Foxwoods 2003

As my rental car rounded a curve on rural Connecticut Route 2, a great fairy-tale castle loomed majestically over the distant horizon of trees. I was on a tight schedule, managing to sandwich only one day of tournament poker here at Foxwoods between two major bridge tournaments, for which my services had been retained months earlier.

Showing up to play for merely one day at Foxwoods might seem questionable, since it required flying up and back, renting a car, and getting a hotel room (although the Foxwoods poker rates are very reasonable). But, I knew I would get to play at least 12 hours in Foxwoods' lush $5-$10 (with a kill) Omaha eight-or-better game, and that would hopefully net me about $500. And, I had a reasonable shot of doing well in the tournament. And, I would get to see firsthand who was winning the big million-dollar World Poker Tour event.

I was going to play in the annual Seniors Championship (for players over 50), a one-day limit hold'em event ($340 buy-in) that was held during the 2003 Foxwoods World Poker Finals. In 2002, the event attracted about 160 players. This year, there were more than 300.

Starting time for the tournament was 10 a.m. on a Saturday. It took me a while to wake up, since I had been up playing Omaha eight-or-better until after 3 a.m. It also took me a while to get going in the tournament. For the first three hours, I hardly played any hands, and fluctuated up and down between $500 and $1,500 in chips (everyone started with $1,000).

Then came a technique hand in which I picked up the A Q under the gun. There were a couple of rather aggressive hotshots three and four seats downstream from me who had been doing a lot of raising. I thought it was absolutely clear to smooth-call. If someone raised, I would reraise and then lead bet any flop.

But this time, unfortunately, only one of them called. The small blind passed, and only three of us saw the Q-7-2 flop. The big blind checked to me. I liked the flop so much that I thought it was best to check it to the action guy on my left. Sure enough, he bet.

The big blind folded. I did not check-raise him here; I just called. Since I had not raised before the flop, he had no idea that I had a big hand. The turn card was a 4 – not likely to help his hand. And there were no flush possibilities.

I checked, he made the double-size bet, and I raised. This is the best time to check-raise, since he either puts up another double-size bet or throws his hand away – which would be fine with me, because then I wouldn't have to worry about being outdrawn.

He muttered under his breath and called. This is normally a tell that he doesn't like my check-raise, but the fact that he called probably meant he had something. If he had been pushing with just high cards, he might have bailed out here.

The last card was another deuce, pairing the board. He really shouldn't have a deuce, so if he did, I was paying off. I bet, and he called, with K-7 suited.

I am convinced that when you have known aggressive players on your left and you have a relatively tight image, it is usually preferable to allow them to do the betting for you, especially when the rest of the table seems to be reacting to them. And, of course, you are also nicely positioned for a check-raise.

During the next couple of hours, I steadily built up my stack – with no disasters. Then, I had a few moments of glory when they broke to collect and race-off the $100 chips. At that point, with only 30 players remaining, I was the chip leader with some $55,000.

But then, the rains came, and for the next hour and a half I couldn't win a pot, even though I had a number of premium starting hands. I did manage to make it down to two tables. I probably should be happy to have won $923 (for 10th-18th places), but as always, it is hard not to think of what might have been (first place paid more than $31,000).

But, I thoroughly enjoyed my all-too-brief stop at Foxwoods, as always. Did you know that Foxwoods is the biggest casino in the world?