Let’s Play Real Poker On-Line

Why play On-Line?

I decided on April 18, 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic to create an on-line poker experience that would allow players to connect from the safety of their home while “sheltering in place”.

I for one was tired of being forced to stay in my home, but still wanted to connect and play cards with my friends.  I tried a couple times to use the commercial “play for free sites” like PlayWPT, PokerStars, WSOP, etc. but they didn’t allow the flexibility.  So I decided to try something else.

The On-Line Poker Platform

The platform that I decided to go with was Pokerrrr 2.  It has a really easy to use poker interface that for the user is similar to holding cards in their hands.  It is geared to be used on a smart phone or tablet, and uses simple hand or finger gestures to peek at your cards, double-tap to check, flick your finger to fold your hand, etc.

The other reason I love Pokerrrr 2, is from a hosting standpoint it gives the game director a ton of flexibility.  If I’m running a tournament for example, I can decide the starting stack size, what game or games we are playing from Hold’em, to pineapple, to Omaha Hi or Hi-Lo, 5 Card Omaha, or even a mix of games like HORSE, or whatever.  I can decide on the blind levels, the length of the blind levels, whether we do rebuy’s, whether it’s a single table game or a multi-table game.  We can do Tournaments, Cash Games, you name it.  SUPER FLEXIBLE!

There is one drawback for all this flexibility, there’s a cost to host.  The cost to the host is variable based on a lot of the features we use above.  There’s a cost per table, there’s a cost per table per hour, there’s additional cost for rebuy’s, etc.  So that’s the downside, but there’s a ton of upside.

How to download and use Pokerrrr 2

If you are an iOS user of Apple products, you will go to your App Store, search for Pokerrrr 2 then click download.  Similarly if you are an Android user, go to Google Play, then apps, then search for Pokerrrr 2.  Download the application, sign in, setup your Screen Name, and that’s it.  There is a Play Now function that allows you to play to get used to the interface, it will teach you how to call, bet, raise, fold, and more.  I recommend spending a bit of time getting used to the interface on play games before jumping right in.

Quick Preview of Pokerrrr 2 User Interface

Here’s a quick look of how what Pokerrrr 2 looks like from a user’s standpoint, and some ideas of a few easy to use hand gestures…

I’ve downloaded Pokerrrr 2, now what?

Now that you have Pokerrrr 2 loaded, you will want to join my club.  I have already sent most of you a referral code “50D85787”.  That will give me some free gold to host games for a little while.  Now you will need to join my club, my club code is v9do5.

Download GroupMe for Communications

Now that you have the Pokerrrr 2 app on your phone, and you’ve joined the club, you will need a way to see upcoming scheduled games, register for them, understand your balance, and to chit-chat with other people in the club.  The GroupMe collaboration tool will be a private community, only I will be able to allow new people in, so your conversations are private (unlike Facebook, etc.)

Venmo will be used to Send BuyIn’s and Receive Payouts

Finally, you will need to sign up for a Venmo account, to do so please see your favorite App Store and download the Venmo application, set it up with your bank account by following the instructions.  This will be used for buying into tournaments and getting your payouts.  All Buy-in’s will be paid to Patrick-Brown-403, and all Payouts will be paid from me.

2019 WSOP Week 1 Recap

Today is the day, WSOP League is back!!! I was so stoked that so many people were interested in getting the league back on the ground after only playing a large buy-in satellite tournament for WSOP 2018.  I arrived at the Shangri-La, the new home of Pat Brown to find that I was the first to arrive and Pat’s home was a disaster.  I called Pat to see why he wasn’t there yet, however he said he was leisurely riding around with the top down on his convertible and I should make calm down, make myself at home and he would be there shortly before the start time to help me kick off this years league.  I was slightly upset and didn’t want players to arrive to this tornado of a house so I began picking up all the toys in the hallway which were the property of Pat’s many grandchildren as well as piles of Hawaiian shirts and other tropical themed clothing.  Once I had the hallway straightened enough for our guests to walk down I walked into the sole bathroom of the home to find a rather large gathering of “Joe” Boxers of Zach’s when I picked those up many condoms where hidden underneath.  I cleaned up the bathroom and covered the floor with some type of Batman cape and then the whole place looked pretty freaking amazing, it was almost a different house then I had originally walked into.  Pat then showed up as I had just finished cleaning and commented about the job I had done and said he may invite me to come early on other occasions when the place needed a little tidying up.  Pat then said, “Get your panties out of a bunch Page, I’ll give you a stiff one!” Then he poured me one of his famous old fashioneds.  Laura then walked in and started yelling at me that she couldn’t find anything now that I had “cleaned” up the place.   Pat nodded in agreement and told me I should have taken inventory of the toys and let them know where I had place all the goods as he chuckled.  Pat was turned on by Laura’s little dimples which were sparkling from her being a little steamed at the Page-meister.

 

Next Larvin Mewis, the new Bengals coach appeared at the bar window in Pat’s house, do not mistake this guy for Marvin Lewis, he looked nearly identical but had a mean moustache and some crazy dreadlocks.  I went up to him and was upfront with him that I always kind of talked trash about him and Hue and wasn’t going to lie to his face, just wanted to be real with him…he said, “nah you’re thinking of Marvin Lewis, that ain’t me, we cool.” I had a drink with the Rastafarian and begin to chillax as the league members began to arrive. This just took a really weird turn…then I woke up!  (actually dream I had on the Saturday prior to the WSOP Winter League)   

 

THE FIRST WEEK…IT’S REALLY HERE!

 

It was 6 o’clock in the PM on the 28th of January in the year of two thousand nineteen, the winds were a howling and the countryside glistened with a snow dusting from the weekend past.  The temperature was warm enough to melt of the prior weeks snow and this caused the grounds near “The Basement” to be damp and soggy.  Just moments ago Tim “The Load Deliverer” had ordered his poker grunt Ryan to send out a special bulletin to all league participants via a new age carrier pigeon some call a cell phone; this message should warn participants to rest their automobiles on his paved drive.

Said message read, “Please try to park your cars in Tim’s asphalt driveway up top.  May be a little crazy getting out but he’s afraid it’s too soggy down below. Thanks!”            

    

The first reply was quite long winding and came from a player hailing from the family of Rome, “k”

   

Next a Baker who often reviews recipes of law ended all comments on the matter by stating, “That’s what she said”      

 

The league was slated to start with 14 members, however one of its original founders and a mainstay of the league, Pat Brown will not be playing in the league this year due to many travel plans in the near future.  Pat may make an appearance to help with the WSOP Championship!?  There were several members shocked and disappointed that Pat was not going to be playing this year…one said mostly because he was “deadwood, it would have been nice to have his money to fluff up the WSOP pot.” ;P  

 

As always we had a few last minute movers and shakers, first there was some rumbling from “The Quiet Storm” that he was going to have to pass on the league this year because he wasn’t feeling up to par.  This text came as I had just ordered 4 pizzas from several pizza joints.  I tried to pursued Brad with food telling him he made 14 confirmed and that I had already ordered enough food that he would have plenty to eat.  This didn’t work…he referred me to call Greg Yeager to see if he would be interested in the league.  I called Greg and he and I didn’t communicate well for the first portion of our call as he thought that the league cost was $800 ($200 each week) for a possible $1500 prize package to play in an event with a buy-in as little at $500…he’s like, “This doesn’t make sense I could just buy-in to the event?”   We then got onto the same Page and he said he appreciated the call but he didn’t think it was fair for him to take all our money or maybe he just said he wasn’t interested this year?  I’m sure we’ll see Greg making a run at the Main Event this year!  Now as I arrived at Tim’s place with pizza in hand to set up around 6:20 the league had fallen down to 13 members.  I messaged Brad a few more times, not pressuring him just letting him know that he’s welcome to show up late if he feels better…I left it at that.

 

Early Birds – I was happy to get to The Basement early so that I would secure a prime spot on the drive.  When I pulled in I was not the first to arrive, Gary and Cheri had come early as well but hid out in the lot for a few moments before joining me on the inside.  I backed in next to them and gave them a stare down…then I tried to straighten out my parking but decided it was best for me to park against the garage so I moved out from next to them and gave them another stare down.   With the spitting rain it was a little tough to see into their steamed up vehicle? 

 

Tim and I began to discuss the league and the rules and he then announced Jason and Joann are probably going to play!  Awesome a couple of first time league members!  The both ended up joining and we’re delighted to have them along with Cheri as first time WSOP league members. The league is now back to 15.  BIG BLUE then messaged me saying he wasn’t sure if he could commit now with work and was going to be a no show…back down to our original 14.  Then as smooth as the Ice on Tim’s driveway by night’s end, Brad West #TheQuietStorm slid in the back door just prior to 7pm and the league was now set at 15 for this 12th year of WSOP leagues or qualifier tournaments (Sit-n-Go’s).  

Rules Review

We didn’t have many rules to review or questions to go over for this years WSOP league as the majority of the league had played with similar rules in the past.  We did have a couple of key points of conversations and the final vote results were both a little surprising to me. 

 

First we debated the re-buy penalty for 10-15 minutes before finally decided to vote completely against re-buys in this years league, this made Sweet Thing ecstatic!  I never thought that would get passed, however with no re-buy it made the arguments we were having moot points as this eliminated the problem.  

 

Second the point was brought up to me by Mr. Bayless that most casinos and tournaments were going to the Big Blind Ante structure and that we should consider this to help us prepare for that should we win a seat in this years WSOP or another large buy-in poker tournament.  I had actually thought of this to myself as I prepared the rules this year but opted to omit it at that point.  Because Phil brought this up I opened it up for discussion and the league passed Big-Blind Antes (Ante based on players at table) for this years league as a majority of 10-11 players were for the BBA.  Apparently Phil was a big no for this structure and had prepared an argument against it on his drive over…unfortunately he walked in as the discussion was ending and before he could make his pitch against it play was under way.  

 

With 15 players and Tim/Terry getting a discount and no rebuy monies to add this years WSOP pot will be $2,800 which will give the regular season and championship tournament winner each a $1,400 package.

 

Food

I wanted to make sure that we had some food for the first night of the league so I bought 4 pizzas and some bread bites.  Thanks to those of you who chipped in to get me some of my money back for the food.  Rhonda had said she was bringing some dessert, however as she rolled in she had a meat tray and some other goodies and said that she didn’t have time to cook but stopped by the store.   Thanks so much Rhonda with providing some munchies for the night!  Next week if anyone is interested in picking up some pizzas or other food let me know I will chip in with a few bucks to help…if I no one volunteers I’ll bring pizza if people want it just let me know.

 

A QUICK GLANCE AT THE WEEK 1 ACTION AND RESULTS

 

A LONG HILL TO CLIMB, The battling Tims

Tim Hill dodged a few bullets trying to avoid being this years first elimination as he kept getting dumped on by the Load Deliverer to his immediate right.  Every time it seemed Tim Hill would get his stack back on track he would get involved in another neighbourly dispute with Tim Williams.  Then this hand happened and “Deadwood” Page showed back up, blinds 75/150 Tim Williams raises the action to 350, Hill shoves his short stack of nearly 1500 in the middle, Page looks down at a pair of 10s in the hole and mucks.  My thought behind this is that at best it’s a flip with Hill but the way the Tim’s have been battling Tim may have me crushed with a bigger pair.  The action folds around to Williams and he folds.  Hill shows AK and takes down the pot.  Brad West says 7’s Page?  I gave 2 thumbs up and motioned that it was bigger then took it on the chin the rest of the evening for laying 10s down in that spot for 30% of my stack.  Tim’s time was short lived as he finally found a great spot to get it in against The load Deliverer as Big Blind Antes began with a 100/200 175ante at our table.  Tim Hill shipped in a similar amount to his previous all in and showed KK vs Tim’s A7….then the deliverer got dirty 😉 FLOP – 7 9 10, TURN – 6 so there is a gutshot for a cop…THE RIVER 7, Tim slaps Tim with trips, earning Hill a trip home courtesy of The Load Deliverer.   

LADIES FIRST

This year we have 4 ladies in the league which I think is our highest percentage of women in league history at roughly 27%.  Unfortunately Week 1 wasn’t ladies night.  Sweet Thing was the next player eliminated after Tim Hill in 14th, the remaining ladies Cheri, Carolyn and Joann would then fall in order in 11th, 10th and 9th places.  Although we were supposed to final table at 10 Cheri and Carolyn got KO’d simultaneously resulting in Joann being the last lady standing and only one to make the week one final table.  I’m sure these ladies will come back with a vengeance in Week 2!  I didn’t get to witness the elimination of Rhonda or Carolyn as they were at the other table however the following hands are the ones that doomed Cheri and Joann.  Cheri got all her money in after a raise from myself with blinds 150/300 and a 250 ante I raised to 1050 and then was re-raised in by Cheri for 200 more for a total of 1250; the hand played itself as Cheri showed 44 and I showed AQ, the flop was KK10, Bayless stated, “Not a good flop for two fours” the turn brought my lady as a Q paired up my hand and the river looked like it could be a 4….but it was a 5 and Cheri was eliminated just short of the final table.  Carolyn’s elimination followed as we were preparing to re-draw for the final table.  Joann put all her money in the middle with 10 10 and was eliminated by AK as a King fell on the flop dashing her hopes at a week 1 deep run.

HOW DO YOU MAKE A PLUMBER CRY?

Knock him out of course!  Terry switched tables to take Tim Hill’s freshly vacant seat, on his first hand shipped all in for about 3k with blinds at 100/200 ante175 and I folded AQ once again being a knit, I believe he had Queens but can’t confirm.  Shortly thereafter Terry limped in a pot and I raised behind him with 10 10, action folded to Terry and he called about a third of his stack bringing the pot up to nearly 3k.  Flop came J 9 2 and Terry lead off the action by the rest of his stack into me, I called and Terry tabled Q 10 for an open-end straight draw and an over card to my pair.  The board ran out J 9 for 2 pair on board but my 10s were just enough to clog up his run at a first week final table eliminating Terry in 13th.

COOPER POOPER

Coop had some big hands early including a monster in the second level of play with blinds 50/100 and no ante Bayless shoots it up in early position to 350 and Cooper, who’s to Phil’s immediate left shoots it up to 850, action folds around to Phil who calls.  The flop comes with no paint and no ace and Phil checks and folds to Coopers large bet but shows that he’s folding Queens, Cooper showed Aces and Phil said, “I know!”.

Shortly after the break the action started when Cooper raised from early position, The Quiet Storm made some noise and 3-bet behind Cooper.  Coop called and the flop brought A8x, the money all found it’s way into the middle and when the cards were on their backs Cooper showed a big Ace – AJ for top pair, Brad had A8 for 2 pair, the cards were Cooper Poopers and ran out blank blank not improving Cooper’s holdings and he was out in 12th place.

FINAL TABLE HIGHLIGHTS

 

STRAIGHT TRIPPIN’

After Joann had been eliminated in 9th place the final table action continued to be pretty fast for the next several eliminations.  Bayless was in the big blind and got it all in the middle in a good way with AK vs Tim “The Load Deliverer” who held A10 in the small blind.  The flop came QJx and the turn was the payoff for the load as the K paired up Phil but gave Tim the straight.  The river was a blank and Bayless was KO’d in 8th place…or was he? Tim didn’t realize he made the straight and began shipping the load to Phil until the table announced to Tim that he had turned the nuts and the pot was his.

COOLERED

It took a cooler to knock out the very punctual Gary Rome in 7th place.  Gary was dealt KK and after raising and then being faced with an all in raise behind him called with the Kings only to see that Jason had two Aces and his chip stack covered.  The board ran out clean and Gary was eliminated in an almost impossible spot, KK vs AA, this is how I was knocked out of the WSOP $1500 Bounty tournament several years ago, not a good feeling after hours of strong play.  With Ice in his veins I’m sure Gary “Iceman” Rome will return with some deep runs in future tourneys.

PAGE STILL SUCKS

You would think that with as long as I have had to study some poker strategy and optimal game theory, watch some game film on top tiered players, and refocus to establish some positive vibes that I would have to be better then I (Ryan Page) have the past few WSOP Leagues.  Nope, took some needles early for tight play, played some hands maybe I shouldn’t have on top of that and then played some hands very badly.  Finally get a big pair AA and raised to 3x the blinds with the Quiet Storm in the BB.  Flop comes K 7 8, Brad checks it over and with 4k in the pot already I made a huge error in only betting half pot…Brad calls turn comes 9, Brad then ships into me, I then make my 2nd HUGE mistake of this hand in calling it off when I feel like AA is no good, it’s only 1 pair.  Brad turns over J10 for a turned nut straight, the 9 hit him in the GUTZ.  I then payoff an additional $5k plus to Brad and am left crippled with only 2k and some change.  Moments later in the big blind I check with Q 7, Russ had limped on the button and I believe the other blind was in the pot.  The flop cam K 7 4, small blind checks, I connected and with 1/3rd of my chips in the pot I ship and Russ comes over the top as Jason quickly folds.  Russ shows KK for top set, I’m drawing dead to running 7s…that didn’t happen.  Page goes down in 6th place.

ACTIONS SLOWS DOWN WITH 5 LEFT…Then 2 quickies!

With 5 players left action slowed down a bit and stacks evened out some, blinds and antes were reasonable at this stage and it took a couple strong hands and a little bit of a twiddled down stack to finally get a player to stick all their chips in the middles.  The Load Deliverer who had KO’d several people got all in with 10 10 vs A K  and was taken down as big slick paired up to knock Tim out in 5th and  finally bring us down to our final four.  Jason, Brad, Russ and Tony made up the top four in week 1, all but one of those players would get a little cash back with nightly tournament winnings and would pick up some bonus chips for the Championship.   Jason would be the odd man out as he would run into The Professor slow playing a turned boat with a board showing K 4 2 K 10 all the chips would find their way in the middle and Russ would turn over K 2, Jason said that was good and ended his nice inaugural run in a WSOP league tournament.

NIGHTLY PAY-OUT / BONUS CHIPS

This year the top 3 players of each regular season tournament pick up some bonus chips for the Championship tournament; 1st place = 1000, 2nd place = 500, 3rd place = 100 which will add a max of 6400 chips to play in our championship tournament.  In addition as long as there are 13 players on a given night the $10 nightly money will be split 50/30/20.  This week we had $150 in the nightly pot which would be paid out to the remaining players with 1st getting $75, 2nd $45  and 3rd $30.  It wasn’t long before the $30 and 100 chip bonus where added to The Professor’s bankroll as he would find himself on the short end of a flip with 44 vs AK.  Russ was eliminated in 3rd place.

HEADS UP TBAG$ vs THE QUIET STORM

Brad West entered heads up with a monster chip lead as he just finished off Russ.  Tony says to Brad, “I’ll give you all the money that left $120 for 1st place?”  Brad says get the heck out of here…lol good thing because unfortunately we have to play these regular season tourneys all the way out even If the players don’t want to for some reason.  Both players agreed to do away with the Antes and Tim Williams and Myself dealt the cards.  Tony would get an early double up as his AJ improved with a jack on the flop to beat Brads AQ.  Tony would fight back from super short stacks several times but finally found himself having to get it all in after connecting with a 10 9 4 flop, Tony showed bottom pair with a 5 kicker and Brad showed the same bottom pair 4s with a K kicker…the turn was a 10 and the river didn’t wasn’t the ace, 10 or 4 to chop or the 5 to pair Tony’s remaining hole card and TBAG$ got sat down in 2nd place picking up $45 in cash money and a 500 bonus chip for the Championship.  CONGRATULATIONS to Mr. Brad West who almost cancelled on us with a toofth ache but showed up and showed out to win $75 and 1000 bonus chip for the Championship as well as a league up on the competition for the regular season title and WSOP package.

WSOP WINTER LEAGUE WEEK 2 – FEBRUARY 25 @ TIM’S #SamePlaceSameTime

Week 2 of the WSOP Winter League will be at the same location as Week 1 and we hope to have cards in the air at or very shortly after 7pm next tournament as rules have been set in store for this years version of our WSOP league.  Please be courteous of Tim’s grass should it be soggy again!

See you soon!  Ryan

WEEK 1 STANDINGS

Name	Week 1
Brad West	35
Tony Baker	31
Russ Kincaid	27
Jason Evans	24
Tim Williams	21
Ryan Page	18
Gary Rome	16
Phil Bayless	14
Joann Evans	12
Carolyn Willams	10
Cheri N. Hayes	9
Doug Cooper	8
Terry Stephens	7
Rhonda Rutherford	6
Tim Hill	5

 

2017 Spring-Fling WSOP Championship Wrap-Up

2017 WSOP Spring-Fling Championship In Review

 

Winner Winner Steak & Chicken Dinner

The WSOP Spring-Fling Championship started out with a great meal as has it has become a great tradition.  Each and every year it seems we add more and more food and this could be one of the best pre-poker tournament meals we ever eat!  Thanks to everyone who helped with the food, brought a dish and of course to everyone who ate and enjoyed it, this is a great group and I am looking forward to improving on this years league next year as well as adding different foods.  Big thanks to CupCakes #SweetThing for the homemade mac n cheese, could have been one of the best I’ve ever had!  Rhonda you have been a great asset to this league although you have maybe added a little extra cushion to our assets…it seems like you bring us a treat out of the kindness of your heart and we thank you so much for that…hope to see you next season ;P.  50 Blades of Gray came through HUGE by bringing cutlery to our shindig, kept everyone from having to pack their own knife, then to top it off he added some salty amazing green beans.  Thanks to Pat for slaving away with me to prep all the food, awesome job!  Pat grilled the meats to perfection after pounding out a mean chicken breast and seasoning the steaks.  Finally I want to give a special shout out to my wife, Carly helped me by preparing an amazing salad that was a last minute addition to the menu this year…everything was great but this salad stole the show and all I had to do was mix the ingredients.  I think I munched on that salad all friggin’ night long, Thanks Babe!!! 

