This past November, one of our newer Sacramento area casinos, Stones Gambling Hall put on their "Quantum" tournament. This included a number of satellite tourneys a player could use to qualify for the final day, in all a $100,000 guaranteed pot. I got lucky in one of the cheaper $120 qualifiers and won $250 while bagging 91,000 chips to go along with a seat in the "Main Event" final day tournament. On that day, you could just enter cold for $900 and get 100,000 starting chips or have previously qualified as I did. You could also re-enter for another $900 if you got knocked out.
Early on the final day a poker pal, Eric, shoved all-in in front of me with pocket queens while I was sitting on pocket Aces and I doubled up.
It was pretty cool that Eric went to the cashier's cage, bought in again for another $900 and ended up finishing 7th overall in the tournament.
The rest of the day went pretty smooth with no major set backs and I continued to increase my chip stack in spite of the young, and not-so-young guns in the crowd. We went from 11Am to about 11PM with a ten-minute break every couple of hours. Then, to my surprise, I found myself among the 9 players headed to the final table.
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| Final table underway! (click on the photo to enlarge) |
Stones Gambling Hall's Table #11 is set up professionally for televising with commentary. It has several cameras and special lighting. The table is set up to electronically read the cards players as they are dealt so commentators can share details about players and hands with their audience. What made this event special was our commentators; Lon McEachern, the "voice of poker" pretty much world-wide and Michale Loncar, teaching pro. Those two were the frosting on the cake for a great tournament.
Our final table was to be broadcast live on Twitch.tv. That meant a 20-minute delay so competitors couldn't be coached by outsiders during real-time action.
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| Nah, I'm not going to play this one... (click on the photo to enlarge) |
I was pretty excited about the whole thing so I texted the family in case they were still up and could watch. Son Tyler and wife Julieann were up and dialed it right in. It wasn't long before he began coaching me on general play and I loved it. Some of Tyler's texts included:
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He's telling me to say calm - much like I used to advise him when he was pitching in baseball; "Deep breath, back of the hand." The "breath" to help calm him and "Back of the hand" a technical reference to positioning his pitching (left) hand toward the batter before he began his wind up.
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| (click on the photo to enlarge) |
I did not have the presence of mind to tell him even pocket Aces gets beat 18% of the time but his advice was right on. Loved the "unzip" part...right after following this advise, we caught a couple of hands and got back in the game enough to outlast a couple more players.
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| (click on the photo to enlarge) |
We couldn't hear the commentators at the table so it was pretty cool that Tyler shared their impressions with me. I went out fifth and, as I was cashing Tournament Director Justin Kuraitis asked me if I wanted a security escort to the parking garage. I initially said "no" but after collecting that fifth place cash I thought better of it and the guard accompanied me to the car. It was 2:30 am so not a bad idea eh?!
And there you have it...an old wrinkle's adventure. If you want to see some of the actual proceedings here is a link to the YouTube episode: Quantum $100k Guaranteed Final Table.
Thanks Stones Gambling Hall, Thanks Son Tyler and most of all, thanks Lady Luck!
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