I took a walk around downtown Pendleton Saturday morning, and although there's not much to it I must admit it's a pretty decent town after all. And it isn't as small as I originally expected; all in all it's probably about the same size as the town I went to college at in Nebraska. So it was a very comfortable place to be.
The motel I was at was as cheap as could be, but not a bad joint at all. Best of all, the wireless Internet worked! And it was next door to the 24-hour Denny's restaurant, so I had decent breakfasts all weekend (and a few nice lunches too).
Along with around 300 other folks, I played the $500 buy-in tournament on Saturday. Much to my surprise, there were a lot of pros who were there! I didn't expect this, because of the WSOP circuit tournament going on in Tahoe, but there they were: Susie Isaacs, Marsha Waggoner, Tom McEvoy, Barbara Enwright, Linda Johnson, a few others too. When I saw Tom McEvoy, I remembered that I happened to have brought one of his books with me to read on the plane, so I resolved to bring it back the next day and see whether he would autograph it for me.
I made it more than half-way through the field, but busted out before the money. But on the other hand, I saw that I had outlasted every pro except for Linda Johnson, so I guess that's something.
The next day (Saturday) was the "Main Event", with a $1000 buy-in. But I was having such a good run at the cash games that I decided to skip it and just play $2/$5 after all. I brought my book for McEvoy to sign -- but he never showed up! I guess when he busted out of the Friday tournament so early, he just decided to head out. Bummer! I really wanted to meet him.
Sunday was the "Last Chance" tournament, with a measly $200 buy-in. Just for fun, I played a $20 satellite to see whether I could get in for cheap; made it all the way to heads-up, and then cut a deal with the other guy. I gave him the win, and he gave me $75. So I decided to go ahead and play that tournament. There were over 200 entries.
I made it to the final five tables . . . but they only paid the final two tables. So I nearly made it. Then, back to the cash tables for more money-making.
At one of my cash games were two pros that I'd never heard of before: Vince Burgio and Howard "Tahoe" Andrew. It's probably a good thing that nobody told me they were pros until after they had left or else I might have probably been intimidated. As it was, I pretty much wiped the table with them. "Tahoe" especially received a lot of pain from playing pots against me. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure they haven't heard of me either.
They play either two or three of these "Poker Roundups" each year; not clear to me yet which it is. But I can promise you that I will definitely be back! I have found a group of really good poker players, top to bottom, and it's a totally terrific environment to play in!
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