Event #14 Underway!

We stared today's $320 Stud tournament with 627 players. After an hour of play only one unlucky bastard has gone broke. I briefly had my starting stack of 4,000 up to about 6,000, but have since come back down to 4,300. 96 spots pay with the edge of the money returning $451. 8th place pays $3,292 and 1st place is $33,388.

I'm still doing fine in the $215 with rebuys. I was in bad shape for a moment. After not winning a pot other than a few blind steals for about an hour and a half (close to 100 hands) and losing a few moderate pots I was down to around 5,500.

Then I picked up 99 and raised to 600. I felt a little nervous when I saw this hand because I knew it was enough to go with if I got challenged given my stack size, but It wasn't enough to feel good about it. I had a feeling I might end up all in vs AK or AQ hoping to survive. Instead I got called by one player and flopped a full house!!

With 977 on the board I decided to check. While it's very suspicious to raise and then check, the player I was up against seemed pretty inexperienced and I thought he might fall right into my trap. Even if he checked behind me he might pick up something on the turn that would generate some action for me.

After my check he bet 600 into the 1,500 pot which looked like a tester to me. I just called and the turn came a king. This was a great card since I thought he might have called me with something like KQ. I checked again and he bet 600 again. I just called again and the river came a 5. I was torn about betting or checking here, and against a good player I'd certainly bet. But against this guy I decided to check. He bet out 600 for a third time and this time I dropped the all in bomb! He thought for about ten seconds and called with KT.

After one or two other small pots I'm up to 13,400 which is just shy of average with 1,125 players left.

The $162 second chance rebuy tournament is also underway with 330 entrants although the prizes won't be displayed until after the rebuy period.