There was a pot of $600 tonight, built from a gathering of 34 players. With just $10 invested, I took an occasional pot to put me at $1,000 chips after 1 hour and 30 minutes which led us to the break. After the break, the blinds are $100/$200, so I had 5 big blinds to make a move with. My father threw me $20 (I paid him back) to go make a rebuy for the break, because everyone had stacks of at least $5,000. I wouldn’t have lasted long otherwise. So with $6,000 in chips, I started the second half of the tournament.

I caught a run of good cards, a little luck and the occasional bluff, which paid off. Position and betting amounts were key, as I built my stack to just over $50,000. Two hours later, I made the final table and took down 3 players, while maintaining a healthy 2nd/3rd place stack.

Three of us left, I raised $10,000 before the flop and the small stack moved all in. I called. I flipped over A/9, he flipped over A/10. The flop came with a 9 on the board. The turn & river didn’t help him, knocking him out of the tournament.

After that takedown, Patty & I were about even with chips, so we decided to split the pot. We both walked away with $250 and tipped the dealer $25.

With wins like this, Julie calls poker my “second job.”