May 21st Recap

We had 7 players for the Wednesday morning affair including two newcomers. Kevin Hines from Elias played for the first time as did Intern Tom McKean. The other five included Clutch, JMAC, Willis, Yinz and Vince Masi.

Kevin Hines wasted no time getting in the mix as he was involved in the first out. But he avoided the first time jinx and even knocked out Vince Masi. After a flop of KQ6, Vince went all-in and Hines quickly called. Hines flipped over K6 while Vince showed K10 and when no help came, Vince was sent on the lunch run to Wings Over.

Willis would be the next player to go as he was getting shortstacked and he went all-in preflop and Yinz quickly called. Willis showed 55 while Yinz flipped over JJ. As the flop was being turned over the crowd could see a 5 but there was also a Jack underneath. Needing the case 5 to come, Willis was sent packing and Yinz spiked the case jack for fun.

Tom McKean and Yinz would battle in the next big hand. Yinz raised to 200 preflop and McKean called. After a flop of 1044, McKean went all-in and Yinz quickly called. Yinz showed QQ and McKean was behind with AK. Blanks came on the turn and river and McKean would be out 3rd in a respectable finish for his first time. Quick note, there were rumors that McKean was scouting out the players for his high school classmate Alok who will join the department in August. Obviously Alok has all the numbers down with his terminal degree in statistics but if he gets our tendencies down, he could have a big late-season run!

With 4 players left and the blinds 50 and 100, the chips were flying all over the table but they seem to go in a circle and not end up in Clutch's stack. So down to 400 in chips, Clutch went all-in blind under the gun. Hines and JMAC folded but Yinz in the big blind threw in the extra 300 with JQ suited against the blind hand. Clutch flipped over 46 offsuit. When the flop came Q79, with two spades, Yinz was a 91 percent favorite to knock Clutch out but the turn came a 4 of spades to give Clutch a 30% chance of moving on and when the K of spades fell, Clutch had hit a Kamalakin Makin and had doubled up to stay alive.

Clutch would then knock out JMAC shortly thereafter when JMAC went all-in with A4 and Clutch had AK in the big blind. JMAC did not improve and he was done in 4th place.
Kevin Hines who was all over the place in terms of chip count would get very healthy when Yinz would go all-in with 55 and Hines called with KK. When Yinz didn't hit anything he was gone in 3rd place.

This left Kevin with about a 3-2 chip lead over Clutch. The two would play fairly conservative for about a half-hour as Clutch struggled to stay alive. He would hit a few big hands that eventually gave him the chip lead. Time was getting short for Kevin Hines as he needed to get to work to help Baseball Tonight figure out the shortest tenure in a poker tournament (only to find out that fellow co-worker Rob Tracy was tied at 1 hand...)

In the final hand Clutch went all-in and Kevin reluctantly called with K9. Clutch showed AQ and when the Ace hit on the turn, Clutch had won but Elias vastly improved their standing...

7th place - Vince Masi - 1 point
6th place - Willis - 2 points
5th place - Tom McKean - 3 points
4th place - JMAC - 4 points
3rd place - Yinz - 5 points
2nd place - ELIAS - 7 points (6 for 2nd, 1 bonus for cashing)
1st place - Clutch - 9 point (7 for 1st, 1 bonus for cashing, 1 bonus for win)

Through Monday, May 19th
52 Irving Poker League Standings
BA Hits-AB Wins Cashes +/-
1) Clutch .842 112/133 7 10 +1
2) Jason McCallum .816 102/125 4 9 -1
3) Dave Rose .744 29/39 2 2 -
4) Ryan McCrystal .714 20/28 0 1 -
5) "All-Yinz" Conlon .689 51/74 1 3 +1
6) Paul Carr .683 41/60 2 3 +1
7) Matt Ketaineck .679 36/53 1 3 +1
8) "Quads" Edgerton .667 58/87 1 3 +1
9) Vince Masi .654 53/81 3 4 -4
10) Scott Randall .642 43/67 0 3 -1
11) David Bearman .630 51-81 1 3 -1
12) ELIAS .541 20/37 0 2 +2
13) Matt Willis .535 53/99 1 2 -1
14) Kenton Wong .524 11/21 0 0 -1
15) Tom McKean .429 3/7 0 0 -
16) Jason Vida .375 6/16 0 0 -1
17) Chris Fallica .360 18/50 1 1 -1
18) Chris Lees .313 5/16 0 0 -1
19) Nick Loucks .257 9/35 0 0 -1
20) Jeremy Lundblad .166 1/6 0 0 -1
21) Stu Mitchell .143 2/14 0 0 -1

Poker Bonanza Pot: $326