E-Yo 7-11!

No question about it. It was Hot! A tournament appropriately named “The Steaming Shell 2008” lived up to all expectations. Oh, you probably thought I was referring to the temperature… well, that too!

13 players braved the heat, and even though Turtle had done his best by installing twin A.C. units, it was still much cooler outside.  But we all knew that going in, so we knew to drink lots of fluids or there were a chance we may become delusional and not play our best game… that being said, some of us were clearly dehydrated!

Pre-break was another exciting and typical hour of big bets and chips rotating around the table as players jockeyed to improve their table standing. Table-two had a new gentleman, who certainly pushed the action, as well as a fairly new addition who certainly calls action, both of whom wrecked havoc on a couple of familiar SBPT old timers who were quickly out of the action. While table-one had a combination of very loose and very tight, one of which was the player everyone was gunning for, the Turtle himself.

For dinner, we were treated to a long time coming, and often considered, but never realized until now, heaping plate of spaghetti and meatballs (along with garlic bread, salad and other fixin’s)! Personally, I’m a big-time pasta guy, so this was a perfect choice for me and apparently many others.

Once everyone was choke full of carbohydrates and balls of animal flesh… it was back to the grind for what was to be a very short lived grind for one… me! After making a huge lay-down to Riverisa and giving up a few black chips at the end of the first hour, I found myself in a much worse position at the start of the second hour… having to make a choice for my tournament life. The decision was correct from a poker standpoint, but the result didn’t favor the player with the best odds. That would start our new champion on the road to poker dominance and one of the most lopsided final tables in SBPT history!

His name is Earl, but it ought to be Katrina with the destruction that he laid as he amassed a fortune in tournament chips. Like Katrina, his methods weren’t always pretty, but they were devastating nonetheless! Right now this tour seems to be in a period of “play any two/ have a draw on the flop/ call all the way to the river/ hit your card on the river/ send someone to the rail” and I suspect when the odds come back around and that style stops paying off, we will see a shift in playing style, or if not, a shift in tournament champions.  Many players use this method but not with the twist(er) that Earl puts on it. He knows how to use his chip stack to make conservative players fold and to put himself in control of the hand. This is missing from the player who is the typical calling station.

Who can stand in front of a hurricane and survive? I thought that the other dominant stack at the final table would have a chance when she flopped a wheel and called “all-in”… but she turned out to be the warm patch of sea water which makes a hurricane flourish. Our jaws dropped when he called her “all-in” and turned over a 6, giving him an open end straight draw and one over card. Just to be clear, there stacks were pretty close in size and had his card not hit on the turn or the river, he would have been on virtual life support, fortunately for him it did, giving him the higher straight and the hand.

After that, it was just a matter of time as he ran over the rest of the final table ending his destructive path with Popeye (the headhunter award winner) and becoming the fourth player ever to win his debut SBPT tournament!

Congratulations to our new champion! He put on such a beat down that the tournament lasted just over 4 hours (that includes break-time) which by all accounts was by far the shortest tournament to date!

I’m looking forward to next month… hope you are too!

Slick