Round 1: The Reigning Champ

Unfortunately, my title defense lasted all of about 20 minutes, as I busted on pretty much the first hand I played. I didn’t get much to play with, and folded around 2 orbits with the blinds 10/20, leaving me with 940 left in chips. By my third time being big blind, it was now 20/40, and I finally got a hand worth playing, pocket kings. The two people to my left folded and the third person to act called with 40. The next person to act raised to 100, and everyone else folded back around to me. My hand was the second strongest possible pre-flop, so I re-raised to a total of 300. The original caller folded and my opponent quickly put me all in. At this point, I thought it was very likely he had pocket aces, but there were already 1,300 chips in the pot, so I only needed a 33% chance of winning to call. My bad feeling was indeed correct, and after he showed the aces, I only had an 18% chance of staying alive. Nothing interesting came in the community cards, and my tournament hopes were officially dashed.