Babycon XIV

Photos from Babycon XIV.

March 25, 2006

Last Saturday night, ten stoic, steely-eyed, poker-faced players gathered around a table for a No Limit Texas Hold Em tournament. At the same time, ten amateurs convened at our house in Germantown for the same thing! The buy-in was $10 and the top three spots paid off $10, $30 and $60, respectively. We raised the blinds every 20 minutes.

Playing were Bob and Carol Jones, Glenn and Beth Bramer, Dave and Noreen Fair, Dan Korn, Kevin Bealer, Bill Ruvinsky, and last minute addition, Jason Ruvinsky.

Thanks to Dave for providing the chips and cards, setting up and running the game. Per Dave’s idea we doubled everyone’s initial amount of chips while keeping the blinds low in order to give everyone more playing time. It seemed to work quite well as the first player out got to play for nearly two hours before busting. The game ran about four hours before a winner emerged.

There were a few highlights that bear mentioning. Glenn was the initial chip leader having taken most of Bob’s stack after Bob drew a straight on the Flop only to lose to the flush Glenn made on the River. Bob recovered when he managed to deal a similarly devastating blow to Glenn. Carol took over and was chip leader for most of the evening. Carol was a veritable killing machine knocking out four of the first six players - Bill, Jason, Beth and Glenn. By the end of the night, Dave had knocked out four himself - Noreen, Dan, Bob and Kevin. The only other person to knock someone out was Kevin who took out Carol.

The tally is as follows.

• 10 - Bill
• 09 - Noreen
• 08 - Jason
• 07 - Beth
• 06 - Dan
• 05 - Glenn
• 04 - Bob
• 03 - Carol $10
• 02 - Kevin $30
• 01 - Dave $60

Dave was the big winner and played a good game throughout. A couple of times he was down to a handful of chips but he stuck around and at the end held all the chips. He did get a couple of very lucky breaks that were really the highlight of the evening. The first was taking out Dan.

Dan versus Dave:

Dan had Q-4 offsuit
Dave had Q-8 offsuit
Pre-flop Dave was 68% to win heads up against Dan.

The Flop was Q-7-4 giving Dan two pair, Dave one pair with no possibility of a flush.
Post-flop, Dave was a 26% underdog.

Carol bet, Dan raised all in and Dave called, leaving himself with three low denomination chips if he lost. Carol folded.

The Turn was no help. After the turn, Dave was a 17% underdog.

The River was an 8, giving Dave a higher two pair and knocking Dan out of the game.


The second highlight was the last hand of the night when Dave went head to head against Kevin.

Dave versus Kevin:

Dave had about 65% of the chips in play. Kevin had about 35%.

Kevin had K-3 offsuit
Dave had 7-7

Kevin moved all-in pre-flop. Dave called.
Dave was a 71% favorite pre-flop.

The Flop was A-10-10
Dave is still a 69% favorite.

The turn was another A, putting two pair on the board, and counterfeiting Dave’s sevens. Now both players had two pair (Aces and Tens) while Kevin had a King kicker! Kevin is now the favorite. Dave is a 91% underdog. Only a seven can save him.

The River was a 7. Dave won with a full house.

Thanks to everyone who came out. It was a great time. I hope to do it again soon.

Bob

May 14, 2005

Hey everyone!

Below are the results of our gaming and Texas Holdem event last Saturday. We saw some old friends, met some new ones and had a wonderful time. Thanks to everyone who contributed food and drink. We certainly had more than enough! What’s left will undoubtedly be eaten at Babycon.

Special thanks to Dave Fair for setting up and running the Holdem game and to Noreen Fair for dealing the remainder of the game once she went out.

We were happy to have Mark Erickson as a first time guest to our game room. We were also very happy to meet Steve Bramer’s wife, Jackie, and Ken Cline’s wife, Vasoula, and her son, Angelo. It was a real pleasure to see Ken and Steve with their new families. I hope we’ll see you all again at future events.

We started playing board games around 2PM. We ate dinner around 6PM and started the Holdem tournament at 7:30PM. Eric Haas came by for the boardgaming part and kept the records. Thanks, Eric.

