It’s Tournament Time

Though I had done well at casinos recently, my online poker playing had been pretty poor. In fact, since returning from Atlantic City I have only won $9 in a $5.50 ($3.50 net profit) tournament and then lost and lost and lost.

This afternoon while Steffie and Helaine were away, I decided to play in my favorite Pokerstars tournament. It is an $11 buy-in with a $10 rebuy and $10 add on.

OK – it’s obscure. I’ll explain.

In simple language, you buy in for $11 and get $1,500 in tournament chips. Then, as soon as you go below $1,500 (like after the first blind bet), you can buy in for $10 more and get $1,500 more tournament chips. After the first hour, if you’re still in, you can buy $2,000 more chips for $10 more. So, $31 gets you $5,000 in tournament chips.

Today 454 entered with 725 rebuys (you can rebuy more than once leading some players to be very aggressive during the first hour when rebuys are available) and 256 add ons. That’s $14,550 in prize money. The winner would get $3,637.50.

These tournaments pay off in a very non-linear fashion. The top 45 finishers get money, but the top three get as much as 4 through 45 combined!

I was up and down. At one point I was crippled when my Jacks over 4s full house was beaten by 4 – 4s! Still I managed to fight back. With around 120 players to go I was all in and nearly busted out. Then things turned.

The farther into the game I went, the more conservative I became. In a tournament the goal isn’t to win. The goal is to not lose.

I played over five hours, making it to the final table of nine. My last hand was an Ace King up against the player to my right who had two Aces. Oops.

We’re back around our high water mark and still winners since last August.