Then at the end of last year, I came into some money. The organisers of my regular Friday night tournament gave away some prizes to the top points scorers for the year. Although I had been told that there wouldn't be a third prize, that turned out to be wrong. So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had won $250 for coming in third. Although some of this money was used for other purposes, I also had some other cash from my Interclub Poker team prize, leaving me with a little pool of spare poker cash. I decided that this would become my 'shadow bankroll', to be used to buy in to a satellite tournament if I could find a suitable one.
I checked out the Sky City tournament schedule in December and found that there were a number of satellites to the $1500 buy-in 'Waitangi Weekend Deep Stack Tournament', running through December and January. But although I knew that Waitangi Day (New Zealand's national day) was on February 6th, there was no mention on the website of when exactly the target event was to be played. So I sent an email to the Sky City poker section and they replied with the information I needed.
These tournaments were playing on Thursday nights and Sunday afternoons, so I turned up on the Sunday and registered. I was careful to ask plenty of questions of the poker cashier first, as I'd had problems in the past with a lack of information provided by Sky City regarding their tournaments. After waiting around for quite a while I went back and asked what was happening and was told the tournament had been cancelled because there weren't enough entries. But the cashier told me that Thursday nights often had more people entering.
Thursday
Four days later I was back up at the casino, looking to play in the 7pm satellite tournament. I could see that there were already a few people registered when I got there, so I paid my money and got my cash chips for the expected re-buy and add-on. I nearly missed the start because I didn't realise I had to get a seat assignment, and I was still standing in line when the announcement was made to start dealing. But I found my seat and settled in at a table of 6 other players, in a field of 15. I was starting with 200 big blinds and the blinds changed every 15 minutes. I started out by familiarising myself with the chip colours. There were also 2 different coloured chips with letters on them. I asked my neighbour what they were for he told me they were the tokens to be used for the re-buy and add-on.
I started out by playing pretty tight and observing the play of my table-mates. I was surprised to see quite a lot of limping in and even limp-calling. Not at all what I expected. I'd originally decided to re-buy as soon as my stack dropped below the starting level, but no-one else seemed to be doing that so I thought I'd just hold off for a bit. Over the next hour or so there were more entries and we ended up with a total of 23 players. I lost a lot of chips in the following hand: I raised with J J and got called by a player who had position on me. The flop was K J x, giving me trips. I bet and got called. The turn was a 3, putting three hearts on the board. Hoping I was still good, I bet and got called. The river put a fourth heart out there. I knew if I checked my opponent would bet, whether he had the flush or not. So I put in the smallest bet I thought I could get away with. He called and showed the King of hearts with a Queen. I got some cash chips out and used my re-buy token. A little while later we reached the end of the third blind level and everyone added on.
Most stacks were around 20,000 at this point, with the blinds at 100/200. My stack was a bit shorter than that, but not too bad. There was not much action for me during this period and the number of players dropped down to five. I'd just got used to playing on a short-handed table when one more player was knocked out and we were down to a final table of ten. So I had to re-adjust to full table play. By this stage the prizes had been posted. First prize was a ticket to the main event, second was a ticket to the Mega Satellite, 3rd, 4th and 5th were all $70 satellite tickets, and sixth prize was $35.
As it got later my stack got shorter and I ended up reaching the push or fold level. I lost a lot of chips early in this stage in a coin flip versus a shorter-stacked player. Then, a while later, I got most of my chips back in another coin flip against the same player. As it got later the other players' stacks diminished and it became an all-in fest. I was mostly just keeping out of the way, but I was always looking for the right spot to get my chips in the middle, constantly checking my stack size and the progress of the clock. At some point we crossed the bubble, but I didn't want another $70 ticket, I wanted the big prize. Some time after the second break we were down to three players, myself, a young woman in her twenties, and a man older even than me who was knocking back quite a few beers, which appeared to have no obvious effect on him. At this point he offered us a deal, but I had no idea how you would split a prize that consists of tournament tickets, so I declined, as did the other player.
At this point the woman had the big stack, but we all had at least 20 big blinds each. Despite these reasonable stack sizes, the other two just wanted to play push or fold. Mostly I just stayed out of their way, as I wasn't hitting much, but I lost a few chips by raising pre-flop and then having to fold to an all-in shove. But eventually the other two settled down a bit and we actually started playing some hands. The man seemed to have a talent for hitting flops and the woman started making some questionable calls, what she called 'spite calls'. His stack got bigger and hers smaller and eventually she was eliminated.
