6 Hands From Yesterday’s Bay 101 $1000 Last Saturday Poker Tournament

I drove from Davis to Bay 101 in San Jose early yesterday morning to play in their $1000 Last Saturday tournament. It’s a great one day tournament: players start with 40,000 chips and levels are 30 minutes long. Because of the buy in and structure it attracts players from all over Northern California. For instance, I chatted with Brett Murray who lives in Santa Rosa on the first break. Yesterday got 178 entries. In the end, 5 of us chopped it with Rian Valenti (pictured) scooping the biggest payout. In this blog, I’m going to review six hands that played a big role in my run as well as the tournament overall.

The first hand came with about 60 players left. I had just been moved to a new table with about 17 or 18 big blinds i.e. I was short stacked. UTG made a standard raise and I decided to call with J10hh. It folded around to Paul Richardson in the big blind who was even shorter than me and also elected to call. Richardson is one of the best players in the Bay Area and recently final tabled WPT Rolling Thunder.

The flop came out 944hhx – a great flop for me. That’s when all hell broke loose. Richardson went All-In and so did UTG who had us both covered by a lot. Now it was on me and I didn’t know what to do. When I initially saw the flop I thought that I’d be going with this hand whatever the action was. But that was a lot of action in front of me!

As I analyzed the hand, I thought Richardson had a 9 and UTG an over pair. Therefore my flush draw was still good but not my J or 10. Plus the board was paired. Ultimately I decided to fold even though I only had about 15 bb left. Richardson turned over K7hh and UTG A3hh. They both had bigger heart draws! I had dodged a major bullet. A heart came on the river anyways and Richardson was eliminated. This hand was obviously important for me because my fold preserved my tournament life. It also eliminated one of the best players in the field in Richardson.

The next big hand for me came on the bubble when I woke up with AJcc with 117,000 chips at 5000/10000/10000. In other words, I had less than 12 big blinds. I open and shoved and a Bay 101 regular named Jeff called me with QQ. I was going to need an Ace – and I got one! Bay Area poker legend Pat Lyons caught the hand on camera and posted it to his YouTube channel. I apologize to Jeff – who is a great guy and always a class act – for the celebration but it was a big hand for me. (Jeff did go on to make the final table where, once again, his queens got cracked by KQ in a three-way All In when a King came on the turn and river (the other hand was AJ)).

Now I had some chips to work with and I called a raise from Jasthi Kumar – another one of the Bay Area’s best – in the big blind with 76hd. The flop came AJ6hhx. I checked, Jasthi made a continuation bet and I came along. The turn was another 6. I checked, Jasthi went All In and I snap called. Jasthi flipped over 55 so I was in a great shape as only another 5 on the river would eliminate me. The river was a blank and now I had a big stack.

Another important hand took place with two tables left at the table I was not at. A player raised and Jasthi shoved. The player called with JJ and Jasthi turned over 104 suited. The Jacks held up and Jasthi was crippled and eliminated shortly thereafter. This was important because Jasthi is uber-aggressive and his presence would have changed the dynamics of the final table. In addition, the player with the Jacks came into the final table with a huge chip lead and took 2nd in the chop with only a slightly smaller stack than Rian’s.

The next big hand came with 6 players left when Rian was All In with KQ versus his opponents K5 and had him covered. Obviously the rest of us were all rooting for Rian’s hand to hold up and eliminate another player but a 5 came on the flop and Rian’s hand didn’t improve. That left Rian with a very short stack.

Shortly after that hand Rian shoved All In with his short stack and I picked up AKhh. I shoved for about 1 million and that’s when things got interesting. A young man who I thought was a pretty good player and had a similar stack to mine started tanking in the small blind. Obviously I did not want him to call. I wanted to go heads up with Rian and hopefully eliminate him. If not, it would only cost me a fraction of my stack. Since I had AK, I suspected he had a big pair which would have meant a huge flip. After a long time he folded and I said “You had a big pair, right?” “Jacks” he said.

Rian flipped over KJ meaning that he had only one out – assuming the young man was telling the truth which I believe he was. Incredibly a Jack came on the flop and Rian doubled up. After that double up, Rian went on a tear and went from the verge of elimination to taking home more than $28,000 for first in the chop in the span of about half an hour. That’s why Q had him take the winner’s picture with KJ.