Beat The Boss

Arriving early for the 11 a.m. tournament joined a new short handed 3/6 game.  Playing squeaky tight just aiming for Monte Carlo hands racked up $45 in winnings in a half hour.  Sweet, now freerolling the tournament with $5. in sugar.

Every Thursday the tournament is "Beat the Boss".  A player is selected to be the boss and given the name badge and $100.  This is a one player bounty so you have a giant target on you.  As boss you can expect some real action when you are in a hand.  That can be both bad and good as when you try to bluff and when you have a big hand.  So, was surprised when they offered the boss bounty to me.  The real upside is that if you survive to the final table you get the bounty!!!  With some fear and trepidation I accepted.

The cards were kind to me, hitting sets twice when behind and taking advantage of loose callers.  I had a final table stack of around 15k with maybe 16 players remaining.  Easy enough to fold my way into the bounty when the button put in a giant raise.  He was running good and was one of the only players with more chips than me.  What do I have in the big blind, oh yeah, pocket aces.  So, easy shove decision and he quickly calls with Q/Q.  Unbelievably the flop is 8/8/Q.  I was this close!!!!  So, resigned to my fate, I watch a brick on the turn then ........What? River ace!!!  We both hit two outers and now I am tournament chip leader.  I snug up and fold to final table missing a double elimination by tossing A/10.

We play down to 5 when a guy suggests we chop for over $200 each.  One guy says play on and two more drop.  Turns out he had issues with that guy, he is now chip leader and offers a deal of reduced 1st place and chop the rest 400/280/280.  We accept and game over.  The 3rd guy was one of the players I would have eliminated earlier playing A/10.  He is a nice guy so o.k. with me.

All in all a great day of poker with a net after buy-in and tip of $365.