Friday Cash- 2023.20

 Just in the nick of time, we made it to 20 cash game sessions in 2023! By far the most ever in a year in the garage around back.

You can see a second table in the first photo, that’s because for the first almost 3 hours we had 10 players. Alan S, Colin, Jeff G, Jeff S and Rich played at table number two. Yours truly, Barbara, Lea Anne, MC and Peter filled out table number one.

For the second session in a row we were in the mix game streets, making an exception to our usual alternating of Mix and NLHE while the Moose is dark over the holidays. We will absolutely be going back to the normal rotation in 2024. In fact, our first scheduled cash game likely will be NLHE only as it takes place after next Saturday’s tournament of champions.

As is the usual course of events on a cash game evening, some were down and some were up. We played nine handed for a good while, which meant no draw games and a whole lot of Omaha variants.

Interestingly, the three biggest winners were ones who had lost the most a week ago. Jeff S and Alan S both posted nice three figure profits, as did yours truly. This was a very good feeling after I dropped just over $160 last time around. I feel like I owe a lot of credit to the Christmas gift my daughter gave me, Mr. Salty Bear!

I was in for $100 and out for just over $300, sweet!

A lovely way to put a button on the year, and though the winning part was cool,, what was even better was the company. I always get very reflective this time of year, and I know I sound like a broken record, but I really can’t get over what a treasure our little game is. 

MC put it in such a lovely way, before we started playing he said “you have built a temple here…” and I thought that is such a nice and profound way to put it. I absolutely agree, in so much that the game is truly special and an almost sacred space for the big three F’s. Fun, friendship and fellowship.

I’m looking forward to another year and beyond of this potent formula for greatness! We will kick the year off next Saturday in our annual tournament of champions, hopefully followed by more cash action. I truly can’t wait!

Until then, peace and we out!

Friday Cash - 2023.19

 A cold and wet week led into a cold and wet evening on the Friday before Christmas weekend, and it turns out that no less than 13 degenerate gamblers had nothing better to do than to throw down in the cash game streets.

The Spirit of Christmas gambling was the first to arrive.

After my heart rate went back down, I was pleased to welcome Mr. MC to the garage in all of his festive splendor. He also arrived bearing gifts. This lovely chapeau for your humble host.

It wasn’t even time to start but we had seven and then eight players quickly as we got underway. Within a few more minutes we were broken into two tables of 5 and six and then eventually seven and six.

Yours truly was a dealing fool for the bulk of the evening, so much so that I didn’t even have time to take a few pics. Mr. Jeff G, was gracious enough to do so and so he doesn’t show up in the photos. Thank you kind sir!

As you can see the rest of the field consisted of the aforementioned nightmare fuel mask wearing Mr. MC, Barbara, Colin, Lea Anne and Peter on the first table. Jeff S, Jason, Stuver, Rich, Priya and for the first time ever in the cash game streets - Mr. Alan S was kind enough to drop by and join in the fun.

It was quite a raucous evening, as mix games always are. Your host had a great time, but unfortunately for the first time in a long time in the garage I found myself on the negative end. At one point I was stuck over $200 but managed to crawl back a bit to stop the bleeding at a $160 total loss. 

Yes there are yellow $20 chips there, we ran out of fives because I punted them off lol

A couple of others finished down or were felted to end their evening. A few others broke even and a couple more were up a bit. Jeff G, Colin and Jason were all big winners with nice three figure paydays. As midnight approached we were down to a single table of eight players, and that kept going until just past 1 AM when the sleepies took over and we called it a night. 

Poker options are limited over the next week or two, the Moose is going dark for almost a month, and so with that in mind I will be hosting next Friday to provide a refuge to the poker deprived masses. Once again we will entertain the mix game format. Fear not, Texas hold-Em lovers, that game will return in 2024 (every other cash game) with full evenings of bomb pots, the nit game and all of the enjoyment that comes from sticking to the Cadillac of poker exclusively.

But to end 2023 we will indulge in the great panoply of the games that we know and love and sometimes don’t. Hope you can make it!  

