I’ll try not to overdo this as Dan has posted much on this past weekend’s tourney; but I did want to give a quick summary of my tournament and a review of the tournament and casino at large.

First, my tournament. I made it into level 7, a little more than halfway through the day. I had a good starting table, with several players limp-calling and nittily letting there chip stacks dwindle away. The only problem was that through the first break (after level 4) we hadn’t busted a single player at my table; at the same time, almost half the starting field on our day 1 was gone. As a result, there were not as many chips for the taking. Even still, I was at 8400 (average of 6200) and feeling pretty good. I have not played a MTT since the Main Event (subject of a to-be-written post entitled “Supernova, or, how to donk away a money finish in the Big One”), and I was a little loosey-goosey early, but I managed to level it out and felt pretty good with a pretty good table image.

After the break, the short stacks started busting, and we got some more chips in play. In the first orbit or two I got it up to 10K without seeing a turn card. Then, in successive hands, I was dealt QQ UTG, AK in the BB and AJs in the SB. I lost all three pots and was quickly down to 5500. The blinds then jumped to 200-400-50 (from 150-300-25), and I was suddenly pretty short. I moved in in consecutive pots in the SB and on the button to add 35% to my stack. I folded two orbits and was down to 6k or so again waiting for a hand to double through or go home. Sitting UTG+1, I found kings. UTG made it 900 to go, and I moved in immediately. It folded to UTG who had around 4200 total. He called in a shot with AJs. a MP player says he had AJ, too, so, of course, I know I’m dead. Door card is an ace. Down to 1800, I get it in on the next hand with K3 and lose to QQ. You have to win races.

As for the tournament, given the field size and the buy-in, I thought they did a very nice job. There was plenty of play, particulary in the first 5-6 levels. I thought it was better value than the 1500 WSOP events, and the field wasn’t as strong. I was also impressed with the dealers and tourney staff. We never had any issues at my table, but at the very least, it was clear they were trying to make this a great event. I was impressed and will play in this or other Winstar tournies again.

Finally, though I didn’t play any cash games, it looks like their new poker room is the real deal. It seems very nice, and they had a ton of action going when I checked it out (I assume much of that had to do with the tourney). I would definitely go back just to play some live poker.

Overall, I was impressed with Winstar and the tournament, and it will be in my future plans.