In addition to all my legitimate excuses below for being too busy to blog, I also have a weekly poker game on Tuesday. It’s no big deal, just a lot of dealer’s choice: mostly hold ’em and seven card stud, with the occasional high-low variant when we have a full table. The game is pretty regularly at Mike Drake’s place (a.k.a “The Drake”), which apartment is the source of a number of jokes (don’t ask–there is no way I can explain the flamingoes, much less the rest of it.)
The Tuesday game led us to start occasionally having Hold ‘Em tournaments. We’ve had three so far, over a couple of months.
This past Friday was the most recent, and also the night with the biggest pot yet. It was also the first time we had an actual dealer, which was a nice change, and which lead to more hands being played at each blind level.
There were some nice moments–for instance, it’s nice to see someone try to bluff the nut boat out of a pot, but it’s even funnier when that nut hand turns into 4 of a kind. Yeah, I’m sure you can scare that guy out of the pot.
Of course, even with our biggest pot yet (which is still pretty small–organized crime has nothing to worry about) we’re still mostly there to have a good time. I mean look at these guys:
Here you see (from left-to-right):
Travis (a.k.a. “Milkshake”), who won both of the preceding tournaments, but who could not get a playable hand all night at the most recent tournament
Mirco (a.k.a. “Miracle, “The Silent Assassin”, “Mr. Whip”, “The Italian”, etc.), who is like the poker version of a ninja–you don’t know he’s there until he suddenly kills you… um, I mean, shows down the nuts. Note that the guy who talks the least has the most nicknames.
Drake (no nicknames), who added an “affection” every time the blinds went up, starting with his “lucky headband”. (Apparently this plan worked.)
You can also see a hand from “Car-humper” and a hand from our dealer. You can’t see me, or a bunch of the other players (Other Mike, Big Dick, Mayo, Philipino, etc.) Hey, I was playing poker, not taking a photo album–I just wanted to get a shot of the headband.
At the close of the night Drake actually managed to win, despite a relatively long period where it looked like Phil was going to take home the big slice. When Phil busted out #4 and #5, Bob (a.k.a. “Mayo”) was delighted to slide into third place– his strategy of hanging back with his tiny stack and letting the other players take each other out was paying off. Bob’s delight turned to joy when Drake busted Phil out, leaving him in second place, and putting Phil in third.
Here are our winners, showing off their winnings:
Bob is the delighted one, sneaking into second. Phil is the sad one, who had looked so good to be the big winner, but ended up third. Drake would be the cool winner guy, except that he’s wearing that headband, and a towel around his neck, and that chain, etc., so he’s just the winner.
Note that I am not in the final three. I will not make you suffer through my bad beat story. (You’re welcome.)
