Die Hard Poker League Season 1: 2005/06

	Standings	Season Info	Statistics
Home	Season 7 - 2011/12	Season 7 - 2011/12	All Time Leaders
Rules Page	Season 6 - 2010/11	Season 6 - 2010/11
	Season 5 - 2009/10	Season 5 - 2009/10
	Season 4 - 2008/09	Season 4 - 2008/09
	Season 3 - 2007/08	Season 3 - 2007/08
	Season 2 - 2006/07	Season 2 - 2006/07
	Season 1 - 2005/06	Season 1 - 2005/06

Updated: September 18, 2006

Tourney Dates (all start times are 8pm)

xFriday, September 23^rd xFriday, October 28^th xFriday, December 2^nd xFriday, January 13^th xFriday, February 3^rd

xFriday, February 24^th(took place March 10^th) xFriday, March 24^th xFriday, April 21^st xFriday, May 12^th xFriday, June 2^nd

xLEAGUE FINAL (top 10 players) Friday, June 16^th WSOP Tuesday July 18th/19^th @ Rio in Las Vegas (NL $1500 US buy-in)

First off, all of you please join Van Poker Yahoo Group as that is where photos and updates and messages are going. This site will continue to be updated but photos and messages will be sent via that email list. So go join.

July 24, 2006 Grant represents well in WSOP!

Well boys we went, we played and we busted out! Our adventure was not without its positives and we did have some twists and turns but alas none of us were able to cash this year. So we must wait another year for the Die Hard Poker League to make its mark in the World Series of Poker.

Before the first card was dealt we had some changes as I received a phone call while in Vegas at 9am Saturday (3 days before the tourney) from Al DeLeon who had been in an accident and was unable to make the trip. This brought some changes as I had to scramble and talk to the tourney organizers to see if I could get Al's money back so I could send another player. Things worked out and Jordi Muckle made the trip down as the 5th place finisher as Adrian Nelson was unable to make it (being the 4th place and first runner up).

Tuesday morning we assembled our crack team of poker wannabes of Etienne, Grant, Jordi and myself at the All American diner in the Rio for a hearty (And Etienne might say questionable) breakfast to get us going. With TJ Cloutier seated at the table right beside us we knew we were here to compete against the pros.

Noon came and we sat down at our respective tables: Jordi at table 173, Etienne at table 141, Grant at table 139 and myself at table 137. We started with 1500 chips a piece with the blinds at 25-25 for Level 1.

We all had our ups and downs in the Level with Grant and Jordi building some chips and myself reaching 2100 before dropping down to 1275 at the end of the level. Jordi got settled next to Men the Master Nguyen and took the first Level to steal his blinds once or twice. Level 1 was no problem overall for our team.

However Level 2 was a nightmare. The blinds went to 25-50 and trouble came. Etienne was our first casualty going out only 1 hand into Level 2 (the Levels were one hour long) on a hand I can not recall, but believe it was big slick preflop while somewhat short-stacked.

I myself (I bought myself in directly) lasted only a half hour longer when my pocket sevens all in 475 chip preflop bet was called by pocket threes. I had become short-stacked when I missed several flops with decent starting hands like KQs and AJ. And of course the dreaded 3 hit on the river to give my opponent a set and send me to the rails.

With half our team down we moved to Level 3 where Grant became critically short-stacked down to 150 chips. However, Jordi was soon the next to fumble and went out holding I believe AQ with a Queen high flop and the caller hit runner runner flush (I think that's right, but Jordi would need to confirm). Grant was able to survive a few all ins and actually built up some chips and moved to Level 4 in decent shape. From there it was an interesting battle for Grant as he had a roller coaster ride until he faced an all in with pocket 6's around Level 7 vs. AK. The flop came xx6 and even the Ace on the turn and King on the river couldn't stop Grant from doubling up. As
the players continued to drop and the tables combine we watched from the rail as only 500 remained of the 2126 starting players. Then it was 450, then 400, then 350, then 300 and Grant was still alive. Top 198 would be paid so it was getting closer. We watched table after table be broken down until there were only 23 tables and less than
230 players remaining. At that point Grant pushed all in with what we were to later find out was KK but got no callers. A few hands later he raised with 89c and was called by the SB who happened to be none other than Sklansky and the BB. A flop of QJ8 with one club gave Grant a pair, a gutshot and a backdoor flush draw and sitting extremely short-stacked the BB pushed him all in holding Q6 for top pair. Grant called and none of his outs came and he was sent to the rails oh so close to a payday. Grant went out in 221st place only 23 spots from the money. I'm glad to say that one of the four of us fared well and made a decent showing, however we will have to wait
for next year for one of our members to cash.

Congrats to Grant for doing us all proud. At one point Grant was as high as 6500 in chips. He kept his coll surrounded by many different pros and battled to the end.

Well boys, there's always next year!

Darren

June 19, 2006 Congrats to Our Winners: Etienne Aquart, Grant Oltmann, Al DeLeon

Well the big day came and went and it was nothing if not an intense affair for all involved.

Seat 1: Al DeLeon 48,000

Seat 2: Adrian Nelson 33,600

Seat 3: Etienne Aquart 36,800

Seat 4: Scott Brynen 30,400

Seat 5: Jordi Muckle 37,600

Seat 6: Doug Crone 35,600

Seat 7: Paria Noorkami 38,000

Seat 8: Grant Oltmann 32,000

Seat 9: Pat Woelk 39,600

Seat 10: Scott Muc 31,200

The first hour was extremely tight as no one really seemed to want to play much. Lots of hands played with no flop or no action past the flop. It was slow action with no one making any real moves early. A big hand finally happened about 45 minutes in when Pat and Paria saw a pre-flop raise of 2000. The flop came AA7 with two hearts; Pat checked, Paria bet 2000 and then Pat moved all in. Paria went into the tank before eventually calling with her AJc only to have Pat turn over AK. Big Slick held up and Paria was nearly crippled down to only around 5000 chips. Etienne made the biggest move in the first hour taking pots from Adrian and Pat and nearly doubling his stack. Chip counts after one hour of play were:

Seat 1: Al DeLeon 52,700

Seat 2: Adrian Nelson 22,400

Seat 3: Etienne Aquart 67,300

Seat 4: Scott Brynen 27,200

Seat 5: Jordi Muckle 34,500

Seat 6: Doug Crone 28,100

Seat 7: Paria Noorkami 7,400

Seat 8: Grant Oltmann 38,500

Seat 9: Pat Woelk 52,900

Seat 10: Scott Muc 31,700

The next big hand came when in Level 4 with the blinds at 600-1200 Adrian raised to 10,000 and Pat called. The flop came J84 and Pat led out all in with a semi-bluff on second button. Adrian was holding Queens however and had a relatively easy call to double thru Pat leaving him with around 20,000 chips. Shortly after that we had our first casualty of the night when Pat pushed all in pre flop in early position with KJ only to be immediately called by Scott Muc with AK. Big slick held up again and Pat was sent packing as our 10^th place finisher lasting 1hr52min into the final table. Scott gave most of those chips back shortly later however and the end of the 2^nd hour of play saw Etienne and Adrian firmly in front and Paria managing to last an hour of play holding onto her short stack.

