And the winner of MCFC 2 is...

MCFC 2 was a huge success in April because of the influx of new talent. And as the final hour began, MCFC1 vet DP and a member of the new blood, AC, were at $359 and $363 respectively with 1 rebuy each. AC and I agreed that we would play a $24 SNG KO tourney (which was AC's specialty) and then we'd play a best of 3 HU series, which was my preference. In the KO tourney, AC quickly doubled up and after about 15 minutes..his stack had gone from 3K to 10K. My stack had ascended to 3007. Yup..I grew my stack by 7 chips. Nervous and card dead isn't exactly a lethal combo against opponents and I went into jam mode shortly after as the blinds got bigger. Meanwhile, RJ logs in and tells us that he's had a good night and has had many cashes in his 9 man SNGs with buyings ranging from $24 to $60. At one point, he's registered in about 3 tourneys with still $188 w/no rebuys behind him. Given how well he was running, Ants and I realized that if we limited ourselves to our agreement, RJ may pass us both. So the agreement was dissolved and we each began to register for other tourneys. Meanwhile..I donked off in 36th place in the KO tourney..my A8 ran into AQ..I flopped the 8 and he rivered the straight.

I decided to lick my wounds by played a $33 6-man..and went out in 5th when I turned a flush..and lost to a higher flush. See my hand history from 2 days ago..very similar..clubs and all. Soon after, Ants types "SHIT. I MADE A MISTAKE". He registered for a $42 super turbo, thinking it was a normal turbo. Super turbo's give you only 300 chips to start..so it's a fold or jam decision mostly..high on luck and low on skill. Ants quickly bowed out.

I turned to HU which had been my strongest game lately. However I lost a $55 tourney after getting sucked out on twice. that brought my stack down to about $240 w/1 rebuy...virtually tied with RJ. It's now 11:40pm..and it's decision time. Ants is still running good in the KO tourney..and he's playing in 2 others. RJ's at $188 and still in his tourneys..and will likely cash given how well he's playing. So I assume a do nothing strategy won't win me the title and decide to up the stakes to a $110 SNG. That didn't work out as planned as I dropped the match within 15 minutes. FML.

I'm now cursing myself and feeling like an absolute douche. I had ran my stack from $359 to $130 in about 50 minutes...after grinding so diligently over the last two days. With less than 5 minutes on the clock, I verified that as long as I registered for a tourney before midnight, I could play and then did the only thing I could do that would give me a shot at winning. I registered for a $100 9-man SNG.

I'll spare you most of the details, but I basically concentrated as much as I could on the tourney and ignored most of the MSN chatter. And I didn't even have any of my competitors' matches up as I wanted no distraction. This wasn't a turbo, so the blinds were low and slow and this made for some fun poker as there was plenty of room to pressure with 3 bets, 4bets and check raises. After I made it into the cash, one interesting hand came up. I had AdJh. It was raised preflop 3x and all 3 of us were in the hand for a pot of 1080. the flop was QT5d. I check. BB bets 600. Loose button guy goes all in for 2200. After tanking forever, I made the weak fold. The reason I folded is because I knew loose guy would find a way to donk his chips eventually and I didn't want to have to draw to beat him. BB also folded. Thankfully, loose button guy DID donk as expected and i took him out when he called my 3 bet all-in with 27d. Yeah..I can't explain it either. I started HU at around 5K while my opponent had 8500. My opponent had pwned me regularly earlier in the match as he was to my left and was abusing me with his position. However HU was a different story as I was able to steal a lot of pots as well as hit some flops in a timely manner. Like a hemophiliac, he proceeded to bleed his chips to me after I made the first cut into his stack. I was feeling great..he was showing weakness..and I finally took him down with my T7 that hit the flop against his high cards of AQ. He jams, I call, he bricks and I pumped my fist several times, somewhat stunned and amazed at my victory. SHIP IT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

** click on the image for proof of victory **

The boys, who had been railing, congratulated me. Our collective attention turned to AC who had cashed in a previous tourney and was now in his last tourney, a $24 KO which is HIS tourney. RJ had bricked has last 3 tourneys, so it was between AC and me. I had done what I could. Now it was up to AC. We calculated he had to finish in 3rd place to surpass my bankroll if $469 w/1 rebuy. For most of the tourney, he was running in between 10-15th place...so a strong finish was definitely possible. But as the blinds went up, he picked a bad time to go card dead. He soon jammed with KQ and couldn't hit, bowing out of the tourney in 13th spot as well as MCFC2 in 2nd spot. I won.

Sweating AC was tough. Part of me was cheering for him because it would have been such a legendary comeback. But the bigger part of me wanted the trophy badly. This was an awesome tourney, especially in the last week as the action and strategy got pretty heavy.

Stay tuned for a 'stat pack' that GC and I will put together that summarizes MCFC2.

We're now taking suggestions for MCFC 3 which will likely be in August.

It's good to run good.

DP