Students gotta know when to hold ‘em

The Texas Hold ‘em style poker tournament on Nov. 11 was a full house. More than 40 students attended in hopes of winning the grand prize, a $200 Wal-Mart gift card.

The tournament was sponsored by the Campus Activity Board, who had also hosted another poker tournament during the Week of Welcome.

Junior Robert Buckley, a member of the Campus Activity Board, organized the event.

“We had a very good turnout,” Buckley said. “I would have liked to fill it up completely, but it’s a good turnout.”

The tournament participants were each given a bag of tokens, which they were to gamble with during the event. Once a player was out of tokens, they were eliminated from the event. When one player at each table had all the tokens from the table, they were declared the winner.

Texas Hold ‘em is a card game where each player is dealt only two cards. The dealer then reveals three cards from the remaining deck. A round of betting then occurs and another card is revealed.

After another round of betting, a fifth card, called the river, is revealed. After one last round of betting, the players reveal their two cards and use their cards along with the five in the center to create the best possible five card hand.

At any time, a player can choose not play their hand, and thus not have to wager their tokens.

Eight tables were set up and anywhere from six to eight people were assigned to each table.

The winner from each table would go on to the finals, where the eight winners would play another round until there was only one person standing.

Buckley said the tournaments tended to last a long time.

“The last one, during Week of Welcome, took four and a half hours,” Buckley said.

In order to prevent the tournament from taking too long, a system was put into place where every 20 minutes, the minimum wager would be increased, as would the short blind and the big blind, to try to eliminate players faster.

“It makes the minimum bet higher, so if you have a smaller chip stack, you’re probably going to get out faster,” Buckley said. “Unless you start winning.”

Some tables still had all their players in the tournament after more than an hour of play.

Others, like table eight, were already down to their last two players.

Eric Raymond, a sophomore, and Patrick Wilson, a junior, were both sitting on large stacks of tokens, each trying to eliminate the other.

Finally, Raymond succeeded in drawing out Wilson, and he won the table.

“I paired a jack, and he paired a five. He went all in, I called him, and he flipped another jack on the river,” Raymond said.

For most of the players, however, victory was not in the cards.

Nate Platto, a junior from table two, was eliminated from his table midway through the event.

“I went all in with four diamond cards,” Platto said. “There were 15 cards that could have helped me, but none of them fell on the river.”

Plattos attempt to get a flush failed, and he was eliminated.

“I had a good time, though,” Plattos said.

After another grueling round in the finals, Raymond won the event. Andrew Marsh, a junior, placed second, and Brent Evans, a junior, placed third.

Raymond won a $200 gift card, Marsh received $75 and Evans received $25.

The Campus Activity Board plans to host another tournament next semester.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Dec 2 2005. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry