Well after tapping up virtually everyone I know and squeezing them for every last penny they could afford so I could play this tournament, I guess it deserves a report.
Playing Day 1B, I arrived 20mins late after it took me over an hour to drive 5 miles across London. I think relying on a SatNav in London is a bad idea, they're great in the rest of the country but I think they just take the most popular route which is probably a bad idea in the city. The tourn had started 20 mins late though and I didn't buy in until I arrived so no harm done really. I sat down in seat 9 to find I was on a very good (+EV) table. After GUKPT Thanet I made a big effort to say nothing negative about anyone in my blog and instead tried to talk about the best players I played against, but here I'm not gonna bother, so look away now if you are John Duthie, Liam Flood or that Welsh BadBeat guy who started to my right.
To my left I had a proper rock in seat one, Liam Flood in seat two, Stuart Fox in 3, Julian Thew in 4, a very nervous noob in 5, a scandie i played against in barcelona in 6 (the only problem player on my table), John Duthie in 7 and aforementioned Welsh BadBeat guy, who Paul Twaddle tells me used to be his mentor. All I can say is that I can see why you never win anything Twads if this guy is your mentor :P. I'm still applying to Badbeat but seriously if I'm assigned this guy as a mentor I'm gonna back out of it. I'd have to coach him for about 3 years to catch him up. Apparently he's currently in Serbia running a 'poker factory' there. I told him I'd look out for Serbian poker players in future, I think he got the wrong impression that I said be avoiding them, lol.
Soon after taking my seat I find my first playable hand and lose it to John Duthie who rivered 2 pair I think. That only cost 600 chips or so however. Next hand I played was in 50/100, I raised to 275 in early pos with 78s, John Duthie calls in the bb. The flop comes J32 or something like that, check-bet-call. Turn is a 6, check-check, river 9, John leads for 750, I minraise to 1500, John calls and shows 93o. I don't mind my play in this hand, I think John floats 100% there because he really does like to play, and also I think he'd lay down just the 3 or 2 if he had them and had bet out the river. Then again he'd check-call the river with one pair so I still think I made the right bet cos he has nothing most of the time there. Maybe I should barrel the turn though. I bet the flop knowing I'd get called 100% so really I ought to keep up the aggression.
Next round I raise 67s in a similar position, get 3 callers, Liam Flood, the Scandie and John Duthie again. The flop comes down 852 with 2 hearts. Checked to me, I make a decent sized cbet of around 1000 chips. Liam Flood calls as does John Duthie and the turn comes down the 2h. Checked around. River Ac. Checked around again. Liam declares "two pair" and wins with pocket 9s. John flashes an 8. My cbet on the flop is pretty bad given their fishy tendencies, but ffs how terrible are their calls?? I don't bet into them 3 with my missed overcards, either i have big hearts or an overpair, or at the very least 67. Or one time blank the turn with an offsuit 2.
A small time later, Liam limps in early and John raises the button to 400. I call in the bb with AJs, Liam folds (lol). The flop comes down QQ8. I check-call a bet of 300 (??). The turn is a 9, check-check. River is another 9. I check and John then bets 1300. I call and get shown 92s for a running full house, SIGH. I thought for a while about a river fold, as this would be such a terrible bluff. But then my low opinion of John's play didn't help and I deemed him capable of a terrible bluff or two. I'm being a bit unfair. I felt a similarity between John and my play. He plays how I would probably play if I was unburdened by the desire to make a profit. Unfortunately though I do need to make a profit, so I was quite pissed off by these hands. After taking probably 5k off me and another 10k of Julian Thew (T3o vs Thew's KK), John was up to 30k. If I recall, he didn't last long enough to see 100/200.
After waiting a while and winning/losing odd pots here and there I dropped to a low of 5900 chips. However I won a couple to build back over 7000 then doubled up as follows: 100/200 I raise to 550 with JJ in the CO, Stuart Fox calls in the bb, playing a similar stack. The flop comes 678 w/ 2 diamonds. Stuart checks, I bet 900ish and Stuart shoves all in. I was pretty sick inside and did a lot of sighing but eventually called and Stuart had Q2dd. Dunno why he called pre but whatever, he missed and I doubled back to 15k.
After this things are a bit of a blur, I'm afraid I've forgotten almost all of my remaining time on this table. I won a good few pots with some aggressive play and some more good hands and got up over 20k. I think at some point around here there's a blog entry on AWOP that puts me on 35kish. I think my max on Day 1 was under 30k, but it was probably close at this point. Then it went equally as bad as it went good and I dropped back down to c. 15k. before being moved tables. The Scandie player whose name I never learned won a lot of these chips and definitely outplayed me overall, something which I'm very disappointed about. I don't really know how it happened, I just kept giving up and folding all the time when I would normally raise.
