Dinner feast and poker tourney to cap the year!
Friday, June 10, 2005

Great turnout for the 2004-05 year end festivities. Held before Game #9 (to avoid fat, pizza-filled bellies in case of a pivotal final game of the series) nearly all players showed up at Little Johnny's for a buffet including pizza, lasagna, wings, calamari, natchos, veggies, salads, and pop. Guests included the usual wives, girlfriends and many a toddler in this new age of the MDHL, about 40 heads in total, and all were in great anticipation of the inaugural Texas Hold'em Poker Tourney which ensued. Ya right.

The elimination rounds were held on two tables with 7 players each. Top 4 players advanced to the finals and it was Albert Chang and Stan Quan having the dubious distinction of being the first members of their respective tables to get the boot. The latter being the only one of the group sporting the dark sunglasses which didn't help in hindsight. The finals got underway with pit boss Ian Chang managing the table with a near lock of Team Feast members including Terry Wong, Jackson Chiu, Sherman Woo, Eric Lun, Derek Lowe, Jason Lai, Travis Wong while Dennis Chan (from Team Beast) rounded out the final seat. Sherman started early winning the first hand and starting the trend of aggressive betting, kicking virtual sand in the faces of the tentative competition. Derek Lowe also picked up some big hands and it was clear he would hold their loot and momentum all the way through to finish first. Sherman faultered a bit over the final hands triggering a chip count to ultimately secure his 2nd place finish. Terry Wong played well in both rounds while learning the rules along the way to grind it out to a third place finish. So the three money winners leave the rest of the league licking their chops for a chance at redemption next time around.

Special thanks to Ian Chang for volunteering his dealer services and poker knowledge on this night, while the usual annual gratitude (and a gift certificate) goes out to Melodie McLeod for her fan dedication and scoreboard management services! Have a great summer everyone, we'll see you in the fall!