Until then, wishing you all a very merry Christmas and Joy in whatever holiday you celebrate, and also - peace and we out!

2023 - Legacy Invitational

 It was an absolutely stunning Saturday afternoon in December in the Los Angeles area, the sun was warm but it wasn’t hot, just ideal beautiful weather for going inside and playing poker ha ha! And that’s just what 15 hard-core Pepper Street gamblers did, indulging in the first ever dealers choice tournament in the history of the garage. This was the legacy Hall of Fame Invitational, only the second ever after the first one last year in June.

This time around instead of an eight game mix, we would have 13, count them, 13 different games to choose from. Everything from five card draw, to 2-7 triple draw to Badugi and beyond

Legacy chips are in play!

Year end hardware to distribute, two of the three trophies would be handed out.

First things first, business to take care of. Mr. Ian was awarded the coveted all black player of the year trophy, for his complete domination of tournament play this year at Pepper Street. He won the first tournament and then finished second at least two other times, and then also racked up several cashes. No one ever really had a chance, congrats good sir!

And then it was 1 PM, and the cards were in the air! This was a six max tournament, so three tables of 5 got going. Our dedicated dealers, Barbara, Jason and newer PSP player to the garage Chris R., did the duties. And they handled it expertly, juggling all the dealing responsibilities as well as explaining when necessary. I was shocked at how smoothly things ran, and it was all due to these three. Your host very much appreciates all three of you, your expertise and enthusiasm!

It was kind of mind blowing, to cycle through such a wide variety of games right off the bat. This was our first ever dealers choice event, and I had only played two others like it, one in Southern California and one in Vegas. I have to say both of the professional casino tournaments were not as smooth as this one was. 

The structure was perfect, and gave everybody tons of play, especially early on. Re-entries were over at the second break which was two hours and 40 minutes into the day. We had I believe four or five folks bust and re-enter, including two at my table when a four way all in pot had folks reaching for their wallets.

After the second break, no more reentry‘s were allowed and so we started losing folks. Tony G, an inaugural class Legacy alum was first to go, bidding everyone a fond farewell with only one middle finger extended in the air.

Jeff S was next to bust, followed by POY winner Mr. Ian. He took his trophy and skedaddled with a smile on his face nonetheless.  

With Ian‘s departure we were down to two tables of 6 players apiece.

Totally spontaneous shot obviously 

Alas, next to depart in short order was Miss Priya and then yours truly. I was fairly discouraged because I had been the chip leader at the second break, and then of course ran into it in The Fix limit streets. Badugi in particular was rather devastating as I would start with great hands, A23 rainbow for example, and my opponent would literally draw four cards and beat me after I fired on every street.

After I left, Mr. MC and then Colin departed. Jerry was our final table bubble after a couple of particularly brutal stud hands.  Our unofficial table of seven was then ready to go!

Unfortunately for Barbara, she busted so fast I did not have time to take a picture. But I had her sit there for an extra few seconds and pretend to still be in so I could get a shot of everyone who made it.

We were paying four, so there were two players who were going to miss out. Art was the first one who fell short, and it was time to say goodbye to both him and his better half Priya. Glad they made it back from Italy safe, it was great having both of them.

And then alas, someone was going to have to get a big dose of bubble pain. And this time it was Mr. Allen R. who felt the sting. Fortunately for him, he’s had great results this year, taking down two tournaments previous to this one. So he is quite well ahead and took his bust out in stride.

And then there were four and they were all getting paid…

We took a short break, and I relieved Jason of his dealing duties. Play continued for a little bit and finally Lea Anne finally relinquished her short stack, finishing fourth for $180. She had hung on expertly for the entire final table, it was a master class on how to cash when the odds were heavily against it.

And then three handed play continued for a bit, finally whittled down from an apparent dearth of cards, especially in 2-7 single draw, Jason had to settle for third place and $260.

At this point the levels were so big, heads up play was very short and very brutal. In the end, despite having big chips at one point, Chris R. succumbed to the overwhelming aggression and run good of the one and only Legacy vet Jeff G.

Chris got $380 for second place, and this guy here, pictured below, took down his third tournament in 2023 and got $500 for his first place finish. 