 

Final Farewell to The Garage

Pat will be moving in the next few weeks as most of you know so when the night was over leaving was a little melancholy for me as it may have been for others knowing that this was certainly that final WSOP League event hosted by Pat at 9052 Brown Rd.  This was the last chance I will have to play in a venue that I have grown to love over the last 10+ years, my game has improved, maybe recently regressed some, but nevertheless in that time but we’ve all had many good times at The Garage.  We had some rolls so it only seemed fitting for me to chuck a bun at someone at the first break #BunHead #WhoThrowsBuns!  We tossed some football in the yard while awaiting the big meal, I thought about trying to urinate in that super tall urinal in the garage before leaving but I knew that I would have just pissed all over the wall and floor as I’m too short for it so I decided against it.  Where will we play next year? All at Tim’s? Maybe get back to the Attic?  South Lebanon in a new basement by a pool? Maybe somewhere new??? Here’s to hoping that my family and I can sell our home this summer and move into a house with a little more space and maybe some room to host a WSOP event or two?  Who knows what venue will play at in the future, but no venue can ever replace The Garage.

 

Off to the Races

When everyone was polishing off their pre-game meals we jumped into this years horse race.  Pat explained the rules as always and we started auctioning off the horses starting with the smallest stacks first then making our way to the bigger stacks.  Clint and Russ had the smallest starting stacks and they went for $22 and $16 respectively which was a pretty good start to the race.  Tim Williams was unintentially missed and when we got to the top 4 stacks we did a bit of a U-turn to auction him off.  Tim Williams went for $32 which was a steal at that time…later Tim said that people had delivered (he used another word) their loads all ready and therefore he went too cheap…I wished I could go cheaper I hate having to pay a big chunk for myself!  The top 2 starting stacks went for the most money Jeff went for $52 (Chad Beam) right after he bought his closest competitor in the bidding war of the night, finally picking up Scott Moss for $66.  I then took the whole first 3 levels trying to make sense of my chicken scratches and notes…I kept coming up $2 off and the more I tried to consolidate the wackier my sheet became.  I threw my hands in the air like I just didn’t care and past the calculating duties to Pat as he had recently been the championships first casualty.  Pat and Chad Beam took over and after a lot less time then I fussed with it, they had it all well in hand.  The final pot was $590 which gave the following pay-outs 1st – $295, 2nd – $177, 3rd – $118 this was a pretty nice little side pot.

 

Horse – Winning Bid – Owner 

Brad $50 Williams

Chad $32 John

Clint $22 Cooper

Cooper $46 Hill

Jeff $52 Chad (Knew I should have bid on this stud)

John $40 Ryan

Pat $44 Brad

Phil $36 Pat

Rhonda $24 Russ – He’s went “ALL-IN” and got ALL of Rhonda!

Russ $16 Phil

Ryan $44 Pat

Scott $66 Jeff

Steve $18 Clint

Hill $18 Jeff (Steal of the night!)

Williams $32 Pat (Co-Steal of the night! :P)

Todd $50 Jeff

 

In the end all horses took their 50% option on themselves and would split the pot. Horse race final results are as follows 1st – Tim Williams (owner Pat) Tim W. got $147, Pat $148, 2nd – Jeff (owner Chad) Jeff $89, Chad $88, 3rd – Tim Hill (owner Jeff) Tim Hill got $59, Jeff $59 so Jeff ended up with $148.  Now there was a crazy deal made before the tournament was played out for horse race results only so please read on to see this years Championship Tournament Winners! #ButWaitThere’sMore

 

Sweet Sixteen to the Final Four

The tournament started out with 16 players as Tony had clinched a $1425 WSOP package as the regular season champion.  Tony would be 1 of 3 dealers pushing each other from table to table every 20 minutes.  We had it very good with Robert McNamera and Matt Thompson #DealingForDinner as they were kind enough to let us feed them and handle our dealing for the championship. 

 

Big Hands & Eliminations 16th – 5th

The Steam Roller came with a full head of steam into the championship fresh off his 2nd place finish in week 3 and the regular season Jeff came into the tourney with the biggest stack and made short work of several players at table 2.  Jeff was able to use his guarantee of at minimum a heads up match to play loosey goosey and it worked!  Jeff eliminated Pat Brown in 16th place, followed by Chad Beam in 14th place and just after the initial break Steve Greenup in 13th place.  I was at the other table (maybe a good thing?) and so I didn’t catch any of these eliminations, however the word was he should have a new nicked name #2Pair, it seems as though he was flopping 2 pair like WHAT and it was holding for him.

50 Blades of Gray had a dagger shoved in him and when he got short and with AK and a board showing top pair for Mr. Gray the turn brought a Queen #lovelylady which set up Rhonda and her pocket queens where the end of my horse in 15th place.

 

YOU RAISIN’ ME???  Rhonda would do some more work after moving from table 1 to table 2 she got in a monster hand #ColdDeckCity.  I was not at this table but here’s how it sounded from our table…Rhonda raises, Clint re-raises and Rhonda acted like, WHAT? YOU RAISING ME??? YOU TALKIN’ TO ME? I’M ALL IN! Clint quickly made the call risking his tourney life and tabling a monster KK, but he would grimace when Rhonda flipped over AA and the aces held eliminating Clint in 12th place in one of the sickest / cold decks a player can run into…I’ve been there!!! 

 

Phil Bayless ran 2nd best all night long as his hands just didn’t seem to hold up.  Phil had an opportunity early to possibly eliminate Tim Hill when Hill pushed all in from the Big Blind with about 5k in chips, however this would have crippled Phil so he laid down AQ after Tim agreed to show if Bayless folded, Tim showed AJ, with Phil’s luck in the tourney that Jack was coming!  After the break Bayless got us down to the final table when he pushed with 10 9 of spades from the button and Tim Hill then didn’t return the favour and fold he made a tough call with 66, the board would stay clean ending Phil’s night in 11th place.

 

JEFF GETS SOME RESPECT!  Once we all combined to the final table I found myself 2 seats to the left of Jeff which was a good and bad thing…since he had been trapping so much I had to give him some respect.  Jeff limped on my big blind and with Rhonda calling to my right I choose to play a couple monster hands AK and AQ slow to make sure I didn’t get myself in a pickle.  Both times I whiffed on flops and once I called a bet on the flop to see a if a gutter ball could get there on a KJ9 board but folded to a big bet by Jeff on the turn, he showed J9, which seemed to be the hand of the night for him.  Later I was in the small blind when Jeff raised the blinds up and looked down at 10 10 and decided to just call, Scott Moss in the big blind SHOCK THAT HE WASN’T ON THE BUTTON called too, the flop KJ3 and Scott and I checked to Jeff who bet and as I mucked a 10 flipped up Moss quickly folded behind me with 10 10 as well and we had a laugh Jeff showed a Jack for the best hand and said he had two pair, J9…what?  KJ3 flop J9=two pair?  lol lated he said he had J10…all the 10’s were dead and shown…lol.  Nice hand(s) Jeff

 

TRIP 10s – The flop was AJ8 and the turn was a rag and the river a J as I caught the end of the action in this hand between The Quiet Storm and The Button.  Brad led out and of course Scott had position #thebutton and went over top all-in.  Brad made the call and Scott said, “You got AJ?”  Brad said no and showed J10 for three 10s, Moss relieved flipped over 88 for 8’s full of Jacks and a winning hand.  Scott was at risk and took a huge chunk of Brad’s chips, this would lead to his demise soon thereafter.  Last years championship winner would be Jeff’s next victim although it would not be due to a trap…The Quiet Storm was fizzling out of chips and shipped in late position with A7, Jeff woke up with QQ and the flop came KJ10 with a 9 on the turn giving Jeff a straight and an 8 on the river.  Brad was the first final table player eliminated in 10th place.

 

I had sat patient at the final table for several levels when I looked down at KK and raised from early position after The Trapper limped in front of me.  I raised to 2200 with blinds 400/800, Cooper shoved his remaining 3375 in the pot from late position, Jeff folded and I made the call.  Before Cooper could show his hand I announced NO ACE, and the Coop tabled AK the flop was Q103, then I yelled NO JACK, the turn a Jack and I was drawing to split the pot with an ace that didn’t come.  Cooper doubles up and I lose a small portion of the stack I had slowly grinded up to near double my starting stack. 

 

After blinding through an orbit or two more Russ Kincaid shipped All-In from UTG with 4k, I looked down at 77 and decided that he had a very wide range because the blinds were coming to cripple him if he didn’t shove there so I called and he showed K10 the flop was safe for me 568 turn 6 and river 3 gave me my chips back from the Cooper pot but eliminate The Professor in 9th place.  A few hands after picking back up those chips I would put them back in play opening for 2500 early with A10 when Kaptain Kramer would push his short stack of 4500 into the middle, the blinds folded and it was a must call for me now with blinds at 500/1000.  Todd had the rockets AA and I was in a bad way, the flop came 235 all spades and this gave me a gutter ball but Todd had the Ace of Spades.  I yelled for a 4 and got it on the turn…unfortunately it was the 4 of spades and Todd made the steal wheel a Straight Flush A-5.  Todd would double through and remain in contention for the WSOP prize packages.

 

FROG BALLS? – Scott Moss #TheButton who has been a winner of our WSOP league in past years had moved his way into strong contention for this years prize.  The hand that put him in a good spot was his pocket 8’s setting on the flop and boating on the river vs The Quiet Storm.  Pocket 8’s or frog balls as some locals call them would also be a hand he couldn’t beat later in the night.  blinds at 500/1000 with 100 antes I limped from UTG +1 with 88 and Moss raised it up to 2500, the action folded to Jeff in the big blind who decided not to call after a slight tank (or nap?) and then I called the 1500 with 5800 already in the pot.  The flop was gin for me 833 with a couple of hearts, I checked to Scott, he continued with a bet of 3500 or just slightly less then half pot.  The turn was a non-heart 5 and I decided to check again with about 6-7k behind me as I thought if he had AK he may bluff at it, over pair he would certainly bet to get me off flush draw or smaller pair, it’s tough for him to give me a 3 with the way the hand was played.  Scott looked at my stack and then said all in, I called and turned over my flopped boat and he flipped over AA American Airlines and needed an Ace on the river which didn’t come.  This gave me a stack to play with but unfortunately left Scott somewhat short with about 9-10 big blinds left.  A few hands later action folded to me on the button and I bet 3500, Scott then shipped for 9100 and Tim Hill in the big blind took his stand going all in for less around 7000.  I decided to make the call with 88 again putting 2 players at risk for 5600 more and a big pot at stake.  Tim Hill had A9 and Moss KJ which is what I expected 4 over cards to my 8’s.   The flop smacked Tim Hill in the face as it came 979, Tim took commanding control of the main pot and Scott needed a K or J to grab the side pot but the turn and river didn’t improve for anyone as it came 6 3 giving Tim a 21k+pot and I picked back up 4200 chips from the side pot.  This hand eliminated Scott Moss in 8th place, he was eliminated 1 hand before being the button…it was only fitting that the hand after he left we had a “dead button!” Tough run of hands Scott you played well and got very unlucky.

 

The Buzz Saw seemed to run into it all night, losing with sets, two pair, etc to straight after straight.  With 3500 left in chips and blinds still at 500/1000, Cooper pushed all in.  Rhonda in the small blind just called and I decided to see a flop and possibly eliminate a player calling 2500 more with 8700 already in the pot before making my call.  The flop came 872 and Rhonda checked to me and I pushed all in, Rhonda quickly folded and Cooper showed AQ, I had 78 in the big blind and flopped top 2.  The turn was a 6 and river an Ace, Cooper was eliminated in 7th place.  Rhonda said that she had AK in the small…if she had decided to isolate I would have folded and it looks as Coop was destined to finish 7th in that hand.

 

AK OF HEARTS?  Blinds moved up to 600/1200 with a 200 ante I believe and a big hand played out when Rhonda raised to 4000 pre-flop with AK of hearts and two players called including The Todd in the big blind.  Todd had played pretty solid all night long not showing many hands and getting no callers when making pushes as a semi-short stack.  The flop came down 456 with 1 heart and Todd decided to seize the day and ship it all in for around 7-8k.  Rhonda hit the tank and finally made the call with her AK of hearts saying, “I almost never do this,” meaning make the call with 2 over cards but she felt like Todd was making a move on a big pot or maybe she felt a little magic in the air and thought she was gonna hit.  Todd was excited to show his 10 10 and be way out in the lead and needed to dodge an Ace or King.  The turn came a 7 of hearts giving Rhonda 9 more outs and now Todd had to dodge 15 cards or he was heading the the rail.  The river came a non-heart 3 saving his tournament life, however that 3 made a straight on the board 34567 and Rhonda got her chips back along with half the pot.  Someone said, “You should be happy Todd,”  Todd replied, “I’m not happy, I’m not happy!” Todd was looking for the full double up and to be among the chip leaders instead he was nearly back to where he started the hand.  That person then said she had so many outs to eliminate you…you survived…but that didn’t seem to comfort Todd as he had the mindset that he was gonna come out of this hand a chip leader.

 

Todd was plagued with some bad beats throughout week 3 and into the championship which I’m sure has him sitting back and wondering what could have been.  Todd once again got it all in good with blinds at the 800/1600 level Tim Hill opened the action with some of his newly added chips from the Moss elimination hand with a raise to 3500, quickly behind him Todd looked down at QQ and got all his chips in the middle, when the action got back to Tim he made that call for 8k total and turned up AQ vs Todd QQ.  The flop delivered bad news to Todd as it came A42 the turn pairs the board with another 4 and the river 3 was ended Todd’s run in 6th place. Great season Todd if it wasn’t for bad luck the last couple of weeks who knows?!  

 

TOURNAMENT RESET – Then there were 5 players remaining, total chips in play was 164,500 and I’m just ball parking the stacks at this point but Rhonda was the tourney short stack with around 15k, Tim Williams and myself had around 30-35k, and Tim Hill and Jeff had around 40-45k. Blinds were shortly escalating to 1000/2000 with a 300 ante.

Blinds moved to 1k/2k with the 300 ante and Rhonda moved all in for 13,900 and I looked down to AQ of spades on the button.  I was very tempted to make a call here but felt like I am up against AK or flipping against a small pair the majority of the time and after counting down my chips I would have been left with around 20k if I made the call.  I felt like I had played pretty solid and didn’t know if I wanted to risk it all on a coin flip.  I tanked for probably 2-3 minutes before going with my head/logic and folding although my gut was this was an extremely strong hand and I should call. I may have made the call against about anyone else left but gave Rhonda some respect and decided not to risk a large portion of my stack in this spot with only my 300 ante in the pot.  Rhonda later told me she had A10 there…I’m sure she spikes a 10 if I grew a pair and made the call.  Nice push Rhonda.

Several orbits later with the blinds increasing to 1200/2400 with a 400 ante Rhonda made her stand again after Jeff limped Rhonda pushed all in and Jeff made the call as Rhonda only had around 4 big blinds showing K8 of clubs and Rhonda had A4 off suit.  Jeff said just give me a King…the flop came all in one suit King High giving Jeff top pair but Rhonda a flush draw the turn gave Rhonda a pair but it was bottom pair as a 4 came and the river was a blank sending Sweet Thing home in 5th place.  

 

4 Guys 2 Packages?

Coming into the evening 16 players had hopes of making a deep run and picking up a WSOP prize package.  What was at stake was the Championship prize WSOP package and the opportunity to play The Trapper heads-up for the final package, so 2 WSOP prize packages.  Jeff as the regular season runner-up was guaranteed at minimum a heads-up match for the $1,200 3rd prize package, it was very likely that whomever ended up in 2nd would have split with Jeff and both could have WSOP Colossus buy-in packages/money.  After a few hands of 4 handed play the blinds crept up to 1500/3000 with a 500 ante, meaning any hand could change the fortunes of the four remaining players as there was only roughly 55 big blinds in play between the players and each orbit (4 hands) costed the players 6500.  The stacks had shifted slightly as Jeff was now the chip leader after eliminating Rhonda and Tim Williams got Tim Hill in a decent sized pot.  Average stack is 41k, Jeff had around 50-55k, Tim Williams around 40-45k and Tim Hill and myself were slightly under average stack with around 30-35k.  

The chip leader had less then 20 big blinds and the rest of us had 10-15 big blinds, because there was going to be so much luck involved and there was so much at stack an agreement was made.  Jeff being the chip leader and already guaranteed a shot at a package or probably $600 WSOP Colossus buy-in took a big WSOP package that will provide him with a buy-in at this years Colossus and enough travel money to cover flight and food while he’s in Vegas.  The remaining 3 player Tim Hill, Tim Williams and myself each were awarded a Colossus Buy-in Package!!! CONGRATS.  As stated above we played out the tournament only for horse race purposes and I will highlight a bit of that play below. 

 

We will have 5 players playing in WSOP or Big Buy-In tourneys representing the 2017 WSOP Spring-Fling League and I wish them all the best.  I have had heard the comment, “how could you chop it,” however this is no different then in years past when 2 packages were up for grabs and 2 players took the buy-in money for the WSOP event and agreed to pay 3rd and 4th place the travel money…other then the fact that we will actually have 5 guys playing in events instead of 3 as we had originally planned.  This is also similar to us allowing someone to have a “backer” as long as the requirements for playing tournaments is kept and it will not only be kept it will be exceeded!  This is a very good thing for the league as we should be well represented in Vegas!   

THE RACE IS ON – After agreeing basically that the final four would all be awarded a major tournament buy-in play loosened up considerably, although it seemed like we just kept trading chips back and forth.  I picked up KK on the button and tried to pick up some chips min-raising to 6k and was called by Jeff and Tim Hill flop came 933 and when checked to I shoved and took down a nice pot to put me back up to an average stack.  Later I got JJ and raised getting a call from Jeff in the big blind the flop came Ace high and he checked as did I and he got a small bet on the flop in which I called as well as the same bet on the river…this shortened my stack looking back I should have pushed all in pre-flop with Jacks just to get the blinds and antes, however I was trying to gain chips since the packages had already been awarded.  If we had not chopped play would have played the hand differently and who knows?  I ended up with a short stack after losing with the Jacks and was eliminated in 4th for horse race purposes shortly thereafter.

 

Tim Hill was eliminated in 3rd place, we thought the night would end relatively quickly after that as Jeff had about 75% of the chips in play when the heads up battle began with Tim Williams.  Tim was grinded down to almost nothing and then got lucky on Jeff several times after shipping with an Ace, Jeff made the call with KK and the flop and turn brought no help for Tim…we were all ready to pack it up and then the river BANG an Ace and The Load Deliverer doubled up to a few big blinds. Quickly after that he doubled through Jeff again when this hand went down, Jeff limped with a monster and the flop came 10 8 7 with 2 hearts, Tim led out and Jeff shoved all in, Tim made the call and when the dust settled Jeff had KK again and Tim had 92 of hearts giving him a lot of hearts, any J and and 6 for the straight.  The turn made Tims hand as a black 6 hit and Tim was now closer then he had been all night to Jeff in chips.  This would continue as Jeff would be very unlucky in the heads up battle, just like in week 3.  Tim overcame a ginormous chip disadvantage, luck boxing his way the the horse race title.  

 

ONCE AGAIN CONGRATULATIONS TO THIS YEARS WINNERS!!!  Good Luck to Tony at the Hollywood Poker Open coming up in a month and best wishes to Jeff Honnerlaw, Tim Hill, Tim Williams and myself in their tournaments…may we all meet at the final table!  Thanks so much to everyone that participated this year, it was another very successful season and we will look forward to bettering the league next year.  We hope to use some of the new rules with a little bit longer regular season.  Best Wishes to All!

~Ryan Page

WSOP SPRING-FLING REGULAR SEASON WRAP UP & CHAMPIONSHIP OUTLOOK

WSOP REGULAR SEASON WRAP UP & CHAMPIONSHIP OUTLOOK

Limited Parking!  BBQ!

Week 3 started with a lot of rain, which led to the text request from Tim Williams for everyone to park on his drive-way.  I thought this would be a good opportunity for Pat to put out his time-lapse video to watch the clown car parking parade begin…this wasn’t done but the text lead to many funny comments.  Russ said he’d just leave his car running on the street because he never plays too long with early exits in the first two weeks he once again kept to this pattern exiting in 15th.  Tim replied to Russ that “the leaf” was so light he could just drive through the grass!  Todd came through as promised with pulled BBQ chicken and home made brownies!  YUMMM Thanks for the food Todd, I think we took advantage of you for the $2 you were short in week 2 but we loved every minute of it and greatly appreciated the grub.

Blue It, Blew It Fast

We had a record set for quickest exit in week 3 and it was not Russ as he planned.  It was Big Blue, Clint, who got it all in on a flop of King high with Top, Top AK vs an Ace high diamond flush.  Chad Beam FLOPPED THE NIZZLES  and doubled through Clint on the first hand.  From what I heard Clint planned to go big or go home to check out the National Championship Game between UNC and Gonzaga.  Either way Clint may come into the championship with a shorter stack then most, he will still be a forced to be reckoned.

History Lesson?

There was some discussion of the Helen Keller Museum which got Bayless on a rant…it was his deal…let the jokes flow!  Coop says, “did Helen Keller deal when it was her turn?”  The jokes just kept coming as someone added, “She dealt faster then you!”  This was non stop for a solid couple of minutes until finally The Todd, one of the front runners, got KO’d after taking two consecutive tough beats.  First Todd loses with KK to QQ after an 8 high flop, next hand he gets it all in with AA vs 66 and the Utility Man finds a 6 on the river with the board showing 10 J 2 turn J river 6.  Todd is out and he will have to play in the Championship as he was in 2nd place coming in but could not outlast Tony this week.

A FEW BIG HANDS / ELIMINATIONS

He’s Back

Bayless goes into Dream Crusher mode when he’s short prior to break and ships it all in with 85 gets called by 50 Shades of Gray with AK and the flop comes with a King.  Bayless then decides to use his rebuy and crush some souls.  Bayless ended up going out in 9th place and will be trying to pick up his first top 2 finish in this weeks championship.

