After making the final table at more than one $35 121+ person tournament and a $100 – 64 person tourney at the Muckleshoot in Auburn, I thought I’ve repeated my success enough to possibly to take it to a higher level. I also made a few final tables at smaller casino events in the Puget Sound.

So, I went to the mother of all gambling places: Las Vegas…

After I got to the 1st ever Mirage Showdown in 2004 (the first Mirage Showdown) and failed to get past 2 rounds in the $1000, $1500, and main event where I dumped $10,000 of the $13,000 I earned the day before, I thought I really wasn’t good enough for the national stage. However, I entered a $200 + rebuys consolation tournament where David Williams, the 2nd place finisher to Greg Raymer to the World Series of Poker that just concluded a couple months prior played in the tournament I entered along with reknown
poker player and author TJ Cloutier and a number of other famous players like Jennifer Harmon. Not only did I go up against Williams and Cloutier and even played a cash game with Jennifer Harmon, but I took 4th in that 100+ person tournament.

I’ve had a little online success, but didn’t really hone my skills or my temperament until 2008. I won many 1 table sit and go’s, but couldn’t really get beyond just cashing in larger tournaments. However, in 2008, I won my first 700+ person tournament (734 people, to be exact) online or anywhere. Yes, it was a $1 buy in, but when you get into the final 30 or 40 players, the caliber of play and seriousness tightens up and is similar to the quality of play in larger buy ins because the money starts to increase.  The final table definitely had decent play, but yet I found a way to beat out 733 others on Sept 8th of this year.

Also, recently, I’ve been getting deep in thousand person plus and two thousand person plus tournaments and cashing.  I’ve been making mistakes though toward the end and them costing me more money.  I’ll write about those later.   Some of the results posted below.

How do I know how it feels in terms of quality of play and intensity toward the end of a tournament?

Well, the 4th place finish in the Mirage consolation tournament gave me the experience, but none was more memorable than a 5th place finish in a Grand American Poker Classic in 2005 in Tunica. I remember thinking there was no way I would make it to the end on my first table. We were joking and acting as if we were all just screwing around. As the tournament progressed, I went up and down on the way to what I thought was a middle of the tournament departure. Then in the last few stages, my average or below average stack started climbing significantly per round and ended in the final 20 players.  Getting from the 20 players down to the last table and eventually my two bad beats which booted me out in 5th felt like survial constantly despite not being the smallest stack.  The blinds were just so large that each decision was so critical.

I also thought my success in Washington which by proportion seems to have produced some of the best grown players throughout the world like Lee Watkinson (close to $4 million in winnings), Scott Clements (over $3 million in winnings), Lee Markholt, Quinn Do, Vivek Rajkumar and Brandon Cantu (originally from Vancouver, WA) may prove I can play with the best of the best on the national level. While I can’t say I remember playing with any of these Washingtonian guys, I did play against Cindy Violette, Gavin Smith, Men the Master Nguyen, Jennifer Harmon (like I said earlier) and many other professional poker players without too many problems.
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Online successes (There’s actually 70+ results I could post, but just posting a few here):

PokerStars Tournament #117601380, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $8.00/$0.80
1260 players
$872.00 added to the prize pool by PokerStars.com
Total Prize Pool: $35000.00
Tournament started – 2008/11/05 – 10:00:00 (ET)

You finished the tournament in 46th place.
A $66.50 award has been credited to your Real Money account.
You earned 100.30 tournament leader points in this tournament.
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PokerStars Tournament #117601351, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50
2016 players
Total Prize Pool: $10080.00
Tournament started – 2008/11/04 – 09:00:00 (ET)

You finished the tournament in 92nd place.
A $14.12 award has been credited to your Real Money account.
You earned 80.52 tournament leader points in this tournament.
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PokerStars Tournament #118364193, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $4.00/$0.40
180 players
Total Prize Pool: $720.00
Tournament started – 2008/11/04 – 09:18:06 (ET)

You finished the tournament in 15th place.
A $8.64 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 56.41 tournament leader points in this tournament.
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PokerStars Tournament #117978763, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $6.00/$0.50
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $54.00
Tournament started – 2008/11/02 – 11:47:38 (ET)

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $27.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.
You earned 45 Sit & Go Leader Board Points for the Venus Division in this tournament.
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PokerStars Tournament #117951906, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50
27 players
Total Prize Pool: $135.00
Tournament started – 2008/11/02 – 09:16:29 (ET)

You finished the tournament in 3rd place.
A $24.00 award has been credited to your Real Money account.
You earned 38 Sit & Go Leader Board Points for the Venus Division in this tournament.
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PokerStars Tournament #117940388, No Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $15.00/$1.00
9 players
Total Prize Pool: $135.00
Tournament started – 2008/11/02 – 07:46:20 (ET)

You finished the tournament in 1st place.
A $67.50 award has been credited to your Real Money account.
You earned 45 Sit & Go Leader Board Points for the Earth Division in this tournament.

