Recap from Fowler Memorial Tournament

Once again, I forgot a notebook (surprise, surprise). Thankfully, Ken has a much better memory than I do. I hope he doesn't mind that I'm stealing his recap!!

Fowler Memorial Poker Tourney
Saturday, August 18th

Fourteen players participated in the Brandon Fowler Memorial poker tournament on Saturday. That started the prize pool off at a respecatble $350, but after the rebuy period was over that had almost tripled to $1035! After $235 was taken off the top for the charity, the remaining players squared off for an $800 prize pool.

There were many interesting hands and decisions throughout the night, but perhaps two of the more exciting hands that would have made the "ESPN coverage" happened after the rebuys were over. Ed flopped quad nines in the BB and got some all-in action from JJ. This wasn't the first time the Engstrom Poker Room has seen quads, as we did actually have a quads over quads hand back in December of 2005, but we did have our first royal flush ever last night. A severely short-stacked Joe had just enough to post his big blind and got four way action. Ken hit a set of fives on a 5dJcAc flop and bet out. After everyone folded, Joe tables the Kc4s and at this point was a 93:7 underdog. Everyone called out for a club or straight card to make the river interesting, and we weren't disappointed when the Qc came off the deck. The last card was the miraculous Tc to complete the royal and the room went nuts!

Here are the final table finishers.

9th Marc D.
8th Fran E.
7th Pete E. (ran JJ into AA on the bubble)
6th Joe D. ($40 and 37.89 WSOP points)
5th Scott B. ($60 and 41.51 WSOP points)
4th Ed M. ($95 and 46.41 WSOP poitns)
3rd Ned C. ($140)
2nd Ken E. ($215** and 65.63 WSOP points)
1st Jim Z. ($250** and 92.82 WSOP points)

**Jim and Ken cut a deal before playing a single hand head's up giving Ken an extra $30 and Jim first place WSOP points. The totals reflect the post-deal pay-outs.

A huge pot between big stacks Ned and Jim had Ned holding top pair and Jim holding top two pair when all the money went in on the turn. Jim went into heads up holding a 77300 to 9700 chip advantage over Ken when they cut the deal which gave Jim the title and Ken an extra $30.

With $235 already going towards the charity, donations from the top three finishers brought that number up to $400 (almost 40% of the total prize pool), which is an even $200 each for Lindsey and Griffin. The way college tuition is rising, that'll probably be enough to pay for about one day of school in 2023!

Thanks again to everyone who played!

Ken

Thank you for the recap, Ken!! Also, thank you to Ken and his wife, Fran, for hosting. It was a great time!