The Deep Stack Extravaganza tournaments at the Venetian are probably the best tournament structures in Vegas short of the WSOP events. The DSEIII will go on everyday through the month of June and they attract a large field. Today was the first event, a NLH Tournament with a $340 buy in that gets you $12,000 starting chips. Levels were 40 minutes and a structure that favors the better players givin’ the large amount of playing chips and the reasonably long blind levels. The field was 700 players and unfortunately I only made it through half of them busting out ~350th place. The prize pool was juicy, top 63 places were paid, first place was ~$60k while the entire final table’s (top 10) payout was over $2K.

I can’t complain with my performance during the 5 hours I lasted, I made very little mistakes, made a couple difficult calls and never got my money in bad. On top of being completely card dead for a couple hours I took an absolutely horrible beat for 1/2 my stack, then shortly after I was forced to gamble with a “not so great” starting hand and couldn’t catch a break.

The hand that crippled me went like this, Blinds were $100-$200 with a $25 ante, I was dealt A♠10♠ on the button with about $13K (average stack). Player in middle position raises pot to $600 I make the call since he’s been playing a lot of hands and I was pretty sure of two things, if I make a hand he will more than likely pay me off and two my hand is more than likely better then his. Now the action is on the small blind, who was steaming from the previous hand (he lost a big pot) and he decided to shove all in for ~$4,500 more. Player who raised initially folded and the action was on me, I could have easily gotten away from the hand but at best I put him on a medium size pocket pair giving me two suited overcards and a slight favorite to win then hand. I decided to call and showed my hand. The player then reveals his hand 10♦9♦ which is great because I have him absolutely dominated. Since the player was all in and there was to be no betting the other player who initially opened the pot tells me “I folded two 9s” which is great news for me because this gives my opponent only 1 out in the deck if he doesn’t end up making a straight or flush, of course. Flop is dealt: J♥3♥5♣, looks great no diamonds, no immediate straight possibilities so he’s down to 1 remaining 9 in the deck. The turn is another dud 6♦, my opponent stands up ready to leave when the river is dealt *snap* 9♠ the only card in the deck that he could win with. I was needless to say steaming after this hand but I was able to shake it off and get another hour or so of play in.

I was beginning to get bullied around based on my stack size so I knew I had to take a stand soon before I was blinded away and didn’t have enough chips to make anyone fold. I was able to push preflop a couple times picking up the blinds & antes and I built my stack back up to about $10k which was about 1/2 the average chip count ($20k). Player to my right in middle position that I’ve been playing with all afternoon opened the pot with a small raise to $2k, blinds were now $400-$800 and I had A♥J♥. I knew the player was a pretty solid player and based on the small raise I figured I had just enough left to shove all in and push him out of the pot, plus I wasn’t sure if I was going to see a better hand then the AJ suited within the next couple orbits, I had only 10 big blinds left, so I figured that was the right time to gamble if he did have a hand and called my all in. After I shoved action made it around to the big blind who unfortunately for me picked up a hand A♠K♦ and moved all in over the top of me. The player to my right folds a A♣10♦as I suspected he would do. The board ends up 10♣10♠5♦K♠8♥ and I’m busted.

I was disappointed me and my horses didn’t end up cashing in this particular event but we will definitely try a couple more events over the next month and hopefully can go the distance. I really enjoy the structure of these tournaments, it truly is a great tournament to play in if you’re looking for a good Las Vegas Poker Tournament.