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KAI'S TUNICA WIN PART 1(A)
Tunica
Part I (A) – Joe Dirt,
Spiderman, and the Turd Sandwich.
There’s a scene in the beginning of one of my favorite movies, Kingpin, where up
and coming bowling star Roy Munson (Woody Harrellson) defeats long time bowling
hustler Ernie “Big Ern” McCracken (Bill Murray) in the last frame of the bowling
tournament. At the very second Munson delivers his perfect strike to win the
game, Big Ern bitterly, furiously, and ungratiously gathers his belongings at
light speed and storms out of the bowling hall, speaking to no one on the way
out.
That’s eerily similar to what is was like beating long time pro and brilliant
poker player Gavin Smith, sending him to the rail just one seat away from the
final table of the Tunica World Series of Poker Circuit $5150 buy-in main event.
His exit couldn’t have been more hasty and dramatic if it were preceded by a
blinding flash of light, a thick cloud of black smoke, and the lingering smell
of sulphur as his voice would trail off ”Noooooooo…!” rumbling deep beneath our
feet as he shot back down towards the center of the earth.
Now besides all the brilliant poker literature I’ve digested over the past year
from authors such as Dan Harrington, Chris Ferguson, Gus Hansen, Roy Cooke, and
lots of featured authors in Card Player magazine, my favorite poker read has to
be Gavin Smith’s chapter in the Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide. It’s so good in
fact, it’s become part of my “pre-game” warm up to look over Gavin’s chapter,
and to listen to the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s “Can’t Stop” blasting at full
volume.
Cant stop addicted to the shin dig
Chop top he says Im gonna win big
Choose not a life of imitation
Distant cousin to the reservation…
Uplifting, powerful stinky soul funk. I love it.
Now this, my second trip to Tuinca (Six eye-lid challenging hours of cotton
fields away from Biloxi), began with a dry-rotted-pecan flavored bitter taste in
my mouth on my first trip back to Biloxi from Tunica the week before. I had made
a crucial mistake in last Monday’s $230 poker tournament buy in.
Out of 621 entrants I had come in 15th…never so angry at myself to have
outlasted 98% of
the huge field and “won” $1687. Down to just two final tables of players
remaining after 12 difficult hours of play, I had made a regular sized raise
with AJ as the first player to enter the pot. Not the best hand for a raise, but
the situation called for it, as the table temperature had dropped below
room-temp, or so I had thought. A medium stack behind me smooth-called my raise,
and a large stack, owned by Robert Castoire, announced “all-in.” In deciding to
fold to the re-raise, I made multiple unforgivable mistakes at once,
unforgivable despite the fact this was hour twelve of playing the same
sudden-death game and exhaustion was setting in…
***here are the nerdy details you may wish to skip***
1. Even if I had the “worst of it” meaning assuming Robert had a real had like,
say, KK (making me about a 2.5 to 1 dog), I had to make the call because 10th
place paid the same as 15th place…only getting to 9th place or better moved me
up in money several hundred dollars…it was time to take a calculated risk, i.e.
gamble! However, I hadn’t even paid attention to the pay-ladder…how could I NOT
have in that situation?
2. Even if I was a 2.5 to 1 dog, the pot was laying me at the time around 3.5 to
1. Even if he had, say, AK to my AJ, that still gives me .5 equity.
Mathematically, not calling for all my chips was idiotic to a “Life Goes On”
degree.
3. Robert, the big stack, might not have even had anything other than a marginal
hand but ran a well executed “squeeze play” against me, the smaller stack, and
the other decent sized stack player.
4. It had failed to occur to me, as did any semblance of rational thought at
that moment, that Robert was “gunning” for first place, and a commanding chip
lead to do it with --and not modestly against two smaller stacks.
5. If I folded here, I’d be forced to play the rest of the tournament severely
short-stacked, with only two-rounds of chips left, a situation tantamount to
having the winning chance of JonBenet against her mother’s manly, strangling
hands.
I folded, with the physically, mentally beaten down logic of “he probably has a
good hand,” a shoelace of drool hanging off my chin. There’s a lot to be said
about stamina in these events. I would be the next guy out of the tournament
that night. I deserved it.
It’s a looooong drive back home when you’ve done something dummm. Days would go
by before I forgave myself. As far as I was concerned, I cost myself somewhere
around the amount of $7,000 in prize equity with that mouth-breathing,
window-fogging fold. Robert would wind up clenching 2d place and $15,000. First
place paid $30,000 that night to some other guy who didn’t implode.
Part II:
tomorrow...