seat 1 makes it t200. Seat 4 makes it t700. I fold. Seat 1 calls. Turn brings another heart, the T. Seat 1 bets out again, and Seat 4 pushes all in…Seat 1 calls. They table their cards. Seat 1 had flopped a set of 6’s. Seat 4 had flopped the nut str8 with a 7 and 9. The board did not pair on the river, (although there was a heart which would have given me the nuts, but there was no way I could have stayed in the hand.) “Seat open Table 14”

Next hand of note is when I wake up with JJ in early position. Blinds are 25 / 50 I raise to t200. Get called by Seat 8 and Seat 1. Flop comes A Q 7. What to do? I c bet here about 80% of the time, (and should have this time), but decide to just check it. When seat 8 and Seat 1 both check behind I have no idea where I am, and am pretty much lost. I should have bet. Although if they both call, which they may have, I still don’t know where I am. Tough spot. I feel like I played this hand poorly. Turn brings a blank. I check again. (Second mistake on this hand). Seat 8 bets t350. Seat 1 and I fold. At this point I figure, even if I'm ahead, which is 50/50 at best, I still have plenty of chips left and can get them in when I'm more certain. Seat 8 shows pocket 9’s. I was outplayed this hand. Luckily I go card dead for about 40 minutes. Not finding a hand I’d like to play. Allowing me to fold, and recover from my poor play. But watching the action at the table. Big stack in Seat 4 gets in another big hand. He and Seat 7 get all Seat 7’s chips in preflop on 4 bet action. Seat 4 has KK. Seat 7 AA. I Mucked K9. Seat 4 hits his 1-outer on the river to send Seat 7 out of the tournament (not very happily)

I’m down to about t4,000 in chips about halfway through the 3rd blind level when this hand occurs. I’ve got 7h8h in my BB. Seat 2 makes it t300. I’m the only caller. Flop comes up 5h6hTc. I flop an open ended str8 flush draw. Check the flop. He bets t450. I call. Turn is 2h. I check again. He bets t600…and I raise to t1500. He thinks for a bit and mucks his AA face up. Whew. I finally win a hand. I’m being very patient as Seat 4 or 5 is raising on my blinds (and whenever it’s limped to them in MP) almost every orbit. I know if I catch the right opportunity I’ll get all those blinds back. About 10 minutes before the first break I have QQ in the BB. Seat 4 raises to t450. I reraise to t1200. He calls. Ragged flop, no Broadway cards. I bet out t2,000 he folds.

I’m at t9,300 at the first break. I’m feeling pretty good that I’ve recovered from my poor play on the JJ hand, and have more chips than I started with. I’m probably right around average stack at this point. Seat 4 and 5 are still aggressively stealing blinds, and I’ve had the opportunity to watch them clash a couple times and neither of them has had particularly great hands. I will continue to wait for that opportunity to trap with a monster. This happens about 15 minutes into the t100 / t200 blind level. I’ve got 55 in my BB. Seat 4 makes it t500. I think for a bit, and call. The door card on the flop is a 5….wwooohoooooo. followed by a 4 and a 3. Top set for me. I check. Seat 4 overbets the pot betting t1,600. I’ve got about t8,000 left and don’t want to chase him out, but get max value on this one. So I raise enough that I think he has to call. I make it t4,000. He asks how much more I have behind and I show him t4,000. He re-raises to put me all in. I insta call. And he flips over A4. With a 9 on the turn he’s drawing dead to a deuce…and misses on the river. Cha ching!!!!!!! Double up. I’ve got about t18,000 now and well above average chip stack.

Now I start to steal a blind here and there. Not abusing it like Seat 4 and 5 had been doing. Sometimes raising in the hijack, cutoff or on the button. Sometimes limping in late middle position, with everyone folding behind me and then betting out on a board that’s checked to me with an A, K or Q on it, regardless of what I have. My image to this point had been that I was a rock. I don’t believe I’d lost a showdown yet. I took another chunk out of Seat 4’s stack when he raised my BB when I had AA. I re-raised. He called. I bet out on the flop. He called again. When I bet on the turn he folded and I showed my AA. Hoping that my advertising would let him know that when I play back at you…I’ve got it. That put a stop to his indiscriminate blind stealing as I was now the big stack at the table.

