The March 2015 RPT tournament was a big one with 30 players coming to Grover’s Playhouse to play some poker. As always, Grover was ready to accept all of us with his unrivaled hospitality. I have admitted before that Grover’s place is my favorite venue to play poker because of its central location, layout, and tons of ready accommodations like tables, chairs, TV, kitchen, etc. Thank you Grover for letting us all play there. It is always a treat and Grover has already allowed us to play there again next month. Always good to have solid hosting venues.
This tournament included a large influx of new players. I dare to say that we had more new players than any month in recent memory. Let me see if I can list them all and the 6 degrees of separation that associate them to me… This should be fun.
- Chet Ruby Sr. and Chet Ruby Jr.
- Chet Sr. is a friend of Chick Bennett who is the father of Brian Bennett who bowls with Tom Ross Sr. who is my father.
- Chet Jr. is the son of Chet Ruby Sr. who is a friend of Chick Bennett who is the father of Brian Bennett who bowls with Tom Ross Sr. who is my father.
- Stu Gluck
- I think Stu is a friend of Grover who is a friend of Jim Wagner who is a friend of Tommy Ross Jr. who is my brother
- If this is wrong, email me at rosspokertour@gmail.com and correct me J
- Stan Lynch
- I think Stan is a friend of Grover’s who is a friend of Jim Wagner who is a friend of Tommy Ross Jr. who is my brother
- If this is wrong, email me at rosspokertour@gmail.com and correct me J
- Carlos Rodriguez
- I think Carlos came with Stan who is a friend of Grover’s who is a friend of Jim Wagner who is a friend of Tommy Ross Jr. who is my brother
- If this is wrong, email me at rosspokertour@gmail.com and correct me J
- Bart Modzelewski
- Bart is a friend of Matt Straffin who is a friend of Grover’s who is a friend of Jim Wagner who is a friend of Tommy Ross Jr. who is my brother
Welcome to all the new RPTers and I hope you had fun. We are in our 11th year and have created quite an interesting social circle of folks that like to get together every month and play cards. We try to keep a nice balance of competitive poker and friendly gathering. The rosspokertour.com website has a ton of interested statistics and annual standings. Just create an account and take a look. Hopefully we will see these guys next month.
As far as this month’s tournament, with 30 players, there were a lot of RPT points on the line. A final table finish in this tournament was the equivalent of winning most tournaments so players looked geared up to play.
As with every tournament, we had to have a Beer Bitch and this month it was Chick Bennett. This was Chick’s first Beer Bitch finish and happened in his 5th tournament. Chick shouldn’t be too concerned as Jeff Dixon is our all-time Beer Bitch champion with 6 Beer Bitch finishes to his credit but that has taken Jeff 32 tournaments to reach that total. Why am I taking this time to shame Jeff? Well, he just missed another Beer Bitch finish by getting knocked out 2nd which made many RPTers sad as there would be no “Dancing Jeff” at this tournament.
Now – the story of the tournament was Rob Herd Jr.’s chip stack. When I was removing green’s ($25), I handed Rob Herd 10 yellow ($1,000) chips. I cannot remember such a big chip stack at that color up. He got to that position by going on a killing spree. Rob knocked out 6 of the 7 players between the 14th player out (Glenn) and the 20th player out (Bart). When Rob came to the final table, he probably had roughly the same amount of chips as all of the other players combined.
The final table included Rob Herd, Rob Ratajcak, Me, Chet Sr., Stan Lynch, Melinda Herd, Brandon Smyth, Brian Bennett, and Travis Marquess. Rob Jr. used his big chip stack to lean on a lot of hands. If you were getting into a hand with him, Rob Jr. wanted you to know that it might be your last hand.
Chet Sr. was the first to exit the table after getting knocked out by Brian Bennett. Stan was next after losing to Rob R. Melinda went next after losing a hand to me where she had plenty of outs after the flop but the board held. With 30 players, the top-6 were getting RPUs (Ross Poker Units) so that made Melinda the bubble player. With everyone getting some RPUs, the play seemed to open up a bit more.
Travis ended up out in 6th place after taking the few chips he had left against Rob R. This was Travis’s 2nd tournament and his first since April of last year. Travis runs his own monthly poker event and has some good ideas for some enhancements to ours. I hope to talk to him more about it in a future event. Travis is a friend of Dan Ferris for those who are curious… And Dan is a childhood neighbor of Drew Frank who I used to work with at Constellation. 6 degrees.
Yours truly ended up in 5th place after being unable to scare Rob Jr. with my pre-flop raise where I had A-K unsuited. He called with his K-10 unsuited. The flop gave him a 10. He checked, I bet half the pot and he called. The next card was a K. He checked, I went all-in which he easily called as he had his top 2 pair made nicely… Sometimes the cards are going your way. This is my first RPU finish since May of last year but my 28th RPU finish in 77 tournaments. I have had a pretty poor run of cards going against me so hopefully this will be a trend of better success.
Fourth place went to Brandon Smyth after being knocked out by Rob R. Brandon continues to play excellent poker. In 13 career RPT events, Brandon has 5 top 3 finishes including two victories. This is his first RPU finish outside of the top 3 which means that he finishes with some RPUs almost half of the time. That is pretty darn impressive… I might have to start putting a bounty on his head to make this a bit more challenging for him J Brandon is gunning for the Player of the Year but will have to make his run with missing two tournaments this year. Still very doable but less margin of error to work with. Brandon currently sits in 3rd place in the 2015 RPT Standings. Best of luck to him.
Third place went to Brian Bennett after also being knocked out by Rob R. Brian has quietly moved to the top of the 2015 RPT standings. This is Brian’s second Top-3 finish of the year after he finished third in January. What is even more impressive is that this is Brian’s 4th Top-3 finish in his last 5 tournaments. He is on quite a roll. Brian is now tied for 10th all-time with 7 Top-3 finishes and he has done this in 53 tournaments. Congrats to Brian.
Now – remember how I said that Rob Herd Jr. Had all the chips? Well, along the way, there was a HUGE hand between Rob R. and Rob H. I cannot remember when this hand happened but I think we were down to 3 or 4 players left. Rob R. had made a big raise pre-flop and Rob H. said “All-in.” Rob R. gave this good thought and then with his typical “Balls of Steel” mentality, called it. I think Rob R showed his pocket 7’s and Rob Herd showed A-3 offsuit. A 7 hit on the flop and with that, Rob H lost a large chunk of his chips.
Now – it was the Battle of the Robs. The heads-up battle only lasted a few hands as both players are very aggressive. Rob R ended up pulling it out in the end for this first ever RPT victory.
Rob Herd Jr. finished in second place. This was Rob’s third Top-3 finish in his 15 tournaments and his first Top-3 finish since June of last year. Rob Jr. now sits in 8th place in the 2015 RPT standings. Excellent tournament Rob… you definitely improved your kill statistics in this one as you move up to third place with almost 2 kills per tournament.
As for Rob “The Mad Hatter” Ratajcak, as I mentioned this is his first RPT victory and it happened in his 13th tournament. This was Rob’s first top-3 finish since November of 2013. If you add up all of the RPT points Rob has gotten in his last 5 tournaments (24), they do not equal the 30 points he got in this tournament. Congrats to Rob as he is now the 51st player to have ever won an RPT event.
See everyone next month at Grover’s. Email me if you have any questions or comments at rosspokertour@gmail.com.