For the Children...or at least for a sick buddy.

So last night was the Benefit Tournament for Carl McIntyre, a local actor who had a serious stroke last month and is working through some serious rehab. We had 28 participants, raising an impressive $2,850.00 for Carl’s Rehab Fund. It was a good time, with great donated prizes (GO FOOOD!) and lots of donated theatre tickets.

Full disclosure: I don’t know Carl well, we only met once at a show. But he’s been a part of our theatre community for many moons and I wanted to play and help set up the venue because it’s what you do when people in your world get f’d up by life. So I donated 4 season tickets to Off-Tryon, and plunked down my donation to play.

We all started with T2500, blinds 25/50, 20-minute levels. Pretty aggressive timing, but we only had about 5 hours to get done, so we needed to be quick like bunny.

I started a real tourney report, but I suck at tourney reports. Go read Pauly for that. Here are some fun pictures and a brief recap.














Nester got pizza, so he had to quit his bitchin.




Johnny Burrito (red hair) not suspecting that few hands later he would become the victim of THE HAMMER! Yes, indeed, I called from the button with the Hammer and flopped trip 7s to bust out the BurritoMan! Many other people who busted out before me replied "please keep playing the 2/7." They just don't understand the power of the Hammer.





Nester now has no pizza. And no chips. Hey Rocky, watch me pull 2nd Best Hand outta my hat!







Carl's wife Elizabeth, accepting Carl's 1st-Out Consolation prize of a Barbizon Lighting fanny pack and a Johnny Burrito gift pack. That's right, Carl showed up a month after his stroke and played in his own tournament! He's still not talking very well, but he's moving around great and his physical recovery is pretty amazing.



No the camera's in focus, Chip just looks blurry from the bad beats he took to bust his happy ass out.










This time the hands holding the Hammer belong to "Dad" Jim E. He not only played the Hammer, he pushed all in with it preflop! Balls to bet, cards to call. Dad doubled up this hand.

Chris (left) always looks like that - behind a big stack of chips. Greg (stupid hat) plays cards better than he dresses himself. Thank god. Greg took down the last-longer bet among the banker boyz. I'll admit, I was a bit nervous trying to figure pot odds at a table with 4 bankers, a CPA and me. Then I remembered my recent bank statements and figured I'm ok, these guys all work for my bank, so I know they can't add! Chris ended up in 4th place, representin' fo' the theatre folk.





Yeah, Jim, you look like you just took a kick in the junk. Oh wait, you did. Good playing with you, though.














Mongo says "D'OH!!"










George and Sean eventually ended up the top 2 after George's AK knocked out my A8 in 3rd place. I took down a $50 gift certificate to a restaurant I can't afford, so now I can check it out. They played heads-up for about 30 minutes before Sean finally got the better of George to take down the 1st Annual Carl McIntyre Benefit Tourney. Congrats! Sean made a monster comeback, coming to the final table seriously shortstacked after losing a coinflip to Chris when Chris' AJ caught to break up Sean's pocket 5s. We all felt the need to contribute since I think he doubled through 3 different people on his great run to the win. Congrats Sean!

A great time was had by all, can't wait to do it again!