Austin Bloggers tournament

Thanks to Adam Seyer for hosting the Austin Bloggers' tournament at his house today. It was very nice and very well-run.
The buy-in was $30 and we had three tables of players. Several of them were Austin bloggers. I'll try to get a comprhensive list of who attended.
Anyway, I started out playing very well.
The starting stacks were 1500 and we had 10/20 blinds.
I was dealer first hand and had A6o. It folded to me, and I raised. The SB, a player who admitted rarely playing, called the raise. He checked the Q-hi flop and I made a continuation bet of 100. He called, but didn't seem to like it. After he checked the turn, I bet 200 and he gave up his hand, thankfully.

Had this been further in the tournament, I would not have tried this. He was a bit of a calling station, and did not like to be bluffed.

I won another hand after raising with 88 from EP. ScottMc called, and I bet the flop. He called and we checked it down; 8s were good.

I steadily chipped up, but had no huge hands as play progressed. At the break we'd only lost 3 playes and my stack was healthy. But fortune quit smiling on me, as far as poker was concerned.
(As far as college football was concerned, fortune was grinning and laughing with me. TCU knocked off OU in Norman during the break. Clemson beat A&M later in the day.)

I stole some blinds at my new table, and stay even. With blinds at 50/100 I had close to 1900 chips probably, and raised it up with TT. Our host was in the SB and fairly short. He pushed, and I quickly called. He showed A8, and the river was an A. After that my focus started to wane.

I was around 10xBB and if I busted soon I could easily make it to the Texas/UL-Lafayette game. A few minutes later I announced this to the table--a -EV statement if you can ever make one, especially because I wasn't lying.

A few hands later, a deep stack limped. Scoot had moved back to my table, and he limpd as well. I had 12xBB and pushed from the big blind with 68o. Now this play was fine, except my stack was possibly a little too deep to do it with. I showed eventually, after they folded which got a funny reaction but ruined my image.

With around 15xBB, I made my big mistake. The LAG player on my left limped (we were down to 10 at this time). Scott called in the SB, and I looked down to see AQs. I popped it to 400, and both called.

That was my first mistake, I should have really comitted myself to the pot with the raise, and made it bigger. The flop wasn't exactly ragged, and I felt like pushing on it would look phony. So mistake 1 set me up for mistake two; I checked the flop. Both players checked behind me and a 7 hit the turn.

I decided to bet weak, hoping that it would like like I had slowplayed the flop and was looking for a call. I bet 450, and got a call from the lag player. I shut it down. We checked the river, and he showed A7. I think I threw up in my mouth a little.

Scott had flopped second pair, but had folded to the turn action and said he would have folded to a push on the flop.

I really should have pushed that flop...

A few hands later, I got a call from an old family friend Aaron. He was telling me that he had an extra ticket to the game. With this my concentration was shot. Sure, I had a ticket, but I only know one guy in my group and the seats aren't supposed to be that good. Now I had a chance to go to the game with an old friend. I pushed pre-flop with Q8 while I was on the phone with him, looking to bust but no one called. That was the last hand of the break, and I decided to give my chips to a busted player. For the first time in my life, I cut a tourney short. Sure I only had 900 chips and the blinds were about to be 75/150, but I was a double away from being a force.
No worries.

Kind of a shame to leave such a great game, but staying would have been worse. My mind was not in the game, and my play had gotten borderline embarrassing.

The game was awesome. We had to walk 20 minutes from my apartment to the stadium, but it wasn't bad. Besides Richmond McGee's 3 missed PATs, Texas looked awesome. The final score was 60-3, meaning Texas covered the 39.5-point spread.

I don't do sports gambling, but am on of 6 pick 'em participants for the Daily Texan. We had 5 games tp oick, and we picked straight and then against the spread. I did pretty well, but unfortunately I didn't pick Texas to cover.
I also totally missed the Pitt vs ND game.
I nailed the Colorado Colorado St game, picking the Buffs to win,, but not to cover the scant 3.5 point spread; they won by 3.
I picked Clemson to "upset" Texas A&M and they did, by one. I guess it was a push as far as the spread was concerned.
I picked Georgia to beat Boise St and cover the spread, and that's exactly what happened.
Not bad, a total of three wrong, both ND vs Pitt possibilites and the UT vs UL-Laf spread pick.

In other news, I got Matt Matros's book finally. We've been exchanging e-mails, so I was very excited to get his book. I'm still not sure 100% how it came about.
I ordered the book with FPPs on PS, so I was expecting it. And it came from PS. Here's the odd part.
It was signed, and there was a personal inscription from Mr. Matros--which was very cool. But I always figured PS had a bunch of the books in storage somewhere, they get an order and they grab the pook, package it and ship it.
I'd mentioned to Matt that I'd purchased his book, and he was able to get his hands on the very one they were sending me and sign it for me...
Apparently, the system doesn't work quite like I thought it did. And that'd pretty cool.
Once again PS comes up big, and even bigger kudos to Mr. Matros for the thoughtful guesture.

A book review will be forthcoming.