2013.04

Spring has sprung and so too did our 4th tournament of the year in the garage around back at Pepper St.

Lots of time on my hands to set up.  All done by 3 in the afternoon!

It was a smaller crowd than has been normal, but it was still a lively bunch.  All in all 15 players sat down to do battle as 7pm finally rolled around.

Getting down to bidness.

All players made it well past the break, thanks in no small part to a conspicuous lack of monster collisions and of course, the super crazy generous monster starting stack of 20K in chips.

Players got to enjoy a couple of new additions to the garage.  First - an extra monitor for keeping track of the blinds.

Wife wasn't home - so I took it from the bedroom!  Might not happen next month. :)

And second - a fabulous new surface for the formerly dingy blue table.  Now it's the sexy new red table!  The felt was "velveteen" courtesy of Joanne's Fabrics, and players seemed to dig it, including yours truly who was moved there for a short time to balance the tables.

Finally, after just over three hours of play we were down to our final table.

I love when there's an empty chair - it means I made the final table!  Yay!

Action was fast and furious, but there weren't to many crazy suck outs - though it's always impressive when AK and 1010 get it in pre-flop and the board reads like this.

Standard evil poker hand.

And then it was bubble time.  The lucky fellow who just missed getting his money back was the always gracious Josh F. who was beyond thrilled that he picked up this amazing bubble prize - courtesy of Barbara N. who eloquently pointed out... "It's kind of fun, and it shits out jelly beans!"

The perfect Easter gift.

And then there were five.

For Dan it had been an amazing road.  His stack was up and down a bit, and then shortly before his elimination he was down to literally one chip.

Dan indicates with perfect clarity that he is down to ONE chip.

He folded twice before his blind hit and he was all in in the dark.  Miraculously, he tripled up.

Back in it bitches!

Unfortunately, his epic comeback was not to last.  He busted in the next hand when his aces were cracked by 72 off suit.  Well, that may not have been the exact hand, but it was something similar. He was out in fifth and won his buy in back.

Out next in fourth place for double his buy in was Dan I.

Yours truly, who had ridden a roller coaster stack all night long, finally succumbed  to third place and pocketed $100.

And then there were two - Marc F. and Julie A.

As big as the blinds were, both Marc and Julie still had enough chips to play some poker - their battle lasted for a half hour before Marc finally ran into a bigger pair and had to settle for second place and $160.

Julie A. took this one down for $220 and the spectacular PSP trophy.  Well done Jules!

A big thanks to Dan I. for sticking around and shuffling like a crazy person, and dealing as well when it got to heads up.  It really makes a huge difference heads up to have an extra person slinging cards.

Our next event is our WSOP satellite - click here for details.  Hope you can make it.  If not there's always our regular monthly tournament.  Our May event will take place on Saturday, May 4 at 7pm.    Until then - keep keeping on!