Yesterday i decided that it would be worth my time to go and watch the final table of arguably the best tournament ever set-up in the RP today. Small field of 50, Big guaranteed pot, deep starting stacks of 200xBB, hour long levels (1.5hrs for final table), and excellent players all around. It's was a poker players dream scenario.

The action was pretty intense, with chip leads changing hands several times, big bluffs being pulled off (and shown), and the best thing about it was there were hardly any bad beats. A couple of hours later, the bubble finally burst and everyone stated playing more relaxed. When it was down to three, they eventually agreed to a chop and everyone got 120K each, plus 10K to the chip leader. Awesome game from everyone, including the staff who ran it. Derek, who won the million peso title, showed some class when he gave P10,000 to the staff as a tip, and the two others followed suit, making the staff jump with joy for the 30K tip hehe. Amazingly, the whole final table lasted for about 5-6 hours only. Congratulations to the finalists and of course to our very own Barb Galan who came in to the final table 8th in chips and eventually won it all. Why am i not surprised?

What a great game. It will serve as a benchmark for tournaments to come, and i hope that poker tournaments in the future will follow suit. Quality poker. Nothing gets better than that.

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So i decided to play the ring game after about a month of not playing. Fun table with regular poker buddies, but lost my first 1K when my raised AK got 2 callers and got my A but someone who called my raise with K-5 got 2 5's on the board. Left with 600, i pushed the very next hand with A-J and got called by 6-6, no love from the deck for me.

Hand of the night for me was my last hand. I was down to about 800 after a total of 2K in buy-ins, and got 3-3 UTG. limped it, got callers, MP loose player raises 200, he gets 2 callers, i decide to push my last 700+ in to at least isolate one player, but i get 4 callers! Flop was 9d-Jh-10d and i was ready to go home. Turn came Jd so the flush and straight are already there, and im already standing up to leave, when the beautiful 3 of clubs falls on the river! Wohoo! i win the 4K pot and eventually end up cashing out 3500 after playing a few more pots.

Damn it feels good to spike the river once in a while! I almost never get to experience that since i dont play that loose. I even folded Kh-Kd on a flop of Ad-5d-7d after i bet 500 on the turn and got re-raised 1500 by dirty ice cream, who showed two pair A-7 after i folded. The rabbit hunt showed a King to add insult to injusry too hehe. What a rush. Last night, i remembered why i started to play poker, and that is purely for the thrill and the rush of the game.

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Off-topic: i got news from yahoo just now that Steve Irwin, the aussie croc hunter with the TV show, died today while filming in the great barrier reef. He was killed, of all things, by a stingray that stung him on the chest. He died before the Medevac chopper arrived. I admired the guy's passion and love for his craft. He was 44.