I enjoy playing in tournaments, more than money games. I consider myself a good, but not great player. I like playing in tournaments in which you can sit tight early and really pick and choose your hands without feeling desperate to overplay midlevel hands too soon.

My home is just over 2 hours from Atlantic City, so I get to play in 7-10 tournaments a year in AC. My tournaments of choice are the weekday and/or weeknight games at Harrahs and Showboat. These tournaments cost between $50 to $100 and you get $10,000 in chips. If you make the final table, you can play for 4 to 5 hours.

This is the 5th year in a row, that I have come to Vegas in April with my wife, and son. My wife is a slot player who gets comped every year at the Rio. We love the hotel, but they should be ashamed of themselves for their poker room. For the first time in my five trips, I did not play there once during my stay.

Because of plans we made for our stay, I knew that I could only play in 1 to 2 tournaments during the week. In past stays, I had played tournaments at the Rio, Orleans Harrahs and TI. These tournaments were ok, and I made money twice in the Rio tournement. However, I would have prefered starting with more chips or playing in a game where there was more time at each blind level. I perfer to play in tournaments where I do not have to pay much more than $100.

Based upon this website, I chose to play in the Wed morning Head Hunter Bounty game at TI. It costs $125 with no rebuys or add ons. You get $5,000 in chips which is not huge but, but for Vegas is not bad. Best of all, the blinds change every 30 minutes instead of 20. Additionally, you play with a bounty incentive. You get $50 for each person you can knock out.

I like the TI room. It is small and its not plush, but comfortable. There are plenty of TVs, the waitresses come often enough and they have realy good boards for their tournements. Just as important, both management and the dealers were as nice as everyone on this site says they are. (Though in truth I have had very few problems with management and dealers in Vegas).

31 people signed up for the tournament, with the final 4 finishing in the money. We started with 3 tables. The talent of the players I observed in this game, ranged from good to excellent. The personalities of all the players were pleasant, with no one acting like a jerk. There were tons of people from England in town due to a prize fight. Several played at my tables, and were always fun talk with.

The one thing that suprised me about this game, is that you did not see many occassions where a player would cover a large all in bet a bit too agressively or with a questionable hand, in a quest for a bounty.

For the first 40 minutes, I did not get many worthwild hands. To this point I had only lost my blinds and one or two pre flop calls. Then, sitting on the big blind I get dealt J 10 (not suited). Three players call preflop, so I check. The flop comes out Q 9 8. (Thank you). I check. The next two players check too, and then one of the Brits at this table makes a small raise. I call and so does one other player. The turn is another 10. I check as does the next player. The Brit goes all in. I call (probably a bit too quickly) and the last player quickly folds. I show my Q high stright and he shows 6 7 (suited). The good news, was that I doubled up my stack. The frustrating part was that when the chips were counted out, the man from England had $50 more than me. I did not get the bounty. However, over the next 45 minutes of play, I continued to win hands and had knocked two people out.

At this point we got down to 20 players and I was reseated at one of the two remaining tables. I came to this table as one of the chip leaders, but I hit a streak where I got very playable cards, but could not make anything on the flop. I then get pocket 9s and the short stack goes all in. I am the only one to call. He shows A J (off suit) and my pairs holds. I make my 3rd bounty. It took two hours for the two tables to play down to 10. I was not involved in many memorable hands. I won a few small pots and paid several small raises to see flops. The only hand in this period that sticks out in my mind is one where I was on the small blind and was dealt 4 5 (spades). Everybody folds to a woman who makes a small raise. Everyone folds to me. I would not mind calling the bet and seeing the flop, but under normal circumstances would not because having watched the big blind play, I know that if this was a normal situation, if this guy has anything he is going to reraise and my hand is not worth it. I should make clear that though I respected the quality of play of all the remaining players at my table, I considered the guy seated to my left the best player at the table. However, on this occassion I was willing to take a chance because the woman who raised was the big blinds wife. I figured that if his wife was like mine, he would not reraise her too quickly. I was right. The flop gave me nothing, I checked, the big blind made a big raise and both his wife and I folded. When I tossed in my cards I made some coment about it being worth a try and the big blind asks me if it would have been worth a try if he had raised. I told him that I did not think he would do that to his wife. He laughed. Two hands latter, his wife makes a preflop raise and he reraises her. He does this several more times as the game progresses. Each time, his wife folds. ( If the wife is reading this review, I am sorry I mentioned it)

Sometime after 2:30 I make the final table. Two small stack gets knocked out and we play on for 45 more minutes. I get pocket 7s and make a big preflop raise. One player calls and the flop is A Q 10. The other player makes a big raise and I fold. My stack starts to shrink. I get K Q clubs and go all in. All fold except one player who calls and shows pocket Js. I do not hit anything and get knocked out.

Overall I loved this game. After the tip, I did not walk away with much more profit than cab fare. But it was still 3 1/2 hours of poker well spent. I will play in this tournament again, when I come back next year.