It's not gambling, it's poker

June 05, 2006 - I tell everybody I'm a poker player, not a gambler. Most shake their heads. Perhaps the poker players understand. So when my bosses handed me $50 to gamble as I pleased, I thought two things. One, it's freeroll time, baby. And two, they don't know poker isn't gambling.

I took my greenbacks to Newcastle Gaming Center where, for my money -- OK, for The Transcript's money -- resides the best poker tournament in town, er, Newcastle. They play it Friday: $30 buy-in no limit Texas hold 'em with $20 rebuys and add-ons.

Here's the way it works. You hand over $30 for a seat at a table and 1,500 in tournament chips. At any time during the first hour your chip stack falls below 1,000, you may buy another 1,000 for an additional $20, and you may do this over and over and over again during the first hour. Also, during the break following the first hour, another $20 will buy you an additional 1,000 in chips.

The rebuys and add-ons manage to do two things. One, if you bust out, you can jump back in. Two, where the prize pool began at $870 (29 players at $30 a pop), it likely ended around twice that after all the rebuys and add-ons were collected.

As for the reason I find the set-up so attractive, even while the rebuys and add-ons allow bad players multiple chances to get lucky, it also gets more and more dead money into the prize pool; dead money being the cash belonging to players who rebuy and rebuy and rebuy yet have no chance of winning outside of divine intervention.

There's a term for such people. Fish.

I lasted 55 minutes. I made one play I'd like back, another in which there might have been a better way, and otherwise received horrible cards.

How bad were the cards? I raised twice before the flop and I think I saw between 50 and 60 hands.

Early in the tournament, I limped into the pot, matching the big blind of 25 in early position with pocket deuces. The pot was not raised, thankfully, and the flop came out 2 4 10, giving me trip deuces. Generally, I hate slow-playing, yet I checked my trips not wanting to scare everybody out with an early-position raise. But nobody raised. Darn. The turn was an ace, a card I liked because certainly another one of the four other limpers had an ace. So I bet 100 into a 125 pot, hoping to get a call or two. Everybody folded. My monster hand won a dinky pot.

Maybe I could have mini-raised after the flop?

A little later, I raised in the small blind with KQ of spades. Those aren't fantastic cards for a raise in the blinds, but there were already four limpers, and I wanted them to pay if I made a hand. The flop came AQ4. I bet 200 and the big blind, who called my pre-flop raise, made it 400 to go. I knew I was beat, but another player called the 400, building the pot. I still thought I had five cards I could win with: the remaining queens and kings. So I called another 200 looking for a big score.

The turn was a second spade on the board, giving me eight more outs. The only problem was the big blind put me all in if I wanted to chase.

So here's the deal. I thought I had 12 outs (two queens, three kings and the remaining spades). So I was going to have to pay about 700 for a slightly better than one-in-four shot at around a 2100 pot. The straight odds did not justify my call, yet winning the pot would have made me chip leader, and everybody thinks they can play a big stack Besides, I still had $20 for a rebuy.

We turned our cards over and three of my outs went poof. The big blind, who merely called my pre-flop raise, turned over AK. Great. Needing a spade or a queen, I got neither.

So I rebought for $20 and went about 25 hands without seeing the turn, before finally going all-in against one opponent with pocket sixes. He turned over AK and the flop was 9JQ. The turn was a 10 and I was gone.

So, 55 minutes, $50 invested, no return.

That's poker.

Hey guys, give me one more chance.

I know I can win.