Peppermill's $180 NLHE Tournament

The Peppermill is running a tournament series, and I played in the $180 NLHE tournament at Noon on Sunday. Hopefully, my recent tournament success would carry over into this event.

This tournament had 69 players. We started with 12k stacks, 30 minute levels, and a decent structure for a casino tournament.

I started doing a Running Log for this event. Unfortunately, my iPhone was only about 30% charged when this started. Since my screen is ON for long periods of time while I'm playing hands in between taking notes, it uses up a lot of battery power. I decided to save the juice, and stopped the Running Log.

As things turned out, it would have been a great Running Log, since I finished in 4th place for $800 after the Dealer's Tip. I probably would have done it two parts. The first one would have ended when we got to the Final Table.

The first part of the tourney was fairly standard. I caught a few hands. I pulled of a few bluffs. I had a couple stretches of being card dead. I even had a donk-off when I made a 3-Bet out of the SB with A9h. The original raiser didn't have enough chips to fold any decent hand, let alone his AK.

When we got to the Final Two Tables, they did a complete redraw for seats. I had an average stack, and got a good seat draw with no monster stacks or action junkies at my table. I then went on sweet run of cards, including getting AK three times in one orbit. I knocked out two players, but lost a race against a shortstack who had 55.

We got to the Final Table in the 2k/4k/500 Level. I had around 115k, which was 2nd in chips. The Chip Leader had me by 100k. He's a "Pro" who won the Friday $120 tournament, and said he won a WSOP bracelet in a 2004 $1500 event. He was at my first table. We were there for a while, so I have a good feel for how he plays. He's on the Loose side, but he knows what he's doing. Fortunately, I had great position on him at the Final Table. He's was in Seat 3, and I was in Seat 5.

The Final Table went slowly, as some players were trying to hold on as long as they could. Eventually, we got down to four players in 7k/15k/2k Level. I had about 140k, and was the shortstack. But the Big Stack was only around 250k. Since we were all relatively close in chips, between 9 - 15 Big Blinds, the Chop Talk started.

The TD stopped the clock and did the math. A 4-way chop would be just over $1800 per player. Personally, I was happy to chop or to play it out. It really didn't matter to me. Everyone kinda wanted to chop, but there was a problem. Since the Peppermill is running a Tournament Series, they have a glass trophy for each event. The "Pro" was one of the Big Stacks, and wanted the trophy to go with his other one. I kinda wanted it too, but I had no say in this since I was the shortstack. After some talk between the other players, the deal fell through, and we started to play.

The very next hand, the first player limped for 15k. He's a bit of a Nit, and has been doing a lot of limping with hands that he should be raising (AT and KJ, for example). The Button also limped. He's a solid, no-nonsense, A-B-C player. The "Pro" folded his SB. I'm the BB with 76s. I grab my stack of green 5k chips, and raise to 85k. The Nit thought for a bit, counted out some chips, thought some more, and reluctantly folded. The A-B-C player folded. The Dealer started pushing me the pot, and I showed my 7-high. Why did I do it? Because I wanted to show them that even as the shortstack, I'm not folding my way to 3rd place. Plus, I picked up an extra 30k along with the Blinds & Antes, which is rather large at this stage of the tournament.

One orbit later, I raised to my standard 40k on the Button with AJo. The Nit folded his SB, but the BB said All-In. I know he's not making a move in this spot. I did a quick count of my chips, and decided I was willing to Coin Flip in this spot. I said Call, and he showed TT. Overall, a fairly standard hand at this stage of the tournament. Unfortunately, the other standard thing about this hand was me missing my Pair Draw. We count down the stacks. He has 194k, and I have 193k.

About 10 minutes later, the Nit got knocked out by the "Pro". The two remaining players were about even in chips. They decided to chop for around $2700 each, and the "Pro" got the trophy.

Ultimately, the non-chop cost me $1000. Am I upset about this?

Not really. As a tourney player, I wanted the trophy. It's not just about the Money, but it's also about the Wins. If all I cared about was the Money, then I would just play in Cash games.

But I'm also a practical person. I understand that in the late stages of tournaments, we are often just flipping coins for a decent chunk of money. So I normally don't encourage a chop, but I usually don't discourage one either.

I still made $620 in this tourney when I got knocked out a little before 10pm. So I still made over $60/hr, which is rather good for a small stakes player like me.