I left my house yesterday morning at 8 AM to make the drive from Omaha to Mason City. I just happened to wake up at that point and started on the 4 hour drive. 4 hours in the car without the radio and without my iPod working correctly is very annoying. I make it to the casino exit around noon and there's construction all over the exit. So after making a certain soccer mom angry enough to flip me off (you're welcome), I make it to the property.
This place is huge. I decide its probably better to just follow the signs to parking instead of just finding my own spot, less possibility to ruffle feathers. I pull into the parking garage and find a spot on the third level. Finally made my way into the building and down to the casino ground floor.
The elevators are in a little hallway out of the way, so when you get out you can't see anything. I came around the corner and it was all spread out in front of me now. Holy crap this place is big, bigger than any casino I've ever been in. There are signs everywhere clearly pointing out where all the tournament stuff is going on. I went straight to the Total Rewards desk to get a Horseshoe players card, needed to register for a tournament. Got my card, paid for my entry into the Omaha8, signed the release, and was on my way. I looked down at my card and saw my seat assignment, Table 40, Seat 9. Table 40??? Wow.
That might be the whole theme of the day, just wow. The poker room has 18 tables of which only 7 were running cash games when I got in there around 1 PM. I sat and played a little 4/8 Omaha8 that didn't go so well, left that table down 60 bucks. I have this bad habit of running second nut-second nut into nut high and nut low in three way pots :( .
I make my way into the tournament area, its basically this big concert/bar/specialty gaming area that they cleared out to put tournament tables in. (Side note: All the girls that work in there are smoking hot and dressed exactly like the picture.) Tables 18 through 47 are here so I can see exactly where I'll be sitting. They're using this as the main tournament room, if they need to put tables in the poker room they do, and those are the first tables to break. It's a little dark, but not too bad. There's a final table going from the day before in the middle of the room with an announcer calling the action and a camera to look down at the board. And that's when I realize I made my first mistake.
I went out to the board with the schedule on it and all the structure sheets for all the tournaments and start reading the Omaha8 sheet. Yep sure enough there it is: "Play will continue until there is a final table or 3 AM (whichever comes first). Play will resume the next day at 3 PM." Oops. It's going to be a late night on Sunday, and I have to remember to ask for another night at my hotel, I had only booked for one. 30 minute levels, start with 25-50 blinds and 5000 chips. First break is 4 hours in, breaks after that are every 2 hours.
I walk back in and see my second mistake. "Single Table Satellites here". Duh, I should have tried that first before buying in. I decide I'm gonna try a few to try and earn a buyin to the HORSE next week. $65 gets you 800 in chips, starting blinds of 25-25 with 15 minute levels. Winner takes all, 5 $100 buyin chips and $50 cash, but the people that have been playing those say that almost all of them get chopped up.
The first one doesn't go so well, no hands and I shove with K9 and get knocked out in a three-way all in. There's two seats in a SNG getting ready to start, so the lady who also got knocked out that satellite and I locked them up and sat next to each other in seats 8 and 9. There's a whole bunch of people who are rotating through all the SNGs and they all seem to know each other. I ask her about that, and she says they all just met today through the tournaments. There's another lady there with two guys hitting on her nonstop, one guy offering surf and turf and the best Merlot in the city. I make a few big hands and make it down to three-handed. We've been playing three-handed for a while and we're pretty even in chips, so I offer a save of one $100 chips for all three of us and play for the rest. They agree and we move on. The lady next to me knocks out the kid and we're headsup. She offers me another chip, and I make my third mistake. I thought too long about it and she took it off the table. It was an easy decision to make and looking back I don't know why I even thought about it. I lost a coin flip and walk away with only the 1 chip.
