Turning Stone Report Part One: The General Report.

The school year has officially started and that makes it possible for my graduate student direct loans to be deposited into my bank account. My girlfriend, being someone who loves to play poker, but has not gotten much live play, insists that we go to Turning Stone for the weekend and play one of their daily tournaments. We decide on Saturday for their 11pm $85 MTT. It was actually about $90 as an extra $5 goes as a dealer tip and you get $500 extra in chips (starting stack is 4k). Entries: 205. Top 16 pay.

Julie ended in 31st as her pocket 10s get rivered against KQ. A really good showing for her first live tournament and I was excited to see her go so far. When she came over to tell me she got knocked out, one of the guys at my table said, “Wow, you are both in the tournament, you must be an amazing married couple.” When I told him about our relationship he apologized and advised me not to go out and buy a ring on his account.

So, I made the final table. When we got there, there was an immediate push to chop the pot and everyone, but me, had agreed to it. I checked the prize pool, and a chop would give everyone a better pay out than 4th place and I was in about 4th or 5th in chips, so I agreed to the chop. I took home $1,306, my best finish. Since I was in seat one, I was recorded as coming in first place, hopefully that doesn’t mean I got reported as taking home 4k…as the taxes would be horrendous.

Part Two will discuss the specifics of tournament play, where I got lucky, and some of my table tricks that worked out.