May 22nd Recap

Before we get to the recap...The next tournament(s) will be a day-night doubleheader on Thursday, May 29th. The first tourney will start promptly at 11am and the nightcap will occur at 7:45pm. GET IN! There are plenty of you who can play!!

What Matt Ketaineck asks for, Matt Ketaineck gets! Nah, just joking but sitting at work Thursday afternoon, Ketaineck inquires about the possibility of poker happening and within minutes Kenton Wong, Edge, Randall and Clutch agreed to play setting up an unprecedented 3rd tourney in 4 days for the 52 Irving Poker League and for just the second time in league history, a match was played outside the confines of 52 Irving as Brett graciously hosted the tourney at 80 Queen street. To conclude the upset them, Jeremy Lundblad also agreed to make his 2nd career appearance in league play.

Without question, this was the quickest tourney in league history as the chips flew fast and furious in the early going. Clutch took about 70 percent of Randall's chips within the tourney's first 10 hands when he flopped a straight and when he hit aces up. Then Ketaineck got into the mix and took some chips off of Kenton and Edge as Clutch and Ketaineck established themselves as the early chip leaders.

Incredibly, these two would get into the first all-in tussle with the blinds at just 4 and 8! Everybody had folded to Ketaineck who was in the small blind and he raised to 28. Clutch, in the big blind, called. The flop came 356, with two spades. Ketaineck bet out 50 and Clutch raised to 125 total. Ketaineck then raised it to 300 total and Clutch went all-in. Ketaineck wasted no time in calling. Ketaineck flipped over 77 (with one spade) and Clutch flipped over J4 of spades, giving him both the flush draw and the open-ended straight draw. Clutch was about a 55 percent favorite and when the 2 hit on the turn it gave Clutch the straight. When a 4 did not hit on the river, Ketaineck was gone and within 25 minutes of the tourney starting, Clutch had half the chips and it started a theme for the evening.

Not too long after sending Ketaineck to the rail, Clutch would call Randall's all in with pocket 10's. Randall showed AK of clubs. The flop came 59J with two clubs. Despite trailing in the hand, Randall was a 54% favorite to stay alive with a plethora of draws. In an effort to reverse-jinx their hands Randall got up and put his jacket on and Clutch counted out the 161 chips that Randall had left and put that much in Randall's stack. Non-clubs 3 and 9 would fall on the turn and river and Randall was sent to the rail in 5th place.

Kenton would be the next one to get into a race with Clutch. Kenton would go all-in with AQ of hearts and Clutch would call with 77. No card higher than an 8 fell and Kenton would go out in 4th place.

Lunblad, Edge and Clutch would play 3-handed for a little bit as they tried to survive the Clutch on-slaught of big-stack poker. When Clutch raised to 150, Lundblad would go all-in. Clutch thought for a moment as Lunblad had over 400 chips. Clutch decided to ride his luck streak and would call with 77. Lundblad flipped over AK and another race was on. An Ace fell on the flop and no 7 would come for Lundblad as Clutch won his 4th race in a row!

Clutch and Edge started heads up with 6-1 chip lead. Clutch would extend the lead to 2800-200. At this point Edge went all-in with A9 and to Clutch's surprise it would be no race situation as he flipped over QQ. But a little of Clutch's luck would be lost as Edge hit a 9 on both the flop and river to double-up. Upon seeing the river 9, Clutch jumped and in doing so actually cracked one of 80 Queen Streets chairs. Upon further inspection, the chair is still usable...

Clutch would finish Edge off a little later when Edge went all-in with J5 clubs and Clutch called with Q3. A queen and two clubs hit on the flop but a couple of blanks hit on the river and Clutch capped off the three tournament week with three cashes and two wins.

6th place - Ketaineck - 1 point
5th place - Randall - 2 points
4th place - Kenton Wong - 3 points
3rd place - Lundblad - 4 points
2nd place - Edge - 6 points (5 for 2nd, 1 bonus for cashing)
1st place - Clutch - 8 points (6 for 1st, 1 bonus for cashing, 1 bonus for win)

Through Thursday, May 22nd
52 Irving Poker League Standings
BA Hits-AB Wins Cashes +/-
1) Clutch .863 120/139 8 11 -
2) Jason McCallum .816 102/125 4 9 -
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 -
6) "Quads" Edgerton .688 64/93 1 4 +2
7) Paul Carr .683 41/60 2 3 -1
8) Vince Masi .654 53/81 3 4 +1
9) David Bearman .630 51-81 1 3 +2
10) Matt Ketaineck .627 37/59 1 3 -2
11) Scott Randall .616 45/73 0 3 -1
12) ELIAS .541 20/37 0 2 -
13) Matt Willis .535 53/99 1 2 -
14) Kenton Wong .519 14/27 0 0 -
16) Tom McKean .429 3/7 0 0 -
15) Jeremy Lundblad .417 5/12 0 0 +4
17) Jason Vida .375 6/16 0 0 -1
18) Chris Fallica .360 18/50 1 1 -1
19) Chris Lees .313 5/16 0 0 -1
20) Nick Loucks .257 9/35 0 0 -1
21) Stu Mitchell .143 2/14 0 0 -

Poker Bonanza Pot: $338