ToC Recap - From the VIP Rail Section

The Tournament of Champions last night turned into some fantastic cyber poker.

Having reserved a rail seat in the VIP section, I got a front row view of the action. My contact fell through at Full Tilt and I wasn't given a lipstick cam view of the table like requested. Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker offer these, so I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

I had spent the day with the family, as you remember from my last post, we were celebrating my youngest daughter's birthday. Good times! I don't remember sniffing glue during the day, but you never know what happens at those 5 year old's birthday parties.

When I finally got to tune in, my friend PokerFool was 2nd on the leader board. We'd missed almost 2 hours of the tournament. I'm always a bit cautious with the girly chat during big tournaments. I played baseball, back in the day, and can slip into a bit of superstition. He was sticking to the top of the leader board. He's an awesome player on his own, my stupid advice won't help.

They got to the final table. The observer chat was just zooming. Just about every blogger seemed to be there offering up booms and gg's. What could make this even better? The poker was getting really exciting! You really got the sense that everyone was giving their best. OSU had moments that appeared drunken, but that could be just the chat window. Hmm...maybe he was sniffing glue? Nah...who does that any more?

Since we were watching the tournament from a decidedly biased point of view, watching the stack of PokerFool was our prime objective. I had joined some others on the girly chat and it was definitely exciting for everyone. Wow. The swings were making every one's hearts just race. Since we were hanging with my parent's having dinner and making preparations for the family birthday party for my 5 year old, I still don't remember sniffing glue.

As is typical for me in a poker tournament of this magnitude, I made a huge miscalculation that ended up costing me big time. I don't exactly remember the details, but the situation went down something like this.

The final table is narrowing down. The pressure is getting intense. One of the really short stacks pushes in with about 3 BBs. Another railbird comments about shoving with such a little stack. I chuckled. I remembered this comment.

A few hands later, the blinds are at 1000/500 with ??? ante, a player pushes the all-in button and raises to the total of all his chips: about 51,000. In my excitement, I miss calculated and fired a comment like "Shoving 51 BBs, priceless"

Damn! What a moron I am!

I should have realized that the two blinds would have needed to reach under the virtual table and pull out 35,000 more chips to make this a shove of 51 BBs. Classic rookie blunder. I just divided the stack by the size of the BB when I should have calculated its +chipEV and realized it was much smaller. I'll never make that mistake again.

wwonka69 bubbles the prizes. Heck of an effort!

oossuuu754 put up a great fight and from his chat, seemed to be really enjoying himself. By the end, I was convinced he hadn't been sniffing glue. He busted and walked away with the 2nd tier prize.

katiemother, OMGitsPokerFool and Loretta8 were now fighting it out for the top prizes. Seats at the ME of the WSOP. The ultimate prize for any of us poker players. The action was fast and furious. I'll be honest, it was difficult keeping up to all the action. Raising, folding, folding and raising. All of them were playing some great poker.

I would check out their recaps for much more detail of the action. They were there and with cards. All I saw was the back of the cards and the doesn't really tell the whole story. Mine are basically black and white with the Full Tilt logo on them.

By this time, my wife had joined me watching and my parents were really getting worried. Their son and daughter-in-law were yelling and screaming and generally just stressed out watching my laptop. I don't think at any time we had the glue out, but you never know.

I don't remember the hand, and I wasn't logging the action, but katiemother busted the big prize bubble by going home early. I'm sure she is disappointed, but let the world know, she put up a great fight. AWESOME JOB!!!!

With the top two spots getting paid the same, one of the remaining players shove and the other called. I'm sure some sick suckout determined the actual winner of the tournament, but they were both tops in my book. Well, actually, they won the same prize so the really both were the champion.

Great job everyone!!! And big thanks to Al, Hoy, Chad and Mookie for getting the BBT3 organized and keeping the stats. I was really impressed at the effort it takes to do this. The prizes were awesome and the action fierce.

It will be a while before we do something this grand again and I think the break will do us some good. This stuff is very stressful. Some of you may even decide to sniff glue. Just Say No!

Congrats PokerFool! Way to bring the championship home!!!!!

See ya on the felt! I'll be glue free in no time!