2007 championship results

The championship game drew 21 players last night (February 9). At 12:30 Ibrahim was awarded a well deserved plaque for the best point total for the year. We also gave Chris S a free entry and gift certificate for the wonderful work he did on the web site. We got started with 10K in chips, 30 min rounds with three tables of seven each.

It took an hour and a half to lose our first player. At 2:51 we were down to two tables (18) players. Around 3:52, with antes-blinds at 50 - 150 - 300 Alan went out with AA vs KK all in before the flop when it Kxx and no A on the turn or river.

The final tale was reached at 7:55 with blinds of 300-1000-2000. The money (paying 6) happened in a three way pot with Dan H (K9) all in from short stack early position, vs TT of Mike D also all in and Chad (?) with AT. The flop was AxJ turn Q but no T on the river. Mike had more chips than Dan so he got 8th and Dan got the bubble.

Jason R went out 5th with KTd vs Chad's 55 19 minutes later (same blinds). They got it all in on the flop of 5Kx two diamonds. But the turn and river was A and A. The players took a dinner break at this time.

The chips counts of the remaining players were
SB Tom 40,600
BB Matt 51,000
cutoff Justin 12,600
button Chad 107,000

At 9:10 the blinds went to 400-1200-2400

At 9:28 after several short stack survivals Justin was all in on the flop with 9 T vs Matt's QJ. Matt floped a Q Justin a T. No improvement after that.

Approximate chip counts were
SB Tom 40,000
BB Matt 94,000
Btn Chad 78,500

It was back and forth(but mostly forth for Matt) until 10:00. With blinds of 500-1500-3000 Chad raised with AA, Matt called with KJ. All in on the flop of Jxx, turn x, river K and Chad was out. At this point Matt had about a 10:1 chip lead over Tom. With big blinds Tom went all in at 10:05 with T5 vs Matt's AT and a flop of A7K turn 8 river 4 and Matt was the champion.

Congratulations for a well played championship for Matt!!

2009 Championship results

Allan Siegel was the overall regular season point leader for the 2nd year in a row and was presented the plaque by Matt and gave an eloquent speech.

Starting chips 7000. Speeches started promptly at noon, cards in the air by 12:10. Stragglers were Don, Frank, Rafael….No show for Jason Fresh.

