Bad Beat on Cancer Charity Event

Last months CMPPA Bad Beat on Cancer was another successful event for the CMPPA to kick off it's 2013 year. Once again the local bar poker community surprised me by having 52 players show up for the event and donate over $1100 to the American Cancer Society. Thank you to all that donated items for silent auction and or your time to make the event successful. It was a fun day raising money and remembering James Wang. It was nice to see Donita and have her and Ann speak about Jim and his love of bar poker and it's players. There were many great auction items with me taking home a package from Grand Casino Milacs and a pair of Timberwolves tickets. Got to see many people that I had not seen for many months and had a very fun poker table to start tournament. Now this is not your normal CMPPA event as extra chips were given to anyone that donated to American Cancer Society so most players started with 25,000 in chips. As most of you know that when you give bar players extra chips play tends to start fast and pots build fast. One of the players on my table almost doubled up on the first hand. I played a little less aggressive then I have been playing and ended the 1st break about 5000 down in chips. 4 of the first 5 players knocked out of tournament came off of my table so it created several big stacks early. As the blinds increased I picked up the aggression a little and was able to build a nice stack on my table with many big stacks. When we reached 20 players my table was broken down and the move was not kind to me. I went card dead for a long stretch but was able to limp my way to final table with a very small stack. On the final table my card dead hands continued until I was forced to push all in with a small pocket pair and managed a double up. This seemed to get me started and I soon moved up to a mid size stack. One of the players on the table had been drinking a lot and all of the sudden got very aggressive and even announced that he was getting tired of playing. He had moved all in two hands in a row and appeared to be giving up all his chips. The next hand he moves all in again and everyone folds to me. I am big blind and have A-3 off. It is most of my chips to call, but not all. I think for quite a while as I am sure that I am ahead of him and he is just continuing his pushing all in, so I make the call. He turns over pocket jacks. Wow, was i wrong! It doesn't look good for me. The flop comes out 3 suits that I have the ace of and the river brings another and I 4 flush him and take him out of the event. So much for my great poker instincts, well at least I got lucky and won the hand. It was the turning point for me. I went on to win the event by taking out the last 2 players on the same hand with 2-3 off by rivering a deuce. I finally won my first CMPPA event! It's was about time. Now it's too bad that I can't play in the event next month. Thanks again to all that came and played and donated. It was a day to remember.