Holiday 100Ks on FullTilt in the books, CPL co-director final tables

FullTilt ran a couple of nice promotions this weekend with their Holiday 100K and the Extra Holiday 100K (on Dec. 27 and 28 respectively) or, as they put it, "Like Festivus, the Holiday 100K is for the rest of us." These were 2000 FullTilt Point (FTP) tournaments, capped at 10,000 players - and they both capped out. Numerous ways to get into them including simply buying in, various point tournies (from 35 pts to 400) or you could slug it out with 3599 other people in freerolls. Each tournament saw nice compliments of FullTilt pros participating - about a dozen on Saturday and 15 or so on Sunday.

Saturday: The Holiday 100K - Blind Me Down, New Life Durand and Karaoke played on Saturday, though we aren't entirely sure which routes were taken (other than Karaoke getting in on a 400 points tourney after trying a 35, 100 and one other 400 pt one). Blind Me Down went down early - 9500 or so if memory serves. Karaoke Phil took a nose dive and was on life support about the time that New Life exploded from the 2000 starting chip stack to about 10K. It looked for all the world as if New Life would last the longest. But, then boom (we're not sure how, but it seemed to be in only about 4 hands) New Life dropped from 10K to about 6K to out at about 6500th place. Karaoke nursed his short stack back from 195 chips to around a short lived 4K. However, he managed to stay in the zone of 1200 to 2000 for nearly 4000 players. Ultimately, he couldn't get the one last double up to make it into the money and went out in 2059th.

Sunday: The Extra Holiday 100K - We saw only Karaoke Phil participating (getting in after ponying up about 1300 more FTPs in tournies) in the Extra 100K. Karaoke layed fairly low in the beginning - striking with 6500 players left to chip up to more than 9K which put him in the top 150 at the time. He largely held this position through about 3500 players left (gathering more than 11K in chips) when he took a hit that dropped him to about 8K in chips. Attrition and other hits lowered his total to under 7K as they hit payout at 1800 players left with Karaoke in about 1050th. At this point he kicked it up a gear and quickly moved to 13K to 20K to 25K in chips and stood in the top 300 with 1000 players to go. The chips ups continued to 33K to 45K to 60K to 111K and our own Karaoke Phil stood in the top 40 with 300 players still alive just under 300 hands into the tournament.

A mini disaster dropped him to 71K just a couple of hands later and he floated in the 70 to 100K zone for 40 some hands when he exploded to 183K putting him back to 31st place with 163 remaining. Thirteen hands later there were 131 players left and Karaoke had moved up to 279K and was in 11th. While the field cut in half over 60 hands to 61 left, Karaoke stagnated and dropped to 30th while increasing his stack to 312K. However, waking up with Pocket Rockets and having Big Slick move all-in ahead of him allowed Karoake to more than double up to 667K and with 48 left he now sat in 6th place. He largely sat back waiting for more opportunities and was in 9th (with 696K in chips) with 37 remaining.

Another mini disaster occured as Karaoke totally misread an opponent (his notes said the player was poor). Apparently, however, the player has vastly improved and raised with Qs. Based on his notes, Phil reraised over the top with A/6 suited and took a blow putting him just under 275K in chips and in 24th with 26 players left. As an aside, the "donkey" player also made solid plays with Js and A/J suited and Phil never saw the less than premium holdings his notes alluded to.

With blinds at 20K/40K with a 6K ante Karaoke went back into short stack mode: fold or all-in. That continued for about 30 hands (getting a couple/three blinds during that time) when Karaoke was able to break the 1 million mark and move into 7th with 16 players left - still only 20 times the BB at this point in the tourney. More good luck, good cards and good karma (when he pushed all-in with 12 players left with Q/J and ran into A/K - only to have his Broadway beat the opponent's 2 pair and then having his A/6 hold up against a shorter stacked all-in push with K/J) brought Phil to the final table with just under 2.4 Million in chips and in 3rd place.

Final table lasted all of 9 hands for Karaoke - on hand 5 his preflop call of a rasie and flop reraise with pocket Js (on a board of 3/4/3) were called by a player with A/K. The turn brought a K - from that point on he lost the minimum but he dropped to 1.3 million in chips. Then on hand 9 he woke up with 9s in the small blind. The cut off raised to 198K (blinds at 40/80K with a 10K ante at this point). Karaoke decided to reraise all in and the villian called with A/K. The 9s didn't hold and Phil hit the rail with a 9th place finish - a decided improvement on his finish from the day before.

He's now taking offers from investors for next year's WSOP Main Event.

NBC Heads Up Championship--CPL Director Makes it to Qualifying Round 2 on Full Tilt

In what originally was a freeroll that popped up as I was logging into Full Tilt....three hours later has Your CPL Director making it into the 2nd Qualifying round on Full Tilt on Dec 20th where 64 folks will qualify for the January 4th Full Tilt Heads Up Qualifier for NBC's National Heads Up Championship.  The only way to get into the 2nd round qualifier is by the 1st round Qualifier freeroll and outlasting a field of 256 in a Heads Up Shootout format.

Some great cards in timely spots certainly helped a lot....especially in the final matchup which only lasted nine hands where my full house 4's full of 3's that I got on the river bested my opponents full house of 3's full of 6's that he actually had on the turn.  Ouch. 

--
CPL Director Mark Cardenas
and
CPL Co-Director Phil Fuehrer

Find the Podcast on ITunes: CPLDirectors Podcast

SCOOP!! - CPLPoker scoops Star Tribune

No, we didn't scoop a poker pot. We scooped our breaking news story (posted just before 2 am on Sunday, Nov. 30) on the financial plight at Running Aces. Since we're a little tighter with the various dealers and casino end of things we reported on dealer work hour reductions and loss of benefits.

