Red's Ramblings, Event #7 — $30 6-Handed No Limit Texas Hold 'Em
by Mark "The Red" Harlan
RGP Open Event #7 was a nice twist on the usual Hold 'Em events in that all play was short-handed at 6-seat tables. Once again, by RGP request, the tourney featured 2000 starting chips and 20 minute rounds.
The middle portion of the tournament was dominated by MissT74 who was, as one player a little too low on beer put it, "hurling her chips with reckless abandon and none who dared stand in her way would survive their courageous attempt." Normally sassy, MissT was running silent and deep and for a brief period midway through the tourney, she held 85% of the tournament chips.
Three players would cash and by the time the field was down to four, Miss had squandered the majority of her stack and held the thinnest of leads over a field including Saturn27, thejim2020, and PokerHeaven.
After three-and-a-half hours of play, with the ante at 25 and blinds at 100/200, MissT74 quadruple-raised from second position with an off-suit A2. Saturn27 had had numerous blinds and bets stolen with extremely aggressive plays by Miss and decided that it was his turn to return the favor. As low stack on the table, he pushed all-in with an off-suit A 7 and received a quick call from the '74. The threatening flop of 4 5 Q was made virulent by a toxic-river 3, sending Saturn back to Hyperion (http://tinyurl.com/cgyuj) for a holiday, but without any money for rocket fuel.
This, however, would be the last joy MissT74 would see for sometime. Thejim2020 pushed all-in with A Q, against the Missy and caught a river queen against her pocket 9's. This pushed a stack of 24k to thejim and put MissT74 in definitive last place, roughly half-stacked relative to the rest of the table.
PokerHeaven decided it was time to give 'em hell, making a series of successive all-in plays where she was either un-called, or shooting thejim down with two bullets versus 77.
Right about here is where gears shifted to a series of plays where the 'Grid was hosting ladies night. Back and forth MissT74 and PokerHeaven would push all-in, snapping up blinds and antes along the way and leaving thejim2020 to ponder how it would all look in hindsight. These plays would raise both the women considerably, and would end up being pivotal to the tourney outcome. MissT74 was now perched with the boy; Poker, slightly above.
But just as she started to roll, MissT stalled. Thejim caught her out on a hand, and once again she dropped to final position. Bottom of the triad, she pushed a post-flop all-in bet with 7k in chips and a very sweet drawing 7h 10h against a board of 4c 8h 9h. Thejim2020 sensed a steal and called with Ad 10d, only to see two hearts hit on the following cards.
The three now sat roughly even, with Poker just peeking out of heaven.
The three titans had been slugging it out for almost an hour when thejim and the Miss saw a deciding flop. Holding another A 10, thejim made a trapping check with top pair on a rainbow board of 8 9 10. When MissT made a 3x big blind bet, thejim moved all-in, only to find that the Missy had hit a set of 8s. Although beaten, thejim2020 did avenge his earlier bubble loss, was given $132, and officially allowed to once-again put "the" in front of his name.
This set the stage for the first RGP Open ladies-only final. It proved to be a relatively short and clawless cat-fight, however. A series of uneven hands were dealt where one player was hoping another would bet, only to see a pass; or both players were dealt cards so anemic they wouldn't bet them at all.
With MissT slightly above Heaven, Heaven decided she couldn't wait and pushed all-in on a semi-bluff with 33 on a pre-flop raise from MissT's apparent blind-stealing raise. MissT was holding A6-off and sensing fishiness herself, called. 3s had been extremely good during this tournament, but came up limp when the Missy hit two pair on the flop, with no improvement for Poker on the remaining cards.
PokerHeaven was allowed entrance to purgatory and given $198 for a new halo.
MissT74 took down the big prize of $330, much to the adulation of the assembled RGP crowd. No one has amassed, trashed and then fiercely won back more chips in an RGP Open event to date.