Seat 1: Al DeLeon 46,400

Seat 2: Adrian Nelson 73,600

Seat 3: Etienne Aquart 74,300

Seat 4: Scott Brynen 28,000

Seat 5: Jordi Muckle 22,300

Seat 6: Doug Crone 49,300

Seat 7: Paria Noorkami 7,600

Seat 8: Grant Oltmann 33,800

Seat 10: Scott Muc 27,500

Paria’s luck would finally run completely out when she made a stand with AT and was called by Etienne’s KJ. The dealer, none other than Paria’s husband Mehran would spike a King on the flop at that was it: Paria was out in 9^th 2hr31min into the final. She would shortly be joined by Doug who tried a move pre-flop all in with AT. Adrian looked down at AQs and thought long and hard before making the call for about a third of his stack. Fearing he was behind and needing to hit Adrian was relieved to see he actually had Doug dominated. No help for either player meant Doug busted out in 8^th at 2hr34min into the final. Scott Muc would also not make it to the 3^rd break when he tried to steal the blinds from the button with 89 and ran into Al’s pocket Jacks. Scott flopped a pair and an open-ender with 78T but no help on the turn or river sent him home in 7^th at 2hr53min. The final 6 was set and it would take a while for anything more to happen. At the end of Level 6 Adrian and Etienne were clearly in front, with Al entrenched in 4^th and the other 3 in trouble. It was during this time that Adrian garnered the nickname Mr. 10,000 as he used his large stack to steamroll many opponents.

Seat 1: Al DeLeon 56,500

Seat 2: Adrian Nelson 109,500

Seat 3: Etienne Aquart 115,000

Seat 4: Scott Brynen 27,000

Seat 5: Jordi Muckle 31,500

Seat 8: Grant Oltmann 23,500

There was much jockeying in Level’s 7 and 8 but no KO’s. Mr. 10,000 finally lost some steam when he (Adrian) was the unfortunate loser of 4 separate coin flips trying to knock out, Scott, Jordi and Grant, but the short stacks survived and doubled through Adrian. Scott and Grant made big moves and caught up to Al, while Adrian’s loss brought him reeling down to 5^th position. Some hands included Grants QJ all in for 11,500 chips against Adrians 88 with board of K9xxT spiking a river straight. Adrian’s A7 got steamrolled by Scotts 99. Jordi and Grant survived at least 3 all ins during these levels. But we did not lose anyone and headed 6 handed into the 4^th break.

Seat 1: Al DeLeon 57,000

Seat 2: Adrian Nelson 39,000

Seat 3: Etienne Aquart 116,000

Seat 4: Scott Brynen 66,000

Seat 5: Jordi Muckle 29,000

Seat 8: Grant Oltmann 56,000

We did not need to wait long in Level 9 for the fireworks to start. Scott raised from the button to 14,000 to steal the blinds (now worth 9,000), Grant sensed he was stealing and re-raised to 40,000. Scott thought for a moment, decided that Grant might be re-stealing and pushed Grant all in. At this point Grant began to question his original read but decided he was too far in to lay down at this point, stating: “I’m behind, but I call” and turned over A4clubs. He was not behind however as Scott turned over K9spades. A 4 would come and nothing else as Grant doubled to 115,000 and Scott was left nearly crippled at 10,000. As we all settled down from the excitement the next hand was dealt and Adrian, Mr. 10,000, decided to make it 20,000 to go. No sooner were his chips in the middle than Etienne said “Make it 40”. Scott immediately said “I’m all in” and the action moved to Jordi who looked down at his cards and couldn’t believe what he saw. He agonized for a good 5 minutes before saying “I’m all in too”. Grant and Al quickly mucked their cards surrendering their blinds and Adrian thought long hard before finally moving all in himself. We paused to organize all the side pots and then we got a look at the cards that caused the commotion.

Adrian held KQspades, Etienne TT (one spade), Scott A8hearts and Jordi QQ. There was nothing left but to deal the flop. A flop of KTx (one spade) put Etienne way ahead and Scott and Jordi on the ropes.a turn card of another spade gave Adrian some life, obliterated Scott and left Jordi with one card in the deck. The river helped no one however and Etienne took down the monster pot and eliminated 3 players at once, with Scott officially finishing 6^th, Jordi 5^th and Adrian 4^th, only 10 minutes into the 5^th hour of play.

Seat 1: Al DeLeon 51,000

Seat 3: Etienne Aquart 200,000

Seat 8: Grant Oltmann 112,000

The final 3 needed to get to 2 and we wouldn’t wait long when Al called Etienne’s big blind and then bet all in on the flop holding K4 and a flop of AJ4. Etienne was holding AA and easily won the pot. Al would finish 3^rd in 4hr15min, leaving Grant and Etienne as our grand prize winners of airfare, accommodations and buy in to Event #27 ($1500 NL) of the 2006 World Series of Poker at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Al won his buyin and hotel room as well. A big congratulations goes out to our winners and good luck to them in Vegas.

I will update us more when we get closer to the dates. And hopefully add some pictures on here later in the week.

June 13, 2006 FINAL TABLE PREVIEW

This is it, time to find our winners! We are two days away from having 10 People contend for the coveted 3 spots. Everything will be decided this Friday. A few things to iron out beforehand include blind levels and seat positioning. We will have HALF HOUR blind levels for the final, starting at level 4, moving to level 6 and then progressing from there until we hit 5000/10000 blinds. At that point we will move to one hour blind levels if we are still going to allow for players to actually play poker versus fighting the blinds. It’s good practice for Vegas as the blind levels are one hour long in the World Series.

The blinds are thus: (half hour blind levels until Level 10)

Level 1: 200-400

Level 2: 300-600

Level 3: 400-800

Level 4: 600-1200

Level 5: 800-1600

Level 6: 1000-2000

Level 7: 1500-3000

Level 8: 2000-4000

Level 9: 3000-6000

Level 10: 5000-10000 (one hour)

Level 11: 8000-16000 (one hour)

Level 12: 10000-20000 (one hour)

There is a total of 362,800 chips for this tourney.

Seat positioning has been randomly drawn by myself ahead of time to allow people to consider their strategies for who they are sitting beside. There will be NO rearranging of seats at any point in the tourney, so get comfortable. I will be handling the dealing.

