Lewis and Clark poker: tourney win drops me $10

On our annual "camping" trip to a state park Environmental Learning Center Retreat Center, a group of friends play a lot of board games, strategy games, and a bit of poker. On Saturday night, eight of us sat down for a no-money no-prize NLH tournament. If I'd thought about it ahead of time, a Sacajawea dollar would have been an amusing (but politically incorrect*) prize.

My experience in six-player online sit-n-go tournaments really helped, especially when we got down to three players (me, Tres, and Beaker). I was on the big stack at this point, and bullied them around with hands like Ax or even Kx. I lost a few hands, but won a few bigger ones. And when the blinds were about 1/3 of Tres' and Beaker's respective stacks, they can't wait for a good hand any more. The aggressive play, good cards, and somewhat inexperienced opposition helped me win the tourney.

Four of us then sat down for our typical 10¢/25¢ ring game: Tres, Darthslumlord, Kevin, and me. How incredibly dull. All four of us played like we were on auto pilot; we've played each other so much, we could tell when someone had a hand, we could tell when someone knew we had a hand, and played accordingly. In retrospect, I should have done a better job at shifting gears -- I probably could have bought a few more pots. It ended when I lost the rest of my $10 buy-in to Tres with a bad card on fourth street. I could have re-bought, but why? In the final tally, Tres and Darthslumlord broke even, Kevin ended up $10, and I ended up down $10. Yawn.

* Some accounts of Sacajawea's life say:

[A] French Canadian fur trader, Tousaint Charbonneau won [Sacajawea] in a poker game. By then, she probably spoke the Minnetare language, as did Charboneau. Charboneau was hired by Lewis and Clark November 4, 1804 as an interpreter, and because Sacajewea could guide the Corps of Discovery to Northern Shoshoni country.