Of course, out of the three of us who carpooled out there I was the first one eliminated. During the break my buddy asked me how I was going to win now that I was eliminated.
I told him it would be tough, but I would still be a winner for the night, and that I'd write a book on coming back from elimination to win the tournament. (Positive thinking to the extreme)
A few minutes later they drew raffle tickets and sure enough they drew my number ...88! My buddy had ...89 and another person nearby had ...87. Ha ha!
I won $48! Victory!
And I took their tickets as trophies since I had to turn mine in:
The torn Kc (King of clubs) is from another drawing they had. They spread a deck out face up, and you choose a card. They tear it, give you half, and throw the other half in the lot. At the break a torn card from the lot and the person with the other half gets half the money ($26) while the other half goes to the non-profit organization running the event.
This was the first time I'd bought a card. They drew 8d. I told my friend that the announcer should have started off by saying "It's a diamond..." to give 1/4 of the audience a quick thrill. Maybe I should mention that the the guy who does the drawing?
I heard a few "I was close" comments after the drawing, which stuck in my head. How can anybody know that they were close?
Those drawings are pretty much reliant on the butterfly effect. Picking 7d or 9d when 8d is drawn is only the illusion of being close. The only thing that matters is where the guy threw your ticket/card in relationship to the position of every other ticket/card deposited or yet to be deposited. Plus there's all the events that lead up to how the lot is drawn. Maybe if you spent a few more seconds choosing your cards the man would have adjusted his feet with impatience and dropped the card a few inches left, making it the winner.
That is, getting #...88 or picking 8d has nothing to do with those cards being the winner. It was the moment that they were bought in relationship to all other events that made them the winners. So the idea of being close because your number or card looked the same is ridiculous.
The two buddies I carpooled with were short stack, and even though one tripled up they were eliminated a short time later. I was home by 10:30.
As for my play, I did pretty good, but I should have done a lot better.
I wasn't paying attention the first couple hands. I don't really fault myself for that. I was just getting warmed up, and I was the dealer on hand #2. It wasn't until hand #3 that I started studying the players.
I received a ton of Jack/rag cards all night (several J/7's and J/9's), but I did have some playable hands. I had A/K twice, once chasing someone off a flop we both missed, and the other time getting chased off a flop that I *think* we both missed, but it wasn't worth going broke over.
I remember limping in with 5/5 after several other limps, and being chased off when the small blind made a large raise.
As the big blind with one limper I checked with 8/3. I watched my opponent and he made the classic "I missed the flop" tell. Then I looked down and saw the flop was Q/J/9. The blinds were 40/80, with 200 in, so I made a 100 raise. He called.
The flop was a 7, and I made a big mistake by just checking. He checked.
The river was a 3, pairing my 3. Very weak but I made another bet of 200. He called and showed me A/7. Doh!
If I had continued my aggression, representing the Queen, I am sure he would have folded. But I let my "getting beat by A/A when I knew he missed the flop" beat last time scare me off.
Had I been more aggressive I wouldn't have lost the 380 from my stack, and would have ended the hand at least 220 richer. That's pretty substantial, considering that we start with 1,000 in chips.
Eventually I ended up with around 250 in chips (40/80 blinds) and went all-in with 8/8, winning just the blinds.
Not too long after that I went all-in with K/10 and was called by the two players with the biggest chip stacks. Ugh! The best player checked in the dark, to show that he just wanted to check all the way to eliminate me.
They both checked every hand, and the good guy won when his A/4 paired an Ace on the flop.
I went out swinging. I made my all-in while I still had enough chips to discourage a call, and I'd have been a coin flip against most calling hands. It just didn't work out.
So be it.
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