Ragged Aces Poker Group

The championship game this year was a huge success.  We had 26 players confirmed playing and 25 showed up!  This was a record turn-out for our championship and I thank all of you for participating and spending the day playing poker.

The game started a little after 1pm and we played 6 blind levels until we reached the BBQ dinner break at 4pm.  At that time the three dead stacks (John F., Garrett, and Scott) were gone and four other players (Diep, Harold, Joe C., and Peter) had busted leaving us with 21 active players after the break.  Everyone stayed for the BBQ and we were joined by Andre’s and Allan’s families.  We had a ton of fantastic food, great conversation, and it was just a lot of fun to hang out for some time with everyone away from the tables.  Thanks to Tyler for manning the Weber and everyone for chipping in and preparing and/or bringing food.

After we re-set the tables, play started again at 6pm.  Three tables remained with Mike B., Tyler, and John C. holding the top positions.  Clark, Darin, and Jordan rounded out the top 6.  Soon we had our first casualty when Sue S. busted out in 21^st followed by three players on the Hearts table: Andrew, Allan, and Adam C.  The plan was to combine tables at 16 but Nick busted followed by Rob R. before the hand was out and we combined at 15 players.

With two tables left, we still hadn’t seen a huge “best hand” (Jeff flopped quad A’s early on in the tournament but everyone folded to his bet on the flop and so he didn’t get credit for the best hand).  Jordan owned it with a full house Jack’s over Ten’s.  However, once we combined to two tables, John C. grabbed the best hand lead with Queen’s over Eight’s.  But it didn’t last long as Mike B. beat his house with Ace’s full of Five’s.  This hand would hold up as the best of the night and Mike took home the Full Tilt Jersey (you have to wear it next game so we can get a picture – I forgot to take one).

The final table was set for 10 players so we had to play until 6 busted.  The first to go out was Garth, busted by Darin, then three players went out on the Hearts table: John L., Jeff B., and Bondy.  Andre was shifted to the Hearts table to balance things and it didn’t take much longer to have the final table bubble burst when Christine was busted by Mike B.  The two table rounds went fairly quickly and the tournament was almost two hours ahead of schedule when we got down to the final 10.  

The final table started with Tyler as the dealer (43,600), Mike B. in the SB (40,800), John C. in the BB (24,400), Darin UTG (23,600), Clark (18,400), Rich (11,600), Mike M. (11,400), Rob B. (8,000), Andre (6,000), and Jordan in CO (3,500)

Rich M. was the first to go out when he moved all in with a Set of Ace’s and a Ten kicker against Mike B.’s Set of Ace’s and a Seven kicker.  Rich could only loose if one of the remaining seven’s hit, and it did, taking him out of the tournament, but winning him a nice Full Tilt Poker Hat (we’ll get a picture with him and the hat next game he plays).

Clark was the next out when he moved all-in on the flop after raising pre-flop and Tyler made a big call for 1/3 of his chips.  Clark was followed by Andre, Darin, and Mike M. on the bubble.  Jordan ground his way from a very short all-in stack to the money in 5^th place, followed by Rob B.  Once down to the final three, Tyler, Mike and John made a deal for the money splitting it evenly and playing for the last $100 and the trophy.  John was first to bust, followed by a long heads-up battle that ended up going Tyler’s way for the victory.

I have created a RaggedAces flickr account and posted all of the photo’s there (thanks to Peter for taking so many great photos during the game): http://www.flickr.com/photos/raggedaces/

The following is the championship bustout table:

Thanks to all of you for making the 2009 season so much fun!  I expect there will be more players that play more games in 2010 so the competition will be even greater! J