Running Aces Hallow-Scream Tournament

I'm not a professional poker player.  In fact, like most poker players I have a full time job.  I play poker as my hobby and do some poker blogging/writing on the side.  After playing several events over the course of Running Aces's Midwest Poker Classic and Canterbury Parks Fall Poker Classic and still trying to cover the FPC events for Ante Up Magazine, I wasn't necessarily looking to play another poker tournament right away.

But Running Aces hosted it's Hallow-Scream Tournament from Oct 24th - Oct 28th and I was very intrigued by the event..  It was a $275 tournament with 4 day 1s and a $50K guaranteed prize pool, which they crushed, and first place paid $27K.  You could play multiple day 1s, and if you made day 1 twice, they'd buy back your lowest stacks for $600 each.  They also ran $70 qualifiers to play the event, and gave away 7 seats in their weekly freeroll.  This was a fantastic way to allow small stakes players to play a "big time" event with the possibility of making some serious money.

I bought directly into the event.  It is just below the $350 limit I have for direct buy-ins, so it fit my budget perfectly.  I only played one Day 1, although I would have considered playing it again if my schedule had permitted.  Each day 1 played 15  half hour levels.  So it took about 8 hours when you factor in breaks.  The  structure was great, I believe it was the same as they used for the Midwest Poker Classic.

I finished day 1 on a short stack with 35K chips.  It was the first time I'd made day 2 of a multi-day tournament, so I was pretty happy despite my short stack.  Day 2 started at 1,500-3,000 blinds with a 300 ante.  My first table looked to be very soft but I was only able to win the blinds once (with AK) before the table broke.  I was moved to a much tougher table that had a few players I recognized as good players.  I folded until the last hand of the level, and pushed all in with KQ to take down the blinds uncontested.

WARNING:  The next paragraph contains a bad beat story.  Please avert your eyes if you are inclined.  I will try to keep it as short and painless as possible.  Feel free to skip to the next paragraph.

The first or second hand of the 2,000-4,000 level a very good player opened to 11K.  I looked down to find QQ and shoved my 43K stack into the middle.  After thinking for a little bit, my opponent called with KT.  Flop came all babies.  The turn brought three spades on the board, so the king of spaces was no longer an out for my opponent, since I held the queen of spades.   My opponent was down to two red kings as outs.  Of course a red king came and I finished in 79th place, with payouts starting at 70th.

Despite not cashing, I think this is a fantastic event.  It really allows a much broader range of players to participate than even the $500 events.  With the multiple day 1s it generates a very nice prize pool.  I'd like to see more events like this.  I think it is an excellent event for all stakes of players.