I entered my very first official Texas No Hold ‘Em competition last weekend. I’ve been a fan of the game ever since I saw it televised. I’d heard about it prior and refused to believe a televised card game could be in any way entertaining. How wrong I was. My wife and I have become big fans of the game, watching a number of different competitions and buying our own chip set to practice at home.
We started playing with friends late last year, even spending New Year’s Eve playing the game. While we’ve had fun with it, I really wanted to see if I might have what it takes to become a real player. A couple of the guys in the band are also really into the game and had joined the Australian Poker League and started regularly participating in competitions at various venues. So after a busy day in the studio last Saturday, they suggested a couple of quiet ales and a few hands might be the best way to wind down. I jumped at the chance.
We went to a local Returned Services League Club where I first had to join the Australian Poker League (from here on in known as the APL). I filled out a membership form and was given my membership number and a card. I then registered for the night’s competition. It costs nothing to register and nothing to play. The APL charges the clubs to run the games and provide the tables, cards and chips. I was just happy to be in the competition. I looked around the club and it was obvious a lot of people were here to play. I could tell by the way they were checking each other out, you know, out of the corner of their eyes and not trying to give too much away about themselves. I felt amazingly relaxed and was really looking forward to playing.
Soon enough, the MC called us all into the card room, where we were given our seat allocations. I sat at Table 5, Seat 6 and waited for the 7 other players. Every player starts with the same amount of chips in his or her hand. As players are retired, those left are shuffled around the tables so that there is the maximum amount of players at each table. Of course, as the night wears on, more and more people are retired, leaving fewer tables.
Soon enough, it was ‘shuffle up and deal’ time. I decided my best strategy would be to just play my blinds and try and build my chip stack up. The first half dozen hands gave me absolutely nothing and then I got an Ace with a low kicker. I thought about throwing them in, but I was sitting on the big blind, so I raised and sat back to see what everyone else would do. As I’d been fairly quiet up until then, a few of the more cocky players called me and away we went. The flop, believe it or not, gave me two more Aces so I was sitting on three of a kind. I couldn’t believe my luck. The others in with me started betting big and I matched them. One guy went all in but he just didn’t sound confident at all. I figured with only the flop showing, and two of those cards being Aces, he either had the final Ace or was bluffing. I called his all in. I showed my Ace and low kicker and hoped he didn’t have a higher kicker than me. Turns out he didn’t even have an Ace. I had taken down my first big pot.
The night progressed rather well for me. I played pretty conservatively at first, really only calling on the blinds, as I said earlier. But once I built up my chip stack, I started looking for draws and using my bigger stack as an advantage. This worked well and I was able to keep playing for most of the night. I came 9th out of 150 odd entrants for the evening and put some points against my name on the leaderboard, which was way beyond my expectations. I am aware there might have been a bit of beginners luck involved, which I was readily admitting to my friends who’d all been knocked out fairly early. But I would like to think there was also a little bit of skill involved too. I can hardly wait for the next league competition to see which one it was.