A simple $35 buy-in each and there we were: seated and ready to play our first ever poker tournament.

My Texas Hold 'Em experience is extensive. I mean, I must have played the game, like, twice, and managed to win the whole thing both times. So obviously, I was ready for the big time.

This was also our first time in a real casino. Okay, yes, Lisa and I go to the Stampede Casino every year during Stampede week, but that doesn't count. If we can still see the concrete walls of the warehouse we're playing in, it's not a real casino. It needs bright lights, lounge singers, and dealers that are not likely to get everyone involved in an impromptu game of 52-Card Pickup.

So, ten tables of eleven or twelve players each, all full of my co-workers and their guests/ringers. $2500 in chips each, blinds increasing every 15 minutes. So while we may start at seven with small and big blinds of $25 and $50, by 10 o'clock, the blinds would have to pay three and six thousand a hand.

I'm in seat 7 on table 7. Lucky lucky. The girl to my right has played twice herself, but online, so my experience vastly exceeds hers. In the far right curve is an Asian fellow who can shuffle his chip stack with one hand. Obviously trying to unnerve the rest of us with his mad chip fondling skillz. Two guys with sunglasses, one with a hoodie, like he's Phil Laak or something.

I'm a tight player. Keep things to my chest, while chatting up everyone around me, poking fun at sunglasses guy and the Laak-alike. The Fondler is pulling ahead, chips sliding down to his stack every couple of hands.

Everyone is playing aggressively, with bets of one and two thousand dropping early. Just after the blinds increased the first time, applause erupted as the first player in the tournament went all-in and busted out.

Decided to finally dip my toes in with a little QJo (here's details on poker notation if you are unfamiliar with it). Not a great hand, but need to get some feelers out. Lucked out with three more suited cards on the flop (K,8,3). The Fondler chucks out $250 and the table clears. I'm one shy of a flush so I stay in, calling, but not pushing him. The turn is a low offsuit, and the Fondler is in with $500. I match him and catch the seven of spades on the river. He pauses and clicks his chips - I peg him at having a king pair. "FUCK!" he says and folds.

"Did you have the spade?" he calls over as I pick up the chips. I shrug. "Can't tell you," I say. No need in revealing if I was a bluffer or not. He goes out two hands later.

Our table gets broken up after about 45 minutes, and we're sent to fill vacant chairs in other tables. I'm on table 11 now, and one of the big stacks in play. I stay even for a while, then catch a big break.

I've got QTo in my hand - not great, but I'm the big blind so I might as well take a look at the flop. Which turns out to be a K, J and 9. I'm holding a straight. Sweet.

Only one other guy at the table is in and he starts to play eager. I decide this is my big chance, so I milk him for everything he's got. And I do. He sticks it out with me raise and re-raise until the river and goes all-in after I re-raise his bet to $2500. We show and he's got two pair - Kings and Jacks. Nice, but not nice enough. See ya!

Over the course of the night, I get to send four other people home. Mostly by trumping their final, desperate all-in with a decent hand. I do get munched on when I call a fellow who goes all-in and turns out to have a pair of sixes against my AKs when I get nothing to support it. I do manage to beat a guy's pocket aces with three sevens though.

The table got split one more time and I end up with the Big Dogs. Guy beside me looks like a young Jon Favreau and has a stack three times the size of mine when I sit down.

I can't catch a break at the new table. I get THE HAMMER twice and my best hand is a Q9s. Finally, with blinds about to go up to $1500-3000, I take my last $4,500 and go all-in on a KJs, hoping to catch a little action. The Little Favreau matches my action and flips his AKo. We both catch a King on the flop but when the turn pulls another ace I'm all done.

No one was keeping track of positions. We were at three tables left with a couple holes at each one, so I figure I placed 27th or 28th out of the field of 112. I beat everyone on my floor, which is cool, and I beat Lisa, which is always fun.

Now I want to play more. Anyone have a deck of cards?

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