It seems that maybe the Strib reads our blog as they posted (sometime around 11:30 pm on Monday, Dec. 1 - that's about 45 hours AFTER our breaking news) this story by reporter Paul Levy including a little more background info and fuller scope of the situation - and, he apparently took most of Monday (or even Sunday) to get the interviews.

Ahh!!! Scooping pots is nice, but this feels much better.

BREAKING NEWS - Running Aces Dealers' hours reduced, benefits cut

The CPL Poker Blog has it from reliable sources that the situation at Running Aces is extremely tough. Apparently, meetings held for dealers on Friday and Saturday (11/28 and 11/29) informed them that most (if not all) of them were having their work hours reduced to part-time. Additionally, benefits were being cut or eliminated for them.

Tough times apparently at Running Aces as new management attempts to right the bottom line. Tougher times still for the dealers - there's a "Merry Christmas" for ya.

It's CPL Poker Blog's hope that the ship is righted (we like the competition the extra card room has created) not only for our own amusement and money-making, but so that their employees can earn a decent living with decent benefits.

Running Aces December Tourney Schedule Available

You can view December's scheduled tournaments at Running Aces Card Room here.

For you OH8 fans, it looks like they've shifted back to the first Sunday of the month.

Also, for you Pai Gow fans - there is No Ante/No Commission play until November 30.

Bill 'Comeback Kid' Crowned CPL Champion Fall 2008!

It was a great Tournament of Champions for the CPL!  10 members went back and forth for over 6 hours before a winner was declared, including an awesome 35 minute heads up finale between Bill 'Comeback Kid' Lanoux and Malinda 'Nemesis' Cardenas for the CPL Championship!

This TOC was filled with interesting twists and turns very similar to the entire 2008 Fall Session.  

First off, we had a massive $3000 bet, courtesy of Mike 'Una-Bomber' Bowman, on the first hand when blinds were only 10/20!!  Then we had an early chip leader by Una-Bomber who just ran over the table for several hours. I lost track of how many pocket pair he showed in the first 2 hours...and the two Ace high flushes helped a bit!

The wealth would also get concentrated as a Big Stack with 'Karaoke' Phil Fuehrer, who was the chip leader starting the TOC.

Early trouble was brewing for Greg 'NewLife' Durand who lost significant chips early...for Mark 'Verbal' Cardenas who was the short stack starting the TOC, and for Voni 'Rookie' Khang who was also short stacked going into the TOC and could not pick up a significant pot early.   

After 3 hours of play and going into level 7, all ten CPL members were still in play.  Then eliminations began....

First victim was Verbal, who was on the big blind with Karaoke limping in the pot.  Verbal hit top pair matching his Q, while Karaoke flopped a made straight.  Well that spelled disaster as Verbal went all in, was insta-called by Karaoke, and the number 10 seeded Verbal's 2008 TOC was done as he went out in 10th.  

Over the next two hours 7 more players would be eliminated.

Next in line was The Rookie, as the blinds got the best of her...and rumors started spreading about how the seeds were all going to come true...

Then going out in 8th was Jeff 'Matusow' Matson who was seeded 3rd going into the TOC.  Matusow was slightly distracted during his TOC as scheduling problems left him trying the 'win big or go home' method.  And go home he did.

Balance of Power on the table then began to shift....

Karaoke Phil was eliminated in 7th place as his significant chip lead kept was not big enough to withstand the number of hands he was in

Mike 'Blind Me Down' Behr went out in 6th place in a fairly normal tournament for Blind Me Down.  He played conservatively, bantered playfully and sometimes aggressively with Vince "The Cursed One" Castellanos and was probably one hand away from making into the points...I mean the money.

Greg 'NewLife' Durand who truly obtained new life by taking The Rookie's chips when he himself was short stacked ended up going out in 5th place.  A great tournament for NewLife who was in serious trouble early and fought back to take 5th! (Plus 16.00 in the scratch off ticket winnings!)

The Una-Bomber went out on in 4th on the CPL Ticket Bubble losing a big hand against Nemesis.  A great first CPL season and a great TOC for the Una-Bomber! 

The Cursed One went out in 3rd place and scored the first of 3 CPL Vouchers to the Running Aces Tournament.  A great match by the 'weakest' player in the CPL who steadily and solidly increased his stack of chips throughout the tournament.  Apparently The Cursed One's pleadings to a higher power worked! Time to become that better person you promised! Congrats Cursed One!

This left Comeback Kid and Nemesis to battle it out heads up.  We initially thought this would be over and done with in short order as the blinds were at level 12 (2000-4000) and Nemesis had a huge chip stack advantage....but that would not be the case.  In the longest running heads up play in CPL history (about 35 minutes) and moving to the never before seen 13th blind level of 3000/6000 the chips moved from Nemesis to Comeback, back to Nemesis, back to Comeback again and finally a Tournament of Champions Champion was crowned.  

Congrats to the three CPL Tournament of Champions Running Aces Tournament Voucher Winners for the 2008 Fall Session!  Now go out and take it down at Running Aces!

1-Bill 'Comeback Kid' Lanoux

2-Malinda 'Nemesis' Cardenas

3-Vince 'Cursed One' Castellanos

One final note....although Verbal went out in a dismal tenth place...after everyone left and the table and chips were put away...Verbal scratched off his two $1 tickets to find a $50.00 winner!  Not bad for going out in tenth place!!

--
CPL Director Mark Cardenas
and
CPL Co-Director Phil Fuehrer

Find the Podcast on ITunes: CPLDirectors Podcast