August started out hot. I was going to try to play a game a day. Missed the first couple, then took 2nd in a single-table PLO/8 tournament, played the home game the next night and got sucked out on by a player who’d doubled up twice from nothing, did poorly in online Chainsaw Poker 8-Game and Stud the next couple nights, then finally made it back to the Final Table when I’d spaced out on the fact that the month had started on a Friday, so the 8th wasn’t the First Friday $20K NLHE, it was just a $10K guarantee. That didn’t matter anyway, I went out 60/73 after a couple of hours.
Then I hit a real drought. Xfinity was doing some network modifications in the neighborhood, and all of a sudden my IP address was showing up as if it was across the river in Vancouver, Washington, which caused issues with playing on the PokerStars app because Washington state bans even play money online poker. That took more than two weeks to resolve. I could use my phone as a hotspot for my iPad, but that wasn’t as simple as just picking up the iPad or using my computer. Played a NLHE Bounty that was and busted in the middle of the pack without even getting a bounty.
By the next Beaverton Quarantine event a week later, I was back in good graces with PokerStars and chopped the top spot of a small NLHE tournament. The next night, I got sucked out on on the river twice in three hands in a Chainsaw PLO game and lost 2 buy-ins. That same day was another PLO/8 game where I was the first player out. So that was August. A total of nine events for an entire month.
The Final Table First Friday for September was a short one for me. Just 30 minutes, busting just before the end of the rebuy period. That got me home in time for a Beaverton Quarantine PLO/8 Bounty where I busted just short of the money and took just one bounty.
September’s PacWest Poker Classic at Chinook Winds Casino has always been problematic for me because it’s often straddling my wife’s birthday. This year was no exception, and I didn’t make it down for any events.
The rest of the month was mostly ChainSaw Poker PLO/8 games and a single 8-Game, where I took a min-cash for 3rd place. It was the only cash for the month, though. The month was even sparser with just seven events!
Another couple of months of light pokering. The Chainsaw Poker league continues to be interesting, though I only had two min-cashes in 14 shots over February and March. So, no profits but I got to play 8-Game Mix, Stud/8, HORSE, PLO/8, and Omaha/8.
In the Beaverton Quarantine league, I only played a couple games during February, then four in March (including two on one night), winning two outright (a NLHE Bounty and NLHE) and ending another NLHE in a three-way chop. The other three (NLHE Bounty, PLO, and PLO/8 Bounty) I was dead last.
The original home game had a get-together in February and I got off to a good start with aces vs. kings in the early levels, pulling into the chip lead early on only to have the whole thing go gunnysack over the course of two hands after the end of rebuys and I ended up in 10th place out of 12.
I wasn’t able to make it down for much of the Chinook Winds PacWest Poker Classic, but I was able to get there for the opening weekend’s $100K GTD NLHE tournament. Got pasted early on and re-entered.
On the next-to-last hand before the end of registration break, I was down to 20bb UTG and opened AA, getting 4 callers. The flop was 964 rainbow; I continued for 4bb and a loose caller across from me plonked in more than my stack. I called, he shows 9T offsuit and the aces hold despite his straight draw on the turn. On the last hand before break, a well-known Portland-area player shoved in late position with a new stack over the same player’s limp. Shover says he’s all-in blind and shows 64 offsuit. The caller shows 63 off, hits a 3 and the shover’s knocked out.
I got another pair of aces against the same player and won another hand after registration closed, then a set of queens put me up about the necessary chip average for making Day 2 (although we were still a long way off).
The winner of the previous fall’s Main Event sat down on my left. She’s a very aggressive player, so there were advantages and disadvantages to that. A player in early position raised to 6bb and I called with TT on the button. She shoved 25bb on a 442 flop and I call. AK against my tens and she hits the ace on the river. My beautiful stack!
Half an hour after my peak and I’m down more than 100K in chips and feeling kind of sick. 36 players to the money (72 payouts) and I was down to 70K.
Got AA again and raised from early position; the former main event champ called and when the flop came K-high, I shoved my last 14bb. She thought for a while and called with KQ offsuit. The Q paired on the turn, but an 8 on the river paired the flop and I made the better two pair for a double up. She toasted off another 125K limping with an over pair and letting the BB make a straight with 64. At 3 to the money, she was very short on the next orbit when I raised QJ suited from the button. She shoved 5bb, I called vs her KK, flopped a gunshot straight draw and hit it on the river, knocking her out just short of the end of the day.
I ended up 43/72 of the players coming back for Day 2, but I was still in.
