Guess I need to update more often...

Seems I already mentioned my Taylor Lanes experience in post prior to yesterday's ramblings - whoops! Anyways, 2 weeks ago Dino's had it's season finale, and it turns out it could be an historic, so let's get right to it.

Once I got a look at the table layout and positioning, I quickly decided that for a while I was going to pound on the blinds of Slow Joe, Mike M, and Volcano Ron with any 2 reasonable cards, and build my stack that way...and it worked out even better than I could hope for, as I was getting calls and quick folds post-flop from continuation betting. Good way to gain a few grand with little work.

Dan was first one out of the tourney when the short-stacked WTP National champion had his K-10 run into Slow Joe's K-Q. A couple of hands later, I nearly took out Mike M after my 7-6 flopped two pair, but after all his money got in with A-7, turn and river were matching kings, and my 6's were counterfeited, so a nice little 2500 chip hit to me. Luckily, I was able to get those chips back in separate hands versus both Patrick and Volcano Ron. Sharon busted Bernie when she boated on the river, to make his river-bluff easy to snap-call. Soon after, I broke the 10K mark when I busted out a short-stacked Andy with my K-K versus Q-J or some connecting hand like that.

Volcano Ron and Sharon busted out a short while later after this, and then we were down to five. My chipstack at this time was going up and down, and the only one who was going up was Slow Joe's, who was employing his usual "gross overbet of the pot" strategy that works only when your opponents have nothing to call you with...and which is exactly what was happening.

Donkey Call of the tournament that ended up working for me was a button raise 5-handed with K-8, followed by an immediate shove by Mike M, who's a fairly tight player. Considering that I would be down to 4 BB if I lose, tough call for me here, but after a minute or 2 in the tank, I say "Let's gamble!", and make the call against Mike's 9-9. Flop a King to take the lead, and it holds, and Mike is out in 5th.

Big hand of the tourney turned out to be Donald getting 6-6 in versus Slow Joe's A-9 after Donald 5-bet all-in. 8-8-7 flop, 2 turn, and 7 river meant Slow Joe's ace-high takes down the massive pot, and Slow Joe has a massive chip lead. A few hands later, I raise on button (blinds 500/1000) with K-9, flop my 9, but see Slow Joe bet 14K into a 7K pot on a board of 3 low diamonds (of which I had none)...think about it for a minute, tell Joe his flush is good, fold my 9 face-up, and Joe flips over a made flush. I chuckle and tell him, "Nice value bet", and because Joe isn't bright enough to know that I am being sarcastic here (that, and he has no concept of what a value bet is) says, "Thank you", in total seriousness. Patrick and Cheryl, our tournament director, just roll their eyes and shake their heads at the idiot.

I go out a few hands later when I try to shove a flopped pair of nines into his pair of jacks, and so long me in 3rd. A couple of hands later, Patrick busts out, and Slow Joe wins our tourney.

Sadly, the historic part of it all is because most likely we have played our last game at Dino's...for sure, we'll be off for a couple of months. Conflicting stories out there, but this much we know:

The next day, Slow Joe posted a message on Facebook, and linked to the bar's page. In this post, he mentioned the gift cards being handed out as prizes, which is a no-no according the Michigan Liquor Commission...and ghey as that sounds. Dino says that, allegedly, Ferndale police made a call about this...a couple of people I have talked to in the days after said that never happened. Either way, Dino was pisssssed about the Slow Joe post, and since there was talk he wanted to end the poker nights, he had a great excuse to do so.

Irony of ironies, in that Slow Joe probably a grand total of ZERO dollars in this establishment in the year or so he played here...way to support the bar, yo! But in a matter of sweet justice, turns out that the waitress goofed when ringing up Slow Joe's new gift card, and had to void the transaction...and when she went to get a new card, Slow Joe was gone! So for those who can't keep score, our league that has been running for 4 years is probably over due to mention of a gift card that doesn't really exist. BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!

In the meantime, I'm looking (especially when April and year-end at work are over) at some World Tavern Poker events around here...just too bad there are none within 20 minutes of me.