Well I dont want to rehash the details see them here
http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...ic.php?t=24272
but the xmas party nl tourney was a lot of fun. The dealer at my table delt a "practice hand" to help some of the people who had not played much holdem. I get 99. Flop a 9 and the board pairs on the river giving me a full house ON THE PRACTICE HAND. What made matters worse was that someone also hit the nut flush. damn. Saw one flop during the first hour with A9o had to fold. It was very frustrating. Every time Id get a good limping hand there would be a raise and I would have to fold. Bluffing was not an option at this table. You would get called. The rebuy period was ending so I was down to about 500 (from the 1000 starting) and I get AJ EP. All in. 3 callers. Flop an A and it holds up. Triple up. One really drunk guy at our table had just sucked out on someone with a 3 outer. I get Q10 on the button and limp. Flop comes Q high. check check drunk guy min bets I push. fold fold drunk guy calls with no pair no draw and one over card. Doesnt hit and I double up. Few hands later I take out a short stack when I hit one of my 17 outs on the turn for a flush. Then I took out another small stack when we both had middle pair but I had a better kicker. Then I just folded my way into the money over the next several hands (there was a very short stack that would have to be all in on the blinds). Now we were down to 4 and I was the small stack. Time to play. Blinds are at 200/400 and my stack is about 2500. I get A9 utg. All in collect the blinds. Next hand J10 in the bb. fold call complete I push again. Take the pot. Now Im at about 4K in chips and get AQ in the sb. Call Call and I push again. bb folds another fold and then the guy thinks a couple of seconds and calls with K6o. I flip and show AQ the dealer looks at me and says nice play. I take the pot with A high and am now the chip lead with 10 minutes left to play (it wasnt a freeze out but on the clock). next several hands the short stacks each steal the blinds. Down to the last two hands and I ask the dealer (he was on my immediate left how much the 2nd place stack had who was on the dealers left. Dealer says I got it pretty easily. Last hand Im utg get A10 I got it won if I dont do something stupid. After a little anguish i fold. Next guy 2nd in chips folds. sb completes bb checks. Flop: qqq. sb says " Im in last place I got nothing to lose im all in" bb with a slightly larger stack calls. sb flip s 72 bb flips j5. J on the river gives the bb the pot which pushes his stack to 8300 beating my stack of 7500. Crap. I saw 6 hands to the river and won 5 of them. (the one failure I new I was behind but was trying to eliminate a short stack) My best starting hand all night was 99 for the practice hand. My best starting hand during live play was 44 which was the only pair I got during the 3 hours we played. The only other hands I got were the AJ and AQ hand ive already mentioned. Im very pleased with how I played. It was a lot fun though and it felt really good to perform as well as I thought I could. Due in large part to u folks. So thanks. Happy Holidays!