Well, I believe all my planning a preparation paid off. With the slight exception of my very poor finish, I'd have to say the tourney went off without a hitch. If there were any problems with the event, I heard none of it.
Moddy showed up at about 3:05 with a couple of bottled of 18 yo Scotch. Quads and Dodger were hot on his heels. We unloaded the tables, figured out the final randoms we needed to do and then Moddy and I poured a little Scotch over some ice and sipped on a cocktail before the crowd started rolling in. Mice way to start the afternoon. Thanks Moddy!
My only point of complaint is the many late arrivals. There were about 6 that showed up right at 4:00, 3 that called at 3:45 to say they were on their way, 1 that was about 10 minutes late and 2 no-shows. One of the no-shows made the effort to get his buy-in to me with another player and I knew about at around noon so I was able to handle it pre-tourney. The other let me know, through another player at about 3:45 and didn't send money so, for now, it came out of my pocket. That's the risk taken by not getting money up front. Due the the flood of players showing up last minute, we got started 5-10 minutes late.
The action was clearly different on different tables. Our table was taught and aggressive. No major large bets, but very few moments of limpability. Contrast that with shouts of "all-in" from across the room in the first round. I really didn't expect to be hearing all-ins that early with 5000 stacks and 5/10 blinds but there were a few.
Dodger was the first casualty at about 5:30. I think Daddy followed him and I wasn't far behind Daddy. I have no idea what happened to Dodger, I'll let him tell his tale. Daddy was at my table and it looked to me like he just kept getting good enough cards that got just enough help on the board to keep him chasing down second best and his stack just bled away. For me, I was just never able to get anything going. Mostly crappy cards throughout the first 3 rounds. I drug a couple of small pots, but nothing that ever got me in any kind of dominant position. My fatal hand came in the fourth or fifth round. I got a QTo in mid position and figured it was time to let my tight reputation work for me and raised it up pre-flop. I got 2 callers, both behind me. I hit a Q high flop. The pot was big enough to warrant a shove of my last 2500. I figured that grand of gesture would lose the other players, but unfortunately for me Ace just happened to have AQ. His large stack combined with a great flop for him made it a pretty easy call. That was it for me. Hindsight tells me I should have been more patient, but I felt it was time to try to force something and just hit a bit of bad luck. Oh well, poker happens.
We combined down to 2 tables 4 minutes before the dinner break. We managed to drop 3 players in those last few hands before the break. Incredibly, there weren't a lot of hideous suckouts at my table. The worst I saw were a couple of small pairs (both 55 as it turned out) that mangaed to spike a set on the turn or river against bigger pairs. I think one spike kept one player alive and another knocked a player out. I can't speak for the rest of the tables, but I did hear some groaning, pissing and moaning from a few tortured souls across the garage, so there must have been a few hideous river cards floating around somewhere.
Daddy was kind enough to grill up the dogs for me and they were ready to chow when we hit the break. I think it was about 7:00 when we resumed play with 17 players. We had more than the 16 players still in action so the antes were put into play. I honestly don't think the antes had any real bearing on the outcome and they didn't seem to stimulate too much extra action. At most, the antes added up to one extra big blind in the pot. There was the expected semi-whines from some of the short stack regarding the antes and quickly escalating blinds. It didn't take long to pare down the 17 to 9 for the final table (2 players busted out when we got down to 11) 2 minutes into the 1000/2000 + 200 ante round.
The final table rounded out as follows:
ATM
Bedrock
Annie
Nosegoblin
DA
TX
Kasper
Lisa (Omaha Al's wife)
Ace
I neglected to take note of stack sizes at this point, so I can't really comment on who was in position at this point. I think DA had the dominant stack at this juncture. We spent about 10 minutes coloring off the white 500 chips and about half of the black 100 chips into 1000 chips to make things a little smother.
There were a few successful desperation all-ins before TX failed to hook up with a big A on her try, so she was granted the honor of the bubble. (She promply went over to the cash game and landed a Royal Flush, which may have felt a little insulting. She would have won the Hgh Hand Jackpot ($150) if she could have hit it in the tourney!)
Ace was the first out of the Money players, followed by Nosegoblin, Kasper, ATM and Bedrock. We got down to the final 3 with Annie as the pretty dominant chip leader and I believe that Lisa had a bit more than the once dominant DA. DA just happened to notice that he was facing 2 ladies and made some comment about having to watch the two of them for "secret signals" between them. He didn't have much time for that as he met his fate a few hands into the 3-way. I made some smart ass- comment about how he couldn't even beat 2 girls as I handed him the third place money. There was a bit of chortles, oohs and ahhs and I realized that I had better shut up seeing how I managed to finish in the inverse position (third from last) and apologized. I think everyone knew that I was just kidding and no there were no hard feelings.
