As we roll closer to Pokerpalooza the 3rd quarter points race tightened up. This is how one daggum absence created mid-season point drama.

The game featured 8 regulars and one player making his 2nd appearance. 3rd quarter point leader, Mike “Daggum” Krisle couldn’t make the game due to work constraints which put his quarter point lead in jeopardy.

The player in no danger of overtaking his point lead was “Scab” Jerry Agren. He would fall in 9th place after a spell of bad luck found him flopping two pair with his Q-J and a flop of K-Q-J. The bad luck was courtesy of Bryan “Quad Steak” Knepper and his 10-9. The flopped straight avoided any needed runners and Jerry went online to buy another broken t-shirt producing machine.

Shortly after Jerry’s elimination, JD “Chip Nazi” Deckard collected the 7-2 bounty and a $1 chip from each of the remaining players.

This week Kyle “Dear God, why can’t I earn a nickname?” Phillips played much better than his recent pattern, but his luck didn’t match his play. He went all-in pre-flop with pocket Jacks and had two callers, Bryan and Troy “King of Poker” Steffy.  The flop was 4-2-6 followed by an all-in by Troy. Troy had pocket 4′s and Kyle was left hoping some home cooking at next week’s game will cure his ills.

JD was next to bounce when he didn’t have enough to call a blind and went all-in with 9-7. “Fairly Odd” Alan Dennis called with pocket 5′s which held. The previous hand JD nearly doubled up with pocket 2′s until Alan rivered a straight.

AGP’s newest possible full-time player is Ernie Rivas. This was his 2nd week playing and he’s still attempting to learn the other player’s tendencies. This week’s learning curve had him mucking his last hand to a full house of 7′s and 2′s held by Bryan.

Mark “Red” Herring struggled to make any hands and finally fell after his 3rd al-in of the game. His K-8 held until the river when Bryan and Alan paired their 6. Bryan had the better kicker and earned the knockout bounty of the game over Mark.

Troy started playing sleep poker about an hour before he was eliminated. The elimination came courtesy of Alan when Troy’s J-9 couldn’t catch up to Alan’s Q-7. No pairs hit and the Queen high won. Troy doesn’t remember.

Bryan finally ran out of steam and closed the gap on Dag’s point lead after his A-5 lost to Alan’s pocket 9′s.

Heads up play began with Alan holding a slight chip lead over “The Pokersaurus” Richard Pearl. Heads up action lasted nearly  an hour before Richard finally wore Alan down, earning his 5th win of the season. Alan took the 3rd quarter point lead in defeat.