Third hand into a head’s up match on PokerStars - this guy decides to pull a Scotty Nguyen “you call it’s all over baby”. Only problem for him is I’m holding the NUTS!! Here’s the hand recap to get a chuckle http://www.pokerhand.org/?1397296

Hey everybody,

Just a quick post letting everyone know that the Week 5 results have been posted now for a few days. Please click on the STATS PAGE link to see the week’s game, and overall point leaders. A big congrats to JeanY for her win this week, picking up 20 points and cash.. and to Robert Jacobs for his 2nd place finish good for 17 points and cash.

So after some careful thought and waiting to see how the points are looking after we reached the halfway point, I’ve decided to run a “Championship Week” game after all. What I’m going to do is take the TOP 16 point leaders, and run 2 8-man tables to make up the Championship Game. Much like John does at Whistles, the starting chip stacks will directly reflect your points for the 9 weeks leading up to the Championship. So say you finish the 9th week with 70 points, you will start the game with 70,000 starting chips, if you had 50 points - 50,000 chips, etc..  And also like John does, this week will be the 1st week for the remainder of those that did not fall into the Top 16.

I will make this announcement during this week’s game and in the upcoming weeks as well. The only possible problem I can foresee here is if one or more of the Top 16 don’t show up on the final week. If that does happen, the next person in line will be eligible to step in and play in that player’s spot.

SamG and I took a drive up to Turning Stone over the weekend to play in Event #1 of the Empire State Hold ‘em Championship. The tournament structure was phenomenal, and the turnout for this event was huge - 498 entries to be exact. This was a $300 + $40 tournament, so the prize pool was over $135,000.

I was doing well early on, but couldn’t really build up a huge stack — then I made a raise pre-flop with AK of clubs, and had a shorter stack push all-in behind me. I thought about it for awhile, and made the call and the guy flipped over J-10 offsuit. He missed the flop completely (and so did I), but then the turn gave him a straight draw and of course the river completed this idiot’s straight, so now I was crippled down to like 7 big blinds.

With the structure being so good, I was able to just patiently wait even with that short of a stack. Then it got to the point where I had 2300 chips left, with 300/600 blinds so I HAD to move soon. I picked up Q-10 offsuit in late position to an unopened pot, and decided to go with it. I got two callers behind me, and spiked a Q on the flop. Both players checked it down, and I more than tripled up on that hand. A short time later I picked up JJ, and doubled up again! Then ended up knocking out two players that were very close to my chip stack, so I went from almost down to the felt all the way up to chip leader at my table and nearly chip leader of the entire tournament.

Long story short, I held onto the majority of these chips and went on to take 6th place and almost $6,000. Here’s the results link from CARD PLAYER MAGAZINE.

The current week’s results have been posted to the STATS PAGE. Congrats to Robert Jacobs for his 1st place finish in last night’s tournament, and to MikeK for his runner-up finish. This now puts MikeK as the current points leader, but with the way the new point structure is setup it’s still very much anybody’s game.

Speaking of the points, I’m still trying to decide how I’m going to wrap up the points within the coming weeks. In the past we’ve simply run the points all the way to the 10th week, and then whoever came out of that week as the points leader took home the big cash. But with the new points setup, I may switch over to a “Championship Week” game, where the top 16 or so points leaders will play it out for a clear cut winner. More to come on this as I make a decision…

Hey everyone,

Week 3 results have been posted to the STATS PAGE. Click on over there now to check out all the current point standings, and to see where everyone finished in tonight’s game.

A big congrats goes out to JohnMik for his overall win tonight, and to MikeK for his runner up finish. We reached Level 20 of play tonight, which is a first since I restructured the blinds. It would have been interesting to see what happened if level 20 completed, because as of right now I only have 20 levels setup. Not exactly sure what the computer program does in the case… but we didn’t get to find out tonight, since play ended only a couple minutes into the level.

Some of you may have noticed an additional link labeled “Picture Page” at the top of the blog and stats pages. That’s something new I’m going to be putting in place. It’s just a simple picture gallery program to showcase some pictures from the games. Just thought it would be a nice addition to have to the site… so check back for real content to be uploaded to that section soon.

That’s all for today’s blog post… hope to see everyone next Wednesday!

SamG has taken down another 1st place finish in tonight’s tournament, making this a total of 4 1st place finishes! That’s a huge accomplishment, and a BIG CONGRATULATIONS goes out to Sam for his consistent excellent play!

Congrats also goes out to Tiffany Mongiello for her runner-up finish in tonight’s tournament, taking home $25 cash and 17 points. The full breakdown of all the points and finishes can be found on the STATS PAGE.

