It was also St. Paddy's day, which meant shenanigans and malarkey for everyone.
,As is the case with all fixed limit poker tournaments, the first hour and a half or so was pretty much meaningless – but it was still a heck of a lot of fun.
Jeff brought in a new player, Rich, who jumped out to an early lead on the green table. Meanwhile, the red table saw most of us swap chips back-and-forth for a good while. It was well after the second break when our third player finally busted and we combined into a single table of nine.
Yours truly found himself sitting on a bunch of chips. It was much easier from the center of the table for me to deal most hands, so I'm afraid I neglected my duty to snap a shot of the final nine, but I did grab these sexy POV shots.
As midnight approached, so did the bubble. I found myself hit by the deck more than once, and despite being in over my head against some formidable Omaha players, I ran up of a gang of chips thanks to several three and two outers. Nick, PSP TOC champion of 2017 (who won his seat last year in an Omaha event) got all of his chips in pre-flop against me in dominating shape - he had a premium, a suited ace plus 234, I had 2359. The board ran out all high cards with a delightful nine on the river. All skill on my part.
And then shortly thereafter it was bubble time, the unfortunate recipient of the bubble boy title was none other than Allen Q, who had traveled from afar just so he could spin the wheel o' fun and take down the fantastic prize of a deck of cards.
And then there were three.
Frank, much like Nick, found himself with some very good starting cards and then got bitch slapped by the flop, turn and river. Had to settle for third place and 100 bucks.
And then it was just me and Jeff G.
Thanks to the poker gods, I had an overwhelming chip lead. All the same, because the hour was late and because there was quite a bit less money on top than usual with only 12 entries, I proposed an even split of the money on the big condition that I get the TOC seat. Jeff graciously accepted the deal and that was that.
Because a deal had been made, the river jackpot will roll over to the next monthly multi table tournament.
I would like to give a huge thanks for everyone who came out to rumble in the fantastic game known as Omaha/8. You all are the real poker players and are very much appreciated by this host. To those of you who turned up your noses, all I can say is that you missed a heckuva lot of fun. Jeff said something pretty profound about the evening, and I'm paraphrasing - "It's so much fun to play something different, it feels like it did when we first started playing hold-em back in the day. Back before the game turned so analytical." Jeff I could not agree more!
Also, if you are a thorough reader of this blog, you know that all non-hold-em events always have been and still are worth double POY points, so there's that as well.
I am not sure when the Saturday tournament is in April, I will have to check with the boss which Saturday is best. Stay tuned.
Also stay tuned for the Evite for our annual WSOP satellite, it likely will be $100 or $150 entry, probably sometime in May. The summer is coming and I am getting pumped! Hopefully a bunch of you will join us for this annual tradition. There is a lot of super exciting Poker to play up ahead!
Until then, peace and we out!