There were two very short stacks at the table at the start of the day but also two of the top 10 stacks. And one of the guys who used to play in our home game. When I talked to him about why he wasn’t coming any more, he mentioned it was because of one of the other players—and it wasn’t me! Unfortunately for him, he caught a set of nines against a flush draw that hit on the river and crippled him and he was out in the mid-60s.
Got a couple all-ins through without any calls to stay alive while I was in the 10-15bb range. We had some drama when a player got moved to the table and dumps a couple handfuls of chips in front of his seat, then wanders off during a hand before action gets to him to talk to a buddy at the nearby payout table. He came back and rooted through his chips saying he thought he had a 25K chip. One of the floor people finds a 25K chip in the aisle but says he can’t have that one since there’s no way to verify that it was his. That causes some chatter at the table and beyond until Forrest Auel comes over to say they’ve verified that it was his chip. All is well.
Ninety minutes into the day and I’d made enough to pay for both my buyins and my room for the night, so I was happy. Almost half the field was gone, but I was hovering in the 15bb range.
The Mutant Jack (AJ suited) paid off for a double up against 99. I shoved 15bb, hit the jack and a flush draw on the flop, made the flush on the turn, and picked up another jack on the river just for safety. Made it to the first break with 334K at the 10K/15K big blind ante level, so still only 22bb.
Slid down to about 200K, chopped a hand AK==AK, and finally hit the wall with 99 against AA.
Still less than a 100% ROI (given the re-entry) but it did make me feel better about the quality of my NLHE game.
Maybe too much better, because when I hit the Final Table $10K GTD NLHE on the next Friday, I didn’t even make the point where they posted the payouts, even after a rebuy and add-on.
Portland Meadows ran a late-month mid-week PLO Bounty that sounded like just the thing, but it went very poorly for me and pretty much everyone else at my table as the guy in seat 9 was absolutely crushing everyone. You can see his stack below that was before the end of re-entry (after I blew my second stack with at least a chance of winning against his flopped set). By the time I left, more than half of the 40 bounties in play had been collected and I think he had about 15 of them.
WSOP CIrcuit Maryland Controversy
I’m late to the party on this story, where back at the beginning of March, the wrong player was awarded a pot, in a hand that knocked out a player in third place at the WSOPC Maryland NLHE Main Event. Divyam Satyarthihad Q♣️T❤️ vs A❤️3♠️, there were both flush and straight draws on the board by the turn, and both were completed on the river, after Satyarthi had paired on the flop.
Satyarthi was the short stack by a significant amount, with just about a million chips at the time he went all-in according to Poker.org, compared to more than 9 million each for the other two players.
The player who was awarded the pot, Maurice Hawkins, ended up winning the tournament after having to make a couple of come-backs against Dan Chalifour, and there’s been some shade thrown his way by a number of people (alluded to in the PokerNews Podcast episode covering the story) about whether he knew he’d actually lost the hand and was celebrating his straight as a away of distracting people from seeing the flush.
Most of the controversy about this has centered on whether reporters who see an error like this should speak up, even though in this case, the reporter didn’t see the flush themselves, likely until they were reviewing video to write up the hand.
That video (shared on Poker.org) shows that less than two seconds pass between the time the dealer lays down the river card (at 0:19 seconds into the video, on the left) and the time he kills the winning hand (at 0:21 seconds, on the right). As the river card’s transiting the board, it’s obscuring the suits of other cards; and the Q♣️ in the winning hand is already partially obscured by the fact it’s on the bottom. By the time the hand’s being killed, there’s no way to see the suit of the card that would have made the win. Should Satyarthi have known that he had a club? Maybe, but so should the dealer. Another second or two of delay before the hand was killed would have made a difference.
How much of a difference? Satyarthi got $64,458 for third place. At the time he went all-in, his stack was worth about $72K according to an ICM calculator (with Hawkins’s worth about $115K and $112.5K for Challifour. Doubling up through Hawkins would have given Satyarthi another $7 in equity, mostly coming from Hawkins. He still would have been at a 4:1 chip disadvantage, but there was a point just a couple of hours later where Hawkins himself was down to what Satyarthi would have had if the chips had been awarded properly.
Play Money
Just been practicing my skills on PokerStars Lite.
It’s the run-up to a new poker year, with the Chinook Winds PacWest Poker Classic just around the corner at the beginning of March, and my poker purse is looking a little strained. I’ve already had inquiries from two friends about WSOP plans and frankly, I’m not sure it’s going to happen this year unless I pick up the pace a bit. The droughts feel even droughtier when you’re not playing as often.
