However, there aren't as many games around as there used to be. The pub where I play occasionally on a Wednesday night changed management during lockdown and the new manager cancelled the tournament. Meanwhile, the casino re-opened, but not the poker room. I went and checked it out but they are not saying when, or if, the games will re-start. So I went looking for another live game to play in addition to my regular Friday nighter. Most of the National Pub Poker League games have re-started, but I didn't want to go there, so I ended up going to check out the Thursday night tournament at an Irish pub called the Clare Inn.
The format of the game is actually very similar to the one I play on Wednesdays, being a turbo-style rebuy tournament. You start with 5k in chips and the blinds start at 25/50 but go up very steeply. One significant difference is that there are extra chips for bar purchases. Players get a tally card and every time they buy something at the bar, the organiser endorses the card. Then you get 1k extra in chips for each purchase, paid out at the first break.
The other difference is that $5 of the $25 entry fee goes towards a special end-of-year tournament. Players earn points throughout the year and those at the top of the ladder get to play in that big game. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to realise that the prize in that final game must be huge, but of course you'd have to play all year long to have a decent chance at winning that. So for someone like me who is playing a one-off game, it just means that there's 20% coming out of the prize pool.
We started out with 18 players registered, but two of them hadn't arrived yet so we had two tables of 5 players and one with 6 (the 'regs' table, of course). After a while the organiser, who everyone calls Rambo, decided to condense us down to two tables of 8, which later became two tables of 9 when the late-comers arrived. I couldn't help but notice that there were no women involved in this game at all. It was all men and there seemed to be quite a few English guys and even a couple of Americans. A rather different player profile than what I'm used to.
Once we got started I found that play was generally tighter and more aggressive than at my Friday night game, but that's a comparison with possibly the loosest game in the known universe. In general terms, it was quite loose and fairly passive. There wasn't much action coming from me as I was getting rag hand after rag hand. There were a few loose all-in calls early on while rebuys were still available but after the rebuys ran out things settled down a bit. By the time we got to the break my stack had dropped a bit, but not too much.
During the break 'Rambo' (who bore no resemblance whatever to Sylvester Stallone) chipped everyone up and paid out bonus chips to those that had been supporting the bar. When the ten minutes was up I rejoined the table but it turned out we all had to wait around for the regs to come back from their 'smoko' break outside. Earlier, Rambo had told me the tournament could go on until as late as midnight sometimes, and I could see why.
Not long after the second break I ran into some trouble due to a calculation error. I'd been keeping an eye on my blinds/stack ratio, as I always do and thought I still had more than 20 big blinds left; not great, but still playable. But then I realised I'd miscalculated. Before I could do anything the blinds went up again and I suddenly found myself sitting behind a stack of just 7 BBs. Oops. Drastic action was required so when a couple of players limped in I pushed my dwindling stack all-in with J9. I would have preferred to see everyone fold but I got called by a player with 44. I flopped a 9 and that was good enough to get me out of the red zone at least. One of the players reckoned it was a 'ballsy move' to push with that hand. With only 7 BBs, I thought it was pretty standard and that the call with pocket fours was ballsy, but that's just my opinion.
I managed to make it through to the final table with a few judicious pushes here and there, but I was just barely hanging on. I found myself sitting next to a player with a monster stack, while most of the rest of the players had stacks not much bigger than mine. It wasn't long before I was deep into the red zone again and looking for a last-ditch hand. With A9 under the gun I had to think for a minute before finally deciding to go with it. I got three callers, including Rambo and the big stack, which wasn't the greatest result. Rambo and Bigstack played it out while I watched on. The flop of 8 9 J didn't look too bad for me but when a Queen came on the turn I figured I was in trouble. Sure enough, Rambo had pocket tens, giving him a straight. Two and a half hours of play, coming in 8th of 18. Not bad, I guess.
It was quite an enjoyable game to play in but there are a number of factors that make it less than ideal for me. Firstly, there's the bar purchase bonus chips. A lot of bars do this and I've never been a big fan. It makes for an uneven playing field, unless you're willing to spend a lot of extra money at the bar. The second thing is the $5 that goes towards the end of year game. With 20% coming out of the prize pool it means you're pretty much committed to playing all year in order to have some chance of recouping that money. But the biggest problem for me is the late finish. I start work fairly early in the morning and I'm just getting too old to be burning the candle at both ends. on weekdays at least..
Playing at the Clare Inn was enjoyable enough, but it's not going to be part of my regular poker routine. It looks like my Friday night game is all I've got for the moment. But that's one hell of a lot more than I've had for most of the year. So I'm not complaining.
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