I played a 30+3 multi tonight on Stars. I don’t usually play non-deep stack multis, and I felt pressured to build my stack as quickly as possible. Twelve minutes in, I picked up AQo in late position. Three people limped for 20 and I raised to 165. The guy next to me calls my raise, and then the next moves all in for 840. Two of the limpers fold, but the third flat calls the all-in. What do you do?

Ordinarily, I throw away my hand here. But I felt compelled to play because of my hunger for chips. For some reason I felt like the flat call did not represent a huge hand, because most people in these small buy-in tourneys just aren’t that sophisticated. I ended up reraising all-in to 2030. To my dismay, both the other players in the hand called. The original all-in guy showed AKs, and the guy behind me had pocket tens. The flat caller showed AJo.

How terrible is this all-in by me here? Was this pure impatience, or is there a compelling argument for getting involved in this hand? My reason for moving in is certainly not that I think I have a better hand than all three of these guys. By pushing I’m hoping that two of them will fold and I’ll be heads up against the guy who is all-in already. Thoughts?

Results are unimportant, of course, but I ended up flopping a queen and rivering a set, just for good measure, and becoming the chip leader. Of course the absurd structure was too much for the crappy run of cards that ensued and I busted before the money.

In other news: The WPT is sponsoring the new card room at Foxwoods. Good for poker? Good for Foxwoods? I just hope it somehow improves the wait time for a damn seat.

ATLARGE NEXT WEEKEND! Woot!

This weekend I headed uptown to check out a home game I discovered on Craigslist. I am happy to report that the group strikes a good balance between a friendly and serious game, and I will definitely be going back. We played a NLHE tourney (30 buy-in, 20 rebuy, 20 add-on) and I finished 8th. No money for that, but I would estimate that I am better than at least half the players in the game and I’m sure a cash is in my future.

Meanwhile, I managed another 8th place this weekend, this one in the $109 deep stack on Stars. I heart deep stacks.

ATLARGE is coming! Are you registered?!

I booked my first tournament score of the year last night/this morning by finishing second in the Stars 30+3 deep stack tourney. The tourney began at 6:15pm and ended at 6:10am. Here is a list of things I did while playing the tourney:

-ate dinner
-did laundry
-ate a snack
-watched “24″
-talked to my friend Gwyneth on the phone
-did my nails
-started preparing my taxes
-watched reruns of the 2004 WSOP
-watched the sun come up through my skylight

You can get a lot done in 12 hours! I know what you’re thinking – if I hadn’t done all these things at the same time, maybe I could have finished first. Well, you’re right. But I just can’t resist that Jack Bauer.

Despite all these distractions, I was very pleased with the way I played this tourney. Because of the deep stacks, I was able to make calls like this:

PokerStars Game #3888878304: Tournament #19224693, Hold’em No Limit – Level X (400/800) – 2006/02/06 – 23:41:32 (ET)
Table ’19224693 43′ Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: sublime822 (14835 in chips)
Seat 2: konr2480 (61144 in chips)
Seat 3: swifterjet (11762 in chips)
Seat 4: gandi888 (62688 in chips)
Seat 6: doyojob (100320 in chips)
Seat 7: hotcookie42 (39944 in chips)
Seat 8: davyg (26011 in chips)
Seat 9: Smitten (82616 in chips)
sublime822: posts the ante 50
konr2480: posts the ante 50
swifterjet: posts the ante 50
gandi888: posts the ante 50
doyojob: posts the ante 50
hotcookie42: posts the ante 50
davyg: posts the ante 50
Smitten: posts the ante 50
Smitten: posts small blind 400
sublime822: posts big blind 800
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to hotcookie42 [3c 3h]
swifterjet said, “i was just down to spiking my ace then”
konr2480: calls 800
swifterjet: folds
gandi888: folds
doyojob: folds
hotcookie42: calls 800
davyg: folds
Smitten: calls 400
sublime822 said, “nd”
sublime822: checks
*** FLOP *** [Jh 4h Th]
Smitten: checks
sublime822: checks
konr2480: checks
hotcookie42: bets 2600
Smitten: calls 2600
sublime822: folds
konr2480: folds
*** TURN *** [Jh 4h Th] [Ts]
Smitten: checks
hotcookie42: checks
*** RIVER *** [Jh 4h Th Ts] [2s]
Smitten: bets 3200
hotcookie42: calls 3200
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Smitten: shows [8d 9c] (a pair of Tens)
hotcookie42: shows [3c 3h] (two pair, Tens and Threes)
hotcookie42 collected 15200 from pot

The tourney went on so long that when we got to the final table, at least five people starting clamoring for a chop. I think chopping has its place, but I don’t think a $30 tourney is it. Everyone was giving me crap for refusing to chop, especially as we continued losing players. Finally the biggest advocate of chopping was eliminated – and then continued to try to convince me to chop from the rail! I say, after playing for twelve hours, I want that first place money and nothing less. And anyone who wants to chop after that long should just sit out and get blinded off, because that would be just as absurd.

I don’t know if I’ll play more deep stacks during the week, since it just doesn’t seem practical. I do have to go to my “real” job, after all. I still say they are the best value in tournaments on the internet and have the most enjoyable structure I have found anywhere. If I didn’t like sleep as much as I like poker, I would play this thing every day of the week.