SHHNHB #2 Recap - It's a Tie!

SHHNHB Official Site

Tournament two presented the eight contenders with a new trophy to pursue, along with a lot of pride and a little bit of cash, and it felt like a roller coaster ride the whole way through. Jeff was the cinderella story, making the final table as the 8 seed, which brought him face to face with the top 3 seeds. He held his own in a very competitive championship, but in the end, Hubert and I tied for the win, just edging out Annaka, who had won her semifinal table by one over Hubert. Rob took care of business at the consolation table, holding off a hard-charging Andrew. Here's the recap for each table:

Semifinal #1 (race to 100, $5 to the winner)
026 - (1) Chang
086 - (8) Jeff
096 - (5) Dan
104 - (4) Andrew

Through the first six hands, the scores were very competitive, and no one was outside of shooting range of first place. I had a 16-point lead, but the other three were all within 3 points of each other. Jeff was the first to trip up on the next hand, taking the queen, but then he held steady the rest of the way and managed to sneak into second going into the last hand. Dan would have held down that position, but he took 22 points on the previous hand to fall 10 back of Jeff, and Andrew was 8 points further back from that all-important second place (and spot at the final table). The game came to an early and unexpected end on the next hand when I had an accidental moon shot to put Andrew over 100. I did not have a shooting hand; I was loaded with low diamonds and the 7 of hearts as my only heart. But the distribution was unusual, the hearts kept coming my way, and on the last trick I realized I had taken everything. Until then I was still trying to avoid taking the queen. It was all very confusing and completely lucky for me, giving me my second semifinal win, and it worked out well for Jeff, too, because it put him into the final table on his first try. Andrew realized about halfway through the hand that things were about to end in a bad way, for both him and Dan, but by then nothing could be done, and the game was over.

Semifinal #2 (race to 100, $5 to the winner)
061 - (3) Annaka
062 - (2) Hubert
084 - (7) Ruth
101 - (6) Rob

This table saw an exciting finish as well as one of the most unusual hands possible, which turned out to be a huge turning point. On that hand, hand #5, Annaka had the lead on the third trick. If she led clubs, Rob would shoot, and if she led diamonds or spades, Hubert would shoot. What are the odds of two players being in that position, and so early on, in the same hand? Annaka led spades, Hubert shot, and that propelled him to a huge lead. Had Rob gotten the moon shot, he would have been in great position to make the final table. Instead, he was in a bunch with Annaka and Ruth, way off of Hubert's pace. At that point, Annaka began an amazing comeback (an ongoing theme for the night), scoring only 8 more points over the next (and last) 5 hands. Meanwhile, Hubert finally ran into problems, taking the queen for the first time on the 8th hand (hold hand, of course), then taking 25 points on the following hand. Rob also had a couple of bad hands that ultimately pushed him over 100, and because of Hubert's disaster, Annaka nipped him by one point for the victory, the second SHHNHB victory of her career. Despite Ruth's steady play throughout, she couldn't match Annaka's string of zeroes or Hubert's moon shot. Two bad hands undid her chances. So Annaka was headed to her first final table, and Hubert was coming with her. All according to seed.

Consolation (race to 200, $5 to the winner)
101 - (6) Rob
118 - (4) Andrew
188 - (5) Dan
217 - (7) Ruth

Rob led this table wire to wire, over all 22 hands, to win the consolation match handily. He scored the same amount of points in this 200-point game as he did in his 100-point semifinal game. It was a dominant performance, punctuated by his jarringly loud laughter (if you know Rob, you know exactly what I'm talking about) in response to The Simpsons and Family Guy playing in the background. Needless to say, the atmosphere at the consolation table was fairly lax. Andrew made a very nice comeback to get from 60 points down to within just a queen of Rob over a span of 5 hands, punctuated by a moon shot on the second to last hand, but that's as close as he would get, as Ruth jumped over 200 on the next hand and took the queen with her, sealing the win for Rob. Dan was in contention early, but bad news came to him in pairs, as he would invariably follow up one bad hand with another before holding steady for a while, a pattern that kept him out of the mix. Rob posted his first SHHNHB victory, which probably means a jump in the rankings, and Andrew posted his third runner-up finish, more than anyone else.

Championship (race to 200, $25 to the winner)
164 - (1) Chang
164 - (2) Hubert
173 - (3) Annaka
201 - (8) Jeff

Once again the lone cinderella was the first to 200, but this time, the cinderella was very competitive. Jeff was in the mix the whole way, and he was in second place as late as 20 hands into the 27-hand game. The game was a roller coaster the whole way. Annaka took the brunt of the hits early, scoring 68 points over the second set of 4 hands, and over the following stretch of 10 hands, I only scored 17 points to jump out to a seeminly insurmountable 70-point lead over Jeff and Hubert, with Annaka another 8 points off the pace. It was at this point that things started to go sour for me.

