Lucky, Lucky, Lucky

We had a nice showing for the last tourney of 15 people. The players included:



We had a newbie - Alper. He played well for his first time and showed down several big hands. Welcome Alper.

Play was a little looser than normal with 11 rebuys in the first hour. Alper and I rebought twice each. Nearly everyone added on.

After the first hour, we had our first casualty. Clara - AK - got it all in with Stuart - 88 - no help for Clara and she was out in 15th.



Jeff had a tough go of it. He had ran his boat aground twice. He was very unlucky to run two full houses into QUADS! Finally, Joe sunk him with a flush. Jeff finished 14th.

Alper made a move with AK. Joe had JJ and his JJ held up and Alper's debut ended for him in 13th.

Stuart filled his 10's up with a 3373Q board, but Armando's KK's made a bigger boat. Armando knocked out Stuart in 12th.

Armando went on a wild run and cracked Kitty's JJ wirh AJ. The magical A on the flop did the trick. Kitty was out of lives in 11th place and we were at the final table.

The chip counts were as follows. I have decided to list the average stack now to show the relative chip positions with respect to the avgerage. I did a little math and Armando has 31.8% of the chips with 10 players left = IMPRESSIVE!



Joe and Scott mixed it up with an AJ vs KK matchup. Props to http://www.twodimes.net/ for giving us the stats for this one:

Preflop:
Scott = Ks Kd 70.82 % to win
Joe = As Jc 28.77 % to win

The flop is Ad 4h 8c

Scott = 8.79% to win
Joe = 91.21 % to win

The turn is a K and now Joe is drawing dead. Joe is out in 10th.

Armando commits a double homicide on Rico and Todd. In a huge pot - Armando has KJs, Rico has A9, and Todd K8. They get it all-in. The flop brings nothing but air, but the turn brings a J and Armando whacks the both of them Sopranos style. Todd had Rico out chipped, so Rico gets 9th and Todd 8th.

Armando has knocked out 4 of the 8 out so far and has TONS of chips.

Armando turns his blade on Mike Baaaaaa. They get it all in with Armando holding TT and Mike Ac2c. After the flop, Mike had a club draw, but Armando's TT hold up. Mike is out in 7th.

Armando has knocked out 5 of the 9 out so far and has TONS and TONS of chips.

"It's hard work. Gambling. Playing poker. Don't let anyone tell you different. Think about what it's like sitting at a poker table with people whose only goal is to cut your throat, take your money, and leave you out back talking to yourself about what went wrong inside. That probably sounds harsh. But that's the way it is at the poker table. If you don't believe me, then you're the lamb that's going off to the slaughter." --Stu Unger, three-time WSOP Champion

I am NOT saying Mike's a lamb, but on this night, Armando was a butcher.

Nick played well and it was nice to have him out. He mixed it up with our bad ass soldier, David (has run a marathon - with a 50# pack) in the Baatan Memorial March. David is a reservist and I would like to give my thanks to him and another poker regular (when he's not in Iraq), Joel. Armando put it well in this post and I echo his appreciation to both of them.

Nick had Q5 and David A9. David flopped the nut flush on the flop and Nick was out in 6th.

With 4 places paying and 5 players left, we negotiated a safe for 5th place.

At this point, I was pretty low in chips with an M of about 7. I needed to push when I had position and/or a decent hand. I found 9To on the button and decided to make a move with Stacey on the big blind. She turned over AJ and I thought I was gone. I got real lucky and flopped a straight. I was kicked to the couch and Stacey finished in 5th. Good thing we secured the 5th place Safe or it would have been the curb.

As many of you know the "Jimmy" is KQ suited. Well, this was a first. A Jimmy vs. Jimmy hand matchup one hand with KQ of hearts and the other with KQ of spades. I had the spades and David the hearts. I managed a flush on the turn and David was out in 4th. A HORRIBLE beat.

And then there were 3. Scott, Armando and I played for some time. We were moving chips around and I managed to double-up through Armando the monster with A4 vs. A9. I made a questionable call when Armando raised, but I didn't put him on an Ace.

After the suckout, I had 110K and was third in chips with a little breathing room. Scott had a slight chip lead over Armando at this point.

The very next hand was brutal. Scott with KK and Armando with AA got it all in. The very first card off the deck was a K and Armando wasn't happy - but gracious as always. I didn't realize he was on tilt until he wrote this. Sorry bro.

Scott and I got started heads up. I love to play heads up so I didn't offer a chop. besides it would have been absurd with a 4:1 chip lead Scott had when we started.

I managed to double up once and win a few pots. With the blinds at 10/20K it was significannt to win (or lose) any raised pot. Before long, I was lucky enough to gain the chip lead.

We got it all in. Scott slow played trip 5's and I caught a flush on the turn. I managed to take this one down. This was my first win in a long time. Admittedly, I was one lucky bastard! See the latest results here.



Oh, I wanted to mention that Henry won the tournament before this one (5/25/07), but I didn't do a write-up on it because of our trip to Phoenix and Vegas. I need to make this up to Henry somehow. Here it is!




Thanks to everyone that brought food and stuff. We are looking at hosting on June 30th. I will send an evite out in a couple of days.