Pat Goes Up & Down

The Brick Schmidt house had a night of ups and downs.  First he got a little aggressive with AQ on a small flop and after a lot of action pre flop he decided to use his position (acting first) to try to take the pot down when he shoved all-in.  Tim Williams delivered a load of bad news to him when he called and showed QQ, the turn and river didn’t provide an Ace and Pat slipped down to 2k in chips.  The next hand Pat was in the BB and I decided to trap a bit as I felt like he may push there with any 2 cards so from the button I limp with 66.  There were a table full of limpers and Pat shoved as I expected he would…I called and he actually had a hand QQ and he quickly doubled back up.   There was a big hand that came up with a 4-5 way pot and Pat on the button the flop came 864 and action checked to Pat who put out a bet of 1500 which was nearly a pot sized bet…then action was folded around to me and I shipped putting Pat at risk.  Pat had 4k behind and took a long time to decide his action…finally after stating that he was almost sure he was good with A8 top, top he laid down his hand.  Pat says, “Did You Have It?”, I replied with, “I don’t remember Johnny!”  I don’t know how Pat could’ve made that call in his position with some chips left and blinds still somewhat low he was risking his whole tournament on that call…if I had a set he’s dead, two pair he’s nearly dead, if I have a draw he’s gambling, if I have to over cards with the draw he’s really gambling, the only spot he can feel pretty comfortable is if I have an 8 with a inferior kicker like 89 suited or 10 8 something like that.  Pat and I would get into it again before the final table when I defended my BB with a AJ of diamonds to his raise.  The flop came down 3d5d6c giving me nut flush draw…I looked at Pat and it looked like he was gearing to ship if I bet so I just shot it all in and he ginger snap called me showing 87 of diamonds for a worse flush draw but accompanied with an open ended straight draw.  The turn was and Jack, river an Ace and this left pat with 175 in chips.  Next hand Pat triples up with 10 9, but shortly thereafter the run came to an end and Pat finished in 11th, another one of Tony’s competitors gone and Tony just playing a quiet game to try to hold on to his Vegas package.

Jeff the Trapper

Honnerlaw played another strong game following up his week 2’s 3rd place finish with another top 5.  Jeff limped big again with QQ and avoided the dream crushers naked Ace hitting the board eliminating Bayless in 9th place.  Jeff then was very short when play got down to 5 handed but somehow he found a big pot or two when he needed and ended up taking 2nd place in week 3 which netted him a 2nd place overall in the regular season, he is at least guarenteed a heads up match for the 3rd Vegas package and if the 2nd place finisher in the championship wants to chop they could both have buy-ins for the Colossus!  Congrats Jeff!

Big Bad John #JohnTheBully – Straight Flush Draw Doesn’t Come Home

John Gray came into the night with nothing to gain except chips for the championship and the nightly payout but he played like a man with nothing to lose.  Constantly pushing the action, leading out with GIANT bets and then following through with all-in calls from other players and he was a racing champion winning many races in week 3.  I had about enough of it when the blinds were pretty large I believe 800/1600 and I was in BB with K9 of Clubs, after Cooper limped in and John completed I saw a flop of Qc 10c 5h which gave me a gutter ball straight flush draw not to mention just a straight and flush draw…John Gray did his bully thing and lead out for 2700, I flipped it around on him making it 7200, but then Cooper quickly shoved all in for about 9k more.  I had no choice and too my stand…Cooper showed Q 10 for top two pair…but said before flipping over, “Set of Fives!” but he was asking a question not telling me he had a set of 5s as I interpreted it.  turn came a 6 river an 8 and I was slashed down to 3 big blinds.  Next hand I saw QJ and shoved from small blind, quickly called by THE BULLY with A7 and of course the flop came with an Ace and 7 and I was out the door in 4th the second week in a row I was 1 out of the money for the night…and I was bummed when I sat down and figured out that had I won I would have locked up 2nd place over Jeff and Scott Moss.  John Gray would go on to win the tourney and claim the most points for 1 week with a win and two tier II eliminations giving him 2 bonus points.  If Gray can play with the reckless abandon he did in week 3 he will be a tough out in the championship.  I seem to still be stuck as the deadwood of this league after success in its early years.

Championship Grilling, No Baker!

Congratulations to Tony Baker who will be dealing at this weeks championship as he claimed the regular season title and a $1425 Vegas package after Scott Moss, his final competitor fell out in 5th place.  Had Scott taken 2nd of 1st place he would have outlasted Baker for the regular season title.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

This weeks $1 prop bet game was Ro Sham Bo or Rock Paper Scissors and we had 12 players join in the festivities.  4 players drew a round 1 buy and it came down to Russ (believe it or not he was still there) and Bayless with Russ coming out on top and showing in the $12 prize pool.  I think if there was a overall standing for the prop bet games I would have come in dead last as I either was out first, finished last or did not finish all prop bet games this year.  Hope I can come up with a game I can win at the championship.  Remember to bring a buck!!! 🙂

Dinner for Champions

This years championship dinner once again will be a championship meal for all.  We have 13 steaks and 4 chickens for the group and 2 steaks for our dealers.  Please give a big thanks to Robert McNamera and Matt Thompson who will be accompanied by the regular season champ Tony Baker to deal the championship at least until it gets down to one table.  The money you provided for your meal left enough to cover the dealers meal, however it didn’t leave any extra to pay them so if you guys want to chip in to paying our dealers I’m sure they’d appreciate that!  We will be having rolls and my loaded redskin potatoes as we have for the past few years.  If someone wants to bring a salad or veggies thats fine however at this time there won’t be any.  I have also bought some chips and cookies for players to munch on as well as Coke, Diet Coke, Mountain Dew and water for people to wash down their food with.

CHAMPIONSHIP OUTLOOK

Horse Race – Remember to bring some money to bid on your opponents in this years horse race.  In previous years horses have went as cheap as $6 to $10 and as expensive as $60+.  The way this works is that each player is bid on starting with the smallest stack and the bids will start at $2 and be in even increments so that they can be split if the player decides to take half their own action.  EXAMPLE – Ryan is up for auction and he has a winning bid of $12 at that time the winning bidder offers the player “Ryan” in this case to split it with him and they’d both own 50% for $6 each.  That money is added to the pot and when all said and done lets say the pot has $300.  The people who own the winner get $150 to split, the people who own 2nd place get $90 to split and the people who own 3rd place get $60 to split.  WIN 50%, PLACE 30%, SHOW 20% of pot.

Starting Stacks:

Jeff – 11,300

Scott – 11,225

Ryan – 10,700

Chad – 10,400

Pat – 10,250

John – 10,175

Todd – 10,100

Cooper – 10,025

Tim Williams – 9,800

Brad – 9,500

Rhonda – 9,500

Tim Hill – 9,500

Bayless – 8,900

Steve – 8,000

Clint – 6,650

Russ – 6,650

VEGAS LINES – This is purely for fun…I have used this years play, starting stack, previous WSOP league performances, lucky shirts, food provided, nicknames and anything I can think of to set the following lines for favorites in this years championship.  Please don’t take offense to where you may end up and if needed use it as motivation to win the damn championship!

DEADWOOD PAGE – 100/1 – If I’m gonna miss straight flush draws I haven’t got a chance!  Damn it Cooper!

THE PROFESSOR – 35/1 – Russ ran strong early last year but has struggled this year and is at a chip disadvantage

THE UTILITY MAN – 25/1 – Steve’s dishwasher exploded week 1 leaving him shorter then average in chips but he does have good patience

THE GOLFER – 20/1 – I don’t have much intel on Tim Hill, Carolyn had a good week for him week 2 this put him in a better starting position

BIG BLUE – 18/1 – Clint can flip his chip disadvantage in one hand and has some pretty solid results in other local tournaments lately

CUPCAKES – 15/1 – Rhonda has been solid this year but has yet to have a top 5 finish

BUZZSAW – 13/1 – I hate to put Cooper down this low, could he ride the momentum from his top 3 finish last week into the championship?

THE LOAD DELIVERER – 11/1 – Tim has had a down year, however if he wears his lucky shirt his probably the favorite!?

THE DREAM CRUSHER – 9/1 – With 2-10ths and a 9th Bayless has underperformed…he always shows up when it counts

THE QUIET STORM – 8/1 – Brad has also had a down year after a strong finish and championship title last year…he’s been here he can do it!

KAPTAIN KRAMER – 8/1 – It took a couple of bad beats to put him out early and week 3, if he can survive those he may be a contender

50 SHADES OF JOHN – 7/1 – He was a force in week 3 but can he continue this play in the championship or will someone stand up to him?

THE BRICK SCHMIDT HOUSE – 6.9/1 – Pat slipped up in week 3 and will be looking for redemption in the championship

FRANKS N BEAMS 6/1 – Chad has played very well all season, he needs to put all that together and keep it going an entire tourney for a win

THE BUTTON – 5/1 Scott Moss, like Brad West has won a championship tourney before, with the chips and experience he’s a favorite

THE BROKER – 7/2 – Jeff has been a tricky nut to figure in weeks 2 or 3 playing hands a bit unconventionally but he can play loose this week with a guarantee of a heads up match for a package in the wings.  I could see Jeff going for it early and either busting or taking command of the championship.  Jeff is hot, just off a 4-way chop of the United Way tournament Friday night.

Good luck to everyone!  See you Monday,

RYAN PAGE

2017 WSOP Week 2 Recap

Week 2 – Early storms, re-buys like WHHHHAT & a night of laughter!

Being an abbreviated season everyone knew coming in that this week was a pivotal week and had the potential to separate this years contenders from pretenders.  We had a lot of fun, so many great moments that there’s no way I can highlight them all but I’ll highlight some of the moments that stuck out.  From our chip stacking prop game to Jeff trying to figure out how to call a min-raise plus 50, unstoppable laughter, wieners on the table and resting on other players arms, WSOP mug shots, new nicknames and back on homemade shirts…what a crazy game of poker!  Just a guide for later in this article if I put a finish in parenthesis i.e. (17th TII) that means the players tier II position or finish if there was no re-buys, therefore if I put eliminated in 5th (3rd TII) that means they got overall points for 5th but tier II points like they finished in 3rd AKA 9 HIGH LIKE A BOSS!

Good Eats 😀

I want to give a shout out once again to those who brought food, we thank you!  Phil Bayless brought some excellent chicken wings and that was his gift to the league, being a better man then me refused to take reimbursement.  Rhonda keeps the league happy with her treats, this week CupCake brought not only pretzels and a cheese dip, she also got into the homemade shirt game.  Rhonda had a much better shirt then I’ve seen on Tim, however it didn’t work as well for her as some donkey sucked out on her to make her the short stack and she was eliminated the very next hand.  Rhonda’s shirt said something to the effect of, “I like the LIMP ones” I think she was referring to limped pots because the limp was the last thing you thought of when you looked at her shirt as that word was in ALL CAPS, when I see words in all caps I get EXCITED.  Just in case players weren’t into wings I grabbed a couple of pizzas and I want the thank those who threw money at me as I was made whole and even had a few bucks I was gonna throw to Phil, however The Todd was a little light on his re-buy and so I spotted him that money.  Todd said that he will repay the favour by bringing some food to Week 3 at Tim’s, he mentioned pot-brownies after watching we had High Court on the tv…funny…regular brownies will do!   I’ll get with Todd and see if I once again should bring pizzas in two weeks or if he’s bringing food for the whole gang.  Anyone else that may be interested in bringing something in a couple weeks let me know so I can make sure we have something to munch on at the intense week 3 meeting.

Please be thinking about if you’d rather have steak or chicken for you championship meal, Pat and I would like to get those orders at the Spring Fling Week 3 at Tim’s on April 3rd.  The cost for your championship meal will be $20 for steak or $15 for chicken.  The meal will include your meat selection, my loaded potatoes, rolls or a bread of some type and soft drinks/water.  If there is any monies left over this will be used to feed one poor dealer for the championship tournament, I hope to book at least 1-2 dealers, along with the regular season winner that should provide players a dealing free night of championship action.  I may have my wife make a pie or two as well…I think you’ll enjoy my wife’s pie, she makes a mean banana cream, coconut cream or peanut butter.

Pre-Break Action: It’s Raining Re-buys…what’s that did someone else just re-buy?

Smack talk was prevalent in week 2 as Phil Bayless AKA The quiff, raised in late position on the first hand after making some bets throughout the hand he showed KK which held up even though hearts made it home on the river, no one had that draw.  Bayless shows his KK and as The Todd made a comment about the hearts and Bayless replies, “Only you play flush draws for those raises!”  Todd quickly replies, “I hit ’em!”  Bayless fires back with, “You did last week!”  The rain was pouring, the thunder was rolling and action began fast and furious this week with The Quiet Storm picking up an early bonus tier II point for drowning Pat’s turned nut straight with a river flush.  Because Pat had a strong finish last week he opted to re-buy knowing that he was going to have a donut for tier II scoring tonight, this was a wise decision.  Shortly into the night the ante discussion came up and Cooper made the comment, “What are we talking about?  Moving plastic chips?”  It seemed that Cooper had simplified the collecting of antes to scooping chips into the center of the table, other players heard Cooper wants to be a table captain…but Todd and his bright yellow shirt said I’m the KAPTAIN now!

It kept storming outside Brad West was making noise early in The Garage getting a second KO in the first 3 levels when he put out John Gray out and he decided to exercise his re-buy option.  John Gray had just doubled up and decided to ship a second hand in a row with QJ for 750, The Quiet Storm Calls him in the big blind with 33.  The flop brings 50 shades of outs for Gray, K1010, turn 9 completes the straight!  Someone says good hand John, while dealing I say he could hit a 3 and the river is the 3 of spades filling up Brad and knocking out John.  Russ Kincaid was the next victim to re-buy, following his re-buy he was greeted by AK and the short stack shoved, he called off half of his new chips and lost a race to QQ.  Russ couldn’t never recover and ended up being eliminated 16th (15th TII). The Broker (Jeff Honnerlaw) not only selling houses also picking up a bonus tier II as he was responsible for Russ Kincaid’s initial bust and re-buy.  Before Russ left us for the 2nd time in week 2, Clint Goodman BIG BLUE made the first actual exit of the evening as he could not re-buy and was KO’d in 17th (13th TII)

The final re-buy of the night came when Mr February called the short-stack shove of last weeks runner-up The Todd AKA KAPTAIN Kramer.  Todd pushed with just over 1000 chips left at 75/150 and was called by Page who had picked up a few small pots early and was willing to risk some chips to knock out one of the league chip leaders.  Cards on their back Page shows AQ to Todds AJ the flop brought K10blank and neither wanted to hit their kicker, Page faded the next to cards and gut a bonus tier II point when Kaptain Kramer made the prudent decision to re-buy after a 2nd in the first week.  When the 1st break finally arrived we had 4 re-buys, therefore Pat (0), John (1), Russ (2) and Todd (3) had locked up their tier II points for the night and would just look to book some strong tier I finishes to remain in contention.

Prop Time – Chip Stacking 101

Tonight’s prop game was chip stacking.  Each player had to dump a bucket containing chips of 4 different colours and had to stack them in their 4 different stacks assorted by colour, the fastest person to stack them all wins.  The clock started when the first chip hit the table.  We had some fun with this as I tried a different strategy from everyone else which was ill advised and I scored the only DNF (did not finish) #ChipWrecked.  I gave Phil a hard time when one of the chips slipped onto the side railing and he didn’t see it so he was 1 chip short of a happy meal at 50.99 seconds, Bayless threatened my life if his time held up and he was disqualified because of the one chip, I think he yelled, “Pork Chop, if that costs me the win I’m gonna…(fill this part with anything you can imagine and that’s what he said for sure).”  Jeff took advantage of Brad West AKA The Dealer not shaking the bucket after his turn, when Jeff flipped the bucket over they were all grouped by color, however he still couldn’t get it up fast enough to win beat Brad who had just nipped the tip off of Hangin’ Chads time a moment earlier…and Chad was running Brad’s timer!

Chip Stacking – Prop Results

1. Brad “The Dealer” West 45.19 seconds – $8 winner!

2. “Hangin” Chad Beam 45.23 seconds – 1st loser :*( Shake N Bake

3. Pat “downtown” Brown 46.13 seconds

4. Russ “The Professor” Kincaid 47.00 seconds

5. Jeff “The Broker” Honnerlaw 47.30 seconds

6. Phil “Dream Crusher” Bayless 50.99 seconds

7. Tim “Slow-Stacker” Williams 57.64 seconds

8. Ryan “Not playing with a full stack” Page DNF #DQ’d

 

Caught In the Middle – The Utility Man

Steve Greenup struggled to pick up chips all evening after having to pick up a last minute sub week 1 due to a appliance malfunction.  Week 2 he found himself in tough positions making big lay downs, he folded a pair of nines after Todd’s Shove and Page’s call that would have held up in the re-buy period then was forced into a tough decision with just about 2k left in the 100/200 level.  Picking up the action on an Ace Rag Rag flop with 2 clubs Greenup was on the button (there was a pre-flop raise and the pot was inflated to almost 2k prior to post-flop action)  Brad West who was making noise early shipped all-in as he had Cooper and Greenup to act behind both were under 3k.  Cooper insta-calls and Steve thinks his AJ can’t be any good and mucks.  Brad turns up K9 of clubs for the nut flush draw, Cooper A10 and the turn blanks and river pairs the A giving Cooper the winning 3 aces as Steve was forced to release the better ace. Shortly thereafter he found himself all in losing to a flopped set of 6s.  The Gentle Giant’s time with us was too short, I would have loved to see him laughing until he cried with Pat, Todd and Tim towards the end of the evening.  Greenup eliminated in the same position as his sub a week ago, 15th (12th TII).

Trucker CLOCK, Who Wants It?  #TankoftheDay

BIG HAND ALERT:  On a super action oriented flop of 742 two clubs two larger stacks go at it with The Buzz Saw betting 2k on that flop and then being called by The Quiet Storm.  The turn came another 2 and Cooper pushed his large stack into the middle of the table putting Brad’s tournament life at risk if he called.  Brad took his time and the table didn’t rush him but after several minutes of him trying to figure out what Coop would take this line with he said he wished someone would call the clock on him.  Finally Brad basically called the clock on himself and I Sprung into action using my tournament management official CLOCK timer.  I said I once the clock gets to 10 seconds I will count it down from there when I hit 0 your hand is dead if no action is made by that time.  Then I said this is my first time getting to use this clock at lease let me count down to 5, Brad obliged. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and at the moment I said 1 Brad announce I CALL.  Cooper said, “do you have 10s?” in slight disgust while showing his pocket snowman 88, Brad had convinced himself that Coop would only bet a draw like that or put him on a no pair draw hand to make that play…West turns over the speed limit 55 and a harmless 3 feel on the river ending Brads night in 13th (10th TII).  Prior to Brad being KO’d last weeks winner exited early as Scott Moss had a rough go of it finishing in 14th (11th TII), The Button’s early exit left the door wide open for someone to jump into the WSOP Spring Fling lead.

Simultaneous Eliminations

Hangin’ Chad was unable final table two weeks in a row as he was eliminated in 12th place (9th TII), I have no information on his elimination, however I bet TheBoss was happy he got home at a more decent time then week 1!?  Shortly after Chad was eliminated 50 Shades of John Gray slipped out in 11th (16th TII) and our final table was set.  John Gray was not as fortunate as a couple others to put his re-buy to great use and will be playing to improve championship starting stack in week 3 as he and a hand full of others have been mathematically eliminated from the regular season championship hunt, however they will play a HUGE role in deciding that champion and shaping the championship.

 

Mmmm…A Cooper Sandwich

Shortly after condensing down to a single table a hand broke out that began with Carolyn (Tim Hill’s sub) raising from early position with Cooper calling in middle position followed by CupCakes (Rhonda) 3 betting.  Blinds at 200/400 with a 50 ante Carolyn had made it 1000 and Rhonda raised to 2500.  Someone shouts out, “Hotttt Girl on Girl Action!,” I replied Cooper’s still in the middle, “it’s a Cooper Sandwich!!!”  Cooper turns a little red and says he couldn’t even verbalize what was in his “thought bubble” at that moment and Pat chimed in yeah cause then you’d have to sit on the couch!

Cheers to the Final Table, QUADS

Upon making the final table I shared in a cheers to us, everyone else thought it was redonkulous that I was happy about making the 10 player final table with 17 players…come on guys with re-buys it was like 21 and it’s been a rough couple of years running bad at the WSOP Leagues!   Action slowed down at the final table, especially for me as I saw few playable hands and Carolyn (Tim Hill) seemed to raise too often in early position or Kaptain Kramer would shove which forced me to play more conservatively.  Nearly two levels into the final table no one had been eliminated and I picked up my first playable had A10 of clubs blinds 250/500 with a 50 edge and I made it 1500, it folded around to the big blind who was there to deliver me a load of bad news or play me like a fiddle as he raised promptly to 4500 without even thinkin’ about it, of course I don’t play a hand for nearly an hour and I’m weak…#WhatAdick! I folded…The Load Deliverer told me later that he had Kings there…I’m sure the ace was coming if I just called off a third of my stack pre-flop I could’ve hit it or flopped a flush?  You never know!!! 😛  The very next hand I probably should’ve gone broke but had a bad gut feeling after Tony just called my raise of 1500, I had red jacks.  The flop comes 234 with 2 hearts and TBag$ looked as though he like the flop and my spidey senses were already tingling like maybe he flatted me with KK or QQ or at worse AK suited so I checked, The Attorney checked back.  The turn paired the board with another 3 of hearts making the flush so I checked and Tbag$ bets 1k, I called.  The river brings another 4 and I check, T bets out 1500 and I’ve got to see it…so glad I played this hand passively when he rolls over 33 for quads.  Although I had held on to half my stack I was now in danger as blinds were 300/600 and I had about 10 big blinds, the next hand I look down at KJ of hearts and ship, Bayless the short stack with just 1900 calls off his remaining chips as he didn’t want to gary it all night with A3, a king on the flop was enough to give me back a few of the chips I had just lost and eliminate Phil in 10th (8th TII).  Phil still has a shot at the regular season title however it would require him to win week 3 and catch runner, runner, runner, runner, runner, runner, runner, runner, perfect, perfect…so with very slim odds I’m sure he’ll unleash his alter ego – The Dream Crusher.

