The end of October brought me back to Turning Stone for their Fall tournament series which
started with $100 affairs and culminated in a 1k around a week later. I planned on staying for
the week and grinding hard, I believe I took 5k cash with me for the purpose of playing the 1k main event and 5/10nl cash. On Friday morning me and 120 or so others registered for the 1k. And from
that point on I was just totally dialed in. Really feeling it. One of those times where focus
is effortless and there's that slow stream of adrenaline pushing you to make decisions with
terrible clarity. I doubled through in the first hour perhaps 300bb deep by opening 22 utg
getting 3bet by a BB greybeard to like 14x flopping 2 4 9r and getting it in within 30 seconds
after the flop action started. The field was just populated with these kind of oblivious
droolers. Day one was maybe 14 hours and I got good table draws with a big stack and remained
near the chip lead all day. I was opening and 3betting from everywhere amassing a pile of ante
chips in front of me. At one point I had nearly all the antes at my table and I'd have to
distribute them to all of the nits at the table before each deal where I would just take them
again, slowly converting them from green to red to yellow to blue. It was a very tactile way to
print money. At the end of the day there were perhaps 30 people left and 22 I think were to
make the money. I was the chip leader, a bit abashed but unable to not grin, 19, and almost
universally hated/envied.

Digression: Turning Stone is actually in some ways a very interesting place to play poker in that it serves as a reasonably accurate barometer for the poker world. It's extremely isolated and 18+ and doesn't serve alcohol, so it attracts a clientele in the poker room most of whom drove a few hours to be there and are almost certainly there for the sole purpose of sustained poker playing. In 2007 it was thrumming with activity and filling 40 tables every Friday to Sunday running up to a 10/20 uncapped buy in weekly with 25/50 making an appearance during tournament weekends and special bursts of activity. Today, it's desolate even on weekends filling perhaps 15 tables tops up to 5/5nl and the staff have a grey weary look about them knowing that their future as a room will be decided in the economic climate of the next couple of years. But to bear out my opening statement Turning Stone is the perfect place to gauge the changing demographics in poker we are all so familiar with. The erumpent poker demographic in 07' was the upper middle class internet college kid, hello
readers. The blue collar locals, sallow faced retirees, rich sunburned golf dabblers, bellowing
mafiosoesque new yorkers and tight lipped ethnic conventioneers were all in a state of awe at
the amounts of money and competitive verve we were throwing around. I get the feeling that they
thought we were winning by some bizarre emotional alchemy which is partially the case; not
needing the money + youthful exuberance freed us up to 3bet J4hh at the slightest provocation
etc etc. This was a slap in the face of the multigenerationally passed down "tight is right",
but we kept multiplying so on the one hand our non-mathematically inclined seniors
fully expected we were all about five minutes from slinking home to mom broke but on the other were deeply anxious that they were going to be robbed blind by smooth-faced philosophy majors with no respect or social tact.

The next morning we made a new seat draw and I drew great again with some rich guys mistress
with spectacular tits to my left, a couple of young kids more scared than I was, some black-clad
new york types and some 40+ lower middle classers on up to retirees. I started out stealing in
the same vein as the day before, but within a half hour the tournament halted. There were
roughly 25 of us left with 18 getting paid (recall: 130 entrants= over 10% ITM) and the top
three broke down 'round 42k, 26k, 15k or something but certainly nothing even close to what
is deemed by tournament poker standards as top heavy, without doing a ton of number crunching I
think it might have even been a bit lower on top but I don't have a precise memory for non-
essential non emotionally compelling details like that.

The tournament director stopped play and directed all eyes to a 50ish year old, but looked older because of years of Substances type guy who addressed the assembled saying that "we all" had decided that the remaining 25 "deserved" to be paid at least the initial 1k back and that the requisite 7kish would be subtracted from the top 3 spots in a 3.5k, 2.5k, 1k type of ratio, and that this would be fair to everyone who "made it this far". He continued by saying that the only obstacle remaining in "our" path was that the proletarian decision to alter the tournament structure had to be made unanimously and if anyone not vigorously nodding assent could just raise their hands right now. As emotional momentum/chip leader at this point I'm left blinking stunned that this idea has gained traction and that we are being subjected to this idiocy but since I was at the socially awkward nexus of the terrified seniors' discomfort, what with my age, stack, and ludicrously aggressive playing style
I felt more secure letting one of the other big stacks act in preserving their clear best
interest by dissenting.

Five beats and no one does. Ten. Fifteen. Crackling eye contact between all 25 players,
tournament director passive. I become increasingly nervous, start making pleading eye contact
with other young players possessing big stacks, trying to raise some popular
support. I'm met with downcast eyes. Twenty-five seconds have elapsed in silence and the
Speaker begins to clear his throat and engage the tournament director I assume to ratify said
plan into Law. I stand up, almost visibly shaking and begin a short little speech "C'mon guys
(short glances at other big stacks, longer looks on clearly-mathematically-savvy young players)
this is ridiculous. I'm not going to abstain in a general consent type situation where voting
is just clearly and unequivocally in my best interest given my stack. This is a poker game,
guys (meaning we all set out here under a clearly defined set of rules with the express intent
to take each others chips). I vote no." I likely stuttered and mumbled a less coherent speech
in the moment though, repeat, 19 and nervous.

