I got invited my Bluff Magazine (Eric Morris and Matt Parvis in particular) to play a team celebrity tournament at the Hard Rock.

It was a lot of fun. It had 27 teams in total including a bunch of celebrities like Mekhi Pfifer, Sam Simon, and a bunch of Hollywood regulars like the guy behind Baywatch, etc. I’m actually terrible about recognizing celebrities because I really don’t care that much.

Only about 20% of the prize pool went to individual prizes, so my team agreed to play a strategy that would be good for the team prize. The way it worked was if your 3 members finished 60th place, 40th place, and 10th place, you would get 50 points (40 + 10), and the 60th place (your worst finish) would only matter if there was a tie breaker. The lowest score won.

Unfortunately, Matt Parvis got all-in with top two against bottom two and didn’t manage to hold up super early on to finish in 76th place.

Eric and I held the fort down. With about 13 players left it was announced that we were the last team with two players left. The math worked out that we only had to last a few more spots to lock up the win. Sure enough we folded our stacks to 10th and 7th place which was good enough for the win! We split $39,000 between the 3 of us.

Sure, it’s not my biggest cash ever, but for a complete freeroll it was pretty nice. Congratulations Team Bluff!

This should be a regular event at the Hard Rock to promote the poker room, and I guess I will always be invited back now! I just have to watch out for Holly from The Hills. I took so many chips from her that she said if she ever saw me in a dark alley… you get the idea.

The level of play in this was somewhat unspectacular. I started my favorite hand of the tournament with 15BB. I raised to 2.5x. I got reraised. I 4-bet to an amount that wasn’t even all-in, and my opponent folded. It was hard for me not to laugh.

Pro tip: if you are reraising someone with a 15 BB stack, you are pot committed to call the rest off.

But that’s why it was fun. It wasn’t a bunch of grinders sitting there silently. Everyone was drinking and having fun, Hard Rock style basically. I’m definitely looking forward to the next time they have this tournament.

-Justin Bonomo