BHLL POKER LEAGUE - 2024
Hi Fellow BHLL Poker League Players,
The 2024 BHLL Poker League has commenced the new season. As in the past, we’re assuming that we will play on Wednesday nights at 7:30 PM.
The league has promoted Barry Leeper to League Administrator, and among his responsibilities, Barry will be assume control of the calendar and site locations for the games. As Assistant Commish, Arthur Shoor will continue to interpret the league's bylaws and playing rules as needed.
On Wednesday evening, June 5th, there were 7 players who joined in the first BHLL poker league officially sanctioned game. The game was hosted by Nancy & Arthur Shorr with incredible donuts from Donut Dip in Springfield. Thank you Arthur & Nancy. Arthur's spring training had truly positive results, and the competitive play was raised to a new level as each of the players went back and forth winning and losing with some really amazing hands and equally competitive play.
The players included Arthur Shorr, Bob Hopp, Barry Leeper, Henry Gluck, Matt Gleason (son Gus Gleason) and Stephen Sariego. Matt and Gus started out running the table, winning round after round. Later, the tide seemed to turn after Henry won with four of a kind. He was dealt pocket Kings ultimately, the cards on the table included two other Kings. Four of a kind is certainly quite rare in terms of possible poker hands. This truly exemplified the kind of quality play that we all shared Wednesday night.
Ultimately, Barry "Lightning" Leeper prevailed by slowly wearing down the other players as the antes increased in value. His late wins included 3 of a Kind, a spade flush (with an Ace kicker) and a full house. Arthur eliminated Matt Gleason and Henry Gluck, finally ending the game around 10:30pm. Ultimately Barry won with Arthur coming in second with a 72/27 percent split.
Please let Barry know if you are available to join in. We're always looking for volunteers to host each of the games as well.
Thank you,
Barry Leeper
2023 SEASON OPENS ON JUNE 8th
Dear All Who Are Smart Enough To Be BHLL Residents,The 2023 BLL Poker League will open with a spring training complimentary (that means free) game/lessons/trash talk/ & just plain old fun on Thursday June 8, 7:30 pm at the Shorr residence, 50 Leisure Lee Road.Lessons, strategy, rules will be taught by our world travelling Poker GURU John Britton & Asst. Commish Arthur Shorr.The League will be unveiling its new OFFICIAL BHLL Poker chips.(They were designed so that Henry Gluck & Bob Hopp no longer have to count with their fingers.) For our new residents, this is great way to meet our poker sharks, but fear not, most are toothless.
The following week will be the first official tournament kicking off the competition for the LARRY CUP, the league trophy awarded to the player who cashes the most (1st or 2nd place) at the end of the season. Seats are 1st come 1st served. Total cost for the evening is $20.Hope to see you later this weekArthur ShorrAsst. CommishIT’S OFFICIAL!!
The 2022 BHLL season is in the books. The overall quality of the play continues to improve as evidenced by the number of players who have earned Larry Cup points this year compared to prior years. It wasn’t until the last hand of the last official match on August 31, that a champion was crowned. Once again Arthur Shorr, Assistant Commish and league gofer finally vanquished Richard Lerman. Lerman now holds the record for the number of Larry Cup points earned by a sophomore player and is a strong candidate for the most improved player award.
Shorr’s play will go down in the record books. Time after time, the poker gods rewarded him with the winning cards. To prove the point, the poker gods saved the best for the last hand of the evening by showering Shorr with quads (4 of a kind) an extraordinarily rare event. Not only was Shorr the beneficiary of such a hand, but he flopped it! In other words, Shorr had quads after the flop, when the first 3 common cards were revealed. At that point he was already the winner. Quads are the 2nd best possible hand in poker and is a rare event. What irony for it to appear on the last hand of the evening. Was Shorr rewarded because he suffered acute bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome from dealing most of the time this season? Was it his administrative skills making sure there were sugared snacks and cookies at every game? The consensus is that it was just pure dumb luck that shone on him.
