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And Season 11 is in the books!!! What a grind last night, with play led by two camps... the "Stay out of my way" camp, led by Chester, and the "I'm only playing Aces, Kings, and 8's" camp, led by Mike (and followed very closely by me and others.)
The "Stay out of my way" faction took a big hit early when on the first hand of the night Chester bets out big and gets a call from Judy. Flop comes 5, 7, 9. Chess pushes all his chips in and roars "Stay out of my way!" And what does he hear in reply? Those dreaded heart sinking words that just seem to cut a little bit deeper when they come from Judy... "I have to call."
Doh. Turns out they both had a piece of it, the 9 I think, but Judy was ahead and stayed ahead and Chester's season comes to an abrupt end. Unfortunately Judy wasn't able to parlay that quick double up into anything meaningful, and was out not too much after that. Don't let that fool you though, her true intent was to play some online poker, and she fared much better in that, taking down first place in a Rush poker tournament and netting a nifty $450 or so.
Julius was there again last night, and was a complete chip magnet. Within the first hour of play, he had accumulated a stack of about 60,000 chips. He should have just fired up some Madden 2006 and waited it out from there, but instead decided to gift his chips off to everyone on the table except for me. Thanks Jules, good looking out.
The turning point for him was a critical heads up hand with Mike. The board is A-K-rag with two spades, and Julius fires large into an already substantial pot. Mike mulls a bit, then a bit more. "Good fold Mike" from Julius. "All in". "Crap." Julius' turn to think. "F it, let's gamble," showing a flush draw against Mike's A-K for top two. "Spade! spade! spade!!!" Turn comes... 7 of spades!
Doh! And Mike is out. Oh wait, what? Oh, the river, right. Go ahead, its just a formality, Mike's drawing to a 4-outer. River comes... ACE!!! Full boat for Mike.
Huge pot, and Mike takes it down. Even more importantly, it was the "switch" moment that always seems to come to move Julius from a solid poker player, to a monkey with a shot gun. After that, his chips found their way to everyone except for me.
Going into the night there were about 8 players or so in the bubble zone, all who had a chance at still making it into the Top 9 if things played out right, or being kicked out if they went wrong. I think Judy was the first to go out, but she'll sleep well on a bed of online winnings. Then I think Nicole, who flopped trip Jacks with a board of J-J-5, but ran into pkt 5's.
Padma was next in line, going all in against Eric with a nasty Q-7 or something like that, but hit just enough to stay in. Eric ground it out to the final table, but couldn't make it into the points.
8 handed came down to: Jeremiah, Potts, Scott, Mike, KarJacked, Padma, Bagu and Jagu.
A lot of things could have happened at that point, and many fates could have changed. For example, I don't think we realized it at the time, but if it had finished Padma, Scott, KarJacked, Mike and Bagu, there would have been a 3 way tie for 9th place with Jeena, Mike and Bagu. That would have been fun.
As would any of the other multitude of finishes that were possible, but in the end, Padma dropped, then KarJacked. Then finally Jagu dropped on the bubble, leaving Scott in the points and back at the final table.
Unfortunately that was as far as I was able to go, going all-in pre-flop with pkt Q's and running into Mike's pkt K's not much later. At least it didn't happen a few hands earlier though.
Head's up was down to Jeremiah and Potts, who happen to be the 2nd and 3rd overall, separated by only 3 points. Being heads up, Jeremiah secured 2nd place overall, but they were also battling for the Mini-Season 5 victory. The winner here, wins the mini-season.
I don't know how it played out, but Jeremiah ended up taking it down. The 15 points ends his season just 2 points behind our season points winner Steve. Great job everyone.
Top 9 Changes: Scott back in, KarJacked out.
Chester's cold streak is extended to 16 weeks.
Great season everyone! Final table is this Saturday and Sunday at the Burnett's. More info to come.
Player Week 25
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Jeremiah 15
J Potts 12
Bagu 9
Mike 6
Scott 3
Jagu Bubble
Player Total
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Steven 116
Jeremiah 114
J Potts 106
Arjan 83
Mike 80
Bagu 80
Jagu 78
Jeena 77
Scott 72- - - - - - - - - -
KarJacked 71
Padma 70
Nicole 62
Judy 62
Eric 60
Chess 55
Sungina 53
Kurt 53
Remo 36
Morgan 32
Ruby 25
J Hall 24
Omar 22
Julius 20
Guest 1 11
Ben 10
Anthony 10
Nisha 8
RiceCake 7
Kelly 7
Guest 2 2
Player Mini-Season 25
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Jeremiah 41 <--- Winner!!!
Steven 35
J Potts 34
Padma 33
Mike 24
Judy 21
2nd place, Potts...
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