Bushwood Poker Classic

I played in a poker tournament this weekend out at Dalton Ranch, a Members only (sortov) type Golf course. This place can be likened to Bushwood Country Club in Caddyshack. All of the main characters where there playing, even Rodney Dangefield! (Yea I know he is dead... it was just some guy that acted exactly like him!) Anyway it started out with about 24 people with a $25 buy in. Oh man, I'm addicted now... Playing Texas Holdem with a bunch of random people you don't know for 5 hours did not sound like too much fun to me. I was wrong! We started around 7:30-8:00 with three tables. I did my best to play by all the strategy rules I had been reading up on for the last week (when to play, when to raise, and so on...) I took off to an early table lead and, to my surprise, held on to it for awhile. Mike on the other hand, had to buy in again after an aggressive push for a large pot. An hour or so passes and a few Coors Light (man I'm glad I don't drink that stuff regularly, basically it is just really nasty water, but they were $1.50 so I couldn't complain) When we combined everyone to the two tables I lost my high stack status, but was still up there in the count. One by one people call all-in and lose, while I sit quietly in the corner seat. Before I know it I am sitting at the final table with the last 8 players (top 6 Pay out.) My goal for the evening was to make it there, and I did so I began to play a bit more aggressively for the remainder. 3 players got into a raising match and 2 called all in (I had folded out before the flop) huge pot on the line and the player that did not call all-in pulled off the Full house on the river and took a huge pot and knocked out 2 players! Suddenly I was in the money, Well $10 anyway, for sixth. The night played on and I just kept getting lousy cards, 27, 39, J2... For about an hour I never played a hand.. just kept tossing in my blinds and dwindling my stack down. In that hour though 3 more people went out, putting me in 3rd place ($75.) Finally I get a break and am dealt Pocket Kings. I call all in before the flop (I only had about $700 in chips and the min bet was up to $200 so I was pretty much all in if I wanted to play that hand anyway, but with pocket kings that was an easy call.) The flop comes and helps nobody, only one person calls my All-in. Another card... nothing, the river... an Ace... Turns out the guy had an AK and beat my pair of Kings with his pair of Aces. Ouch, Oh well, 3rd place out of 24 and I am walking out with more money than I came with, Ill call it an excellent night.

First place finished slightly after that, $465!! $155 for second that would have been fun to win! There is always next time.

There was a little 'Loser' cash only side game that started with al the people that were out, so we watched that for a bit before heading home. The Rodney Dangerfield character was there and very drunk so that was entertaining (and annoying, I could not believe some of the stuff I was hearing this old man say.) Anyway Mike and I left so we didn't see the conclusion to that game (it was almost 1AM), but apparently my friend Jared walked away with just over $800 from that game! That was bigger than the tournament prize! Way to go Jared!!