Portland Meadows Big Game Series Big O, January 10, 2025
So I did play a bit more live this month, all at Portland Meadows because of their Mixed Game Series. I made three of the games on two days, busting way early in the Big O (I was not re-buying) on Friday night.
Portland Meadows Big Game Series Big Bet Mix Dealers Choice, January 11, 2025
The Big Bet Mix Dealers Choice game went better but I barely made the end of registration (still an improvement on the Big O). I hung around the club to wait for the PLO Big Bounty tournament in the evening, and once again failed to make the end of reg. All in all, a disappointing showing.
Portland Meadows Big Game Series PLO Big Bounty, January 11, 2025
I’d opened the month with a couple of Beaverton Quarantine online games (and I played another after getting home so early after the Big O tournament). I picked up a few bounties, but didn’t even make the entry fee back for one of them. Four games, four losses, with a slight offset from the two bounty games.
Played six tournaments with the Chainsaw Poker group online, Omaha Hi-Lo for one, a PLOHi-Lo, and four HORSE tournaments. Min-cashes in the PLO and one HORSE.
Wrapped up the month with another excursion (well, a couple) to Meadows. They had a Friday night satellite to their $500 entry Big Stack Freezeout tournament, and I took a shot. $80 (including door fee) seemed like a great bargain, even though I haven’t been playing a lot of No-Limit Hold’em.
I had a good start with a player in middle position making a raise when I was on the button with aces. I 3-bet him and he went all in with kings. The board rollout quads for me. I never got near my target stack for a satellite, but it was a standard satellite, not a Milestone, so I just had to stick it out.
Portland Meadows Big Stack Satellite, January 23, 2025
My stack limped along at around 10bb most of the last half of the tournament, then after about 4 hours we were suddenly down to the final table of 9, with one person not getting anything. I didn’t catch exactly what was happening, but I heard that the player in seat 9 had somehow made it to the final without realizing they were playing for a seat into the next day’s tournament. I was in seat 3 in the small blind on the first hand, and when there were several limps ahead of me, I just folded. The flop was 973, seat 9 blasted off when it got to him, and he was called by the big blind. Heads-up, seat 9 had top-top (A9) but BB showed 73 and the race for seats was over just like that.
Portland Meadows Big Stack Freezeout, January 24, 2025
Sadly, it was all for nought (apart from the $75 cash payout that went with the satellite seat that almost covered by entry and door fee). Carl Oman ate my lunch several times during the day and I busted in round 8. Though I was glad that I made it past round 4 or 5, I was still rather disappointed that registration was still open when I was knocked out. The final prize pool ended up being an even $100K.
Portland Meadows Big Stack Freezeout, January 24, 2025. Bust-out shot.
Coming up for me this month, a couple of live home games (finally pulling my chips out of the garage to lend them to a friend); the Chainsaw Series of Poker, a series of online non-NLHE tournaments; Final Table has a special $20K GTD tournament on the 21st; then on the 23rd I need to make a choice between the Final Table Deepstack or a Portland Meadows Big O Special. Then it’s whatever I can get to for Chinook Winds the week after that.
May turned out to be the calm before the storm of the WSOP for me. I only played nine tournaments the whole month, with most of those being in the virtual Beaverton Quarantine home game (four cashes, in NLHE and NLHE Bounty) for a meagre 126% ROI. The loss (bigger) came from the three events I entered at the Portland Meadows Poker Classic, though I did manage to pick up one min-bounty in Event #6 PLO Assassins PKO Bounty (the entire prize pool was bounties!)
That leaves either well-rested or unprepared for next weekend’s trip to Las Vegas, where the bracelet events on my list are Event #27 Big O, Event #32 Seven-Card Stud, and Event #35 HORSE (the only bracelet event I’ve ever cashed in). Plus—depending on how things go—some of the Milestone Satellites and the Monday HORSE Deepstack. Maybe something on WSOP.com if I can figure out how screwed up my account is after six years of inactivity.
Chinook Winds Debuts Summer Series
Earlier, as I as getting ready to publish this, Chinook Winds dropped the schedule for their first Summer Classic Poker Tournament, featuring a $200K GTD Main Event and a mid-week TORSE event (with Limit Triple Draw 2-7 replacing Limit Hold’em in the rotation).
Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard
Key to the Leaderboard
Name and home town (according to the player’s Hendon Mob profile).
