Archive for April, 2009

There were 18,000 entries into this, and we all started with 10k stacks. Up to the first break nothing really happened and had around 11.4k, which was average.

Given 2 hours of play and 5,000 people were already out. I went down to around 4k after losing a couple of big pots, one in particular with QQ when an ace flopped – i got re-raised all-in and backed down.

I then staged something of a recovery when i raised, was re-raised and called pre-flop with 66 and doubled-up against AK. Then i managed to steal a few on the flop and got myself into a fair position again, but below average.

Around 12.30 and half the field had gone – totally crazy. And then this: The blinds are 250/500 with a 60 ante and I’m in the big blind with 10-7. I have 15k, average is 20k. There’s a late-position raise and a call, so i only have to put in another 750 to win 3,700. I invested, and saw a flop of 10-6-9 with 2 diamonds, giving me top pair and a gutshot. I bet 2k and was raised to 6k by the original raiser, making a pot of 12k. Everyone else folded, and i decided that i either had the best hand or i had outs, and he might well have AK for the nut flush draw, so i shoved, and he called, and showed QJo for the up-and-down straight draw, with 2 overs. He hit a K on the turn and that was that. I was happy with my read and my play, this situation is exactly 50-50 on that flop, and it was me who put the chips in – I’d do the same again. The other guy had a 53k stack and he called off 10k of it on this 50-50 situation, and this time it worked out for him.

Very frustrating tho. I actually had aces 3 times, always in first position, and I only got action once and even then it didn’t get much. You really need to win the coin-flips to do well here. In the time it’s taken me to write this a few thousand more have gone out, and it’s down to 6,600 players – that’s 12,000 out in 3 hours. Is it just me, or is that completely insane?

Yep, we’re on Twitter, with a view to giving progress reports and chip counts during tournaments I play in – probably during the breaks.  This will hopefully start this coming Friday, (April 10th), at the £300 freeezeout at the Rendezvous Casino in Brighton, part of the Ladrokes sponsored Sussex Masters.

The tournament this Friday is one I final tabled for £3000 back in October, and it has a great structure.  The entry is actually £150, for which you get 5k chips.  Then you can top-up or rebuy for another £150, but you get an extra 10k chips, so everyone does it.  Therefore it’s effectively a £300 freeze with a 15k stack.

Follow it on Twitter, if you have absolutely nothing better to do.

So, after a 6-month hiatus I was back in a casino playing some poker.  The Grosvenor Casino in Brighton had a £250 freezeout and it seemed like too good a game to miss.  Sadly, only 20 players registered and to be honest I did sit there wishing I hadn’t – thats a fair bit of money to pay and the prize pool wasn’t great, and it only paid to 4th.  Maybe that was down to the recession and there just isn’t much money going around, hard to say – perhaps the Grosvenor needs to pitch their bigger games in the £100-£150 region, and leave the more expensive festival games to the Rendezvous at the Marina, who seem better set-up to handle them and seem to promote their games more.

On to the game itself, and I was very rusty.  I also chose this time to experiment more with some checks, rather than playing my hands fast when I it or have a draw, and I realise after the fact that when you are rusty it’s not the time to start messing around.  I also seemed to find a table of people who were willing to call down with marginal hands, which meant that when I tried to use my supposedly tight image to bluff, I got called down, and that tight image disappeared.  I made some good lay-downs when I might have lost big-time.  I have the insincts to lose the minimum when I’m in bad shape, but lets face it, that doesn’t win you tournaments if you can’t find ways to win hands as well.

So – lesson is to make sure I play cheap warm-ups after a long time away, and also to stick to my basic game until I’m feeling the game properly again.

Next week is the Sussex Masters at the Rendezvous, sponsored by Ladbrokes.  I plan to play in the £150 double-chance, (effectively a £300 with a 15k stack), and a satellite for the Main Event.  It’s over Easter weekend, which has apparently meant a drop in fields in the past, but hopefully the involvement of Ladbrokes will counter that.

At least I’ve had my warm-up now…