Linda's Triple Pot Limit Tournament

Last Saturday (3/24), I made my anticipated return to the poker felt for Linda's Triple Pot Limit Tournament.  I hadn't played a single hand of poker since November 2011 and was pretty amped to get back into the swing of things.

$40 buy-in.
10,000 chips; 20 minute levels starting with 25/50.
Patience Factor: 18

• Levels 1, 4, 7, 10, 13...will be PL Omaha High
• Levels 2, 5, 8, 11, 14...will be PL Omaha High/Low
• Levels 3, 6, 9, 12, 15...will be PL Holdem

Admittedly, I have never participated in a PLO tournament before and my experience in the game is extremely limited.  That said, I figured that this was as good of a tournament as any to familiarize myself with the game.  To make it easy on myself, I'd only play hands that were the nuts or had nut potential after the flop.  Sadly, that strategy came back to bite me in the early PLO levels, as I folded what would have been a couple winners (two-pair with KK in the hole and a pair on board in two separate hands) after betting ensued on the flop.  I kept having to remind myself that I made the correct fold despite missing out on some pretty sizable pots.

I was pretty card dead otherwise in the early levels and managed to lose half my starting stack before the first break.  To stay afloat, I played uber-aggressive during the last Holdem level before the first break and it paid off when I doubled up with 88 against the A2 of Doug Poker.  Mini Mike made the initial raise UTG, DP called behind and I 3-bet with my pocket pair.  Mike folded and DP put me all in.  I called and hit a set on the Flop to eclipse the 10k chip mark.

After the break, I won a sizable PLO hand with AAxx on a KQJKx board.  Me and 3 other players checked it down to the river and my hand was surprisingly good.  There were only 14 runners (with 3 emergency re-buys) for the tournament, so we got to the Final Table relatively quickly around 2 hours in.  I hovered around 15k for a bit before blinding off whilst Data accumulated a MASSIVE stack of chips.  I went bust during a Holdem level with 33 vs. Data's 88.  It wasn't the best spot to get my chips in, but I needed to do something since we were a few minutes away from the next PLO level.

Despite not cashing in the tournament, I had fun and gained some much-needed experience in PLO.  I did sit in the .50/.50 PLO/PLO8 cash game after the tournament, but didn't stay long and took a small loss.  Overall, it just felt good to play poker again.