State Champions

First thing is disclaimer. This is not blog knocking the accomplishments of any Free Poker network player. I am happy for anyone that qualifies for any of their tournaments and I wish them the best of luck in their events and will be there following them if they post.

Recently, the FPN held their state tournaments including MN. When they get down to the number of players that they advance to nationals they proclaim them State Champions and give them a trophy. At the current MN event there were 254 players that were eligible to play. Now I am assuming that not all players were able to attend. They were giving away 20 National Tournament entries. These 20 are the new State Champions. That is approximately 10 percent of the field which is very close to the payout schedule of most tournaments. So, if you are using the FPN thought process at last years WSOP Main Event they had 666 Main Event champions. The last HPT event had 27 champions. Austin Monson is a MSPT champion and I am a champion of many poker events. The funny thing is I have never won an event, but I have cashed or "qualified" in many poker tournaments. So, why not call it what it is. You are only a State Champion if you are the last man, women or team standing. This concept makes the Vikings Super Bowl champs or the Wild Stanley Cup champs. The top 20 are National Qualifiers. then play down to an actual State Champion. I know that the FPN has done it before as Kari Davis from Willmar was a true State Champion a few events ago. I know that the whole discussion is kind of trivial but it bugs me to call someone a champion when they really are not.

Easter Casino Trip

Once again it's been a while. It seems my poker playing days are getting farther and farther apart. Last weekend for Easter I went to Milacs to use my free room and buffet coupons from the CMPPA charity event. I remember why I don't go there very often. I really like the people that run the poker room  and most of the dealers, but it's just difficult to go there and play. Here an insight to my weekend. I arrive at Casino a little later then I had planned and My Daughter and Son in-law had already checked in. Happened to meet Kenny in parking lot so we walked in together. Went to get on elevator and guard stopped and asked for our room key. Kenny took his out and shows him and then he asked for mine and my wife's. I said that we had just gotten there and that Kenny had checked us in and had our room keys up in the room. He wasn't going to let us in. Here we are with suitcase in hand and he wouldn't let us up to our room. Finally he says I will let it go this time and off to room we go. I play the $30 buy-in tournament in the afternoon. 8 full tables. I get to my seat and look at my table and realize I am the youngest player at the table, Great! I win a couple of early hands and things are looking ok, but blinds are 15 minutes and it painfully obvious that this going to an all in fest quickly. I survive to 1st break and through rebuy period and have about 5000 in chips. Not very good but at least I didn't rebuy. Early in next blind level I raise in mid position with KQ. I get several callers. Flop is KKJ. I bet about a little more then half my stack expecting everyone to fold. I get reraised by an all in for about half of what I have left. I call and he turns over KJ. A few hands later I am button with one caller ahead of me, so I push in with 88 and get reraised by big blind with AA. So ends my tournament. Later I sat down at a 3-6 kill table and it was pure hell as always at Milacs. No one ever folds. After an hour and $35 down I surrender and go to blackjack tables. I did make a little back later on a slot but not the best gambling weekend. But, it's not over yet. Milacs is a dry casino so if you want a beer you have to sneak it in. Funny, that they have a fridge in each room! We had a few beers in the room and watch NCAA games and played some cribbage, probably the highlight of the weekend. Everyone else gambles late but I decide to go to bed early, so I'm up early and everyone else is sleeping. I decide to go to pool and hit the hot tub. Get me suit on, grab a soda and head to pool only to get stopped by another guard because I can't have a drink in the pool area. I look at him and say "you really going to make me go back to room to get rid of soda". Yes, he made me go back to room. I'm a little irritated by now. Go back to room and go back to pool only to find out heater was turned off in hot tub and it's going to take 3 hours to heat up. Back to room! Later we check out and go to buffet. We have 3 free ones, so it's only going to cost us $18. Not bad for 4 people. I seriously wanted to ask for my money back. Food was poor. We talked to manager because we had taken some peal and eat shrimp and you could smell that it was bad. He didn't say much and they never even removed the bad seafood. It will defiantly be my last visit to Milacs. Hinkley is much better and only a 10 minute farther drive. My only question is why can't MN have a nice Casino? I have been to many casinos in many states and ours are some of the worse run ones and what happened to customer service and MN nice. I that also doesn't apply to the local Indian tribes. It's time for state run competition!

Bad Beat on Cancer Charity Event

Last months CMPPA Bad Beat on Cancer was another successful event for the CMPPA to kick off it's 2013 year. Once again the local bar poker community surprised me by having 52 players show up for the event and donate over $1100 to the American Cancer Society. Thank you to all that donated items for silent auction and or your time to make the event successful. It was a fun day raising money and remembering James Wang. It was nice to see Donita and have her and Ann speak about Jim and his love of bar poker and it's players. There were many great auction items with me taking home a package from Grand Casino Milacs and a pair of Timberwolves tickets. Got to see many people that I had not seen for many months and had a very fun poker table to start tournament. Now this is not your normal CMPPA event as extra chips were given to anyone that donated to American Cancer Society so most players started with 25,000 in chips. As most of you know that when you give bar players extra chips play tends to start fast and pots build fast. One of the players on my table almost doubled up on the first hand. I played a little less aggressive then I have been playing and ended the 1st break about 5000 down in chips. 4 of the first 5 players knocked out of tournament came off of my table so it created several big stacks early. As the blinds increased I picked up the aggression a little and was able to build a nice stack on my table with many big stacks. When we reached 20 players my table was broken down and the move was not kind to me. I went card dead for a long stretch but was able to limp my way to final table with a very small stack. On the final table my card dead hands continued until I was forced to push all in with a small pocket pair and managed a double up. This seemed to get me started and I soon moved up to a mid size stack. One of the players on the table had been drinking a lot and all of the sudden got very aggressive and even announced that he was getting tired of playing. He had moved all in two hands in a row and appeared to be giving up all his chips. The next hand he moves all in again and everyone folds to me. I am big blind and have A-3 off. It is most of my chips to call, but not all. I think for quite a while as I am sure that I am ahead of him and he is just continuing his pushing all in, so I make the call. He turns over pocket jacks. Wow, was i wrong! It doesn't look good for me. The flop comes out 3 suits that I have the ace of and the river brings another and I 4 flush him and take him out of the event. So much for my great poker instincts, well at least I got lucky and won the hand. It was the turning point for me. I went on to win the event by taking out the last 2 players on the same hand with 2-3 off by rivering a deuce. I finally won my first CMPPA event! It's was about time. Now it's too bad that I can't play in the event next month. Thanks again to all that came and played and donated. It was a day to remember.