Wed. 4/2 Recap

WOW - That is all I have to say about today at 52 Irving. It was quite a banner day for a number of reasons….But of course that was a tease before we get to the main course. As always, we need to announce the upcoming tournaments for the league. As JMAC alluded to in his previous e-mail that we should consider playing some poker as a pre-cursor to the Final Four action. In talking with folks, I think we are golden to play a tourney at 1PM on Saturday before tip-off begins. Now (and DROSE I'm looking right at you), Willis has to work at 5PM so we need to start on time (which by the way, very proud of the attendants today in terms on punctuality!). Cards will fly at 1PM Saturday. In addition, I would like to announce next week's tourney as well. We will play another morning affair as it works for the most amount of people. Tuesday, April 8th at 11am. BANG!

All right now back to a monumental day at 52 Irving. The fun started when we shuffled up and dealt with a record 10 players. That's right TEN PLAYERS, including newcomber Rob Tracy. Who's Rob Tracy you ask? He's one of the Elias guys who come down during baseball season and we were very lucky to have him pop over for the tournament. This works out well as we will continue to invite the Elias folks to any poker game that takes place during the day and we will include the Elias person on the standings as "ELIAS".

So speaking of Rob he kept of the tradition of the "new guy on the block" of getting knocked out first. But he didn't just do it in ordinary fashion, he broke a 52 Irving record that can never be broken! On the very first hand, Rob raised under the gun and was called by JMAC. The flop came K108. Rob bets, JMAC raises, Rob re-raises and JMAC went all-in. Rob quickly called. Rob flipped over AK and JMAC flipped over K10 for top two pair. The ace did not hit and the Rob was the first to go and the upstairs table went to 4 players (with so many players, we had to play with 2 tables until we got to 6). After the fireworks of the first hand, nobody was eliminated for over an hour. Bearman, shortstacked went all-in with Q9 with a flop of 9104. JMAC called him with 10J and when Bearman's hand failed to improve he was sent to the rail in 9th place. That left the upstairs table with only 3 players so the downstairs table drew cards and the Clutch was sent upstairs to even the tables.

Clutch was shortstacked after about 10 minutes upstairs and went all-in preflop under the gun and Vince Masi called him. It was a classic situation as Clutch flipped over 1010 and Vince flipped over JQ. A queen hit on the turn and Clutch's day was over in 8th place. The action and attrition continued as the next player out took one of the worst beats in 52 Irving history. Fallica getting short in chips, decided to go all-in with AQ of hearts and was called by Randall who had…AQ with the Ace of spades, Queen of Diamonds. Pre-flop there is a 90.67% chance of chopped pot, Fallica with the suited cards had a 7.16% chance of winning and Randall had a 2.17% chance of winning. Of course the flop comes two spades, followed by a spade on the turn and sure enough Randall felled Fallica by hitting the 9 of spades on the river. This left Fallica very short stacked and he was eliminated by Conlon in the very next hand. the tournament 6-handed and all the remaining players came to the final table.

Conlon and Edge were the shortstacks as the final table began with Masi and Randall being the chip leaders. Conlon was the first to make the desperation move and he went all-in on the button. JMAC called and then Randall decided to give them both action by calling as well. JMAC and Randall checked down the board. JMAC and Conlon both flipped over AQ but Randall took the pot down with KQ as there was a King on the board and Conlon was gone in 6th place. Edge was forced all-in in the big blind shortly thereafter. Vince called with K10 and Edge flipped over 8-2. A ten hit on the flop and Edge's day was over in 5th place.

This left the table 4-handed. With the blinds at 50/100 Randall raised to 200 and Willis came over the top all in for 500 more. Randall hemmed for a little bit and finally called. He flipped over 88 and Willis showed A7. The board never improved Willis's hand and Matty was out in 4th place. As per league rules, any tournament with 9 or more players, 3rd place gets payed which meant Randall, JMAC and Vinny Masil were in the money and would each receive an extra bonus point in the standings.

You know what the say about Karma? Well Randall learned the hard way as déjà vu occurred. Vince was getting elected to go all-in with the blinds at 75-150 and Randall called. Vince flipped over 89 with the 9 of spades and Randall flipped over KJ. The flop came J56 with two spades, which meant Randall was now 76.16% favorite to knock out Vince. However, I think you all know what happened. The turn came a 2 of spades and the crowd perked up and thought they might see history repeat itself. Sure enough when the 5 of spades hit on the river, Randall handed over half of his chips to Vince and Masil had newfound life. Vince would finish Randall off shortly thereafter as Vince raised to 400, Randall raised and Vince went all-in and Randall called. Vince had Randall dominated AQ vs A9 and when a queen hit on the flop Randall was done in 3rd place but not before he had cashed for the 3rd time in 3 tournaments this season.

This left Vinny Masil with about a 2-1 chip lead over JMAC in heads up action. They played tough for a little while and JMAC tried valiantly to take the chip lead which he did do briefly. But after getting crippled by Vince in one hand, he went all in with A7 and Vince called with the slightly better hand A8. The flop came 245 which gave hope to the split pot by straight but the turn and river came blanks and Vinny Masil had become the 4th player this season with at least 2 wins and took down the league's largest prize this season of $130. JMAC won $50 for his efforts.

Here are the official results for Wednesday, April 2:
10th place - ELIAS (Rob Tracy) (1 point)
9th place - Bearman (2 points)
8th place - Clutch (3 points)
7th place - Fallica (4 points)
6th place - Conlon (5 points)
5th place - Edgerton (6 points)
4th place - Willis (7 points)
3rd place - Randall (9 points -- 8 points for 3rd, 1 bonus point for cashing)
2nd place - JMAC (10 points -- 9 points for 2nd, 1 bonus point for cashing)
1st place - Masi (12 points -- 10 points for 1st, 1 bonus point for cashing, 1 bonus point for winning)

52 Irving Poker League
Current Poker Batting Averages Thru 4/2

BA H/AB Wins Total Cashes
1) David Rose 1.100 22/20 2 2
2) Scott Randall .958 23/24 0 3
3) Vince Masi .857 36/42 2 3
4) Dennis "Clutch" Renno .761 51/67 2 4
5) Jason McCallum .754 46/51 3 4
6) Ryan McCrystal .750 15/20 0 1
7) Matt Ketaineck .667 30-45 1 3
8) David Bearman .603 35/58 1 2
9) Brett Edgerton .583 35/60 0 1
10) Matt Willis .571 28/49 0 1
11) Chris Fallica .565 13/23 1 1
12) Paul Carr .429 3/7 0 0
13) Kevin Conlon .400 12/30 0 0
14) Nick Loucks .222 6/27 0 0
15) Jeremy Lundblad .166 1/6 0 0
16) Stu Mitchell .143 2/14 0 0
17) ELIAS .100 1/10 0 0

**Poker Bonanza pot stands at $162

Reminder: Next 2 Tourneys: Saturday 4/5 at 1PM, Tuesday 4/8 at 11AM

Clutch