Tunica Tournament

My favorite place to play poker is in Tunica, Mississippi, the pot-limit Omaha capital of our country. For the last two years, I have attended the Jack Binion World Poker Open at Tunica's Gold Strike Hotel. It is one of 11 casinos bordering the Mississippi River in the northwest corner of Mississippi, about a 40-minute drive from Memphis, Tennessee. This "riverboat" is actually a modern 32-story building.

When I went to the WPO tournament this year, Ken Lambert Jr., the overall director of the festivities, told me that he was going to have another poker tournament in August, and I was very interested. "What will it be like?" I asked him. Ken replied, "It is not as big as the World Poker Open, but the action will still be good. We had one of these a couple of years ago, and it was quite successful." I made plans to attend that August tournament, the Mid-America Poker Classic.

Ken's August tournament was held at the Horseshoe Casino, where he is the cardroom manager. The Horseshoe has an 11-table cardroom. The tournament schedule included satellite tournaments and side-game play over the weekend of Aug. 3-5, and a tournament event each day the following Monday through Thursday, with the final contest being a two-day $1,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event. I was there for a full week.

The first weekend, an extra table was added to the regular cardroom and four tables were put in the pit area. The Horseshoe, unfortunately, does not have the convention space of its sister casino, the Gold Strike. However, another 11 tables were set up in the pit area on Monday, and there was enough space to keep most of the money games going while the tournament events were being held. I got into action for a full day's play each day.

There is one great benefit of having the Horseshoe as a tournament site. Players are treated to one of the best buffets I have ever experienced in a casino in my life. I never had to wait more than a few minutes to get a seat, despite the fact that the buffet was not just a private affair for the poker players. When you get inside, you are in a very spacious room that has many places to get food. Some of those are Chinatown, the Italian Village, the Country Kitchen, and a seafood area. Naturally, they also have a great salad bar and a tasty-treats dessert section. Be prepared to gain 3 to 5 pounds in a week's stay.

Here is the kind of money-game action that was spread at the Mid-America Classic: We had pot-limit Omaha games with blinds of $5-$10, $10-$25, and $25-$50. In contrast, the only pot-limit hold'em game had $5-$10 blinds. Limit hold'em ranged from the smallest games up to $20-$40, $30-$60, and $40-$80. There also was a $10-$20 Omaha high-low split game with a half-kill. As can be expected in this part of the country, there was no seven-card stud worth mentioning.

I spent most of my time playing $5-$10 blinds pot-limit Omaha, with a smattering of $10-$25 blinds pot-limit Omaha, and some $20-$40 hold'em when waiting for a pot-limit seat. I had no complaint about the action in those games, and managed to be a winner for the trip.

How is your luck? Do you consider yourself to be an unlucky player? Well, a certain gentleman from Tennessee who played down there was always complaining about how he was running, but he broke out of that syndrome big-time. First, in an Omaha game, he managed to draw out on the big full house he faced by making quads on the last card. About 10 minutes later in that game, this hand came up: I held pocket aces and caught a flop of two black jacks and the A for aces full. On the flop, I was in middle position, and everyone checked. On the turn, some small red card appeared. The man on my right, "Pumpy," checked, I checked, and Mr. Unlucky bet $25. Pumpy raised to $100 straight, I mustered a call, and the bettor called. It doesn't get much better than this for thinking that you have an unbeatable hand, as it appeared that the red jacks were split between my opponents, and neither player had any outs. The last card was the Q, and Pumpy checked. I hoped to catch someone with jacks full of queens, so I went all in for $350. Mr. Unlucky called in a manner that made me uneasy, despite my aces full, and Pumpy folded fast. My opponent produced the K 10 for a royal flush! I intend to remind Mr. Unlucky about this hand if I ever hear him gripe about how his poker is going in the future. There certainly is hope for all of you "unlucky" readers that things will someday turn around.

According to Ken Lambert, the turnout was slightly better than expected. Each of the four tournaments had a prize fund of slightly more than $100,000. I played in one event, $300 buy-in pot-limit Omaha. My luck in this event was not good, since my swan song was picking up A Q A J, getting all in preflop against one opponent, and losing to a straight. One thing that did make me happy was that the tournaments were, for the first time, all nonsmoking events. Even Mississippi has gotten more advanced than certain other big poker states in this respect.

One of the most frustrating and annoying events in poker is to make a good play – and lose all of your money as a result. Here's what happened to me in a $5-$10 blinds pot-limit Omaha game: I took a bad beat on a hand, then caught a holecard rush and raised each of the next few pots. It must have looked like I was steaming a bit. Then, I picked up the Q Q 10 8. The flop came 10 8 3, giving me top two pair in a raised pot. I was in middle position and bet $150, about the size of the pot, and one of the blinds, who had checked, called me. The turn card was the Q, making another two-flush on the board and a possible straight. The card also gave me top set. My opponent led into me for the size of the pot, $450. I had about a grand in front of me and a big problem. If my opponent had the straight, as he "said" he did, I had some of my full house cards in my hand, and thus was reduced to only eight outs with one card to come. What to do?

I did not know my opponent, although some of the other players in the game did, and had made it obvious that he was one of the people they gambled with in their own neck of the woods. This player had been in our game for about an hour, and I had seen him check a good hand a couple of times in spots in which I would have bet. I decided that if he had hit the nuts, he would have been much more likely to check it to "the steamer" and try for a check-raise. Since I thought I had the best hand, I went all in. I would not expect a hold'em player to appreciate how hard it is to do that, but an Omaha player will empathize. Anyway, the man started thinking, and I knew my guess had been correct. He called, and the last card was an offsuit king. I was mentally prepared to take the pot, since that was not a card to be feared, but my opponent turned over an A-J for the nuts. His other two cards were a 10-7. He had been drawing to hearts with a gutshot-straight draw and a pair on the flop, then decided to bluff at the pot when he picked up another gutshot draw on the top end with the turn card. "I had a lot of outs," he said as he scooped in the pot. I had a lot of outs myself – more than twice as many as he did. Phooey. But I expect to go back in January, when the next World Poker Open will be held.