Richard Lerman playing in his sophomore year distinguished himself by earning more Larry Cup points for a sophomore in the history. The combination of his aggressive play, ceaseless banter, strategic decisions, and occasional bluffs led to the showdown with Shorr. Lerman had the intuitive sense not to participate in the last hand when Shorr delivered the Quads knockout blow to Peter Weiner to end the match. Having endured a number of losses to Shorr during the evening, Weiner was speechless upon the presentation of quads.
Peter Weiner, Steve Sariego and Barry Leeper rounded out the field for the evening and witnessed Shorr’s good fortune. “Mr. S” as Steve is known in Las Vegas, was nominated by consensus for inclusion in the BHLL Poker League Hall of Fame when the league’s Board of Governors recognized his contribution with his invention of the now famous “Sariego Check/Fold.” His nomination was triggered since the “Sariego Check/Fold” has now become a common tactic as evidenced by its use by Steve and Barry Leeper this evening and others during the season. This move has even spawned the more incredulous “Pre-Flop on the Button Check/Fold” a tactic employed earlier this year. A rumor has been floating around Berne, Switzerland that Sariego might be nominated for a Nobel Prize in Recreational Statistic Modeling, following in the pioneering footsteps of the first Nobel winner in this category, Cal Q. Lation III, but this has not been independently verified.
Barry Leeper struggled once again this evening. A comprehensive analysis of his Play/Fold index over the course of the season shed some light on the subject. Our league statisticians Al Gebra, and George (“Geo”) Mettry reported that the expected Play/Fold index for players who resided in Toledo, Akron, Ohio, Uzbekistan, and Manila, should be 12-14 %. Leeper’s 2022 index was computed to be 24%, which when coupled with multiple incidences, over numerous weeks of suffering being “card dead,” being the recipient of unplayable cards, explains Leeper’s inability to compete successfully this year. He confided to one of the locker room massage and manicure attendants that he was committed to spending a material amount of his off-season discretionary time studying the play of the historical greats of Hold’em.
Surrounded by reporters after emerging from the players only final meeting, Shorr paid tribute to his high school classmates with whom he played poker for 3000 hours over 4 years in high school, his high school math teacher Hy Potennous who conducted an afterschool workshop in poker statistical probability, and his wife Nancy for enduring his talking and whimpering in his sleep about poker statistics every night for the past year while snoring.
So once again dear readers the BHLL poker league has concluded a successful season. The league recognized its youngest resident player, Gus Gleason, age 11, and the return of its youngest guest, Jonah Smithposner, age 16, Jewel Smith’s grandson.
Looking forward to next season, the league is considering commissioning a set of official league poker chips embossed with BHLL markings. A task force has been created to explore this possibility. The community is reassured that if such a set is acquired it will not require an increase in BHLL dues.
The league wishes it’s Blog Writer, Nuchem (Numb-Nuts) Zelensky a cousin 3 times removed from the Ukrainian President, Godspeed and safe travels. Zelensky has been drafted by the International Poker League to be embedded with the Ukrainian armed forces as part of the team of combat reporters covering the conflict. He was selected because he had already been diagnosed with PTSD from multiple years of covering the BHLL Poker League as evident by his somewhat strange reporting over the years. He has been assigned to the R&R battalion to report on poker and gin rummy in the rest areas as soldiers rotate through for some relaxation. Not sure when he will be returning to the Berkshires or inn what condition to report on BHLL poker league activitie
Respectfully submitted,
A Sidney Shorr
Asst. Commish
END OF SEASON
IT’S OFFICIAL!!
The 2022 BHLL season is in the books. The overall quality of the play continues to improve as evidenced by the number of players who have earned Larry Cup points this year compared to prior years. It wasn’t until the last hand of the last official match on August 31, that a champion was crowned. Once again Arthur Shorr, Assistant Commish and league gofer finally vanquished Richard Lerman. Lerman now holds the record for the number of Larry Cup points earned by a sophomore player and is a strong candidate for the most improved player award.
