mookie99

It was Christmas time at the Big O this past Friday night. We hosted the 3rd Annual Big O Christmas Tournament and had 15 players for the festivities. Lot’s of food, snacks and of course sweets…oh and a few shots to along with the poker. We also unveiled the live version of the Big O Hall of Donks.

This was supposed to be the last tournament of Season 3 and after my win last tournament I had an outside shot at passing Jim on the money list. I needed the tourney to have a bunch of rebuys so first place money would be big enough to put me over the top, me win and Jim not to money.

Step one came easy enough as we had 11 rebuys, much higher than normal although not as many as we used to have in the good ol’ days. I think the record was 19 or something like that. It seems like everyone is getting a little better and tightening up a bit. Being the donkey that I am I layed a sick beat on Stacey when we got all in preflop. She held AA while I had AK sooted…two Kings on the flop and she was digging in her purse for her rebuy money. This of course put me well over average and I was able to keep ahead of the avg. much of the night.

At the first break the money total for first place was well over the amount necessary for me to pass Jim if I won. Because of this we took some off of first and paid out an extra spot and left first place with enough money so that if I won I would pass Jim by a whole 50 cents.

I didn’t keep notes but I do know Stan and Mike were the first two eliminated and this kicked off the white elephant gift exchange. As players were knocked out they headed to the gift table and selected one. Once a gift was taken it could be stolen twice before becoming “locked”.

Mrs. Mookie flopped a set against Pants and his OESD that didn’t get there and he was the next to hit the rail. Toby then knocked out both Justin and Skip which left us with 10 players and a final table.

Here were the final tablers and their chipcounts:

1. Toby – 129,000
2. Henry – 106,500
3. Me – 67,500
4. Todd – 60,000
5. Mrs. Mookie – 52,500
6. Scott – 36,500
7. Carol – 33,500
8. Stacey – 11,500
9. Jim – 10,000
10. Windie – 7,000

Toby was a one man wrecking crew as he knocked out Stacey and then Jim. Since Jim finished out of the money I still had a shot at the money lead with a win. Toby kept grinding up players and eliminated Todd in 8th place. I broke up the Toby show and knocked out Windie and everyone agreed to take some money from 2nd and 3rd and pay out to 6th place. Once again Toby was on fire and sent Carol packing in 6th.

Mrs. Mookie was still alive and was able to outrace Scott with her 77 leaving us with just 4 players. I was able to stay in 2nd or 3rd place much of the final table and when we went 4-handed I picked up the pace and was able to steal a few pots and chip up. Mrs. Mookie played great but went card dead and was short on chips falling out in 4th place when the almost all-powerful MOOK was no good against Toby.

Down to three (me, Henry and Toby) we played nearly 30 minutes before Henry fell victim to the Toby machine and finished in 3rd place. Heads up Toby held a near 4-1 chiplead on me but I was able to win a few smaller pots before The Hand came up. With blinds at 5K/10K I raised to 35K with AJo and then Toby re-raised to 80K. I had 120K behind and after counting down my stack I pushed the rest of my chips into the middle. Toby went into the tank for a good two minutes before finally calling with AQs. Oops. But I got lucky, lucky, lucky and flopped a Jack and took over the chiplead and never looked back. On the final hand I went all in on the flop with a flush draw against his middle pair and caught a bigger pair on the turn to win back to back tourneys and overtake the money lead.

I held the money lead for a whole 15 minutes since there were still people around playing cash games. 8 people wanted to play a 2nd tourney which would count towards the money and points lists. With three spots paying I fell out in 4th place while Jim was able to grind out a 3rd place finish and $10 for his efforts. This puts him back in the money lead although now it looks like there will be one more tournament of the year in a couple weeks.

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