tropicana 1-2 nl and 100+25 tourney long!!

[cueball194 0]

I made my first trip to AC to play poker this weekend. This was also my first experience playing poker live...Wow, what a rush. If you have yet to play live (not counting home games) get out there and do it.I arrived at the Trop about 6:30 am saturday. Is it just me or have they changed the parking garage around since last year? I have parked at the trop plenty of times before and for some reason nothing seemed familiar. From the parking garage, you must enter the casino through an area called the Quarter. Very nice area with many restaurants and small shops. Nothing was open at this time of the morning, but the Spy supply store looked very cool. On to the poker...The poker room was very easy to find. You have to sign up for a poker room ID card before you play. They snap your picture and in a few seconds you have an ID card that reminds you of a BJ's or Sam's club card.I was there to play a 100+25 NL tourney that started at 9:15am. Since I had time to kill, I decided to buy into a 1-2 nl ring game. I have never played anything but slots in a casino before and to be honest I was a little intimidated by the poker room. Where do I buy chips? How do I get a table? Thankfully, I was there with a fellow FCPer that helped and the poker room manager was also quite helpful. I bought $100.00 in $1.00 chips and made my way to the tables.I took my seat and planned on just folding for a few minutes until I got a better feel for the action at the table and to let me nerves settle down, man was I shaking. On the third hand I am dealt, I get KQ suited one off the button. Now, like I said, my plan was to fold, fold, fold, but the poker player came out in me and I announce "RAISE". I go for my chips and damn near knock them all over due to my "shakes". A guys from across the table even made the comments that I needed to get that $hit under control...LOL. The flop brings me a K and a couple rags. The table checks and I get to see the turn. BAM! a king hits the felt. Now, you think I was shaking before...Long story short I bet and suprisingly enough, everybody folds. I guess my display of poker parkinson's scared everybody off. Thankfully, the shakes go away after a few hands.I ended up busting out with pocket 2's when I made my set on a flop of K42 and go all in to be called by pocket 4's. You can read the details on that hand in the strategy forum. On to the tourney...The touney was 100+25 with an average 1st place payout of $4500. I am pretty sure that this weekend paid very close to that, maybe $4200 or so. I have played hundreds of online tournaments and found the differences to be night and day. 4000 in starting chips with blinds starting at 50-100 and increased every 30mins going something like this...50-10075-150300-600 25 ante500-1000 50 ante2000-4000 100 ante3000-6000 500 anteWhen you only see 25-30 hands per hour, you have to make a move and quick or you wont last. It took me a level or two to figure that out. Really, it feels like playing a turbo SnG the way the blinds move so fast. So, I stole a pot here and there, and built a tiny chip stack, enough that I didn't have to make a move until the later rounds, but not enough to play speculative hands or put a move on anybody. I found myself on the bubble with enough chips for 4 rounds at the 2000-4000 level. The deck ran cold on me and I got blinded out finishing 16th out of 150 or so. Not bad, and good enough to cash for $141.00 a net gain of $16.00 WOO HOO.All in all it was a great experience, I was disappointed in the tournament structure, I guess I need to get used to not seeing as many hands as you do online. Most of the dealers were very good. One dealer in particular was horrible. He mis-dealt 3 times, each time flipping a card when dealing the hole cards. I thought for sure that they would re-shuffle and deal, but no. They show the card to everyone and continue with the hand. I was once dealt pocket 10's when he burnt a 10. WTF??? I ended up folding the 10's, I just lost 50% of my chance at catching a set. He also mis-read a hand and passed the pot to the losing player. A few keen eyes at the table saw that the river card completed a straight to beat a set that the dealer declared the winner. To his credit, the dealer acknowledged his mistake and awarded the pot to the true winner. One of the best lessons I learned was don't hide your big chips! I know better, but others didn't. I went all in pre-flop with KJ suited from MP trying to steal the blinds, when the button pulls a small stack of $1000.00 chips from behind his 2 rather tall stacks of $100.00 chips. He had me covered and I was horrified. I did not want a caller and it looked like he might want to call me when the dealer warned him and called his hand dead and to muck. Wow! Was that the correct move for the dealer? He really read this guy the riot act for hiding his chips. I guess that is about it. I know this has been long, but I hope you enjoyed it. The bottom line is, the experience is great and you should all try it as soon as you can.