The player’s most recent ranking in the PNW Poker Leaderboard in italics. If this is their first time on the Leaderboard, an em dash (—)
Their new standing in bold, preceded by the pound sign (#).
Their change in status on the Leaderboard (with an arrow indicating up or down), or a black club (♣) if this is their first appearance.
For each of the tournaments that are being recognized in this Leaderboard:
The name and link to the Hendon Mob listing for that tournament.
The player’s finishing position in the tournament and the number of entries.
While everyone was watching Adam Nattress in Event #4 (see below), Mollala’s Smith snuck through nearly 3,600 other players to grab an exceptionally good first Hendon Mob cash.
Word went out on Day 2 that Adam was in the top 10% of the players at the end of Day 1. Then he powered his way to a not-insignificant lead by the end of Day 2. But the headline on the day-end wrap-up mentioned Jamie Kerstetter and “Miami” John Cernuto (and had pictures of both of them) but no Nattress. I knew Adam was too nice a guy to make anything out of it, but Karen-ed the heck out of it.
The Day 3 opening report had a pic of Adam but his name was initially missing from the headline. It was corrected relatively soon. Squeaky wheels, folks! You only get into these positions very rarely; make sure you get the credit you deserve!
Another month of nothing good to report! 14 shots at the Ignition Casino NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Go, just 3 cashes and none of them any higher payout than 2x buy-in. I got a couple of tickets from America’s Cardroom for satellites and a ticket from Ignition for their $2500 GTD Freeroll and nothing came of those.
Just a min-cash in one of three Beaverton Quarantine home game bounty tournaments (and a bare bounty in another), plus three bricks in non-bounty tournaments. Thankfully, those aren’t expensive.
After a five-month hiatus, I went back to the Final Table $20K GTD NLHE First Friday tournament, where I only made it though half the field, but had a very nice interaction about the blog with Brian Barker, who won a quarter-million in a World Poker Tour tournament last fall (as well as a bunch of other stuff). It was a fun evening, but too short.
Capped off the month trying to catch the lightning in a bottle at the Portland Meadows Big Bet Mix 6-Max. I’d taken second somehow last fall but only made it to 25th this time, doing quite well sitting with the likes of Jeremy Harkin and Joe Brandenburg, then less well sitting with my nemesis Butcher.
They modified the structure to add another level before break, at 61K I’m about 10K behind my pace on the last game, but still about 1.5 average. pic.twitter.com/0fJKtnSI3x
Next week is the Portland Meadows Poker Classic, of which I’m planning to play the Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday events. (Wheel of Chaos, baby!) Not sure what the rest of May holds, but I’m just over a month out from my trip to the World Series of Poker.
Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard
Key to the Leaderboard
Name and home town (according to the player’s Hendon Mob profile).
The player’s most recent ranking in the PNW Poker Leaderboard in italics. If this is their first time on the Leaderboard, an em dash (—)
Their new standing in bold, preceded by the pound sign (#).
Their change in status on the Leaderboard (with an arrow indicating up or down), or a black club (♣) if this is their first appearance.
For each of the tournaments that are being recognized in this Leaderboard:
The name and link to the Hendon Mob listing for that tournament.
The player’s finishing position in the tournament and the number of entries.
Another month in the red, though I briefly had hopes for this one.
No need to recap all of the thrill of min-victory and the agony of defeat at the Chinook Winds PacWest Poker Classic in the middle of the month, it’s all right here if you want to read about it.
I cashed 7 out of 17 Ignition Casino NLHE Jackpot Sit-and-Go tournaments, with just one of the winners being a 5x payout, which means…exactly $0 profit.
Because I spent an entire week at Chinook Winds, no other live play for me, though I did play five Beaverton Quarantine games via PokerStars Home Games, min-cashing a 10-player NLHE game and winning a NLHE Bounty tournament with three bounties (including my own) for a whopping 320% ROI. Not enough to cover my losses at the PacWest series!
There’s a whole bunch of fun coming up May 6th–12th at the Portland Meadows Poker Classic, though I’m going to have to skip their High Roller because I’ve got tickets to see Michelle Wolf. And I can only do the evening games because, you know…job.
I’ve booked my flight to the WSOP already. Got a lot of $2K and $5K satellites on my menu, along with HORSE, Seven Card Stud, and Big O,
Pacific Northwest Poker Leaderboard
Due to some fast reporting by the Chinook Winds tournament officials, this edition of the Leaderboard includes the big results from the recent PacWest Poker Classic!
