Legion Success

The Friday night American Legion tournament has gotten a lot juicier. Since having to relicense in February, there is no longer a rake being taken at all, nor are the dealers given any discount. That meansthat more money goes to the winners. I started off pretty slow, with very few hands played. This is a tournament that usually sees a lot of weak limping early, but the table had some good players on it, and often it was raised preflop. My big hand came against Clydene, a player who had knocked me out a few weeks ago when she 4 bet with AK versus my AQ reraise of the initial raiser. In terms of "playing the player" the one thing I knew about her was that she often overplayed her hands, particularly immediately after taking a beat, bad or not. She had just lost a hand when I found AK suited and popped it up 3x the BB. She reraised me all-in and I insta-called. She showed down the cursed AQ offsuit. The flop was very good for me, with a king, but she caught a queen on the turn and with a 10 showing, a jack would chop/chop. With a blank on the river I knocked her out and she fled quickly (the same thing I usually do). With my double up, I was in great position and actually about 3x the original chip starting. When our table broke down I moved tables to encounter a loose cannon who should have been knocked out with my K/6 vs. Q/6 on a 7/6/3 flop and me putting him all in. But the cards ran to a straight on the board and we chopped. He was out shortly afterwards and I moved on to the final table. Making the final table with any reasonable chip stack for me is like guaranteeing a payday. They play 6 places, with 6th getting about 1 1/2 time the $40 buyin back. The final table was shorthanded since two players got knocked out at once, and there were two short stacks. The play was pretty routine, with my only scare coming from a shove with A/10 suited and the big stack going into the tank, and finally laying down what he said was AQ suited. Respect!! We finally got down to 3 of us, all online regulars and decided to give the big stack an extra $100 while we each took $260.