CMPPA Omaha Split

Yesterday was the St Cloud Series of Poker Omaha Hi-low tournament. It is one of my favorite CMPPA events of the year. It played out to be a very interesting tournament. My first table was mostly a solid bunch with a couple of loose cannons, but in Omaha unless the loose canons are catching they don't last long and that is exactly how it played out. The stronger players quickly weeded out the weaker players and we ended up with a table full of good players all with big stacks. The other table meanwhile was very loose and aggressive with that table knocking out most of the players. It even managed to put a few good players on tilt! The biggest wild card at the games was Josh. It was Josh's 1st CMPPA event of the year. Josh is a weak holdem player at best and not very knowledgeable about Omaha, so I expected a quick exit by him. Was I surprised. He managed a final table and finished ahead of my on the money bubble in 5th place. Congrats Josh. The funny thing about his play was that he didn't fold once all day perflop. Think about that. Not one preflop fold. And on most hands he called the turn and the river. I have never seen a stack go up and down as fast as his did. It made for a very challenging final table. At final table I was about average in chip stack, but when you have a player that won't fold it forced me to change how I was playing. Any raises that you would make would be called by Josh and then several players behind would call either because of pot odds or because they just wanted a chance at Josh's chips. In a way the skill was taken away because everyone just started limping most hands and you ended up with 3-4 players to see flop. This changes everything in a split games. It becomes who catches the flops and unfortunately it wasn't me. It didn't take me long to limp off most of my stack. It isn't how I would ever expect to play on a final table. It's just how it played out. In retrospect I just should have tighten way up and played my blinds and waited for Josh to be eliminated, but it's hard to pass up on the chance at free chips. That's the great thing about poker no matter what your style everyone has their day when everything goes right and you do well.

One thing that was very apparent yesterday was how out of poker practice I am. Not that I played poorly, but at how bad I was at reading hands that were turned over. At least I kept the table amused with my miss calls. In fact, it was one of those days when I got it wrong most every time. Omaha split can be a challenge to read the highs and lows, but when you are the tournament director you are suppose to it right most of the time. Glad I could provide comic relief.

Now on to my pet peeve of the day. I got invited to a home game after the CMPPA event last night. It was a $10 buy-in with one rebuy. It sounded like fun as My wife had to work last night and it was my birthday and didn't feel like going home just yet. The game was to start at 8pm. The ordeal to get there is another story (sorry Don), but did manage to arrive right at 8pm. There were lots of cars there and it seemed like everything was a go. This game was to held in the garage and he had a nice setup. I walk in and sit down to wait for the game to start and home owner announces that others had run to get chairs, so it wasn't going to start for a while. Ok, so I will wait. By 8:30 people are still coming and leaving to go eat or get beverages. I have had enough so I leave. I appreciate the invite to the home game, but please when you tell me to be there at 8pm don't start at 9pm. In this day of busy lives there is a lot I could have done in that hour and then arrived at 9pm. Also you are running a rebuy tournament, there were plenty of players there at 8pm to start and the others could have joined as they arrived. This is a big reason that I rarely play in home games or run them for that matter. I am a person if you tell me to be there at a certain time that's when I will be there.

Congratulation to Dustin on another CMPPA win in impressive style winning with quad queens on the last hand. Someday maybe I will win one!