Springbac made the final table but busted out early. I lost the first round then re-bought and lost again. Both times the victim of PROSPERING PLOPPIES.
What was interesting for me was I was BR1 with near a max bet lead over BR2 when there were about 5 or 6 hands left. Considering my lead, BR2 kept betting minimum which struck me as odd to say the least. I was later told that BR2 (MR. X) was a seasoned player. On each of the last 3 hands he was betting before me and was on the button on the last hand. He still bet minimum on the 3rd and 2nd to last hand. From this action, I suspected that he was palming 1 or 2 large chips so I was keeping a close eye at the time. Anyway, BR3 made a miraculous comeback that made watching MR. X worthless and I concentrated on doubling up max bets to challenge the new leader. In the process I lost track of MR. X so I never did see if he was palming the chips as I suspected. In retrospect, I should have kept an eye on MR. X to see if I was right.
They only had about 170 to 180 players which I thought was disappointing considering it only cost $50 and that included a room - but maybe they didn't consider it low. I think the turnout could have been better if it was not held on a Monday and if it was opened from the beginning instead of by invitation when signing up first started. On the whole, the tournament was well run with a couple of minor problems. After the countdown the floor person did not give out the the scores unless you asked. Also, the dealers could have used some more training - on one table in particular the dealer was not turning over the hand count markers so that table played a lot more than the 25 hands planned. As was mentioned, the format needed some improvement:
Round 1: 1 advance per table
Round 2: Accumulation - 32(?) out of 48 advance
Round 3: Accumulation - 5 out of 32(?) advance
Round 4: 1 wild card drawn for final table.
Many BJT members there and I had a good time in spite of losing the tournament and the fact that the dealers, live and tournament, were stone faced.