Anyone have any good poker stories from live tournaments?
Sad to say, I've never played real poker in person.
Sad to say, I've never played real poker in person.
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[quote=jjgold;5683305]I win again like usual
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[quote=Whippit;7921056]miami won't lose a single eastern conference game through end of season[/quote] -
This is from a poster at another forum whom I respect:
limon
enthusiast
Reged: 12/02/02
Posts: 369
Loc: los angeles
Limon's Essays V
On a lighter note...
“The Captain” sets sail.
Despite the fact that I play my fair share of casino poker I’m sorta like a ghost in the casino. I’m definitely not part of the “poker culture”. People see me but don’t know me, by design. I float in when there is a game I like and float out when it’s over (hopefully weighted down a little with suckers’ money).
At one point in the history of poker there was a sort of gentleman’s club. This group of players would lend giant sums of money to each other when one went broke. These loans were done on a handshake and, according to the masters (Brunson, Amarillo, Puggy, etc.), always paid back. It was sorta like these guys all played on the same bankroll, fleecing the tourists and spreading the money around when somebody went on a serious cold streak. This “club” still exists today amongst the top players, many loan $100k or more to each other on a handshake and they are “good” for it.
A bastardized version of this club also exists amongst lower level players who aren’t “good” for anything. These players are constantly hustling each other and any other mark they can find to stay in action. It happens a lot around low buy in tournaments. A disheveled looking “friend” with bad breath and clinical ring around the collar will approach you to discuss life, love, bad beats and loaning him entry into the tournament. He will offer you one hell of a deal cause’ he never plans on honoring it. Usually they’ll offer to pay you double the loan + half the winnings blah, blah, blah. Once you win a couple of these tourneys the scum will start wanting to go partners with you or to trade percentages this is also a waste of time. My advice is to avoid all business dealings and/or loans with gamblers. When one asks me, I work up my best Aussie accent and proclaim, “partners is bad luck where I come from, mate” this works and it will get around that your some sort of foreign stiff (even if you never use the accent again).
There used to be this guy named “Captain Bruce” who loitered around a now defunct L.A. card barn. He was an omnipresent traveling mess. His never changing outfit consisted of promotional jacket, shirt and hat from past tournaments, his pants I’m not sure about. Every evening the barn hosted a low buy in tourney. Once a week it was no limit hold em’. I would come to the tourney to make sure the no limit cash game got started afterwards. This went on for at least a year and every night “Captain” would make a deal with someone to gain entry into the tourney. Unfortunately Captain never won. One night at break “Captain” went out to smoke a cig, lied down on the bench and didn’t move. None of the other degenerates could revive him and it spread like wildfire that “The Captain” was dead. He had to be dead to not return to the tourney, he still had chips. Presumably an ambulance came to pick him up but no-one noticed, the break was over, we had to finish the tournament. A dark cloud did hang over that night though as everyone recounted stories of how much money “Captain” owed them when he died.
Then a miracle occurred, at the very next NL tourney “Captain” appeared. Back from the grave and hustling for an entry fee. The tournament director announced that “The Captain” was back, alive and well and the casino was going to pay his entry since he didn’t get to finish the last tournament. It turns out that the captain sent himself into some sort of coma by trying to smoke too many cigarettes too fast during the 10 minute break. The nicotine burst mixed with whatever else he was on put him into shock.
Well, cheating death sent Captain on some sort of hot streak. At the break he was chip leader. I broke out shortly thereafter and started my cash game, but the game was light. Many of the players wouldn’t sit down cause they were too interested in the tournament. Captain was on a streak, and had a huge gallery. Everyone he owed money to was rooting for him to win so they would get paid back. There must have been 100 people watching the final table exploding into cheers every time he won a pot. The whole casino seemed to come to a halt to see what was going on. Even players from the top section slummed down to take a look.
