Rjmech Wins the 2016 NPP TOC and an Aria $125 Buy-in Before That!

Malia Jones is floored by Rjmech's poker skills.

Every player at NPP is good. Some of the NPP players are great! But, on another level is Rjmech.

ThePunk75 and LittleRedElf are JUST BELOW on the next level in Faldo's opinion.

Then the rest of the great players are below that.
Then the good players.

Then a Racko-Uno player who somehow stumbled into NPP is next.
Then Faldo.

Rjmech needed a victory in the TOC to win a seat in the NPP Finals and that is exactly what he did. It was his 4th win of the season - in only 12 starts. Did you catch that?? That is a 33% winning percentage against a very tough field.

2nd - KingBing420 (a great effort to win a seat in the NPP Finals)
3rd - Derf-63
4th - Johnnied55 (another great effort - but ran into the RJ buzzsaw)
5th - ThePunk75 (who will have blood in his eye in the NPP Final!)
Bubble - Wingsfancurt (another one giving his all to take the last seat)

Congratulations to Rjmech on his 23rd NPP win! Now all the seats are set for the NPP Final this Tuesday.

Rjmech - in his spare time (or is NPP his spare time?) - won a $125 buy in tournament at Aria in Las Vegas. Faldo will let him tell the tale:

"There was a total of 89 players in the field. 

I was alternate number 30 because I showed up at 10 minutes after 7 o'clock when the tournament started driving from the Orleans to the Aria. 

I didn't start playing poker until 9:30 PM almost at the end of level four. I made a point not to drink any alcohol the day of the tournament, ate a good dinner beforehand, and had a great night sleep the night before so I was ready to go!

I built up my stack slowly but surely. I even recovered from a coin flip late in the tournament with three tables left: I raised with pocket jacks from the cut off and the small blind moved in with ace king off suit. It cost me 2/3 of my stack to make the call but I'm not folding JJ. The board rolled out all little cards then BAM an ace hit on the river! 

I was proud to make a great recovery after losing most of my chips. I felt that I played like a champion. The tourney ended at 3:30 AM. 

This was the best live poker tournament win I ever experienced. I was even commended on my play by my table mates at the final table. 

There was a player at the final table who had the same amount of chips as me and he made a remark that I was an expert player. [Faldo concurs] 

I was fortunate to knock him out him when my pocket kings held up against his ace king. After I knocked out the big stack I had over half of the chips in play so it was just a matter of time before I ended up winning the tournament. The tourney ended at 3:30 AM.

It feels great to be a winner at the Aria! I cashed for $3100 for a $125 buy in. Needless to say. The Aria is my favorite place to play poker in Las Vegas.

As a side note, my previous best finish at the Aria was when I came in sixth in 2011 for $650 after suffering a bad beat when I held pocket threes in the big blind while a young hot shot moved all in on me from the small blind with A3 off suit. Sure enough the Ace hit on the river. I also came in 15th for a min cash last year.

Rjmech