Project Mayhem

Goals

We have a few motives in setting up Project Mayhem.  First up, we think having a big prize-pool tournament with deep stacks and a longer structure is a lot of fun.  Secondly, we are motivated to have a more consistent set of participants showing up for our weekend games (recruiting is probably right up there with cleaning up the next day as being the least-fun aspect of hosting poker night) and PM is set up to reward folks for showing up more regularly. 

Participation

There is room at the Final Tournament for up to thirty-seven players, so we can only accept that many Project Mayhem members.  The first thirty-seven folks to physically buy into a Season 14 tournament (and also buy into Project Mayhem!) will be entered into Project Mayhem.  Project Mayhem events are part of our Saturday night Regular Season tournaments.

PM-eligible tournaments happen on our Episodic (regular season) Saturday nights.  Members of Project Mayhem have the option to play as PM-eligible for our regular Saturday night tournaments (1 tournament in the case of a Standard Tournament weekend, or any of the 2 tournaments when we have a Quick Tournament and a Main Event).  To be PM-eligible you have to pay the $15 fee for the evening (just $10 if just the first tournament of a two-tournament night, or $10 if you want to play a Standard Tournament at half rate) at the time you're playing and all that money goes into a separate envelope.  Playing eligible in a tournament earns you two types of points: 1) you get one Attendance Point (which ultimately gets used to determine your starting chips in the final tournament, see below for more details), and 2) you earn Project Mayhem Points (a.k.a. "PiMPs") based on how well you perform in the tournament.  PiMPs also get you some starting chips, and they also have one other specific use for the final table which will be explained below.

If you've already established yourself as a member of PM you can decide to not buy-in to a tournament as PM-eligible.  If that's the case, then it's just like you didn't show up for that particular tournament: you don't get an Attendance Point, nor would you earn any PiMPs.

For our Standard Tournament nights a Project Mayhem entry costs $15 and all associated Attendance and Project Mayhem points are doubled for that tournament.  If it's a Standard Tournament night and you only need one more entry to get capped for your starting stack at the PMFT you can buy in for $10 and earn standard non-doubled PM points.

If you're not a member of Project Mayhem, you can attempt a direct buy-in to the PMFT assuming any seats are remaining.  Details are below. 

Players for Season Fourteen

1. Neal

2. Shannon

3. Tom

4. Rich I

5. Darrin

6. Bronc

7. Charlie

8. Jeremy

9. Heather D

10. Andy

11. Cindy

12. Dan S

13. Holly

14. John

15. Doug

16. Chris C

17. Ian

18. Stefan Mike V

19. Lyndee

20. Fred

21. Barb

22. Charlie H

23. Josh S

24. Rachael

25. Jesse

26. Shawn

27. Brad

28. Caroline

29-37 -available-

Points

As indicated above, you need to buy into a PM-eligible tournament to earn Attendance Points and PiMPs.  Money up front, 100% of the time.  If you pay to enter a tournament after-the-fact (as in, that same evening), you will only earn attendance points for that tournament, no PiMPs.

Attendance Points and Starting Stacks

Attendance Points are earned for each eligible tournament you enter.  Each tournament is worth T2000 chips to your starting stack at the final table.  

Before the Final Tournament starts, folks will have the option to buy additional starting chips at the cost of T1000 chips per $5 spent.  The maximum starting stack, however, is capped at T50,000 chips.  Obviously this money all goes straight into the prize pool.

APs are doubled on the evenings we only play a Standard Tournament, and PM entries cost $15.

PiMPs

Things which earn you PiMPS:

1 PiMP.... Enter a tournament

1 PiMP.... Per player that finishes worse than you in a tournament (they do not have to be Project Mayhem-eligible players, players who chop prizes all finish one spot ahead of the last person not included in the chop)

1 PiMP.... Per knockout you put on a fellow tournament player (not affected if they rebuy: does not have to be a permanent KO; note that for the Add-on Extravaganza, making someone use a rebuy token does not qualify as a knockout)

1 PiMP.... For finishing in the money (based on prize allotment on Structure page, alternative pay-outs such as Bounty money do not affect this PiMP)

2 PiMPs.... For finishing in first place

All PiMPs are doubled on the evenings we only play the Standard Tournament (with $15 PM entries).