Key Hands

• Justin AQ vs Vaibhav QQ. 25-50 Blinds. Justin raise to 150. VK raises to 350. Flop comes 22Q. VK bets 300, Justin calls. Turn is a 2. Justin bets 500, VK calls. River is a 2. Justin bets 3000. VK folds and shows QQ. Justin shows the A. Sick sick sick.
• 50-100 blinds. Nick is a donkey, has about 3500 in chips. Nick raises in 2nd position to 300 with AJoff. Frank calls in BB with K-7 spades. Flop comes As Qs rag. Nick bets 400 (mistake #1, should have been 500), Frank calls. Turn comes a spade. Nick bets 800, Frank raises to 2000. Nick calls (mistake #2). River comes a J. Frank puts Nick all in for his last 1200 or so. Nick calls. Nick eliminated in 28th place… and the new historian is history.
• 50-100 blinds. Frank and Greg both have AA. Greg had 4 spades after the turn for some drama..but they got to chop Joe’s BB.
• Tom (assuming Tom Ortner) as AA, Chad has KQsuited. Tom raise pre-flop 600 and Chad calls. Assume blinds are 100-200. Flop is K-rag-rag. Tom bets 800 and Chad pushes Allin which Tom calls. Turn comes a K and Chad sucks out to get to 17,000 chips.
• 50 ante, 200-400 blinds. Chris in cutoff with A-10. Chris raise to 1900. Justin calls. Flop 10-rag-rag. Chris bet 2500, Justin All in, Chris calls. No idea what happened after that….description not finished.
• A few hands later… Nick returns to Chris’s house at about 8pm just in time to see Josh eliminated on the bubble (7th). I believe Abhishek was out in 9th. Josh lost when his set was outkicked by Mike Didners Set.
• Tom Haldorsen eliminated in 7th for $78. Tom made a move after a flop of A-6-2 with only Q-J against Jim’s A-6. Tom was the short stack.
• Amazingly, it appears Tom Haldorsen cashed in the championship without ever having more than 10,000 in chips. At the end of rounds 2,4,6,8 he had 5500, 2500!!, 7825, 9500 in chips.
• Another note…it stinks that hand recording wasn’t done…but for the hands that I watched from 8 players down to 1 there wasn’t a single bad beat!!! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a final table without a bad beat. Here are the elimination hands:
• Another note…when we were down to 6 players, there were still 3 past champions left (Matt, Mike, Jim). Jim was convinced he was going to be the first repeat winner and the shades reinforced his confidence (read: moxie).
• Another note: 6th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd place eliminations were all in the same 800-1600 round.
• Chad out in 6th. 800-1600 blinds. Chad all-in for 9500 with A-8. Chris Strizver called with K-Q. Chris got both a K and a Q to eliminate Chad. Ok so this *might* be argued a bad beat, but not in my book. $117
• Matt out in 5th. 800-1600 blinds. Matt under the gun with A-6 of spades pushes all in and Tom calls in the Big blind. Don’t remember how many chips Matt pushed with but I think it was between 15k and 20k. Tom had A-3 of diamonds. Jim slow rolled the last diamond on the river to give Tom the flush. $136.
• Jim out in 4th. 800-1600 blinds. Jim with 30k in chips all in with A-K and Chris calls (after 3 bets) with 10-10. No help for Jim. $195.
• At this point I think the chip counts were something like 25k for Tom Cave, 90k for Mike D, and maybe 80k for Chris Strizver. Only 1 former champion left!!
• Tom Cave out in 3rd. 800-1600 blinds. Tom plays K-9 aggressively (must have felt compelled). After a flop of J-6-7, Tom pushes for the rest of his chips (maybe 15-20k at the time) and Chris called with K-J. K-9 is good to Chris. $273
• Heads up about 9:45pm (a guess). Mike has 68,200 in chips and Chris has 121800 in chips.
Heads up summary: Mike Didner chips up to almost even….then the disaster for Chris. On a board of 8-9-10-J, they got all in when Chris had the 7 and Mike had the Q. Chris got down to 5k in chips out of 200k with 800-1600 blinds. Chris then won 11 out of 12 of the next hands included 3 double ups and then later took the chip lead again with a full boat vs a set. Mike chipped away again and got to 60% of the chips and then they got all-in during 1500-3000 blinds preflop with A-9 vs A-7. A-9 held up. Mike wins $720. Chris takes 2nd. Ended at 11pm. So heads up lasted a little over an hour. Mike Didner wins back to back championships to become the first repeat winner. Matt—we will have to discuss bounty possibilities…. Well played everyone! (else) Great job hosting Chris. Great job running the tourney Matt (with the exceptions of my complaints that you already know about -- 1) give me better cards, 2) better structure, 3) last place booby prize, 4) start with 4 tables ;P) Thanks for all the hosts through the year. It was a very successful season. 28 people for the championship ties for the most ever. Here are the results summaries to the best of my knowledge. 2009 Season, Feb 2010 Championship: 1. Mike Didner 2. Chris Strizver 3. Tom Cave 4. Jim Erjavec 5. Matt Kelsey 6. Chad Kramer 7. Tom Haldorsen 8. Josh Kornblatt (bubble) Season point leader Allan Siegel Championship hosted by Chris Strizver 2008 Season 1. Mike Didner 2. Chris Dorough 3. Joe Brandenburg 4. Nick Lindert 5. Matt Kelsey 6. Justin Stec 7. Ibrahim Ban Season point leader Allan Siegel Championship hosted by Matt Kelsey 2007 Season 1. Matt Kelsey 2. Tom Cave 3. Chad Kramer 4. Justin Stec 5. Jason R 6. Mike ? Season point leader Ibrahim Ban Championship hosted by Joe B 2006 Season 1. Allan Siegel 2. Nick Lindert 3,4,5,6 unknown but I recall Justin Stec, Daniel Mayeri, and Ibrahim Ban cashed. Ibrahim was the only one who receive free entry that cashed that year. Season point leader Josh Kornblatt Championship hosted by Chris Strizver 2005 Season 1. Jim Erjavec 2. Bob Atkinson 3. Vu Nguyen 4. Rick Jones Season point leader Josh Kornblatt Championship hosted by Joe B 2004 Season 1. Josh Kornblatt 2. Ralph Leftwich 3. Matt Kelsey 4. Brian Lane 5. Chris Strizver Season point leader Josh Kornblatt Championship hosted by Joe B