It started with an atrocious hand, #18, where I couldn't shoot, but I couldn't get rid of the lead either, even with the 2 of hearts, and I took 25 points. On the next hand, I made a huge tactical error, losing my count of hearts and taking a hearts trick from Annaka that I didn't need to take, and following it up by leading hearts when none were left and eating the queen, also from Annaka. 20 more points. The hand after that saw Hubert and Annaka tag team to hit me, and their methodical efforts succeeded, dropping another 20 points on me. 65 points in the span of 3 hands, and my 70-point lead had quickly shrunk to just 5 over Jeff, 11 over Hubert, and 20 over Annaka. I was admittedly steaming at this point and had to take a walk through the kitchen to cool off. As they say, if you can't stand the heat, get into the kitchen (sorry).

I was officially reeled back into the field, and it felt like a huge target had been removed from my chest, but as much as I hated being targeted (and dominated repeatedly), I'll take that target and what it means anyday over being involved in a tight finish with these sharks. It was now Jeff's turn to eat the queen (and 62 points) on the next three hands, as he repeatedly had difficulty sloughing the queen on someone else and ended up eating it himself. Somehow the passes always managed to fill his voids and leave him in trouble. Unfortunately, I was taking small points, too, and on hand 24, Hubert took a 1-point lead on me, his first lead of the entire game.

The last three hands had a lot of critical moments that easily could have changed the final outcome. On hand 25, with Hubert holding a one-point lead on me and Jeff just 11 points from ending the game, Hubert took some early hearts to give me the real-time-scoring lead, so when he had a chance to drop the queen on Jeff and end the game on that hand, he refrained, and it ultimately landed on Annaka and gave the two of us some much-needed breathing room on her. It was a smart and patient play, the right one at the time, but I ended up taking enough hearts to once again leave him with a one-point lead, so if he had dropped the queen on Jeff, he might have won the game right there. No way to know that, and not worth the risk, so instead we headed to hand 26, where Hubert made another critical decision. Jeff was now only 7 points from ending the game, and Hubert once again took early hearts to give me the real-time-scoring lead, but he was holding the queen, and Annaka and I had untouchable hands, so his only options were to drop it on Jeff and end the game in favor of me, or eat it himself and give me a nice cushion on him. He obviously opted for the latter, painful as it was for him, and now I had a 19-point lead heading into hand 27, with Jeff now just 2 points away from the end. For Hubert, better to have a longshot chance than no chance at all, but if I could just drop 2 points on Jeff and take 18 or less myself, I would have a repeat championship. I was feeling good.

This is where Hubert made the move of the tournament, eerily (and frustratingly, for me) reminiscent of what he did to me on the hand of the night from SHHNHB #1. Hubert took two early hearts, now giving me a real-time-scoring lead of 21. Then he led the jack of hearts, and I had no choice but to take it to stop Hubert from possibly shooting. But then I took the queen on the next hand, as well as more hearts. Hubert had brilliantly set me up yet again, where I had the choice to let him shoot and win, or stop him from shooting but also eat a ton of points in the process. I obviously chose the latter, and things were now dicey when they seemed so safe just moments ago. Jeff then took three hearts, signaling that this would be the last hand of the night, and when all was said and done, I felt like I had managed to hold off Hubert and win by a handful of points. The actual tally was the 3 hearts for Jeff, 2 hearts for Hubert, and the queen with 9 hearts for me. We tied! There are no tie-breakers for winners, so we shared the victory and the prize money. Incredible finish. I didn't think there was any way they could catch me after I built up my huge lead, but they did exactly what they needed to do to reel me back in, resulting in another thrilling finish.


It was my fourth victory in four games, and Hubert's second, including his first championship. Annaka proved the last tournament a fluke by winning her semifinal and finishing 9 off the pace in the finals, and Jeff also had a very nice showing and will see a resulting boost in his ranking. The money breakdown was as follows:

1. Chang - $17.50
2. Hubert - $12.50
3. Annaka - $5.00
3. Rob - $5.00

Who gets to keep the traveling trophy? Luckily, Hubert and I are housemates, so it sits on top of the living room television for both of us to share. We have seen some changes in the rankings, though no movement at the top, as things mostly held to seed, and the two who made the biggest moves of the night, Rob and Jeff, started too far down to dent the top six. Thanks to everyone who particiapted, and we will see you in a month for round 3!