Annie and Lisa were set for the "Catfight". Annie had a huge chip advantage (10 or 20 to 1) but Lisa did her best to fend off the atacking Annie. I saw some very good play form both players, but Annie's stack was just too big for Lisa to over come and Annie took the crown.
Good job Annie - Congratulations!
In a coincednce I just put together, there were 2 couples in the field. Both of the ladies from those groups finished 1 and 2 and Al took the High Hand Jackpot, so between them, they took the tourney for a solid chunk of the available cash.
Speaking of the High Hand JAckpot, it was an unusually undramatic event. The first entry on the board came from BK who was at my table and managed to beat Al's boat (something like 88899) with his own bigger boat (of something like 888QQ). This happened in about the second orbit, very early in the tourney. Somewhere in the next couple orbits Al landed a full house QQQTT and that was that. There were no bigger boats or no quads that were spoken for the rest of the tourney. It all got decided in the first round.
Quads brought his fancy new bounty chips and they were sweet. I don't know how the bounty was recieved overall by the players, but it went smooth enough from what I could tell. Ace was handling the payouts on the Bounty so I'm not sure how everyone did. The most I heard from any one player was 5 or 6, so it appears that the Bounty money got spread around quite a bit. I didn't hear of amy confusion or problems with the Bounty so it could become a regular feature in future big events.
The tourney was wrapped up at around 9:30, so it took about 5 1/2 hours to complete including a 20-30 minute dinner. I was happy with the tourney as a whole. there was a slight bit of frindly critisizm about the quickly escalating blinds. It was suggested that next time we try a slower format with perhaps blind increasing at a 50% rate rather than the doubling up we did this time (and usually do). I'm not sure what impact this wold have on the length of the tourney, but would have no problem trying this if people are up for a tourney that could stretch from 5 1/2 to 8 or 9 hours. My goal is to put on big events that people want to participate in, so constructive critisizm is welcome.
The cash game didn't get started until sometime after the dinner break, probably somewhere around 7:30. After Bedrock helped me get all the chips in order, I finally got to play a little after having been "on the clock" all night. As I sat down BK looked to be the man of the hour, with Ace close on his heels. Soon after, Kasper took control of the situation and managed to do everything right. He was hitting his flushes and getting out of the way at the right times. He played particlus havoc on me. He wouldn't pay me off when I had the goods, but made a couple of big calls when I was trying to be a little more forcefull than my hand warranted. He made a pretty incredible call with a Q9 after I had raised preflop with TT. the flop came Q high. he opened for $2 into a $15 pot. I raised it to $15 and he called. He checked the turn and I shoved my $23. He went back and forth between calling and mucking. It was clear he had a tough decision. I knoiw I couldn't have made that call against a player with my tight image, but he finally did. Nice call, you win, Rebuy!
My second stack vanished mostly in one hand against Kasper when my AT hit a T high flop and I just couldn't bet enough to push him off his flush draw. He called the $20 turn bet and said "I'll give you a chance to get some of your money back." which of course was a guarantee that he was gonna hit his flush. the river delivered and he went all-in with $200 against my remaining $5.50. I just rolled my eyes and banged my head on the table. I look up to see his cards laying face up on the table. "Well, I'm sure not gonna call you now!" Ugh. Just another hideous night of cards for me. I never had any chance of dragging any big pots and never got anything good enough to really get into any stressful situations so there was no cause for anything that resembled emotion.
We wrapped up the cash game at around midnight and the remaining survivors made their way for the exits.
Special thanks:
To Dodger and Quads for lugging their tables over.
To Kid and Party Kid for helping me with the dealing duties for the tourney.
To Joe and Ace for helping with some of the tourney administration.
To BK for bringing his chips for the side game.
Thanks to everyone for making it a great event and to those of you who pitched in for the grub. The tip jar was a little lighter than I had hoped especially when I learned that BK contributed $10. But it was close enough that no damage was done.
Congrats to all who finished in the money in the tourney. I was pleased with the event as a whole, but willing to listen to ideas for next time.
To Daddy for being my Hot Dog specialist.
) I got some good cards and built my stack slow and steady. 