At 400/800 I was moved with around 13k in chips to another table. I wasn't too happy about it because my old table was good, but then again I wasn't doing well there so maybe it was for the best. On my new table there were only 2 faces I recognised, a good sign, one was Sunny Chattha and the other James Dempsey, aka Flushie. I was happy to be moved in to the left of Flushie and opposite Sunny, probably the best seat on the table, but was in the bb almost immediately. Thankfully I found AK and shoved over a button raiser who called and lost with 77. Moments later I gave a few back when I found 77 on the button after this lad limped in 2 off the button, then shoved over my 3k raise. I got the feeling that the probably laggy Flushie had skewed the table dynamic somewhat and that this guy had limped to trap him, so I folded. Sure enough he showed JJ, wp sir on winning the minimum.
Over the next round I passed up a couple of possible 3bet opportunities after Flushie raised, thinking I don't want to ship my stack in based purely on someone's reputation, but it quickly became apparent that he would be opening quite light. He got AA back to back to win a few chips, but fortunately the two 3bets I had the chance to make in the final level got through. One was A3s from the small blind which I shoved, and one was ATo from the button where I raised to 7k, which was probably bad tbh as I dunno what I'm planning to do if he shoves. The A3s was definitely +EV though since the guy in the big blind was a total prawn and Flushie would be opening any two cards for sure. Anyway I finished the day on 24k with level 1 of day 2 being 600/1200+100. At this point I'd won 2 flips for all my chips, so my chances of having busted already were 75%.
On Day 2 I got another very good table draw, with only one player I recognised, Neil Channing, who only had 12k or so in chips. There was a hand early on where I raised KQo to 3200 on the button and Maz Nawab called in the small blind leaving himself only 5500 chips. The BB folded and the flop came down 852r or some rags like that. Maz checks and, just in case, I ship the rest in. Obv Maz folds, waiting for a better spot no doubt. A new player is moved in to my left with a short stack of c.15k in chips. A round later I find 75s in the SB which I reckon is enough to set him in for 14k or so. He calls with ATo and I hit a 7 to take him out. He seemed jovial before the flop came down so at first I thought he was gonna laugh and smile about it whatever happened, but after I hit he was understandably a bit unhappy. He cursed me a few times before storming off. Oops.
At this point I was on 45k or so. I felt like the table was ripe to be run over but I still passed up a few opportunities, which is my biggest regret from the tournament. I actually tilted myself a bit by folding one too many times, eventually I plucked up the courage to raise a T5o and ended up taking down a decent sized pot, as predicted, after the bb called and check folded the flop. But the opportunity had then passed as Long Zhang (I think that's how it's spelt) got moved to the table with a big stack and took the post of table policeman.
So I started to decline again. I raised one more hand quite light on the sitting out big blind, the button insta-shoved all in over the top of my 3200 raise for 60k, of which i could cover 50 or so. I fold, WP sir. Then I raised something like ATs in a similar spot which Zhang 3bet me off. Then in my BB it was folded round to the small blind who had been quiet but not overly rocky. I think this guy may have been 'Chufty' but I could be wrong. Anyway he made it 3200 so I called the extra 2000 chips with 85o and position. The flop came down 982 with 2 spades to which the SB bet again, 4700. I asked how many chips he had and he replied "about 60k". I called. The turn came an offsuit A and he checked. I really wanted to bet but something stopped me. I think maybe my betting reflex is broken or something. Anyway in this instance it probably saved me money. The river was a J which made things yet worse for my 85o. Thankfully it went check-check so I avoided any tough decisions and mucked as I was shown KK.
I was down to 35k-ish as the blinds were increased to 800/1600 so I decided to rock up for a while and hope for a double up or good re-stealing opportunity. In the next couple of rounds I found absolutely nothing worth playing and Zhang twice stole my BB, so I was down to 30k or so for my (almost) final hand. I find JJ on the button and raise to 4100, Maz shoves from the small blind and the BB folds. I have to insta-call really but the irony is that I doubt Maz shoves anything less than the AK that he showed. I lost the race and was left with 1600 chips, which I put in with J5o on the next hand. Maz raised the button to something like 7k so I had some protection and was in good shape vs his KT, but unfortunately I missed again and was gone.
Overall I wasn't completely happy with the way I played. I missed a few good spots late in Day 1 and on Day 2, possibly because I was put off by how badly I'd spewed chips early on. However if I win that last race I could have gone far, and on balance I'm glad I played, I'd do very well in the long run in this tourn.
Since then, I've played a few tourns on stars. I played 2 or 3 mtts on Sunday, after winning 5 sunday million seats in turbo sats, then went on to min-cash the million and vow never to play another tournament as long as I live. Then on Monday I played a full schedule of almost every tourn over $20 buyin between 7 and 11pm on stars and missed in absolutely everything, except for a couple of shrewd percentage swaps I made with Ptevey, before vowing never to play another tournament as long as I live. Tonight I'm planning on playing much the same schedule, before maybe heading to DTD for their anniversary cup £1k tourn later this week.
Inabit sons