So now I'm stuck with 1 chip instead of 2 which would have been good enough to buy in to the HORSE on Friday. So dumb. Rookie mistake. The plan today is to go try a couple more SNG sats, and hang around watching the foorball games until 4 PM. I'm gonna try to get my Twitter working here in case someone wants to follow my progress. I think I'm also gonna bring a tape recorder a la Gus Hansen at the WSOP. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
This place is huge. I decide its probably better to just follow the signs to parking instead of just finding my own spot, less possibility to ruffle feathers. I pull into the parking garage and find a spot on the third level. Finally made my way into the building and down to the casino ground floor.
The elevators are in a little hallway out of the way, so when you get out you can't see anything. I came around the corner and it was all spread out in front of me now. Holy crap this place is big, bigger than any casino I've ever been in. There are signs everywhere clearly pointing out where all the tournament stuff is going on. I went straight to the Total Rewards desk to get a Horseshoe players card, needed to register for a tournament. Got my card, paid for my entry into the Omaha8, signed the release, and was on my way. I looked down at my card and saw my seat assignment, Table 40, Seat 9. Table 40??? Wow.
That might be the whole theme of the day, just wow. The poker room has 18 tables of which only 7 were running cash games when I got in there around 1 PM. I sat and played a little 4/8 Omaha8 that didn't go so well, left that table down 60 bucks. I have this bad habit of running second nut-second nut into nut high and nut low in three way pots :( .
I make my way into the tournament area, its basically this big concert/bar/specialty gaming area that they cleared out to put tournament tables in. (Side note: All the girls that work in there are smoking hot and dressed exactly like the picture.) Tables 18 through 47 are here so I can see exactly where I'll be sitting. They're using this as the main tournament room, if they need to put tables in the poker room they do, and those are the first tables to break. It's a little dark, but not too bad. There's a final table going from the day before in the middle of the room with an announcer calling the action and a camera to look down at the board. And that's when I realize I made my first mistake.
I went out to the board with the schedule on it and all the structure sheets for all the tournaments and start reading the Omaha8 sheet. Yep sure enough there it is: "Play will continue until there is a final table or 3 AM (whichever comes first). Play will resume the next day at 3 PM." Oops. It's going to be a late night on Sunday, and I have to remember to ask for another night at my hotel, I had only booked for one. 30 minute levels, start with 25-50 blinds and 5000 chips. First break is 4 hours in, breaks after that are every 2 hours.
I walk back in and see my second mistake. "Single Table Satellites here". Duh, I should have tried that first before buying in. I decide I'm gonna try a few to try and earn a buyin to the HORSE next week. $65 gets you 800 in chips, starting blinds of 25-25 with 15 minute levels. Winner takes all, 5 $100 buyin chips and $50 cash, but the people that have been playing those say that almost all of them get chopped up.
The first one doesn't go so well, no hands and I shove with K9 and get knocked out in a three-way all in. There's two seats in a SNG getting ready to start, so the lady who also got knocked out that satellite and I locked them up and sat next to each other in seats 8 and 9. There's a whole bunch of people who are rotating through all the SNGs and they all seem to know each other. I ask her about that, and she says they all just met today through the tournaments. There's another lady there with two guys hitting on her nonstop, one guy offering surf and turf and the best Merlot in the city. I make a few big hands and make it down to three-handed. We've been playing three-handed for a while and we're pretty even in chips, so I offer a save of one $100 chips for all three of us and play for the rest. They agree and we move on. The lady next to me knocks out the kid and we're headsup. She offers me another chip, and I make my third mistake. I thought too long about it and she took it off the table. It was an easy decision to make and looking back I don't know why I even thought about it. I lost a coin flip and walk away with only the 1 chip.
So now I'm stuck with 1 chip instead of 2 which would have been good enough to buy in to the HORSE on Friday. So dumb. Rookie mistake. The plan today is to go try a couple more SNG sats, and hang around watching the foorball games until 4 PM. I'm gonna try to get my Twitter working here in case someone wants to follow my progress. I think I'm also gonna bring a tape recorder a la Gus Hansen at the WSOP. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