 

Prop Bet Ground Hog Day

Possibly one of the funniest moments in recent WSOP league history occurred shortly after The Dream Crushers elimination, this could have been in part because half the table was slap happy and/or because Jeff may have been napping between hands?  UTG Tim Williams raises the 250/500 blinds to 1050, the table folds around the Jeff in the Big Blind and this extra 50 threw Jeff into a crazy Alzheimer’s like fit…he shuffles a black 100 chip and 2 green 25 chips one on top of another for like a solid minute like a gosh dang magic trick we were all following the black chip up and down and around and between and then back towards his stack and then was he gonna raise OMG what the hell is Jeff doing, when is this gonna end??? Next Jeff pulls back his purple 500 chip and adds another 500 chip to it…another minute drags on with all of the players at the table hypnotized and in a trance…WTF is going on?  Is this when the flying monkeys are supposed to show up?  Is that Tim’s wiener on Jeff’s arm, are the colluding? Could Jeff be making a play?  why are we still watching these 3 chips jump from Jeffs left to right hand, front to side of his stack…will the madness end? Will Jeff raise?  I don’t think he’s folding now he pulled back his blind? Hell maybe he can just fold and keep his big blind after this trick?  Finally Jeff figures out that he keeps the 1 black chip and places the 2 green ones on the purple chips in front of his stack and make the call.  Which nut was the ball under?  The flop comes, Jeff checks, Tim bets small and Jeff mucks…the table erupts in laughter, Pat pisses all over the floor, Todd sh!ts his pants and it seriously continued on and off for like 11-14 minutes.  Jeff later said he wanted to put a stack of 5k out and see what Tim would do? Guess we’ll never know.  Moments later as Todd is cleaning his pants off he says to Cooper, “I think your short, Coop” as Cooper calls the blind, Cooper replies, “I’m 6’4″ Todd!”

 

Jacks the Ripper

A common theme of week 2 was that Jacks are no good.  Early in the evening after a early raise I flatted with Jacks only to have the Buzz Saw raise it up 4x the original raise and after the quiff tanked and folded the original raiser, The Brick Scmidt House laid his weak holdings down and I folded them face up.  The Buzz Saw showed Kings.  CupCakes or #IliketheLIMPones took a bad beat as semi-short stacked Page went full blown PatBrown and shipped with 33 and Rhonda looked down at JJ and made the call the flop 456 Page had improved from 2 to 10 outs and hit both ends of the straight with a 7 on the turn and 2 on the river crippling Rhonda.  The very next hand Rhonda was giving back the Jacks and Pat held AA the aces held.  Back to back Jacks proved to be Rhonda’s unravelling and she was eliminated in 9th (7th TII).  Page tried to put his newly found chips to use as he raised to 3k with blinds now 500/1000 with 100 ante, however The Broker finds an all-in hand on the button and ships with AQ for only 2500 more Page makes the auto-call with AJ and fails to improve more than doubling up Jeff to over 13k.  Fast forward to three handed action when the following cold deck hand occurred as TBag$ and The Broker (Honnerlaw) got it all in preflop with Tony showing down QQ vs Jeffs JJ, once again the Jacks failed to improved and eliminated Jeff in 3rd place (2nd TII).

Mr. February (Calendar Time)

When Pat Brown AKA WSOP HYPE MAN wasn’t flopping nut flushes with AJ of hearts and trying to set traps, he was trying to get mug shots of players week 2.  This was when Kaptain Kramer asked what are these pictures for and being the mushrooms (fungi’s) that we are, many smart a$$ remarks were thrown out there.  I said we were looking into a WSOP Spring Fling League Calendar…Todd said well in that case he may rip his shirt off and he could be the cover!?  The Attorney #TBag$ McGee then threw his 2 cents in with, “Page will be February.” Hence the new nickname Mr. February…why Tony?   Tony says, “because it’s the shortest month!”  This made The Todd and Pat resume their uncontrollable laughter and was another high point (short for me) moment in week 2 play.

Tim Hill Finds the Bunkers (Then Caroyln makes a play) Mr. & Mrs. Jones Fall Victim to The Todd Play

Jeff decided to get a bit tricky and it paid off in a big way!  First in the small blind he limped in and The Load Deliverer looked at a wire pair of ducks and shoved for his tourney life with 7700, this was met with a quick call from The Broker with QQ, the flop brought a queen, the turn gave Tim a few chop outs with a board of QJ89 but the 10 didn’t arrive on the river and Tim left us in 7th place (5th TII).  Shortly after The Load Deliverer retired for the night, Carolyn subbing for Tim hill got the short end of a couple of hands.  First The Todd shipped in late position trying to steal the blinds and antes with K8 and Carolyn right behind him found AQ and made the call.  Todd spiked a King on the turn for the full double up leaving Carolyn as one of the smaller stacks left in the battle, this was the last hand at the 500/1000 100 ante level.  The blinds went up to 600/1200 with a 100 ante and the following hand starts with Tony in Big Blind and Page of course in the Small Blind aka the February Blind, Jeff limped UTG and then Carolyn shoved from the button.  The Broker was going to make someone go broke when he limped with a strong holding AJ in hopes of catching a short stack which he did two times within the matter of 15-20 minutes (This is know as the Todd play #LimpinWithAces).  Jeff called and his AJ was up against the live cards of Carolyn 10 8 of spades.  The flop brought the dagger for Carolyn with an ace and she couldn’t pick up any thing leaving us in 6th place (4th TII), looks like the broker took out both Mr. and Mrs. Jones back to back like Layne Flack.

Gotta Go P(s)

Mr. February was the next casualty of the evening when he saw an Ace on the button and shipped for about 10k with blinds at 600/1200 and 100 antes there was 2300 in the pot before action.  Looking down at an Ace I shipped without even looking at the backup card…Tony reluctantly called off the majority of his chips with A10 of diamonds and The Broker took a break.  Page turned over A6 obviously a monster favorite 😦  ha ha, although his odds were slim they spiked slightly as the flop came 689, but 6 was afraid of 7 and the 7 showed up to destroy him on the turn giving Tony a winning straight. Basically Tbag$ called me with a gutter ball and got there on the turn, what a Dbag.  Page finished the night with a decent run as he was eliminated in 5th place (3rd TII), however he could have exited easily in 9th but took a few hits that could have propelled him to a win as well so all and all I guess thats where I was meant to be ejected from this run.  The other P left at the table, Pat would then be eliminated in 4th (17th TII).

 

All the Right Moves

Pat was eliminated when he shoved with Q 10 suited and ran into Tbag$ AK, Tony flopped a King to take control of the hand that ultimately ended Pats second deep run, he now has a 3rd and 4th place finish.  Just before being eliminated Pat orchestrated a 3 way chop of the $200 nightly pot where Tony and Jeff got $70 and he got $60, otherwise he would have only picked up $40.  Todd did not buy back into the nightly $10 and therefore was ineligible…Pat originally said he didn’t want back in the $10 nightly game but changed his mind when he got his money at break which also turned out to be a wise decision.  I almost mentioned chopping the money 5 ways when I was still in forgetting that Todd didn’t buy back into that I could have probably picked up a $50 4-way chop but I, unlike Pat, rarely make the right moves.  Then this got me thinking back to someone yelling that we shouldn’t let Pat buy back into the $10, causing drama in my head like, damn if I was a big D I would’ve said no, now I’ve costed myself like $35/$40 just for being a decent human being…doh.  #NiceGuyProblems  I thought maybe these guys will throw me a couple bones for dealing and I’ll recoup some of that cash, however that didn’t happen either as I had to duck out with Pat to get some video in for the nightly motion picture taping!  Pat was very wise to re-buy as he would have been out in 17th only picking up 4 points for the evening so the re-buy gives him an extra 14 points putting him in 4th and in striking distance for a regular season title…conversely had he not had to use his re-buy and took 4th he would have picked up an additional 13 points and been just a few points out of 1st place.

Always the Bridesmaid…Never the Bride

It took a cold deck QQ vs JJ for The Broker (Jeff) to go busto (see Jacks The Ripper for a full hand recap) in 3rd which left us with Tony and Todd or the TTs fighting for the week 2 win.  Tony had built a chip lead by sucking out and eliminating (5th, 4th and 3rd) Page, Pat and Jeff with the best hand, okay so he got it in good every time, whatever, he was a card rack.  The Bridesmaid Todd would once again fall just short of a victory losing his second consectutive heads up match after a lot shorter heads up match with Tony then the previous week with The Button.  Check out our video to see a reinactment of the final hand where Todd gets it in with a short stack and Q3 vs Tbag$ A8, as always he’s dealt the better hand, the both hit a pair on the 83x flop and thats all for The Todd #KaptainKramer #TheBridesmaid #CoverMan.  Todd, like Pat made a very wise decision to re-buy when he was KO’d with just about 10 minutes left to re-buy.  Todd’s tier II points froze at 3, however he picked up 22 for 2nd place and will come into the last week of the regular season in all likelihood another 2nd place away from a regular season title!  Had Todd won he and Tony would have been even coming into the final week of play, because he was not able to overcome a large chip deficit he will be down 6 points and needing to finish a few places ahead of Tbag$ to have a pretty decent shot at winning a Vegas WSOP package.

Week 3 Outlook – Chasing a Regular Season Championship

Below I have grouped each player in a category according to the current league point standings.  There are far to many outcomes for me to try to break down exactly what every player would need to happen to become this years regular season champion, it should give you a vague idea.  Please come to week 3 regardless of your current position as if you don’t this can reduce everyone else’s chance to claim a title and also because you want to pick up chips for your championship tournament starting stack.  Once again think about what food you’d like too and please bring a little extra cash to pay for that if you’re a bull (i did that on purpose).

IN IT TO WIN IT

Tony Baker (68 points) – Current chip leader, with 1st or 2nd / no re-buy is a lock, w/ a 3rd only Todd could catch him.  He still has a re-buy in his pocket and would be wise to use this if necessary.

Todd Kramer (62 points) – Needs to finish strong and have Tony either eliminated earlier by a few places or have Tony forced to re-buy.  Todd has no re-buy option to fall back on.

WITHIN STRIKING DISTANCE

Scott Moss (54 points) – Scott needs to repeat week 1s wizardry and have a little help with earlier eliminations of Tony and Todd.  He still has a re-buy in his pocket and would be wise to use this if necessary.

Pat Brown (52 points) – Pat needs another strong finish, maybe finally get to heads up and he needs to make sure he finishes after Tony, Todd and Scott have been eliminated.  Pat used his re-buy option to remain in contention and when he’s out he’s GONE!

Brad West & Tim Williams (48 Points) – Both of these players need some help but still have a shot with a top 3 finish and some help.  The both have re-buys remaining and should consider that a prudent option if needed.

Jeff Honnerlaw (47 Points) – Jeff is still in the hung but will need some help and a very strong finish to win in week 3.  He still has a re-buy in his pocket and would be wise to use this if necessary.  47 points is the least amount of points that could still catch Tony the Tiger with no tier II points and a re-buy, however Tony would have to go out 17th.

 

STILL IN BUT NEED LOTS OF HELP

Rhonda Rutherford (46 Points) – Rhonda was just in need of a little luck in week 2 and she would have picked up several more points and put herself into a better position.  She still holds a re-buy but using this option is getting dicey here because a win without any tier 2 points would mean she couldn’t catch Tony the tiger.

Chad Beam (45 Points) – Will need a strong finish with strong tier II points and a lot of luck to win. Has a re-buy remaining but unless he is putting this to use to pick up extra championship chips should keep the money in his wallet or butter yet pay for his Championship meal!

Doug Cooper & Ryan Page (44 Points) – Will need a strong finish with strong tier II points and a lot of luck to win. Has a re-buy remaining but unless he is putting this to use to pick up extra championship chips should keep the money in his wallet or butter yet pay for his Championship meal!

THE EXTREME LONG SHOTS – #AMILLION-1

Phil Bayless (38 Points) – Almost had to win and have everyone in front of him finish in a crazy order of 1st to worst by current standings, cannot win if he uses re-buy option so unless he wants to play for extra chips or just to crush peoples souls shouldn’t exercise re-buy.

Tim Hill (35 points) – See Phil Bayless outlook and add another player in front of him!

PREPARING FOR A GOOD RUN IN THE CHAMPIONSHIP

The following players are mathematically eliminated from regular season contention, however they can reek havoc on the rest of the players by playing lights out in week 3!  The will play a large role in deciding the eventual regular season champion and also need a good showing to pick up some much needed chips for their Championship starting stack.

John Gray (26 points)

Steve Greenup (20 points)

Clint Goodman (18 points)

Russ Kincaid (12 points)

NCAA Championship

Week 3 will be held at Tim Williams home on April 3rd, the same day as the NCAA Championship so we will have the game on the big screen and maybe we could do something fun to make it more interesting?  Hope to see everyone at Tim’s in a couple weeks!  Prop game will be Paper, Rock, Scissors!  #BringIT

VIDEO RECAP

Yours Truly,

Mr. February aka Ryan

2017 WSOP Week 1 Recap

WSOP LEAGUE 2017 – LET THE MADNESS BEGIN!

WHAT A WEEK! SNOW WAY?

The 2017 WSOP League this year was given the nickname the 2017 WSOP Spring Fling, but it got kicked off with a bit of cold weather.  The Quiet Storm (Brad West) did his thing early on and gained momentum through the middle of the tournament, however he wasn’t any match for a little winter weather and some ice cold beats that sent one of the favorites packing in the middle of this years week 1 tournament field.  The winter weather returned to our area with a mix of rain, sleet, hail and snow but nearly everyone that had been confirmed found their way to The Basement, home of another one of last years WSOP package winners – The Load Deliverer (Tim Williams).  What an action packed week to kickoff the Wilmington WSOP League this weeks highlights include: The NCAA Tournament selection & opening few rounds, green beer with St. Patrick’s Day, the return of the WPT to television and finally the return of winter after the last few weeks of mild and spring like weather.

To begin the day we had confirmed 16 players which was perfect to put the leagues prize pool at 3 – $1200 WSOP packages.  I received a message from a new potential WSOP player the day before the league started, Franks N Beams (Chad Beam), sorry Rhonda wanted a nickname before cards were in the air, it seemed there was a decent shot he may play and bring the league up to 17, as most of us have to, he had to talk it over with The Boss.  I did not hear from much from Mr. Beam on Monday and I downgraded him from about a 75% chance to a 25% chance after he told me he was busy most of the week and didn’t know if he’d get the pass…but low and behold he did and Chad made #17!  I then received a Facebook message from The Golf Pro (Tim Hill #TheOtherTim) saying he may be interested but wanted some more info and so I gave him a call just hours before the first tournament began and he too, had to speak to The Boss.  I felt a little more optimistic that he would be joining us…I sent him the not so “secret” location and he showed up to get into some of the WSOP action, the league had grown to 2 full tables at 18!  This was perfect…however they then started to drop like short stacks late at night.

I began to get texts from Big Blue (Clint Goodman) along with a couple others including The Button (Scott Moss), Mary Ann (Rhonda Rutherford) stating that they would be late and giving me feedback on the ways they wanted to vote on several rules / discussion topics.  I sent a message back to Big Blue asking if The Ram (Kenny Ellison) was in route with Clint…he replied that he tried to confirm with Kenny on Sunday and didn’t hear back, and Monday Kenny decided he was not going to play in this year’s WSOP League, #YouKilledKenny.  SO just like that we were back down to 15, as I was unsure of Chad and Tim at the time.  After confirming Chad and Tim and feeling comfortable that we were at a solid 17 I got the dreaded call from Sasquatch (Steve Greenup) that he had almost made it to The Basement when he received a call from Kim #TheBoss that their dishwasher I believe had blowed up and was shooting liquids all over their place.  Steve had to cancel and we are now at 17.  Mrs. Load Deliverer (Carolyn), would that make her the Load Receiver or the Unloader, was willing to sub, so I offered Steve, who had to go fix some appliances, a sub and he said okay, he’s in after a call the The Boss.  I now dub Steve The Utility Man! Welcome back to the league Steve it’s been several years since he’s graced us with his presence #TheGentleGiant.

I am excited to welcome back all of familiar names from years past and want to extend a warm welcome to our WSOP group to several newcomers.  Best of luck to everyone this year and thanks for joining us John Gray, Chad Beam, Todd Kramer and Tim Hill #TheNewcomers.  I hope everyone has a great time and will join us for many years to come.

PRE-TOURNEY BIZNESS

Before cards got tossed around like those hands in the air of playas who just don’t care we had to handle a little business.  I had texted out some topics that we would discuss to finalize this years league rules, we ended up having some great discussions that led to a few changes and a few ideas that may be looked at again next year.  This discussion went on for about 30-40 minutes while Rhonda iced her cupcakes in front of all the boys!  If milkshakes bring the boys to the yard these cupcakes had men breaking in to the house…MMM!

Discussion Topics & Final Rulings

1. Blind levels will follow the 2015 WSOP structure to allow more play for the league.  This option gave us an extra level at 100/200 with a 25 ante, but was after the 25/25 starting level of the 2014 WSOP so the blinds will begin at 25/50.
2. Blind levels will be 20 minutes through-out the regular season and championship tournaments.  It was hotly debated between going 6 or 9 levels at 20 then reducing the levels to 15 minutes but in a narrow margin the league settled on 20 minutes through-out to ensure that I never make it home on WSOP league nights until R. Kelly “clears the lobby” which for those of you who don’t know the song ignition that’s around about foor (spelled that way intentionally read it like floor with no R).
3. 3.  Co-Ownership / Backer Rule – it was voted on that a player could have a backer as long as if the backer played in a qualifying tournament with league monies that they abide by league rules and payback 20% to the league excluding their poker partner.
4. Final table – this will once again commence at 10 players.
5. League Payback – the league decided on 20% payback to the league members in good standing should a winner cash at a large buy-in tournament or WSOP event that they bought in with their league winnings.
6. 3rd Place Prize Package – There was a lot of debate on this however the easiest solution was to go by the rules that were already in place.  A heads up death-match between the regular season runner-up and championship runner up should they choose not to chop and both play in the Colossus or a local $50k guaranteed tourney.
7. Other Discussions – There were several topics that players showed interest in discussing, the re-buy by far the hottest topic.  We had stated that the tier II points were put in place as a compromise to re-buy rules for both those opposed and those for the rule so we weren’t going to eliminate the re-buy.  There was a proposal / motion to have a re-buy available to the players at every regular season tourney as opposed to a cap of 1 re-buy for the 3 week regular season this motion was voted down.  There was a motion to extend the re-buy time period from through 3 levels to 6 levels of pay, the group voted to keep the re-buy available only until the first break or 3 levels.  There was some crazy discussion about making the re-buy available through-out the tournaments entirety, while this would have probably swelled up the WSOP pot it didn’t gain much traction.  When the dust cleared the re-buy rules remained intact as they were drawn up months prior to season.  Additional discussions that did not result in immediate change but will be considered for next year were those pesky antes, I agree that they are a pain, however I think they juice up the pot and change the strategy of play in the middle to end of the tournaments. I also think it gives players good practice for the WSOP event that someone will eventually play and represent this collection of poker misfits.

PIZZA PIE AND CUPCAKES

Big shout out to Rhonda AKA CupCakes for providing the group with a sweet surprise!!! THANK YOU!  CupCakes baked homemade miniature cakes and iced them for maximum freshness when she arrived.  She then stuck each cupcake with a popsicle stick that had all the players names with their 2016 nicknames or some crazy new nicknames spewed at her by deadwood if it was their rookie season.  The Dream Crusher (Phil Bayless) had several nicknames and therefore got a couple cupcakes he said, “Hell Page, give me a couple more nicknames so I can get a couple more cupcakes next time.” Okay Phil Bayless AKA Dream Crusher, Donkey, Card Shute, Lucky Dragon, The Speaker, You Play That, Big Fold, Soul Destroyer, High Card Flush King, Twin Slayer, Nicole’s Beotch & in some parts of town The Sticky Icky Icky, I hope you get enough cupcakes or whatever treat CupCakes provides next time.  Some people who didn’t have multiple nicknames opted for cupcake cannibalism, one of the funnies moments of the nights came when someone yelled out, “I’m gonna eat Pidge.”  Thanks so much for the cupcakes it was greatly appreciate and The Buzz Saw (Doug Cooper) share a video of the cupcakes with nicknames on them on twitter, check it out.  I provided some pizza pie and I want to thank those who pitched in to pay me back, every piece of the 4 pizzas I delivered was gone by the break.  Not sure who will provide food in week 2 but please text me if you’re interested and I’ll direct anyone who’s eating to chip in to pay you back…otherwise I will pick up pizzas again as that’s the simplest thing to do.

LET THE CARDS FLY

The tournament started a little late due to all the week 1 shenanigans but cards were in the air by 7:45, players should make every attempt to be ready to go at 7pm, however we will probably aim to start every tournament no later then 7:15.  The anticipated kick off to this abbreviated WSOP league was underway with a few new rules including tier II points to be put into practice.  The action was a little slow early but 1 re-buy was used this week and 1 bonus tier II point was awarded.

Tier II Points Explained – tier II points are being experimented with this season, basically this is a last longer point structure that awards each player a point for everyone that is eliminated before they’re eliminated.  If you are eliminated and opt to use a re-buy in the 1st 3 levels your tier II points will no longer be accumulated.  i.e. If someone goes out 16th and another player has already gone out their tier II position is locked in at 16 and everyone else gets a point for their original elimination.  BONUS TIER II POINT If a player chooses to re-buy the player that knocked the re-buyer out gets 1 bonus tier II point.  That player now gets points based on the nightly point chart for their finish however for the tier II scoring its as if they finished in 16th only obtaining 1 point for lasting longer then the 17th place finisher who didn’t re-buy.  The could potentially get tier II points from eliminated other players that re-buy during the first 3 levels however they cannot get any more last longer tier II points.

