Congrats, @o48o! The 3rd place in a tournament with 3,000+ entries is amazing!
-cut-
Thanks, but i feel i owe lot of my third place to that last table, because
i am not sure why, but most in the table seemed to be eager to immediately put all in. I would have been completely happy with 10th place with $10, but i thought i might wait some hands out while other players were dropping. I had some money left, so i had some time to wait for the good hand, and other players were betting really aggressively. So after few hands, there were only few left and i ran out of money, and i went with last hand as a hail mary and lost.
Something like this happened to me too several times when I was in the final table. There are moments when the less you play the better. Other players eliminated quickly and you go up. I can relate to what you are talking about totally.
And i haven't been that lucky since. But i wouldn't do free tournaments just for money every day, as tournaments are long and most of the time even if you play well, you are not getting into that last table. And games are less interesting when people with basically nothing to lose play, so they do all-ins a LOT. Not that i am complaining with free $80, but poker tournaments take lot of time and need lot of attention.
Recently I played in one of those, with $7.50 buy-in, and I managed to climb up to the 3rd place once
But later was kicked off. But I eliminated one player and got $2 for that. So, not that bad. Tried playing other games too, but without much success.
What I like about these poker games on Stake is that it looks like they've managed to engage many really good poker players in their tournaments. It's a pleasure to play with them at the same table. I will surely be playing more poker on Stake.