Poker Tourney - Cashed Again!

Drove down to Bally's for the regular Wednesday night freeroll tourney.

But before leaving the house, Helen and I talked with Scott who was undergoing back surgery for a herniated disc. He was in good spirits and will be glad to get his back troubles repaired, but is not looking forward to being limited for four to six weeks. And today is his birthday, so we'll talk to him later today after he leaves the hospital.

I needed just over 3 hours of live cash game play by 5 p.m. to qualify for the 6 p.m. tournament, so I got down there about 10 a.m. and played til just past 1 to get the time in. It was an up-and-down session and I finished with a profit of $25. No huge hands, no dramatic losses. Just patiently ground out a slight profit.

Then I played a little BJ at Bally's, winning $75, followed by a walk over to Paris where I played some more BJ and won another $260 in about 90 minutes. So it was time for a late lunch, slice of pizza and an ice tea from Sbarro in the basement of Ballys. I still had about an hour to kill before the 6p.m. tourney, so I found a 25-cent Haywire machine and played for almost 30 minutes on $20. It went Haywire a couple times, but for only 20 credits and nothing too big.

"Jubilee" the extravagant showgirl show at Bally's is holding its last performance tonight after 30+ years. Ballys set up a photo area where folks could get their pic taken with a real showgirl, not one of the fake showgirls who prowl the strip trying to get tourists to donate in exchange for a photo. Jubilee is a Vegas tradition that is fading away. It's just too expensive to operate any longer, say hotel officials. No word on what might replace this icon.

When the poker tourney started there were 74 entrants, a larger than normal group. During the first two rounds, I was pretty aggressive, raising and stealing blinds. I had one big hand when I got dealt A-K. Two guys ahead of me, both with smaller stacks, went all in and I followed suit. One guy had A-Q, one had K-Q. When an Ace hit the flop, I knocked out both of them, whittling the field and building my stack.

After 100 minutes of play, there is a 10-minute break in the action. At that point, there were 37 players left with an average stack of 8,500 chips. I had a healthy stack of 14,000 and felt pretty good. When play resumes, players began falling out quickly and my stack grew. When the field was whittled to 20 winners, I had a pile of 37,000 chips when the average stack was only 17,000. An easy $300 for me, bringing my daily profit to $640.

While I was playing, Helen was on the phone, talking with friends and family about Scott's situation. When I got home, about 9:15 we shared some Ghiradelli chocolates and watched a little TV before bedtime.

And today our adventure continues...