That being said the random seat order for the final is as follows:

Seat 1: Al Deleon (SB)

Seat 2: Adrian Nelson (BB)

Seat 3: Etienne Aquart

Seat 4: Scott Brynen

Seat 5: Jordi Muckle

Seat 6: Doug Crone

Seat 7: Paria Noorkami

Seat 8: Grant Oltmann

Seat 9: Pat Woelk

Seat 10: Scott Muc

Also all players should be thinking about which days they want to be in Vegas as I will need to book flights for the winners within 48 hours of completing the event.

June 5, 2006

Well, as event #9 a month ago was the end of the road for 3 players, event #10 this weekend was the end of the road for 10 more players. I doubt it hurt anyone more than myself who tied for the 10^th and final spot only to lose out on the first tiebreaker, cash won. After myself there was nearly a 7,000 point gap to 12^th, so there was a clear line for the haves and the have-nots.

Doug pulled out a lot of stops and won the event over second place Adrian to take home the cash ($300) and the 6^th overall spot at the final table. Adrian’s second place finish earned him $160, and Dave Yee came third for $110. Non-league member Sean Beckett finished 4^th for his third cash in the last 4 events an impressive feat.

The event unfolded with much anticipated drama and once again I can capture the highlights and lowlights in the following way:

1) Adrian and Doug both needed at least a 5^th place finish to have any shot at making the top 10 and both came thru big time. Adrian tripled up in level 2 when his AK was up against Scott B’s QQ and Attila’s AJ. An Ace hit the flop.

2) Doug tripled up through Paria and Emiko early in Level 1 when his pocket 8’s held up against Paria’s AKs and Emiko’s AJs, when the flop hit a 4 flush for Paria but gave Doug a full boat of 8’s over 4’s.

3) Mike Schubert was busted by an unbelievably on fire Jesse early when he pushed all in with QQ after Jordi on short stack made a move with K8 and Jesse called with JT. An AJ2xJ board resulted in Jesse coming from way behind to knock out Mike.

4) Mehran was unlucky twice when once getting all in on Level 3 with AA vs. KQ preflop and watching QQxxx hit the board against Sean B. That forced Mehran to rebuy. He regrouped and made it to the final table and then pushed all in preflop for about 27,000 with KK with blinds of 1000 – 2000 only to be called by Dave Yee’s AT and watch horrifically as an Ace hit the river.

5) Rahim was in decent shape until he held AK with a flop of KQ9 and pushed all in to immediately be called by Sean holding the nuts of JT. No help came and Rahim rebought. On the very next hand while holding Q8d and in an un-called SB he made a decent raise to Darren who called with J9o. The flop came J97

6) Dave Yee was short stacked and in desperation mode when he pushed allin pre-flop with 45c and got 2 callers. He flopped perfect with 367 but they were all diamonds and he had to wait to see if it would hold. Jesse held 67 and no improvement resulted in a big pot for Dave.

7) A monster hand in Level 6 resulted in a 30,000 chip pot going to Jesse when his Q2d made a flush on the river vs. Darren’s AK with the board showing AdJd366d. That forced Darren to rebuy.

8) Jesse built a humongous chip lead early but gave a lot of it to Sean before eventually finishing 15^th.

9) Derek was knocked out when his all in QQ was called by KQ and the KQ flopped a straight.

10) Dave M. was all in with AK vs. Doug’s 77 and Dougs hand held up to knock outs Dave M. in 10th

11) Scott B was out early and figured to be relatively safe with his 30,400 points for the top 10 but it wasn’t that safe. With 8 players remaining, and Grant already passed him he sat in 8th placed with Darren tied with him and Doug and Adrian sitting on big stacks. Darren on BB of 2000 with only 500 chips behind watched as a short stacked Kayvan appeared to be calling a raise by Sean and Doug still to act behind. Knowing that if he called and both him and Kayvan lost he would finish behind Scott, Darren folded his T5 and prayed for one of Sean or Doug to take out Kayvan. Alas Kayvan’s 33 stood up against the 4 over cards and Darren went out on the next hand leaving his fate nearly sealed. If either Adrian or Doug didn’t make the top 4 he was still safe. It didn’t happen and Darren was out in 11^th. Worst of all his T5 would have hit a Ten and won that critical hand.

12) Jordi bubbled for the cash again (no big surprise there)

13) Along with Adrian and Doug, Grant clutched up and got the necessary points to guarantee him a top 10.

14) 7 of the 23 players went the full year without cashing including one player who finished in the top 10 (Scott M).

The Final will take place in two weeks and likely we will just be running the final and cash games. For those of you in the final take a good look at your schedule and figure out what days you will want to be in Vegas if you win, because we will need to book flights within 2-3 days of the final taking place to guarantee affordable flights. We have the rooms booked at the Rio from Mon July 17- Thur July 20. But if you wish to stay an extra day or two on either side of that it’s up to you.

June 4, 2006

Quick points update, more to follow later this week.

