Busted By the Bounty

Today was a really cool tournament at the Aussie Millions. It basically had five gimmicks:

1. It was a bounty tournament - one (sometimes pseudo) celebrity at each table - the buyin was $1650 and bagging a bounty was worth $1000
2. After the first few players were busted, play was eight-handed down to 32 players
   
3. When it got down to 32 players, every player was "seeded" according to chip stack. The biggest stack was paired with the smallest, the second biggest with the second smallest, etc, so every table had a mix of big, medium, and short stacks
4. These final four tables were played shootout style, playing until the final two at each table remained. These last two then stopped playing and moved to the final table.
5. All tournament long players had only twenty seconds to act on their hands.

I was talking to an older local fellow at the table today and found myself saying the Aussie Millions is "my favorite tournament" which I hadn't really thought about before. It's definitely the case - the staff does a fantastic job, the lineup of tournaments is original and intriguing, the location is wonderful, and the local players are very weak. I hope I have the opportunity to play here every year.

The bounty at my table was Jon "PearlJammer" Turner. He plays a tight game, very similar to mine, though obviously much more efficient in tournaments. I was excited at the opportunity to play with him and observe him play a tourney start to finish, but unfortunately he busted me!

The blinds were 75-150 and he raised under the gun to 375. I looked down at two black queens in the BB and flat called. The flop came Td9d3d. I checked, he bet 475, and I called. The turn was the Qh - I bet out 1000 and he moved all in for about 4k. I called and he turned over 8d7d. I needed the board to pair on the river to collect his bounty (I had him barely covered) and get hold of a big stack but it didn't happen and I was out the next hand. I love how I played this hand start to finish, I love how I am playing poker right now, the story has just been unfortunate situations - I am keeping my head high and expect it to turn around soon.