This caused universal uproar and even after my statement no other big stack jumps to
defend my argument though some have squirmy rodent-like facial expressions. Jowls quivering, blood pressures rising and multiple fists actually raised into the air mob style, the entire old nit
shortstack contingent erupts in righteous anger at me. I appeal wide-eyed at the tournament
director to step in as like a school principal type of authority figure and quiet the bullies,
but instead he exaggeratedly stares at his watch, back at me, and calls a 10 minute break for
me to make up my mind. During my special personal break a thick-necked primary color polo wearing guy ran up to me as I was asking for HELP! from my friends via cell and said "Hey man, us guys, we all really need this. Just go along with everyone and there's no problem." Spittle hitting my cheeks. At this point I just about lost it and was about to give into peer pressure when my friend Jerry who has noooo lack of opinions or self confidence came up and gave an impassioned
monologue/peptalk advising me to stay strong, feel outraged and tell them all to go fuck their
mothers. I did the first two and the tournament continued.

I had a brief scare following the break where the entire table began to collude against me. I figured that I could turn this to my advantage by flopping pairs and then checking and calling and looking mousy when they made big angry bets, though this was going to almost certainly lead to a high variance win/busto type of scenario as pairs are notoriously easy to beat with five streets in NL hold'em. I lost around a third of a stack being out maneuvered by one of the Mob who 3bet me with junk in position. I also had junk, I mean nothing even remotely playable, a 37s type of thing. I stared him down preflop, but he had this puffed out angry inscrutable look on which I either interpreted as three things.
1)I have AK/AA/QQ and I'm finally going to throttle this fucker.
2)I have A9 suited in my lucky diamonds, it's time to take a stand! (least likely because of bubble-fear though)
3)I have air, but I want to take a dump on his arrogant, scrawny, punk-chest. If three, which I thought most likely because of his alpha-male posture (weak=strong, yawn) then there was the added variable of would he fold to a smallish 4bet or would he alpha shove the whole stack in, imitating option two. This would of course be a complete table-image disaster after the inevitable Showing. Basically a table side castration after my previous behavior.

Unable to reach a decision I called, planning to note any involuntary facial change or equity improvement of my rags going on into the flop. The flop came down dry and unappetizingly. I checked kind of quickly in hopes of information gathering and he retained the same demeanor which maybe even accentuated a bit and made a bet of 3/7th his remaining stack or so. I felt even more strongly that he was weak for previous reasons but I felt so uncomfortable out of position staring over my left shoulder at this angry old-dude and had bordering on 0% equity that I mucked. He showed the bluff, which made me want to rearrange his smug smile with dentist's tools, but also made me vow to trust my reads implicitly next time, or godfucking dammit at least fold preflop in this situation if I'm going to be indecisive postflop.

Down to an average stack but still the table focal point I raised A7 on the button and got called pretty quickly by Great Tits in the big. GT had been playing a tight passive game and seemed to be not enjoying the frenzied energy in the room, having a bit of a shy or bored air to her today. The flop came down J 7 2 r, she checked and I made a continuation bet. She checkraised to around 40% of her stack and began to give out strange girly body language all over the place. Huge amounts of nervousness, but it was hard to tell if this was because of the high-tension nature of the moment or if it was because she was on a bluff. And it's so hard to put a girl on a bluff in a situation like this, specially one who up till this point had been more or less a spectator. I stared her down for a good forty seconds just mulling over what she was thinking and forgetting about my hand for the moment asking myself “does she want to go broke on the bubble?” The more I looked the more just flat-out terrified she seemed to me so eventually I stuck it in and after some inaudible mumbling she folded. She claimed to have folded a jack, which I consider to be an amateurish lie which only strengthens my maybe justified feelings of poker male chauvinism.

Things tightened up to one table where I was I think second or third in chips. I continued to steal nearly constantly and chipped up. I won one other monster pot against a big stack flopping a combo draw and filling it on the river where my young tourney-pro opponent paid off my pot bet after tons of thought, which he probably shouldn't have range-wise. I went into three handed as a slight chip leader against a sit n go pro and another MTTer, both young. They wanted to chop and I eventually agreed as I was getting over second place money and the deal was sound by ICM standards. In hindsight I don't think I should have chopped, but I was stressed out and the proffered 31k (36k?) in 5k Clementine circumference like chips was way too much to resist. I did my required handshakes and feeling completely elated bounced out of the tournament room to degen it up, chips chattering bewitchingly up to me from my cargo shorts' pockets. Sleep or celebration was quite clearly not an option at this high octane moment. It was 8pm and 10/20nl cash was just revving up; I'd never felt so ready in my life.