Just a reminder once again - next week we will NOT be having a game, so please mark your calendars. We will return back to our regular schedule on 08/01.

Hey Everybody,

A big thanks to everyone that came out to tonight’s game. With the late entries we ended up having 56 overall players, which is a packed house. We can only hope to continue big numbers like this as the weeks progress. As always, I want to stress that we can only keep these free games going as long as it’s profitable for the business - so please make an extra effort to buy food & drinks on these Wednesday nights

Congratulations goes out to Jerry F for his 1st place finish tonight capturing the cash and 20 points. Runner up in tonight’s game was Mike Jacobs, taking a very nice 17 points and cash for his efforts as well. The full stats breakdown has been posted to the STATS PAGE, which is always accessible through the link at the top of this page.

I did hear some grumblings going on about the new points payouts. As I’ve always said, I’m open to any suggestions before I make changes to the way the game is run. However, when it’s time for those suggestions few (if any) come forth with anything to offer. So with this said, I feel the way the points are being rewarded now is VERY FAIR to everyone, and gives more credit to those that are consistently finishing at the top of the rankings.

The points are a marathon race, not a sprint… so if 1st place isn’t looking good for you on a certain night, then at least strive to get as many points as you can that evening. It may just pay off for you in the long run!

Hey Everybody,

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow (Wednesday 07/11) starts up a brand new round of games at Mollys! Make sure to arrive early and get in the game!

As promised, I have decided to modify the old points payouts. I was originally going to pay down to 15 player spots, but decided to even go deeper than this and pay out 20 player spots each week. Again, this is still a work in-progress… but as of right now, this is the way the restructured points will look:

New Point Structure
1st Place – 20 points
2nd Place – 17 points
3rd Place – 14 points
4th Place – 11 points
5th Place – 10 points
6th Place – 9 points
7th Place – 9 points
8th Place – 9 points
9th Place – 8 points  *corrected - originally posted as 6 points
10th Place – 6 points
11th Place – 6 points
12th Place – 4 points
13th Place – 4 points
14th Place – 4 points
15th Place – 2 points
16th Place – 2 points
17th Place – 2 points
18th Place – 1 point
19th Place – 1 point
20th Place – 1 point

And as for right now, the Sit and Go points will still remain 2 points for the winner, and 1 point for the runner-up.

That’s everything for today’s post - hope to see everyone at Mollys tomorrow night!

Hey Everybody,

Well, we finished off our 10th week and as always it was exciting right down to the wire. Steve Kopiak had the point lead going into the final week, but had other commitments and could NOT make it to Mollys to play on Wednesday. So this opened the door for those that were within striking distance.

SamG accumulated the 2 points he needed to tie Steve, but this actually resulted in a win for Sam because the tie-breaker we go by is “Average Finish”, and Sam had a higher average finish. So the results ended up being:

1. SamG - $350
2. Steve Kopiak - $100
3. Pat Judge - $50

Congratulations to all players for a great 10 weeks, and congrats to RichS for pulling out the nightly win on Wednesday. Rich wasn’t in point contention, so for his efforts he took home a $25 Mollys gift certificate.

Second bit of news to talk about is that we have a NEW STATS PAGE. This page will give you the same basic information as the old stats page, but will be hosted on our server instead of having to visit an outside link. Thanks to Mark Wisniewski for his contribution in coding up the PHP for this page

That’s everything for today’s post — remember, we’re OFF next week but will be returning back to normal on Wednesday the 11th. Have a safe and happy 4th!

Hi Everybody,

Just wanted to let everyone know that the week 9 tournament results have been posted. I actually posted these results quite a few days ago, but just got around to posting this message on the blog

A big congrats goes out to Steve Kopiak for his 1st place finish last week, and with this win he takes over the point lead going into Week 10! As it always turns out, the point race is still very close with SamG at 34 points, and Steve at 36 points — and with two other players at 30. So the final week could really be the deciding factor! Click here to see all the current point standings.

A couple of new changes coming that I think you guys will like…. we’re going to extend the points down to the top 15 finishers each week, and use more of a “bracketed” points system. By bracketed, this means that players finishing from spot 15-13 will get a certain amount of points, then 13-10 will get a slightly higher point reward, and so on. I haven’t quite finished working out the details of the actual point values, so more news on this to come. But I do think this change in the points will reward consistent play, and not weigh the sit-and-go points so heavily vs. the main game points.

Aside from the revamped points, Mark Wisniewski has been working on some PHP programming for us to showcase the points and finishes of the games on our site. Before you had to click an external link and visit an outside site to see all the points, but when we implement this new system you’ll have the same functionality, and more right on this site. More on this to come as it’s fully completed.

That’s all for today’s posting… hope to see everyone this Wednesday at Mollys!