The Summer of George

Poker at the Clearwater

School Work - Wednesday

I worked the early morning until the early evening on Wednesday on some curriculum stuff at school. I was so pumped up after completing my unit that I decided to flex my muscles a little for the crowd. Work is fun.

Poker at the Clearwater Theater - Thursday
Before I get to the Clearwater tournament, let's start at John's house at about 2pm. We decided last night to have a mid-afternoon poker session. $1 buy-in netted 100 chips. We played until 5:30pm. If one of us went out, we could re-buy 100 chips for $1 more. The game was the dealer's choice. The person with the most chips at 5:30pm walked away with all of the cash. Here are your participants:

Jesse

John

Scott

Marc

This is my ideal afternoon, to be totally honest. We played five card draw, seven card stud, seven card stud (High Spade, Low Hold), Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo Split, 7 & 27, Texas Hold 'em, and Nighttime Baseball. I love mixing it up like this. I may not be very good at it, but I still enjoy it. I'll explain it like this: John won $14 on from an initial $4 pot. Scott had to re-buy twice. John had to re-buy three times. And I had to re-buy six times. Kind of pathetic, I know, but I would like to point out that I rebought at 5:15pm, with only fifteen minutes left to go, and I was the chip leader for the last hand. That's pretty impressive. Jesse, in an even more impressive feat, was knocked out of chips at about 5:15pm, even though he didn't have to re-buy once. That's poker, baby.


John ended up winning that last hand (and apologies, John, but this picture of you is absolutely outstanding) because Scott pushed all-in. We were playing High Spade, Low Hold, which has the possibility of a split pot. If the pot were to split between the two, I'd win the money. I could sit out and let them duke it out. But, if the pot didn't split, it was guaranteed that one of them would beat me easily. So, I had to call. John ended up winning the whole thing, obviously. The pot didn't split. He had a full house and the high spade down. God, I love that picture.

Onto the Clearwater. Apparently, the Clearwater Theater in West Dundee has a No Limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament every Thursday night. It's absolutely free, so we decided that the afternoon poker would be a warm-up for the evening's main event.


This was a picture of the room before the field showed up. At the start of the tournament there were 48 people on eight different tables. Scott, John, and I were all on a table together. We were hesitant to push each other around, so instead we beat up on everyone else at the table, which took a while. By the time we mopped up at our table, we split up: John and I went to one table with two seats open and Scott waited for one seat to open up at another table.

Playing with people I've never met before is fun to me. Typically, they don't know what to expect from me, and I don't know what to expect from them. Long story short, at that table I turned my 6600 chips into 16500 chips (the initial chip count for everyone was 2500). John held his own for a while at the table before being put out in 10th place. Scott went next at 9th place at his table, which allowed me to take a seat at...


the Final Table!

My heart was racing every time I pushed all-in, or every time I faced a big decision, which was weird because, after all, this was a free event. I didn't have any money at stake, whereas earlier in the day I kept going all-in and losing and putting another dollar in the pot that John eventually took home. I ended up finishing in third place at the Clearwater, which is pretty respectable. The blinds kept eating me up, I wasn't getting good cards, and the Red Woman - who also knocked Scott out, coincidentally - was on the rush of a lifetime. Every time someone pushed all-in she either had a high pocket pair - Queens when I pushed all-in with 9/10 of spades - or she outdrew them with over cards.

Overall it was a really fun experience. I'd go again next week, but I'm moving my sisters to Florida. I am proud of my crew, who all finished in the top 10 at the tournament. I think the MPG Crew is ready to take over the... West... Suburban... Free... Poker... World?

Off to bed. I may try to finish Eats, Shoots and Leaves tonight. Fascinating book for all you grammarians out there. Tomorrow will probably see me back *gulp* at the laundromat. Gross.

posted by The Nightmare @ 11:38 PM