Big Blue (Clint) eliminated in 17th and exercises his 1 re-buy option for the regular season.  I was at the other table so I didn’t get to see this hand go down but congratulations to Tbag$ (Tony Baker) who picked up the first bonus tier II point for the elimination and Clint’s re-buy.  Clint wouldn’t be able to gain any tier II points but he fought his was to a 11th place finish which earned him 10 points, had he gone out at 17 he would have only picked up 4 points.

PROP GAMES – CARD TOSS SHUFFLEBOARD

This year Pat has decided to add a new and fun wrinkle to each week, Prop Bet Games!  If you thought that my write-ups and our new WSOP videos weren’t cheesy enough…now you have the opportunity to get in on the action and compete in different events “prop bets” at the first break each week.  Some players were a little hesitant to join in on the action, but once the prop bet game began interest grew.  This week we decided to have poker card shuffleboard – a grouping of chips were place in the center of the poker table and players were to be awarded points based on the final position of their card flick…unfortunately the cards were like Phil – Sticky Icky Icky and wouldn’t budge so on the fly we changed the game to Shuffleboard Card Toss.  Any player who wanted to play was allowed several practice throws and then had to put in $1 in the winner-take-all pot.  The Load Deliverer took to action first setting the bar high at 1600 points… We thought that was good, but didn’t know how good it truly was until no one could beat that mark.  Tim took home the $11 prize pool and bragging rights.  Congrats!

Final Shuffleboard Standings

1. Tim Williams AKA The Load Deliverer AKA Shuffleboard Wizard – 1600
2. Phil Bayless – 1500
3. Brad West (The Dealer) – 1500
4. Todd Kramer – 1000
5. Chad Beam – 1000
6. Russ Kincaid – 600
7. Tony Baker – 600
8. Pat Brown – 500
9. Ryan Page – 500
10. Rhonda Rutherford – 200
11. Clint Goodman – 100

WEEK 1 – TOURNAMENT PLAY

ACTION STARTS OFF SLOW

This week I didn’t log as many hands as in last years, this will be a quick recap of the week 1 tournament.  The first re-buy was used by Big Blue and he was kept off the tier II point board and got Tony a bonus point for his elimination and re-buy as mentioned above.  Clint was the only player eliminated in the 1st 3 levels who had the opportunity to use his re-buy as everyone played it close to the vest early on.  FORFEIT discussion erupts – Several players who were of the shorter stack persuasion said can we forfeit our chips and use our re-buy at the first break.  The league passed the motion, however no one decided to use this option.

FIRST ELIMINATION

The Professor got schooled in week 1 as he was the first player eliminated shortly after the first break in 17th place.  Because Russ outlasted Clint in the tier II scoring he picked up 1 tier II points and 3 points for a 17th place finish for a total of 4 points.  Russ along with anyone finishing in the bottom half will need extremely strong weeks in the upcoming 2 regular season contests to have a shot at winning the regular season title and still may need a little help.

ANTE UP

When we hit the 100/200 with a 25 ante, some of the room groaned with disgust that they now had to actually start paying attention during a poker tournament and table captains had to collect antes hand to hand.  I think the room sounded like WAHHHHHHHHH and then CupCakes said now do you guys want to vote to eliminate antes WaHAhaHa. There was then some talk about what may or may not make-a-my blog and I said I may not do one since we are doing videos this year.  Boy did I take some heat, CupCakes slammed down some chips and talked a lot of smack to me stating that was one of the main reasons she returned to the league… well dammit I guess you get your way.  I will throw something together each week and hopefully it will provide you with more entertainment value than the ante.

A FLURRY OF ELIMINATIONS

Week 1 was a card dead week for me, however I rode a very short stack (that’s what #TheBoss says too) to outlast a few players that were eliminated in a flurry of hands toward the end of level 5 (100/200 w/ 25 ante) and at the beginning of level 6 (150/300 with 25 ante).  WSOP League rookie, The Golf Pro (Tim Hill) got his sports mixed up when he logged the 2nd lowest score of the night with a 16th place elimination, Tim put 7 points up but will look for his sub to do some work in Week 2 to get him back in contention as in this league the high score takes the cupcake!  Steve Greenup AKA The Utility Man’s sub was eliminated in 15th when THE TODD kept besting her 2nd best hands.  Carolyn played hard but took some tough beats in week 1 but she did provide Steve with 9 points which is many more than a missed week.  The Steam Roller couldn’t get hot tonight as he was eliminated in 14th and then the run of quick exits ended with yours truly being KO’d in 13th place by the brilliant play of THE TODD (Todd Kramer)… just ask him he set me up for a bear trap ;).  My elimination hand began with me in the small blind with blinds at 150/300 with a 25 ante and me basically being blinded down to a stack of 1200 to start the hand.  THE TODD limped from the cutoff and I looked down at KQ Sutied and had no option but to stick it in with 4bb’s, action back to Todd and he Hellmuth called flipping over aces… good trap… LMAO, I was going no where if you raised!  Board ran out baby cards with none of my suit and it was deuces for me in 13th place.

NEW BLOODS

While a couple of the newcomers left early several had strong showings in week 1.  Tim Hill fell out of contention early, John Gray built a stack but seemed to lose it on several occasions only to build it back up again.  50 Shades of (John) Gray was eliminated in 12th place, he was true to his nickname switching gears often and spanking some people but in the end it was he who was dominated by the competition.  Immediately after being knocked out, John was the one who ate Pidge on his way out the door.  Franks N Beams had a very strong showing week one as he started out strong without having to show many of his holdings and became a Hanging Chad as he wore down and slid into 5th place which was worth 28 points. Todd Kramer AKA THE TODD AKA The Trapper had the best showing of he new league players after he finally lost a long heads-up battle and grabbed 2nd place and 37 points.

BEST OF THE REST

Clint Goodman’s elimination in 11th marked the combination of tables into the final table. The final table played several levels before knocking out Bayless in 10th with Cooper shortly behind at 9th.  This resulted in a rare small side game being played when The Load Deliverer wearing his illegal shirt eliminated in 8th. Rhonda AKA Cupcakes was eliminated in 7th resulting in the exit of any remaining cupcakes. Tim and I asked her to leave us a white one as we had tried the peanut butter and she obliged…I quickly gobbled up my cupcake but Tim ho hummed around and when he went to grab it someone had already eaten his treat… it wasn’t me and unless they come forward we may never know the culprit, but it was funny as hell and of course he blamed this guy #IonlyAte1.  Tony Baker AKA Tbag$ was quiet but had a respectable 6th place finish putting him within striking range of the leaders.

FINAL FOUR

The Quiet Storm made a lot of noise early but ran dry at the end and finished in a solid 4th place when he got it in good to with KJ vs J8 pre-flop vs The Trapper but was outdrawn.  As soon as Brad West left the nightly money was chopped $60 each between the remaining players.  Pat Brown, The Brick Schmidt House was eliminated in 3rd place when his hand bricked out and he joined me at the video booth to make some magic happen.

HEADS UP MATCH DRAGS ON

Finally we were heads-up near 12:30am, The Button, Scott Moss VS THE TODD, Todd Kramer.  This match lasted nearly an hour with both players showing some signs that they may be growing a little tired… they wished they could chop after about 30 minutes of play but that is not an option in this league.  Scott used the button effectively to chip away at Todd growing his stack and building up a 5 to 1 chip lead, however, whenever it looked as though Scott may close it out, Todd would double up or force a fold and grinded on in the match.  Finally, Scott AKA, The Button, got it all in ahead with Ace Rag vs Todds KQ,  Todd quickly took command with Queen on the flop but an Ace spiked on the turn locking up Scotts week 1 victory.  Big shout out to Scott Moss, he’s the one with the target on his back next week… although he is always in position.  Speaking of targets, if anyone COUGH-COUGH-timwilliams-COUGH wears a homemade shirt we are thinking there should be a bounty on them?

VIDEO RECAP

See you all Monday at THE GARAGE, home of Pat Brown.

Ryan Page

2017 WSOP Spring-Fling League

Hey Gang – we are gearing up for a very short WSOP league this year.  It will consist of 3 events and a final tournament…  The cost is the same as last year, $225 per person for the season.  We are looking at the following dates: 3/13, 3/20, 4/03, and the final on 4/10.

Basic differences besides the obvious short duration are: Tiered Points (read below); all season scores will count (you cannot drop worst week); a single season re-buy is allowed up to level 3, however you will not score additional 2nd Tier Points beyond your re-buy; finally, substitute players may be used 1 time per player, but there is an additional $25.00 fee to do so.

2017 WSOP Spring Fling League Official Rules

1. LEAGUE COSTS:

   1. BUY-IN for league is $225 that must be paid up front or $125/$100 for the 1st two events.
   2. WEEKLY PRIZE POOL – In addition to this you will need to bring $10/week for weekly payouts, this weekly money can be chopped or will be paid 75%/25% to 1st and 2nd if 14 players or less, 50%/30%/20% to 1st, 2nd and 3rd if 15 or more players.
   3. RE-BUYS – 1 Re-buy per player will be permitted in the 3 week regular season with the following conditions:
      1. Re-buy period will be first 3 levels
      2. Re-buy will cost $25 which will go towards WSOP Pot
      3. Player may re-enter nightly prize pool (optional) if they choose they must pay additional $10 ($35 total)
      4. Tier II Points will end with the players initial elimination and that will be the spot they went out for those points. Re-buy will only allow you to improve your final finishing position points / Tier I points.

2. REGULAR SEASON:

   1. The regular season will consist of 3 tournaments followed by a championship tournament.
      1. This year all 3 weeks points will count
   2. ATTENDANCE – If you are unable to attend a regular season tournament you will be given points that match the worst finish for the week you missed minus 3 points with a minimum of 1 point.
      1. MINUS 3 Rule – i.e. if the last place finisher attending the week you missed got 10 points you will receive 7 points for that week that you could not attend.
      2. SUBS – Because your points will count for all 3 regular season you will be permitted to have a SUB for 1 of the 3 regular season weeks, however there is a SUB FEE of $25 dollars to the WSOP Pot and they must bring the additional $10 for the weekly payout.
   3. A player may enter the league after it has begun, however they must pay $225 up front and will be awarded last place points (-3 rule Rule 2-b.i.) for the regular season tournaments they missed.
   4. Points will be different this year then in past years (POINT STRUCTURE ATTACHED), there will be two tiers:
      1. TIER I POINTS – This will be based solely on you’re finishing spot regardless of how many players show up for a given tournament. This will be a little less top heavy then prior years as 1st place will be awarded 20 points in Tier 1 Points, however depending on turn out could increase to more then in prior years.
      2. TIER II POINTS – This will be based on how many players you outlast in a given tournament. For every player that gets eliminated before you, you will earn 1 point
         1. RE-BUY Rule – Players who choose to re-buy will only earn TIER II POINTS for players eliminated before their re-buy
            1. i.e. If 2 people get knocked out and then you get knocked out but choose to rebuy you’re TIER II POINTS will be locked in at 2 and everyone left when you are originally eliminated will earn a TIER II POINT for your elimination.
            2. If you eliminate a player who opts to Re-Buy you will get 1 bonus TIER II POINT for this elimination, as it will bring more money into the WSOP Pot.

3. STRUCTURE:

   1. The chip structure will follow the WSOP $1000 buy-in Turbo structure from 2017:
   2. Each player will begin with 5000 in chips
   3. Blinds Structure
      1. Blinds will follow 2017 WSOP $1000 Turbo Structure
      2. Blinds will be 20 minutes for the first 6 levels and 15 minutes for any additional levels during the regular season, the Championship tournament will have 20 minute blinds throughout the entire tournament.
      3. We will have a 5-10 minute break after the first hour of play and after each hour at players request.
      4. We will put all participant stacks in if we are unsure if you are coming, however they will be pulled at the end of the 1st level if Pat or Ryan has not been notified they’re on their way. If you are coming late and you notify us your stack will remain in play until after the first break, stacks will be dealt in and folded.
   4. Final Table will commence at 10 players.

4. PAYOUTS

   1. There will be a minimum of 2 prize packages (League between 9 – 15 players)
      1. PRIZE PACKAGE A – Regular Season Champion = 50% of WSOP Pot
      2. PRIZE PACKAGE B – Championship Tournament Winner = 50% of WSOP Pot
         1. If you are between the ages of 18-21 you may use the winnings to buy into a large Indian Casino Tournament such as a HPT or MSPT Main Event. The HPT Main Event’s buy-in price is around $1,650 and the MSPT Main Event’s buy-in average around $1,150.
            1. If someone opts to play in a non-WSOP related event, the buy-in needs to be a minimum of $1k or it must be approved by 2/3rds of the league.
            2. The Dom-Dom Rule now will be viewed as a WSOP event for the rules below
      3. If you cash in the WSOP or Indian Casino event you agree to give 20% of your winnings after taxes to be divided equally among the league members who were in good standing (paid and qualified for finals)
   2. ADDITIONAL PRIZE PACKAGES
      1. If there is enough for 3 prize packages (16-22 League members) the regular season champion and championship tournament champion get a package that is 50% of the WSOP Pot – $1200 which will be the 3rd Prize Package.
         1. The 3rd package would require a heads-up match between the regular season runner-up (if they didn’t win the 2nd championship tournament and the championship tournament runner-up.
            1. The Heads up match would have 12 minute blinds and follow the structure of ROUND 2 of this years heads up $10k WSOP Championship Event #15.
               1. If the runner-up of the regular season was the champion of the championship tournament the 3rd package goes to the runner-up of the championship
      2. If there are 23 or more league members we will have 4 WSOP packages which will be awarded to the following:
         1. Regular Season Champion – PRIZE PACKAGE A
         2. Championship Tournament Winner – PRIZE PACKAGE A
         3. Regular Season Runner-up – PRIZE PACKAGE B
            1. Regular Season Runner-up would be eligible to play in Championship if they upgraded to Championship Tournament winner then the final prize package would be decided by a heads up match between Championship 3rd place player and Regular Season 3rd place finisher.
         4. Championship Runner-up – PRIZE PACKAGE B
         5. PRIZE PACKAGE A = 50% WSOP Prize Pot minus $2400, PRIZE PACKAGE B = $1200 WSOP Package

5. CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT:

   1. Blinds will be 20 minutes through-out the tourney
   2. Levels will be the same as regular season following 2017 $1000 Turbo event structure
   3. Starting Stacks will be based on regular season points totals
      1. Formula will be as follows:
         1. Base Stack will begin with 5000 chips
         2. For each regular season point earned each player will receive 50 tournament chips
            1. Example someone finishes with minimum points of 50 they will receive $5000 + (50pts x 50 chips) $2500 chips for a total starting stack of $7500
   4. Regular season winner will assist in dealing the championship to the best of their abilities.
   5. Chops are allowed, however the package winners must play in the WSOP or circuit event!
      1. If you are involved in a chop that includes one of the prize packages the group must be made aware of who will be representing us in a WSOP or circuit event.
      2. There will be no chops of packages if it would result in no one playing in WSOP bracelet or circuit event. These monies will be held, the seat will be reserved for you in one of these events.

6. Tier I Point Chart (if more than 18 players, this will be amended)

   1. 20
   2. 17.5
   3. 16
   4. 15
   5. 14
   6. 13
   7. 12
   8. 11
   9. 10
   10. 9
   11. 8
   12. 7
   13. 6
   14. 5
   15. 4.5
   16. 4
   17. 3.5
   18. 3

7. Tier II Points

   1. Each player will receive 1 Tier II point for each player eliminated before them, re-buy players will count as eliminated for Tier II points and will not be able to accumulate any additional Tier II points after re-buy.  Anyone who eliminates a player that re-buys will earn an additional 1 Tier II point.

Wilmington City Golf League Championship

PAGE #1!?

A compilation of short stories, anecdotes and moments that have shaped a golfers life, ultimately culminating in a Wilmington City Golf League Championship.

FLIPPING THE SWITCH
Fluffy white clouds floating through the majestic bright blue sky with the sun playing peak-a-boo with a talented young group of high school golfers preparing for an after school match. Ryan Page with golf clubs in his hands, smile on his face was up to the usually; play a joke on lefty while calming down a few of his teammates so they are loose and ready to book another win for the Hurricane. Young Ryan was not aware that in moments life would change forever…BOOM! BANG? THUD, RUMBLE RUMBLE ROLL FLIP CRASH! OH SH!# Heat could be felt by all present at Snow Hill Country Club as a loud screeching stopped. What had just happened? A Toyota 4-runner with one of Ryan’s teammates had just rolled over into the ditch off hole #10 on the last curve before the course. Brett Rudduck had arrived; his arrival was followed by sirens and much concern for his well-being. What occurred next was nothing short of a miracle. Brett got out of his vehicle with only minor scratches and decided that he was going to participate in the golf match which was a moment away from tee off. Brett not only golfed, he lead the Hurricane to victory as the match medalist. Brett was one lucky guy that day and in this moment Ryan learned from the actions of Brett Rudduck, in the words of the great Chumbawamba, “I get knocked down, but I get up again, you’re never gonna keep me down.” Ryan later went on to fight for a varsity letter with only a few years of golfing experience on a talented WHS squad that had made state just the year prior. Recalling this story in July, Ryan took some time for self-reflection and although he was many, many, many points down to an opponent that looked to be running away with the 2016 Wilmington City Golf League (WCGL) Championship he thought although down, it’s not over and he began his comeback for the ages.

SANDBAGGER
Ryan discovered early that this league was full of characters, unfortunately some are no longer golfing in the league for one reason or another; there was the famous Taylor Spare, Eddy Lippincott or Lickingcaulk as some called him? Danny “The Dog Catcher” DeLauder, Kathy Collins, Chris Horsley, Jennifer Bain, Ernie Blankenship, some of Wilmington’s finest Bad Boys AKA Pat Black, Bill Miller and many others but the one that made the biggest first impression, Don Smith. After a few rounds to establish a handicap one of Ryan’s first matches was against Don Smith. Don Smith was huffing and puffing mad the entire match yelling about Ryan’s handicap, screaming how does he have to give strokes to Ryan and implying that Ryan had sand bagged his way to a high handicap with the intentions of blowing his handicap early just to beat the living crap out of this Don Smith who he didn’t even know. The elaborate plan worked to win 1 match but because of this it would take well over a decade for Ryan to finally reach the pinnacle of success in the WCGL and win his first league title. By the way isn’t today Bill Miller’s daughter’s birthday?

LESSONS LEARNED?
Ryan used to be a little bit impatient, he has now come to enjoy and relish all of his moments while golfing in the City League. Several incidents that may have caused his health and his way of life to be threatened have not only humbled him but have helped him to be slightly more mature.
Golf Shot at Gary – Several years ago an anxious Ryan placed a tee shot off of #15 perfectly just shy of the bridge, as he approached his ball there was another league group on the green. Should he have waited to his shot lying about 240 yards from the green, probably? Did he? Nope, he addressed the ball and launched it into the atmosphere like a rocket it landed about 15 yards short of the green and rolled up onto the front near one Gary Vance. Gary turned around and then made a gesture back at our group as Ryan celebrated and got some skin from members of his foursome. We all thought Gary was having fun and joking with us as my ball rolled up harmlessly and put no one in danger. So when Ryan reached the green Gary made a comment about hitting into them, Ryan made a bit of a smart-azz retort as we all thought the Queens man was just heckling us…this was a mistake. Gary looked like someone had eaten his Wheaties and he went off slightly on us, he was not happy and at this moment Ryan thought to himself was he going to be banished by the Queen? Was someone going to go Tonya Harding on him in the parking lot after this round? Would his vehicle have a golf ball through the windshield? He genuinely felt fear for his person.

Hitting on Helen – Some number of years after the Gary Vance incident Ryan was once again in this familiar situation when after hitting an average to good drive on #16 he awaited a group that included the Queen and The Magistrate. Ryan, thinking back on the Gary Experience, decided it’s best to wait until they clear off the green before striking his next shot. Well this didn’t work as well as he planned, after the group vacated the green and arrived at their carts between the green and #17 tee box Ryan decided the time was right and hit his shot. SHANKED IT a little bit of a slice to the right…Ryan timidly shouts FORE but then his group assures him this ball will not end up near any of the players ahead of him. BOOM on the fly the ball slapped Helen in the neck/shoulder area, Ryan turned 50 shades of red and tried to hide. There was no hiding as later in the season after months of recover from the stress I had caused her Helen had Ryan handcuffed and tried at a golf court upon arrival in his sweet mini-van. I think the moral of this story is Ryan’s balls are attracted to other people? Maybe hitting on Helen led Ryan to a little more than he bargained for?

HORSLING AROUND
About 8 years ago we had a very early spring as it was perfect golf weather in March. Chris Horsley had Ryan convinced that he had missed the first few weeks of city league after asking him why he hadn’t been there when they ran into each other at the grocery store. Horsley got other league members to text me and even tried to get the queen in on this joke as Ryan had contacted her to find out if he had indeed missed the first few weeks…had he missed the invite this year? Was his childish personality not welcome with these grown men and women? The following 4-5 years Horsley tried to pull this one over on Ryan again and again but it never worked as well as it did the first time…fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice?

THE TERROR :0
One night after golf league and before Ryan’s weekly gathering with his poker buddies Ryan decided to take a quick pit stop at Arby’s for a snack and to drop the Browns off at the Superbowl. Ryan would become the victim of terrorism! He slipped into the restroom to perform his duties and as he sat down he heard a loud popping noise. OH SNAP did my fat butt just break the toilet seat he thought? #therehastobeastrongertoiletseat. Then he looked down to a horrific sight, his “reece’s pieces” as he tweeted were covered in red liquid was this blood? He lifted the toilet seat to find Arby’s sauce packets #arbyssauceterrorist between the seat and the toilet that were set there to deliberately crush someone’s soul. As Ryan got up to clean himself there wasn’t much tp left and no paper towels, he did what he could with what he had. He couldn’t let the employees at this establishment know they had gotten him if they had indeed set this up, as he still suspects to this day, although he was absolutely torn apart inside he put on his brave face, marched out of the bathroom and ordered a milkshake. Because “my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard???” Ryan then had to take a detour to his home shower to clean up the carnage.

