Controversy Mars MPT Event

A record high number of entrants coverged on the Regulator's house for the January MPT. 22 players (all on time amazingly enough) met for some of the best card playing the MPT has ever seen. Not to mention a spread that was, if anything, only missing tic-tacs. The first game started tame enough with the standard bad play coupled with the normal suckouts. The final four consisted of Squeaky, Flipper, Jaime and Muskyboy, with Jaime and Flipper battling as the big stacks. Squeaky was the first to go out. Squeaky, had made the call of the evening earlier. Holding AJ on the turn and not hitting the board and having no flush or straight draw possibilities he called a Muskyboy bet that put him all in. Musky was bluffing and Squeaky took down a nice pot. With Three left, Musky was the short stack, but watched Jaime and Flipper battle it out with Jaime taking down a large pot to knock out Flip.

Heads up, Jaime held approximately 70% of the chips but Muskyboy battled back to almost even when controversy struck. Jaime went all in with a diamond suited J4 and was called by Musky's Ace-9. The flop came 10 10 x with two diamonds. The turn was a three (of hearts) and the river was a 10. Muskyboy counted up his chips to have Jaime pay him off and Regulator mucked the cards. As Musky reached for the chips, Jaime said, "what are you doing I had a flush." Muskyboy said, "uh no there was no flush, there were only two diamonds on the board." Jaime had to be restrained (well maybe not). Regulator confirmed that there was no flush and awarded the pot to Musky. Jaime vehemently disagreed. It was obvious that both combatants were "positive" that their hands won the pot. Others came forward to indicate that there was no flush (six at last count), and one very drunk medical professional said there was a flush.

Neither player was willing to give up the hand, the game ground to a stop. Finally, Muskyboy being a true class act suggested that the hand be replayed even though he was positive he won the hand and would have accumulated approximately 95% of the chips. The two then decided to chop the final. Regulator awarded the victory to Musky and game two began.

19 players remained for game two. Game two began at approximately 11:45 and the first casualty left the game a mere 6 minutes later. During the course of game two Flipper, Sausage King and Tabitha built huge stacks while Squeaky pissed most of his chips away early, being down to blind levels by the third round. Jaime was the third player out, showing that his game one performance was more fluke than anything else. It was suggested that he was on tilt from mis-reading the board in game one.

Squeaky. after being down on his luck built a respectable stack half way through the game after being moved to what he referred to as the easy table. At 2:30 five players remained: Squeaky, Dom (a regulator friend), Tabitha, Muskyboy and Dave D. (an occasional MPTer). At this point Squeaky looked down on pocket jacks and was all in with a call from Dave D.'s pocket 6's. A six on the flop and Squeaky was gone. Squeaky is quickly earning a new nickname as bubble boy. Although, he may have taken whiny-boy status from Regulator as he has consistently whined about his bad beats following the last two events.

Muskyboy took down Dom and it was down to three with Dave D. holding a decided chip advantage. Tabitha went all in with just more than the blinds (both Tabitha and Muskyboy were struggling to post blinds at this point, that is how much of an advantage Dave D. had). Musky folded and Dave D. turned over AK and knocked out Tabitha. Severely short stacked, muskyboy sucked out a few inferior hands to get back to maybe 20% of the chip total, but was unable to claw back any further and was knocked out when his all in of approximately 2x the bb was called by Dave D.'s AJ and game two was over at 2:51 am.

Other notables for the evening were Curios Kitty who took 10th and 15th, Half-man Half-Amazing took 8th and 18th, Doc took 12th and 16th but was in good spirits all evening pounding Guinness after Guinness harkening back to the early days of the MPT. Regulator took 6th and 12th, but was smacked by a cold deck all of game two. PP, self proclaimed MPT stud finished a very mediocre 13th in game one and left.

All in all, Muskyboy was the evenings top player finishing first in game one (Yes I said it, and I stand by it.....THERE WAS NO FLUSH ON THE BOARD!!!!!!!!! If only we had instant replay) and second in game two. It really was superior play that prevailed for Musky as he never hit a straight and only had a pocket pair over 8's once during the evening (Queens with three left in game two).

One noticeable absentee was Magic Man who disappeared several hours before the game was schedule to start. Rumor around the tables was that MM has realized he can't compete with the proven MPT players and is afraid to play on a consistent basis.

Looks like the next game will be hosted by Scott "Calla" Latza on February 18th. I will keep you posted.