Note that we will issue partial PiMPs in the case of folks chopping a tournament before it would be considered in-the-money (say 4 people chop a tournament which has 3 pay-outs: each PM participant who is part of the chop would earn 3/4ths of a PiMP towards the in-the-money point), and similarly for the two winner PiMPs as well (the calculation here is based on actual dollars won ahead of posted 2nd place prize compared to the gap between first-and-second place posted prizes).

PiMPs are good for two things.  First, for every 15 full PiMPs earned (no rounding: 29 PiMPs is just as good as 15), you get another T2000 to your starting stack, so even if you don't make all 20 tournaments, if you can make it to 14 or 16, chances are pretty good you'll start with the max starting stack.  Second, seating at the final table tournament will be based on the order of PiMPs.  Whomever finishes with the highest number of PiMPs will have their first option of seats at the table, with the option to defer if they so choose.  Each time someone selects a seat at the table, we will scroll back up to the top of the PiMP list and allow the top remaining person their option of seats.  Once you've picked a seat, there's no changing your mind.

Tiebreaks among PiMPs first go to the person with the fewest total tournament entries (if someone gets 47 PiMPs in six tournaments, then they beat out someone who got 47 PiMPs in eight tournaments).  The next tiebreak would be to add 1 extra PiMP per category starting at the bottom of the above list (so starting with the number of first place finishes) to see if that makes a difference.  If there's still a tie after that, then we'll high-card to break the tie.

I won't be calculating PiMPs for everyone on the fly (between tournaments), but will update a spreadsheet and post it here between Saturdays.

One way to think about the Project Mayhem Final Tournament starting chips is in terms of "bundles."  Each bundle is T2000 chips.  Every time you buy into a tournament you get one bundle of chips., and for every 15 PiMPs you've earned you get a bundle.  For a max stack at the final tournament, you should be trying to earn 25 bundles.

Results

Summary

After Episode 10 we have 28 participants putting our PMFT prize pool at $2670.

Here's where everyone stands for PiMPs:

(If you're paying attention to the results of the PiMPs table, you may be interested in my Down The Stretch commentary.)

And here's how things ended up for starting chips at the PMFT:

S14E1: Standard Tournament 9/16/2023

We had 26 people show up for our Season 14 Kick-Off, with a good number of our typical regulars unable to make it this time around.  This bodes well for us seeing games bleed onto our upstairs table in future Season 14 events.  Special welcome to newbies Ian and Darrin, both of whom really seemed to be great fits with our gang (Ian stayed up until after 3am playing in our post-tournament cash game).  This is good news, as both of them jumped into Project Mayhem as well.  I had a very frustrating night (the rebuy leader at 5, second place on this list was Lyndee at 3, but she had a much better result!) in terms of poker results but folks were in such a great mood overall that I really ended up enjoying myself.  Thanks go out to John and Charlie for Table Captaining the Octagon and Red Tables, to Jeremy who stepped up as Table Captain apprentice (his apprenticeship is fully complete after running the end of the Final Table), and to Shannon who not only does so much to make sure Felt Club poker nights are the right setting for folks to have a good time together, but also really stepped up as a leader on the tables where she played to help things flow smoothly.  3am came early for John, Shannon, Ian, Chris C, Bronc, and myself.  Thanks to everyone for bringing good food and for helping us clean up after the fun was had.  Special congrats to the five who finished in the money: Charlie took down 5th place, then the top four spots ended up in a negotiated chop with Barb, Lyndee, and Jeremy taking a number that fell between 2nd and 3rd place posted prizes, while Holly took a number that was at the top of the chop!  (Holly's First Place PiMPs reflect that her chop number was about 67% of the value above posted 2nd place and posted 1st place, so 2.68 is basically 2× (one-tournament night counting double) 2× (first-place PiMPs worth 2 points) 0.671053 (the actual level the chop number exceeded posted 2nd).