Final Points

Place	Player	Total	Event 1	Event 2	Event 3	Event 4	Event 5	Event 6	Event 7	Event 8	Event 9	Event 10	Initial	Ave Position	Cash Won
1	Al Deleon	48,000	DNP	10,000	0	0	0	10,000	0	10,000*	8,000*	0	10,000	13.7	$800
2	Pat Woelk	39,600	0	2,800	10,000	0	10,000	0	400	6,400	0	0*	10,000	7.7	$770
3	Paria Noorkami	38,000	0	6,400	0	10,000*	0	8,000	0	2,800	800	0	10,000	11.0	$350
4	Jordi Muckle	37,600	0	3,600	3,600	2,000	8,000	4,800	2,000	0	0	3,600	10,000	7.6	$60
5	Etienne Aquart	36,800	2,800	0	2,000	3,600	6,400	0	0	2,000	10,000	0	10,000	10.0	$360
6	Doug Crone	35,600	2,000	2,000	0	8,000	0	0*	0*	0	3,600	10,000	10,000	10.3	$450
7	Adrian Nelson	33,600	DNP	0	0	0	0	800	10,000	0	4,800	8,000	10,000	11.4	$500
8	Grant Oltmann	32,000	400	8,000	1,200	0	2,800	1,200	6,400	0	0	2,000	10,000	9.4	$370
9	Scott Muc	31,200	8,000*	0	0	0	4,800	0	3,600	4,800	0	0	10,000	10.9
10	Scott Brynen	30,400	10,000	0*	0	0	0	6,400	1,200	0	2,800	0	10,000	11.8	$450
11	Darren Kennedy	30,400	4,800	0	400	1,200	0	2,800	0*	8,000	2,000	1,200	10,000	7.8	$200
12	Derek Elke	23,600	1,200	4,800	6,400	800	400	0	0*	0	0	0	10,000	11.0	$200
13	Dave MacDonald	23,200	3,600	0	8,000	0	1,200	0*	0	0	0	400	10,000	11.1	$320
14	Mike Schubert	22,400	0	0	4,800	4,800	0	0	2,800	0	0	0	10,000	13.4	$130
15	Colin Sharp	22,000	0	0	0*	6,400*	2,000	0	0*	3,600	0	0*	10,000	15.8
16	Dave Yee	20,400	0	0	2,800	0	0	0	800	400	0	6,400	10,000	13.5	$110
17	Rahim Lalani	20,400	0	1,200	0	0	0	3,600	4,800	800	0*	0	10,000	13.4	$60
18	Kayvan Salmasi	20,400	DNP	400	0	0*	800	0	0	0*	6,400*	2,800	10,000	12.5
19	Jason Nadeau	19,600	800	0	0	400	0*	400	8,000*	0	0	0*	10,000	13.1
20	Jay Friesen	18,400	0*	0	0	0	3,600	0	0	0*	0*	4,800*	10,000	18.4
21	Mehran Azimi	16,800	0	800	800	0	0	2,000	0	1,200	1,200	800	10,000	11.9
22	Warren Prevost	16,400	6,400	0	0	0	0	0*	0*	0*	0*	0*	10,000	15.0	$120
23	Jesse Reshetylo	13,200	0	0*	0	2,800*	0*	0*	0*	0	400	0	10,000	17.3
23	TOTAL PLAYERS	630,000	40,000	40,000	40,000	40,000	40,000	40,000	40,000	40,000	40,000	40,000	230,000	Cashes
1	AVERAGE	27,390	1,740	1,740	1,740	1,740	1,740	1,740	1,740	1,740	1,740	1,740	10,000		$202
		Players	Players	Players	Players	Players	Players	Players	Players	Players	Players	Players	Points	Cashes	Cash
230	League Players	192	18	21	22	19	21	19	17	19	18	18	91	25	$5,210
*38	Non-Leag. Plyrs	119	5	9	21	17	18	13	9	12	10	5	9	18	$3,510
	Total There	311	23	30	43	36	39	32	26	31	28	23	100	43	$8,720

Non-league players that have cashed.

Player	Event 1 (23)	Event 2 (30)	Event 3 (43)	Event 4 (36)	Event 5 (39)	Event 6 (32)	Event 7 (26)	Event 8 (31)	Event 9 (28)	Event 10 (23)	Cash Won
Jay Peturssen	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	$450	DNP	DNP	DNP	$220		$670
Chad Coleman		DNP	DNP	$420	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	$420
Lance Murdoch	DNP	$150		$260		DNP	DNP			DNP	$410
Roger Grosset	DNP	DNP			DNP		DNP	$400		DNP	$400
Sean Beckett	DNP	DNP	DNP				$200		$70	$60	$330
Brad Moor	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	$280	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	$280
Dean Kilback	DNP		DNP		DNP			$240		DNP	$240
Magus Beales	$180			DNP		DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	$180
Attila Oquis	DNP								$130		$130
Brody Katnich	DNP	DNP	DNP		$110	DNP				DNP	$110
Jeff Black	DNP	DNP	DNP	$100	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	$100
Ed Sue	DNP					$100				DNP	$100
Lance N	DNP	DNP	$80	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	$80
Adam Dhaliwal	DNP	DNP		$60		DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	DNP	$60
TOTALS	$180	$150	$80	$840	$840	$100	$200	$640	$420	$60	$3510

*designates that someone else played in their spot.

Multiple point placings in our 10 events include:

7 – (3 players) – Darren, Grant, Jordi

6 – (2 players) – Etienne, Mehran

5 – (4 player) – Derek, Doug, Paria, Pat

4 – (9 players) – Adrian, Al, Dave Y, Dave M, Jason, Kayvan, Rahim, Scott B, Scott M

3 – (2 players) – Colin, Mike

2 – (2 players) – Jay, Jesse

1 – (1 player) - Warren

May 15, 2005

Also with the critical 9^th part of our tourney being completed on Friday, a few more things were settled. 5 Players have been mathematically confirmed into our final. Congrats to Al, Pat, Paria, Etienne and Jordi who are 100% safe. Etienne reached this zone by winning the tourney for 10,000 points and $360. The cash removes him from the list of players that were in the top 10 without cashing and leaves Scott Muc all alone in that category. Three non-league members finished 2^nd-4^th including Jay Peturrsen in 2^nd for $220. You wanna talk ROI? Jay has played in two of our tourneys, finishing 1^st and 2^nd and taking home $670 in prizes on his $60 investment. Nice work! Jay also brought home 8,000 points to none other than Al. Talk about one lucky league member. Al’s missed the last two events and gotten 18,000 pts! Attila finished 3^rd and cash $130 and 6,400 points for Kayvan. Sean Beckett also cashed joining only Lance M and Jay P as non-league members with multiple cashes. We had 28 players show up for the evening.

Some very interesting situations and important point finishes from the event included:

1. Jesse not showing and being folded to 10th place points finish and 400 points beating 13 league members.
2. Adrian getting a huge 4800 points to finish with 25,600 points and tied with Doug who gained 3,600 points but Adrian holds more money in cashes and thus the 10^th spot.
3. Darren and Scott solidified their chances by getting 2,000 and 2,800 points respectively.
4. Three players have been officially eliminated from the final including: Jesse, Jay F, and Dave Y
5. Three other players can only make the top 10 with a first place finish in Event #10 and some help. They are Mehran, Warren and Kayvan.
6. Only Al and a longshot Pat who would need to win the tourney and have Al finish no better than 8^th have a shot at the chip lead.
7. A large 3,600 point gap between 9^th and 10^th makes it a must for the 10^th thru 17^th spots to have a top 5 finish to knock out any of the 6^th-9^th positions. In fact all players outside of the top 11 need at least a 6^th place finish to mathematically have a shot at the top 10.

Want to hear some interesting table action? Here’s what I can recall from that night in order of when they happened.

