2014.04

Boom baby.

28, count them, 28 degenerates squeezed into the garage out back on a lovely cool evening for some rocking and/or rolling No Limit Hold-Em Tournament action.

Best of all we had, I believe, a whopping 8 new players!  Three that I knew from Garner's game, Tina, Jeff & Art, plus Art's better half Priya.  Then there was Frank and Andres that Jessie brought in.  Andrew who came with long time player who plays maybe once a year Steve S.  And finally my next door neighbor Damon who played most of the night with an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth to the delight of all.  Dang that's a lot of new playas!  It was great having all of you -  if I don't have your contact information, please take the initiative and email me directly to be added to the evite; I would love to have each and every one of you back soon!

The new players were awesome because they all showed up and showed up on time.

Alas, chaos ensued anyways as I struggled to get everyone checked in on time properly, 28 is a LOT.

To add to my bamboozlement, one player forgot to respond as a yes and just showed up, another forgot that he was coming apparently and was a no-show without any text, call or e-mail.  The former is forgiven, the latter will be taken off the evite until I hear from him and get a good reason why he didn't bother to call or text or send up a signal flare.

The result of all the madness was that my brain became fairly addled, so I'll use that as the excuse as to why I was first to hit the rail, well before the end of the second level.  Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket!  It's not like I played bad and bluffed away my chips or anything.

Allen R. received a cooler re-entry after his overpair ran into quads - I heard that it was a cooler from the table so I allowed it.  Later I heard a nasty rumor that Allen had simply overplayed his kings.  Oh well.  In any case, Allen has used his re-entry for the year, and so like me will have to wait until 2017 to use it again.

28 bodies made for cramped conditions - but everyone seemed to have fun anyways.

G-Bone, ever the aware poker player!

Red table of Fun son!

The table where I leveled myself into donating to Jessie and Jerry.  

The real reason the night was so fun!

It took awhile, but the third table broke just before the second break, I managed to thoroughly screw up the reseating, despite my sobriety and early exit from the tournament.  After more than a bit of confusion all around we eventually had two 10 handed tables. For about a minute, then a player busted and it was 10 and 9.  And then another player dropped, and so on and so on.

Ever stoic Brian brings his game face.

And his better half as usual hides hers.

Yeah, this happened.

So over the evening we had quads at every table, at least 5 times total that I was told about, and we had the above straight flush that was almost a royal.  Best of all the straight flush was checked back on the river by I WON'T SAY WHO, but we didn't penalize him or her because they obviously didn't realize they had the deez of all nuts.

Just after the third break we redrew for the final table, and it was crunch time.  There was more cheddar than usual up top this time around.



Our bubble was the ever gracious Randall who was kind enough to only flip over an empty table instead of the one everyone was playing on.  Next out, winning her money back was Lalaine, who also scooped up a bounty or two I believe.

Finishing in fifth place for double the buy-in was our first new player money finisher (yay, we love that) Art.  And then there were four.

Four handed play went on for almost 45 minutes before Allen R. succumbed and snagged $100 plus some bounties.   And then there were three.  I shit you not - three handed play lasted well over an hour.  I had predicted a 1am finish, I was quite a bit off.

It seemed that no one was going to bust - the chips went back and forth numerous times, especially between Jason and Brian.  And then we had this three way collision.

Oh my.

If you squint you can see the king on the board (okay if you're old like me you need to squint) and that belonged to Jason who scooped a big ass pot and busted Brian.

Brian still made off with $160 in third place money plus another $15 in bounties, an amount that is typically close to 2nd place cash on a normal Saturday night tournament.

And then it was heads-up.  This would be quick for sure right?  Wrong.

The battle raged, on, and on, and... on.

This is certainly a record for Pepper St.  I don't think we've ever gone to a point where there was a grand total of just over 7 1/2  big blinds on the table.  Yes, you read that right.   I didn't even think it was possible and I didn't even realize that it had happened at the time.  But this was the level when the tournament ended,  just after 2am.

Infinity baby.

 Help me out here.  28 entries (27 players and one re-entry) equals 28 x 20000 which equals 560,000. Then add 24 x 2000 (for the 24 folks who got 2K each in early arrival bonus chips.)  That's 48,000 which added to 560 is 608,000 in chips.  That divided by 80K is 7.6.

7.6.

Dang.

Unsurprisingly, the tournament finally did indeed end with bingo (as ALL tournaments, no matter how deep, will end this if players keep swapping chips and folding way too much ha ha ha) with the mighty Q3o emerging the victor.

All skill right here.

Jeff R., our second new player money maker for the evening, got $280 for second place, plus a few more bounties, putting his final take much more in line with a typical first place finish.  Well done Jeff!

And yes, the man the legend Jason took another one down, scooping up nearly $400 and locking up his seat in the TOC.   Good job man, guess it's my turn to win one next and then sit on your left in the TOC.  Hey, I can dream right?

A big thanks to everyone who came out and made it fun, and a super duper thanks to Jeff's better half Tina who rocked the food table with fresh fruit and brownie/fudge things that were amazing.  AND she took on the lions share of shuffling in short handed play which was a huge help in getting in lots of hands.  You rock Tina!

Another great evening, and even though it was a ton of people and a ton of work, you all make it a very gratifying endeavor for me.  Can't wait to do it again!  Stay tuned for the evite.   Not sure when in June it will go, the most likely candidate right now is the 19th.

A reminder though, July is Main Event time at Pepper Street.  On Saturday, July 9 we will have a 4pm tournament with an $80 entry and this beauty will go to the winner.

Bling baby.

And don't forget, with a double entry fee, with 20 players, that means upwards of $600 for first place, nothing to sneeze at!

Save the date for that and stay tuned for the evite and the June evite as well!

Until next time, peace and we out.