I'm a WINNER...

Despite the fact that somebody said I was a "woozer" last night, I'm a WINNER! In last night's NDPT End-of-the-Year Extravaganza I miraculously took down the top spot. Although turnout was light we still played and had a great time. (14 players showed up to flaunt their poker prowess.) For a while there in the beginning, I was getting spanked by an unforgiving river card at my first table, and Jody was all too willing to stick it to me. She drew out on me a number of times. TJ commented on that, and it helped me keep my sanity in check for a while. But I managed to get myself back up to treading water level and I just hovered around the original buy-in level for a while. When the table got extremely short, I hit a few hands, which pumped me up a little higher than I'd been all night. I do have to say that a late position call into a family pot with Q-9os did wonders for my stack, when I hit QUADS and got paid with them. We went to a single table, when we went down to 9 players. I just don't like collapsing to 10 players, it seems too crowded. At any rate, I drew the small blind and it turned out to be the best place to be. Although, it didn't feel like it at the time. I nearly bubbled the tournament in 5th place. A couple hands before I got tangled up with Steve, when I looked down at pocket Queens, and I pushed hard preflop, for around 5X the BB. Steve called my all-in, all-in himself for less... His A-5os found a lucky Ace and had me reeling from the feeling! So, there I was with only one option left in the arsenal. I had only 375 in chips left and the blinds were 150/300. I had dismal cards until the BB rotated back around to me. I didn't even bother looking and just sat my total chips in front of me on the cards and declared that it would cost 'em the additional 75, as I was going all-in blind. I got two callers! The cards came down, and Steve missed, and TJ flipped over a pocket pair of 5's. So, now I had to look, and found a K-8os, but I had hit the 8 on the River! That helped... Scott finally went out in the bubble position, so now it was just time to see who would get paid the top spot. I started hitting cards, and some fantastic position bluffs too. There was some good fortune involved there... I guess Lady Luck thought I had it coming after the beat-down on the pocket Queens. Anyway, Steve, and then TJ went out leaving it down to Mike R and I. Mike had a chip lead on me, and at first when the cards were far below average there for a few hands, I thought I was going to fold my way into 2nd place, but then things turned around. I started hitting 2 pair on the flop. The final hand, I held J-8os and hit two-pair. Mike bet out on me, and I went over the top for all of it. Mike called with his J-4os, and was basically drawing dead. So, finally I put a good game in the "W" column and end the year on a positive note. Wahoo!

Thanks to all of you who showed up to play, and thank you for the great times that we've had throughout the year. I look forward to many more NDPT poker in the coming year.

Regards,

cheer_dad