Jeff also gets an extra 5K added to his TOC stack for this accomplishment. Not to mention a gorgeous golden trophy! 

He has had an incredible year for results, and it has also been an incredible year for this little game. I am especially gratified at how smoothly this tournament went. I got more than one complement on the structure, including from Chris R.  Kind words coming from Chris, who runs his own tournaments at the Moose, it really meant a lot. 

A huge thanks to all the true poker players who showed up and showed out, and took a chance with all the crazy games. I especially really extra appreciate a few of you who I know don’t love mix games the most. It’s really cool that you come out anyway, and put on a good face and make the effort. I really admire your spirit and enthusiasm!

We will have to see if we get any more Poker going in 2023, I need to take the temperature from my wife and daughter this week, as I’m sure we will be busy doing things. If the planets align and Friday night is free, there will be a mixed game cash session. If not, that’s OK too, I will see a lot of you on January 6 for the TOC and hopefully the rest of you for our first regular tournament of 2024 on Saturday, January 20 at 5:30 PM.

Until then, peace and we out!

TOC Preview and Chip Counts

The 2023 Tournament of Champions is coming up fast!  Saturday - Jan 6 at 1pm!

The TOC is a Free-Roll with a $1000 Prize Pool - paying $500 for 1st (Plus the gorgeous trophy above), $300 for second and $200 for third.

Here's a quick preview of our champions and qualifiers, plus how many chips they will start with.

REMEMBER - players qualify for the TOC by -

• Finishing in first place in any MTT event.
• Finishing in the top ten on the POY leaderboard without winning a tournament.
• Playing in 10 Cash Games.

Qualifiers can also earn extra chips for the TOC by -

• Winning more than one tournament - 5K per
• Winning Player of the Year - 5K
• Winning the year's Legacy Invitational tournament - 5K
• Attending 5 MTTs or Cash Games (any combo of both) OR are a Legacy player - 5K
• Attending any Cash Game only evening - 500 per game attended.

These official provisos were posted at the beginning of the year and can be reviewed in detail by clicking here.

Here's a look at our champions and their TOC starting chip counts - 

A/L - Attendance/Legacy    POY - Player of the Year Winner      x2T - Two Tournament Winner   

LT - Legacy Tournament Winner      CG# - Number of Cash Games 

Ian took down the 1st tournament in January and despite not taking down another one in 2023 - had a FANTASTIC year, finishing second more than once (conceding the seat graciously to yours truly in February) and racking up the POY points to put a permanent hammerlock on the competition!  Congrats you Poker Crusher you!

46,500   -   30K + 5KA/L + 5KPOY + 6500 CG#13

Your humble host got the monkey off his back early on this year, taking down the February tournament, thanks in no small part to the generosity of Ian who was poised to take down two in a row but graciously conceded the seat for an even money chop.

45K -   30K + 5KA/L + 10K CG#20

Jeff G. was one of two players to take down two tournaments in 2023 - and both of them were in mix games.  Omaha in March and HORSE in November. He also did well enough in the NLHE tourneys to be the only one to have a chance against Ian in the POY race.

54K   -   30K + 5KA/L +5Kx2T + 5KLT + 9K CG#18

Wrecking Ball Joe finally cooled off on his two year heater in the garage, but still managed to bink a tournament in April, our first (and maybe only) Mystery Bounty event.

36,500   -   30K + 5KA/L +1500 CG#3

Lea Anne capped off her second full year at Pepper Street with her first tournament takedown in May.  A long time grinder in the cash game streets, she has improved her tournament game rapidly recently and is a fun but bad ass addition to our little game.

44,500   -   30K + 5KA/L + 9500 CG#19

Stephen B. has played in the garage more in 2023 than probably the past 3 or 4 years combined, and it's been fantastic having him back.  Yours truly had a bit of a chip lead heads-up in June, but I was more than happy to hand off the seat to Mr. Stephen so he could lock up his spot.  

35K   -   30K + 5KA/L

Allen R. is the second player to take down two tournaments in 2023. The prestigious PSP Main in July and the most recent tournament in December. He had a great year in both tournaments and the cash game streets and as always was a joy to hang with (not so much a joy to play against ha ha).

