Early Morning Grins at the Super Tuesday

Was a late one last night for your humble gumshoe following the Super Tuesday on PokerStars.

That one always tends to challenge the regular sleep sked, given that it doesn’t begin ’til 8 p.m. ET and usually doesn’t end until eight or nine hours later. Last night was special, though, as the final table alone took nearly four hours, meaning the tourney didn’t finish until about 7:30 a.m.

One reason things took so long was how deep everyone was, with the average stack nearly 65 big blinds when the final table began. Another was the high quality of play at the final table, not unusual for the $1,050 buy-in Super Tuesday that generally attracts only top notch players. Check out the recap where I ended up referring to more than a dozen well-known online MTT grinders who cashed in the sucker.

Wanted to share one quick, humorous anecdote from the final table involving Yevgeniy “Jovial Gent” Timoshenko who eventually finished fifth.

This happened relatively early at the final table, during the first hour, I believe. A few had gathered on the rail and were engaged in a dialogue in the chatbox. Often observer chat is no longer allowed at the final table at these big tourneys (e.g., the Sunday Million), but the Super Tuesday allows it. (I’m not sure, but I think one has to have in one’s account at least the buy-in in order to chime in as an observer.)

One of these observers -- a player named “The CooI” -- addressed Jovial Gent with what seemed a straightforward question whether or not he had played much before hitting the “jackpot.” The reference was to Timoshenko’s WCOOP Main Event title in 2009 for which he’d won over $1.7 million. (That name “The CooI” ends in a captial “I” incidentally -- thanks to Mickey Doft for helping me with that bit of detective work.)

Before Timoshenko could answer, other observers hastily responded to point out that Mr CooI’s question was naïve, noting Timoshenko’s WPT Championship title from earlier in 2009 (among other scores). Timoshenko -- whose “Jovial Gent” name really does seem to describe his demeanor whenever I’ve seen him chat online -- answered sincerely, noting with understatement that yeah, he had played a lot before he won the WCOOP ME.

Soon it became clear that The CooI’s inquiry was in truth a set-up for a humorous bit of bragging. He went on to say how he’d gotten the best of Timoshenko a couple of times recently, including busting him in the first round of what I think must have been the $102 NLHE Heads-Up Hyper-Turbo on Stars the day before. With tongue pretty obviously in cheek, The CooI was indicating he’d asked the question because of his recent successes versus Jovial Gent -- kind of a jokey, needling suggestion that the WCOOP ME win had been a fluke.

Timoshenko responded appreciatively to The CooI’s ribbing in the chat box. Then The CooI offered to elaborate further on how he’d “completely bashed [Timoshenko] up” in their heads-up match, prefacing the story with a full revelation that yes, indeed, he knew exactly who “Jovial Gent” was.

The CooI [observer]: yeah, knew I needed to bring the skills out to beat the WPT champ, the WCOOP champ, THE APT MACAU champ, THE 1k monday champ and most importantly the 55th place finisher in this years $1500 limit holdem shootout

The CooI [observer]: so what I did was
The CooI [observer]: I said a prayer

The CooI [observer]: I got the Jacks

The CooI [observer]: I time banked perfectly so that he would think I would have K6
The CooI [observer]: so on the exact perfect mili second
The CooI [observer]: I shoved the jacks

The CooI [observer]: and he snapped my **** off with K7
The CooI [observer]: completely fooled him

Couldn’t help but smile at that little narrative, the pauses between the appearance of each line adding further to the comedic effect.

But then I laughed out loud when about a half-minute later Jovial Gent offered this rejoinder:

Jovial Gent: I put you on K4 actually