* * * * * *

Here is the tote of regular gaming (winner listed in bold):
Tote Board

• Spinball Bob, Eric
• Spinball Noreen, Carol
• Spinball Noreen, Rachel J
• Around the World in 80 Days Rachel J, Dave, Noreen, Carol
• Ticket to Ride Europe Eric 129, Bob 115, Ken 108, Vasoula 101
• San Juan Dave 32, Noreen 30, Carol 26.
• Circus Flohcati Dave, Noreen, Rachel, Carol
• Einfach Genial Ken, Rachel, Eric, Vasoula
• Dragonland Bob 43, Noreen 41, Dave 40, Carol 33

Texas Holdem

This was our first Texas Holdem night and, personally, I thought it was a blast. With twelve players, we started with two tables of six. Once two people were eliminated, we combined the rest into one table of ten and played until we had a winner. Each player bought in for $10 and received 1000 points in chips. The top four players won prizes of 50%, 25%, 15% and 10% of the pot. One player bought in again after an early bust so the total pot was $130.

The tables were:

Glenn Bramer, Dan Korn, Mark Erickson, Beth Bramer, Carol Jones, Noreen Fair

And

Bob Jones, Ken Cline, Jackie (Steve’s wife), Steve Bramer, Vasoula (Ken’s wife), Dave Fair

Of the twelve players, only five had played in a Texas Holdem tournament before. Inexperience was apparently not an issue. Unfortunately, with so many players, some of them are not going to get a good hand the entire night and are likely to go out just because of the attrition from the blinds. This happened to at least three players.

At the first table, after some early domination by first time player, Beth, Glenn dominated. He came to the big table as the chip leader. At the second table, Ken and Steve had some early winnings, but didn’t sustain them. Vasoula went bust within the first 30 minutes so we allowed her to buy back in. It proved momentous as she skillfully used her second stack of chips to finish in third place. I had the big stack from this table when we merged.

The players went out in the following order:

• 12. Steve Bramer After some early success, Steve couldn’t get a good hand.
• 11. Dan Korn Dan never got a good hand.
• 10. Jackie Coming to the big table short-stacked, Jackie didn’t last long.
• 9/8. Noreen and Mark Noreen and Mark were both knocked out in the same hand.
• 7. Carol Carol didn’t get many breaks.
• 6. Ken Ken was way ahead at one point at his 6 player table. Alas, it didn’t last.
• 5. Beth For her first time playing, Beth played very well.
• 4. Bob I came to the big table with the second biggest pile of chips. On the first hand head to head with Vasoula, she took half my stack. Later, Glenn took me out with a lucky card on the river. $13.00
• 3. Vasoula Easily the most improved. From an early bust, she came back, played very well and finished third. $19.50
• 2. Glenn With 4 players left, Glenn had the big stack. After he busted me out, he then lost a couple of big hands to Dave. After Dave knocked Vasoula out, Dave and Glenn went head to head. $32.50
• 1. Dave At a couple of points while on the 6 player table, Dave was nearly broke with all his chips on the line. He managed to hold on and after several hours of play, grabbed the win from Glenn. $65.00

I thought everyone played very well and I hope everyone had a good time. I would love to make this a semi-regular event. Elimination games are tough (which is why we play so many German games that aren’t elimination), but fun nonetheless.

Here are Dave Fair’s comments about the play of the final four:

It came down to Glenn Bramer on the big stack, Vasoula after that, and Bob and I both had less than 15 black chips each.

Glenn Busted out Bob, then I doubled up on Vasoula. I doubled up on Glenn two hands later, then tripled up on both of them.

I then knocked out Vasoula, and took on Glenn. He was still big stacked, but I was able to steal the lead, lose it, then steal it again. Finally, after many hands of aggressive raises from the button by me, I was able to take him down when he went all-in after making top pair (K-K) on the flop when I made 2-pair on the flop (8-8 & 7-7).

Attached are some pictures for your enjoyment.

Bob