Key to the Leaderboard
Name and home town (according to the player’s Hendon Mob profile).
The player’s most recent ranking in the PNW Poker Leaderboard in italics. If this is their first time on the Leaderboard, an em dash (—)
Their new standing in bold, preceded by the pound sign (#).
Their change in status on the Leaderboard (with an arrow indicating up or down), or a black club (♣) if this is their first appearance.
For each of the tournaments that are being recognized in this Leaderboard:
The name and link to the Hendon Mob listing for that tournament.
The player’s finishing position in the tournament and the number of entries.
This is Heang’s debut on the Leaderboard, though he has a couple other cashes that would have qualified him last year when I wasn’t keeping the Leaderboard updated.
Davies had six other cashes in the Triton Jeju series (for a total of eight cashes in seventeen events) each large enough to put most players’ career winnings to shame, but their ROI was less than 400%, so they do not appear on the Leaderboard.
Event #17 $40,000 Guaranteed NL Hold’em Big Bounty
I intended to play this cautiously. Not going recklessly after bounties; from experience I know there are a lot of them to gather up toward the end.
Things kicked off pretty fast. The table next to us had two all-in hands right away; Jerry Mouwad knocked a player out on our table, all in the first 15 minutes. There was another elimination from the table by the end of the second level.
Got a couple snorts of derision from the other players when I open-folded aces from the small blind on a paired board with three spades by the turn, when the big blind player in the hand bet out 11bb. Establishing the image of the tight old player with a They Might Be Giants sweatshirt. “Why is the snowman burning money?” asked one of the dealers.
My stack was up to only about 35K from the 27K starting stack by the end of the third level, then 40K at the end of Level 6 when registration ended. I kept plugging away through the next two hours to the next break, taking three hands out of four at one point, but still no bounties.
My big break came about six hours in when I raised, from UTG, got two calls, then 3-bet by a played in late position for about half my stack. I had suited ace-king and put all 58K in the middle. He called with queens. King and ten on the flop, but he picked up a set of queens. Then a river jack gave me Broadway. “Did you think I wasn’t going to call?” he asked after the hand was over, which seemed a little odd. Still didn’t get a bounty chip (aside from my own) until half an hour later after a table change.
I’d had pretty good luck with making sets of tens, so when I got them in the small blind at the end of the sixth hour, I was hopeful. An early position player raised and was shoved on by a shortish stack in middle position for 15bb. I called the all-in, then the opening player shoved as well, for another 15bb. At the time I was still over 80b, and called. The EP player had AK, the MP player had AT, and the board ran out to give them a wheel straight.
Another table change and we were down to 78 players. There were a couple of very short stacks and I managed to pick up two bounties before dinner break, making it up to 175K (44bb) for my high point before losing about 12bb after laying down a couple hands (including kings) after the flop.
We went to dinner break with 54 players left, two tables to the money. 33bb for me. I cashed out the three bounties I’d picked up, then zipped up to the 60s Cafe & Diner at the top of the hill to grab a burger and a boozy shake. I sort of had to wolf things down to get back in time, but perhaps I should have eaten more leisurely and not worried about getting back for the first — or more importantly, the second — hand. I had 25bb on the button and picked up ace-king of diamonds. One of the big stacks on the table opened for just over 2bb, and another player called. I ripped in my stack, which I probably didn’t need to do, though I think it was the right move, just at the wrong time, because after some thought, the original raiser called with kings, which held, and I was out.
Here are some final table payouts for the series as of mid-day Friday. Friday night’s Main Event Mega-Satellite paid out 30 vouchers, double the guarantee.
The morning was uneventful, just resting up from five days of playing poker, a little sightseeing, and a big steak dinner the night before. Made a few calls, caught up on the news a little bit (it hadn’t gotten any better) and generally relaxed until noon when I headed over to Chinook Winds.
Event #15 $15,000 Guaranteed Limit Omaha Hi-Lo
I won the first hand of O8, drawing out on the river against Joe Brandenburg. Before the game had even started, Bobby Quiring, a friend of Brad “First Friend of the Blog” Press, who I had met when we all played a HORSE tournament at Aria last summer (where Bobby won and Brad took 5th). Maybe it was too soon after the Big O tournament for me to play this, but I got shorter and shorter after I hit set under set. I had less than a quarter of a starting stack 90 minutes in, My tiny stack lasted for another couple of hours, then I busted the first hand back from the second break.
