Friday Night on Murderer's Row

"Someone's gonna have to get lucky to win this one" - HDouble

The LAST place I thought I'd scrape up some coin for Vegas was on Murderer's Row. But by the grace of the poker gods, a half a bottle of Soco and some fine tokes of cannabis, that's exactly what happened.

I had $100 in my pocket. Before I walked out the door to head up to Westwood for the LA Blogger Home Game Showcase made me promise I was comfortable with losing it. I said that I was about as comfortable losing it as he was with shelling out almost $700 for the new headshots he was taking in the morning.

"Fine. Just don't come in my room if you're drunk or on tilt."

I got to HDouble's at 7:45, packing a fifth of Southern Comfort in my purse. I greeted the usual crew in the living room before stopping in the kitchen to pour myself a drink. That's where I met Pauly. He had a bottle of Soco too. Great minds think alike.

"Hey Pauly, what are you mixing this shit with? I forgot my Diet Coke."
"Ice."
"Then ice it is."

Before the tourney got underway I grabbed a smoke outside with the good doctor. We were 19 strong for the $50 tourney and I landed at the kiddie table with Geek on my left, Lance on my right, and Pauly on his right. Grubby, Grubette, Franklin, Mike, and Shawn rounded out the table. Unfortunately, Lance was first out when his pocket sixes ran into Geek's rockets. A few hands later, Grubby's AT fell to his sister's 77. Pauly was raising with all sorts of trash hands, and came after the blinds again-- I called him with A7d in the SB and Geek folded. Flop came QJ8 all diamonds and Pauly fired out 500. I moved all-in over the top with my nut flush. Pauly looked at me with a crooked grin and slyly flashed his Jackhammer to HDouble before folding. That gave me a nice stack to work with.

A few hands and another smoke break later, Pauly moved all-in with his short stack and I called with 55 with about 15BB left. I thought I'd be racing, but Pauly had AA! As Mike burned and turned, I saw a beautiful 5 of clubs on the flop, the Dr. was out, and I was near the chip lead. Hank joined our table a few hands later. He opened in EP and I re-raised him with AK. Grubbette came over the top with 77, Hank folded and I called. I won the race with an A on the flop and a K on the turn.

Final table. Now this is where things start to get a witttttle fuzzy. It all seemed to happen so freakin' fast. First, there was the hand where I cracked AA with A5. Then Geek moved all-in and I insta-called with AA. Finally it was down to Kori and I heads-up after Grubette busted in 4th and JoeSpeaker took 3rd. I won a couple of small pots before making a dumb move all-in with 37 offsuit. Kori called with QQ and doubled up. Within four or five hands after that, we were both even with about $16K each in chips and decided to chop.

Yes, you read that correctly. I am the reigning co-champion of Murderer's Row!! And during WPBT week no less. I took home $305 for my efforts and picked up another hundred bucks or so in the cash game. Check out Pauly's trip report for more details and photos if you haven't already.