Bigger Deal

From the beginning let me apologise for the trans-altlantic timing problem which led to the Tuesday Night Game starting at 7pm UK time rather than the planned 8pm. Due to clocks moving forward in the USA the PStars people forgot that we in Britain were still living in winter and many people missed the chance to play in a great tournament. All possible procedures are in place to stop such a thing happening in the future!

On to last night’s adventure. One hundred and forty nine people worked out how to enter before the kick-off time, many of them being continental Europeans with a different time zone altogether. The pace was brisk as we hurtled into the 18 paid places by 21:40, just 140 minutes after the start of play. I for one was one of the many to get rivered by an Ace hitting the table when a hopeful Ace-King called my all-in pair on the flop. Tony Holden went shortly afterwards and it was left to Cindy Blake to carry the Bigger Deal torch into the last fifty places where she finally succumbed.

From the last 18 PokerRef, Kartajan, jashawk, Guessthenews, marcmac, sam2020, freeadm, NonBlonde and zagga took the $50 places which left us with the final nine at 22:10. The blinds were 800/1600 with a running ante of 150 and an average chip stack of around 25,000. Miss_Bongo had the clear chip lead with just over 50,000.

The pressure of having to pay close to 4000 in chips per round guaranteed action and ten minutes on Ornivas got all-in with A-7 off suit. Miss_Bongo thought and called with J-T hearts to not only hit a ten but three hearts as well. We were eight and the blinds increased to 1000/2000 (ante 200) after 20 minutes.

The Enimal saw 7-7 as the time to move in but unfortunately found FILFUNGI with the bullets. No seven and we were seven. Low chips forced 24/7EVEN to make a move with 7-5, PokerBozzie called with A-Q and J-J-A-J-X on the board made it six players left. So far no major hand reversals. FILFUNGI and Miss_Bongo were chip leaders.

The cruising RedDevil had his stack crippled when Macthehat rivered a card and then found 7-7 to put the rest of them in the middle of the table. The A-Q of FILFUNGI took care of them and the table had shrunk to five.

Macthehat now flying high found a pair of Queens in the hole and got HisSweetbaby to go all-in with just a bare Ace. Another Ace on the table meant Macthehat was now low and the rest of his chips went to the very stable looking FILFUNGI. Down to four. At 22:46 the blinds rose again to 1500/3000 with a 300 ante.

Ten minutes later and more chip pressure forced PokerBozzie to take a stand with King high but a low board of 2-4-4-3-4 meant that anyone with an Ace would take the pot. HisSweetbaby did and we were now three players all of whom were happily bantering away with praise for each others play in good humour.

The final hike in stakes came at 23:01 with a move to 2000/4000 (ante 400). The play was swift and after raise, re-raise and call, HisSweetbaby was glad to see his/her Ace was in good position against the Q-J of FILFUNGI. Unfortunately not only a Queen flopped but a Jack followed quickly afterwards to put HisSweetbaby into third place.

The last two players were evenly matched and quickly came to the conclusion that a split was the best thing after four hours of play. The money was allocated and the two went on to play for honour, switching chip leads at frenetic pace. Finally FILFUNGI found K-Q of diamonds at the same time that Miss_Bongo found A-J of spades and all the money went into the middle. Both an Ace and a King hit the virtual table and with no improvement Miss_Bongo was declared the winner.

After a difficult creation the tournament was played with fine spirit, not a bad word ejected from any keyboard around the globe. Worthy winners took home over one thousand dollars each for an $11 stake. We all look forward to the next event!

149 players

1 Miss_Bongo (Espergaerde) $1047.50

2 FILFUNGI (Hartlepool) $1047.50

3 HisSweetbaby (Wetumpka) $498.61

4 PokerBozzie (’s-Hertogenbosch) $335.20

5 Macthehat (Edinburgh) $272.35

6 RedDevil 6699 (Manchester) $209.50

7 24/7EVEN (’s-Hertogenbosch) $146.65

8 The Enimal (Noordwijk) $108.94

9 Ornivas (UKFF) $71.23