Twelth of Twenty

Not exactly what I expected last night. Only twenty on a Wednesday, and started late, as usual. Ten minutes before what was suppose to be the start time, the tournament director asks me for an opinion of his new format plan. Triple the buy-in, triple the starting chip stack, and start two hours sooner. 'Perfect for me', I tell him. Then he goes on that it would be a freeze-out. Meaning only the winner gets any prize money. Second and third place etc would have to negotiate a chopped prize pool or fight to come in first. The problem would be playing well enough to be in the top three every Wednesday. Instead I could set the alarm for three thirty every Friday and Sunday morning and play for a wee bit more money against a much larger field for payouts down to eighteenth place [if over one hundred players sign up]. I have every other Friday free, so it is possible. And I've been there before and done well enough to bring home a few Benjamin's. With this Wednesday night thing dying, and similar clubs in parts of town that I do not want to go to, I am thinking of letting it go and switching to Friday and Sunday mornings. Being recognized as a rock and having no one call my raises is not fun either. When the blinds were at one hundred and two hundred with a twenty five ante last night, I raised under-the-gun for six hundred. No callers. The director walks by and says 'now that's respect'. I shake my head and think no, it's them knowing I'm a rock and probably raising with a pair of aces whilst they hold nothing. I must have thought it out loud for the guy on my right who was in the big blind ask, 'so, you have aces?'. I just nod and ante up.