Championship game hosted by Nick Lindert.  Sunday Feb 27th, 2011.
35 people qualified for the championship.  Abhishek Agrawal, Scott Wolff, Megan Leftwich, and Greg Harr let us know that they weren’t going to make it.  John Urata was a no show. Daniel Mayeri and Ibrahim Ban let us know that they were going to be a little late.   So we started with 28 folks and had 30 entrants – breaking the previous championship record of 28.  So we started with 4 tables.
Folks started arriving at 11:15am, announcements started at 12:05, and cards were in the air by 12:15.  A large cash game of up to 9 people was active between 4pm and 11pm for those unlucky early victims.   Heads up started at about 11:55pm and ended fairly promptly around 12:15am.  10k starting chips with 40min rounds… structure was great.
Matt Kelsey won the 2010 regular season points race and received his plaque prior to the championship.

We asked folks to write down key hands in a log book and for chip counts at each break so we can provide a record of the events.  These details are only as accurate as Nick’s memory or the details that were provided.

1st hand of the tourney at table 1:  Chris Strizver wins the family pot (and decided to enter that in the log book—maybe it was his only winning hand of the night ;P).

2nd hand of the tourney at table 1:  (25-50)  Tony Mule raises 3X to 150 from early position.  3 callers.  Flop comes 7h, 9h, 10black. Tony bets 300, Jacki in the bb calls and everyone else folds.  Turn is a blank black card.  Check check.  River is a jack of diamonds.  Jacki bets 400. Tony raises to 1200. Jacki raises to 2500. Tony all in and Jacki calls.  Tony has KQspades, Jacki has KQhearts.   Chopped pot with both having the nut straight.   Rare to have all in and call on the 2nd hand of a 12 hour tourney. 

2nd round at table 3:  50-100 blinds.  Folded to Nick who raises to 250 in the cutoff position.  Jason in small blind calls. Chad in big blind calls.  Flow is 9 7 4 rainbow.  Jason check. Chad check. Nick bet 500, Jason check raises to 1500.  Chad folks, Nick calls.  Turn is another 7.  Jason checks.  Nick bet 1500, Jason pushes all in for about 6300 more.  Nick calls.  Jason has A J for A-high. Nick has A-9 for top pair top kicker. River was a 10 and Jason is 1st out in 30th place.  Consolation prize for 1st eliminated was a copy of Harrington’s Vol 1 book.

Don’t have information on the Don Caldwell bustout hand but he was out 29th at 1:32pm, presumably busted by Bob A.

At the first break after round 2:  2 eliminations so far with Jason Rucker, Don Caldwell.  Notable chip stacks are Bob A with 30k, Nick with 21k, Josh Kornblatt with 15k, Brian Lane with 15k.  Vu down to 3k.

4th round with 25-100-200 blinds.  Frank in cutoff position. Mazada in BB goes all in for 1375 with Q8. Frank calls with 99. Board flops 99 for quads and Mazada is eliminated in 28th place at 2:30pm.  Down to 27 so table 4 broke.

4th round with 25-100-200 blinds.  Tom cave raise to 800, Mike Didner reraises to 2500 all in.  Vu goes all in for 2k.  Tom Cave folds.  Didner has QQ, Vu has AQ and doesn’t improve.  Vu is eliminated in 27th place and Didner gets back to healthy.

4th round. Matt elimination.  25-100-200 blinds. Matt has AQ in the SB.  Daniel raises to 800 from middle position. Ibrahim calls. Matt calls.  Flop is A88. I check, Daniel bets 200.  Everyone at table is thinking: huh?.  Ibrahim raises to 1200.  Matt goes all in.  Ibrahim calls with 7-8 clubs.  Q on the turn, 10 on the river. Matt is out in 26th place at 3:04pm.    So much for the regular season champion. ;P 

Strange the Tom Ortner is listed as having 0 chips at the 1st break after round 2 but here is his elimination hand in the log book:
Round 4. Tom Ortner elimination.  Tom has A8 spades vs Allan’s packet Jacks all in preflop.  2 spades on the flop to sweat Allan, but no further help.  Tom is out in 25th place.

