Living in South Florida, the only live poker near me is at the Hard Rock Casino. The problem with this is the State of Florida. There's a law in the books that limits bets to $2, and 3 raises are allowed per betting round. Of course, the casinos get around this by offering SnGs with anywhere from 20% to 40% rake. Right. This leaves me with a good incentive to take a trip or two, and having gone to school in San Diego, it's only logical to take a work/vacation trip out here.
The first event was on Sunday. I got in late Saturday night, but thanks to not adjusting to time zones very well, I was up and at Rincon at 10am. That was a good thing - the line took almost an hour and a half to get through. I met up with niin (John) from the ITH forums, who I've met a few times previously, and is a super cool person to hang out with, and a good player the same.
I couldn't get anything going in the event, however. I had AA in the first orbit, and won a couple hundred chips on that pot, but other than that, lots of decent hands that ran into a lot of resistance. I ended up having to go all-in at 25/50 with KJ, and got called by 77, with no help. John did much better than me, but finished just short of the money. There were 646 runners that day, and they paid out 63. I believe John finished 72nd, which is still a good performance in this field.
I regrouped and decided to play the Monday event as well. There were 186 runners in this tournament, which I think is a great size for a tournament. I started off 4 handed, as the other 6 stacks hadn't shown up yet, but that worked well for me - I won the first 3 pots. I hovered around my 2000 starting stack until one big hand comes up in the 25/50 level. The aggressive player at the table raises to 200 from UTG, he had probably 5-6k in his stack already. A guy in MP3 makes the call, and I make a somewhat loose call with 44 from the button. The flop comes 4 5 7. UTG bets 300, and MP3, who I've yet to see actually raise a hand, raises to 1000. I actually sat and thought about this for a while, but decided he could have played 88-JJ just like 55 or 77, so I pushed. UTG folds, and MP3 goes into the tank, which makes me feel a whole lot better. He ends up calling with JJ, and two blanks later I'm up to 4k.
I knock a few people out with BB defends (defended with J9 against a lag and the flop is J99, and QJ against an average player and flop QJx), and I'm up to 7k in chips when this hand comes into play. I'm convinced now there are about 17,092 ways to play the hand that are viable, but I'm also convinced that I don't like how I played it.
9 players, blinds 100/200. Hero has 7k in chips and is in the BB, Villain has 5k in chips. villain is a fairly aggressive player, slightly loose, but smart, and plays postflop pretty well.
Hero dealt KsQs.
4 folds, Villain raises to 550, 3 folds, Hero calls.
Flop: 5s 7h 8s
Check, Villain bets 1k, Hero calls.
Turn: 5s 7h 8s 6s
Check, Villain bets 1k, Hero pushes all-in, Villain calls and shows As4s.
Now in retrospect, and talking with Villain after the tournament, unless I reraise preflop, he admitted that he was getting all of his chips in on the flop if possible.
I busted in pretty similar fashion at the end, after building my stack back up to 5k, I got into a blind versus blind battle where I made a straight and he made a flush.
I've taken the last few days to visit with friends in the area, but I should be back on Friday/Saturday with some more hands.