California Here I Come

Living on the East Coast, I get to California only occasionally – usually to play in big bridge tournaments. Several years ago, I took four days off from a bridge tournament to compete in the last four days of an eight-day Casino San Pablo poker tournament. I made the final table all four days, won one of the tournaments, and won a Rolex watch for best all-around player of the tournament. These California tournaments are really easy, I thought.

A year later, I took a day off from a bridge tournament to play at a big Hollywood Park Casino hold'em shootout tournament and picked up a nice piece of change for coming in second. Once again, I thought, easy game. But on several visits since then, something has happened and the gravy train has stopped rolling.

Last month, while attending the huge Summer National Bridge Tournament that filled up the Long Beach Convention Center for 10 days, I managed to take a day off from bridge to play at Hustler Casino's Grand Slam of Poker tournament in the $330 buy-in limit hold'em event (with one $300 rebuy).

The first few hours were uneventful, and I built up a small stack of about $3,000 (we all had started with $800 plus $1,000 for the rebuy). Just as they were about to break our table, I finally picked up pocket aces, which went down in flames, costing me about $1,000.

When I arrived at my new table, I noted that my woes were small compared to those of T.J. Cloutier, who was outdrawn two hands in a row and then had only one $25 chip left. It certainly looked like he was about to bite the dust.

However, he didn't give up, and in the next dozen hands, he clawed back up to more than $800. It was beginning to look like T.J. was making one of those storybook comebacks, but then he suffered another big bad beat and was eliminated when his opponent made a straight on the river.

Meanwhile, I had rebuilt my stack to about $2,500 and was sitting back waiting for a good hand. Finally, I picked up an A-J and was about to raise when the opponent on my right, who had been playing squeaky tight, raised it to $300. If he had a bigger ace than mine, (A-K or A-Q), I would be about a 2.5-1 underdog. Or, he could have a big pocket pair. I often throw A-J away when the going looks rough, so I folded. It turned out that he had pocket jacks, and I would have lost.

I also had to fold my next playable hand, a K-Q, when there was an early raise to my right. K-Q is about a 15 percent dog to any ace (even an ace-rag). Although I managed to win a few chips on a blind defense, my stack had dwindled down to about $2,000.

Then, the excitement came – but it was all bad. I three-bet preflop with pocket kings, but an ace on the flop and a bet and a raise in front of me made it clear that I had to fold.

A round later, the rock in front of me (who now had lots of chips) raised preflop from middle position, and I had the A K. I had about $1,500 left, and the limit was $200-$400. Would you three-bet it with my cards?

Rather than play it big and make it possibly my final fling, I decided to simply call and see the flop – which was the terrible Q J 9. The big blind bet and the rock in front of me called. I didn't like it, and it was good that I got out cheap.

About one round later, I was down to my last $1,000 and the chip leader in front of me raised to $400 from under the gun. What would you do if you held pocket queens?

There may be something to be said for simply calling (as I had done previously with the A-K) and seeing the flop, thus getting to play yet another hand instead of putting all of my eggs in one basket. But, there's a big difference between pocket queens and an A-K, and it is mandatory to try to narrow the field. High pocket pairs don't grow on trees. So, I three-bet, hoping to get heads up with the raiser, who might be loosening up with all those chips.

The operation was a success – we went at it heads up. Three small cards came on the flop. He bet – and I raised all in. But then, he hit both his ace and king on the last two cards. So, I joined a crowd of big-name players who were socializing on the sidelines. These California tournaments are sure getting tough.