S14E2: Quick Tournament - LOP Mixed Game 10/7/2023

For our early tournament we had 20 participants (with three new additions, there was a total of 17 Project Mayhem folks) willing to participate in our inaugural LOP Mixed Game tournament.  It's been a while since we started a Felt Club tournament on (just) two tables!  It was probably for the best as even episode two-tournament nights are inherently a bit chaotic, but when you also add a new tournament type involving three different games into the mix and you've got a powderkeg on your hands!  Overall I'm very happy with how things went, but we did leave a bit of room for improvement (I mis-called the first hand of the Untimed Orbit as Omaha, putting Charlie's red table in a different spot (as they did a great job of following my mistaken instruction).  We also modified the Longmont game to include "tournament style" betting (in that it started with blinds, as is typical for flop games) preflop, but then switching to action starting on the best-hand-showing for the last three betting streets.  Mostly we got it correct, but both tables had excursions as we did it our own way (rules be damned!) at least once each.  The vibe was great (rebuys were a-flowin' with 9 of us trying twice to make it in the money) and we got Josh S, Charlie H, and Barb onto the Project Mahem rolls.  Maybe I shouldn't celebrate that, as all three non-PM participants in this tournament (Kim, Ken, and Mike V) finished in the money along with Barb, Chris C, and Fred joining in the celebration.  The final hand (Pineapple) was pretty epic with short stacked Mike all-in in the small blind, but even-shorter stacked Cindy willingly going all-in ahead (holding the pocket rockets, of course) during the same hand.  Of course neither of them ended up winning the hand, but because of chip stacks, Mike won the tie-breaker to take sixth place (and the money finish).  Whew!  Oh, and since I mentioned rebuys earlier, each of the non-PM money finishers managed to score the win after notching a rebuy in the ledger.

S14E2: Main Event - Add-On Extravaganza 10/7/2023

For the Main Event, we managed to add Jeremy and Heather D to the participation list (after they had a day in Denver).  22 of us started the Add-On Extravaganza together,   Things went pretty much without a hitch (which makes sense, we've been running this each season going back to 2012).  Jeremy and John helped out with running their tables, and a big group of us all pitched in to help set up for the second tournament during the break.  We may want to consider adjusting the buy-in for this one as without the option for rebuys, this ends up making for one of the smallest prize pools of all our Main Events.  Something to discuss in the offseason survey, I suppose.  Folks got down to the final table and we winnowed down to the in-the-money finishers.  Heather D took fifth place, then the final four participants agreed to what's known as an "ICM Chop".  ICM in this context stands for the "Independent Chip Model" which is a concept tying chip values to prize pool value independent of skill, position, or any other strategic elements of the tournament.  If you ran simulations thousands of times where all remaining participants shoved all-in every hand from that point forward, the ICM would be the expected value for each player in the long run.  The math is a hair trickier than you'd want to do on the back of an envelope so best to find a website (or phone app) to perform the calc.  Congrats to Bronc, Cindy, Charlie, and Holly for being in that 4-way weighted chop.  Since the money is mostly redistributed out of the top finishing positions, there aren't a lot of "first place PiMPs" up for grabs based on our chop math (which I added to the Points section above).

S14E3: Standard Tournament 10/28/2023

Oh what a night.  We experienced our first real weather of the winter here on the Northern Front Range, we loaded up four tables with 28 players, we met two new friends (hi Lori and Jesse!), we saw an old friend for the first time in a long while (hi Brad, great to see you're doing so well!), we bolstered the Project Mayhem roll call to 28, many of us dressed up in crazy get-ups (thanks Rachael and John for decorating and creating such a fun vibe), and with all of that we managed 53 rebuys (only half of which were Andy's).  Do you think that 53 beats the record?  The previous record was set last February in a (non-league) Standard Tournament, where 25 of us managed 44 rebuys.  So we CRUSHED the record.  Well done, us.  We also learned some things in running the upstairs table (your humble host needs to run a few more simulated tournaments ahead of time, as there were some avoidable troubles which should be resolved the next time we play upstairs).  Also, we may need to reconsider some late night levels as the tournament didn't finish until after 2am (though maybe all those rebuy pauses slowed the clock down just a wee bit).  Thanks to all the table captains: Shannon, Jeremy, John (pressed into service when Jeremy's night ended too early), and especially Charlie who held everything together upstairs with baling wire and strings in a very admirable fashion (my seat in the basement is closest to the stairs, and I heard uproarious laughter pouring down at least five separate times).  Jesse was our bubble boy (welcome to the basement, new friend) and Brad (welcome back!), Tom, and Doug had money finishes.  Playing after 2am were Shannon and Shawn (welcome back as well!) who chopped the big prize money, and your humble scribe, who managed to luckbox a single chip at level 18 (with 9 players remaining) into an empire of chips (chip leader at a few points while 3-handed!) before fizzling out in third place.  Shannon tells me the overhead camera was out of power this morning, so it remains to be seen if we would be able to come up with photographic evidence, or if this unlikely occurrence will have to only live on in our minds.

