This morning I returned to Bay 101 for my first honest-to-goodness "real live tournament". Everything prior had been either a "tourney-style home game" or a charity event.
As I told Mark (who also plays poker) on the phone afterwards, I was both really happy and really sad with my performance.
The happy: I finished 19th out of 126 players, which is IMHO a pretty damned good showing for my first time. I started off with a series of great hands and was the chip-leader for all the tables (that we could see, so of about four tables) for the entire first four rounds (one hour) of the tournament. I felt like I held my own, and by and large, did very few stupid things.
The sad: Only the top 18 positions paid out. I was bubble boy. And, to make matters worse, as I replayed things in my head on the ride home, I realized that everything I had done in my final fifteen minutes of play was wrong, in every conceivable way. I think I got too fixated on "how many players are left, and where are you in regard to making it into the money" that I started to lose focus on the things I needed to do to actually get there. I could have survived -- easily -- another round of the table, if I had only retained focus and not called when I didn't have to (and, obviously, shouldn't have).
I saw some holes in my game, and they bit me once or twice, but they're holes I've known about for a while, and that I just keep trying to correct.
Ah, well, at least I can say I was in a tournament that had Matt Savage as the tournament director. (He's the guy who does many of the WPT tournaments, and also the World Series of Poker, but he's actually an employee of Bay101 as well).
Hi Derek:
First of all, congrats on the good finish at the Shooting Star tournament. Bay 101 Open is held this fall. I work at Bay 101, and also for Matt Savage. Big thanks for the mention of Matt in your blog, and the kinds words. I will make sure Matt sees it.
Julie
hi:
I just re-read your blog and noticed that you were in one of the daily tournaments. Consider the Bay 101 Open.
There's some really good players in the weekly tournaments.
Do you play at Bay 101?
Julie
Do you have more info on the '05 Open? Bay101.com's page, well, it sucks, and has almost no information on it about that, at least not that I can find.
I was really impressed with the players in the tournament. That's sorta why I was pretty happy with my 19/126 finish for my first try. I actually came in expecting to finish far worse, certainly below 50th percentile, probably below 25th. 85th percentile was definitely unexpected.
I only occasionally get to Bay101. I live in New York, but come out to the Bay Area every so often for work stuff or to visit friends (I lived here from '98-'01) ... Every time I'm out here I try to get in at least a couple days or evenings at Bay101, if only because there are no good places to play poker anywhere near where I live. :-/