Gene, Gene, the Poker Machine

And so, after the dust cleared, one man was left standing. A man who outlasted 31 other snarling opponents with his wit and skill. The first poker blogger tourney crown belongs to MEAN GENE! The horse I bet on came in second after playing some great poker and catching some great cards. I doubled him up early on when I called his all in with pocket 9s, but he’d paired up his KJ when a jack flopped. I guess it pays to have a loose table image. Nice work Scott.
I could barely keep up with the action, doing my best to harass people in chat and still try to accumulate chips (in between beers). I was happy to finish 10th, although I didn’t deserve it. As usual, I made 2 or 3 mistakes, but luckily I played catchup pretty well and was able to get my chips in when I was a favorite and short-stacked. And I think I lost with AK three times to short stack Ace-rags when the rag came on the flop. Like TJ says, your tourney success depends on how you do with Big Slick. Here are the highlights I can remember:
Tourney Highlights
–First hand of the tourney: 72h, flop 2 4 5 one heart, I bet out on the flop and all fold. This has to be an omen.
–Grubby popping in and telling us that CJ’s AA was cracked by Jeremy‘s HAMMER.
–Seeing Boy Genius come back after his flush went down to a boat. He doubled up with AA, and then split a pot with AK in two consecutive hands.
–Knocking out Iggy. Sorry bout that my man. I was on Guinness number 5 if that makes you feel any better.
–Going on a rush where I won 3 straight hands, tripling up once when I paired my Ace on the river with A6 against Grubette’s JJ. The two times I’ve played with Grubette, she’s had pocket Jacks 3 times, and I’ve had an ace all three times. What are the odds? Ironically, I was forced to call Jeremy’s all in from the SB with the mighty 84o. The Poker Gods rewarded all of my futile attempts at winning with THE HAMMER, as Jeremy’s 72o went down in flames and I doubled up.
Bust out hand: I get AJo on the button and triple the blind (I think it was 600 at this point), which leaves me with 200 chips (oops). The Poker Coder goes all in from the BB, and of course I call. No help for me, and the coder takes it down with QQ. Ouch. The guy got pocket kings once and pocket queens twice in a span of about 10 hands. Kudos on a well-played tourney PC.
I was glad to see The Penguin made the long connection from New Zealand, and was able to keep people from picking up the phone during the tourney.
Chigins from Fish With a Pole took my $10 win from me in the pre-tourney $1-2 game with some monster hand. I need to catch up on his blog and steal his strategies.
Mr. Halverson went out early with pocket 9s, as his wife pulled a Vince Van Patten and encouraged him to go all in. Amazingly, on the hand I doubled up Scott with, I had pocket 9s and my wife was yelling “CALL!” in my ear. There is a lesson here.
Poor Pauly. I made a loose call with J2h in the big blinds, and flopped J2. Pauly called me to the river with his pocket 9s, and it didn’t leave him much room to work with. Pocket 9s seemed to be the big loser this tourney…
And of course Felicia outlasted me, although barely. She even had the balls guts to call me names when she wasn’t busy stealing pots. It was a pleasure to play with someone who plays NL tourneys nightly.
Lowlight: After busting out, I tried to figure out who this CDF12345 character was. I loaded up his site and my computer crashed and burned, and it took 10 minutes and many curses to get back to the tourney. I didn’t even get to see the hand that knocked my man Grubby out.
Thanks to everybody for playing. I had a blast, and I’m looking forward to the next one. Congrats to the champ, Mean Gene, runner-up TFG, and my man Sean who played superbly into a 3rd place finish.