New Year's Day Tourney - 2006

I’m somewhat of a control freak.  Yeah, yeah, those of you that know me will just nod your head or smile inside in agreement.  That’s one of the reasons why I like to host poker games at the house.  I like to make sure things run correctly.  From a weekly home game to larger tournaments, I like to think I run a tight ship.

But you know what?  It can get tiring.  Very tiring.

It would be one thing if I had a dedicated poker room isolated from the rest of the house.  There would be no setup, no teardown, and there wouldn’t be any noise issues to affect the slumbering miniBloods.  But I don’t have such a room, so setting up a poker game at the house takes some work.

Recently after a few home games, I was feeling down about hosting because things were getting out of hand.  People were too loud and when hosting begins to seem more like babysitting, I can’t concentrate too well on playing decent poker.

So with some trepidation, I still set up a big New Year’s Day tournament that would kickoff the G-Vegas series of poker tournaments for the 2006 season.  To the credit of all my friends, it couldn’t have gone any better.

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The poker content of the tourney can be summarized thusly:  suckout.  With the LuckBox in attendance, you knew things would get interesting.  I survived the first of the table consolidations with a slightly below average stack, but one that was above where I started.  My demise came in the form of a flopped set of 7’s.

On a previous hand, I had pushed all-in on a flush draw and showed the table my semi-bluff.  I was setting up things for a future hand and this was my opportunity.  The flop was T74 rainbow and I checked my set.  Teddy Ballgame came out firing in late position and I flat-called.  The turn was a 9, putting a straight draw on board and I made my move.  I checked the turn and Teddy bet out again.  I check-raised all-in and Teddy called quickly with his JTo – top pair, medium kicker.

At first glance, I thought Teddy was drawing dead.  But the LuckBox spoke up and said “He needs an 8.”  The river card came oh so slowly, revealing one of the four outs Teddy needed to eliminate me.  I was out in 15th place thinking that 2006 was going to be just like 2005.

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We started a cash game in the kitchen, and CJ, err the LuckBox, helped out yet again with tournament organization duties.  CJ had just eliminated TheMark when he called off all his chips on an OESD and hit.  We kid CJ that poker must be easy when you know you’re going to hit all your draws.  He’d later bust pocket K’s twice, once with T4s (fullhouse) and once with AQ (quad Aces).  Bloggers who were there couldn’t believe their eyes.

The money finishers were as follows:  Uncle Ted in 5th with a $50 save, Teddy Ballgame in 4th with $115, BigPirate in 3rd with  $190, CJ in 2nd with $400 and Falstaff in 1st as the BBSOP 2006 New Year’s Day Champion.  Fittingly, CJ lost the tourney with the JackHammer; perhaps it’s magic has been lost.

His prizes were $445 in cash (reflects final table deal with CJ), an engraved money clip (BBSOP 2006) and a free entry into the G-Vegas tourney circuit Championships scheduled for the end of this year.

Pictures of the event can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69943340@N00/sets/1740761/

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The tournament certainly couldn’t have been pulled off so smoothly without the help of a bunch of people.  Thanks to:

Random101 for bringing his table and chairs.
TheMark and Mrs_All_In for bringing additional chairs.
Shep Tiltstein for providing sandwiches to the crew.
Frank the Tank for providing his table.
G-Rob for dealing while he was between work commitments.
CJ for helping run the tourney to its conclusion.

..and of course, Mrs_Blood who cooked, cleaned and handled the miniBloods all day.

Thanks to everyone who attended for making the hosting job much easier than I anticipated.  Hope to see you all again soon.