Monday Madness at Running Aces - By Blind Me Down

So after debating all day about going out to Running Aces to play in
the $120 buy in tournament that started at 6:30, I decided to play
some free poker over at Rush Creek and then head off to Running Aces
to play in their Midnight Madness game. This way I was getting in a
free warm up live game and still playing in a cash tournament but for
half the price.

It's a $50 + 10 + 5 tournament and you start with 5000 chips. The
blinds go up every 20 minutes and there is a break after every 4th
round. A pretty good structure and the same as the $120 game except
there you get 8000 chips. The extra chips would have been helpful but
for a game that starts at 11:30 at night it would've gone way too long.

A couple complaints: First, we start off 11 handed. Not my favorite
way to play. Second, after 5 minutes at my table I was moved to a new
table that was just opening up and they had yet to get it ready for
the game. The cards hadn't been removed from the case, which means
they needed to by counted and shuffled. Then there was a mix up as to
who was sitting where because of the 11 handed and not immediately
seating a full table. Though I didn't think it was rocket science. So
with all that I missed 4 minutes of the first round. I think its a
pretty important 4 minutes and I think Running Aces could have done a
better job so that we didn't really miss a beat.

At first break we end up having 70 entries in. I did notice a rebuy
or two happen after that so it is likely we ended up with a few more
but I'm not sure how many. I was doing pretty well up until the last
hand before the first break where I picked up A K suited, raised it
up 4x, got 4 callers and hit my ace on a 2 J Q A board on the turn.
After getting raised all in on the turn I was able to get away from
this hand, though for some reason a person with Q 6 could not and
called. The raiser has pocket 2's for a set and takes down the pot.
This left me in bad shape going into the break.

Playing well and doubling up puts me at the final two tables with 16
left and I pick up 10 10 in 4th position. UTG limps in and I decide
this is a good spot to try and steal the blinds and limper so I push
all in. The UTG thinks for a while after its folded around to him. He
finally calls off a third of his stack with K Q and says, lets
gamble. K comes on the flop and my tournament ends in 16th place. It
paid out to the top 10, so not too bad a finish, but not good enough.

All in all I would certainly play in this game again. It runs every
Monday and they add $500 to the pot to sweeten the deal. A late game,
so make sure you don't have anything important to do first thing
Tuesday morning.

-Blind Me Down