The fourth tournament of 2015 found us once again at Grover’s Playhouse in Mt Washington. I cannot thank Grover enough for his hospitality. He receives no compensation for it other than covering most of the cost of food. I hope I speak for everyone when I say that we all appreciate having a place to come together and play cards.
April’s tourney brought 27 players together including 2 new players: Kyle Polasko and Mike Mister. Kyle is a coworker of Tony Huckestein and Mike is friends with the Chet’s. Always good to have new faces in the tournament and we welcome you to our fraternity.
These larger tournaments provide a lot of opportunity to move up the leader board and get some big chunks of RPT points for a run at the Final Table. We went into the tournament with Brian Bennett and Dave Levin in 1st and 2nd place… Both players were looking to improve their positions.
As with every RPT event, we have to have a Beer Bitch and Chick Bennett was happy to fill that role once again. After being our Beer Bitch last month at Grover’s, it was déjà vu all over again for Chick as he got his second Beer Bitch finish in as many months. Chick need not worry though as he is not close to reaching Jeff Dixon’s record with 6 career Beer Bitch finishes… I bring this up as Jeff was so close to getting his 7th Beer Bitch finish if Chick would have lasted another few minutes… Alas – we had no Dancing Jeff at this month’s tournament.
Some fun highlights in the match include our newcomer Kyle knocking out both Chet Sr. and Chet Jr. in the same hand. The last time I remember a father and son being knocked out on the same hand by someone is all the way back in June of 2007 when Dave Moore (Mr. Tinker’s brother) knocked out me and my Dad… I don’t remember the details other than Dave went on to win that 27 person tournament…. The real amazing part of Dave Moore’s victory is that the 3 tournaments before he won, he had finished as Beer Bitch runner-up each time… and then the two tournaments after his victory he finished as Beer Bitch in each. You can now appreciate why I remember Dave winning that tournament… There is a precedent that knocking out a father and son in one hand leads to victory… Could Kyle have the same luck as Dave did back in 2007? This is what they call foreshadowing in the literary world.
We did have another double knock out where Travis and Voldemort were all-in and Fed Ex called them. FedEx had a big chip stack and decided to call just because and flipped over his J-4 offsuit. Ostendorf showed his pocket 5’s and was not pleased at all to hear that I had folded the other pair of 5’s… Travis had raised all in without really looking at his cards… I don’t remember his cards but the beauty of this whole scenario is that a 4 hit the flop and another 4 hit on the river to give FedEx 3 of a kind and the win. Wow. SHIP IT!
It is probably a good time to also do some public shaming… The RPT asks very little of its players: show up on time, play poker with integrity, and sign the sheet when you go out. I would like to publicly shame Don Berry for leaving before signing the sheet… as well as GROVER! Come on Grover. This is only Don’s 9th tournament so I will consider this a warning… but Grover?!? This was Grover’s 70th tournament… I believe Grover when he says he was distracted by some pretty young women who found their way into the Playhouse. I understand that can disorient and discombobulate even the most focused individuals. I just want to take this moment to remind everyone to sign the sheet when you are out of the tournament.
As far as the final table participants, we had Me, Angie Brower, Kyle Polasko, Fed Ex, Dan Ferris, Chris O’Hara, Bob Herd Sr, Brian Bennett and Tony Huckestein. Dan was first out and this finish now moves him up to 11th place in the standings. Angie was next out and she is now tied with Brandon Smyth for 3rd place this year. Tony was out next. After winning the Player of the Year last year, Tony has had a slow start to his 2015 campaign. To put it into numbers, Tony got more RPT points tonight than he got in the last three tournaments… combined. Fed Ex finished in 6th place on the bubble and further established his place at 2nd in the standings. The rest of the table was now getting some RPUs regardless of the end result.
In 5th place was Brian Bennett. Brian has been on a roll lately with RPU finishes in 6 of his last 8 tournaments which includes 4 top 3 finishes in that time. Brian Bennett further his lead in the current year standings.
In 4th place, we have Bob Herd Sr. Bob was having a ball and loved telling everyone at the table that this is the furthest he had ever got and loved having yellow chips ($1000) for the first time. Bob had the biggest chip stack at the table by far and lost it all in two big hands with Kyle the new comer. Bob was right as this was the furthest he has been in a tournament and it was his first RPU finish in 15 tournaments.
In 3rd place, was me. I had some big hands throughout the tourney and a couple dumb ones but I was lucky enough to get into the top 3. This was my 21st top 3 finish which is #1 on the career leaders list with Tony H. behind me with 19. I have played 78 tournaments to Tony’s 55 so I would say his ratio is a hell of a lot better. Either way, this was my second RPU finish in a row and my first top 3 finish since January of 2014… what a drought…
This left young newcomer Kyle Polasko against relatively newcomer Chris O’Hara… Kyle probably had 75% of the chips at the table and the heads up battle lasted 1 hand. Kyle’s ace high held up over Chris’s K high making Kyle the latest winner of an RPT tournament.
For Chris, this was just his 4th RPT tournament and his first top-3 finish. Congrats to Chris and we look forward to seeing him at future events.
As for Kyle, he gets a victory in his first RPT event ever and makes it a rule that if you can knock out a father and son in a single hand, then you will win the tournament. I did a little research and Kyle is the 5th player to ever win an RPT event in their first tournament:
- Jan 2005: Jake Ruppert wins the first ever RPT tournament… this is kind of a technicality as that was the first tournament for EVERY player that night.
- August 2005: Adam “The Standard” Baker wins in his first showing ever and teaches the rest of the league what a standard raise should be.
- Jan 2010: Craig Bare won a 31 player event in his inaugural showing.
- Jan 2011: Marc Chappell wins in his first showing
- April 2015: Kyle Polasko adds his name to the record books.
Kyle was efficient and deadly in this tournament as he knocked out 8 of the 27 players in the event. I look forward to seeing Kyle at future events.
Hope everyone has a great weekend and see you in May.