Then the worst thing that could possibly happen to me, happens. Someone busts out of a neighboring table and we have to rebalance. I get moved. I had worked pretty hard to build my table image to where it was and now I’m gone. Oh well. We’re down to 21 players. 3 tables of 7 each. I’ve got about t25,000 and am well above the average stack of t16,000. Although I’m certainly not the biggest stack at my new table. I am now in Seat 5. Bigger stacks then I are in Seat 3, Seat 7, Seat 8 and Seat 9. Some of these players I know form playing with in the past. Seat 3 is a good, aggressive player with a lot of gamble in him. Seat 8 I had played with many times at AHL venues around town. Good, solid player. Biggest stack at the table. Seat 7 was an older gentleman I had not seen before, and Seat 9 was an older woman I had not seen before.

As luck would have it I go card dead again at the new table. This allows me to fold a lot and watch the table. What I find out in the next 15 minutes is that Seat 7 has a whole lot of gamble in him. He calls a players all in of an additional t4,000 with 4c7c. Pot odds certainly didn’t dictate a call here. But he hits a 7 and wins the hand as AK is no good. Seat open Table 15. Seat 3 (who’s play I respect) gets damaged by Seat 9, who I now have a pretty good read on (and I’ll use it to great advantage a couple of times later on). I have Ks Js in my BB and Seat 3 makes a standard raise. Flop comes J 6 4. I check he bets it, I call, and player in Seat 7 calls. K on the turn. I check my 2 pair. Seat 3 bets it again. I Raise it 3 times his bet. Seat 7 folds. Seat 3 calls me. Blank on the river. I bet. Seat 3 folds. He missed his flush draw. I’ve watched Seat 9 (the older woman) raise in early position with any 2 Broadway cards. KT – Raise. KJ – Raise. QT – Raise. She lost a big hand and then pushed all in UTG with KT, hitting 2 tens and quadrupling up. She wasn’t tricky. If she raised, she would throw out a continuation bet. If she missed the flop it was the same bet as her PF bet. If she hit it, it was a little less than pot sized. I’m in the BB with 22. She raises, everyone else folds. I call. Flop comes 3 8 7. She throws out a bet the same size as her preflop bet. I call. 3 on the turn. She throws out the same bet. I raise her 2 and a half times her bet. She folds.

Seat 3 busts out. Seat 7 busts out. Seat 2 busts out. We are on the bubble for final table. 10 players left when the following hand happens. Seat 8 who was chip leader when I sat down at the table raises PF, Seat 1 calls. Flop comes 2 5 9. Seat 8 pushes. Seat 1 thinks for a bit and tells him, “I think I have you. I put you on AK, AQ, AJ…something like that. And he calls with 77. Seat 8 says nice call as he turns over A5. For a pair of 5’s. Blank on the turn. Miracle 5 on the river. Seat 1 had him covered by a bit, but someone busts out at the other table and we are at the Final Table.

At final table now. We ask how much if we chop it 9 ways. It’s $1,400 each if we chop it evenly. This was right about what 4th place would get. 8 of the 9 players said they’d chop. One gentleman wanted to play it out. Grrrrrr. We did manage to convince him that we should take $1,600 out of the prize pool and pay 6th through 9th $400 each. So we play on.

Final table. Seat 1 is good young player who had lost the previous hand with his 77. He’s short stacked. Seat 2 older woman, who I have a good read on and is 2nd largest stack. Seat 3 is the player who just beat the 77’s. He is now biggest stack again. Seat 4 is the 2nd shortest stack. Seat 5 another relatively short stack. Seat 6 another good AHL player who is relatively short stacked. Seat 7 is the older gentleman who did not want to chop (I hope we bust him out early). He’s got a healthy stack. Seat 8 is an average stacked, good player. Seat 9 is me with about an average stack of t35,000.

