tourney question

i've never played a tournament, or tournament style, but yesterday me and some friends played some tournament style poker, shorthanded. small buy-ins, 1st and 2nd get some money. it was fun, but i was amazed at what people were playing with. granted these are guys from my home game, who i usually can count on winning money from... terrible.

people were going all in with medium size stacks and getting called with guys who had a good size stack, but had no pair on the river!!!! i don't understand their thinking. were they making sure the other guy wasn't stealing the pot?

i put a number of people all in with 2nd pair and find they have bottom or no pair????

the last hand i played, i was even stacked with just the 2 of us. i don't remember the exact details, but i had a raging headache and decided to go all in (either win it all or bust, so i could go home) with middle pair high kicker. i didn't really think the other guy would call me (he's probably one of the worst card players i've ever seen), but he did. i surprisingly smiled, knowing he probably didn't have much. we flipped our cards, and to my delight he had nothing... but neither did i. i had misread my hand. he rivered a pair, and won, which was fine, since i wanted to leave anyhow, but i still have no idea why he called?

i know if we were playing a regular money game, they wouldn't have called such hands.

please tell me tournament poker is nothing like this, and this is just my jackass friends. if it is, i doubt i'll ever try tournament poker at the casinos.

1. it is just your jackass friends
2. when can i come over to play against them???
3. if no to #2, keep playing them in tourneys. but make sure to let them have fun and make it seem like you got lucky.

heh, i don't know if we'll be playing again anytime soon. the really bad players lost early and would cry about how long they have to wait for the next game. although the guy who is the absolutely worst player, won 2 of the small little tournaments, by sheer dumb luck (calling all ins with [censored] and catching on the river), so he was either bitching about being out early, or bragging about how good he was.

this home game is so horrible, but the only reason i play is because i'm just hanging out with friends, and i can usually win lunch money for a few days. heh