I once passed Aces preflop in a live tournament at a final table to move the prize ladder - and the sums involved were nowhere near the amounts in the question.........................
By mid 2003 i'd only been playing the game for about 9 months, only online and nothing serious money wise because the clapped out steam powered PC i had inherited wasn't powerful enough to download a decent poker site in less than a week. Therefore my poker was restricted to playing the limit poker on pokerroom. One day at work i had to go downstairs to talk to someone in a different department and i noticed a poker magazine on their desk and began to talk to them about poker. He told me that if i wanted to play online that the best site was Pokerstars for tournaments and he also told me about the £10 rebuy tourneys at the Grosvenor Riverside in Salford on a Wednesday and Sunday night.
My first live game was good considering i had no idea about betting as all the games on pokerroom were limit and this was pot limit but i soon picked it up and was quite happy with my play even though i didnt cash. That night i couldn't sleep as cards and hands were rushing thru my head and i decided that i had to go back and soon. So on the Sunday night back i went for my second tourney. Not sure how but i made the final table with about average chips and off we went. Being a newcomer at the table i never thought to ask how the prizepool worked or what was on offer (though i later discovered that the card room manager wrote it on a piece of paper for all to see!
) and i remember incurring the wrath of one of the regulars by reraising a short stack all in player from the small blind when apparently it was "poker etiquette" to just call and allow the big blind to also call and knock him out. I had 77 at the time and made a set on the flop which soon quietened the regular down but i tried not to let it phase me for the rest of the game.
Then when we were down to 8 we had an unbelievable hand. UTG raised the pot and by doing so virtually put himself all in, next to speak reraised all in, next player passed then a short stack called all in. The cut off passed then the button went all in too, the decision was on me in the small blind and i look down to see AA. It would cost me all my chips to call and i have the big blind behind me who is short stacked and may go all in and then the UTG original raiser who is pot commited and will probably call all in. I decided that against 5 all in players that i could fold and move several places up the prize ladder, so i passed
Sure enough BB and UTG go all in for a 5 way all in pot and after about 10 minutes when the dealer had sorted out who won what we ended up losing 3 players and as it turned out my AA would have actually held up!!! Not long after that hand we lost another player and the 4 of us remaining decided to do a deal. Now at the time i had no idea how to do deals - and chances are because of that the other 3 players may have took advantage of me, but then at the time i got offered nearly £1000 and i couldnt believe i could agree to walk out with that much money having only bought in for £11 and one £10 rebuy. I'd never had so much cash all in one go and decided that i should invest the money in a laptop so i could do away with the wind up steam powered PC - and so that weekend off i went and blew half of my hard earned winnings. I also downloaded Pokerstars and doing a few tournament buy ins trying to adjust to the super quick software and tournaments where i could bet all my chips in one go i seemed to get the hang of it and the rest is history.
I often wonder if i had called there with the AA and lost, walking out with about £200 how my poker career would have panned out.......
Though if asked the question now - i call every day of the week!!