Costa Rica Unlimited - Part I

As we deplaned at Costa Rica's modern international airport, my wife, son (age 12), daughter (age10), and I were met by friendly faces who whisked us through customs and the thriving, bustling, big capital city of San José to the five-star Radisson Hotel, which is attached to Casinos Europa.

I had been invited to attend the five-day Linda Johnson Celebrity Challenge poker tournament at Casinos Europa. Each evening before tournament play, the casino spread a gourmet buffet that was served by at least a dozen very attractive young ladies in evening gowns (I speculated that they probably had hired all of the finalists in the Miss Costa Rica beauty pageant).

At 7:30 p.m. on each of the five nights, there was a no-limit hold'em tournament, the fifth of which was the $500 buy-in (with up to $2,500 in rebuys and add-on) Linda Johnson Challenge. The first four nightly no-limit hold'em tournaments had merely a $10 buy-in (and rebuys), but each guaranteed $10,000 in prize money!! With roughly 100 entrants, how could they do that?

For $10, you received 30 chips. The blinds started at $1-$2 and increased after the first three 20-minute rounds to $8-$15 ($1-$2, $2-$4, $4-$8). Up to seven rebuys at one time were allowed through the next three half-hour rounds ($8-$15, $15-$30, $30-$60). Then, at the end of two and a half hours of play, rebuys ceased, but a special one-time three-for-two rebuy/add-on was offered, whereby you could make up to 20 $10 rebuys, which would give you 900 chips. What a deal!

Yes, it would be difficult (but not impossible) to win one of these tournaments with only one $10 buy-in. It turned out that about half the players made the maximum $200 add-on at the end of the rebuy period. Thus, on each of the first four nights, the prize pool with roughly 100 players was approximately $20,000!

The buy-in strategy I used for the first four nights was to try to minimize my rebuys during the rebuy period, but then add on 900 chips (or whatever I needed to get up to 900) at the three-for-two special add-on. Thus, I paid about $200 for each of the first four tournaments.

How did I do? I was in reasonable contention in all five tournaments, but I never made a final table (however, I won the only satellite I played). They say that you learn more when you lose than you do when you win. So, I must have learned a lot. If you play well and keep the percentages on your side, you will either do well or have some interesting hands to mull over.

In the first event, for several rounds after the 900-chip add-on, I got lucky and became the chip leader at our table for a while, and was sitting on about $2,000 in chips. But then I didn't have a playable hand for several rounds and dwindled down to about $1,500, while several other players overtook me as new players and more chips came to our table.

Then, on my $200 big blind in three-way action ($700 in pot), I held the 5 4 and hit one of world's great drawing flops, 4 3 2 (a pair and an open-end straight-flush draw)! If you were in my position and first to act, what would you do? Both limpers appear to be relatively undisciplined and have more chips than you do.

Since I would probably want to call any bet made and would be perfectly satisfied to immediately win the $700 in the pot, I would clearly do so most often by going all in with my remaining $1,500. I really wanted to win that $700 to "keep up with the leaders."

The chip leader on my left stewed with his A K, and then called, having only about 500 chips more than I had. Since the K would flush me and an ace would give me a straight, I'd win this confrontation about 83 percent of the time. However, he hit one of the other kings and I was out. Ouch! At least I had a very good night in the lively $10-$20 (with a kill) Omaha high-low live-action game. They really love Omaha in Costa Rica!

On the second night, I employed the same buy-in strategy and found myself with about $900 in chips after the rebuy. Huck Seed, sitting two seats in front of me, was frequently making measured raises (two to four times the big blind) before the flop and had built up a stack of about $2,000 in chips.

I had been waiting many rounds for a decent hand with which to raise double or triple his raise ("come over the top"), which would probably cause him to fold a high percentage of the time (especially considering my tight image).

Finally, at $100-$200 blinds, Huck made it $500 to go and I was looking at an A-K. The only problem was that I had only $950 left. I moved all in and he called with the 8u 7u. I liked the king on the flop, but he made his diamond flush.

On the third night, toward the end of the $100-$200 blinds round, I had only about $700 left as the blinds approached. I picked up an A-J suited. Would you not push in your stack? Andy Glazer, on the $200 big blind, thought I might have a lesser hand and called my raise with his K-Q. When we faced our cards, he said, "You've got me" (according to Caro's Poker Probe, the A-J suited wins more than 62 percent of the time), but a queen appeared and I stood up once again. Andy went on to finish fourth in the event.

In part II of this column next issue, I will provide several more no-limit hold'em situations and will also describe some of the many tourist activities that we enjoyed during our five days in Costa Rica.