While I was out of the tournament room, I’d noticed there was a Thursday night steak and crab special at the Seafood Grill where I’d had breakfast with my father the other day, and told Brad I’d reciprocate his generous steak dinner from last night, then went to play some cash.
$2-$5 NL Hold’em
Cash isn’t my normal game and these aren’t my usual stakes, but the $1-$2 game was full up and I wanted to be able to keep an eye on the tournament status and upcoming (in a couple of hours) dinner break while I waited. I played pretty tight for an hour or so without catching much, then picked up black kings a d three-bet the very active and very loud player on my immediate right, who’d been wearing some astounding track suits the previous days. He called my bet along with a couple of others, the flop was very red and ace-high with two Broadway cards and a third on the turn, after which it got heads-up. The loud guy flipped over king-ten at showdown for Broadway.
I lost some more pots, until I hit middle set on a KQ9 flop. The player two to my right pushed all-in, covering my stack. I probably didn’t take he time to consider the jack-ten possibility, but I called and he flipped over a set of nines. I guess he hadn’t thought of jack-ten either
Brad busted out about six hours in and decided he had enough time to take me up on dinner before heading home. I grabbed my chips and cashed them out quickly with bit of a profit, and we walked over to the Seafood Grill, which wasn’t exactly full, but they were short-staffed enough we had to wait for about ten minutes to get seated because one guy was taking all of the orders and bartending. Food itself came about fifty minutes after we walked in the door. But it was tasty.
One of the great things about playing here at Chinook Winds Casino Resort is that it’s literally on the beach. There’s a stairway down to the sand between the casino and the resort, you can bust out — or cash big — then walk down to the water and contemplate existence.
Or you can have breakfast at the Seafood Grillon the south end of the complex and watch things through the windows, like my father and I did before he headed back to Portland.
Event #11 $25,000 Guaranteed Pot Limit Big O
Since most of the rationale for me spending an entire week here (ass opposed to just a couple of days) was due to me coming in second at the Portland Meadows Big O Championship back in December, I had some hope for this one. Things got off to an interesting start on the first hand at our table, with three players nearly all-in after the flop. It was three-quartered by the guy on my left, leaving one of the other player with about 16K (out of the 22K starting stack) and the other with just 400 chips.
Made the nut flush on an hand about half an hour in and pushed the action, with another player calling for the low. Deuce on the river and I scooped it to climb to 39K. Half an hour later, after a couple of questionable hands, I was in danger of elimination, with just 5K. By two hours in, I’d built back up to over 50K. and twenty minutes later, I had the table chip lead with over 100K.
A couple hands cut me down to 60K (still about twice average at that point, but by the second break (three hours in) I’d climbed back to 100K and knocked out the guy who kept telling me I was misreading my hand when I made the nuts.
I made it through another couple of hours, past the third break, but the see-sawing continued, with more sawing than seeing, I’m afraid. And about 15 minutes into the 11th round, I took a stand and busted.
Brad Press had asked me if I was interested in the Wednesday $30 steak special at the casino steakhouse during break, and since he was buying, I readily accepted. He busted the Big O tournament before dinner, we beat the crowd, and when we got there he noticed Jimmy and Bo, already sitting at a table. We sat down with them for some nice steaks, chatted about family and, yes, poker, and when they went off to late-reg the Mystery Bounty, Brad and I went to drink some of his top-shelf tequila and then we were both ready to rest up for the Limit Omaha Hi-Lo tournament Thursday afternoon.
I always look forward to HORSE tournaments because I get so few opportunities to play them. My only WSOP bracelet tournament cash is a min-cash in the 2021 HORSE event that Norman Chad bubbled. But this was not to be another one.
Since the tournament didn’t start until 4pm, I headed to the Tillamook Air Museum, housed in the only one of the WWII blimp hangers left in the nation. It’s full of planes, including some replicas of fighters from a century ago that somehow only weighed as much as I do.
The tournament went well for just about four hours, I was cruising along until three devastating hands in Seven-Card Stud Hi-Lo took me from 15 big bets (well above average in the aggressive structure) down to 5BB, then I was run down on the river holding aces up by a flush.
Brad (First Friend of the Blog) Press was still in, though, and he maintained a decent chip stack through to the money, then crabbed his way up on the final table. Smaller stacks were busting out quickly with the chip average under 3 big bets, and a double elimination left him as the short stack between two equal-ish big stacks. He had a rolled-up pair in the last hand of Stud Hi-lo, took third place when it didn’t hold up, and so far I’m ahead in our $5/5% swap for the series.