I tighten up and hope the short stacks bust out. We lose the 2 shortest stacks pretty quickly. 7 left I’ve still got my t35,000 and am about the 4th biggest stack at the table. Then the biggest hand of the tournament for me occurs. Blinds are 2,000 – 4,000 and I’ve got Ad 4d in the BB. Seat 2 (older woman I have a read on) raises to 11,000 preflop. Everyone folds to me and I call. Flop comes 4 Q 7 rainbow. I check. She checks. Hmmmmm. She always c-bets. She’s afraid I hit the Q. I decide I’m calling this hand down with bottom pair, unless a K, J or T appears on the board. Turn is a blank. She fires t15,000 at it. At this point Merlotgirl who had gone to play 1 /2 No Limit and won her tournament Buy-In back, had cashed in and sat at a 4/8 limit table. She looked over at the Final Table, with me sitting there pondering my move, as I am taking my time and rethinking things. (She later told me …”you had that …I just don’t believe you…it just doesn’t make sense…I’ve got you beat look”.) She came over to watch the hand play out. This is roughly half my remaining stack. I decide it’s more likely that she has AJ, AT, KJ, KT than anything else. I’m almost certain bottom pair is ahead right now. River comes another blank. And she fires another T15,000 at it. I have t16,000 left and call her extremely light with bottom pair. She announces K high and turns over KJ. I show my A4 with bottom pair. Merlotgirl couldn’t believe I called her down as light as I did, and went to cash out at the 4/8 table knowing I was playing my A game.

Now I’m very healthy. Probably the 2nd largest stack with t86,000. 6th place busts out shortly after that hand, so we’re all in the money. Payout looks something like this (give or take a few $$$ on 3rd – 5th):
1st $4,540
2nd $2,640
3rd $1,700
4th $1,200
5th $ 900

Now would be a great time to go on a rush…and I do. A new dealer sits in the box, Kiki, and proceeds to tell me she had just been dealing to my wife, and had been pretty good to her. She told Merlotgirl she’d be nice to me too. And she was. I win the first three hands she deals as I have Q9 in my BB and see a flop of 9 9 J. Big stack bets. I Call. T on the Turn. He bets…I raise 3 times his bet. He calls. Blank on the river. I bet…he folds his Top pair, with a flush draw. Then I turn 2 pair with 84 in my SB. Followed by winning with a standard raise PF with AA. After the second hand I announce “I’m on a rush” Dealer says “rushing here”. After the AA hand I say…”still on a rush” Dealer says…”still rushing here”. T-5 offsuit on the next hand allows me to announce "rush over". Which the dealer also announces.

After our earlier discussion of chopping at final table when the older gent didn’t want to, there was no talk of chopping. I would have been fine chopping it at any point. Although I did want justice to be served and have the guy who didn’t want to chop, get less than the amount he would have gotten had we chopped. And he did. He busted out in 4th and got $200 less than if we had chopped. Big stack had taken out the 4th and 5th place finishers and now had a huge stack. He took out the player to my right to bring it to heads up. He had me in chips roughly 4 to 1. We asked what the prizes were and he offered a chop of $4,200 for him and $3,000 for me, which was generous looking at the stacks. At that point I just figured for the sake of $400 more lets just play it out to the end. Heads up play lasted about 10 or 12 hands and he got rid of me pretty quickly as I went card dead again. He played a great game, and after 6 hours of play I was happy to cash in for $2,640 in my best tournament result ever, I leave a $240 tip for the dealers.

It was particularly gratifying after coming back from my terribly misplayed JJ hand very early on, to play as well as I’ve ever played.. I felt like I played pretty solid poker after that. The Deep Stack format allows you to make a mistake or two along the way, and still be able to recover. It is such a different pace from AHL games that must be finished in 3 hours that you really need to consciously make an adjustment, and become much more patient. After 6 + hours of play we were only at t3,000 – 6,000 blinds. It’s a great experience and we’ll be sure to play again.

If memory serves me AHL Players took 1st, snd and 5th in this tournament. A pretty good advertisement for the league.