Bob,
>>>Serious question...is that the key to winning the big bucks in tournament play? If you pile stacks early, ride the blinds to the last table? I want to have the most chips going into that situation....>>>

If you build up a nice chip lead you do need to clamp down some & just attack the smaller stacks & avoid getting involved with the bigger stacks that can hurt you. At one point in the tournament last year I know for a FACT that you had the chip lead because I got up from the table to check how the other tables shaped up. I was also looking for a hand to get involved with you & put a dent in your stack, but that hand never came. I did get Kings on one hand & flopped a set in what turned out to be a monster pot. I never filled up & a flush beat me on the river. You were not in that hand. If I had won that hand I would have clamped down since it was in the middle stages of the tournament. I had very few chips after that & then got knocked out. In the Club tournament your going to see 6, 7 & 8 people going to the river so that's where the adjustments I was talking about earlier come into play. I won't go into those since I want to save them as I said for the next time I play in the Club tournament. I knew going into it last year that there was a very good chance that the worst player might win it & that's about what happened. Katie knows NOTHING about Poker & she just might be one of the favorites to win it! In a regular tournament (like the regular weekly Orleans tournaments) if you have 100 people (the same number who will be in the Club tournament) playing you might have say 30 people who can really win it & 70 are what is called dead money & have little or no chance. Someone like say Gene when he is playing poker all the time or Anne & Mike Spinetti, Jim Perlowski (if he could stay awake past 7 at night) & myself along with a few others I can't think of right now would be in that group of 30. In the CLUB tournament it is the other way around because of the number of people who are new to poker OR poker tournaments. You now have 70 who can win it because they are in the group playing most hands to the river & 30 who are solid players. In this case the 30 solid players are now the DEAD MONEY. The above numbers are of course not exact, they are just to give you an example.

>>>Serious question 2....yes you did, the bulk of my stacks came on a filled straight on the flop holding J-9 hole cards. That hand p*ssed off more than one player, the flop, turn and river having the potential to fill a flush for anyone holding hearts in the hole. I thought that was good play on my part.

There was nothing wrong with that hand. It was some of the others I was thinking about! <G> Also, to be fair to you..........When you ended up bleeding off your mountain of chips..........at the same time The Orleans was looking to stock back up on your favorite beer! That's not to say you had a few by then...........Well, yes that is what I am saying! <G> That being the case you were of course not playing the same game that helped you build that stack. One hand you lost in losing back those chips involved a 10,5 in early position. I remember it well because that was a hand that Tony (last years winner) won & for about the 5th time we had to remind him to protect his cards because the dealer almost mucked them. He had a flush & you had a pair of 5's. I'll leave you (and anyone else reading this) with one piece of advice that only comes into play if you do have a nice stack in the middle stage of the tournament. Let ONE full round go by without playing a hand! In this type of loose tournament your going to lose quite a few players in the middle & later stages & after the one round is over start attacking the SMALL stacks like I said above.
Andy - Las Vegas