S14E4: Quick Tournament - WSOP Preliminary 11/11/2023

S14E4: Main Event - WSOP Final Table 11/11/2023

After some last minute adjustments to our evening's roster, we ended up running 22 of us through the recreation of the 2023 WSOP Main Event Final Table.  Congrats to Shannon and Rich for chopping the top prize along with Rachael, Dan S, and Michael for making some money.  Shannon and Dan both made big jumps from their original starting chip position, which had to be very statisfying.  Rachel crushed all competition in the earlier Preliminary Tournament, along with Tom, Rich, Fred, and Michael at the top of the results.  This was our first night in a while without any new players to the basement (though it was great seeing Jesse come back after last month's bubble result).

S14E5: Standard Tournament 1/20/2024

After a prolonged delay through the holidays, Felt Club returned with renewed vim and vigor—no wait, scratch that.  The final table felt like ten folks who'd each been run over by a truck in the last hundred yards of the marathon they were running.  But we made it to the end, and I'm here showing up on Sunday morning to prove I can bounce back.   Not to worry, Felt Clubbers, as we'll have plenty of time to practice our stamina in the weeks ahead.  Super shout-out to Shannon's holiday gift: The Men of Felt Club 2024 Wall Calendar.  The frivolity of last Fall's Caribbean trip (along with some propensity for formerly-filimic documentarian behavior) sort of made this whole thing inevitable.  But both of our cheeks hurt for days after she put it together (and we leafed through the final product).  26 folks, including On-Time Josh™ as our token newbie, and 23 total Project Mayhem participants, duked it out on the felt and it all boiled down to... your humble hosts chopping the top prize money (Shannon getting the top-of-the-chop).  We'll see if she makes it out of bed this morning...  Additional money finishers were Rich, Holly, and Rachael.  At four-handed I let the remaining players know my premonition about half-way into the evening (it just felt like a "Ladies Night" to me the way the game was playing), so I couldn't be more pleased to have eked ahead of Holly and Rachael down the stretch.

S14E6: Quick Tournament - Crazy Pineapple 2/3/2024

S14E6: Main Event - Progressive Knockout 2/3/2024

As far as two-tournament nights go this was one of the chillest we've had (and I'm not just talking about the weather outside).  We lost a handful of folks due to the weather and if you combine me dealing with our sidewalks and driveway, along with messing with trying to make my speakers work with the WiFi network for way too long (unsuccessfully, of course), and adjusting seating for the last minute attendance updates... well much like Shannon on our wedding day, I was about five minutes late for my own event.  Everyone was really kind and understanding and in a moment where I could emotionally spiral... I kinda just didn't.  I can't thank folks who lent and hand with counting out chips, putting out seat cards, organizing tables and chairs, (re-)shoveling our driveway and walks (!!!), and generally contributing to a fine evening of friends coming together.  I was touched then, and I'm touched again this morning just thinking about everyone's above-and-beyond contributions last night.  And that doesn't even touch on the wonderful food items folks had shared.  Y'all the best!