44,500   -   30K + 5KA/L +5Kx2T + 4500 CG#9

Longtime Legacy player Mike K. had been absent for all of 2023 when one August he suddenly appeared, took down a tourney and then vanished - never to be seen again.  Except of course in the upcoming TOC freeroll.

35K   -   30K + 5KA/L 

It's been a minute since Jerry's last tournament takedown - if memory serves it was also a Crazy Pineapple event, two or maybe 3 years ago. In any case, he hasn't stopped having good results, he's always near the top of the leaderboard, but it's great that he took one down again this year.

37,500   -   30K + 5KA/L + 2500 CG#5

Mr. Gareth only played 3 tournaments this year - and it's a good thing he did because that of course is the minimum number required to gain entry into the TOC if you happen to bink an event at PSP.

30K

And so that's it for our tournament winners!  Here's who else will be joining us and their starting stacks.

Starting with our Player of the Year points qualifiers in order of their finish - 

Art -     38K - 30K + 5K A/L + 3K CG#6

Colin -  44K - 30K + 5K A/L + 9K CG#18

Jeff S. - 42,500 - 30K + 5K A/L + 7500 CG#15

Priya - 41K - 30K + 5K A/L + 6K CG#12

Eric P. - 35K - 30K + 5K A/L 

Rich W. - 38K -30k + 5K A/L + 3K CG#6 (Unable to attend) 

Jason H. - 41500 - 30K + 5K A/L + 3500 CG#7

Chris R. - 35K - 30K +5K A/L

Barbara - 41K - 30K +5K A/L + 6K CG#12

Ken S. - 35K - 30K +5K A/L

And finally - our Cash Game qualifiers!

MC - 45K - 30K +5K A/L + 10K CG#20

Stuver - 41500 - 30K +5K A/L + 6500 CG#13

If you find yourself in the TOC and you are one of the shorter stacks, I would remind you of two things -

1 - The player who won last year, Stuver, had the shortest stack at 30K.

2 - Play more cash games at Pepper Street next time.

And speaking of Cash Games, as always, we will be playing cash after the TOC has some bust outs.  I will be sending an Evite for PSP Cash Game 2024.0 - scheduled to start at 5pm on the same day as the TOC, so we degenerates who don't go deep can keep on keeping on.  It will be mix games of course!

Super excited for 2024 and all that it entails!  Stay tuned for the annual preview post as well, that's coming up very soon.

Until then, peace and we out!

2023.12 (and Saturday Cash 2023.18)

 Once again it was Saturday and once again it was time to gather around and throw down with a big ass old-fashioned Texas no limit hold ‘em tournament in the garage around back! But also, your host had not played live poker in well over two weeks, with a big show at work and then Covid respectively sidelining him – so we also had to sneak in some cash, starting at 1 PM! 

I was worried that I would have trouble filling a game, but I wildly underestimated the degenerate tendencies of our merry group. We had a full table of eight in less than two days after the Evite went out, and we also ended up having a waiting list four players deep!

Colin, Jeff G, Joe, MC, Ian, Babs, Peter and yours truly were the lucky ones who locked up seats and had a great 3 1/2 hours of gambling fun in the mix game streets. Ian for sure was the big winner, a couple folks got felted but reloaded so no one had to leave early. Yours truly did just fine with almost $80 in profit.

I had no idea the appetite for potentially 10+ hours of poker existed, I will have to give strong consideration to the Saturday 1 PM cash game thing going forward. Honestly I really liked it because it filled up the day with poker whereas when I just host a 530 tournament I am sitting around for several hours either putting off setting up the garage or having already done it. 

We stopped down at 4:30 to give everyone a chance to go grab a bite. I had a chicken pot pie myself and managed not to burn my mouth somehow. As 5 PM approached a couple of folks came in to the yard because they thought the tournament was at five and not 530 for some reason. One of them was a brand new player, to the garage anyways, Mr. Wiz had arrived! Very honored to have you sir, I really appreciate you coming!

