Crown Royal

Well, the first CIPT Tournament of Champions was a rousing success. In a field that included Dame, Joe, Brian, Jay, Tino, Dre, Bipp, and Jerry, I'd like to say that all of you were great opponents and were a quite competitive table. Chips moved about early and we saw Tino win big hands from Joe and DeAntye win big hands from Dre, early. Many players were low key for much of the game like Jay, Bipp, Tino, and Jerry but it was DeAntye who was on the roller coaster ride for which he has been known for. He was up early in chips and proceeded to lose a good percentage of them to Bipp, towards the middle of the game. Making his own way, he found his huckleberry and doubled up and really never looked back. From then on he (freakishly over-sized kid at elementary school recess) bullied the rest of the table with brilliant position bets and well placed semi bluffs, showing some of them, to the dismay of the other players; and by other players I mean Jerry. There was only a few times where luck didn't fall his way but he had such a massive chip lead that it didn't really hurt him. From his vantage; the risk was worth the reward.

The final three were Bipp, Jerry, and DeAntye with Bipp finishing on the dreaded bubble; as only 2 spots were paid. The was made possible a few hands earlier when Jerry put him to a crippling decision, to which Bipp almost had the clock called on him. He pondered with great internal debate and concluded with an emphatic call. Jerry had a set of 10s versus Bipps flush draw. The river came up dry and Jerry had doubled up. Not long after that, Bipp was gone.

So, we got to see a classic heads up match of the irresistible force versus the immovable object. I have to say, this was a game that included some very good plays and setups by DeAntye. For a decent stretch Jerry started working into his stack but DeAntye switched gears and went a little crazy, which made Jerry uneasy. Blinds were $2000/$4000 at this point so pots were significant. DeAntye pushed all in twice in 3 hands after relinquishing a decent amount of hands to Jerry. Jerry yielded. From then on it was assertiveness and aggression from DeAntye and he made a key move during this run, he showed Jerry a hand that he semi bluffed him out of it and Jerry did not like that. Two hands later the game was over when DeAntye sold the speeding gameplay completely and Jerry snap called into thinking he had him rocked with his A2. Problem is, DeAntye was speeding but he actually had a fast car; AQ. The hand held up and we had our first C.I.P.T Grand Champion. This might have been the best heads up match I have seen DeAntye play. He was great all night, actually!

Thanks to everyone for making this tournament and my birthday a very fun one. Special thanks to Kate for doing all the little things to make my friends feel special, love that woman!