Friday night (June 9th 2006) was my first time ever to play poker in a Tournament, aswell as in a Casino. It was a AU$25 entry fee with $50 rebuys and $100 rebuys for the first 90 minutes. As an amatuer I was only prepared to lose the $25 and had no intention of rebuying.
With $500 in chips to start with and blinds at 25/25 for the first 45 minutes, it was a good opportunity to play conservatively and play only the hands that had good chances of winning. I played some decent hands I was dealt and slowly increased my chip stack to just over $1000 after about 1 hour of play. During the first set of blinds, rebuys could occur if your chip stack was below $500 and during the second set of blinds (25/50) rebuys could occur if your chip stack was below $1000, with the rebuys at AU$50 for 500 in chips and AU$100 for 1000 in chips.
The second set of blinds had been played and it had come down to the first break, i was sitting on around $2400 in chips and had about the second highest stack on the table. There ended up being around 450 players in the tournament and with rebuys the prizes were 2 x AU$17,000 packages to the WSOP Tournament. With a paid entry, flights and accommodation. As I was under 21, I was offered an entry into the Aussie Millions Tournament and Cash.
Anyway, after the break I was still playing conservatively as I had a nice chip stack and didnt want to see it dwindle away quickly. Our table was soon split up I moved to a table with quite a few nice chip stacks larger than mine. After being seated right next to a friend of a friend who I had met earlier that night, we had some good conversation (after folding of course) and I started to enjoy the night a bit more (even though I was still winning). I started to pickup some nice hands which i played agressively to increase the pot and therefore my winnings. After calling a few all-ins and taking all there chips, I was starting to play more confidently.
The blinds were starting to raise and were soon at 700/1400, with my chip stack at about $25,000 i was feeling pretty good with the chip lead of the remaining five tables. I kept increasing my chip stack to about $40,000 and called a few more all-ins which saw us left with the final three tables. This is where my demise began, not winning another hand for the night, losing some big pots to river card flushs.
After moving again to the final two tables, I was left with about $15,000 in chips and the blinds were at 3000/6000. I was being eatun up by the blinds and had $10,000 in chips when i went all-in on A9 non-suited. This was one of the better hands I had recieved on the second last table so my choice to go all-in was all the opportunities I had left. I was called by two players and the cards were flopped, with the odds not in my favour. I didnt pickup a pair and had a high card, but was outdone by KK.
Although I was disappointed with my outing, I was very impressed that I lasted this long finishing 15th position out of 450+ players. Also to note that I refused to re-buy or add-on and I was very impressed with my position based on that. Well I will now go back to the Australian Poker League and play stronger with this much needed tournament experience.
