Poker Nights are Pokertastic! New Addiction Imminent!

It all started when Sabs of The Filipino Poker Tour (or FPT for short) and Pokerstars asked me to help them organize a poker tournament for bloggers. They got in touch with me a bit late and I didn’t have a lot of time really and I was unable to market the event in a manner that would be satisfactory to me but because I operate on a level of awesome, I was still able to get a sufficient number of bloggers to attend. So as things were, I found myself at the Metro Card Club in Metrowalk last Wednesday together with a merry bunch of fellow bloggers. I was glad to see a strong showing from the i.ph community as the Virus, Wits, Cai, Ade, Ozy, Maricris, JP and the Bim made an appearance. We were joined by Rico, Joni, Helga, Jayvee, Phoebe and my favorite cousin Gab. The tournament that evening was a special event for media folk and i’d like to pause for a moment to acknowledge that this was one of the very first local events to put bloggers on the same footing as their traditional media counterparts. 

The players were comprised mostly of poker newbies such as myself, save a few exceptions. It was the first time for most of us to play tournament style poker and it was fortunate that there was a brief tutorial on how to play No Limit Hold ‘em before the games started. Soon enough, the cards were being dealt and we were playing poker. Bouyed by a combination of what little poker skills I have, a bit of luck and a lot of liquid courage, (Absolut Vodka courtesy of Gab.) I somehow found myself at the final table, with a decent amount of chips to boot. A few hands later, only the Bim, Gab, another blogger named Bruce (whose blog I am yet to find out) and the Mordo were left. I was, at that point already harboring hopes of taking home the top prize of PhP10,000. That was of course until the Bim (that ass) busted me out. Gab was next to bow out and then Bruce and Bim went head to head in an ADMU vs DLSU showdown!

Unlike the UAAP basketball finals however, Bim went on to win the final hand to become the first ever FPT Media Tournament Champion. Bim and I usually play home games with our cohorts from The Man Blog and it was the first time he ever beat me. But yeah, you win some and you lose some. It didn’t suck too bad really. I took home a bit of cash and more importantly, I won a seat to the FPT5 worth PhP11,000, slated that coming Saturday, where the top prize was a whopping PhP2,000,000!!! 

So three days later, I was at the Metro Card Club once again. This time, I would be going up against seasoned poker players, veterans of many cash games, regular online players on Pokerstars and repeat participants of the Filipino Poker Tour. And there were over 320 of them. To win the money, I had to beat every single one of them. To say that I was out of my league was an understatement. Armed only with what little experience I had, some serious research on effective No Limit Hold’em tactics and Necks, my lucky stuffed brontosaurus, I set myself up to try and win me some big money. As to be expected, I was the only newbie at my table, a fact that I stupidly did nothing to hide from my competition. I played tight and aggresive, stealing a few good pots here and there, growing my chip stack slowly but steadily. Surprisingly enough, I managed to hang on for quite a while, even sending a few of these seasoned veterans out of the game. Necks was doing his job pretty well. I was getting good cards at regular intervals and I stuck to my strategy of playing extremely tight and only moderately aggresive. The open declaration of this being only my second tournament even played to my advantage a bit as the pros couldn’t seem to figure me out. My constant conversations with a stuffed animal only added to their confusion.

Necks, my lucky stuffed dinosaur 

On one notable hand, I had a suited 3 and 5, not something you should normally bet with. But a lot of the players called and the pot grew quickly. One of them made a move to steal the pot with a huge raise. There were folds all around. I had a pretty sizable chip stack then and I wanted to see the flop, thinking I might stand a chance of hitting a flush draw. Instead, it turned out to be a 2, 4,  6, rainbow. I didn’t get my flush, but I hit me a nice straight on the flop. He raised aggresively then, which got me thinking he had a high pocket pair, possibly kings or aces. I decided to slow play him for more money so I just called. The turn was a 9. At that point, he goes all in. I call. He shows us his pocket aces. I smile and show him my straight. The river turned out to be inconsequential. He was drawing dead. He left the table in a huff and was the only player I busted out who didn’t bother to shake my hand. I didn’t mind too much. I just more than doubled my stack. Starting with 11,000 in chips, I was already up to about 60,000 and I was told by the other pros that I was doing exceptionally well for a newbie. One of them even refused to believe that it was only my second tournament ever. 

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