With two of us left, my opponent offered me a deal. I realised that what he was proposing was that the winner agree to pay the second place-getter $200. It was basically an insurance proposition. Even if I had the money to spare, I wasn't really interested, and declined the offer. Even though I was the short stack I figured I still had a decent chance at winning the top prize. But the cards were not good to me. I couldn't seem to hit anything. In the end I pushed all-in with K Q and got called by A K and that was it. Although I didn't win the big ticket, I was still pretty happy to win entry to the second-level satellite. So I went over to the cashier's counter, expecting to get some sort of ticket or confirmation of my qualifying. Instead, he wrote my name and phone number down on a scrap of paper, and that was it. Really? It was 12.30. I'd been playing for about 5 hours and I was pretty happy with the result. So I took a taxi home. Just before I went to bed I got a text message from Sky City confirming my entry in the Mega Satellite event.
SaturdayThere were a number of Mega Satellite games available, but I decided to play in the Saturday afternoon game. My wife dropped me off at the casino and I registered using my confirmation number. When we got started there were 15 players involved. This tournament had an even deeper stack than the previous one, starting at 15,000 with the blinds at 25/50, and the levels changing every 30 minutes. There were only 7 players at my table, so I was playing at a short-handed table with a 300 BB stack. Interesting. Looking around, I recognised a couple of faces from the stage 1 satellite, including the guy sitting at my table with the Macau Casino hat on.
After some thought I decided to just play the game the same way I would a ring game, at least until I was down to about 100 BB. There was a lot less limping in this time around, with more raising and folding pre-flop. One player in particular, sitting across from me (let's call him Agro Joe), was raising pretty frequently, and seemed to be a serial blind-defender. I had to fold to him a couple of times after initially raising and then getting re-raised. But I managed to get a few chips back off him once I realised he was raising light pre-flop, by betting in position post-flop. With late entries the total number of players climbed up to 17.
We had a little comic relief at our table when I folded my hand clumsily and my K 5 was exposed on the table. Then the flop was K 5 x. Someone suggested that the turn would be a King, but they were wrong. It was a 5. Ha ha. Apart from this I wasn't hitting much, but I managed to drag in a few pots without having to go to showdown. Meanwhile Agro Joe seemed to have quietened down a bit and wasn't playing many hands. Maybe he'd been trying to double-up early? Who knows. Once I dropped down to 100 BB I tightened up my range and started folding a lot.
When the organisers posted the prizes I saw that there were three $1500 tournament tickets up for grabs. Fourth prize was another $350 ticket and fifth was $250 in cash. With a few players eliminated my table dropped down to 6 players briefly, then another player dropped out and we were a final table of ten players. My stack was down to about 20 BB and I started looking for spots to push the action. With a small Ace in my hand I raised and got called by one player. The flop was K K x and I immediately pushed all-in. My opponent, sitting across the table from me and wearing big dark glasses was obviously thinking about calling. I tried to put on my best poker face, but he was sitting there looking at me for quite a while. They were showing the cricket, NZ vs Pakistan, on the big screen and I suddenly developed an intense interest in the match. Eventually he decided to fold and I let out a quiet sigh of relief.
After 4 hours of play it was time for our second 10 minute break, so I rushed off to the Bistro on the other side of the casino to get something to eat and drink. With one 10 minute break every 2 hours, you don't have much time to take care of bodily needs. But I managed to get back to the table with my pie and beer just in time for the start of blind level five. At this point we were approaching the bubble. I was getting short-stacked so I decided to take a punt and in the face of a minimum raise I pushed all-in with J Ts.. I was called by K Q. Not good. There was a King on the flop, then a Queen on the turn, then an Ace on the river, giving me a straight. Now that's lucky! This elimination put us across the bubble.
After playing for a while my stack was dropping down again, and I was down to about 7 BB. Mr Macau Hat pushed all-in and I looked down at Q J. With such a short stack, I was running out of options. What's more, I didn't want to win fourth prize and find myself having to play in another one of these Mega Satellites. Even though I suspected that I was behind, I figured that I was better off to try and double-up and go for the top prize, or bust out and go home with $250 cash. So I called and Macau Hat showed A J. My hand was dominated. Neither one of us hit the flop or the turn and I was looking for one of three remaining Queens to turn up on the river. The river was a Queen. Mr Macau was knocked out and he was not happy. Sometimes you just have to get lucky.
Despite my chip-up, I was still a reasonably short stack, so I just continued in push or fold mode, and tried to stay out of trouble. After a short period of play the smallest stack was eliminated, leaving just three of us at the table. The other two players started congratulating each other and it took me a moment to realise that I'd just won a $1500 ticket to the Waitangi Weekend Deep Stack Tournament. Not bad for my first attempt at a big game satellite. I wandered over to the cashier and picked up my ticket. Yes, this time I actually got a printed ticket confirmation. I was told that I'd be playing on day 1A, next Friday night. After 6 hours of play I decided that I deserved a couple of celebratory drinks at the bar before heading back home to share the good news.
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