Shorr’s play will go down in the record books. Time after time, the poker gods rewarded him with the winning cards. To prove the point, the poker gods saved the best for the last hand of the evening by showering Shorr with quads (4 of a kind) an extraordinarily rare event. Not only was Shorr the beneficiary of such a hand, but he flopped it! In other words, Shorr had quads after the flop, when the first 3 common cards were revealed. At that point he was already the winner. Quads are the 2nd best possible hand in poker and is a rare event. What irony for it to appear on the last hand of the evening. Was Shorr rewarded because he suffered acute bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome from dealing most of the time this season? Was it his administrative skills making sure there were sugared snacks and cookies at every game? The consensus is that it was just pure dumb luck that shone on him.
Richard Lerman playing in his sophomore year distinguished himself by earning more Larry Cup points for a sophomore in the history. The combination of his aggressive play, ceaseless banter, strategic decisions, and occasional bluffs led to the showdown with Shorr. Lerman had the intuitive sense not to participate in the last hand when Shorr delivered the Quads knockout blow to Peter Weiner to end the match. Having endured a number of losses to Shorr during the evening, Weiner was speechless upon the presentation of quads.
Peter Weiner, Steve Sariego and Barry Leeper rounded out the field for the evening and witnessed Shorr’s good fortune. “Mr. S” as Steve is known in Las Vegas, was nominated by consensus for inclusion in the BHLL Poker League Hall of Fame when the league’s Board of Governors recognized his contribution with his invention of the now famous “Sariego Check/Fold.” His nomination was triggered since the “Sariego Check/Fold” has now become a common tactic as evidenced by its use by Steve and Barry Leeper this evening and others during the season. This move has even spawned the more incredulous “Pre-Flop on the Button Check/Fold” a tactic employed earlier this year. A rumor has been floating around Berne, Switzerland that Sariego might be nominated for a Nobel Prize in Recreational Statistic Modeling, following in the pioneering footsteps of the first Nobel winner in this category, Cal Q. Lation III, but this has not been independently verified.
Barry Leeper struggled once again this evening. A comprehensive analysis of his Play/Fold index over the course of the season shed some light on the subject. Our league statisticians Al Gebra, and George (“Geo”) Mettry reported that the expected Play/Fold index for players who resided in Toledo, Akron, Ohio, Uzbekistan, and Manila, should be 12-14 %. Leeper’s 2022 index was computed to be 24%, which when coupled with multiple incidences, over numerous weeks of suffering being “card dead,” being the recipient of unplayable cards, explains Leeper’s inability to compete successfully this year. He confided to one of the locker room massage and manicure attendants that he was committed to spending a material amount of his off-season discretionary time studying the play of the historical greats of Hold’em.
Surrounded by reporters after emerging from the players only final meeting, Shorr paid tribute to his high school classmates with whom he played poker for 3000 hours over 4 years in high school, his high school math teacher Hy Potennous who conducted an afterschool workshop in poker statistical probability, and his wife Nancy for enduring his talking and whimpering in his sleep about poker statistics every night for the past year while snoring.
So once again dear readers the BHLL poker league has concluded a successful season. The league recognized its youngest resident player, Gus Gleason, age 11, and the return of its youngest guest, Jonah Smithposner, age 16, Jewel Smith’s grandson.
Looking forward to next season, the league is considering commissioning a set of official league poker chips embossed with BHLL markings. A task force has been created to explore this possibility. The community is reassured that if such a set is acquired it will not require an increase in BHLL dues.
The league wishes it’s Blog Writer, Nuchem (Numb-Nuts) Zelensky a cousin 3 times removed from the Ukrainian President, Godspeed and safe travels. Zelensky has been drafted by the International Poker League to be embedded with the Ukrainian armed forces as part of the team of combat reporters covering the conflict. He was selected because he had already been diagnosed with PTSD from multiple years of covering the BHLL Poker League as evident by his somewhat strange reporting over the years. He has been assigned to the R&R battalion to report on poker and gin rummy in the rest areas as soldiers rotate through for some relaxation. Not sure when he will be returning to the Berkshires or inn what condition to report on BHLL poker league activitie
Respectfully submitted,
A Sidney Shorr
Asst. Commish