1. Level 1: Jordi deals out JJ to DaveY and AA to Sean B. They get all the chips in pre-flop and then Jordi flops a JAxxx. Giving Dave some hope before killing it on the 2^nd card.
2. Level 1: Jordi holds 64off in a min-raised pot with 5 callers in front of him. He flops perfect with a 357 and Sean sitting with KK can’t see it coming especially when he hits his set-making King on the turn. The river bricks out and Jordi’s straight beats Seans set.
3. Level 3: Darren’s second card (a Q) is partially exposed on the deal and therefore Darren gets a third card. So instead of QQ he has Q5. While frustrating it saves him as on that hand Doug was dealt KK. Even more interesting is that if he had played the Q5 he would have won as the flop came A55xx.
4. Level 6: A similar situation occurs with Paria when her second card A is exposed resulting in her losing the AA she would have had.
5. Level 7: Jason Nadeau and Doug get into it with AK vs AA and the bullets hold up.
6. Level 7: A MONSTER pot between Jay P and Doug with Doug holding AQ and Jay AT. The flop comes Axx, but the turn T sets Jay up to take down the 30,000 chips. The two chip leaders at the time nearly getting all in on the hand.
7. Level 8: A huge hand with 3 players all in and Attila holding TT, Chad medium-stacked with QQ and Grant shortest with AA. A miracle Ten comes and eliminates Grant and Chad on the same hand.
8. Level 10: An all in chop when short-stacked Adrian holding KJ gets all in on a flop of AdQdTd against Attila only to watch in horror as the boards flushes to chop the pot.
9. Level 10: A nearly identical situation saves Mehran from getting knocked out when holding A5 to Dougs AQ and the flop of JT89Q.
10. Level 14: A monster hand at the final table eliminated Mike R. Etienne hits quad Aces in a 3 way pot including Lance while holding rockets and the board coming AxAxJ. Lance hits a pair on the river but won’t give Etienne any action.
11. The final 5 was somewhat anti-climactic as Etienne held a solid chip lead over the other 4 pretenders of Adrian, Sean, Jay and Attila.
12. In the cash game Doug was hot catching some big hands. Jason Nadeau finished the cash game off in style catching Colin on a steal while 3-handed. In the hand Darren had AK, Colin, K6 and Nadeau QQ. The final pots was about $140.

League member points included: Etienne, Al, Kayvan, Adrian, Doug, Scott B., Darren, Mehran, Paria, Jesse.

It’s going to be an interesting 10^th event and I’ll make sure we have an on-the-fly update of the points race so that all league members know where they stand at all times. Time to pull out all the stops and find a way to crack or stay in the top 10. Good luck to all of you.

Below is an update of likelihood of making the top 10 based on attaining the respective point level.

34,000 is enough: (100%) 33,200 is enough: (99.98%) 32,000 is enough: (99.88%) 31,600 is enough: (99.36%) 31,200 is enough: (99.1%) 30,800 is enough: (96.9%)

30,400 is enough: (95.26%) 30,000 is enough: (82.88%) 29,600 is enough: (62.96%) 29,200 is enough: (58.78%) 28,800 is enough: (30.84%) 28,400 is enough: (29.12%)

28,000 is enough: (21.1%) 27,600 is enough: (21.1%) 27,200 is enough: (15.86%) 26,000 is enough: (7.48%) 25,600 is enough: (4.86%)

Points Update

Place	Player	Total	Cash Won	Min Needed To Top 10	Worst Possible Finish	Best Possible Finish	Min to Guarantee Top 10
1	Al Deleon	48,000	$800	23^rd	2^nd	1^st	23^rd
2	Pat Woelk	39,600	$770	23^rd	6^th	1^st	23^rd
3	Paria Noorkami	38,000	$350	23^rd	7^th	2^nd	23^rd
4	Etienne Aquart	36,800	$360	23^rd	8^th	2^nd	23^rd
5	Jordi Muckle	34,000	$60	23^rd	10^th	2^nd	23^rd
6	Scott Muc	31,200		23^rd	12^th	2^nd	6^th
7	Scott Brynen	30,400	$450	23^rd	12^th	2^nd	5^th
8	Grant Oltmann	30,000	$370	23^rd	13^th	2^nd	4^th
9	Darren Kennedy	29,200	$200	23^rd	14^th	3^rd	4^th
10	Adrian Nelson	25,600	$340	23^rd	17^th	5^th	1^st
11	Doug Crone	25,600	$150	10^th	18^th	5^th	1^st
12	Derek Elke	23,600	$200	6^th	20^th	6^th	Can’t
13	Dave MacDonald	22,800	$320	5^th	20^th	6^th	Can’t
14	Mike Schubert	22,400	$130	5^th	20^th	6^th	Can’t
15	Colin Sharp	22,000		4^th	21^st	6^th	Can’t
16	Rahim Lalani	20,400	$60	3^rd	22^nd	7^th	Can’t
17	Jason Nadeau	19,600		3^rd	23^rd	9^th	Can’t
18	Kayvan Salmasi	17,600		1^st	23^rd	10^th	Can’t
19	Warren Prevost	16,400	$120	1^st	23^rd	10^th	Can’t
20	Mehran Azimi	16,000		1^st	23^rd	10^th	Can’t
21	Dave Yee	14,000		Elim	23^rd	12^th	Can’t
22	Jay Friesen	13,600		Elim	23^rd	12^th	Can’t
23	Jesse Reshetylo	13,200		Elim	23^rd	13^th	Can’t

Min Needed To Top 10: is the minimum position placing in event #10 that will be needed for the player to crack the top 10 given that no one above them (between 10th and their current position) hits any points.

Apr 26, 2005

Another mistake: Roger won the tourney, and Dean came second, not the other way around.

Apr 24, 2005

Made a mistake yesterday in updating points. Paria has 37,200 not 34,400. Also did a bunch of test simulations to see what it will take to make the top 10 and found out the following information: To be 100% guaran-fricking-teed to make top 10 you will need 34,400 points as in SIX of the 1 MILLION sims 34,000 was just not enough. However the balance of probabilities shows that likely 28,800 will be enough (50.06% of the time). Take a look below to see the breakdowns.

Number of Sims: 1,000,000

10th Place from: 23,600 – 34,400

11th Place from: 22,800 - 34,000

When 34,000 is enough: 99.99% When 33,200 is enough: 99.84% When 32,000 is enough: 98.38% When 31,600 is enough: 97.18% When 31,200 is enough: 94.05% When 30,800 is enough: 90.29%

When 30,400 is enough: 83.98% When 30,000 is enough: 71.85% When 29,600 is enough: 64.83% When 29,200 is enough: 58.72% When 28,800 is enough: 50.06% When 28,400 is enough: 38.12%

When 28,000 is enough: 32.28% When 27,600 is enough: 16.22% When 27,200 is enough: 07.21% When 26,000 is enough: 01.09% When 25,200 is enough: 00.40% When 24,000 is enough: 00.03% When 23,200 is enough: 00.00%

Apr 23, 2005

Event #8 is done and I think the most disappointed player of the night was Doug who not only took a few tough beats and got knocked out early but had to sit back and watch Dean Kilback, a guy who twice played as Doug’s designate and got him no points, come second in the tourney and give Al 10,000 points and himself a $240 prize. Roger however was the big winner of the night taking home first place and $400 as the two non-league buddies took home the top two spots. Darren snuck into 3^rd taking home $140 and a much needed 8,000 points. Pat solidified his final table strength with a 4^th place finish and $90 thanks to a bubble hand that clearly frustrated Attila when his BB pockets jacks faced off against an Ace-rag from Roger and an Ace hit the flop.