When it got to 3 players Captain had a huge chip lead and the other 2 players wanted a deal, some sort of 3 way split. The crowd began to chant, “NO DEAL! NO DEAL! NO DEAL!” first place was about $5k and he was going to need all of it to pay these people back. Captain, drunk on success, decided to play on for 1st place, the crowd erupted in cheers. Within a half hour the re-born Captain steamrolled the competition and took first. A mighty roar went up as he won the last hand. The whole crowd, bustled and elbowed to be first in line to get their payback after the prize money was distributed, following him like a jovial mob to the prize table.
Captain claimed his prize money from the tournament director and then whispered something to the security guard. The security guard got on his walkie-talkie and asked for assistance at the tournament desk then began to escort him towards the front of the casino. A rumble went through the crowd. People started to shout, “Captain my hunnerd.” “Captain my fiddy”. More security guards showed up, and it became apparent, The Captain was making his escape! Guards surrounded him like a prize fighter while the crowd blocked the way, people yelled and pushed at the security guards. The guards got out their mace and made there way towards the parking lot. Oh, but there was a problem. Captain had no car. He rode the bus to the casino, so a cab had to be called. The wait for the cab seemed to take forever. The guards formed a shield around captain while the crowed pelted them with garbage and soda, screaming, “I’m gonna kill you Captain” and “I know where you live”. Cops showed up just after the cab and drove right into a melee. The guards threw captain into the cab and it sped off with people pounding on the windows and trying to stand in its path.
The mini riot must have lasted for at least 2 ½ minutes after the cab sped away. Then the degenerates figured out they were wasting valuable gambling time and bustled back to the tables. While I never actually loaned “Captain” any money I do believe he owes me $23, my expectation for the hour his “riot” closed down my no limit game.Comment -
Well , today was the first time that I won a tournament.
It was not much but I feel very good about it, since many times i finish on final tables and i have a great numbers of seconds and 5th places.
So for what it is i feel good, and like i said it was not much $220 on a $5 dollars buy in with 150 players in Bodog.
On another note, i do play a lot live poker at the local casino, and usually do well there .
Best regards
sinmiedoComment -
market, that limon fellow is a good writer. I liked it.[quote=jjgold;5683305]I win again like usual
[/quote]
[quote=Whippit;7921056]miami won't lose a single eastern conference game through end of season[/quote]Comment -
I saw a runner runner steal wheel beat a boat in a $800 pot playing 1/2 in Daytona. Pretty sure that was the worst beat I've ever seen live or online.Comment -
i once lost with 33 to 4 high... i was betting actively both flop and turn and on the river i shut down and guy has 4 high i have 3 highComment -
A while back somebody posted this link to a story that was well worth the read.
The "The ultimate bad beat" story is located at http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker...ine&id=2316427
The ultimate bad beat
<cite class="source"> By Bluff magazine
Adam Slutsky
</cite>
According to Ace Hunter, commander of Megaforce: "Life's like a wheel: it all comes around." And the poker table is the ideal venue for Commander Hunter's philosophy to play out, oftentimes with dire consequences.
While attending college at Arizona State University, I would often play poker at Casino Arizona, a good-sized card room with a wide variety of games. For those of you who haven't mixed it up in one of the Grand Canyon State's casinos, they are all Native American-owned, and the majority offer impressive perks and giveaways. But since poker is our primary concern, the only "perk" worth mentioning are the bad beat jackpots.
If you've never played in a poker room with a bad beat jackpot, the rules are simple: using both hole cards (for hold'em), if your high hand (normally aces full of 10s or better) is cracked by a higher hand (often quads or better), congratulations, you just netted yourself a hefty bonus. At most card clubs, the loser of the hand receives 50 percent of the jackpot, the winner gets 25 percent, and the other players seated at that table divide up the remaining 25 percent. What's more, most of AZ's bad beat jackpots are progressive -- increasing daily until they are hit. If memory serves me correctly, Fort McDowell Casino in Fountain Hills holds the record for the world's largest bad beat jackpot ever paid, somewhere in the neighborhood of $160,000.
