Played in a tourney at my friend RJ’s house again on Thursday, and coming off of a losing trip to Vegas and some mediochre performance over the past few weeks, I backed off a bit on my experimentation with aggression and played my time-tested style.

Early on I got a bad beat and my discipline really helped me dodge a bullet. I had and the flop was . I like my two pair, but decided to just put out a third-pot feeler bet; got two callers.

Next card was — I’d made my full house on the turn. I felt pretty confident that I had the best hand at that point, and not being worried about any straights or flushes (actually hoping somebody would hit a straight or flush) I checked. Got one quarter-pot bet and a fold and I smooth called.

Heads up now, and the river was and being first to act, I checked and he bet the same amount as the turn. I came over the top & tripled his raise. He called & re-raised and I only called. I thought about going all-in, but felt a little uneasy for some reason. Good instinct — he turned over ; a bigger boat. That knocked me down to about 1/3 stack, but rather than going on tilt, I just took a deep breath and stuck to my plan.

Wasn’t much later that I doubled up with trip queens and eventually became chip leader going into heads-up for the game. I’m first to say that my heads-up play isn’t all it could be, and that coupled with a beat-by-kicker situation for a huge pot (my got outkicked by his ) I only took second place.

And while I was hungry for first, I was very satisfied with second, particularly after that early clobbering.

Looks like another game tomorrow night, plus my monthly poker night is this Saturday, so I hope to continue that solid play over the next few days.

First things first: no, I didn’t place. I love tournaments, but this one was tough.

I’m visiting Las Vegas for four days on a work-related trip to NAB (National Association of Broadcasters), but had a little time for personal leisure on Saturday afternoon & Sunday morning, so I decided to play in a 9am Hold’Em tournament here in the poker room of the Excalibur hotel where I’m staying.

54 players, $35 buy-in with $25 going to the prize pool (not a bad house rake), but an absolutely brutal opening chip stack & blinds structure. Each player got $300 in tourney chips, and the blinds went up every 15 minutes. Get this: 5/10, 10/20, 25/50, 50/100, doubling every blind thereafter. Ouch. I’d rather see a few more hands before I have to go balls-to-the-wall, but that was the way the tourney was built.

I knew going in that I’d need to either get lucky and build my stack or push with some moderate hands to buy some pots or I’d be out early. A dozen or so hands in I pushed with and after some bullying from a loose player post-flop (with on the table), I ended up all-in. He showed and my kicker held up, so I doubled up to $600. Toward the end of the 25/50 level I hadn’t won another hand and was down around $525 and got my favorite hand: , and the flop brought a to leave me open-ended. I decided to be aggressive and push, so I bet $200 and got all but one player out. The turn was a brick and the flop was — I’d missed my open-end and had junk, so I went all-in turning my semi-bluff into a full-on bluff (which was only another $200). My error then was that I didn’t realize the player still in to my left was down to his last $150 and was pot-committed. He called in desperation with his and his lousy jacks took my pot, leaving me with only $150. If he’d had a bigger stack, with my aggression and two over-cards, I’m confident he would have folded.

What did I learn? Pay attention to your competitors’ stacks. Even a good player will call even if he’s convinced he’s beaten if he’s against a wall and pot-committed. Once I got down to heads-up with this other guy, if I’d been paying attention to his stack I would have checked it down and probably gotten little pressure from him with his middle pair.

A few hands later there was lots of action in the pot and I had and decided to give my paltry $150 the best chance of growing, so I went all-in and busted out #22.

All-and-all, and enjoyable hour of play, and a valuable lesson that will serve me well in the future.

I’m leaving tomorrow morning on a flight to Las Vegas on a work-related trip. It’s the National Association of Broadcasters annual convention I’ll be attending on behalf of the television station I work for.

It’s two good full days of work on the convention floor, meeting with vendors, learning all I can about new television products & technologies, and establishing/reinforcing relationships with representatives from companies I deal with in the course of my work.

But in the evenings, I’ll still be in Las Vegas, after all.

I’ve been invited to take part in the second annual Texas Hold’em tournament held by one of our vendors, DecisionMark. It’s a 100-player tournament, and all 100 seats are pre-paid ($100) by the host of the tournament. So the players really have nothing to lose.

I played in the tournament last year and finished 13th overall (the top 10 were paid out), and I’m looking forward to getting a second shot at it this year. I’ve got another year’s play & experience under my belt, have fine-tuned my play quite a bit, and am cautiously optimistic about my chances to make it to the final table this year.

The game is this coming Tuesday, April 25th at 8:30pm, so I’ll be sure to post the results after the last hand is played.