3 raises with $6 max? And house keep th $20 you play with whatever you have in your pocket?

<Perf> doesn't post here regularly so I'll take a swing at your question. A Buy-In usually refers to the entry fee for a tournament. It could also refer to the minimum stack in a cash game although $20 is hardly sufficient for that. In a $3-6 cash game, I would start with around $150. You need enough to cover the maximum possible wager. If there are 3 raises, that would be 12+12+24+24 = 72. Buying in for about twice that gives you a comfortable cushion should you start out slow.

The problem for the 3s here was there was no raise before the flop. Clearly Qs would have raised. Nobody would slow play Qs and survive for long in a tough game at the Horseshoe.

I'm back- yes I'd forgotten all about that <chess.com> "breast" furor.

I had to look up the word <Pharasaic>, so thanks for adding to my vocabulary!

<Somewhat mysterious grandmaster from Ukraine, now living in Germany. For most of his career Nicolai Shalnev has been a solid enough master, generally rated in the high 2200s or low 2300s. Then, in his mid fifties, his results improved dramatically, although he seems not to have been playing in very many tournaments. Shalnev finally gained his GM title in 2001 at age 57; his rating eventually peaked in 2003 at an astonishing 2553. It has recently dropped back to 2512, but that still makes him one of the strongest players in the world over 60--he currently ranks fifth among active players, ahead (often way ahead) of many well known GMs. With all these accomplishments, however, he seems to be all but unknown; I couldn't find any information about him at all on the net, except for his birthday.

Dang, this here world's gonna end!

Soon after I mucked AT in the big blind, it was time for a blind battle between Cloutier and Seymour.

TJ brought it in after everyone else passed and Bill flatted.

TJ checked the flop, Seymour bet and Cloutier raised all in. After long reflexion, Bill called. TJ had flopped middle pair with a five, but Bill had an overpair to the five and it held up, so Cloutier was out in ninth.

A longish period of fairly desultory action followed, with two other short stacks being eliminated.

To this point, I had played a mostly solid game, especially in the full table action. Once we got to six-handed, that changed.

While I do not recall the hands, I got into a confrontation with Noam Freedman, who had played well and confidently, and managed to finish him off and thereby get a decent stack to operate with for the first time in a long while.

The tendency towards opening up the game continued, as Cope would raise, I would shove over him, and he would fold. This happened four or five times in about forty minutes.

As was typical, I brought it in for a raise to 17,000 of my 105,000 stack from under the gun with A5 of diamonds with the blinds at 2-4K and antes of 500. Buster shoved from the next seat for 92K, not having got involved too often at this final table.

The other players mucked and I called fairly quickly, the worst blunder of my career.

Buster turned over two queens. My luck was in that night, as two diamonds came on the flop, and the flush card hit the river.