The Crazy Pineapple game mostly lived up to its name.  We saw boats and flushes, aces getting cracked (and holding up), pocket pairs beating other pocket pairs, runner-runner-runner bad beats, and all the general stuff you typically see in a hold'em tournament (just at a +50% rate).  I only tried to deal everyone two cards once (and four cards no times, which I think is the real win).  I only saw one dealer bring the turn before all players had discarded their hole card (and was very heartwarmed when the opponent decided to just play poker rather than playing some rules-lawyering version of gotcha).  The final table saw both Jason F (first time returner after a few years away) and Emily (a first-timer to the group) get close to the money, but fall just short.  Six of us chopped the money (but only after a few near-bubble players made some well-timed double-ups): Stefan, John, Charlie, Darrin, Dan S, and Neal.

The Progressive Knockout Main Event was wild in its own way.  Knockout bounties slowly accumulate to levels that end up on par with the actual tournament prize distribution.  The final two players ended up shared $143 in bounty money, and each of the third and fourth place finishers accumulated seven separate bounty pay-offs along the way.  In the end it was Andy, Heather D, and John filling out the 3-5th place finishes, while Tom and Rachael agreed to a chop after chips were really a-movin' around amongst the final few players.  Despite some technical troubles (the outlying computers couldn't sync with the tournament computer), some weather delays for folks arriving, and my own late start, we ended up wrapping up within 20 minutes of our midnight target.

S14E7: Standard Tournament 2/17/2024

Thirty-one of us convened in the Poker Basement and while there weren't any newbies, we did have some returning friends whom we hadn't played cards with in about eight years!  Great to see you again Grant and Dave, especially since we were celebrating some important people we miss (at the poker table or anywhere else).  This was our poker celebration for Richard Kelley and Richard Stangis, two wonderful role models who made big impressions on all who spent time in their presence.  Shannon's words before the start of the tournament were touching and put the right perspective on the evening which followed.  As part of that celebration we handed out some prizes, fruitcake — one of Rich K's favorite dishes (Barb said the freezer would get stocked with four at a time so he could enjoy all year long... I suppose freezer burn isn't exactly a concern) — awarded to Erik who was our first player out (he donated it back to the house), a nice bottle of scotch (one of Dick S's favorites ever since his palate developed past his PBR days — my Pops was the original hipster!) — awarded to Dave O for his first place finish (he donated it back to the house), and many selections from Rich K's poker library were taken as participants were deposed from the tournament.  Once I saw some of the knowledge Rich had filling his grey matter I realized why I always considered him my poker nemesis.

We had made a few changes (the only Felt Club constant) leading into this poker night, and looking back on things I'm a bit floored that they were all as successful as they were.  I spent a couple years' worth of poker winnings on a new WiFi mesh network to (finally) keep the through-the-house wireless speakers working a bit better (and they did!), I implored attendees to fill out the musical selections on the playlist to mix things up a bit better (spurring lots of conversation), and, against my own will, I scrambled at the last minute to find new software to keep all the remote terminals connected to the Ground Zero tournament software PC (and there wasn't a single hitch... once I scrambled to resize the screens so that people could see minor things like the prize pool and the current size of the blinds).  Shout out to the parsec.app application developers.

Shout outs as well to the top finishers in the tournament.  Scotch-sharing Dave O took the top-of-the-chop with Lyndee, while John, Caroline, Jeremy, and Holly also ground out a few bucks.  With four tables in play to start the evening we had four table captains, each of whom made it to the final table (though Charlie and Neal both lamented what could-have-been at the end).  We're in the home stretch for the Project Mayhem Final Tournament with only three more Saturdays (listed above) left to accumulate starting chips  for the big show.  Pen the dates of those tournaments into your skin and get to some last-minute accumulatin'!

S14E8: Quick Tournament - Longmont Hi 3/16/2024

S14E8: Main Event - Ante-Only Tournament 3/16/2024

We had 30 players for the Quick Tournament and 31 playing in our Main Event.  Despite the crazy big crowd, it was a relatively calm evening.  I mean there were kilts, green foods, damn crazy suckouts, more deserts than a Perkins, an eclectic mix of songs (at varying volume levels — that's my next to-do task for the music...), laughter, groans, breaking the "rebuymen", surly behavior (but definitely within the lines!), exuberant exclamations, and so much generosity from the crowd in making sure things proceeded smoothly that my heart couldn't be any warmer.  Thanks to Shannon, John, Jeremy, Charlie, Charlie H, and Tom for your extra efforts for making the poker go smoothly, and to Shannon and everyone outside my immediate cone of perception for making sure the non-poker parts were a-flowin'.   Welcome to Darrin's step-son, Casey, for his first visit to the poker basement (and welcome back any time you're back in the area!), and a return welcome to the long-lost Vincent, who we don't see nearly often enough.

