Home game recap

So Friday night, I hosted a Texas Hold'em tourney. It was your typical $10 entry, no rebuy tournament, and there were 14 people who attended. Hopefully everybody who came over had a good time- thanks to everybody who played! I didn't have very high expectations for myself in this tourney - this is only the second tourney I've played all summer, and in the first one I finished 6th out of 7 - not very good. My strategy was to play super tight and only enter pots where I held huge pre-flop hands. That way, I may not win the whole thing, but I'd last long enough so I wouldn't be one of the first to bust out.

Early on, I didn't get any of those huge pre-flop hands, but I was pretty fortunate on one hand in particular. Blinds were probably 15/30. I was dealt A8 of spades in the small blind. There were about 3 limpers, so I limped in as well, and the big blind checked. Flop came JQK, all spades. I checked and it checked around. The turn was an A. I think I put in 60 or so, and had 2 callers. The river was a blank and I bet 100. The big blind (Brett) came over the top and made it 300 to go. Third person folded to me - I made it 600 and Brett called with the straight. That got me over 2K in chips (starting stack 1500) and I was feeling pretty good.

The other big hand I played was calling Gordo's all in preflop for about 900 with ATo. Gordo doesn't have any problem pushing big stacks with a middle ace, so I called him. Luckily for me, he turned over A8o and my hand held up. However, looking back on the hand, it was a pretty silly call on my part. It worked out for me this time, but ATo isn't the hand I normally want to risk my tournament on. Gordo could have just as easily had AJ, or better. Of all the hands I played Friday night, that's the one where I look back and think that I played it wrong. It happened to get me the chip lead though, so it all worked out.

Once we got down to one table of 9, I had a pretty good chip lead. The very first hand at that table, I was dealt pocket 9s and raised preflop, which got the blinds and a limper (Jason) to fold. After that hand, I wasn't really dealt anything the rest of the night. I was able to play really tight and watch other people bust out, until we were down to four. By that time, Sheets and I were pretty short, and Toby and Zooks were way out in front, about even in chips. Sheets moved in with AJo and Toby called from the BB with 93s, which of course ended up winning. I was only able to last a few hands longer, when my K8 went up against Zooks' K7 - she was able to turn a 7 and I went to the rail in 3rd. Toby and Zooks split first and second - I think Toby had 10,400 and Zooks had 10,800 when it got to heads up, so a split was definitely the way to go. Congrats!!

I felt pretty good about the way I played. I don't remember playing in a tournament when I never got dealt any big hands pre-flop. The biggest pair I was dealt was nines, and they never saw the flop. I had AQ once and KQs once, but that's as good as it got. I played pretty solidly with my marginal pre-flop hands and made the most of each opportunity as it came. I guess, in the end, that's all you can do.