Best-Laid Plans

I’d intended to play very slowly and carefully last night in my home league’s second quarterly event. I had a 24-point lead on the second-place position in the player of the year list, which was about 13% of the total points. With twelve players in the game last night, I had to go out first and #2 had to take first or second for the night.

I played a couple of hands I shouldn’t have, though, and my plans were all akimbo. A player who’s only been able to make the quarterly games this season went into the final table (seated to my left, after the re-draw) with a chip stack that must have held close to a third of the chips in play and took out five of twelve players. He threw a bit of chaos into the POY race and took second place after having a little less luck nine-handed than he did with six. Still, I didn’t go out until sixth place, #2 went out in third, and #3 took first. They swapped places on the leader board, my lead narrowed to only 14 points (7%) but I maintained my three-month status as #1.