#135 - FTOPS 5A - Don’t Pay the Ransom, I’ve Escaped

I was CERTAIN I wasn’t going to be able to make it to tonight’s FTOPS #5, $200 + $16 HOSE, hosted by David Grey. But thanks to the understanding nature of Tony Holden and Colin Fox (with no small measure of help from New York cabdrivers), I have miraculously made it back. Let’s hope my poker can do justice to the effort to get me to the table.

Tonight’s event consists of 15 minute rounds of limit hold ‘em, Omaha EOB, Seven Card Stud, and Stud EOB. (Will the final table be all no-limit hold ‘em?) This is a real poker player’s event, requiring a mix of the different skills among the games, as well as changing gears as those games require.

On the first hand, I get two black aces, on the button. It is folded to me. I raise the 20 limit to 40, and both blinds fold. with 3,030 chips, I am tied for third in the tournament, in the unfamiliar position of being on the first page of an FTOPS Leaderboard. In the time it takes to write this sentence, I have disappeared. Fourteen pros tonight in the field of 651, including two Sextons, two Jetts, and Allen Cunningham and Lynette Chan at the same table.