Some weekends are a bit busier than others...

and this last one was extremely busy. All started Friday night. Since the Goose and I had given each other entries into the OHSU/Make a Wish Charity Poker tournament Saturday I really pushed myself this week to work on my game so I went out to Newberg to play in a larger tournament. The Stumptown group is probably stronger player for player...but you have a bigger challenge in a 60+ person tournament than you do in a 10 or 15. Even terrible players can catch a flush...and actually, they might do so more often because they play more hands they "shouldn't"...they lose more hands but they hit some you would not expect.

Early on I was dominant, at one point having put out 2 people and taken chips off everyone else, even if it was just the blinds. I was catching hand after hand and raising every one pre-flop. I was so dominant that if I was in a hand several people would fold regardless of what they had. It got too smoky for me though so I intentionally busted out. I did, however, gain a great deal of confidence in my new play style.


Saturday I had a ticket from a car dealership saying I had won a prize. I picked up Emily, we were going to Ghost Rider, and headed out to pick it up. It was a 3 day, 2 night trip to any of various locations, so that is cool. Plus, if you take a test drive they would give me a digital camera as well. So I took the drive. And she loved the car. More than me. And we ended up trading in my car for this one. Which is a hot car, no doubt...dark blue 2007 Mustang. Beautiful car, coolest thing I have ever had a part of. But it took quite a while.

We ended up getting to the tournament barely in time. For 10 bucks you could double your starting chips. I elected to do so and wanted Em too but she chose not to. Well, on the 3rd level of blinds she busted out so I bought her back in...again, I tried to get her to take the extra 1000 chips but she decided not to. Meanwhile, I was pretty far ahead of the game despite having had very few playable hands. Her seat was only one table away and we were set up to be able to see each other's chip stacks so I knew about how she was doing and vice versa. After a while we got put on the same table which was fun...we were seated side by each for a while. Then our table got broken up as more people were eliminated. Oh, well.

Out of 72-ish people I did all right...I had very, very few playable hands but still managed to finish 11th. She did even better, coming in 6th! I was (and am) so proud of her...that was a monumental accomplishment. Woo-hoo!