Tournament VP

[MikeA]

I played in a little tournament Downtown at Fitzgerald's this past week.  $10 entry fee with $5 re-buys.  Each session was 10 minutes and after 6 sessions (one each 30 minutes) the player with the highest credit count won.  1st place was $250, 2nd $100, 3rd $50 and 4th $25.  A drawing was held for those who didn't "cash" and three players were awarded a tee-shirt and $15 in credits to be used on machines marked for the "reward play."  Of course, these were all slot machines and not VP machines!
 
I think Fitzgerald's has these VP tournaments on Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's.  The games are held in the area right by the Hotel check-in counter.  The game was DDBP.
 
I didn't cash.  I think I had 645 credits on my initial session and 760 on my second one.  The winning player had 1,700+ credits. 
 
With this type tournament, is it best to just go for the RF on every opportunity or to play Strategy as if you were playing a normal session?
 
I did win one of the consolation prizes....gave my wife the $15 slot play.  Just couldn't bring myself to sit down and smash buttons.
 
As a side note...I pretty much broke even at VP this trip, but Blackjack took care of any jubalation I might have had.  Between Double-Deck at Slots-A-Fun and Single-Deck at El Cortez, well, let's just say that the cards were not falling my way...even when they SHOULD have been!
 
So, on the last night out, I decided just to have FUN and invested $60 in a $2 8-deck game at 4-Queens in a session that lasted from 8pm until 3:30am and 11 or 12 glasses of Scotch!  Obviously, the players at that $2 table were far more knowledgable than Fuchs, Ken Smith, Stanford Wong or any of the other blackjack experts!  I saw strategy there that was nothing less than brilliant!  But it was fun and hilarious!