Hey everybody,
Thank you all so much for the support, it means a lot to me and I'm glad that you guys were pulling for me. I sported my fresh new CardsChat Tee under my Bengals jersey and I believe it was the key to me making the money
.
Anyways, I started the day at about 10.5k, well below the average. After two orbits, I was quickly down to about 8.5k and looking for an opportunity to move in. I was completely card dead and it was looking bleak for me. There were still 480 people remaining and we were still a little ways from the money. Luckily, I woke up to AK in the small blind and when the button tried to steal the blinds, I pushed and he called me with 78. I hit my ace on the flop and he hit his 7 but two more blanks secured the pot for me and quickly pushed me to around 15k.
From this point, I went into super tight mode. It took about another hour to reach the bubble and the only
hands I got involved with were 88 and AK which I scooped up the blinds with out of position. After the bubble, I was left with 10.5k again and looking to make a move ASAP. The blinds had reached 600/1200 with a 100 ante and each orbit was snatching over 2.5k so I only had a limited time to make a move. After about 8 or 9 hands, I got KJ offsuit UTG+2 and pushed all in with my remaining ~9k and was called two or three spots later with a player who pushed all in with 99. I lost the coin flip as the board was all blanks and finished the tournament in 294th place.
In retrospect, it was a wonderful experience and one of the best learning experiences of my (short) poker career. I witnessed a ridiculous amount of different playing styles and saw people pushing their entire stacks around with absolutely nothing, 4 and 5 barrel betting with garbage. I also saw the other side of the coin, with a number of players using check raises in a number of situations I would not normally expect. I'm glad I made the decision to participate and I encourage all of you to do the same if you ever have the opportunity.
I would like to thank everyone in this forum, because without this I don't think I would be half the player I am today. I feel that many of you guys are better poker players than myself and I know that in the same situation all of you would flourish (assuming you are winning your coin flips on that given day). These tournaments definitely have a decent sized luck element involved, but the determination and grit that goes into grinding through such a large tournament field is so much more important.
Anyways, I will end here as I'm exhausted and I can actually sleep now because Vegas finally shut down bars-wise about an hour ago. Once again, I appreciated all the support and the kind words, it was awesome to read this thread when I got back a little while ago. Hopefully I can use this as a building block for the future and keep making progress. I would say that this event was probably my first "legit" live tournament (besides the live ofc events and small house game-esque tournaments) so I can't be disappointed with the result by any means.
Thanks,
Will
