Tournament

I wanted to hit the 80'ish player tournament, emailed people, and got no positive responses.
I decided to go alone, but then my wife asked me to stay home to help her pack so I cancelled my plans to go.

Well, it ends up one guy got my email late and wanted to go with me. When I arrived home I got the call that he wanted to play, so the game was back on the schedule.

I did help my wife pack up the car, and let my daughter fish for awhile before heading back to town.

There were plenty of players. Maybe 81 or 91. I know my table got the odd 11th player.

My friend and I ended up sitting two seats away from each other. That was a bit of a disappointment, but at least I knew to stay out of a hand if he was in it because he only plays good hands.

I had poor cards all night. I limped in with 7/7 once but the flop was A/K/J.
Another time I had A/Q spades when the blinds were 40/80 and I upped it to 250. A bunch of people called, then another guy went all-in. Yikes! I put him on a big pair (A's K's or Q's) so I folded. I figured that even if he had something worse than a large pair, I wasn't about to put my tournament life on the line so early in the game. There's be plenty of other chances to get chips. He ended up having pocket kings... but the turn was a Queen and the river was an Ace so I would have won. I made the correct play, though if I had made the call I'd have been the chip leader at the table... for the next hour!

I had nothing hand after hand after that. I think my best hand was K/9 suited until shortly before the break when I had A/Q again. There were several limpers so when it came to me I went all-in for 350 hoping to take the blinds without a fight. One guy called, with something stupid like J/8 suited. Of course, he ended up hitting the J and I failed to connect with the board, so he took all my chips.

The game was a fizzle. I didn't win a single hand.

______________________

My friend was doing pretty well. He was also my ride, so I figured it could be a long night of waiting.

I was texting a "I could be here a long time, Stephen is in a good spot right now" message when I looked up and saw Stephen in front of me. He busted out despite have an above-agerage chip stack.

From what I remember, he said he re- raised with his pair of Queens (pocket Q/6 and the Q paired the flop) even though there was an Ace on the flop. The original raiser was making a lot of raises, so he thought he was someone who played too many pots and bluffed.
Well, the guy had the Ace. I think it was a big misinterpreation by Stephen. People who play play a lot are typically "raise with any Ace" players. Stephen should have known that.
Sephen tried to get tricky and got burned. I bet he'll replay that hand in his mind for the next two days.

There was one hand where Stephen raised with a shakey hand in bad position. I knew he had a monster hand, either poket Aces or Kings.
People called his bet.
Post flop he bet again and the guy on my left thought long and hard about calling. I was tempted to huff, "Pssht! Typical continuation bet!" to get Stephen more action, but I didn't think it was fair, and I'd feel *really* bad if the guy called and ended up sucking out.
He ended up folding and Stephen ended up winning a nice pot after taking chips from other people.