The PocketFives Open has become a staple of this community over the last two years. Featuring numerous bounties–from PocketFives.com and also from various members of the site–this tournament is a can't-miss event for die hard P5ers. As much fun as it always is, I think we were all pretty shocked by the sheer number of entries this time. 1,054 entries! $5,270 for first place! This time the bounties weren't the only focus; there was some real money on the line.
Run Screamin(pictured on the left), who plays on Stars as AttackDog, ended up taking down the event for $5,270. In addition, he won the bounty for eliminating the last ranked player in the tournament. That player was mordan(mjh0318 on Stars), who took 4th overall. Keepitrealand BOBCATSPEGALwere the 2nd and 3rd place finishers. The others at the final table were lcvcrew, bsell25, JoeWard(longtime P5er LatestLines2, pictured on the right), cashdaddy69, and Hi Impact.
At the other end of the spectrum were a few names everyone will recognize. Former number 1 ranked player brsavagehad the unfortunate title of the first one out. I personally got to witness at my table as his JQ couldn't improve against jimquig's A 10 on a flop of 9 10 x. Top players t sopranoand yellowsubwere the next two out, and P5er xrtitleistactually won a seat on the Sunday Million for taking out t soprano, who was the first ranked player to make his exit.
The PocketFives Open is about more, though, than just bounties and a juicy prizepool. It's about enjoying a tournament with your fellow P5ers. I've been busted in ugly ways from some of these tournaments, just like I'm sure a lot of you have, but I've never gone out with anything other than a smile on my face. I just have too good a time chatting with everyone and seeing all the familiar names at my table, and there's just no way that getting busted out of the tournament could get in the way of any of that.
It's a rare occurance when many of the top ranked players on the net are sitting in the same $20 tournament, giving players with tighter bankroll limitations the opportunity to see how they stack up against the best. This is just another thing that's great about the Open–unlike most tournaments, the entry pool isn't segregated based on the buy in. Players of all levels participate for an opportunity to play with their fellow P5ers and possibly win some great prizes.
We're all going to be looking forward to the next Open, and for now, everyone please remember to take advantage of the remaining promotions for Feature Site Week on PokerStars. Don't miss the opportunity to win some of the prizes we've added to our private tournaments there this week.
For details of feature site week, view the official thread.