El Stinko

Poker in my life has been “El Stinko” lately. Unless I have a really good showing in the CP VIP Tourney, that will be it.

Let’s start with the news today. Tony G no longer allows US customers. They claim that if I want my money, I have to transfer it to Tony G and he will in turn transfer it to me at Poker Stars or Full Tilt. Shady.

Here’s what I really want to post about.

Last night, I played in a $20 rebuy tournament at the local elks lodge. There was a $10 add-on at the break. I have to say that it was fun and the prize pool was decent with first place taking home $500. However, the structure in my opinion was horrible. For the first hour, the blinds increased every fifteen minutes. I was at a slow table. We couldn’t make it through a round before the blinds increased. I would guess that at the other tables, they were playing approx. one round per blind level.

After the break, things changed. They redrew seats and I started out on the button. They also changed the length of the blind levels. Now I would have guessed that they would make it longer now since players could no longer rebuy. However, the opposite happened. I’m not exactly sure what they did but it was one of three things. Either a) they shortened the blind levels to 6-8 minutes each, b) they increased the blinds every time someone got knocked out, or c) both. Like I said, I started on the button and the blinds went up 3 times before I got to be in the blind. This was at an 8-handed table.

How did I play? Well if my cards held up through the night, I probably would have had a chance to win. But you can say that about any tournament with any format. I’d venture to guess that in two hours I played 11 hands. At a round every 15-20 minutes, that’s 1-2 hands per round. My hand selection was pocket kings, pocket queens, pocket fours, ace-king, ace-queen, ace-queen, ace-nine, ace-five, ace-four, king-queen, and jack-ten. It was a below average night in terms of luck as I won small pots with ace-queen, ace-nine, ace-four, king-queen, and jack-ten and managed to lose big pots with the other 6.

Really I’m just complaining because I didn’t do as well as I hoped. However, with the structure, any skill advantage I may have is severely hindered and it’s not worth the time and money unless I continue to get staked in the game.