Frustrated Incorporated

I arrived at Berkshire Hills Country Club on Sunday ready to play some A-game poker. It was Rock's Relay For Life poker tournament benefiting the American Cancer Society. The buy-in was $110. There were 62 entries and 8 players were slated to make the money. 

My first table was pretty stingy. There wasn't a lot of talking (except for the guy sitting on my immediate left) between the players. A couple of things kinda bugged me at this tournament. 1. There was no TV! The room was nice, but the walls were bare. I actually commented on this fact only to find that the owner of the club was sitting directly to my right. Insert foot in mouth. Glad I didn't comment on the sub par buffet! 2. We had to deal our own table due to a lack of volunteers. This was fairly disappointing considering it was a $110 buy-in. If it was $75 or less I probably wouldn't have cared, but when you're paying that kind of money, it's nice to have a competent dealer. Plus it slowed the game down I thought. The blind levels, after all, were only 20 minutes in length. The first hour was fairly uneventful. I won two pots. One was with KK pre-flop. the other was with JJ on the river. We started with 12,000 in chips and I was at 18K at the first break.

The 2nd hour I was card dead and dropped down to 11,500. I don't think I took a single pot. I figured I'd take the chip and a chair approach and grind it out. 

The 3rd hour I got hot. First I more than doubled up with AA against AK. I took another hand with AK in the big blind. I went all-in pre-flop and got a couple of limpers to fold. Then with about 15 players left I got QQ under the gun and it held against AQ. This put me at about 60K or so with the blinds at 2000/4000. Then, my inevitable coolers followed. With just 13 players left at a 7-handed table, and 2nd to act, I got AJ offsuit and popped it to 25K. It folded around to the big blind who went all-in. It was just 14K more for me to call so I did. He turned over 88. Sure enough, the magic 8 hit the flop and I was down to about 25K. A few hands later with just 10 players left, I picked up KJ suited on the button. It folded around and I went all-in. I was immediately called by the big blind who turned over AJ suited. An ace hit the flop and I was out on the bubble (It turns out 9th place got their money back. All 9 players volunteered to give up $10 of their winnings to the 9th place finisher).

It's a rite of passage as a poker player to finish on the bubble. Everyone who plays tourneys on a regular basis has had it happen to them. I'm no different. I will tell you that it sucks. There's no other way around it. It was particularly frustrating for me because I haven't cashed in a non-home-game tournament in 4 years. I guess you could say "I'm due". Oh well, it's on to the next one.