2009 L.A. Poker Classic

With a first-place prize of almost $1.7 million and a super slow structure, the L.A. Poker Classic main event is my kind of tournament. This year, the tournament was run by a savage named Matt, and he did a great job, although I think his wife, Mary Ann, actually did most of the work.

We were given 20,000 in chips, and the blinds started low and never doubled. In fact, they almost never took a 50 percent jump from one level to the next, and each level was a leisurely 90 minutes long. We were situated in the spacious ballroom on the second floor, as usual. If you could ignore the fact that we had no servers (except cocktails, which you had to pay for), it was a very pleasant tournament to play.

I showed up two hours late and received no penalty, which also was nice. I wasn't trying to copy Phil Hellmuth here; I just like to show up well-rested and not in a hurry. I know that I give up a little equity here, as weaker players will play too loose in the early rounds, but I think it's more important to feel my best, to get the most equity possible.

Things started off very slowly for me anyway. Along with the slow blinds structure, I drew a tough table with little action. Luckily, I got moved to a little better table, but still couldn't pick up any cards. I still had most of my original 20,000, but the blinds were beginning to creep up there pretty high.

I wanted to try to mix things up a little, and the opportunity came quickly. Everyone folded to me on the button, and I held K-J offsuit. This is an auto-raise in this spot, ordinarily. But in this case, both of my opponents were hyperaggressive, and the small blind had a little less than 10,000. I didn't want to give him the chance to just move in on me, so I decided to try a strange play and just call.

Just about every time I've seen someone do this, something weird has happened. People get all in with no pair, no draw, or some silly hand. Well, the small blind raised about 4.5 times the big blind, a very big raise. I smelled weakness, and decided that if I could flop a pair, I could bust him, so I called.

The flop came K-4-4 and the raiser bet the pot, which was about a third of his stack. I raised him all in and he quickly called, showing me A-K. I guess my sense of smell was a bit off. Well, I could still win this pot with a jack, or split it with a king or a 4. The poker gods gave me a reprieve with a 4 on the river. I'd love to have hit the jack and won, but for me to get any money back after getting into a pot with the worst hand was a miracle!

At about this time, a player who goes by the name "Super Mario" [Mario Esquerra] gets moved to my table. Mario is a Mexican-American who is around 70 years old and is in better shape than Mr. Universe. Super Mario is very active today, and moves in on most people who raise him. He is very fond of pairs, and doesn't discriminate much on their size, either. A pair is pretty much a pair to Super Mario. He quickly triples up with this strategy, when I pick up pocket eights behind him. He makes his normal open-raise, and I consider calling but decide to make a standard reraise. Mario quickly moves all in.

I really feel like I have the best hand here. Not only that, I really think I have him dominated. He has already shown many small pairs when in this exact same situation, and that's what I think he has now. He moved in so quickly, with no thought, that it looked to me like he was feigning strength.

After a long study, I decide that I don't want to risk all of my chips here, as he had me covered at the time. But my revenge didn't take long coming. A few hands later, the same thing happened and he got called by a big pair, and lost half of his stack. Now he explained to us that he wasn't scared to put it all in with small pairs. "Ju gots me, ju gots me," he lamented. Well, I now knew for sure.

A few hands later, the exact same situation came down. Mario opened, I reraised, he shoved all in. But this time, he had half the chips I did, and I had a pair that was one notch higher than last time. And it turned out to be one notch higher than his pair, too. I called, and we both held our breath for the flop.

I flopped a set, but it wasn't too comforting. You see, the flop was 9-7-6, giving Mario an open-end straight draw. Like the Super Mario in the Nintendo game, this one was proving to be hard to kill. However, when the turn and river were blanks, Mario was no mas.

I had managed to slay a mighty foe, and as day one came to its conclusion, I had increased my chip stack by well over 50 percent. Maybe this was going to be my tournament.