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Poker legend TJ Cloutier shares tales from the poker trail.
Barbara Enright and her man, Max Shapiro, and I were talking "phone poker," and she recommended playing a no-limit hold'em tournament at the Coushatta Casino in Kinder, Louisiana. "It's the greatest little tournament in the world," she said, "because it's a $1,000 buy-in and you get $20,000 in chips to start with and the levels last for an hour and a half." Sounded real good to me, and since Joy and I were planning a trip to Houston anyway, so why not play it?
We drove from our home in Dallas to Houston to watch my 12-year-old grandson C.J. play a football game for his middle-school team. Our daughter Holly's firm was throwing a golf tournament at Coushatta during the same time as the poker tournament, so after C.J.'s team won the game, we just followed her car for the three-hour trip to Coushatta. We got there around midnight, I signed up for the event, and then hit the hay to get some rest before the 10:00 a.m. start time. (That's another thing I liked about it: I'm a morning person, so the earlier the start time the better for me.)
We played six levels on Day One, so we'd be done around 9:00 that night, counting all the 10-breaks and the hour-long lunch break. By seven minutes before we stopped for the evening, I had somehow built my chips up to $57,000 with some situational play here and there. I was feeling good. However, if you've been following these blogs, you know I've been in a poker funk for a long time, though I stay optimistic 24/7.
That said, let's talk about those seven minutes. This Italian Guy, a man I'd played with before, brought it in for $6,000 out of the $16,000 he had left in front of him. Looking down at A-K, I knew that if I played the hand, I wanted to see five cards with it, so I moved him in, making it $17,000 to go. The Little Blind, who had been playing every hand, thought for about six hours it seemed, and finally flat-called the raise. The flop came 10-9-3. The Little Blind bet about $25,000, the Italian Guy folded, and I said, "Well, you go ahead and take it with your two queens," and folded my cards. Sure enough, he turned over Q-Q and took the pot. I figured it had to be either queens or jacks, couldn't be anything else judging from the way he played the hand. I closed out my day's play with $41,500.
We started Day Two with $100 antes and $600/$1200 blinds. I actually had plenty of chips to play that level, but to make a long story short, I never held a damn thing. Anted down to about $30,000, stole a pot, nothing much, and had about $36,000 when I looked down at Q-Q, the hand that had beat me the night before. This Guy brought it in for a raise in front of me. He had about the same amount of chips I had. I was ready to play a pot, so I raised him to $15,000. He studied forever. I figured he had A-K, since he wouldn't have hesitated if he'd had aces or kings. He moved in. I called. He showed down an A-K, just as I'd thought. He didn't catch just an ace, he caught both an ace and a king. So I didn't win either side of the A-K races, and that ended my tournament in Coushatta. Went up to the room to watch some Sunday afternoon football, and get my mind off poker.
Took 12 hours to drive home the next day-could've made it in seven, but we took every little side road in Texas. Joy loves sightseeing. "So who wears the pants in your family?" Max and Barbara asked when I told them about it. "I let her wear 'em until I want to wear 'em," I answered. Till next time, this is T.J. signing off from Texas to the world.
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