Al, thanks to Deans play takes over first place in the league with 40,000 points, with Pat right behind him. Scott M booked his ticket to the final with a 4^th place point finish and 31,200 points now. While Grant will still need a 8^th place finish in the final two events to lock up a final table berth, I think we all expect that to happen leaving 6 spots likely locked up and a battle for the final 4 spots amongst 11 players. 10^th place only moved up 800 points as most players in the 5^th-15^th spots did not point and there is only a 4,000 point difference between 10^th and 17^th.

Test simming the final two tourneys bsed on current points yields the following information:

1. 31,000 points is required to be safe and sure you will make the final.
2. Most times I simmed though, 28,600 will get you in.

Although I can’t remember as many hands from the tourney as I actually stayed in a long time and didn’t have time to write them down, here are some hands and situations from the night included the following:

1. A very bizarre situation where when the final 2 tables were down to 6 players each, the top 6 chip leaders were all on one table and the bottom 6 were on the other. This resulted in a long time playing with 12 down to 10 players.
2. Attila survived early in the final table thanks to a miracle rivered straight against Dean.
3. Darren surviving by pushing all in with A7 under the gun and then the next hand looking down at QQ after Colin had pushed all in under the gun with KQ.
4. The final hand of the night saw Roger’s 44 hold up against Dean’s A9.
5. An impressive couple of plays by Attila when he laid down TT to an under the gun raise by Dean at the final table and later an AQ.
6. KJ built up a large stack early but lost most of his chips to Pat on his way to being knocked out.
7. Jason N lost most of his chips when his AJ with a Jxx flop lost on the river King to Darren’s KJ.
8. Jordi bubbled for the points. Jordi ‘the bubble boy’ Muckle I believe has bubbled cash 3 times and points twice now.

Point placers were in the following order: Al, Darren, Pat, Scott M, Colin, Paria, Etienne, Mehran, Rahim, Dave Y.

Mar 26, 2005

Event #7 is in the books. We had 26 players competing and Adrian came away with the victory and $340. Sean Beckett finished 2^nd with $200, Garnt came 3^rd for $120 and Rahim came in 4^th for the $60 prize. League point finishers were in the following order: Adrian, Jason, Grant, Rahim, Scott M, Mike, Jordi, Scott B, Dave Y, and Pat.

With our lowest turn out since Event #1 and only 16 of the 23 league members showing up it was definitely a more subdued turnout. With all the big points going mostly to league members in the lower half of the standings, the 10^th place cutoff remained at 22,800 points. Big moves up by Adrian, Rahim and Jason leaves it a very tight race for the 10^th spot with 6 people within 3600 points of a spot in the finals. Grant became the 5^th person to cross the magical 30,000 point mark, but is still not 100% safe needing in my estimation another 2000 points to be safe and home.

I myself wasn’t there so I could not give you any interesting hands or plays from the night. See you all in 4 weeks for Event #8 as this race goes into the home stretch.

Mar 15, 2005

Interesting facts for you. Wonder what your average placing per tourney is? This stat shows what you’ve averaged over the first 6 tourneys in league positions from 1 to 23 (only when you showed up as substitute results get excluded). Obviously the lower the number the better. In order of best to worst:

Jordi 7.0, Pat 7.2, Dave M 7.6, Darren 8.8, Derek 9.2

Grant 9.5, Etienne 9.7, Scott B 10.4, Al 10.6, Doug 10.6

Paria 11.0, Jason 11.6, Scott M 12.0, Mike 12.5, Mehran 12.8

Warren 13.4, Kayvan 14.0, Rahim 14.3, Adrian 15.8, Dave 16.2

Jesse 16.5, Jay 17.7, Colin 18.0

Mar 12, 2005

So Event #6 finally occurred two weeks later than originally scheduled. Not surprisingly we had a couple less players than normal with only 32 players all told. There were some firsts as Adrian became the last person to earn some points and Derek conversely had his first event without pointing. Our league players had a much better showing than last week with the top 3 players in the tourney being league members. Al compiled a massive early chip lead, then tightened up when we got down to 2 tables and outlasted some quality players to have his 2^nd tournament win. Paria took home 2^nd, Scott B brought home 3^rd and Ed Sue took home 4^th place cash.

League finishers that pointed included Al, Paria, Scott B, Jordi, Rahim, Darren, Mehran, Grant, Adrian and Jason. With this weeks results Paria takes over the league lead. And I can all but guarantee Paria, Pat and Jordi will make the final 10, which leaves the rest of us battling for 7 spots.

So what about Friday night? Well there were some interesting hands but I unfortunately cant tell you too much about the real action hands that occurred on table 4 other than that obviously Al was on the right side of most of them. At one point, you could add up all the chips of the other 6 players combined and Al had about twice that amount.

So what else was interesting? Well Derek didn’t point for the first time mostly due to a hand against myself when I held AA against his KK. No help came and Derek was left crippled. Darren Corea who was on life support much of the night called an all in between Derek and myself with Derek holding AK, myself AQ and Corea JT. A Jack on the flop sealed the deal. Adrian who garnered some chips early when he hit a Q on the river vs Darren had another hand in which he hit a set on the flop when his 99 hit a J98 flop. Sean Beckett pushed him all in with QQ and hit the magical Q on the river to beat Adrian set over set.

The point bubble was hit with a three way all in. Pat tried to make a move pushing his short-stack all in with QJ only to run into Jason’s QQ who pushed in to be easily called by Paria holding Rockets. The Aces held up and both Pat and Jason were eliminated on the same hand. Since Jason had more chips at the beginning of the hand he finished 10^th and Pat bubbled at 11^th (in points). Pat had another unfortunate hand when he held Kx and hit a Kxx flop. Adrian was allin with AT and hit runner QJ for the miracle broadway straight.

Darren K was the first rebuy when he rebught after the 4^th hand of the night and KJ was first man out only 7 minutes into the evening.

The final hand of the night saw Paria holding 55 and Al a KJ. The first card on the flop was a King and no more help for Paria left Al the champion.

Good luck at Event #7 as I myself will be unable to make it since I will be in Waikiki at the time.

Darren

Mar 2, 2005

Event #6 has been re-schedule to March 10^th after the disaster that was Feb 24^th. My apologies but this time I’ll get the key ahead of time and all will be well in our little poker world.

Feb 22, 2005

Event #6 is only days away and I never did update the results from Event #5. So here goes a quick synopsis from what I can remember.

We had 39 players turn up for Event 5 which nearly got cancelled when the key to the hall was hard to locate. A last minute call to Jason in Boston tracked down his moms (and the keys) wherabouts and the show went on. There just always seems to be something lately.

