Chop, Chop, Chop ...

Last Monday evening's small club tournament was a strange affair. Folded most hands in the first hour and bought the super sized add-on at the break and got ready for less wild poker after the break during the next three levels. The hands actually started to get better, and the loose play evident during the re-buy period faded away. So much in fact that two hours later there were still three full tables of players after starting with only forty. Somehow in the fourth hour, we lost enough players to break the third table, and finally knock the players down to ten for the final table. Right after receiving our seat assignments, someone proposed a deal, a ten way chop. I've heard it joked that we should on these small tournaments, but now it was serious being considered by over half the table. We did agree on ten percent off the top of the prize pool for the dealers, and also to expand the prize pool from four places to ten just before this came up. No one objected, and players started to co-mingle their chips in the middle of the table. A ten way chop of the prize pool. We all went away happy, the guys who busted out in eleventh and twelfth place were not happy. As a cash game for no-limit started up, I cashed in and head home. A ten way split? Yeah, it really happened, and I have the cash in my pocket to prove one tenth of it.