Event #25 Underway!

Any doubt I had about playing this one was erased in the first hour. I feel very comfortable with the play and I've had two big hands.

In the first I was dealt KQT9 which is a great hand since there are a million ways to make a straight and if you make two pair it should be top two. With blinds of 30/60 I raised the pot which was 210.

I'm going to do a little aside on how pot limit works before the flop because it's confusing. If the blinds are 30/60 isn't the pot 90 before the flop? If the pot is 90 how the hell can I make it 210? Well the way it works is they assume that before you raise you first have to call. So in this case I first "call 60" which makes the pot 150 and then raise the pot for a total of 210. If the blinds were 100/200 I could make it 700 to go before the flop - a call of 200 plus a raise of 500.

So I made it 210 to go and then my opponent made it 720 (a call of 210 plus a raise of the pot which was 210+210+60+30 or 510) and I just called. The flop came down JT2 giving me a pair and a nuclear straight draw. An 8,9,Q, K or A on the turn or the river would all make me a straight! This was a total go for it situation and I decided to try to check raise my opponent all in. But my opponent checked behind me. I knew I was going to bet the pot which was 1,530 at this point no matter what came on the turn. When a 7 fell I didn't like it but bet the pot anyway. My opponent thought for a moment and then raised me the pot which put me all in (I started the hand with just over the 6,000 chips that I had at the beginning of the tournament). I crossed my fingers, called, and hit a 9 on the river which gave me the total nuts. My opponent turned over AA88 and was forced to rebuy.

On the other hand I took about 2,500 from a player when he flopped a straight flush draw and I flopped top set. The turn paired the board and I was up to 14,500. After the 6,000 chip add-on and one or two small pots I'm up to 21,430 and in 107th place of the 616 remaining players.

We started with 748 and the tournament pays 108 spots with the edge of the money paying $1,921. 9th is $10,837 and 1st place is $144,112.