Justin Stec busted out at 3:35pm in 24th place. No info on out that went down.  Justin was 2nd in regular season points.

2nd break after Round 4:  Down to 3 tables.  Notable stacks:  Bob 27k, Ibrahim 25k, Joe 24k (skillfully chipping up usually from late position),  Canay 20k, Daniel 19k, Ralph 18k, Brian 17k, Josh 15k, Nick 13k, etc.

Tony Mule elimination in 23rd place.  Tony raises UTG with A9.  Ibrahim on button calls with A10.  Flop is AQx.  All in.  Ibrahim wins.   Tony was 6th in regular season points and had earned a free entry.  Tony busted a few seconds before Liz on different tables.

Round 5. Liz Brandenburg elimination in 22nd place at 4pm.   Liz limps in small blind with 84 off.   Flop is 867 with 2 hearts.  Liz all in and is called by Brian with K2hearts who had limped UTG.  Turn is 10hearts.   Now the cash games starts… and the rain… and the storm up at mount hood for which Liz was coordinating a blizzard shoot for a television program.

Mike Didner elimination in 21st place.  Didner short stacked and Chad pushed allin with AA. Didner called with QQ.  And we all breathe a sigh of relief because the 2-time defending champion is out!

Daniel Mayeri elimination in 20th place.  Daniel is all-in with Q7 for 2800.  Ibrahim calls with JJ.  Flop is 8QA.  Then a K, then a 10 and Ibrahim wins with a straight. 

Chris Strizver eliminated in 19th place. No info on the hand.

Mike Dorough elimination in 18th place at 4:47pm.   Mike all in preflop with 99 but runs into Bobs AA.

Sury elimination in 17th place at 5:10pm. Blinds are 75-300-600.  Frank raises to 1500 with QQ from dealer, Sury all-in for 4250 with AK spades in SB.  Canay all-in with AQ offsuit in big blind.  Frank folds!!!!  Q shows up on the turn and Canay sucks out to win a big pot. 

Around here we had the 3rd break after round 7.   Looks like we were down to 2 tables at this point.  Notable stacks include Ibrahim 50k, Bob at 34k, Nick 31k, Joe 21k, Ralph 14k, Josh 13k, Brian 70k, Chad with 13k, Richard 10k, Chris D 15k

Joe suck out.  75 300 600 blinds.  Joe makes it 1500 from cutoff with 89.  Bob in big blind calls with 10 5.  Flop comes 5 5 2.  Joe bets 2100, Bob calls.  9 on turn.  Bob bet 4k, Joe pushes all in for another 4k.  Bob calls.  Joe hits a 9 on the river to survive. 

Tom Cave elimination in 16th place.  Tom all in with Q 10 (M=5).  Brian with a big stack called with KQ.  Tom didn’t improve.  Tom Cave was 4th in regular season points.  This happened at the same time that Jackie pushed all in which is why I was distracted from seeing how many chips Jackie was pushing with….

Jackie elimination in 15th place.  Details not written down. From memory, Nick raises in cutoff ? for 3XBB.  Jackie pushes all in for a lot more in the small blind with A-3? Nick calls with A-A.

Allan Siegel elimination in 14th place.  75 300 600.  Brian raises in early position to 1500.  Allan raises to 7000. Brian calls.  Flop is rainbow Q 10 2.  Allan goes all in.  Brian has QQ, Allan has KK.  Brian is getting big.  Allan was 3rd in regular season points. 

Canay elimination at 5:45pm in 13th place.  75 300 600.   Canay bets 2000 in 3rd position.  Brian Lane calls with Q6 spades.  Flop is K,8,3 all spades.  Canay bets 3000.  Brian raises to 6000.  Canay is all in.  Brian says “really?” and calls.  Brian is now huge and the chip leader at 70k.  Cash game is up to 9 people now.

Chris J elimination at 6:05pm in 12th place.  Chris had pair of 8’s and a straight draw against a pair of 9’s.

Joe Brandenburg elimination.  100-400-800 blinds. Joe in small blind with 19k.  Nick raises to 2300? with 10 10 probably with 30k in chips.  Joe pushes all in.  Nick calls.  Board is 7,8,9,2,Q.  Joe out in 11th place.

