Back in Amsterdam
Back in Amsterdam again and I have found a little time to play poker between the long days in the office. Last night I played in the 60EUR+rebuys No-Limit holdem tourney at Holland Casino. The tourney is capped at 7 tables of 10 for a total of 70 runners. You start with 500 in chips and there is unlimited 50EUR rebuys during the first hour. Blinds are 10-20 and 20-40 during the first hour.
I was at a crazy table - I played two hands during the first hour and went from 500 chips to 4000. I took the tourney chip lead when we were down to three tables and blinds at 100-200, I had about 3000 chips total so I was at 15BB. I was on the button with 33. UTG is a tight, unimaginative woman who has been showing she will fold to raises. She min-raises to 400. It folds around to me and I push with my 3
3
. Small blind gets all excited and pushes in as well and he has me covered. I’m thinking I’m in trouble. BB folds and SB calls off all her chips as well.
Before the flop I liked what I saw - UTG showed AT
and SB showed A
T! I don’t understand either the push from the small blind or the call by UTG, but such is poker - the table indicated they didn’t understand my push (”you play so tight all night and then you push with that? Crazy American!”) but I think it was very good play. The flop comes KQ4 and suddenly I am not lookin so good. Any A,T,J or Heart and I am toast. The turn comes the 3 giving me a set but I still lose to a Jack or a heart. River was a blank and I tripled up to 9000 and the tourney chip lead.
I still had the chip lead when we got down to two tables but a series of bad beats put me in position to lose on the bubble (they play down to a final table of 9 that pays). I managed to sneak into the final table with the blinds at 500-1000 and me with 2300 chips. I was dealt 9T in early position and with the blinds coming up I went in hoping I would get a whole bunch of callers. Only the blinds called my tiny raise and I went busto when they checked it down.
Payout for 9th for 202EUR. As I was walking out of the casino I saw a routlette table that had had 6 reds in a row. I put 200 on black and won, doubling u
Now that’s gambling.