A HISTORY OF CLOSE CALLS
Ryan has placed several times in previous seasons including several 3rd place finishes as well as one runner up finish. His first top-3 finish he was 3rd and his father finished 2nd that same season. Ryan seemed to always make a late run if down by a lot but never had quite enough to complete the comeback. In another season Ryan was on top of the leaderboard for much of the season but couldn’t close it out down the stretch.

Pink Ball Wins
Although this is his first league championship, Ryan has had some team victories in the WGCL. He has been on at least two winning Taylor Spare Pink Ball teams and has the tight sexy boys large t-shirt to prove it. Side note – Ryan shot a 34 in his only heads up match with Taylor Spare as he was 2 under heading to #9 which he bogeyed, in spite of this low round I believe that the match may have ended in a draw.

Mayor’s Award
Ryan was excited and honored to receive the 1st ever annual Mayor’s award for most entertaining player of the year in the WGCL. Ryan always secretly hoped he could get the hatchet award but he did not get enough wood on the course (maybe this is why he marks his ball with his special mark?) or even the best dressed award, however this seemed to be an award reserved for Sparky. This award filled those voids and really made him feel like an important member of this crazy group of golfers. #we’reALLimportant!

Found Balls?
Ryan also received some of his lost balls back one year at the season finale celebration dinner. The Queen put them in a very nice cocktail 😉 glass and they looked like bird eggs in a nest. How she knew 100% that these balls were in fact Ryan’s lost balls? Oh yeah, it could have been the artistic imagery of a phallus! Never up, never in! Several players got to witness the whimsical artistic flow of Ryan putting marker to ball this season to make his ball mark cum to life.

SPRAY BOTTLE DAYS
Dan Page, many WCGL members have impacted and shaped Ryan’s life, however this man takes the cake!!! Dan, father of Ryan, used to DJ the City Christmas Party and joined the league shortly after bringing Ryan into it as well. Dan like several other WCGL members #HallofFamers left us way too early. Every year on the hottest day of golf league Dan would purchase / bring water bottles for all league members filled to the top so that we could use them to not only spray each other with the enthusiasm of children playing with water balloons, but also to keep us cool. What a fun day this always was…and the wet t-shirt contest winner is…it’s always Wanda!

FEELING HORNY?
Earlier this year when Donnie and Ryan were playing together they devised a plan to bring air horns to the golf course, is there a better way to have fun? I don’t think so. After weeks of talking about it, Ryan put his walking shoes on and started walking the walk. Ryan purchased 2 horns one for his bag and he gave Donnie Dots the other. Donnie and Ryan really honked some people off that day but in the weeks since it seems fittingly that Randy (synonym for Horny with a definition of sexually aroused or excited) became the target of the horns…or did his club just have an odd sound when he struck a few of his shots?

MONEY SHOT
Each night in golf league there is a weekly event whether it be a closest to the pin on a pair 3, closest on your 2nd or 3rd shot on another hole, best poker hand, etc. Each player who wants to participate has to put $1 in the jar and to the winner goes the spoils. A couple years back Ryan had won a weekly event and the players made a rule since he wasn’t there they’d just go ahead and buy their drinks with Ryan’s winnings. Chris Stromberg put a stop to this and said that’s not right guys you’ve got to give him his winnings; hence forth the winner was presented with their winnings before the next week’s golf. Chris was another member of the league who left us too soon, also had ginormous impact on Ryan as his father-in-law and a key father figure to Ryan after Dan’s passing in 2008.

GOLF FAMILY – SUPPORT IN LIFES TOUGHEST MOMENTS
Judge Rudduck a relatively new WCGL member delivered one of the most memorable eulogies at Dr. Chris Stromberg’s celebration of life. After the ceremony I had friends tell me that they wished they had gotten to know my father-in-law better as it seemed like he was amazing guys from the words shared by Tim and Bob at his services. I also had a several of them tell me that they needed to find better friends because they didn’t have anyone that could speak like that about them.

Randy Riley and Dan himself put on a show at Dan’s celebration of life. Dan was a music man and that day the music would not cooperate, Dan’s spirit could be felt that day playing one last joke, the music or lack thereof, had the Page family with tears in their eyes yet laughing hysterically. Then Randy did a masterful job of sharing his experiences with Dan to a filled church. It was an emotional roller-coaster of joys and both ceremonies truly felt like celebrations of lives that were taken from us much too soon by cancer.

DRANKIN’ BUDDIES
Did you know that Orange Gatorade is a magical chaser for Irish Whiskey? Randy & Ryan discovered this tandem a few years ago and have been indulging in it from time to time. The drinking of this concoction has also led to Ryan using a big divot as a merkin, and impersonating President Bush “It’s Merkan.” #TrumpForPresident… Tony Baker, better known to his friends as TBag$, thinks this chaser is awful and ridiculous but I don’t think The Mayor and Page will ever be convinced that this taste is anything less than dream-sickle like.

SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS
Larry Woods not only has a cool last name he also invited Ryan to join his pre-league ritual from time to time this year which is having a couple dranks at the bar to loosen up before playing. Ryan’s doctor (bar MD) Randy Riley once prescribed him a couple shots of American Honey to help with a sore throat and this became his drank of choice for the 2016 season. Mmmmm goes down smooth.

DOWNTOWN!
Steve and Ryan always have had a special relationship, although in the previous couple of years every time they were scheduled to play Downtown Steve mysteriously had “other” plans and would be a no show for our match. Ryan gave Steve a lot of grief about this and they had a planned match-up at the next golf league week following a dinner outing earlier this year at Damon’s. The Queen did not oblige and the face-off didn’t come to fruition. Steve and Ryan have found a way to play with each other many of the last several weeks without playing against each other and it has been AWESOME. The duets and jokes have led to a HORN honking good time. Steve was so friendly that he even checked out Ryan’s plumbing at work! Man the water is cold he shouted as Ryan replied the pipes are deep too.

PRO ATHLETE AMONG US?
John Ames must be a professional football player that’s why he has had to the last months’ worth of Wednesdays? He replies to the text he’s got football…is he just a big fan? Well if he was a fan of the NFL that means he may miss Sunday, Monday or Thursday…that doesn’t work! If he’s a fan of College he would miss Saturday, Friday or Thursday, hold on that doesn’t work either. High School? No that’s Friday nights or JV Saturdays??? The only thing that can be assumed is that John is playing for some professional or semi-professional football league. This picture may be proof?

BALL IN THE FENCE
Tony Baker drove a ball on #9 into the fence near the ladies tees last season and then with some persuasion and coaxing by Phil Floyd and Ryan Page actually attempted to hit it through, after two whacks he gave up and then had to pull the jammed ball out of the wiring. This could be one of the funniest moments ever in the WCGL, thanks for the laugh TBag$! Tony and Ryan shared many other moments together outside of the golf league including missing flights in Vegas together and creating the DIP (Dealer Incentive Program) to support blackjack dealers everywhere #blackjacklivesmatter. Phil and Ryan paired up a lot this year, it seemed as though they played each other time and time again but usually the were just early birds looking to get out on the course!

TIMMY JIMMY
Tim Doyle has improved dramatically from when he began this league, he is often the first one to the course hitting balls, putting, maybe drinking a beer? I mean he has put in the time to be a contender but ah? He almost always keeps a positive attitude but when he gets pissed off its always comical. Also he is quick to pass his bill off to you in a restaurant, a fan of the old dine and ditch.

THE F IN FRED STANDS FOR FUN
Fred Ertel a newer league member has added a lot of laughs to the league, he’s been in influence on Ryan ever since he came into NB&T and shared some of that sense of humor with Chad, Eric and Ryan. Just ask him about the Angry Pirate or raspberry donut to name a few. I’m extremely glad Fred and the Judge got to take a trip to see Chris in North Carolina early this year.

POOL OVER
George Kral has joined Ryan in several local very small dollar weekly football and March madness pools and keeps him posted on weekly winners. Because this golf league has crept into September George has been able to share his close calls regarding to weekly wins with Ryan…and the extra weeks have been advantageous for Ryan to jump into the City League lead…sorry Jon Walt. When there is a movie you want to know about especially if it’s a comedy ask George he’s probably seen it! Golfing with George although used to be slow has really sped up as he’s improved drastically over the years…just don’t let him or John Ames drive the cart.

THE MAGIC CARPET
This year Margie had a homemade seat cover that seemed to provide a boost for whomever road with her in her cart. Where can these be purchased? I think they could be a best-seller. Margie takes no nonsense her pace of play is unbelievable and a joy for anyone to be paired up with.

THE POTTY PUTTER
Ryan’s wife and son put their funds together to purchase him The Potty Putter this year which helped him get some much needed practice at unique times. Check out the ad online if you’re ever really bored it will provide you with some entertainment.

WHERE HAVE ALL THE COWBOYS GONE?
This season did lack a few of the “Usual Suspects,” where in the world is Brian McCord? There’s no golfer that could be get more disgusted with his self over a shot and still end up paring out holes. Gary Vance got the short end of the shtick this season, not sure if by choice or by the Queens orders but when players didn’t show up Gary got the bye, and it’s rough to get any points when you have a bye half the season. We did see some flashes of former league members this year as Bruce Garman and Sparky made some appearances.

The 2016 Season – By Ryan Page

The 2016 season begin with several players out due to injuries and missing some of the key players of past years. The league still had a strong character base and had some fairly new blood as well. I am usually optimistic (except for when it comes to my sports teams I’m a realest) so every year I tell myself, THIS IS YOUR YEAR! After the first several league weeks my results were poor and I was slightly discouraged, however I wasn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. In June I went on a short vacation and had a sub in place, however at the last hour he had to back out. I contacted the Queen and she said don’t worry I gotcha covered, I later came to find out what she meant by that was NO SUBS this year, show up or tough luck. Lesson learned I would make sure to make an appearance every other Wednesday for the season and it would take every single point to have a flying chance in heck to take this thing down.

Jon Walt Match (Round 1) – Jon Walt and I had a matchup early in the season and I was feeling pretty good about my game, although I was in the middle of the pack I had risen from the depths of the cellar. The top of the leader board had TBag$ and Jon at that time so this match could be a turning point to put me back on track as well tighten the gap for others in the league. When we got our scorecard it had Jon and I at an even handicap and right away I’m thinking I should be able to win if I play my A game and maybe I should really have to give him a few strokes. Jon jumps in my head and says out loud what I’m thinking, “This isn’t right, you’re going to crush me!” I kind of agreed with him although I was trying to let my ball be enough cocky for the both of us and keep a level head. We played the back and on the 10th hole (our 1st) I let Jon creep even more into my head when he made me putt about a 18”-24” gimme putt which I choked and missed because I was a little off guard, this took what should have been a halved hole and gave the full point to Jon. I came storming back and took hole #11 to even things at 1-1. Hole #12 is where I lost my head, it completely popped off! After losing my ball I was within a few inches once again a clear gimme and putting for a double-bogey, Jon already in with a winning score once again didn’t offer up the gimme. Looking back he may have been distracted by our groups slow and lethargic play as the next group was hot on our heels but I decided if he wasn’t going to gimme this putt which would have sped up play that I was going to take my friggin time with it and all putts, shots, etc going forward. I was going to try to get back in his head, I made the putt but this plan it backfired. Down only 2-1 I was still very much in this match but my focus wasn’t on golf and getting in my rhythm, sadly I focused on slowing my pace down to the pace of the other 2 players in our foursome which frustrated my Browns buddy Jon Walt, but ultimately didn’t enhance my game and Jon handed me an 8-2 loss that day. This loss was among one of the worst I have ever been handed and I felt that maybe I was destine to be a cellar dweller that year.

By mid-July my nemesis for this season Jon Walt was running away with the league and TBag$ had lost some ground as well. Hope of a league championship looked very bright for Jon Walt and looked bleak for all others. Did anyone see the way Steve Brown’s Son-in-law handles his driver, man big hitter? I thought maybe if I start scoring I can creep back into this race although everyone believed it was over. At our dinner at Damon’s the Queen mentioned extending our season due to the late start of injured players and the expected upcoming weather and all seemed to be in favor…except Jon Walt he knew that a longer season could put his large lead at risk. In early August we got a glimpse of the standings and there was a little hope Jon Walt still had a commanding double digit lead, however Donnie Dots was in 2nd and there I was from the middle of the pack up to 3rd and only a few points behind Donnie. I got hot and picked up much needed points with wins of 8-2, 7.5-2.5, 8-2 maybe even a 9-1 to round out the month of August. Now I have several runner-up and 3rd place finishes and it seems like I have turned it on a little bit too late rising from the middle of the pack to those positions but never having enough to win the league, will this be enough? Is Jon’s lead too much to overcome? The Queen wouldn’t release updated standings again until September.

September Scramble – The first week of September when the standings came out there Donnie and I were within striking distance of Jon. Today we would have a 3-man scramble and the 1st place teams players would pick up 12 points, the 2nd place team 6 points and the 3rd place team 3 points. I got teamed up with Larry and Helen and we struggled through the first 5 holes going 1 over and then getting it back but we finished strong and under par, I had to run to the Highland County Fair, but knew as long as Jon Walt’s crew didn’t win I had a chance. I found out that Jon’s team ended up at +1 on my way out as they struggled late. So you’re telling me there’s a chance!? I thought it would take -4 or -5 to win but when I showed up the following week there was an envelope with my name on it and we had gotten the victory thanks in part to an amazingly long putt by Helen on the last hole, ;P nice job;;). This win catapulted me into 1st place with a couple weeks still to be played, holy cow what a comeback.

Jon Walt Rematch (round 2) – Déjà vu? I had just taken the lead and Jon for the first time all season he was playing from behind. The match was once again on the back and the 10th hole started almost identically to the first match with Jon saying, “how’s it fair I have to give you a stroke”. I replied with I’ve been very inconsistent this year and haven’t scored well although I had still picked up big wins coming down the stretch, I also said I’m not gonna let you talk yourself into my head again, I’m going to keep calm and clinch this league championship today while it’s within my control. Hole 10 started eerily the same as well but this time my very short put was to win the hole not to halve the hole and the greens had just been aeriated. I said to myself take this 1st point, take control of this match, I hit a very good putt and it went right at the hole and then BUMP hit a aeriated divot and popped right of the hole, we split the first hole. I said to Jon this aeriation is a mess and we made a gentleman’s agreement to give each other any putt within the grip. From that point on whatever Jon did I just did a little better and on hole #16 where he had to give me a stroke, I pared it and won it outright anyways. I ended up winning the match 7.5-2.5 and putting a strangle hold on first place as this should have put me up by 8-10 points.

Final regular season Match vs The Queen – Last week I got to finish off my season against royalty as the Queen and I split 5-5 and had a great time playing with each other. I’m not sure how about how the Queen will be calculating the last week’s points as she kept making the comment you’re playing for dough to everyone and that we’ll understand next week. But barring some type of wild scoring I feel like I may be claiming my elusive 1st WCGL Championship next week at our finale! CHEERS TO A GREAT LEAGUE.

THE SPEECH
I want to first say that I am surprised that I won the league, I had been paying little attention (HA this is a slight mislead) I am really prepared for this… (I PULL OUT A LONG SCROLL & IT FALLS TO THE FLOOR WITH ALL OF THE PREVIOUS STORIES TO LOOK LIKE MY SPEECH COULD LAST DAYS) It all began on a Taco Tuesday, July 24th, 1979 when a baby was cut from his mother because he was upside down in the womb with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck a couple of times. It’s almost impossible to find any pictures from his birthday but his pops said he looked like he came into the world after just getting in a fight. The doctor’s all warned the parents that more then likely their child would be mentally handicapped or at least mildly retarded…and here I am today!

I could end my acceptance speech with something motivational like, “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up,” words of the great Jimmy V. However my wife Carly worked with me for hours on the perfect conclusion.

DOUCHE BAG, DOUCHE BAG
F*@%, F*@%, FU@K
I’M A DOUCHE BAG!

THANKS, RYAN

2016 WSOP Championship Game and Season Review

This article was written by Ryan Page…

The Thunder Rolls!  WIN IN VEGAS!!!

Brad West – 2016 Championship Winner!

Congratulations to this year’s championship winner Brad West!  I think this package is well deserved as he won 3 out of our 7 tournaments this season including the most important one in the winner take all championship after being edged out by the smallest of margins for the regular season title.  Tim Williams was the 2016 Wilmington WSOP League Champion and was awarded with a commemorative poster before the Championship Tournament; I will be giving Brad a Championship poster award as well in the upcoming weeks and will also present a copy of these awards for Pat Brown as I believe he wants to post in The Garage!? Maybe he can create a WSOP League or local poker wall of fame?   Best of luck to our league representatives Tim Williams #TheLoadDeliverer and Brad West #TheQuietStorm in their WSOP events, hopefully they both run good and deep and bring back a large cash for us to rake 20% of the winnings.  To find out more about how The Quiet Storm blew away the competition read below, please read the WSOP Week 6 / Regular Season Wrap Up for the story on how Tim won the regular season title and his package to Vegas and the WSOP.

 

Franks N Beans – The Meal of Champions

This year’s WSOP championship began with a wonderful meal of food!  Specifically Steak & Chicken cooked perfectly with a couple of solid sides which included potatoes as well macaroni and cheese.  The grill was on fire early as Russ and I worried that Pat was burning everything; he said no no no I’m just searing them, and he did a fine job.  Thanks Pat for cooking up some good meat! Also a shout out to Pat’s Mrs, Laura we appreciate you doing the shopping and getting us some chips, cookies, candy etc. to go with the dinner.  Also Laura kept it a little bit safer by preventing everyone from having to bring a weapon (steak knife) to Pat’s when she purchased some cutlery.  I think someone may have brought a peanut butter pie?!  Now let me tell you about the potatoes; roasted red potatoes cut into wedges baked with a little olive oil and freshly ground pepper and salt, next a seductive layer of ranch, bacon (individually cut into perfectly sized micro squares by hand) and chopped green onions are mixed in with the potatoes, finally they’re finished by shredding a block of cheddar over the top, my mouth is watering.  Mary Ann not only brought her pony tails along with other wardrobe distractions to tilt the boys, she brought in a dish of macaroni and cheese.  You think that would be enough but Mary Ann added the following; mac n cheese, crackers n cheese, ham n cheese sandwiches, cream cheese salami bites, cheesy puffs, a royale with cheese, cheesecake, shrimp scampi, shrimp gumbo, shrimp n grits…and that’s about all I know about that. 

 

Off To the Races – The Horse Race

Traditionally the WSOP Championship has a late start due to the festivities that precede it including a nice dinner and the horse race, tonight wasn’t any different it would be around 7:45 before play started. CASINO RY-ELLE put odds on all the horses as well putting together betting sheets with each player’s stats, averages and starting stacks prior to play.  Below I have listed each “horses” odds and the winning bid on that horse.  All horses accepted half of their own action this year so winnings were split 50/50 between the win, place and show “horse” along with each horse’s owner.  As you will see below Tim & Robert decide to get a horse or two in the race although they were not in the field, Zach opted out of buying any as he said he prefers to bet on the ponies!  The total pot for the race was $344 which made the pay-outs $172 for 1^st, $104 for 2^nd and $68 for 3^rd, the horse race always adds a little excitement gives a purpose to 2^nd and 3^rd places and helps keep owners with a horse in the race interested throughout the evening especially if they themselves have been eliminated. One thing is for certain if you were a horse you didn’t want Deadwood’s dysfunctional ownership group to have a piece of you or the writing was on the wall.  Cooper was the mystery bidder of the evening as he sent me 2 horses (Jeff & Brad) that he wanted to bid on and he gave me a max of $62.50.  The bidding for The Quiet Storm was fast and furious and quickly got up to $60, in my Cooper voice for the 1^st time on this horse I bid $62 and Jeff stared into my soul and I believe he thought “I don’t know what Coops ceiling, Page is kind of an @$$&0!# should I bid again?” and then he Jeff said $64 which was above Coopers cap and took down the eventually champion for a profit of $54 per share or $108 overall.  Nice bid Jeff.

 

HORSE	CASINO RY-ELLE ODDS	WINNING BID / OWNER
Deadwood – Ryan Page	24/1	$20 / Robert
The Button – Scott Moss	15/2 (7.5/1)	$22 / Clint
TBag$ – Tony Baker	11/1	$14 / Phil
The Buzzsaw – Doug Cooper	10/1	$32 / Ryan
Sweet Thang / Mary Ann – Rhonda Rutherford	9.75/1	$20 / Pat
The Brick Schmidt House – Pat Brown	69/7.5 (9.2/1)	$26 / Tim
The Steam Roller – Jeff Honnerlaw	69/8 (8.63/1)	$24 / Coop
Big Blue – Clint Goodman	17/3 (5.67/1)	$24 / Tim
The Professor – Russ Kincaid	5/1	$28 / Phil
The River Assassin – Tradan Chase	9/2 (4.5/1)	$20 / Ryan
The Dream Crusher – Phil Bayless	7/3 (2.5/1)	$50 / Tim
The Quiet Storm – Brad West	7/2 (3.5/1)	$64 / Jeff

 

Players Gonna Play, Dealers Gonna Deal

A BIG THANKS to our championship dealers Zach, Tim and Robert!  This threesome dealt all hands and kept the players from having to worry about this throughout the long evening.  We got Robert in the dealer’s seat early and often as we knew he was leaving early and slowly eased Tim into a dealer chair as I expected he had a long night ahead of him.  I gave Zach the option of relief late in the evening but he stuck it out and I was grateful that for the first time this season I did not spend a large portion of the night dealing. After passing out the incremental portion of player’s stack, action got underway in the 2016 Wilmington WSOP Championship where 1 of the 12 players would cash in on a trip to Las Vegas.  We voted to go down to the final table at 10 after we had voted to go to the final table at 9, it was awesome! J  After the initial vote Pat decided he wanted a chance to plead his case for the final table at 10 and “That’s how you do it, that’s how you debate!”

