Saturday 31st March

Kev at the 2007 WSoP

Modifications to original text in yelly.

Killawatt stormed back into Championship contention last night at the Rare Books Arena. A rollicking performance in the face of stern opposition had his worldwide fan base on their feet whooping in adoration as he squeezed the last chips from the only remaining challenger, your humble scribe, to chalk up his first victory in the 2012 competition.

As the blinds increased to 2,000/4,000, Killawatt held about 3.5x the big blind while The Raiser had the big blind + 100. All-in was immediately reached and the Champ's A-10 held up against The Raisers 9-3 suited.

For Killawatt it ends three matches without a victory whilst its another case of what might have been for The Raiser who brought his A-game for the second match in a row. Unfortunately, when it does surface, it seldom hangs around and normal mid-table service will probably soon resume for the Peni-Hellmuth.

By this point Aces Duncan sporting an unlucky and overall pretty uninspiring new blouse had long since vacated. Playing cards of incredible looseness (politest way I can think to put it) he barely lasted seconds as he chucked half his chips at Bottleneck with a middling flush (J-high) whilst the host held Q-high.(the A was on the board). Unperturbed, soon after when The Raiser checked his AA and was pot raised by the in-a-hurry Corstorphinite, a pot re-raise wasn't enough to stop Thunderfunk piling all his chips behind an A9 off-suit. The silence around the table was broken only when a small voice tried to offer support mentioning that three 9's would help him, three 9's dialled on the phone maybe!!!

Seemingly unable to stay in the match if nobody is shouting at him to stay in the match, Willie WarmBeer (aka Wee Rambo) soon followed. In a hand of potential mass carnage involving;

Wee Rambo enraged at bad beat

Wee Rambo - AJ suited
Bottleneck - KQ suited
Killawatt - AQ offsuit
GingaStinga - AK offsuit

...the latter pair managed to extricate themselves from the impending bloodbath after raises & re-raises from the first pair (after much high pitched whining of course). Such a major move so early blew up in the fizog of the fearless Mini-Stallone and he was left fiddling menacingly with his weapons in an all too familiar early exit position.

The next victim of the cairds in 6th place was GingaRadge at the end of a noticeably more subdued performance than normal. While he ended up all-in with A4 v Bottleneck also with A4, the hosts cairds were suited and as the river came, life imitated art as GingaStinga pleaded with the poker gods not to end it like this.

Not like this...

It was reminiscent to this observer of the scene in The Matrix when Cypher pulls the plug on Switch as she pleadingly mutters "not like this". The cairds were brutal, the river brought a flush for Bobbybawbag and in a rebel ship somewhere deep within the earth's crust The Ginga Prince's lifeless corpse slumped to the floor (ok, the last bit might not have happened). Then there were five.

Eat this Turner!!!

Those not in attendance on the night should now prepare to hold their sides as they may soon begin to split. Those who did attend are surely already pi$$ing their pants once more. The Doctor, the exalted Brain of the table, the wisest of the lot almost knocked himself unconscious on a howfing great big lump of ignominy that suddenly appeared over his supersonic cranium. Having endured a round of checking, The Doctor made a tidy raise. Petawatt folded, Killawatt folded, The Raiser folded. The Doctor, jumping to the conclusion that the hand was over reached for the pot and declared the table to be populated by a "bunch of pussies". But Bottleneck was still in and didn't need a Poker A-Z to interpret that little snippet of info. The Doctor held Q8 with the 8 being top pair. Bottleneck trumped this with an A8 and the pussies could hardly contain themselves as the 2010 champion exited the game in 5th. Toot toot!!!

To this point Petawatt had been unleashing his new style on the PP$. Not content to solidly reach 2nd or 3rd place before bleeding dry, some (almost) aggressive betting had propelled him into contention. On the button he called with 5-5, Killawatt folded the small and The Raiser was delighted to be allowed to see the flop with his 2-3 offsuit. When the flop came down 3-3-10, The Raiser naturally checked, The Fur Warrior raised, The Raiser re-raised Petawatt all-in (leaving myself a single chip) and was most pleased when Petawatt called it. The last two cards were dud and two bad moves in one hand ended the Petawatts participation.

Killawatt had spent a while skirting around all-in territory but was handed a value chance v Bottleneck when he called in a troublesome spot against a raise that offered Killa enough value to call, his top pair held up (against heehaw) and his double-up was effectively fatal for the Bottlenecks chances. Soon after Killawatt reluctantly turned off Bottlenecks life support when he called the Bottlenecks K-3 with a 9-2 suited and the flop brought a flush for Mr I-know-the-odds-but-never-seem-to-get-shafted-by-them.

It's still too soon to tell if Bottleneck has lost his endgame after its single appearance- watch this space.
Then it was heads-up which lasted a wee while before the timer and the blinds brought down the final curtain. Four games, four winners, table to follow later in the week.

1. Killawatt
2. The Raiser
3. Bottleneck
4. PETAwatt
5. The Doctor
6. Ginga Prince
7. Wee Rambo
8. Dunkin Donut

Apologies: The Damage (teleporter still on the blink), The Professor (better things to do than donate a fiver to Kev), Sea Cock (unable to break through Gilmerton front line).