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I find that it is no trick to finish in the top 20% of these tourneys. A large part of that may be that only the top 10% pay anything. I was down to 600 chips with the blinds 150-300 and came across QQ. Not only did I go all-in, but two guys joined me for the ride. Add in the blinds and my stack grew to the 2000s. Not much later I landed another decent hand and was sitting in the 4000s. The trouble, of course, is how do I play 99 with against a big field. I was hesitant to go all-in with so many big stacks, so I paid for the flop and prayed for a set.

Well, no set. I did get an overpair. Even worse. I ran into AJ and the jack came on the river. I doubt the big stacked AJ was going to pre-flop fold anyway, so I played it the best I could. In fact, he was more likley to fold after the flop, but he didn't.