Red's Ramblings, Event #4 — $20+Rebuys No-Limit Texas Hold 'Em
by Mark "The Red" Harlan
By RGP request, Open Event #4 included both rebuys and add-ons. $20 would get you entry in the 20-minutes-per-level tournament and 2000 in chips. Unlimited rebuys were available until the second break ($20 for 2000 chips), with a possibility of a single or double add-on ($20 for 2500 chips) at that time.
A small crowd of 15 players carried large wads of Andrew Jacksons with them as they stepped up to play in the historic tourney. By the end of the second break there had been a whopping 35 rebuys and ten add-ons, fattening the prize pool to a rotund-yet-still-cute $1200.
Immediately before the second break, there was a play that would determine the course of the tourney. With blinds at 50/100, LADYwithLUCK raised from an early position to 400. TARKUS upped it to 1000, with Erudis quickly calling from late position. With the action now on LADY, and still unsatisfied with the proceedings, she pushed it all-in to 5020, drawing a quick call from TARKUS and a paused call by Erudis. The flop came 2 3 8 rainbow. TARKUS, holding a stack of about 15,000, made an assured bet of 4500. Erudis, the tourney leader, paused and then made a bet that forced TARKUS to call all-in. Hearts stopped as the cards were exposed. The winner here would almost certainly be calling the shots for the remainder of the tourney. LADYwithLUCK held a noble KK. This was trumped by TARKUS's first class seat on American Airlines. But the power hand of the table was Erudis, with his now-worthy, and completely tripped, pocket 3's. A turn and river of 7 and 5 meant Erudis would now have to be called "sir" with a Brobdingnagian stack of 52000, and left the LADY and TARKUS hitting the rebuy button like psychology lab rats.
A little over four hours in, the final four were smoldering for action: Omaholic, TARKUS, Erudis, and Petoria. But only three were set to cash against a menu of: $240, $360 and an oh-so-tasty $600.
With stacks sitting very roughly at 65k for Erudis, 25k for Omaholic, 20k for Petoria, and 7k for TARKUS; Petoria suggested a chop. (Chops can be done by hand on GamesGrid.) Erudis, in possibly the most magnanimous move in poker history offered, "An even chop, chop by chip count, or just play. Whatever you want." He claimed to have company at his house and one assumes he wanted to either torture players at the table with his stacks, and real-life guests with his poker play -- or just get the hell on with his evening.
As you would guess, TARKUS was fine with a chop, but Omaholic said to play on. So play on, they did.
Petoria was unfortunate to have the ever-aggressive Erudis to his left and had a repeated series of raises only to be followed by erudidic all-in moves, leaving bet-after bet abandoned on the felt. Just when things looked their bleakest, Petoria was able to scramble back to higher ground with a double-through of AJ against Eru's KJ on a J-high board.
This changed the fortunes of the table to roughly 5500 for TARKUS, 27400 for Omaholic, and 33500 for Petoria, but still leaving Erudis bigger-than-slick with a daunting 58700.
Omaholic's life was getting worse, and not just in his standings; claiming his wife was on his back to finish up and take a chop deal. [It was not clear if this was for shopping money.]
The tourney was paused for discussion. Several different ideas were discussed, but Omaholic made the definitive statement, "I'm not taking anything less than $300," adding that he wanted to be above the scheduled third place money.
A suggestion was made to split with $120 for TARKUS and $360 each for Omaholic, Petoria, and Erudis. All eyes were looking sheepishly toward the wolfish Erudis as he declared, "I'll do whatever you want. I don't need the money," and added the say-what provoking, "I thought this was a qualifier for the RGP Open Main Event anyway."
Without addressing the perplexing last comment everyone agreed and the tournament was officially finished.
If there's any lesson to be learned from RGP #4 it's either: real-life can affect your online poker play or that Erudis is one strange dude or that TARKUS is the luckiest man alive.
Entry fees vs. pay outs by player:
Erudis: (three rebuys, no add-ons) $80/$360
Omaholic: (one rebuy, two add-ons) $80/$360
Petoria: (two rebuys, one add-on) $80/$360
TARKUS: (three rebuys, one add-on) $100/$120
Largest number of rebuys by a single player in the tournament: eight
