Card-dead at the Donkfest

On Sunday, October 18, 2009, I decided to participate in the Bicycle Casino's Player Appreciation Freeroll event.
During the Bike's Big Poker Oktober tournament series, nearly 4,000 poker players participated in one or more events during its 3-week run. All players that participated in a Big Poker October tournament qualified for the Player Appreciation Event and a quarter of them returned to play the $10K freeroll. That's a lot of people folks!
I didn't really catch any hands but the gentleman seated to my left kept encouraging the table to fold to my all-in's because he said I was "the life of the table." Well, it was a freeroll - - so why not have fun? Cards or no cards, I made the most of it and really enjoyed socializing with all my poker buddies.
The event got off to a late start, but it didn't matter. I busted out after just a few hours and was home in bed by 11:30 p.m. that night. While one might want to ask, why would anyone play for hours and hours and hours for a small share of $10K? I'll tell you why, because I'm a poker player and if I can win so much as $75 for zero investment... I'm there!
Right before the event, Mike Jones and I joked that we could tell who the real poker degenerates were because we were all there, in the Event Center of the Bicycle Casino getting ready to play a field of 1000 people for $2K first place money. Hey - to a Rounder, zero investment for anything over $50 is decent return on investment (it's something for nothing - right?); and when one spends so much of one's time playing tournaments worrying about risking "tournament life," switching up ones play and open shoving with 7/4 suited feels gooooooooood when one has NOTHING to loose! Mike, by the way, proceeded to prove that he is Prince of the Donkeys by placing 2nd in the Freeroll. Woot! Woot!
But I was my usual card-dead self, and with all of the pushing, shoving and cracking going on... it was difficult to get into most of the pots with the junk I was catching. I got a lot of love from my Tweeps, but there is only so much one can do during a donkfest like that!
The fact of the matter is, in a shovefest, it really does come down to: "are you feeling lucky, punk?"
[Special thanks to Steve Hall of PokerGossip.com for the picture. Steve writes a fun satiric poker blog, among other writings, that I love to read.]

Posted in: Bicycle Casino,Donkfest,Los Angeles,Poker,Tournament