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Phinfan's Bar Poker Open thread
Hey fellas
No casinos where I live and I don't have a lot of disposable income but I love playing NL Hold em so I recently looked up free live poker on google and saw there are a few leagues around where I live. Figured I'd post my first couple experiences here, use it to share new ones going forward and see if anyone has some good tips since I'm very new to playing live poker tourneys (SBR Poker has taught me bad habits lol but still would never stop playing)
First time playing last week I went to the Atlantic Poker tour game. I get there with my dad and check the place out, about 6 tables set up w stacks and lots of elephants already gorging themselves on the buffet. After we've ordered food the guy running the game says you have to buy the buffet to play and it's $25. I'm like whatever, already drove out here to play so I'll pay the $25 this time. When the game starts they leave the ghost stacks to be blinded out and there's 4 tables with about 7-8 players actually playing at each.
I played really tight at the start until got down to 3 tables because wasn't getting any hands and was just feeling it out. 3rd table I shoved w pocket 8s preflop after like 3 people had called the blind and get snap called by another short stacked dude w ak suited. Survived it, tell the guy good game and he shakes my hand then leaves. A few hands later I'm still pretty short stacked so I shove 77 and get called by 2 players 1 w kq another w a10. flop comes 444 then turn and river are non cards so I triple up.
Fast forward to the final table and I'm short stacked but not a couple people have less than me. Sitting just to the right of the button shuffling the cards I just dealt and I see I've got a pair of bullets. Another short stacker shoves ahead of me and gets called by another short stack but had some left. I shove all in and other stack mutters something under his breath in my direction and calls anyways putting him all in. short stack had kq and bigger short stack had queens. My aces held (never would've happened on sbr lol) and I sent both packing.
Fast forward to myself and 2 other players left. myself and other guy have the same stack basically and the 3rd has easily 5x what either of us have. This guy is decked out in poker logos gear and my read was that he'd been bullying his way through the final table. Now this is where the story gets interesting, I took his entire stack in a series of 4 hands all in a row. The other guy folded each of these hands preflop and several spectators all clearly weren't a fan of poker logo man and they were all getting a great laugh as these hands unfolded.
First hand, I'm on the small blind and not much left so shove a3 suited club and he calls w pocket queens and he was big blind. I flopped an ace and rivered the flush so doubled up.
Next hand I'm the button and I shove jq suited clubs and he calls w a10 offsuit. Flopped a queen, turn is an ace, river is a jack so now I'm feeling much better after majorly sucking out and staying alive. Now I can see it in his face this guy is pissed after that and rightfully so.
Next hand I'm the big blind w a3 and the guy calls from the button, I decide to check the option and flop comes a23. I'm thinking if I bet he folds now but I bet I can trick him into taking a stab bc i know he doesn't have 45 or he wouldn't have called from the button. He checks, turn comes a nonfactor and I check again. He looks at me and proceeds to string bet me by slowly dropping chips 1 at a time then reaches back for more and throws a couple more in. In a joking manner I asked "Isn't that a string bet?" but was like it's fine though and the guy running the game tells him it was close and to be careful. Guy is now red in the face and looks at me and says "That's a call bet, boy."
I chuckle and say well in that case I'm all in then. People in the crowd and the other guy are losing it laughing because this guy was not at all expecting this. He takes a minute and angrily folds his hand and says I looked relieved to see him fold.
Next hand I call from small blind w q10 suited (all of these suited hands at final table were clubs) and he shoves on top of his BB and I snap call. He shows q4 offsuit and puts his hands on his head when he sees my q10 suited. My kicker played and he tells me gg and storms off.
Final hand I've got 5x more than the other guy and he goes all in w a3 offsuit and ive got 97 suited clubs so i call and catch 2p on the final hand.
After all this, the first place prize was only $70 (2nd got $30 and 3rd got a free ticket for next weeks buffet), so between food and beers I cleared like $20. it was better than nothing, but it was clearly a ripoff since 30 some people payed $25 for the buffet to play. After that overall experience I decided I am not going to go back or play in that league mostly bc of the $25 buffet fee and low prize.
Last night I decided to try another league called the Kontender and it was a great experience but didn't a lot of players and the chips and cards were very beat up. They had 2 games and the first game I finished 2nd out of 9 and we each were down to 1 small blind left when it was 1v1 and kept clawing back on each other for like 30 minuted until I finally busted out. Second place got $5 off bar tab which was nice since it was free to play. The second game I busted out w about 10 left out of 18 when I had been playing tight and had a4 suited when flop was a22. I thought a big stack was trying to bluff me when they shoved on the flop so I called and they showed 92 and sent me packing.
Overall it was a lot of fun, bar had decent and cheap food and drinks and it was free to play w the possibility of winning BPO tokens and $$ off your tab. The other nice thing about this league was that they have them at different bars almost every day and often a 7 and 930 game so you can play twice. I plan on going back to play tonight and watch the nba game. Small amount of betpoints on warriors -4.5 because they might give cleveland the game so they can gentlemen's sweep them and clinch in game 5 at home. I know this was a long post and don't expect many to read it, but I thought it'd be a cool idea to document my experiences in this thread and see if anyone has any input.
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Originally Posted by Crusherrr
phinfan27615 gave cincinnatikid513 100 Betpoint(s) for this post.