This is a way for me to keep track of my thoughts on the game and to sort of rant about the game since I just want to make sure this time used on this game is wasted 100%.  I’ve invested a lot of time and money into this game.

In most versions of the game Blackjack, players are dealt two cards face up with the dealer dealt one card face down and one up for players to see. You’re competing against the dealer to get a higher card count up through the value of 21. If you go over that amount, you bust and automatically lose your wager. Before you are dealt the two cards against the dealer, you have to bet the minimum amount the table requires you to the maximum limit. In some situations, you’re able to split your two cards to double your bet by adding the same amount of your original bet and getting an additional card for each of the two cards you split. This is a bit advanced, but for it’s important to understand for a later story that I heard when Brandon supposedly made more than six times the money he started with.

Face cards are worth 10, the number 10 cards are worth 10 as well with the rest of the cards worth their number value. For example, a 7 of hearts is worth 7. A 6 of clubs plus a Jack of Spades totals 16. A dealer’s hand of a Queen and a King would equal 20 and you would lose your starting bet with the 16 against the dealer’s 20.

After your first two cards are dealt & you know what the dealer has faced up, you are allowed to “hit” or take another card, “stand” which is to stay and not accept any additional cards (good to stand on a 20 for example) or a few other advanced options. The phrase “Hit or Stand” comes from the two most popular options people have after they are dealt the first 2 cards they get in playing the card game.

A starting hand for instance, you may start with a 4 of hearts and a 10 of clubs totaling 14 with the dealer is showing a face card. When the dealer is showing a 10 via a face card or a 10, there’s a high probability s/he has either one of the 4 7’s, one of the 4 8’s, one of the 4 9’s and any one of the 4 10’s, Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces giving the dealer a little short of 60% chance s/he has 17 or better (there are 31 cards out of the 52 possible in the deck which equate are a 7 through an Ace). S/he has a 29% chance (15 cards worth 10 out of the 52 possible cards) of having a 20. So, it would be wise to probably hit and take a chance that you’ll get a 7, 6, 5, 5, 3, 2 or Ace. The ace can be either an 11 or a 1.

If the dealer is showing a 6, 5, 4, 3 or 2, it has what is known as a bust card showing (the 2 being a borderline bust card). It means with the same probability in the aforementioned that the dealer has a 10 under that hand is about 29% and adding the 9’s and 8’s, the dealer has a bad starting hand against whatever you have. You want the dealer to show one of these “bust cards” which give you more of an ability to stand with a bad hand. It also gives you a bit more security in even doing some of the advanced options like “splitting” your first two cards doubling your bet. There’s also an option of “Doubling Down” where you can take one additional and ONLY ONE card with a double of your bet, but again, we can reserve the full explanation of this if we need later.

In the movie 21, the MIT students and Professor were taking advantage of a system called “counting cards.” It’s a strategy when you know you have a probability advantage against the dealer. The principle behind counting cards in blackjack is that a deck of cards with a high proportion of high cards (ten-valued cards and aces) to low cards is good for the player, while the reverse (a deck with a high proportion of low cards to high cards) is good for the dealer. A deck rich in tens and aces improves the player’s odds because blackjacks (which offer a higher payout than other winning hands) become more common, the dealer is more likely to bust a stiff hand, and double-downs are more successful.

A myth casinos propagate is that card counting is illegal. Card counting without an outside device is completely legal. There are no provisions in the rules of blackjack or United States law that prohibit card counting. Despite this, casinos still offer blackjack as a game knowing that a skilled player will have an advantage over the house. Casinos avoid losing money by preventing card counters from playing. In Las Vegas, casinos are allowed to do this because the casino is private property, and the owner can decide who is allowed to enter.

