As I said, I finished 8th out of 78 participants and won $113, which about $42 of it went to new shoes the next day. I only played about a quarter of my hands, maybe even less. I picked up a huge pot when I busted someone early with my top two pair against his top pair. I was also able to get another player to lay down the better hand. (He told someone behind him that he had KJ with an AJ8 board; I pushed with pocket tens.) The hand where I busted was just good poker on my opponent’s part. I initially raised with 44, a short stack calls and is all-in with junk, and the one who had us both covered only re-raised enough so I had good odds to see a flop. I flop my set, push-in, and run into the opponent’s set of aces. As should be expected, I didn’t spike the case four, and I take my 8th place finish in stride.
As for how the tourney was set up itself, it was a $40 initial buy-in where 30% of the revenue went to the museum. Each player started with 600 in chips with the blinds starting at 5 and 10 and increasing every 40 minutes, and if you ever fell between 1 and 300, you could take an add-on of 300 chips for $20, but if you totally busted, you couldn’t re-buy. (Yeah, Michigan law may get some of the terminology mixed up; basically, re-buy tournaments are illegal.) At the first break, you could take what was called a reload of 200 chips for $10, which I did. With only 78 players, 10 places (the final table) got paid; the winner won $500 and a little trophy. The tournament director was very friendly, and I wasn’t the only person who played that tourney for the first time, so I felt a little easier. They run the tourneys there practically every week, so I figure I’ve found a place to spend many Saturday evenings, especially if I cash consistently :D. Bob will find it either highly amusing or downright awful that they give the first person to bust after the first break a copy of Play Poker Like the Pros.
Musty's musings 