 

Early Action – The Professor Came to Play

The Professor wanted to create a wild image early as he opened the first pot of the night with blinds at 25/50 for a raise to 250 in early position.  All players folded and then Russ rolled over Ole Buddy (6 2 of diamonds) to show the table that he indeed came to play tonight and was planning on educating the league on winning.

 

The Quiet Storm and The Steam Roller get into a big pot early; from the other table I hear the words ALL IN come about halfway through the first level or 10 minutes into the tourney.  Jeff folds after brief consideration (really trying to gage the potential storm) and Brad agrees to show one time as the board looked dangerous with a flush getting there along with an ace and couple of queens…Brad shows pocket rockets for aces full and picks up a relatively large pot for the first blind level.

The Brick Schmidt House takes down the first sizable pot at Table 2 when The Professor reps a flush, which did not work because Pat actually had the aforementioned flush. This was a decent swing early as Russ lost a few thousand chips and Pat jumped into the early table chip lead. 

 

 

Crickets & Dirty Talk

After a great dinner and a horse race full of discussion and laughter the things got serious.  Deadwood Page took a few comedic shots at the crowd early and was met with crickets as either everyone was too tense to catch his quick and charming whit or they all thought he was a ginormous tool.  The discussion of the evening to a dive as a “bag of di@ks” was brought and a player not to be named (Because I don’t want people to know one of his weaknesses) made the comment that if they see that bag they go running. Phil sarcastically yet confidently commented, “Why I love being sodomized!”  This was met with some big laughs as well as a few cringes but it helped relinquish a little of the tension in the air. 

 

There’s a Buzzzzzzzz (saw) in the Air

Cooper had an event that he had to attend before the Championship and was the sole late arrival of the evening as he came in around the beginning of level 2.  Cooper had Tim help get him some of those potatoes and cut his steak into baby pieces so that he could eat his grub while snapping people off.  The Buzzsaw was accompanied by a little reserved 10 year old buddy in a bottle who quickly had him entertaining the crowd.  When Coop finished his meal and after a couple drinks he turned and looked at the food table and said, “Who brought peanut butter pie?”  Well Mr. Cooper that was actually half of a piece of chicken, although I’ll give it to you from a distance it was the perfect pie shape and from a distance looked like the right shade to be peanut butter pie.  As the evening drug on we got a little slap happy and everyone was talking, joking and thinking about the peanut butter pie.

 

Trip 9’s vs Trip 9’s

Blinds at 50/100 and a large pot developed between The Quiet Storm and The River Assassin.  The flop was 993 and after a harmless 2 fell on the turn Trey & Brad got all their chips in the middle with Brad having Mr. Chase covered.  Would Brad hold on and deliver the first elimination of the championship?  It was not to be as The River Assassin didn’t provide a big blow to The Quiet Storm by sucking out for the win, however a 3 fell and he pulled out a chop!  Both players now played 9’s full of 3’s and The River Assassin would survive…for the time being.

 

Chips Ahoy!

While everyone was avoiding being the first elimination of the evening TBag$ started poking fun at Pork Chop aka Deadwood after Page made a comment about moving the antes away from him.  Tony said that Page was, “The most likely to STEAL the chips” if the remained in front of him because he was the shortest stack, Russ chimed in that he was, “most likely to win the chips because he was still in the hand/big blind.”  Russ did end up winning the pot and then going full on crazy confused again when he was in the big blind the next hand and Coop put a 500 out for his big.  Russ starts trying to figure out his ante, small blind it’s like some Got Damn Magic Trick the way he confuses the table because he’s yelling at Cooper about having too much in the BB and he has 200 of his 100 small blind out, where did his ante go?  I don’t know I don’t know, Coop you got too much out, why are these chips different colors?  Peanut Butter Pie anyone?  Abracadabra Russ you are only 100 and your ante has been paid! Holy $&!#!!!  A few hands after this when Tony and Pat were blind vs blind there was another moment of slight confusion as Pat made a strong turn bet of 200 (min) and TBag$ eyed Pat’s stack for like 35 minutes (really a couple minutes but it felt like a couple levels) and finally Tony realized it was on him and commented, “IS THAT a bet of 200?” The bet was so small Tony didn’t even see it and was on hold for a river card which was not to come as he finally said, “really 200???” and mucked.  Pat was getting some serious vibe that Tony was contemplating a big move and got a lil’ sweat.

 

FLAMES Deadwood’s Horses Go Down in Flames 1,2,3

Deadwood had a piece of Trey and Cooper along with himself in the championship horse race, Page’s 2016 curse would now be on all players he owned tonight as all three would be eliminated in order before any other eliminations.  The complete field made it to the 150/300 with a 25 ante level, which is the longest we had went all season without an elimination but this was understandable because of the increased chip stakes. Trey was the first to be eliminated although The Quiet Storm nearly eliminated him 4 levels early this time he would finish the job and no river would save The River Assassin.  The elimination hand was not witnessed or reported to me, when I asked how it went down I received an anonymous quote from a player that witnessed the hand; Me: “What Happened?” Anonymous: “Brad’s play was retarded!” It was like pulling teeth to get that detailed inside info but regardless Tray Chase was eliminated in 12^th place and everyone else was 1 spot closer to a championship.  

 

THE CLASSIC RACE – You see a lot of flips when you watch tournament poker but it’s not an ideal spot to be in early in a tournament when blinds are relatively low, but sometimes you just can’t avoid it.  Just moments after Trey was eliminated Cooper found his stack dwindling away along with his 10 year old reserve buddy in a flask and after a raise by The Dream Crusher, Phil Bayless had no choice but to stick all his chips in the middle with 2150 left, Bayless called and the most classic of the classic races was on; Buzzsaw Doug with QQ vs The Dream Crusher Phil’s AK.  With a King on the flop of k65 Cooper had one foot out the door and when the turn paired the board twice with a 6 and another 5 Cooper said adios amigos in 11^th place.  Tables then combined into a single table per the whacky pre-tournament vote and this was great for short stacks but would also create a long dry spell before another elimination would take place.

 

Will Anyone Ever Go Out?

I made the comment before the tournament that this could go all night due to the extension of late blind levels to 20 minutes when they are usually reduced to 15 after level 9, nearly double the regular season chips in play and because there was going to be no one just lying down because of what was at stake.  After Buzzsaw was eliminated in level 6 (150/300 with a 25 ante) there was a long dry spell of eliminations and it seemed like anyone who was at risk would somehow survive.  The following are several hands from this time that had us wondering if anyone would ever bow out of the Championship?

 

MADDEN OF POKER COMMENTATING – Bayless made some comments that were pretty understood principles of poker and Tbag$ jumped on him and called him the John Madden of poker commentating!  The following are not actual comments but I think Phil’s comments were viewed like he said, “Ha He H H Here Here’s a Guy, when he bets and everyone folds, he he wins the pot” similar to the impressionist that does Madden and says, “Here’s a guy that when he runs he actually goes faster.”

 

HONNERLAW SURVIVES! The Steam Roller had 9 lives and changing his nickname to Sneaky Lil Kitty Cat was seriously considered.  With blinds creeping up to 250/500 with a 50 ante and Honnerlaw UTG he shipped all in for his final 1650, The Dream Crusher raised to 3650 to isolate and then Deadwood Page shipped all-in over top with a short stack of 4250 which Bayless had no choice but to call putting Page and Honnerlaw at risk.  Jeff turns over 22, Bayless AK and Page AK.  There will be no dream crushing on this hand as the ducks quack loud and clear when the 2 hits the flop of 293 Phil and Page are drawing dead on the turn of a 10 and Jeff more then triples up to over 6000 chips while Page is left with just 2600.

 

Blinds now at 300/600 with a 75 ante just moments after the previous hand Deadwood finds the action folded to him in late position (still 10 handed) and sees an Ace so he ships it all-in again. The Quiet Storm who was just quietly collecting chips and becoming a storm out of control called as the price was right, he almost didn’t have to look.  Page shows A5 and Brad K9 the flop was great for The Storm as it came K9Q with 2 hearts giving Brad a commanding lead, the turn was a 7 of hearts giving The Storm a sweat as Page’s 5 of hearts was the only heart held.  The river was a miracle 4 of hearts stealing the pot for Deadwood and giving him over 5000 chips.

 

MAN DOWN!

There had been over 4 levels of 10 handed play and then it happened, Page’s 3^rd leg (horse) gets swept away by the flood created by The Quiet Storm in the following hand. Blinds are getting to be a big chunk of the short stacks at 400/800 with a 100 ante, Deadwood has just 3300 left and is about to hit the blinds and decides to ship with the bachelor hand Jack-King off suit and gets protection although I’m not sure you need that with the bachelor hand?  The Quiet Storm (QS) Brad West raises to 8000 all others fold and Brad shows AK.  The flop brings more hope to Page then the last all-in he survived as it is 10 Q K and he had top pair bad kicker but as picked up 7 outs vs 3 outs with an open end straight draw.  The turn and river bring on the flood with 2 2 ducks on the pond and Deadwood has ended this nightmare of a season with a 10^th place finish in the championship.

 

CHERNOBYL – A 3 HAND MELT DOWN

Blinds are eating away at all players by this point and anyone’s fortunes could change on the turn of a card, level 11 blinds 500/1000 with a 100 ante.  The Brick Schmidt House gets it in great in several spots but is sucked out on and next thing you know Pat’s stack has a mega melt down.  The first of these hands was a blind on blind hand with Tbag$, Pat puts Tony all-in for Tbag$ last 3500 and with 1000 and already in Tony calls and tables Q8, Pat is in a great spot with KK.  The flop comes Q 9 6 giving hope to Tbag$ the turn brings a 10 making a 7,8 or Q good for Tony all other cards are a win for Pat, the river crushes Pat’s soul as an 8 lands on the board giving Tony some breathing room but taking a chunk out of The Brick Schmidt House.  The next hand action folds to Pat on the button and he ships all in after peeking at an Ace, Pat had a similar size stack to Tony and Honnerlaw in the big blind covered and this would pick him up 2400 of his recently lost chips back up.  Tony folds and The Steam Roller (Sneaky lil kitty cat) ginger snap calls him with 55, Pat looks at his whole cards and has A2 the board comes 672, 8, J and Jeff survives again while Pat falls down to less then 3000 in chips in just those past couple of hands he has lost over 75% of his stack.  Pat has seen enough and although action is not on him he commits to going all-in blind for 2700 after he has ante’d.   After all players acting before Pat see this they fold and action is to Tbag$ who just calls with 4400 behind, The Button (Moss) currently in the small blind ships all-in and has Tony covered, Tony calls.  Pat shows 48, Tony 66 and Moss AJ of hearts; Flop KQ5, turn 5 of hearts giving Moss flush draw outs along with his straight draw and two overs but Tony would snatch the pot win the river was a 5 giving Tbag$ a boat and completing The Brick Schmidt House melt down.  Pat Brown was eliminated in 9^th place.

The Button Dodges Storm

Blinds still at 500/1000 The Quiet Storm limps from early position, The Button raises to 3000 from the blind and The Storm tags along.  The flop Q 8 2, The Button (Moss) is first to act and leads out for 5k, QS Brad deliberates briefly and then goes all-in with his large stack, Moss calls his last 3900 off and shows KQ and Brad 89 suited the board bricks out for Brad and Moss doubles up and is now one of the larger stacks in play behind The Quiet Storm but nearly even with The Dream Crusher and Professor.  Before the blinds go up again The Steam Roller who is very short stacked, roughly 2 big blinds, doubles through Tbag$ to survive yet another at risk all-in hand.

 

The Sweetest Thang

Mary Ann seemed stranded on an island without out any cards all night and her final cry for help came with blinds at 600/1200 she moved all-in for her last 1000 in chips with A4 and was met with 4 calls.  All players checked the flop and then The Quiet Storm took a shot a the pot on the turn and his bet was matched by Big Blue (Clint).  The river completed many draws with a third spade and after a check from Brad, Clint moved all-in and Brad wisely laid down his hand and Clint showed Rhonda the bad news as he had flushed her dreams of a winning the WSOP package on the river.  Rhonda was eliminated in 8^th.

 

The Button Flattens The Steam Roller

Blinds just moved to 800/1600 with a 200 ante and The Steam Roller has to make a move as he pushes all-in for his remaining 3300, this was followed by Moss moving all-in over top for about 10k more, the other players folded. Moss showed AQ of spades and Jeff 10 9 of hearts, Moss comments to Jeff, “I like your hand.” The flop changes that as it is AJ2 the K on the turn had Jeff dead to a Q for the straight but the river is a 10 making a straight for Moss.  Jeff is eliminated in 7^th place, had a Q hit the river his nickname would have been officially Sneaky Lil KiTTy cAt.

 

Blue Falls

Clint Goodman, fresh off a deep run but disappointing finish in the HPO, raises from early position and The Quiet Storm moves all-in from a blind.  Big Blue (Clint) having 4k already invested and not much more behind is forced to flip for his tournament life and makes the call with 88, Brad turns over a couple of big cards AJ.  The flop was A96 and Clint stood up, the turn a Q and river a near hit but a 7 not the necessary 8.  Clint is eliminated in 6^th place.

 

That’s Weird!?

When play reached 5 handed play Tbag$ and The Button played the following hand in the blinds after Tony completed the small he was left with just 4600 behind and Moss decided to check the big.  The flop was K55 after a check / check the turn came a 2 followed by a couple more checks and then another 2.  Tony looked like he wanted to bet the river, however the only bet he had was all-in so he finally settled on a check, Moss then placed a 3800 bet which would leave Tony with just 800 if he lost the pot he finally folded and said he couldn’t call he played the board.  The Button replied, “that’s weird, I did too.” Someone commented what would you have done if he went all in for 800 more and Scott said that would have been the best bluff ever because he had nothing and would have had to fold?  I don’t believe that though as I think he would have put the small blind call out just to see what Tbag$ had.  Tbag$ would go on to win a few pots later in the level and get back out of small stack danger.

 

Chip Count Update

When blinds increased to 1000/2000 with a 300 ante we got “official” chip counts from the final 5: They were Brad West – 33200, Russ Kincaid 31400, Scott Moss 21400, Tony Baker 14600, Phil Bayless 11800.

 

Baker Gets Cookin’ But Flames Out

With 4500 in the pot from blinds and antes before any action Tbag$  picks up 9000 with back to back all-in showing 99 and then AK folds from the field.  Tony is moving his stack up while Russ stumbled in a few hands and his stack fell down to the 20k range.  After picking up some blinds by moving all-in Tbag$ folds his blinds and is at around 17k to start the hand which he decides to play a little differently by limping in middle position.  The Quiet Storm completes the small blind and Mr. Dream Crusher checks his option.  The flop comes JK8 and after the blinds check Tony moves all-in and is called by The Quiet Storm.  Tbag$ shows AA and Brad a K4, do you hear the thunder? BOOM a King on the turn gives brad a commanding lead and the river 3 brings Tony’s run to an end.  Tbag$ is eliminated in 5^th place and The Quiet Storm takes a massive chip lead over the remaining players in the field, Brad now has well over half the chips in play.

 

The Button’s Small Blind Raise Leads to His Fall

Blinds at 1200/2400 with a 400 ante Scott Moss raises to 6000 and The Quiet Storm puts Scott all-in and with just about the same amount behind The Button makes the call and tables Q9 of spade to battle Brad’s A10.  The board misses everyone J6625 and Moss’s bid for back-to-back WSOP league championship wins is over as he is eliminated in 4^th place.

 

Win, Place, Show

The top 3 horses were in the money and the only thing left to decide would be who would Win, who would Place and who would Show.  Three handed Russ makes a nice sized raise to 8k and is called by The Quiet Storm in the big blind, the flop came KJ2 turn 8 and river J the players checked the healthy pot all the way down and Russ showed 33 which was struck down by Brads 44.  This pot gave the storm firm control of the chips with about 75k of the 112k chips in play.

 

Madden talks The Storm into a fold. Bayless moves all-in preflop from the button for 16800 and Brad West tanks in the Big Blind.  After a few moments Madden re-appears as Bayless says, “I promise you’re behind.”  The Storm says he’s not so sure but finally lays it down.  Bayless says Quack Quack and shows a pair of deuces, Brad says, “We were Racing!” Mr. Obvious?

 

No Soup for The Dream Crusher

Several all-ins were met with little resistance as players took they’re chances by shipping into the blinds pre-flop and the blinds folded.  Blinds 1500/3000 with a 500 ante The Dream Crusher then raises on the button to 9k with only 7500 behind, The Quiet Storm is rumblin’ and pushes a stack out to the middle putting Bayless all-in, he calls and shows Q9 of spades, Brad has A2 of hearts and looks to elimate a 2^nd player fighting him with the Q9 of spades.  The flop leaves little hope for Phil as it comes A8K and the 3 on the turn seals the deal as a meaningless K is rivered.  Phil Bayless is eliminated in 3^rd place which gets him some cash from the horse race but ends his hopes of a championship.  Give it up for Mr. Consistent as he was always in contention for a win but didn’t get one until week 6 or could have been sitting out this one as the regular season champion.

 

Heads Up For the Championship

Just last week Russ was in this same position, win and your have locked up a WSOP package but little to show for a loss.  Last week Russ entered heads up play against Phil about even in chips, this time he had a lot of work to do as he was up against a 7-1 chip deficit.  Beginning heads up play Russ had 16,500 to Brads 95,900.  Russ looks down at A10 in the big blind and to his dismay Brad gives him a walk, deja-vu next time Russ is in the BB he peeks at A10 but this time Brad limps, Russ shoves all-in and Brad makes the call with J9.  The Quiet Storm is ready to explode if he can suck out here but Russ is set for a double up and to bring the chip deficit down.  The Quiet Storm hits the flop as it comes 9 8 3, turning the tables on The Professor and now Russ must connect with his Ace, 10 or make runner runner straight.  The turn is a 2 and the river a 5 and The Quiet Storm has claimed his 3^rd and most important victory of the season.  Russ is eliminated in 2^nd place and had a very nice season as well, so close twice but just couldn’t get the win either time.  Congratulations to Brad West and best of luck in Vegas!

 

Winning Horses

Win – The Quiet Storm $172 / $86 per share – Owner Jeff Honnerlaw/BRAD WEST

Place – The Professor $104 / $52 per share – Owner Phil Bayless/RUSS KINCAID

Show – The Dream Crusher $68 / $34 per share – Owner Tim Williams/PHIL BAYLESS

*The Horse is shown in CAPS as each horse owned half of themselves

 

Wilmington WSOP League 2017 – A look into the future after a brief look back

Once again I want to thank everyone that participated in the 2016 edition of The Wilmington WSOP League and let you know I will be using feedback and looking into making a few tweaks to improve the league for next season.  Since the beginning of The Wilmington WSOP League in late 2007 and beginning with the 2008 WSOP our league has paid 19 WSOP small event buy-ins for local players; 2008 (2), 2009 (3), 2010 (4), 2011 (2), 2012 (2), 2013 (1), 2014 (1), 2015 (2) and 2016 (2).  This has given several of us a chance to play in larger buy-in poker tournaments that we may have otherwise never had exposure to.  We have had several small cashes in events; however I believe the play in the league is well above-average and we are due for a large cash!  In addition to the 19 paid WSOP packages there have been additional monies paid out and Vegas trips or chopped packages resulting in several others getting a vacation to Vegas to rail-bird our players.  We have had several groups go out to support our players and had a great time and some have even paid or won other satellites into events to play with the league winners. All-in-all the WSOP League has created friendships and given us an arena to work-on our tournament play as the WSOP League is a different animal than the local weekly games.

 

BRING A FRIEND – Looking forward to next year’s WSOP League a hope that we can retain the group of 13 we had this year; Bayless has formulated a plan to double the size for next year with his bring a friend philosophy.  If we each can bring or add one player to the league we will be at 26 next year and with some other changes possibly in ways to improve the pot we could end up with 4 to 5 packages next year!?  I would be very happy if we could get the league back to the 20 player range as this will guarantee 3 packages and make it highly likely that we can get it to 4 packages.

 

TWEAKIN’ – I am looking at making small changes to better the league, of course there will be some issues that I will put up to vote at Week 1 of The 2017 WSOP League, however in the meantime if you have any ideas please email me at kmonkiez79@yahoo.com or text me at 937-218-6979 so that I can take them into consideration.  Issues I am currently considering is re-buy options how can we improve this to add to the pot but not be egregious to some of the players who don’t like and rarely take advantage of re-buys. Can re-buys be used to first break this will put money in pot, 2 vs just 1 for the regular season?  Transferable with a transfer fee, this could benefit a non-rebuyer but could add to confusion and possibly cause chaos? Point chart is there a better option then the current formula?  Subs and attendance requirements to play in the championship?  Will certain players be required to pay in full if they want to play week 1 while others who have not abused it can still pay in several installments over the first 3 tourneys? Starting stacks, tournament structure are always reviewed and compared with WSOP changes on a year to year basis.  Weekly food? Etc.   

 

WSOP 2017 SCHEDULE – We have had several years that we started the WSOP league in October or November of the previous year to space things out a bit and we have varied anywhere from 5-14 weeks.  With a bigger player field the less time commitment is in all likelihood better as it’s easier to manage a 6-8 week league over a few months over a league that could have the same or more regular season meetings over a longer time period i.e. 6 months as we don’t know what may be going on that far in the future?! That being said I am looking at the following schedule for 2017 if the shorter late January to early May is preferred.