Got it? Good…

When I first went to the Muckleshoot Casino to find some personalities I thought I could write about for my first venture into Biographical stories of every day people in the U.S., I never anticipated meeting someone like this guy who grew up in Puyallup of all places. He told me he worked for Expedia.com who many locally and even nationally admired at the time since their stock was at all time highs and was the leading travel website online. It was also associated with Microsoft, the local boon to the economy after it spun off from the company several years before. I thought anybody would be lucky to have landed a job like he did just 6 months before I met him.View This Poll

We both played occasionally at the Thursday night Hold em Poker tournament at the ‘Shoots (a nickname for Muckleshoot Casino). Every week on Thursday nights, the casino would hold a $30 dollar buy in tournament up to 121 entrants with rebuys up through the first two rounds. Since Poker was catching on fire nationally due to televised final tables of larger $10,000 buy in tournaments nationwide on the World Poker Tour or the World Series of Poker, this weekly even regularly sold out well before the tournament started.

Brandon wasn’t too bad at the game. He placed 4th and 6th in a couple of the tournaments. My best finish was finishing in the final 22 which didn’t pay unfortunately. He didn’t think his final table appearances were all that big of a deal, but it the results did encourage him to play down in Vegas later during the year.

This night though wasn’t about Poker. After getting off from my shift at work, I shot down to the ‘Shoots to play table games like Roulette or Blackjack. I regularly lost at both, but each game with the occasional payouts brought me back. I found Brandon at the high limit Blackjack table playing by himself. It wasn’t that he wanted to necessarily block everyone from playing, but he was betting $500 a hand – sometimes 3 hands at a time (the maximum anybody could bet according to the pit bosses). The large bets on the $25 minimum per hand table scared most people from sitting down at the table. Plus, the minimum was a bit too high for most.

I just caught the end of 3 hands he was playing simultaneously and he lost two of them and won one. So, he was down $500 for that set of hands. It looked like he was down to only 10 black chips which were all valued at $100 each. However, he pulled out a huge stack of $100 dollar bills and asked the dealer to change into 25 more. So, I guess he wasn’t down to his last thousand dollars.

He bet $1500 again. He wasn’t dealt the best starting cards – a 5, a 7 and a 4. The second card for all three sets also made it a bit difficult for him to decide what to do with the 7 of diamonds showing on the dealer’s hand. He did get another 4 on the last hand to match his other 4 which meant he could split it. The general recommendation though would be to take a hit & hope for a 10. He would hopefully have an 18 vs. the dealers chances of having a 17 and winning $500 on that hand. However, Brandon took the riskier bet & split them. He hit until one hand totaled 17 and the other totaled 19. He felt lucky.

The first hand with an additional face card worth 10 made it hard on him. He actually decided to stay with it even though it would be recommended he take a hit. The second hand he just stood his ground. He told the dealer he would stand.

The dealer flipped over a 9 to add to it’s 7 of diamonds equaling 16 which you could tell on Brandon’s nervous face gave him a world of relief. The next card was a another 9 and Brandon breathed a sigh of relief while 20 black extra chips were counted out and pushed his way. He turned to a guy behind him and whispered only $6000 more to go to break even.

I watched him go up and down with $1500 bets split between 3 hands for another 45 minutes until it looked like he collected about a little over $20,000 in black chips. He looks towards my way and says “Hey Jim! I saw you there, but I’ve been so stressed out that I couldn’t talk and you know my superstition about talking & gambling big bets at the same time, right Jim?” I nodded and gave him a pat on the shoulder. We walked away from the table surrounded by about 12 or so people towards the cages and he confided he had just gone up and down for 2 hours – as low as $14,000 down to end up only $500 for the night.

I ask him “Why do you risk so much to make so little?” He laughs and says “Well, I’m up about $14 gran now over the past 12 days. I have this little strategy I’ve been trying and it requires these deep swings in either direction in order to make $500 to a sometimes over $2000 bucks a night. I haven’t lost one night yet, but some days I know that $500 is the most I’m going to make – like tonight – and I just walk away when I’m up that much.” I look at him thinking “Perhaps he knows what he’s doing, but I’m wondering how much in medical bills it’s going to cost him over the years.” He cashes out & stuffs the wads of bills in his black Northface vest telling me he just hopes he doesn’t get mugged on the way back to his VW Toureg.