Jay Peturssen took home first prize by outlasting Brad Moor. Pat finished third and number one in points to all but guarantee himself a spot in the league finals as it’s predicted that cut will be around 30,000 points and Pat now sits at 32,800 thanks mostly to two first place points showings. Brody Katnich cashed in 4^th and Jordi finally avoided the bubble to take 5^th and few bucks. Non-league members took 3 of the top 5 spots and $840 of the $1080 up for grabs. Man that disappoints me. Our league members need to step it up.

Derek’s 10^th place points continued his extremely impressive streak of 5 straight points finishes, while Jay finally got on the board in a big way taking home 3600 points leaving Adrian as the only guy who has yet to point.

League finishers pointing included: Pat, Jordi, Etienne, Scott M, Jay, Grant, Colin, Dave M, Kayvan and Derek. The magic number currently sits at 20,000 which is tracking exactly to the 2,000 per event I’d estimated would be needed to crack the top 10 for the year. We’re halfway there and now for the home stretch. So be ready for Friday night.

Multiple point placings in our 5 events include:

5 – (1 player) - Derek

4 – (3 players) – Etienne, Grant, Jordi

3 – (4 players) - Darren, Dave M, Doug, Pat

2 – (7 players) – Colin, Jason, Kayvan, Mehran, Mike, Paria, Scott M

1 – (7 players) - Al, Dave Y, Jay, Jesse, Rahim, Scott B, Warren

0 – (1 player) - Adrian

Feb 3, 2005

Quick points update. A bigger update will be put up tomorrow.

Jan 30, 2005

Event #5 is just a few days away, so please if you are a non-league member, get yourself a guaranteed seat by emailing me asap (dkennedy@shaw.ca).

Also, please join the vanpoker yahoogroup to be kept in on the email updates. www.yahoogroups.com. I have posted some photos up there and there is a calendar of events as well, but the biggest benefit is me no longer having to maintain a personal address book of everyones emails.

Jan 13, 2005

Event 4 wrapped up and in my mind was an absolute success. We had 36 players show up and Chad Coleman became the first non-league member to win a tourney. He played great poker and was also fortunate in a couple of situations. The hand of the match though came with 5 people remaining when Doug, the chip leader at the time went head to head with Chad. Doug held KQ and with a flop of Kxx both players got all their chips in the middle. There was no pre-flop raise so when Chad turned over AA Doug had no chance to see it coming. The turn and river bricked out and Chad became a dominant chip leader taking down a pot of over 200,000 chips. That pot alone represented more than half the chips in play. From there the other 4 battled it out for second with Adam (playing for Colin) taking 5^th and $60, Jeff Black took 4^th and $100, Doug got the bronze and $150 and that left Lance (playing for Paria) battling it out with Chad and his 4 to1 chip advantage.

Heads up play lasted only a few minutes and the final hand saw both players all in with KT (Chad) vs. Q5 (Lance). The board was uninteresting and Chad’s King held up winning the pot with a pair of 6’s and King kicker. A great win for Chad who outlasted 36 players to win what was his first holdem tourney win of any kind.

In league news, Derek Elke now has points in all 4 events, sneaking in for 800 points which was just enough to pass Pat, while Grant was unable to continue his streak of points, going out early in the tourney (Grant was seen walking around holding a deck of cards waiting for the cash game to start for about 15 minutes). Other than Derek no one of our top 7 league players pointed, meaning that the points standings have tightened up considerably. Two of the four league members without points got some today but neither did it themselves. Colin was the recipient of 6400 points courtesy of Adam, and Jesse’s designated player Dean earned him 2800 points.

At the top Paria has taken over the lead (22 males and one female and she’s leading, doh!) thanks to Lance’s garnering of 10,000 points for her. With second place at 23,200 and tenth place 19,200 points, there is only 4,000 points separating 9 players.

League players receiving points included: Paria, Doug, Colin, Mike, Etienne, Jesse, Jordi, Darren, Derek and Jason.

A few other interesting hands included:

1) A 4 player pot that had 3 players all in pre-flop. The 4 hands were 67s, 9Ts, A2 and Colin Woelks Cowboys. The flop included a 2 and then the turn came with an Ace to knock out two players.

2) Mehran flopped a full house with his A6 (flop of A66) and happily pushed all his chips in against someone holding AK Runner runner Kings however sent Mehran home early.

3) Jason one hand after losing with his KK to a QT straight made on the river against Pat, followed it up with an A9 vs. A6 all in with an Ace on the flop. Pat was also all in on the SB with small connectors I believe. With the cards face up on the table after the flop, Jason was yelling “No six, no six” to no avail as the poker gods reigned down a 6 to give Lance two pair and the double knockout.

Multiple point placings in our 4 events include:

4 – (1 player) - Derek

3 – (5 players) - Darren, Doug, Grant, Jordi, Etienne

2 – (6 players) - Dave M, Jason, Mehran, Mike, Paria, Pat

1 – (9 players) - Al, Colin, Dave Y, Jesse, Kayvan, Rahim, Scott B, Scott M, Warren

0 – (2 players) - Adrian, Jay

Finally, a big thank you goes out to Marie who did a fabulous job helping us out with re-buys, bust outs, running the program and beer sales. With her taking care of administration stuff, I was able to concentrate on playing, not that that helped me improve that much, but oh well.

Dec 24, 2005

Well Merry Christmas to all. I just wanted to add the dates and Event Number that we will be sending our winners to so that those of you planning to win or even go if you don’t win will know some dates to schedule your vacations around. We will be entering the 2006 World Series of Poker Event #27, No Limit Holdem $1500 US entry on Tuesday July 18^th, 2006. The full World Series of Poker Schedule can be viewed here.

For those of you interested in fine tuning your game, one of the best sites I’ve ever found is www.cardplayer.com. It contains all sorts of info including forums to discuss poker, results of all latest tourneys and profiles of famous players and more.

Dec 2, 2005

Well Event #3 is now in the books. We had a monstrous turnout with 43 players. The cash games were very lucrative … right Magus? The event itself started with 5 tables and consisted of a series of really bad beats, with guys hitting 4 outers, 2 outers and even a one-outer on the river for a straight flush over a nut flush courtesy of Derek versus Pat.

In the end Pat overcame the bad beat, he overcame the final 5 of Lance N., Mike S., Derek and he overcame the heads up battle with Dave. M. Congrats to all 5 of you for cashing in the money and tough luck for bubble boy Jordi who came in 6^th.

The result is Pat, Derek and Dave moving into 1-3 spots in the league standings. 10^th spot sits at 16400 chips now. We also had two of the 6 players without points get in on the action with Dave Yee bringing home 2800 points and Mike Schubert cashing in 4800 points.

