BPT Event #5: Shorthanded & Action Packed

Skinski's The House of Blues hosted the festivities this week as we turned the corner of the Blogger Poker Tour's sophomore season at poker.com. This, the fifth of seven preliminary events, was a shorthanded version of no-limit texas holdem. With a maximum of six players per table, this format forces a more aggressive style of play and is extremely fast paced.

Marckster1 quickly jumped out to a healthy chip advantage and among his victims was last week's winner kufolem. TheBigSurprise, one of twenty new bloggers on the BPT this week, lived up to the name and also showed strength out of the gate. The attrition rate was high, and the first hour of play saw the field of 116 reduced by more than half, but some familiar names were climbing up the leaderboard. Holding chipstacks of around 9,000 each, 4th place JayNYC, 5th DawgRoyal, and 6th ViezeMan were stalking leader Marckster1's 14,570 chips. Also worth noting is the determination shown by last week's runner-up imjusthere4thebeer, who found trouble immediately this go around. Nursing only the remnants of his crippled stack, he made a 'Smokey & The Bandit' magnitude beer run, eventually finishing 19th.

When play resumed after the first break, the last surviving sitout was at my table and was much like a hurricane tested trick candle. A weapon was required to finally knock them out- Uzzzzi, who was rising to power along with luckylolo at the expense of Marckster1. This is about the time that your correspondent, brodoughno, took it on the chin. I had progressed to 10th place before river cards sunk my hopes in consecutive hands. First, my suited AK was outdone by A2 when Marckster1 caught a deuce on the river for half my chips. Then moments later, I pushed with QQ and succumbed to Uzzzzi's AK when a king floated in at the last moment to eliminate your bro in 31st spot.

At almost the same instant, TheBigSurprise, DawgRoyal and Irongirl had gone out in 32nd, 34th and 35th repectively. Then I took a phone call from the Associated Press, who of course wanted an update on the action. After checking the Michigan/OSU game I looked back and had missed the final table altogether. Event #2 bridesmaid iyatoni evidently took control when it counted and edged out event host and new BPT leader skinski. Poker.com mainstay JayNYC, who seemed like the favorite at the time I went out of the tourney, came home in 3rd place and is in good shape to make the finals despite missing the first two events. Event #4 winner freeroll26 notched a re-enforcing 4th place finish, and event #1 champ ReplicantPoker made another final table before finishing 10th. Congrats to all the winners this week and I want to wish the entire BPT a Happy Thanksgiving. The tour will resume Dec. 2, giving everyone plenty of time to sleep off that Turkey. Listed below are the updated BPT standings.


Overall /Player & Blog/BPT #5 Result/Total Points
(01) skinski Skinski's Blog (02) 1002
(02) irongirl Irongirl01 (35) 719
(03) freeroll26 Freerollcalendar Weblog (04) 642
(04) ViezeMan Peetscheet (20) 598
(05) iyatoni Perfectly Beastly (01) 597
(06) kufolem Poker Athletes Blog (67) 556
(07) imjusthere4thebeer Poker Pub (19) 550
(08) DawgRoyal Royal Poker (34) 522
(09) astinaguy astinaguys poker blog (08) 518
(10) brodoughno Gamingology (31) 515
(11) natsdad Alex (27) 500
(12) ReplicantPoker ReplicantPoker blog (10) 474
(13) elc3105 elc3105s blog (47) 430
(14) JayNYC I hate money (03) 415
(15) DavidMalek 11ave.blogspot.com (80) 411
(16) Hacksaw2000 5TH Street Forum (54) 403
(17) cerberi riverdemon (07) 387
(18) gohabs1234 free poker (30) 363
(19) PearlSnapMan PearlSnapMan Plays Poker (21) 350
(20) MTLdon the life of a don (77) 346