Popeye Punches out the Competition!

The tournament started like any other, good food on the table waiting for break time, an average number of players, and a defending back-to-back champion to knock off… oh wait… that doesn’t usually happen!

Upon arriving, I noticed that Turtle had been working feverishly to cool off the “Swelter Shell” by installing twin A.C. units in the windows. But as players arrived and the game started to heat up, even with two units he was unable to put a chill in the air.

We started the day/night off by discussing the ever-controversial topic of timing players,  which raised a lot of questions. So Slick came prepared this month with a written explanation of the rule and opened the floor for comments. After a quick discussion, the rule was agreed upon and poker was ready to begin. For those of you who did not attend last month, you can find the rule in the Structure page on the website.

With all this… we still had controversy.

Right from the start, in fact the first hand, Turtle was getting pushed around and was feeling the pressure that is placed on a back-to-back tournament champion. It didn’t take long before he was on the rail and getting harassed from Meaty, the Headhunter award winner for the rest of the night.

“The Saw” was cutting through her opponents in mad fashion and El Guapo was turning quad kings, so when the tables combined, the corner of the table where "The Saw" and El Guapo sat had about 60% of the chips stacked there. Everybody else was equally short. As play continued for a while, some players stacks increased but ultimately players began to drop off as the blinds increased and the rich only got richer!

When it got down to only three players left, there was a 2 of 3 chance that we would be playing in Harbor City next month, but Popeye started to make his move. Accounts say that he singularly took just about all of “The Saw’s” chips so when he (Popeye) and El Guapo made it to heads-up play, it was just about an equal battle.

There were many all-in’s and many standard raises as they battled back and forth exchanging the chip lead. Finally El Guapo slightly short stacked, pushed his chips in the middle with an A/3 suited only to be called by a dominating A/5 suited. El Guapo needed a split or a 3 to hit but when Popeye flopped a 5, it was all but over the duke of second place. When another five hit, that sealed the deal and crowned a new champion!

Congrats to Popeye for a well played tournament, and thanks to the Shell Casino for their hospitality. See you at Little Hill Casino next month!