I have opinions about how things went in terms of our two non-standard games, mostly centered around things I wish I'd have set up differently.  I suppose that's the point of constructive criticism — focus on the things you, personally, can change to make for a better experience for all involved.  We don't play these types of tournaments more than once a year, and everybody did their absolute best to make the most of the situation presented.  I'll share a few thoughts on the specifics.  The Quick Tournament went really well, but I should've better communicated a few of the finer points: card suits break ties for where the action begins on any given street (including if the river board card completes a made hand), and in a tournament, action begins on the high hand showing irrespective of the blinds.  (A significantly better solution would be to abolish blinds and to have a forced bring-in, but I really REALLY didn't want to hear the howls of the perceived-aggrieved.)  In terms of the Ante-Only Tournament, my biggest gripe is related to the ante-increase structure.  I hadn't sufficiently considered how this tournament would scale with more than 30 players, and due to the number of chips in play, there was insufficient pressure to bring the tournament to a conclusion.  In the end 4 souls graciously decided upon a chop — at 2am.  That's really unacceptable, and I take full responsibility for dropping the ball.  There were also some small issues with timing of chip races relative to the particular blind levels, but we easily navigated those temporary troubles.  Thanks, everyone, for being so flexible and digging our way out of a hole of my creation.  It'll be fixed!

Congrats to the money finishers in the two tournaments.  A decent number of Felt Club participants have already capped their full starting stack in the PMFT, so the S14E8 lists above don't reflect all participants.  But in the end of the Longmont Hi Tournament, it was Chris C, Dan S, Heather D, John, Lyndee, Vincent and Neal as part of the 7-way forced chop (is this our first 7-way Quick Tournament chop?), and for the Ante-Only Tournament, it was Neal and Caroline going out first and then Andy, Doug, John, and Tom as part of the 4-way chop at the top. Eleven different folks finishing in the money out of 31 people in the basement is a pretty good mix of money finishers.

S14E9: Standard Tournament 4/20/2024

We're winding down in the season, which means fewer Project Mayhem entries as it's down to folks who've missed a night or two along the way trying to capture those last PiMPs.  Couple that with typical end-of-schoolyear activities and (typically) better last Spring weather, and we manged to park 23 butts in seats in the poker basement last night.  Thanks to everyone who could make it.  It felt like those of us who were there made up for the general chaos of our traditional 30+ pokerers.  (Nicely done, us!).

Thanks, too, for folks who shared remembrances, stories, and sentiments for our dear friend Michael.  He leaves a hole in my life which will never again be filled in.  I know many of us will miss him on poker nights, for the online games, as someone who shared astute, intelligent, and witty comments, terrible puns, an acerbic jab, a willingness to celebrate his own victories (generally due to his sharply honed people reading abilities), catchphrases, hard-to-believe stories, wonderful hugs, an air of mystery, and the ability to make any of us feel like the most important person in his life at any given moment.  I will miss Michael as all of that and as a genuine friend.  We'll never spend another night together in the poker basement without me feeling his presence — not as a spiritual aura hovering above us — but as a voice in my head telling me *this* is the hand where I should be betting "this many."  Fare-the-well, on what remaining journeys lay ahead that you now know better than the rest of us. I miss you and always will.

We had three couples wind their way to the final table, and each of those couples were represented with in-the-money finishes.  Congrats to the Shaffers, the Nicolarises, and your humble hosts, who took all five spots in the prize pool.  I went on an absurd tear from five-handed on down, accumulating a billion chips in a hand where I shoved my King-Jack, called in two spots by Ace-Queen and Ace-Ace only to flop a full-house (with held up).  Playing heads-up with Fred I arrived with pocket Kings twice in the span of about ten hands, bringing the final portion of the night to a rapid conclusion.  (One last absurd knock-out which occurred prior to the final table — I was holding 8-9 on a 4-6-7 board,  Brad and I exchanged bets.  The 5 on the turn gave me a straight.  More chips into the pot.  A 3 on the river put a 5-card straight on board.  I led out with an outrageous overbet that must have seemed unbelievable as it got called and I accumulated a stack which fueled my final table follies.)

