Winner Mark
2nd John
3rd Kev R
4th Mike
5th Kev Mc
6th Briggs
Also played: Andy, Sids, Steve, Tatter, Paul
Total: 11
Venue: Sids'
Fuck Global Warming – at last years April TPS event there was a heat wave- at this years it was bloody snowing. But enough climatic chit chat- TPS 4 made a return visit to Sids’ after the proposed venue, Rob’s, became unavailable on account of Rob only going and winning the jackpot on Duel (see last month entry for details), so while Rob was kicking it in the Caribbean the rest of us huddled round the poker tables in sleety Poulton -le-Fylde.
The first player to be ‘left out in the cold’ was hostmeister Sids’ whose Q 7 got beat by Briggs’ KK. Next up was Andy whose shriveled stack meant an all in call with pocket Jacks only to be seen by John (who was still suffering the torments of the damned after the previous nights trip to Wetherspoon’s with Paul and Steve), who turned over Jack Ace with the flop giving him another bullet.
Next to feel the wrath of Crewdson was Steve who’d gone all in with KK, got called by John’s pocket Crabs who then hit Salad on Fourth to win. Mark won the table, which usually means he’ll be out first in the final.
Over on table 2 Tatter was the first out after going all in with pocket Boats, getting called by Paul with 7, 3 (!) who then hit a 7 on the flop. Such audacious moves didn’t help Paul out for long though as a few hands later he announced he was all in after a K 7 6 flop. Mark called it, Paul showed K 3 and Mark A 7 but an A on the river knocked the current league leader out of the game.
So it was John, Mark, the two Kev’s, Mike and Briggs on the final table – and what a final table it was - Mike seemed to have lost the words ‘call’ and ‘check’ from his vocabulary, replacing them with ‘raise’ instead while Mark’s favourite saying was ‘re-raise’. Briggs played as relentlessly as his banter and the three of them slowly bled chips from the other three. Briggs was the first to burn out; his K J losing to Mikes K Q. Birthday boy Kev Mc, who’s made it to the final table in every game this season so far had been keeping his head above the water during the poker storm of the early rounds finaly got sunk when his pocket 10’s got scuppered by Mike’s King’s.
The next few rounds where a heavy weight slug fest between the two chip leaders Mark and Mike, neither of whom wanted to back down to the other’s raises regardless of the cards they where holding – when the inevitable all in shout came Mike was holding KJ and Mark AQ- another AQ on the board giving Mark the chip lead by a mile and leaving John and Kev R, with about 14 chips each, wondering how on earth they’d managed to get in the money after hardly playing a hand.
The race for second place was won by John after Kev R graciously went all in with 5 6 suited and John called with Q 9. Another Queen gave John his second heads up in a row and Kev R the honour of being the first player ever to get into the money without winning a single final table hand.
It should have been over quickly, what with Mark having nearly ten times as many chips, but despite the raging hangover John managed to even things out again and for a few brief moments it looked like he could turn it around. Unfortunately the chips started to slide back towards Mark’s stack and fearing a repeat of last months head’s up against Paul, John decided to make a stand going all in with 10 9 diamonds, Mark showed A 5 off and although John had marginally more outs the Ace on the flop and total absence of diamonds gave Mark a huge chunk of his chips. Another comeback wasn’t in the pipeline and John was out the next hand after coming within sniffing distance of a Masters seat for the second time in as many months. Mark however earned his Leader Board star with some good aggressive play and can now look forward to December and at least a game with Paul.
