Kaelin finally wins a tournament…..almost
Well, I knew it had to happen eventually. I was in another donk-fest tourney with 150+ combatants at Caesars, IN in the Thursday night tournament known as Midnight Madness. The entry fee was a meager $80 plus an extra $5 at the break to get you 1000 more tournament chips, if you could outwit and outlast your opponents long enough to make it to the break. (As an aside, the $5 does go to the hardworking and under appreciated dealers at Caesars.)
I know I had not had much luck in tournaments in the past, only cashing in the money a few times, usually just earning a net profit of the original entry fee. But for some reason, on this night, I felt good about my chances in making a serious run into this tournament. I said a quick prayer to the poker gods, and I was ready to get into the action.
I looked around the room and it was the typical Thursday night crowd at Caesar’s. I would summarize the field as follows:
1) 20% union workers for Ford, UPS, GE, or other small mfg. shop around the Kentuckiana region
2) 20% farmers who plan on playing hookie on Friday
3) 30% white collar workers who hated their office jobs and were planning on calling in sick on Friday
4) 29.4% women who no longer care about their husbands/boyfriends and are trying to make a name for themselves in the poker world
5) 0.6% individuals with engineering degrees who parted ways with large corporate conglomerates (I happen to fall into this category)
I got a bad draw because at my opening table, there were several players who I recognized as challenging opponents. The good news for me was that they were all A-personalities and I knew that if I could somehow get a big hand early, I could let all the aggressive players donk their chips off to me. It did not take long for me to get that opportunity.
In the UTG position fairly early in the tourney and the blinds at 50-100, I looked down to see the mother of all hold-em hands, AA. I just call, knowing that someone behind me is going to raise. Sure enough, the person to my left raises to 400. One person calls this raise, and I am licking my chops. Then, before the action gets back to me, another guy who I know is also very aggressive, pushes his chips all-in for 1400!! Now the action is back to me, and I of course move all in for 2000+. Now, the original raiser thinks about it, and throws his hand into the muck. The guy who cold called the original raise calls the all-in as well, and it was time to see a flop.
We all flip our hands face up and I have AA vs TT vs AJs. The flop comes J-Q-Q-x-x and I had basically tripled up and was poised to make a deep run into this tourney. It turns out that the guy who had folded preflop folded JJ and he would have been the winner had he stayed around to see the flop.
Later in the tourney with about 35 players left, I had another key hand. I had AKo in early position and raised it 4x the BB for 1200 in chips hoping to get heads up versus one person or just take the blinds right there. Well I did not get my wish as one guy came over the top of my 1200 chip raise and went all in for 1600 and another guy went all in for his last 1200. Or course I call and flip up my AK, expecting to see AA or KK from one of the other two players. Much to my delight, I was shown QK and KJ, so I was feeling pretty good about winning the hand. I dodged everything I needed to dodge on the flop, turn, and river, playing great defense and taking down the pot. After that hand, I knew I would at least make the final table, and with any luck, would win the thing.
To make a long story short, I played well for the remainder of the tournament and made it to a heads up battle with a kid that was maybe 5 years younger than me. We both were about dead even in chips, dead tired since it was 4:30 AM, and I had been impressed by his play throughout the tourney. I went ahead and told him this and said I would have no problem splitting up the 1st and 2nd place money with him. He agreed and we both won $2,760 for our efforts that night.
Even though it was not a big win, I still had a really good ROI on my 85 bucks and justice was served in the poker world that night, as far as I was concerned. I went back to defend my “title” 2 weeks later in the same Midnight Madness tourney and ended up finishing 2 spots out of the money, but I felt like I did everything I could to try and make it back to the final table. Luckily for me, these tourneys run every week so I’ll have plenty more chances to be a 2 time! 2 time! Midnight Madness tournament champion at Caesars, IN.
