This tournament was made for me; it has more starting chips, and the blinds go up every 30 minutes. With this tournament structure, I can play exactly like my WSOP style -- wait for the hands to come to me.
953 people either ponied up $530 buy-in, or won their way through satellites. (See my previous blog entry -- "Winning my way to the WCOOP." First place paid a whopping $103,162.
I started the tournament in great shape. I was 2000 chips up on the table before the first break. From that point on, I was never below tournament average until 7 hours later. In the end, I placed 19th (on the bubble for an increase of $1500 payout), and I won $2100.
After I fell below tournament average, I was all-in on a few different occasions. I survived each time -- usually to double or triple up in chips. After surviving, I was able to coast through round after round, picking up more pots, and losing some others along the way.
In my final hand, I ended up taking myself out -- by getting stubborn about my hand. I was dealt A236 nut suited in spades, and I raised. I was immediately raised by a guy behind me -- who was new to the table, and didn't know if he was one of those guys who likes to 3-bet with a bare A2. So, I capped it pre-flop to re-take the lead in the hand. This left me only with a few bets left.
The flop was J99 -- completely unhelpful for my hand. I made a continuation bet, and he raised. Being the stubborn geek that I am, I re-raised him back, and he immediately re-raised back. Again, instead of folding, I re-raised again, and eventually put myself all-in.
My opponent turned over AAJT -- and I was drawing to catch two running spades or two running live cards in my hand. The turn did bring help in that regard, because I paired one of my live cards; but the river was no help, and I was eliminated in 19th place.
After playing 9 hours of playing as good as I had in the WSOP, I went out by being stubborn with a hand, that I could have gotten away from and lived to fight another day. Had I only called the 3-bet pre-flop instead of capping it, and folded on the flop, I still would have been in great shape to recover. I started the hand with 39,000 chips, and had I adopted the conservative (instead of stubborn) strategy, I would have still had more than 20,000 chips to live and fight another day. In the end, it was my own stubbornness that took me out of the tournament, and caused me to lose at least $1500 more dollars.