Lottery Hold 'Em

I played in a hold 'em tourney at a local place called Jokers the other night. There were about 50 players in the tourney, and the buy-in got you 400 worth of chips with blinds starting at 5/10 and going up every fifteen minutes. It was a very well-run tourney, but it reminded me more of a lottery than a real poker tournament.

On the very first hand at my table, a couple of players had well over half of their stacks in play. Several people were out of the tourney in less than five minutes. I lasted about 20 minutes. I was crippled when my pocket tens lost to pocket aces, then was taken out on the next hand when my K-10 lost to pocket fives -- I got a ten on the flop, but a five showed up on the turn and I was gone.

In any event, it didn't feel like real poker -- as mentioned above, it was more like a lottery where you hope to get lucky and get dealt a good hand (or otherwise draw out to a good hand) in the first few minutes so you could survive longer than a half hour. The format didn't offer much of an opportunity to play poker, at least it didn't at my table. Liz also played -- she was at my table, and didn't last much longer than I did. She was crippled when her AJ lost to a guy holding an J-3 (a jack and a three hit on the flop). Maybe lack of skill could explain my poor performance, but Liz (aka The Head Hunter) is a good player.

I guess you could simply wait for a monster like AA or KK and then go all-in when that happens, but that isn't much fun (especially if the AA or the KK don't show up, or they do show up but get cracked). I've played in several bigger tournaments before where they try to move things along, but they all allowed at least some real poker to be played (either by giving you more chips in proportion to the starting blinds or allowing for re-buys). Maybe I was simply at an unusually aggressive table, but I doubt it.

But, as I said, it was well-run, and the place is pretty nice. I may try my luck again there someday.