A field of 39 players show up to Foster City to battle for Piranha points. Some will try to lock up their seats while some will try to get on the board. Several folks even used their Piranha bucks for travel chips which I thought was pretty cool. The first levels turned out to be very slow, it wasn’t till almost the end of the second level that we had our very first bust out. After that we had a couple more before the lunch break but it looked like it was going to be a long day of grinding.
After getting stuffed with pizza from Toan, the field went into carb coma and started dropping like flies. Amazingly we were down to three tables by 4pm and an overflowing cash game. Then the two table bubble took a long time even though points weren’t till the final table. It must have been a psychological effect of announcing that one more elimination and we are combing to two tables.
When we finally combined to two the field went pretty fast till we got to the hand per hand bubble. The bubble took almost 2 levels to finally burst! What seemed like might be an early day was not so much anymore. The hand that finally burst the bubble was between Esmerelda and Juergen. Short stacked on the button Esmerelda jams under 10 big blinds and is called by Juergen in the small blind. Esmerelda shows 
and Juergen shows 
being ahead preflop. The flop brings 
putting Esmerelda in the lead with two pair. The turn brings the 
and the re-suck with the higher two pair to Juergen. The river is a blank 
and the we have our final table.
Bubble hand
The final table of Season 10 Tournament 5
Final Table
- Jan Klimala
- Juergen Heerdegen
- Ferdy Jimenez
- Magda Wybult
- Tony Gaglione
- Scott Sinclair
- Ed Tsai
- John Marsh
- Elaine On
The first casualties of the final table were quick with Elaine, Ferdy and Juergen giving much of their chips to Scott Sinclair now in the chip lead. Tony was all in with around 10 big blinds and gets called by John Marsh. Tony shows 
and John shows pocket jacks 
. The flop brings 7d and 2 hearts. John is still leading but Tony has the flush draw. The turn is a diamond and the river is heart giving Tony the flush and ending John’s tournament run.
Soon Jan Klimala runs out of gas and ends her tournament run. Don’t forget to get gas next time Jan! 😉 Going to the final four with Scott as the chip leader a major hand occurred which swung the chip lead. Scott raises on the button and get’s called by Magda in the big blind. The flop comes 
Magda checks and Scott bets. Magda check raises, Scott moves all in and Magda snap calls showing 
for a flopped straight. Scott shows 
for the straight flush draw however the wheel draw is no good for Scott as Magda has the straight to the six. Scott would need an amazing 3 of spades for the straight flush or any spade for the nut flush. The turn is 
, the river is 
and now Magda is the chip leader of the final four while Scott loses about 70% of his stack. Scott shortly busts later making it three handed for what seemed liked forever. I thought this was going to be an early day!
Tony and Magda battle it out most of the time exchanging stacks back forth for several levels and we finally see Magda finish the tournament in 3rd place. We are now heads up between Tony and Ed.
Heads Up
Tony builds up his stack but with Ed taking the chip lead. In the final hand Tony flops two pair for Queens and Nines and talks Ed into calling an all in by chasing his flush draw with 
. The river brings an unfortunate to give Ed the flush and bust out Tony in second.
Congrats to Ed Tsai and to everyone who made points. I finally made it home at 10pm and crashed at 11 after eating a massive super burrito and some vodka. See you at the next tourney!
GG by Ed. That was a long 3 way battle as we all had between 20-40bb at any given time. Enjoyed the stratsgies employed by Magda and Ed as they were doing a lot of stuff that isn’t your “standard” plays like limping on button and sb that just made a lot of sense with the stack sizes and table dynamics. It was a lot of fun. Oh and I didn’t talk Ed into calling. Nora’s dog Bourbon did 🙂
Oh and a special thanks to Nora for getting us in the place as we were almost locked out and a BIG thanks for all the free coffee too!
Congrats to Ed, Tony, and everyone else at that final table, and special thanks to Rodney for being an awesome TD. I enjoyed the great write-up, including the comment about my running out of gas, ha ha! Really friendly and fun tournament. John Gary Marsh, you are a true gentleman.