Scott Diamond

This weekend went by fairly quick as it was a busy weekend at work. The Bicycle Casino had its "Big Poker Oktober" series start and the events have had enormous turnouts.

Monday was the $120.00 NL Holdem event and it did not start until 7:00pm. I was off at 3:00 pm but after doing some paper work and going downtown to pick up my Fallen Heroes hats I ordered it was 5:45pm so I decided to go to the Bike and play.

I was a little tired, after all I was up at 3:15am but I am off on Tuesday so I would be able to sleep in before taking the girls to school if it became a late night for me.

This event is a Deepstack and you start with 7,000 in chips and for $5.00 more you can get an extra 1,000. The blinds started at 25-50 and they had 30 minute levels. The structure was semi turbo as they took a few levels out so the blinds increased pretty quick after level 4.

I was up and down all night, I lost a big pot when I flopped a set of eights and was chased down by this older gentleman with pocket tens. He had the ten of clubs as the board made 4 clubs on the river. I lost about 6,000 to him of my 12,000 I had accumulated. I never had over 14,000 in chips all night and hung around the 8-9 thousand chip count for 5 hours.

At almost midnight I only had 6200 chips and the blinds had just gone up to 600-1200 with a 200 ante. I was card dead and there were still about 110 of the original 433 players left.

I had 33 in the cutoff and there was a raise to 3600 and another gentleman who had pushed all in 4 times in this round went all in again for about 14,000. I figured since 33 was the best hand I had seen in an hour and being so short stacked, I decided to push the last of my chips in and the original raiser called the all ins and turned over KK.

The first guy to go all in showed A9 and after asking the dealer to PLEASE flop a 3 for me...he did...flop,,,,10-3-2 rainbow...My friend Jon Yuson was at the table and I looked at him and shook my head. The turn was another 2 giving me a full house and the possibility at having over 20,000 in chips and an outside chance of finally getting over the hump and being able to play poker. BUT.......the river was a K giving the original raiser a bigger full house and sending me home scratching my head again.

I finally had some luck strike me, but it was very short lived and thats Poker!!!

Today is the $225.00 NL event and I am going to try and play it. This will be the only event I play until later next week, because as I said before, no more Poker on days I work.

I was going to play very aggressive to try and accumulate a stack early, but the flops kept whiffing for me and I had to slow down a bit as I did not want to become to short stacked early.

I just could not find a spot early with big pots. I won a few small ones with KK and QQ two times, but I just do not get those hands when there are huge pots. I did have J-10 clubs one hand when the flop was 8-K-A and two other players put in 2,000 chips each. The pot was about 9,000 and the turn was a four. First player bet another 2,000 and was called making the pot 13,000. I had 5500 left at this point and I folded. The river was a Queen and my stomach turned.....Both players ended up all in on the river and it was A8 for one and 88 for the other..If I would of chased, I would have had over 30,000 chips at this early point in the tournament. My gut was telling me to call, But I new it was stupid and I still had 20 times the big blind left at that point.

How many times have you laid down the winning hands in a tournament. I had 2-4 spades one hand and the flop was A-3-5 . I had 76 one hand out of position and there was a big raise and I could not call it with three others in the pot. The flop was 777..I know it happens to all of us, we play the way we are supposed to and muck the crummy cards only for them to hit. When we play the cards we are supposed to unfortunately we get beat more often than not..Love this game though and will continue to play ........Take Care...Be Safe...