Ibrahim Ban elimination at 6:15.  100-400-800 blinds.  Flop is 433.  All in and call.  Bob has 44. Ibrahim has trip 3’s. Ibrahim out in 10th.  Merge to the final table.

Chip counts at start of final table:  Frank 7100, Brian 65400, Chad 12600, Bob 75800, Josh 19300, Chris D 26500, Ralph 11700, Nick 58500, Richard Schenkar 8600.  So there are 3 big stacks and 6 smaller stacks.

9th place takes a while to eliminate (maybe 30min?).  Chad was crippled when his A-J all in was called by Richards A-K all in for less.  This put Chad down to about 4500 in chips.  Blinds are 100?-500-1000.  Chad eventually gets all in from the cutoff with 1100 against Chris Dorough in the big blind.  Chad has K-7 and Chris has 10-2 and Chris gets a flush on the river. Chad is out in 9th.

The bubble takes even longer to eliminate.  We played almost 2 hours with 8 people!  Mostly very solid play. 

Chip counts after the break:  Frank 22k, Brian 32k, Bob 70k, Josh 11k, Chris D 22k, Ralph 20k, Nick 65k, Rich 57k (from 9k at the last break). 

Stressful hand in the middle of the bubble play:  Brian Nick and Bob are the big stacks.  On a flop of 6,7,10 with 10k already in the pot, Brian bets 15k.  Nick thinks about it for a while and pushes all in (maybe for 35k).  Brian folds.  Brian is now a medium stack instead of big stack and Bob is the largest by far.

Frank Ma elimination on the bubble in 8th place at 8:37pm.  Frank is all in for 15k with A-K.  Bob calls with Q-Q.   The consolation prize on the bubble was a collector’s edition of the Rounders DVD.

7th place also took a while.  1 notable hand:  Ralph all in preflop with 55 with 200-800-1600 for 19k.  Bob has QQ.  Ralph hits a 5 on the flop to really help Ralph’s stack and get him out of short stack situation for the first time in a while.

Brian Lane elimination in 7th place at 9:31pm.  200?-1000-2000 blinds.  Brian has A-3 and pushes all in on a flop of 4 5 5.  Bob has 7-6 suited.  River is an 8 and Bob hits the straight.

Chip counts after the break:  Bob 110k, Josh 30k, Chris D 36k, Ralph 21k, Nick 64k, Richard 45k. 

2 Ralph over Rich hands in a row with xxx-1500-3000 blinds. 1st hand Ralph is all in preflop from the button for 14k with 9 J and Rich calls.   Rich has T T.  Board is T 3 6 Q K for a straight over set.  2nd hand Ralph is all in with QK and Rich calls for last 18k with JJ.  Q on the flop and Rich is out in 6th place at 10:34.

After quite a lot of play 5 handed, Chris Dorough is crippled when he lost a race with T T vs AK against Josh when Josh hit a K on the river.   Then Josh finished him off when Chris was all in with 1k (ante was 500).  Chris D eliminated in 5th place.

Ralph Leftwich eliminated in 4th place at 11:40pm.  Ralph had 99 vs Bob J-T all in preflop and Bob hits J and T.

Chip counts after the break: Bob 126k, Josh 94k, Nick 60k.

Nick elimination in 3rd:  1000, 3000, 6000 blinds.  Nick on button raises to 14k with 44.  Josh calls in the big blind.  Flop is 6,7,8hearts.  Nick pushes all in for about 45k.  Josh calls.  Josh has K9 (woof!) with the 9 of hearts.  So Nick has a pair but Josh is favored to win with a straight flush draw and 2 overs.  Qhearts on the turn and Nick is eliminated at 11:54pm.   Just before midnight on his birthday…

Heads up started with Josh at about 175k and Bob at about 125k and only lasted about 20min.   Ralph was kind enough to deal 3 handed and heads up.

Key hand heads up:  1000-3000-6000 blinds.  Bob limped with AQ. Josh raised to 16k.  Bob reraised to 40k.  Josh calls with A3.  Flop is A A 7!!!  Both have flopped a set and they get all in.  Turn is J and River is 5 and Bob is the new champion!

Thanks much to Matt for bringing a table, chairs, and running the tournament.  Thanks to Chad for bringing a table and chairs.  Thanks for everyone chipping in to make it a successful and fun championship.  Who will be next years champ?