Tim McKernan posted on June 15, 2009 00:00
Thank you to Harrah's and all of the great Americans from insideSTL.com who came out to yesterday's insideSTL.com Poker Tournament in the Harrah's Poker Room.
We filled all 100 spots, and the tournament went off without any issues. Of course, that was just the start of the tournament...and I wouldn't know much about what happened later, because I got fucking knocked out fourth.
That's right...I finished 96th out of 100.
Im-fucking-pressive.
I would like to blame my early exit on a bad beat or the fact that Harrah's Poker Room manager Brian Grote put a bounty on my head by giving away a World Series of Poker 
chip set...but the reality is I was just flat-out outplayed by Chris Scheer.
After establishing a nice chipstack early on, I was sitting pretty with around 6,000 in chips (we started with 5,000) when the blinds went to 50/100.
I was in late position. Had about 6k. After two players called, a gentlemen raised it up 3x to 300. I had JJ. I reraised to 900.
Everyone folded. The initial raiser just called.
Flop comes of Tc4s4c.
He checks.
I bet about half the pot.
He calls.
I'm immediately suspicious.
I put him on the possibility of a full house with tens or chasing the flush with AcKc or AcQc...or he's got AT or something like 99 or 88.
Turn comes off a blank.
I've only got like 3,500 or something left.
He checks.
I bet 1,600.
He calls again.
Now I'm completely confused and figure he just sucks and is chasing the flush...although if he had AcKc or AcQc my bet was small enough to give him justification mathematically to call.
River comes off as a Q of diamonds.
He checks again.
I check...completely fucking confused.
He turns over KK.
God bless.
Just got to tip my cap.
Rarely at this point am I as confused in a hand as I was in that one.
It was the preflop call of my reraise as opposed to another reraise that screwed me up...and when you combine that with the check-call on the flop and the check-call on the turn...I was lost.
I was lucky to not shove all-in.
But, I only had 1,600 or something left...and when I moved al- in with KQ about tenminutes later with a board of K73...a gentleman had K7...so that was that.
Here's how the tournament played out with the Top 9 and the cash prizes they won:
9th: Dennis Miller $132
8th: Jack Hillig $176
7th: Jeremy Roeder $220
6th: Christopher Scheer $264
5th: Eric Rudy $308
4th: Steven Heeley $352
3rd: Bradley Chilton $440
2nd: Brian Huffman $528
1st: Justin Guerra $1232
Congratulations to Justin Guerra and all the money winners.
Thank you to everyone who came out, and thank you to Harrah's for running an outstanding tournament. We look forward to doing it again in the near future.
Log-in and post your comments, or you can email me at tmckernan@insidestl.com.