Friday, 29th March 2024 15:43
Home / Uncategorized / Twitter Poker League: 0 RAM 0 wins penultimate league tourney
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by Joanne Haslam
The Montblanc Mystery Masterpiece takes over a year and a half to create, it’s set with 20 carats of rubies, accented by almost 840 diamonds, and will set you back $730,000. You may wonder what all this has to do with Twitter poker? Well today was the penultimate tourney of the Twitter Poker League’s first season, and I needed an intro it seemed appropriate to think about the ultimate pen.

In week seven of the eight-week league tourney series 1,324 players did their ultimate to make a mark on the league leaderboard. There’ll be no fancy pen prize for league winners, but there will be lots of Step Tickets. The ultimate pen still only writes a line, the ultimate Step Ticket gives an EPT seat, and that’s something to write home about.

Surprise in Arizona
When VladValen impaled himself on the bubble spot, we would find our final nine players, but we’d only see eight at the final table. IMETOH lists his hometown as Surprise, Arizona and the surprise for everyone was his 9th place exit during hand-for-hand play. IMETOH would find an unwelcome river, holding A♥ Qâ™  and moving all-in on an ace-high flop he was called by dgin74 who showed A♦ 9â™  . Dgin74 spiked a lucky river 9♦ to eliminate IMETOH and set up the eight-handed final table.

Final table chips stacked up like this:
Seat 1: dgin74 (508,187 in chips)
Seat 2: tbd43 (228,642 in chips)
Seat 4: Kid Kass (477,382 in chips)
Seat 5: redeyed003 (116,039 in chips)
Seat 6: joschi11111 (140,379 in chips)
Seat 7: koko1956 (69,148 in chips)
Seat 8: yoyo800218 (162,348 in chips)
Seat 9: 0 RAM 0 (283,875 in chips)

One of those hands
Early skirmishes changed things little, and then we hit one of those hands where chips always fly across the table.

Redeyed003 picked up A♥ K♣ and ran into joschi11111 with K♥ K♦ . It all went in pre-flop and by the river redeyed003 was out. The king on the turn might have helped redeyed003 against a lesser hand, but was no help here.

Kooko1956 had joined the final table as the shortest stack and hadn’t gained chips since then. A re-raise push with Aâ™  K♦ was obvious poker in the circumstances, Kid Kass quickly called with 5♣ 5♥ and his pair was enough to win. This final table was playing at double-quick speed, and whizzing towards another elimination…

A bad time for an all-in
If that elimination was your standard pair versus over-cards classic, the next was a squeeze play gone wrong surprise. Yoyo800218 raised, dgin74 called and tbd43 thought it a good time for an all-in. He probably didn’t want a call. He got one. It was 2♣ 6♣ for tbd43, finding a call from a chipped-up dgin74 with K♣ 10♦ . Neither player hit the board, but tbd43’s 6 high was never going to win it. He would exit in 6th place.

0 RAM 0 had held the chip lead as the #tpoker tourney reached its final few dozen players, but lost the prime position at the final table. As the table short stack he pushed all-in on a 9♥ 2♠ Q♠ flop, finding dgin74 willing to take him on with A♥ J♥ . 0 RAM 0 held Q♥ and earned himself a double-up.

0 RAM 0 took the lead soon after that hand, and there was no going back for the German player. He won a huge pot with no showdown against Kid Kass, betting all the way, only for Kid Kass to lay down on the river with the board showing 9♠ 7♣ 5♦ 4♣ 10♠ .

Kicking yourself over the kicker
0 RAM 0 was the first player to surpass 1,000,000 chips, Yoyo800218 was trailing with a zero less than that on 100,000. He made a stand with A♦ 9♦ but Kid Kass had the better of the match with A♠ J♥ . There was an ace on the river, but kicker trouble kicked youo800218 out in 5th place.

Four-way 0 RAM 0 had a mighty chip lead, the other three were fairly evenly matched. The next key hand saw Kid Kass raise from the small blind and Joschi11111 call from the big with 4♥ 3â™  . You might have thought that an unpromising hand to play, but the flop suited it just fine, showing 5â™  4♦ 3♥ . Kid Kass bet out and Joschi11111 moved all-in. Kid Kass was entitled to think he was ahead with Jâ™  J♦ but Joschi11111’s two pair was in the lead. Until the river J♥ . That jack must have broken Joschi11111’s heart, but he still had a few chips to play with.

Joschi11111 moved in next hand with Q♥ 10â™  and chip leader 0 RAM 0 called with Kâ™  Jâ™  . A queen saved Joschi11111’s day, a much needed double-up.

No one gets two hands in the small blind
Then another battle of the blinds scrap between Joschi11111 and King Kass. Joschi11111 might have been thinking King Kass couldn’t have a hand on the small blind again. Kid Kass raised, Joschi11111 moved all-in. It was A♥ 9♣ for Kid Kass, the lowly 5♥ 3♥ for joschi11111. So yes, Kid Kass did have a playable hand again, one that would finish Joschi11111’s run in this tournament.

Baby bear, Mummy bear…
Three-way the chips were looking kind of baby bear, mummy bear, daddy bear… Or being less fairytale fancy: dgin74 336,979 (baby chips), Kid Kass 697,961 (mummy chips), 0 RAM 0 951,060 (daddy chips).

0 RAM 0 remarked in chat, with a smiley, that he’d had aces while sitting out. As if the poker gods were listening and having a rare day of kindness, he was dealt a premium hand replacement. And he was in a position to play it this time. 0 RAM 0 raised with Aâ™  K♥ and dgin74 came over the top with Kâ™  10♥ . The king on the river couldn’t help dgin74, and we were heads-up and playing for the #tpoker tourney win.

#tpoker fan and twitterer @TariAkpodiete was rooting for the underdog:

@TariAKpodiete Now there are two – 0 RAM 0 with 1.5mill and Kid Kass with 393k
@TariAKpodiete Don’t count Kid Kass out despite being down to 0 RAM 0 by more than 1 million

Very Small Outline Package
While you might have thought the interest would all be in the $222.81 prize and 20 league points, Twitter was aflurry with speculation as to the meaning of 0 RAM 0’s avatar. His avatar displayed the letters VSOP. Wikepedia links were bandied about, and it seemed clear that he might like cognac, jazz music, or some type of surface-mount integrated circuit package. Yes, it was that clear.

0 RAM 0, reading the tweets, was happy to help everyone out, answering in chat: “My avatar is the logo of our poker club vsop and means ‘village series of poker.'”

0 RAM 0 might only have played village poker, but he’d collected chips from all corners of the globe. Kid Kass never got back into the game. He lost a few hands seeing flops and folding when pressured, and down to just 200,000 he found Q♥ J♦ and moved all-in. 0 RAM 0 said game on and called with 4♣ 4♥ . The board showed no favors to Kid Kass, and our Village Series of Poker player was the Twitter League of Poker winner. Well played to 0 RAM 0, this win places him in joint 9th place on the league leaderboard.

It’s the final week of the Twitter Poker League next Sunday (don’t worry there’ll be another eight- week season after that.) There are plenty of players with points to snatch the lead, but our ultimate blog report will be penned next week when we’ll reveal who wins those Step Ticket prizes.

Twitter Poker League Leaderboard – Week 7 (07-18-10)
bra boy84, 44
3detch, 41
captainlgf, 31
McNamara2011, 31
Danilo1012, 30
Sashhh27, 29
thop5574, 29
Debiloki, 28
0 RAM 0, 27
JRMR802, 27
Matosh, 27

To see the full leaderboard or find out more about the Twitter Poker League visit our website. It isn’t diamond studded but we love it just the same.

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