All In

I managed to finish in the top half of the 63 person No Limit Hold 'Em Poker Tournament we had last night in that bastion of unofficial Law Socials, the Windsor Park Plaza Party Room (The official name of the room is something named after one of the Lister Towers, but I can't remember which one. It's perhaps rather quaint that everything in that building seems to be named after something in Lister or on the campus generally). Anyways, I was generally doing quite well, then got greedy when other people started going all in. Since I had a bit of a cushion, I was willing to put a little in with a K-4 and an A-3, both offsuit, that I ordinarily would have folded but the prospect of knocking two people out and taking their stacks proved just too tempting. Needless to say, it didn't work out. Then, as my stack began to dwindle, I came to the realisation that I was going to have to start taking risks, as the blinds were about to go up. I probably could have hung around for a few more hands, but we were about to take a break and with the increase in blinds (and the stacks of most everyone else remaining) I went all in blind on the last hand before the third round (4-6 suited). After that, I got my money's worth of the beer that we all chipped in for (I even did a few keg stands, which was a bit of a new experience), dabbled in a side game, and then watched the final results. Surprisingly, Roman managed to finish in 6th. I joked with him that had he won the $1,000 pot, he probably would be about even lifetime in poker.