Bigger Deal

The main news to emerge from our fifth Tuesday Night Game, sponsored by PokerStars, is that there is now a baby cow in Tipperary named Tony Holden. This singular honour came my way around 1.30 a.m., thanks to a communications breakdown during the frenzied heads-up that climaxed a feisty final table.

After a deal made by the final four at 1 a.m., Ireland’s own bonabh had gone into the head-to-head slightly up on QUAK QUACK of Brighton. Chip leader going into the final table, bonabh had already told us that he kept cows, and was somewhat distracted by an imminent birth. Then suddenly, mysteriously, and catastrophically, he was ‘sitting out’ a long string of hands – an unusual move, to say the least, when you’re down to just the one opponent.

A ‘tired’ QUAK QUACK could only twiddle his thumbs contentedly, if in some embarrassment, as he won every hand, building an insurmountable lead as the blinds increased remorselessly. There was much jaunty speculation from the rails as to bonabh’s disappearance, replete with dire puns about ‘udder’ shames and ‘moo-t’ points. ‘The duck’s milking the cow’ was, perhaps, the zenith. Then, just as his stack grew impossibly low, bonabh was suddenly back, with some unlikely explanation about kicking his computer. Oh, and that calf had been born.

‘Would you like me to sign it?’ I wisecracked in the chatbox, after five hours of little else but being asked to sign everything from books to female underwear.

‘I’ll call it Tony Holden,’ he gallantly replied.

Soon thereafter bonabh inevitably went under, making QUAK QUACK of Brighton our latest worthy winner. I suggested that he go paint the Dome red. He replied that he had some such plans.

With 506 starters building a prize pool of $7,760, and strong contingents from Ireland and Wales amid a sprinkling of Americans, the first and second prizes were originally due to be $1,940 and $1,164. But a deal had been done when ptrou of Thame and theOOZ of Crawley were still in the running. After prolonged haggling, patiently refereed by Lee Jones from EPT Copenhagen, $250 was left to play for as then chip-leader bonabh took $1,253, QUAK QUACK $1,051, ptrou $975 and theOOZ $859. So QUACK’s first place turned out to be worth $1,301 – unless he honours his gentlemanly pledge, made in bonabh’s enforced absence, to split that extra $250.

Other final table-ists, all of whom receive a signed copy of Bigger Deal, were Jody’stheman of Roscommon (5^th – $426.80), i-dopey of    Aberaeron (6^th – $349,30), Kosh_14 of Newport Pagnell (7^th – $271.60), Connolly of Galway (8^th – $201.76) and WayneSlob of ‘fa’ (8^th – $131.92). The unlucky player on the bubble was windor of Milton Keynes.

The most extraordinary hand I saw came in mid-final table, when i-dopey’s 3-9 knocked out Kosh_14’s pocket aces with a flop of 9-2-9, followed by 3-4. A bad beat indeed, but not as bad as some I have been hearing about from colleagues this morning.

It was not a night on which the biggerdeal.com contingent covered themselves in much glory, with such legendary names as Al Alvarez, Richard Whitehouse, Roy Houghton (roysden) and Sonny Osman (SelimtheGrim) all going out in the first hour. I hung on a little longer before exiting in 160th place at the hands of Mozart of Dublin. My feeble excuse is that I was somewhat distracted by monitoring the progress at other tables of two of my sons, who would not thank me for revealing their screen-names. Let’s just say that, yes, each fulfilled his ambition of whupping the old man’s ass.

Just as well, perhaps, that the Moll was unable to play, thanks to a clash in her social calendar. To make sure she signs on for the next Tuesday Night Game, we’re going to name it in her honour. See you same time, same place on Tuesday 18 March, when the password will be CindyBlake.

Thanks to you all for playing last night, and for the kind Comments on the site this morning – echoing the friendly atmosphere of the tourney and happy high spirits among late-night observers at the final table. If you come up against Tony Holden in the next tourney, it will (I hope) be me, not the cow.