S14E10: Quick Tournament - Omaha Hi 5/4/2024

S14E10: Main Event - Cheap Rebuy 5/4/2024

The Season 14 regular season wrapped up with a bit of everything last night.  We had nonchalant straight flushes (hi Stefan!), we pegged the decibel meter with a river 7, we saw old friends (hi Tom!), and made new ones (hi Jeff!), we had an unfortunate double-bubble (hi John!), we played the four-card game *and* the two-card game, there was cat puke on someone's face keeping them from playing in a tournament (hi Cindy!), and we laughed and moaned and got pissy and made secret mental fist-pumps and all spent a Saturday together in the warmth of cards, fellowship, and bad beat stories.  And also hi Dan. 

The technology just freakin' worked, which was a bit weird for me (excepting me forgetting to update the last level for Rebuys in the Cheap Rebuy tournament, but Table Captains rolled with that bit of hinkiness very smoothly, so thank you!).

The Quick Tournament was the 4-card game.  I think Omaha Hi works well for our crew.  I know that when I downshifted to Hold'em later in the night there was a momentary experience of "is this it?".  Fortunately I didn't see anyone try to keep dealing cards after the first two.  Things wrapped up for the 23 of us right on target with me seeing 6:27 pm on the stove clock right after I came upstairs after the end of the tournament.  Of course as we moved down the stretch, there was definitely one long, complicated, multiple-side-pot hand, during which the levels went up twice.  Weeeee...  The six happy players participating in the chop: Barb, Erik, Stefan, Tom, and both your humble hosts.  John experienced his first bubble of the night.

The Main Event was our classic Cheap Rebuy tournament.  I had made slight recombobulation™ of the structure ahead of time, but I forgot to playtest the adjustments.  I think the poker worked out fine, but the display and reminders for the end-of-the-rebuy period didn't get appropriately updated.  Sorry about that and I hope nobody was affected.  The extra level for rebuys did result in the 24 of us coming up with 61 rebuys and 18 add-ons, which feels pretty impressive.  High-fives all around!  Dan gets credit for being the rebuy champion as he put an octopus on the board under the rebuy column.  Charlie H, John, Stefan and Tom all need to go to remedial rebuy school as they clearly didn't get the memo.  Maybe Stefan's excuse was that he just needed spending money for us upcoming trip to Croatia, as he put on an exhibition of cards I haven't seen in a long time.  It wasn't exactly start-to-finish domination, but once he got to the final table, he played like a wrecking ball (of the genius variety) and he crushed the souls of all who tried to get in his way.  Brad took second and new guy Jeff A took third (both occurring in the final hand with a victorious double-knockout).  Neal eked out a fourth place finish and padawan Doug plinked the penta-position on the payout podium.  John ran out of chips on the stone bubble, again, this time after racking up 10 knockouts on the way.  TEN!  I predict better results in John's future (maybe as soon as two weeks from now in the PMFT).

The true star of the night had to be the taco bar and the AWESOME variety of (mostly) cinco-de-mayo-themed food items which you so kindly brought into our homes.  Thanks to everyone for your generosity of spirit and the wonderful evenings together throughout all of Season 14 and in the time we've opened our home up for Saturday evening shannonigans with you fine folks.  The older we get, the more setting up and running poker nights feel like rolling a boulder up a mountain, but being able to spend regular time together with folks we love levels out that mountain and lightens that boulder.  Thank you all.

History

Links

Previous seasons of Project Mayhem can be found:

• Project Mayhem - Season 5

• Project Mayhem - Season 6

• Project Mayhem - Season 7

• Project Mayhem - Season 8

• Project Mayhem - Season 9

• Project Mayhem - Season 10

• Project Mayhem - Season 11

• Project Mayhem - Season 12

• Project Mayhem - Season 13