Well, this was my first live tournament since Foxwoods. Luckily there was no Daniel Negreanu to push me around here. :)

The tournament still looks to be getting off the ground, and they had a few issues with dissolving tables, cards and rules but it was still a good time.

It didn't take me long to realize that there were a lot of players who learned how to play by watching TV. I think there were 4 people gone at my starting table in about 30 minutes. People were calling all-ins with KJ offsuit etc. I played solid poker for the most part and slowly built my stack. I had it up to 5700 before I made a bad read on the bully at our table. Boom! Down to 2200. Still more than the 1500 than I started with but it was quite a hit to my stack. When our table was broken up I was hovering around 2000 chips.

From there, I went to a table full of bigger stacks than mine. I wasn't there for very long before they had the short stack at the table (ME) move to help balance another table.

When I arrived at my new table I had around 1600 in chips. It didn't take me long to realize that this table was full of weak tight players though. I quickly took advantage of this, running my chips up from 1600 to well over 10k. One hand that I had to make a tough call on really helped my stack.

The flop was 4s, Jh, 4c. I held JT offsuit. I made a bet about 1/2 the pot in size. After some thought, the player across the table went all in for a little more than 2000 more. One other player folded and it was back to me. I had him covered, but only by a 1000 or so. I thought I had picked up on some weakness when the flop came but I wanted to make sure. I talked a bit to him, and within a short while I had the information I needed. I called and he turned over A 3. No A came on the turn or river and my hand stood up as the winner.

Fast forward to the final table. This is where I should have played better. I had a very nice sized stack, but my ability to concentrate the way I was earlier in the night was not good. I didn't make many reads at the final table and wound up just playing the cards I was dealt. I finished 3rd. What was the hand that I went out on you ask?

I was on the button and was dealt JJ. I pushed all in. Immediately, the player to my left called, and so did the big stack. The player to my left had TT and the big stack had A 3. A ten hit on the flop and I was sent packing. Luckily it was a friend of mine that hit the 2 outer so I wasn't that upset.

Cheers,
Brad