While biding my time for a more lucrative $20/$40 limit hold'em game, I snagged an open seat in a $6/$12 game. Shortly after unracking my chips, I realized there was a significant amount of tension at the table, all of it between two players: the No. 3 seat, a young guy, mid-30s, stocky, with a crew cut, and the No. 9 seat, an older woman, possibly way north of the century mark. Had someone handed her a broom, I would've grabbed Dorothy and Toto and whisked them to safety.
Seated in the center of the table, the first few hands I played felt like a ping-pong match as Crew Cut continuously spouted muttered-but-audible off-color remarks, all directed at the Wicked Witch of the West, who had absolutely no qualms about issuing verbal retaliations. Being impartial, I nevertheless gave props to the elder combatant; her replies were much more creative: "The height of your hair is a direct reflection of your IQ," and other statements along those lines.
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I turned to my neighbor for enlightenment. Apparently, the bad blood began the way it usually begins at a poker table: he had a high pocket pair (in this case, queens) and she stayed in with a small pair (fours), and eventually snapped him off when she paired her kicker (an unsuited 7) on the river.
OK, it happens, let's move on. However, Crew Cut had no intention of letting the events of Bad Beats Past fade quietly into the night. Oh, no.
A few hands later, nearly the entire table stuck around to see the preraised flop (Casino Arizona is well known for ultra-live action, regardless of the game -- must be the desert sun!) of K-K-A. After a bet and a call, only two were left in the hunt: yup, you guessed it, Crew Cut and the Witch (sounds like the title of the next Harry Potter novel, doesn't it?).
Something irrelevant, an 8, I think, hit the turn and all hell broke loose. Because they were heads-up, there was no cap on raises, and the two kept coming over the top of one another as if they were playing leapfrog to the death.
The rest of us were amped by the furious action and we were all reasonably confident that a boatload of "found money" was about to land in each of our laps. Expecting to dole out some serious cash -- the jackpot was around $60,000 at the time -- two floormen raced over to watch the hand play out.
Crew Cut got it all-in first and the pot was now somewhere in the vicinity of $500, pretty decent for a $6/$12 game. With no betting action left, and only the river to come, Crew Cut proudly flipped over his hand, pocket rockets, giving him aces full of kings, the minimum qualifier for Casino Arizona's bad beat jackpot.
"Go ahead and beat it," Crew Cut said antagonistically. "Gimme a bad beat."
A rag on the river changed nothing and all eyes turned to the old hag, now nodding her head in the affirmative. "Okey-doke," she said, and turned over her pocket kings, giving her quads, the winning hand, and the small end of the bad beat jackpot.
Crew Cut threw up his hands in victory. "Boom!" he screamed, mentally spending his lion's share of the jackpot, right around $30,000.
But the drama wasn't finished yet. Before anyone could convince her otherwise, Witchy-Poo scooped up her pocket kings and held them out to her younger, wise-cracking nemesis.
"Here's your bad beat," she said with unflinching satisfaction and casually tossed her hand into the muck.
We were all dumbfounded -- the players, the dealer, the floormen, not to mention all the lookie-loos who always run to a table when a jackpot has been declared. A chorus of "Holy [expletive]" spread through the crowd.
As for Crew Cut, he turned more colors than a chameleon on a Twister board and collapsed heavily into his chair, mouth agape, his hands locked onto his near hairless scalp.
"Why would you do that?" he queried, mouth aquiver. "You were gonna get 15 grand."
"I don't need the money," she said with complete disdain, while racking up the remainder of her chips. "But knowing you did … " She stopped racking, stared at him and smiled wide, a grin so wide, it would give a fly the chills.
To say we were all pretty pissed was a major understatement, as we were just intentionally hosed out of our players' shares, a smidge over $2K each. But I gotta hand it to the old gal -- she definitely got the last laugh, and taught that kid a valuable lesson he'll never forget.
Ol' Ace wasn't kidding: Sooner or later, it all comes around.Comment
