For the 9th tournament of the 2014 season, the RPTers gathered together in the friendly confines of Grover’s Playhouse. The field was made up of 25 players. Grover even provided some home-cooked food. Grover’s hospitality is unparalleled and I think I speak on behalf of all of the RPTers that we are greatly appreciate it.
We had a new player join the flock as well. Matt Straffin who is friends with the Grover and the whole Duclaw gang. Welcome to the group Matt. I do apologize for all the drunkenness and moderately offensive dancing… but more on that later.
Every tournament has to have a Beer Bitch and the unlucky recipient this month was none other than Jason Trueman. Now, being knocked out first in a tournament is bad enough… but to get knocked out and then have a drunken Jeff Dixon do a very aggressive celebration dance complete with full frontal nudity and grandiose thrusting motions is just adding insult to injury. As it turns out, “Dancing Jeff” would do a fair amount of that as the night progressed… and has earned himself a new nickname in the RPTDB.
This was Trueman’s 5th all-time Beer Bitch finish which puts him in a 4-way tie with Grover, Jeff Dixon, and Jim Wagner. This is Trueman’s first Beer Bitch finish since October of 2011… which was his first since his 2005 campaign where he had 3 Beer Bitch finishes that year alone.
There will be no hand summaries this month as I don’t think we saw any really crazy hands. Instead, I will just skip to the results and give some fun statistics.
Our tournament winner was Jason Ostendorf. “Voldemort” ripped throw the tournament including 7 kills. This is Voldy’s 3rd top 3 finish this year and his first win since June of 2013. He now has 4 career victories which puts him in a large tie for 3rd all-time. Also, this moves Voldemort into 3rd place in the current RPT standings.
Finishing in second place was Brandon Smyth. Brandon has been on a tear this year and in limited action. After winning last month’s tournament, Brandon almost went back to back which I believe was last done by Toy Huckestein last year. Brandon now has 2 wins and a 2nd place finish this year… in only 6 tournaments. This tournament also pushed Smyth’s RPU total to 1000 for the year with two tourneys left to play. He now sits in a tie for 5th place with Darryn Graham.
Dan Ferris rounded out the top-3. Similar to Smyth, this is Dan’s second consecutive third place finish (July 2014 tourney as Dan missing the August tourney). Dan has only played in 4 tournaments this year and having two top-3 finishes is impressive. Dan will need to attend the next two tournaments this year to have a chance at qualifying for the Final Table.
Rounding out the RPUs were Jeff Dixon and Nita Cox. Nita has historically been a bubble finisher and was moderately surprised to realize that a 25 player tournament has a top-5 RPU distribution. Jeff finished 4th. This is Jeff’s second RPU finish as he finished 5th in the January tournament. Jeff will need to attend at least 1 more tournament this year to qualify for the Final Table 9th seat lottery. As for Nita, this was her second RPU finish since she won the May 2014 tournament. Her consistent play has her nipping on the heels of the juggernaut Tony Huckestein for RPT’s 1st place standing. Nita is currently in 2nd place and the next two tournaments will decide who the RPT POY is.
A side note is that between Dan, Jeff, and Voldemort, 18 of the 25 players in the tournament were killed by that lethal 3. That is pretty impressive based on other tournaments we have played.
Thanks to everyone for making this little monthly poker tournament what it is. I look forward to hanging with everyone each month even if the cards have been consistently going against me this year. We need a host for next month so let me know if you are interested. See you all then.