As usual, the cards flew at 5:30 sharp!

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention this was our second annual bomb pot spectacular? It was our regular Texas no limit hold ‘em tournament, but with the extra twist of occasional bomb pots! What is a BombPot? Everybody throws in the blinds, the cards are dealt and we go straight to the flop! Crazy!

Bomb pots happened randomly, as every player was given a BombPot chip that they could throw in whenever they felt like it as long as they happened to be on the button. This meant lots of bloated pots and lots and lots of action. We had more reentry‘s, 10 total, than we’ve ever had before. A great way to cap off the year, this is definitely going to be a tradition going forward. I really love the bomb pot chip system, much better than a random timer. 

One of the reentering players was long time PSP stalwart Mr. Emanuel. Unfortunately he was also the first to bust. Champ from two months ago Gareth busted out next followed by newish guy Mike Kn, and then Dan G, Jeff G, Jeff S, and Peter respectively. Peter is not new to the garage, he has played cash a couple times, but I did not realize this was his very first tournament with us. Hope you had fun good sir!

At any rate, this PSP tournament virgin was the two table bubble, we broke the third table as soon as he busted and we were down to 16 players.

Brian B, Mr. Wiz, Jason H, Ian and Babs were out next. I had held on as long as I could, but I finally succumbed in 11th Pl. as 10 PM approached. Steven B busted next and was our final table bubble.

Because of all the re-entries, the prize pool was definitely bigger than would be expected with 23 players.  Joe was the first to bust, followed by Colin and Mark S who was our unfortunate bubble boy.

It had been a minute since we have seen him, but it was great to hang out with the always shy and understated Andrew. Alas, while he did get into the money, he was the first to exit with cash, pocketing $100 for his sixth Place finish.

Next to bust, after a roller coaster ride of a tournament, was the estimable Lea Anne who got $160 for her efforts in fifth place.

And then there were four!

Jerry and Eric P had been battling all night, and finally Eric tried one too many bluffs, although it was a pretty awesome bluff. Jerry dug deep and somehow found a hero call in a monster pot to cripple Eric. I am full of admiration for both players, it was quite exciting to witness.

Eric expertly shoved his stack again and again to climb back a little bit, but ultimately succumbed in fourth place for a $200 payout.

Although Jerry had a ton of chips, a couple of hands that didn’t go his way quickly saw him whittled down and then eventually eliminated in third for a very nice $320 payout.  That used to be what first place got back when entry was still $40.

Heads up play did not last very long, and by not very long I mean literally one hand. Stacks were still deep enough that there could’ve been a bit of play, but the hour was late and considering it was $420 per second and $560 for first, I think both players we’re going to be happy no matter what happened. Chris R ripped it in with a king and Allen R snapped with an ace and his hand held. Nicely done sir, your second tournament of the year and an extra 5K chip in the TOC are coming your way. 

And so that’s it for our regular events for the year! A huge thank you to all the players, longtime veterans and new arrivals are like, for making 2023 one of, if not the best year ever for our little game. I am super thankful for all of you, for the friendship and the fellowship. My game is the only game I know where it’s always good times and very nice people from start to finish, every cash game, every tournament, every time. I am humbled and deeply grateful.

The next tournament is invitation only, extended to legacy players as well as those who have played enough tournaments and played well enough to be in contention for a TOC seat, either in the top 10 or within striking distance. 

If you missed the TOC qualifier in points, click here to see the final tally, you still have a chance to lock up a seat next Saturday in our second ever annual Legacy Hall of Fame invitational tournament. If you have already qualified, you can earn an extra 5K and chips in the TOC by taking down the Legacy event.

After this dealers choice extravaganza, we very likely will have a Cash game the following Friday night, December 20. And that will definitely be it for 2023.  

Our 2023 tournament of champions will take place in 2024 on Saturday, January 6 at 1 PM. There will be a cash game on Friday the 12th and then the following Saturday, December 20 at 5:30 PM will be the first regular no limit hold ‘em tournament of the year.

So many great moments and memories in 2023, and more still to come in this year and the next. Super excited to get going, can’t wait!

Until then, peace and we out!