Live charity tournament

For the first time in a long time I hit that charity game.
I wanted to get out of the house awhile and the game was on that night so I figured it'd be a good escape. I emailed a friend, who was unavailable, and texted another, who was able to go (the "driver" from this post)

I drove us out there and we waited for the tournament to begin.

There ended up being 42 players, so they made 5 tables, putting 9 on tables #1 & #2.

I like having table #1 or #2 because they break the higher # tables first, so you're less likely to move and get to keep your reads/reputation/position. When they do get to the final table they redraw for position, so there's not much difference (advantage-wise) between getting table #1 or #2.

Anyway, my friend drew table #1 and I drew table #2.
At first break I had $1,100 (or $1,200?) in chips while my buddy had $1,800.

When it was down to two tables I shoved with 4/4 and my friend (who got moved to my table) called with Q/J. He made two pair, and I was really low (and M of 3 I think). Somehow I managed to recover and make the final table.

At the final table I had fewer than average chips. Blinds were huge so most people were in shove-or-fold position.... but they didn't know it. Just about everybody was mismanaging their chip stacks. I even did it... but that's because I could see that I'd get away with it.

While I didn't have many good hands during the game, my luck sure changed at the final table.
I had A/Ks, shoved, and had no callers.
Next hand I had A/Qo shoved, was called by A/K, and made the Q to more than double-up.
Next hand I had A/Ks again, shoved, and took the pot.
That gave me enough chips that I was no longer desperate.

My friend did really well, devastating the chip leader when he had Q/Q on a Jack-high flop. The chip leader eyed my friend's chips, and my buddy picked up on that, so he let the guy hand himself with his pair of Jacks.
Very nice move.

There was talk of making a deal when there were 6 of us, but my (chip leader) friend wouldn't agree because there were to micro stacks at the table. He wisely waited for them to bust.

A bit later I had some sort of loss, I don't remember it, but I had $5,000 left and the blinds were $2,000/$4,000. When the big blind hit me I put my stack in with 7/3. The SB who called had T/3. We ended up splitting the pot when the board two-paired and we both played the board. Whew!

The very next hand, my friend in the BB with me in the SB, I put it all-in again. I don't remember the cards but my hand was terrible and again, we both played the board and split the pot. WHEW!

I folded around again (remember, I had $5k with the blinds $2k/$4k) and pushed when the BB hit. I had two callers.

I looked at my cards... 2/3 off!

Someone paired the their Q on the flop. I paired my 3.

I turned my trips! Woot!

Tripled up!

When we were down to 4 I had $11k, the guy across from me had $12k, and by buddy had $13k. I don't remember what the other guy had, but it was right in that range. He might have had $10k.

Anyway, they talked about a 4-way split but, as per my suggestion, we put $ aside for first place. So we all took $200 and the remaining $216 was put aside for the winner.

Stuff happened. Good stuff for me, bad stuff for my friend. Really, I don't remember any hands at that point.

Head's up it was between me and a guy who I had seen make the worst fold of the tournament a few minutes earlier:
2k/4k blinds, the SB shoves for a total of 5k, and he folds his BB. Wha-wha-what??? It would have cost the dude (who had a decent number of chips) $1k to win the $9k in the pot.
I'm glad the hand went down that way as it was instrumental in getting all 4 of us with near-equal chip stacks, which made negotiating a deal really easy. But man... how could he *not* make that call?

As I was saying... I got head's up with the old guy who had made some questionable plays. He seemed nice enough.

He had a 2:1 chip lead over me and the guy running the tournament asked if we wanted to split the $216 first-place money. I said I'd agree but it was the old guy's decision. The old guy said it was my decision.

I could have had us split in in half $108 each, right there, but I offered him $116 so I'd take $100 and he agreed.

Just for fun we both shoved at that point, my 8/4 lost to his Q/x, but I was really happy with the results.