 

Potential 2017 WSOP Schedule

Week 1 – January 23^rd or (weather make-up date) January30^th

Week 2 – February 13^th

Week 3 – February 27^th

Week 4 – March 13^th

Week 5 – March 27^th

Week 6 – April 10^th

Week 7 – April 24^th

CHAMPIONSHIP – *April 29^th or *May 6^th or May 1st

*The proposed championship date is a Saturday, this way it gives the hosts and me a little bit more time to prep on the day of the tournament.  Having the tournament on a Saturday also would give players an earlier start so that we don’t have to play until 2am on a weekday?  I feel that if everyone knows the championship is on a Saturday coming into the league everyone would be able to reserve that day for this tournament on their schedule? 

 

Thanks for reading my weekly rants, it really has been a great season in spite of my horrible play, I promise that I will be back in title contention form next season and will give all challengers a run for their money. 

 

The 2016 Wilmington WSOP Donkey – “Deadwood”

 

2016 WSOP Week 6 Update

This article was written by Ryan Page…

Phil #DreamCrusher Says, “NO SOUP FOR YOU!”

Phil Bayless – Winner, Week 6

Phil was out to crush some dreams tonight as he finally realized Deadwood’s (Page) math was correct and he was just barely mathematically eliminated from a shot at the regular season title prior to Week 6 play. Phil ran over the competition tonight and was really gunning for that extra $10 he accomplished both goals as he eliminated The Professor (Russ Kincaid) after a long heads up battle and with the elimination crushed The Professor’s regular season title hopes.  After grinding Russ down very slowly, Russ finally was forced to make a stand with K10 pre-flop vs The Dream Crushers AQ, the flop brought more drama as the night was full of it with an all spade flop of A56 giving Phil top pair but Russ had the only spade with his 10.  The turn added straight outs for The Professor as the J of clubs pealed off.  The red King on the river just wasn’t enough for Russ and Phil claims a victory in the final tournament of the regular season.  After the nights results were official Mr. Deadwood calculated the final overall standings…Who would be heading to Vegas as the 2016 Wilmington WSOP Regular Season Champ?

Shuffle Up and Deal – Thoughts on this years league and how we can improve

Tonight’s action started with a debate on table draw since Table 1 consisted of only one contender, a long shot, Clint Goodman and Table 2 had the other 4 in the running including the long shot Russ and the three biggest favorites to win Brad, Trey and Tim.  The seating assignments are purely randomized by the computer every week of the regular season and in the championship tournament and although someone may get a bad draw it’s just as if we drew cards, I don’t feel we can “set up” a contenders and pretenders table as that would truly be unfair for Week 6 or the final week of a regular season as it is the only week that the scenarios really present themselves.  I know we have had debate about seat assignments in the past and that is why we went to the computer generated plan to eliminate any collusion, collaboration or players trying to sit with or away from a particular player.

We discussed some things we plan on looking at before setting up next years league that we may be able to improve upon including the points system, re-buy rules, final tournament starting stacks, etc.  I will be looking into alternative point systems, however I do like that this system points an emphasis on winning!?  We discussed selling re-buys, letting re-buys be available up until the 1st break and the number of re-buys available to players.  This years championship tournament big stack will have 2300 more then the small stack at the beginning of play, is that a big enough advantage?  We will look into staggering stacks again next year so that the small stack starts with the normal stack and depending on the number of players each place above that will receive some set number of chips above that i.e. 10th – 5k, 9th – 5.5k, 8th – 6k and so on.  If you have any feedback you’d like to share please feel free to email me at kmonkiez79@yahoo.com.

WEEK 6 Recapping the drama, big hands & eliminations

WTF are you guys doing, playing for?  That’s what The Dream Crusher, Phil Bayless, said that people would most likely be asking him all night, but just in case the scenarios weren’t 100% he wanted to win and let the chips fall where they may.  The Brick Schmidt House, Pat Brown, had people wondering WTF early on as he tried to get The Load Deliver, Tim Williams off a hand early in the evening.  I was not at this table but I understand that the flop came 8910 and the turn a J river paired 8’s and Pat bet every street with 79 for a flopped pair and turned straight but when the dust settled and he shoved all in on the river Tim showed down a full house and eliminated Pat in the first blind level.  Pat with nuttin’ but chips to play for hit the house for a 2nd bullet and sweetened the Pot dropping a third of a Dom in with the re-buy.  That had several players saying WTF, but Pat would get to play for a long time and would put pressure to Russ and Tim as they attempted to jump over Brad and take down the regular season title.

BLUE you’re my boy!?  Big Blue (Clint) was the only contender coming into the night with a re-buy but was not able to capitalize on this to help his long odds of a regular season championship in the 1^st blind level.  Clint didn’t have too many opportunities and wisely kept his $35 re-buy money in his wallet, but was unable to get any traction after the re-buy level and was the first casualty of the evening out in 13^th place after the following elimination hand with The Dream Crusher (Phil).  Clint and Phil get all of Clint’s shorter stack in after a 6 on the turn which have Phil Aces and 6s vs Clints Aces with a 5 kicker.  Clint was eliminated by his hand and the Dream Crusher Phil did what he came to do, crushing dreams on the 1^st and last eliminations of Week 6.

Welcome to Table 1 Coop!  The Buzzsaw joined our table as Clint was eliminated to even the tables out at 6 each and upon arriving was put to the test after a flop of 245 with the 45 of hearts he raised Deadwoods flop bet from 400 to 1500, Page immediately shoved in for a little over 4000 and the buzzsaw missed an opportunity to snap one off when he folded Jacks face up.  Page showed 23 of hearts for a flopped open-ended straight flush draw and pair of deuces…the rabbit showed no improvement and Page was indeed glad Cooper laid it down.  The buzzsaw had another run at a big pot with JJ again as he raised pre flop and then get all in after a flop of 873 with Sweet Thang (Rhonda) aka Mary Ann who had flopped a set of 7s and doubled up leaving Coop with just a few hours of antes left.

The River Assassin (Trey) was drawing dead before the river leaving him with no hope for a river miracle and eliminating one of the regular season leaders early and knocking him out of the running for the 1^st Vegas package.  After making a big all-in call early with 10 10 vs The Quiet Storms K5 of diamonds and flopped flush draw on a Q high board, Trey had The Quiet Storm on the ropes and at risk, however a diamond on the turn gave Brad the flush and left Trey with just 1500 in chips.  Trey then was eliminated after getting his AK all-in preflop vs JJ and the J high flop all but ended it, the blank on the turn confirm Trey’s 12^th place finish in week 6.

The Quiet Storm plays to win the game, unfortunately he sputtered out early for the second week in a row putting his destiny in the hands of Russ and Tim as his other competitors for the title had already been eliminated.  After picking up some chips from Trey in the hand above, Brad soon found himself short and was all in with QJ vs The Professors A5 the board bricked out until a 5 hit the river, but this was just salt in the wound as Brad now would have to wait hours to find out if he had backed into the regular season title or would have to prepare to bring the rain to the championship tournament next week.  Brad was eliminated in 11^th opening up the door for Russ as now a win and Tim finishing anywhere beyond 3^rd would lock up a trip to Vegas.  The Load Deliverer was delighted as now a 2^nd place finish guarantees him the regular season title or a 3^rd and Russ failing to win also accomplished a regular season win.

FINAL TABLE

Move Over Pork Chop

After Brad’s elimination we combined into a final table of 10 players. When Deadwood (Page) was trying to see the other end of the table and the chips placed in the pot by The Steam Roller he leaned over Bayless and got reprimanded by The Dream Crusher, MOVE OVER PORK CHOP!  The crowd went wild with laughter as Page explained he couldn’t see if the chips were 100s for a call or 500s for a raise as the light shined on the chips awkwardly.  Page and Bayless then came to an understanding that Page could get up on him as long as he didn’t look down his card chute.

After 3 of the 5 contenders for the regular season title went out 13, 12, and 11 the tables combined and 3 players still had title hopes Brad (11^th Place), Tim and Russ.  TBag$ (Tony) was just in the garage to pick up a few more chips for the final.  After a flop of 10 10 3 with 2 spades and a bet from The Steam Roller (Jeff) Tony got it all in with A5 of spades for the nut flush draw versus Jeff’s Q3 for a flopped 2 pair and failed to improve as a non-spade 9 and 7 fell on the following streets eliminating TBag$ in 10^th place.  The hand before the hand is often the one that breaks a player and this was the case for TBag$ as the monster hand prior breathed life into the Professors ran at the regular season title and smashed TBag$ stack.   Blinds at 100/200 with a 25 ante – The hand before the hand started with a raise to 700 by Tim Williams from early position and called by Page in late position and the blinds both called and a pot was born.  The flop came 325 with a couple of hearts and the blinds checked to Tim who lead out 700 at the pot which was quickly called by the other 3 players in the hand.  The turn came a K and TBag$ lead out at the pot with a half-pot sized bet which was followed quickly be an ALL IN from The Professor. Deadwood and the Load Deliverer ducked out and Tony called with the K6 of hears for top pair and a flush draw, Russ showed K3 for two pair with 1 card to come Tony needed the board to pair 5’s hit his 6 or any heart but the river was a blank 9 of clubs and Tony was put on the short stack.

The chip juggling Russ attempts to call pre flop? During the previous hand when Russ crippled Tony we had one of the most entertaining moments of the year as Russ juggled chips back and forth trying to figure out how to make the call from the big blind.  It was like who’s on 1st?  half the call then pulling back all of his blind then putting in a full call on top of the half of call while juggling chips and his little neat stacks crumbling to the felt.  Sweet Thang got a great giggle out of this as most of the table looked on in disbelief of the time Russ was having handling his stack, it was similar looking to a deer in headlights or watching The Other Woman (Caroline) play in the league last week as she constantly looked like a first timer with her slow rolls and trying to figure out how to play live again after months of online play where, “The computer takes care of it all.”

Slow playing a hand into a loser

Pat Brown flopped a set of 7’s on a A87 flop, the pre flop action had a raise and 2 calls.  The flop went check check check and as did the turn after a 2 of hears fell putting 2 hearts on board, the river was the 3 of hearts and Tim lead out a decent sized bet at the pot which was called by Pat and his set, Tim turned over J10 of hears delivering the bad news that he had let Tim get there with runner runner flush.  Pat did lose the minimum and Jeff folded KK as the ace magnets ended up in 3rd place.

ANTES FOR TWO HOURS!  

After limping from early position and seeing a flop of Q92 The Buzzsaw (Cooper) ships it all in with several tall stacks of green 25 ante chips and says, “If you win you’ll have two hours’ worth of antes,”  I believe he was trying to induce some calls but he got one from The Dream Crusher that wasn’t good for his limped pocket rockets as Phil turns over Q9 for top two pair.  The board runs out K and a 3 not pairing or hitting Coops ACE IN THE FACE and The Buzzsaw gets a little taste of his own medicine having his Aces sawed off in 9^th place.

The Button mucks all over itself

The Dream Crusher (Bayless) limps from early position and then Scott Moss, The Button on The Button uses his position and raises getting folds from the blinds.  Phil thinks for a moment and finally makes the call as this is happening Scott nearly mucked because he didn’t see Phil was in.  The flop comes AKx and Phil checks, The Button looks to make a bet and finds that his cards have disappeared into the muck and he has no hand.  The Button has undone himself and the hand ends as Phil is the only one left with a hand.

Deadwood (Page) played the short stack most of the regular season and tonight wasn’t any different as with the blinds just changing to 300/600 with a 75 ante his ships his 3525 all in UTG with A10 and The Professor goes all in behind and shows him the bad news with KK.  The flop adds a King and Page wouldn’t be drawing live until after a river Jack gave him a straight draw…Jeff dealing ran about 10 cards off before finding the Q giving Page the straight, however this was not enough as I’m sure Russ had a boat several cards earlierL.  Page will start the championship tournament with more chips then he’s had in any one regular season tournament at any point and should be considered a contender…to be dealing by the 3^rd blind level of the championship.  Page (Pork Chop) goes down in 8^th place.

The Button (Scott) is not far behind Page as he gets his stack in after a 7 high flop with A7 vs The Load Deliverer’s pocket 8s and failed to improve on the turn or the river.  Scott was last year’s Page, coming into the championship with no results but pulling off the “upset” by winning the package to Vegas.  The Button shows there is a little hope for all of us however he falls in 7^th place with a pair of 7s tonight!?  Whats the difference between a Hooker and a Drug Dealer, Moss loves these dumb jokes!  A Pirate walks into the bar with a steering wheel hanging out his zipper…

ACTION HAND ELIMINATES The Brick Schmidt House (Pat Brown) in 6^th place.  The Dream Crusher raises from UTG to 1600 with blinds still at 300/600 with a  75 ante and Russ with a fairly large stack comes over the top ALL IN, Pat makes calls off his medium sized stack from the BB and after some consideration the Dream Crusher lets it go and holds off the crushing Russ’s dream until the final hand of the night.  Cards on their back and The Professor (Russ) shows QQ and Pat yells SCHMIDT and shows JJ for a cooler.  The board comes KK539 and Pat is eliminated, although this eliminated pat for the evening The Schmidt had already hitith the fan for his regular season and he just picked up a few extra chips to battle with next week.

Tim doubles through Russ keeping his hopes alive, we join this hand after a flop of 652 all spades and a turn pairing the board with a 6 Tim and Russ get it all in and Russ shows QQ for two pair, Tim A8 of spades for a flopped nut flush the river is a 4 of spades and The Chip Juggler AKA The Professor sends an additional 7900 in chips over to Tim.  This was a big hand in the evening as an elimination of Tim would have made it between The Quiet Storm and The Professor for the title, but Tim’s double up inched him a little closer to the title keeping his hopes alive.

The Steam Roller (Jeff) arrives late and then hangs around for a 5^th place finish.  Jeff had a showing and was fashionably late and then with 10 players left was trying to decide if the extra chips were with his time to hang around for…he picked up a few more chips for next week but was eliminated in 5^th when his short stack got it all in with K3 vs The Dream Crushers Q9 and for the 2^nd time tonight Phil eliminated someone with Q9 after a Queen arrived on the flop and Jeff could not hit his King.  Once again this was a case of the hand before the hand being the key hand of the evening for Jeff, he and Phil got it all in and he had Phil covered with AQ of spades vs Phil’s 66, the flop, turn and river of 77346 failed to improve Jeff and he was left short stacked.

Sweet Thang (Rhonda) AKA Mary Ann’s hopes of a weekly win where dashed when she got her short stack all in with Q10 vs The Dream Crusher’s J9 and Phil beat Rhonda when he nailed his 9.  Sweet Thang’s elimination in 4^th place was truly Sweet for The Load Deliverer as this eliminated The Quiet Storm and put Tim one spot away from a season title.  The elimination was bitter-sweet for Russ as he not only needed to win to take down the regular season title he needs Tim to go out in no better position than 3^rd place so now he had to make sure Tim went out next or an elimination of Phil or Russ was an end to his quest which seemed unlikely at the beginning of the evening but now was within sight.

NO SOUP FOR YOU! 

With just three players left Tim made mention of a chop of the nightly money and Phil calmly says NO SOUP FOR YOU!!!! Remember week 1 when you refused to chop Tim?  Payback’s a beotch!  I let them know that the nightly pay-out is $90/$40 as there is $130 in the pot, what happens next is that Phil says well since I can’t win it all we can split it and each player takes $40 leaving $10 as a carrot dangling in the middle for the nightly champion.

The Drama Continues as Russ gets in a monster hand with The Dream Crusher and then after putting in over half his stack comes to the realization that this heads up hand with Tim folding pre-flop is a lose/lose for him.  If he eliminates Phil, Tim wins…after Phil rivers a flush Russ is force to fold but would have had to with any bet by Phil due to the situation.  This hand leaves Russ weak and gives Phil the chip lead and empowers him to be able to CRUSH either Tim’s or Russ’s dream of a regular season title and Vegas trip.

The Professor picks up a few pots after disposing a big portion of his chips to Phil and then this monster hand goes down.  600/1200 blinds Russ raises from the small blind, Tim goes all-in from the big blind and is snapped off by Russ with AK, Tim exposes AQ and the A7526 board helps The Professor double through The Load Deliverer as he delivers 16,400 additional chips to Russ and Tim is left with just 2000 to battle needing a 2^nd place to guarantee a Vegas trip.  The next hand on the small blind Tim is forced to ship blind and The Dream Crusher is forced to call a half a bet blind.  Tim shows down 75 and Phil is ahead when he shows down 92 some monster hands!  The board fills in 10 8 3 A Q and Phil’s 9 high has possibly crushed Tim’s dreams as he is eliminated in 3^rd place.  Russ and Phil start heads up play nearly even in chips and the season has come down to this, if Russ wins he’s the Regular Season Champ if Phil wins he is the Week 6 tournament winner and picks up $10 more bucks and has crushed countless dreams but would make Tim’s dreams come true.

HEADS UP

What’s at stake?  Well once again Phil had bragging rights and $10 to win while a win for Russ was worth a $1500+ Vegas Package, if Phil won Tim had done just enough to sneak in front of Brad and needed a victory from Phil to hold that lead or the difference between 2nd and 1st would catapult Russ to the win.  Russ came into week 6 as the longest shot in contention and is in a spot where he controls his own destiny, he says, “I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity then this.”

I WILL KISS YOU!

The Dream Crusher continues to bust Tim’s marbles about the week on chop refusal by Tim and Coop and saying NO SOUP FOR YOU although he had finally agreed to chop the majority of the nightly pot. Tim says, “Where do you like to eat in Vegas?”  Implying that if he can win Tim will buy him a meal at a restaurant of his choosing finally Tim says if you win I will give you a kiss!

As the final cards are dealt and Phil claims the weekly victory (See the final hand recap at the beginning of the article), Tim Shouts “I DON’T WANT NO STINKIN’ SOUP, GIMME SOME SUGAR BABY!”  And Tim runs over and gives The Dream Crusher a smooch on the cheek as in Crushing the Souls of several players most notably Russ he has made Tim’s dream come true.

Congratulations to the 2016 Regular Season Champ Tim Williams!  Tim delivered his load all over the WSOP League this season to cash in on a regular season shot at money in Vegas!!!

HOW CLOSE WAS IT?

What a tight regular season!  How close was it between 1st and 2nd place there was 0.50 points difference meaning that if Brad would have just picked up 10th place instead of 11th which was an extra 0.55 he would have been the regular season champ by 0.05 points!  Wow thats very competitive and crazy how one place almost any week by either Tim or Brad would have resulted in a flip flop of fortunes.

There was a total of 10.14 points between 1st and 5th place and Russ ended up in 5th, had he won tonight he would have received an additional 10.96 points and would have been the champion by 0.82 points over Tim.

FINAL STANDINGS – Horse Race Stats (regular season points) – Starting Stack {weekly finishes} average place out

1. Tim Williams (111.85) – N/A Dealer {1, 7, 9, 3, 6, 3) 4.83 average
2. Brad West (111.35) – 10,550 {11, 10, 1, 1, 12, 11} 7.67 average
3. Phil Bayless (108.19) – 10,400 {3, 4, 6, *6, 8, 1} 4.83 average
4. Trey Chase (106.06) – 10,300 {4, 14, 3, 5, 1, 12} 6.50 average
5. Russ Kincaid (102.71) – 10,100 {6, 3, 4, 4, 11, 2} 5.00 average
6. Clint Goodman (89.38) – 9,450 {14, 1, 12, 13, *4, 13} 9.50 average
7. Jeff Honnerlaw (84.45) – 9,200 {12, 2, 5, 12, 10, 5} 7.67 average
8. Pat Brown (81.47) – 9,050 {5, 13, 11, 2, 13, 6} 8.33 average
9. Rhonda Rutherford (80.61) – 9,000 {8, 9, 8, 11, 3, 4} 7.17 average
10. Doug Cooper (80.47) – 9,000 {2, 12, 7, 10, 7, 9} 7.83 average
11. Tony Baker (79.03) – 8,950 {9, 8, 14, 7, 2, 10} 8.33 average
12. Scott Moss (74.96) – 8,700 {13, 4, 10, 9, *5, 7) 8.00 average
13. Ryan Page (65.25) – 8,250 {7, 11, 13, 8, 9 , 8} 9.33 average
14. Dom Brown (55.44) – DNQ {10, *6, *2, n/a, n/a, n/a} 6.00 average

*sub result

BYOK

Just a reminder that next week is the championship tournament and may run a little longer due to increased chips in play so plan accordingly.  Please try to arrive a little early if possible to help us get cards in the air ASAP!  6:45 is when we will attempt to have the food ready or close to it…BYOK, if you think about it please bring your own knife as we had all sorts of issues with shortage of knives and those of us that brought sets mixing them up…if Pat buys some knives I will let you know that this is no longer necessary.  We will provide steak or chicken as your selections were made Week 6 as well as my potatoes and pop/water if you want to bring a dessert or side please feel free to do so.

DEALERS

The championship will begin with a 3 man dealer rotation of your league champion Tim Williams along with Robert and Zach.  The dealers will be taken care of with the money we collected for food, this will cover their meal and a small dealer toke.  As players are eliminated they are welcome to stick around and join the dealer rotation.  We may also have a cash game on the side if anyone is interested once the tournament gets to a final table?  Although this is unlikely to happen as people are eliminated slowly if there is interest this may keep some people around as they watch the championship unfold.

THANKS! 

I just want to take a moment to say thanks to everyone in the WSOP League this year, it has been a rough year for me from a results standpoint but I have enjoyed the league immensely and look forward to a better result in Week 7 (The Championship)! There is hope for us all, best of luck to everyone next Monday.  Remember even if you don’t win a package if you want to tag along in Vegas with the players representing the group it has always been welcomed and a great time for all.  Just ask Phil about chasing hot air balloons; Pat about bananas in the streets; Jeff about some crazy bad beats; Tony about the DIP and missing flights; and many many other crazy times.  We have had several players min cash from our leagues but this year I hope Tim and our other league rep make a deep run and bring home a big score.

Ryan Page signing out for The Wilmington WSOP 2016 Regular Season

 

Week 6 Point Standings: