Abacus Breaks Through

There is no bigger student of the game on the Camel tour than Adam. He studies odds sheets, he has a large library of poker books, he calculates every move he makes...but he had never won a tournament. That changed on November 19 when he came back from a somewhat smallish stack to take first.

It was a bittersweet evening at Steve's as it was revealed that this would be the last tournament Beast would ever participate in as he heads back to Australia in a few weeks. You could tell Beast didn't want the night to end as he hung on for dear life to his dwindling chip stack. Sadly for him, it wasn't his night, but best of luck to you back in Oz.

It was a disappointing showing for Andy as he went out relatively early and was left to do some dealing and pitcher refilling. Next out was Dave who lost out to Ben when they both showed As (paired by the board) but Ben's lower kicker (3) was paired, then tripped on the turn and river for the full house.

Jon went straight chasing going all-in against Adam only to miss out on making his hand. Then it was a double kill as MattG's pocket Ks held up to take out all-ins from Tim and Beast. "So I got a point just for dealing there," a satisfied short stack Steve proclaimed.

Down to four, the table got a bit tighter, except for Steve who kept winning blinds by pushing all-in. He was finally called by Ben who beat him with his kicker. After showing some good patience earlier, MattG threw that out the window by calling Adam's all-in with an A-9 only to see Abucus turn over A-Q. Dominated, Matt began to look for the third place money as Adam paired his Q (not that he needed it).

"HE scares me" were the words from Ben's mouth earlier in the night when referring to Adam so he had to be a bit concerned that he was now facing him head's up. With the bigger chip stack, Ben called Adam's all-in and lost, leaving himself somewhat crippled and when the next hand came out K-Q, he pushed, only to discover that Adam would call with A-K and it held up.

Congrats to Adam on his first victory, coming mere weeks before he joins the fatherhood club. A well-timed win, indeed. Standings are below, and note that I updated the history page with a few more tables (all-time tourney wins and cashes) for you stat hounds out there.

Event #2 Standings
1) Adam
2) Ben
3) MattG
4) Steve
5) Tim
6) Beast
7) Jon
8) Dave
9) Andy