Survival of the tightest

I have been meaning to update my blog for some time now, but of course lots of things get in the way. I don't consider myself a particularly skilled writer; I also don't feel like I have a great facility for putting my thoughts into typed words and sentences. Writing takes effort for me, at least if I want what I write to be worth reading. I know, I know: I won't get better at it or find it less difficult to do if I don't sit down and do it regularly. I don't have my Mom here to nag me to practice, like she might have if I had had piano lessons when I was a kid. I have to motivate myself to get cracking. Or I have to have some outside incentive that gives me a reason to overcome my reluctance. It seems that a motivation like that has come along.

On October 23, PokerStars will be hosting a special tournament for bloggers. You don't have to write a poker blog; you just have to have a "regularly updated blog" that is at least two months old. The good news is, I started my blog in February of this year. The not-so-good news is, I've only posted here seven times since then, which is barely an average of once a month. Does that qualify as "regularly updated" in the eyes of the PokerStars staff? I guess I will find out when I try to register for the tournament. If you have a blog (or don't) and are interested in more info about the tournament, you can find it here:

http://www.pokerstars.com/blog_tournament/index.html

I'm looking forward to playing in the tournament, if they let me.

While I'm here, I might as well talk about my poker adventures of recent times. I have been playing on line pretty often, and I play every Tuesday in a live (and free) Amateur Poker League tournament at Willhoites's, a local bar/restaurant. I tend to do better in tournaments than in "ring games," i.e. games that are continuous and have players that come and go at any time. In a cash tournament, all the players pay an entry fee which gets them a set number of chips and a seat at a tournament table with other players. The entry fees make up the prize pool, less some amount that is kept by the host of the tournament to cover their costs and make them a profit. Once the tournament starts, play continues (with occasional breaks) until one player remains with all of the chips. As the tournament goes on, the blinds (forced bets that rotate around the table) go up in amount, to keep the tournament from lasting forever and to make the action more exciting. This is a simplified explanation but I hope you get the idea.

At the APL tourneys, there are no entry fees and no cash prizes. However, the players who finish 16th or higher earn "points" that determine their rank in relation to each other over the course of a season. I have finished "in the points" most of the weeks that I have played over the past few months. My highest finish so far has been second, once. I am not among the top points leaders in my region, but I generally get an invitation to the monthly championship tourney at Willhoite's. The APL events are fun and give me a chance to practice the principles that I have learned from the various books that I have been reading on how to play the game, without putting up any money. There is a group of regular players at Willhoite's each week, and they are overall a friendly bunch that I enjoy playing with.

But, my biggest tournament yet was one I played in on line on September 14 at PokerStars. It was a fund-raiser for Hurricane Katrina relief, with virtually all of the entry fees donated to the American Red Cross and matched, dollar for dollar, by PokerStars. There were a total of four tournaments hosted by PokerStars that week, and in total they raised over $100,000 for the Red Cross.

I originally entered two of those tournaments, one with a $5 fee and one with a $20 fee. The $50 and $100 events were a bit too expensive for my blood. I couldn't play in the $5 tournament on Sept. 12 because my Internet connection was down that night. At least my $5 still went to the charity. By Wednesday our connection was back up and I was able to play. As it turned out, there were a lot of people who didn't show up for the tournament that night, although I doubt that they all had technical problems like mine. Many undoubtedly just wanted to donate and didn't plan to play anyway; that made for a lot of players who were "sitting out" at the tables. It took some time to win the chips from those absent players, but eventually there were just live people left in the game. I played conservatively, got some good cards and made some fairly decent moves early on, and built my chip stack enough to get me through the dry spells when the crappy cards fell my way. After nearly four hours of playing my way through countless hands and moving between tables, I had the honor of making it to the final table of the tournament. When I got there, I had the fewest chips of anyone at the table, but I didn't mind. I was just thrilled to have lasted that far into the tourney. Shortly after I got to the final table, I busted out, finishing ninth in the tournament. I felt really pleased with how I played that night, and with my finishing place. After all, ninth out of 738 entrants is a pretty high percentile. It's my proudest moment so far in my very short poker "career."

All of the players who made it to a final table in these tournaments are to get prizes donated by various celebrities associated with PokerStars. I believe that I will be getting an autographed copy of a book by Wil Wheaton, who hosted the tournaments; if there are other prizes forthcoming, I don't know what they might be. But my experience with this tournament has been all positive, with the most important part of that being the fact that the Red Cross has benefited greatly by the generosity of PokerStars and its players.

I'm also unashamedly pleased that Wil reported the results of the tournament that I played in on his blog, and he mentions me (by my PokerStars screen name, yestbay1) in the entry. You can read that entry here:

http://www.wilwheaton.net/mt/archives/2005/09/

You will need to scroll down to the September 15 entry. Go ahead and read the rest of his September archives while you are there. Wil's blog is always a good read, IMO. (His archives look rather funky at the moment because he is doing a redesign on his site.)

I hope I get to play in the Bloggers Tournament on the 23rd. I don't have high expectations of making the final table again, but it happened once; who knows, with good play and some luck I might get there again. And this time the prizes are more substantial, such as a trip to (and buy-in for) the 2006 PokerStars Carribean Adventure, flat-panel TVs, X-box game systems, and more. I'll just be glad to play and have fun. Bonus: there is no entry fee! Like I always say, free is good.

Wish me luck!