Starting off tied for second in chips didn't have the ultimate result I was hoping for. I finished the tournament in eighth place and made no money (my lotto ticket was a bust).
Things started off okay with me winning a few small pots here and there and I built my starting stack up from $10,075 to about $12,000. However, three hands in about 10 minutes brought a lot of that progress crashing down. I was rivered by a set after flopping two pair. I was out-kicked with top pair. And the worst one of all was when I held pocket aces and one of my three opponents flopped three of a kind. I made a continuation bet and after he smooth-called me I knew he had me beat. I didn't improve and when he made a bet on the river I had to fold face up. At the time he said he only had a pocket pair that was worse than the aces, however, later that night he said that was a lie and he did have K-9 and out-flopped me.
I ended up clawing my way back to about $9,000 in chips and when we combined tables I wasn't in a terrible spot. However, I had let the 10-minute run of bad luck dictate how I continued to play and I wasn't making the best decisions. I did run into some more bad luck when my pocket tens doubled up Meyser, who was holding pocket queens. That hand left me with few chips and I decided to take a stand with some middle-suited cards that were certainly live against Baird, who was on a heater that night. He held K-J and I never hit any of the cards needed to double up.
Baird ended up wining the tournament and pocketed $1,300 to start the year off. My good run in Vegas didn't flow over to the tournament, so I will have to wait another year and work toward getting my name on the plaque again next year.
