Well, sort of good.

I’d been expecting to be in Pendleton Monday morning, playing Omaha High/Low, but circumstances late in the week before intervened and I had to stay in Portland. No shot at the High Roller this spring (unless something completely unexpected happens today).

I wrapped work up early in the day, then wandered over to Final Table for their first game. My first hand, I had [9x 9x] on the button. The blinds were 25/50 and UTG raised to 700, a tenth of the starting stack. I’d been in the exact same situation with a different player the week before (really, a lot of times), and I called it. The flop was [9x 6x 2x], he continued with a massive overbite of more than 2,500, I went all-in, he called with [qx qx] (the player the week before had aces) and he got stacked, then walked away from the table without rebuying. I knocked out another player (who did rebuy) before the end of the second level (he didn’t play his hand as poorly, he was short and just lost the hand), and while the rest of the tournament had the usual ups and downs, when we did a deal at the end, I had the most of the three players left.

Both this week and last, while I had the lead and could theoretically have asked for more in an ICM deal, the amount of money that would have been involved wasn’t really worth the hassle of holding out for more. The three-way ICM distribution yesterday, even with first place on the payout schedule being more than two-and-a-half times third place, and me having half-again as much as either of the other two players, had only about a $50 gap (ten percent of the scheduled first prize) between first and third. I said to just split it three ways evenly and, not surprisingly, they both agreed. There were only 51 big blinds in play. JB—who busted in third place before the deal last week after coming to the final table as the short stack—was knocked out again just before the deal.

Five-and-a-half hours. 1st of 35 entries. +600% ROI.