Points finishers for the league were in this order: Pat, Dave M, Derek, Mike S, Jordi, Dave Y., Etienne, Grant, Mehran and Darren. Both Derek and Grant have now earned points in all 3 events, while 7 others have points in 2 of 3 events.

Darren remembered the beer which only lasted about 2 hours (apparently 50 beer is nowhere near enough as I only had one of my own beers) and generally the night went well. We will make sure we have chips designated as 5000 value for next tourney as it was pretty clear that when we got down to 4-5 people there were just way too many stacks of chips left in play With 460,000 total chips that was an average of 92 chips per person with 5 players left. I also took a bunch of photos which I will look into posting up here in a day or two.

The night however was a little less smooth than prior two events with entertainment in the form of Kevin A. A note to whomever brought Kevin: first thanks for taking care of him and getting him home safely and second he’s no longer welcome at our events. Being drunk is fine, being so drunk he can’t remember which table he’s at is not cool. The final straw was finding out he was relieving himself on the side of the building we were renting… twice!

A final note is that due to the sheer volume of players, administering the tournament while trying to play in it is beginning to be a little more than Grant, Jay and I can handle, at least in the first 2-3 hours. As such we are going to consider bringing in one or two helpers who are not playing for the first 3 hours of the event. The helper(s) will mostly be to handle rebuys and players busting out. I think likely we will take $60 out of the pot to pay for this help. This is by no means a final decision but just a suggestion at this point. If we did do this we would be taking out $120 from the $1290 payout which is about a 5% administration rake and a 5% room payment rake. I am more than open to other suggestions if people have them, but basically at 20-30 people I can handle playing and running the tourney. At 40+ it is very clear that I need outside help.

Oct 29, 2005

Well event number 2 is in the books and we now have 17 of our 23 players with points. Multiple point scores only occurred with 3 people as Grant, Doug and Derek finished top 10 in both events. A big win by Al who managed to gain a good amount of chips halfway thru the final table and then beat Grant heads up to take down first place and the 10,000 points. Grant headed into heads up with an almost 2-1 lead but lost that lead when both players got all in on draws that didn’t hit but Al had the higher cards. Grant who put together a big chip lead early, held onto that lead for most of the night allowing him to face Al heads up.

Early chip leader Pat, who had a monstrous amount of chips with about 20 players left, fell off late and finished 7^th. The final table was interesting in that Al and Grant had about 260,000 of the the 328,000 chips with 6 left leaving the other 4 players extremely short-stacked with only an average of 15,000 each. At that point it was a battle of survival with Lance hitting 3^rd while watching Al takeout Paria and Derek on the same hand. Paria got 4^th and the cash only since she had more chips at the start of the hand. League finishers who received points were: Al, Grant, Paria, Derek, Jordi, Pat, Doug, Rahim, Mehran, Kayvan

A great turn out had 30 players show up to participate with 22 of those being league members and 8 players just here for the cash. Darren forgot the beer but promises to be better prepared next event. 17 of our 23 players now have won points, with event #3 scheduled for Friday, December 2^nd at 8pm. It is estimated that you will need to garner 30,000 points to crack the top 10 for the year. Current top 10 spot sits at 13,600 pts.

Tourney Dates (all start times are 8pm PST)

11. xFriday, September 23^rd
12. xFriday, October 28^th
13. xFriday, December 2^nd
14. xFriday, January 13^th
15. xFriday, February 3^rd
16. xFriday, February 24^th (took place March 10^th)
17. xFriday, March 24^th
18. Friday, April 21^st
19. Friday, May 12^th
20. Friday, June 2^nd

FINAL Friday, June 16^th

Oct 12, 2005

Upcoming event: Friday, October 28^th, followed by our next event on Friday, December 4^th.

Just a clarification with regards to possible ties. In the event of a tie for the 10^th position, the tiebreaker will be amount of money earned by the player. This will not include any monies earned by player substitutes. If there is still a tie there will be a tournament between those still tied to settle 10^th place. The tourney will be same as regular tournament without the rebuys.

And another note for those wondering how many points you think you’ll need to make the cut. I simulated 10 tourneys with 20-24 people and the cut line was always around 27,600pts (including the 10,000 pts that you start with). 30,000 pts is the true safe zone. If you get your 10,000 starting pts up to 30,000 you are pretty much guaranteed to move on to the final tourney.

Sept 23, 2005

Event #1 of the inaugural Die Hard Poker League was a big success with 22 players showing up. And what a start with Pat holding ATclubs and flopping a Royal Flush (KQJclubs) on the very first hand of the tourney. In dramatic fashion Jordi was sitting with AK and Darren had TT giving a lot of action. The tourney progressed quickly with Colin being the first out after only about 25 minutes of play when his trips lost to Grants full house. With 15 rebuys in the first 2 hours and 7 people out at the 2 hour mark, the tourney progressed quickly. Grant built up a monster chip lead and Jesse also built a large stack early on what some might call some loose pre-flop play. But alas neither of these early chip leaders would cash as they both went out on the same hand to finish 11^th and 12^th., though Grant did get 400 points for the finish as one non-league member was still in at the time.

The players got weeded down until it was 4 way action between Scott B., Warren, Magus and chip leader Darren. Magus who was short-stacked the whole tourney played tight-aggressive poker most of the night, but earned a 2^nd place finish with a little help from the Buddha all in blind action at the end. Scott B. completely outplayed Darren in the final 4 and took most of his chips with a JJ vs. 99 before finishing him off with 99 vs. AQ.

Next event date has been changed!! Next event will be on Friday, October 28^th. That’s one week earlier then initially planned due to unavailability of the hall.

Current Points leaders after one event are as follows (note that everyone gets 10,000 points to start with) You take all of your points as chips into the final tourney if you are among the top 10 players at the end of the year:

Sept 15, 2005

Finally the league begins next Friday. (League Overview)

Tourney Info

The tournament start time is going to be 8:00pm next Friday, September 23^rd.

The location is the Elks Hall in Cloverdale at Unit 412, 17665-66A Ave, Surrey, BC (basically take #1 highway to 176 exit south. Drive south to 66A and take a left… it should be right there. If you get lost phone me on my cell).

What do you need to bring??

-$120 (covers this month plus two extra months WSOP drops)

-Extra money (if you plan on playing cash game after).

-Your best poker face.

What will be provided:

-cards, poker chips, tables, chairs

-contract that you will need to sign guaranteeing if you win and then goto Vegas and win money in the WSOP that 50% goes back to the league.

I am in the process of registering the domain www.diehardpoker.ca. When that is finished I will begin setting up a proper website to handle chat and tournament statistics.

Any more questions, just fire them at me

Darren Kennedy

dkennedy@shaw.ca

604-306-6267