I won the readers' HORSE tournament!

OK, well, I suppose that headline requires a bit of explanation. I didn't win in the technical sense--you know, as in being the last one left with all the chips. But that's an awfully narrow, snooty, exclusivist way of understanding what it means to "win," isn't it?

I won in the "Dewey defeats Truman" sense--an event that one had every reason to expect would happen, and then just didn't quite.

I won in the "had the most fun" sense. (I was thinking of saying that it was great but didn't last long enough, but then I shuddered when I remembered other contexts in which I have heard those words.)

I won in the same sense that modern schools make sure that every kid is a "winner," getting some sort of stupid ribbon or trophy that says "future winner" or something else equally vapid.

I won in the sense that I outlasted Cardgrrl, an important goal. OK, well, technically, once again, this isn't quite so, but I neglected to getting around to making the last-longer bet with her that I had planned to, and which I would have lost, so that means that I effectively won.

I won in the sense that I wasn't the first one out. Not quite.




See? There I am down there at #24, proudly having outlasted a full 14% of the field! I iz awesome.

Here's my inglorious bustout hand:



I was well and truly sandbagged into thinking I had the best hand, until it was way too late. Congrats to amjamieson59, who has already been transferred the $10 bounty I had placed on my own head.

For some odd reason, the other players didn't all just pack up and leave after I was out. They wanted to keep playing. Kind of strange if you ask me. I mean, really, what's the point? But they insisted.

Here's how the final hand went down:





Kudos to Sauza 262 for the W and for picking up a pretty decent $112 payout (for less than two hours' work).

Also a big "ty" to Cardgrrl for volunteering to bubble, so that everybody else could make the money. Very generous, that grrl. (Her observations are here.)

I have to say that I was disappointed in the uber-fast structure, even though I generally like PokerStars better than any other online site. In fact, it was exactly because I had discovered how much better Stars' HORSE single-table-tournament structure was than the competition (see here for details) that I just assumed, without checking carefully, that the same would be true for multi-table tournaments of the same game. Gadzooks had warned me that this would be so, in a comment to the tournament announcement post, but by then it was basically too late. Oh well.

Next time (whenever that may be) I'll probably move it back to Full Tilt, and also go back to NLHE.

DaFoundation emailed me this lovely screen shot from his first level. It's nice to know I have made some converts to the Gospel of the Holy Deuce-Four.




Thanks to all for playing. Frankly, 28 people was a lot more than I expected, and it delighted me. I wish I could have acquitted myself a tad better, but overall I still think I came out of it winner.