My Much Overdue Trip Report

I've been meaning to write this for a while now, and even though I'd like to blame it on a hectic schedule, the reason for not putting this up has solely been due to my laziness. Even as I type I can feel that my standard of English has dropped because of my lack of writing and generally only speaking broken English with my family and talking about random crap with my friends. Nevertheless let's begin.

Last week a fellow O8 reg invited me up to Reigate to play the Omaha event at the Surrey Poker Masters festival held at The Full House. As my faithful followers know, I'm a bit of a Holdem noob so I'll jump at any excuse to play a live non-Holdem event. The tournament was a £75 Double Chance with an 8k starting stack, 8k add on or rebuy, and a 2k extra, which was taken by pretty much everyone. Players also had the option of a second life should they blast through all 18k in the first hour, which I think 3 players managed.

So I began with my usual "Tight is Right" approach and barely played a hand in the first level. I used this opportunity to scope out my table which seemed pretty good, a nice mixture of competent players and people new to the game. The best news, no one player seemed to be an Omaha aficionado. The first big hand the table saw, the seat to my right committed all 10k of his starting stack with the nut flush on a paired board. His opponent hesitated to call the river shove but eventually pushed the chips over the line with the underfull. As you can imagine, I was licking my lips to get into the action but after being card dead for the first two and a half levels the table broke. Damn.

The new table was a completely different kettle of fish, just from the table talk alone it was obvious that many of the players knew what they were doing. The big talker to my right, although limping every hand, was playing the Farha role very well and had already amassed a rather large chip stack. Two other large stacks were moved to our table within the first level I was there and fairly quickly, chips were being moved around like pieces of a chess board. But enough for the background, let's get into some of my hands. I bumped my stack back over starting when it was limped around to me in the big blind with K444 and after flopping "quads", my check/raise was enough to take down a decent sized pot along with a chuckle after flipping over my hand. I then got into my first big pot when it was raised up in middle position by one of the bigger stacks and after 2 calls, I called the button with QTJ9 with 3 spades. I flopped gin, 789 with 2 spades. The original raiser led out, the 2 hitchikers folded and I pumped it up with my nut straight and redraw to the flush. My opponent insta shipped and I snap called. He turned over 2 pair with the nut flush draw and after a blank turn and river, I was now up to a decent stack, just over average for the room. Around two hands later I called an early position raise with AQTTds and we took a flop of 964 with 2 spades heads up. I check/call his flop continuation bet and also his turn bet after the 6 of spades drops. The river comes another 4, double pairing the board and my opponent bets again, this time fairly large. He seemed fairly competent so far, and his large river bet was a considerable percentage of his stack, and mine as well, but I decided to get stubborn with my nut flush. I couldn't see how his early position open could contain some strange 99xx or 64xx combination so came to the conclusion that he must be making some ill-timed bluff and made the call. To my surprise he flipped over a 6 for trips and while I stacked my newly acquired ships I contemplated whether he was betting the river for value or to get me to lay down a flush. I'm still not sure. Nevertheless, this push me up to a pretty large stack which I managed to ride for the next two hours orso until the final table.

I came into the final table around the middle of the pack but quickly lost a medium sized pot after getting a bit over zealous with some terrible disjointed hand, so bad I can't even recall it. But this is where the trip report gets interesting! The pot was opened from UTG and the player to my right shoved for around 7BBs. I looked down to find AA77 with no suits but I was more than happy to reshove with it. The original raiser then went into the tank while making a long drawn out speech about how sick the hand was, about how he couldn't lay down his "favourite" hand even know he knew behind and made sure that everyone in the room knew what a sick spot this was going to be. It didn't take a rocket scientist to work out what he was going to flip over but that didn't stop him making the call with his Kings. To be fair to him, I think they were double suited and fairly connected. I held in the massive 3 way pot when I turned an Ace to make top set with my opponents drawing dead, and to rub salt in the wounds of my opponent, the river was a king. I then knocked the same player out in 7th when once again I beat his Kings. We were then down to six with five players making the money but with my now large stack, bordering on the chiplead, I tried to abuse the bubble, but this didn't go so well. A few hands later I got into a 140k pot on the flop with top two and a gutshot against the same top two with a flush draw that got there and once again, I dropped down to a shortish stack.

I considered folding my way to a min-cash, after all it was a fairly large buyin for me, but when I looked down to find KK67ds on the button after the loose cutoff's open, I could resist a reshove. Unfortunately for me he'd been given aces, and I was drawing fairly slim. I gained a little hope after flopping a flush draw, then when I turned an open ender, I thought this may be my day. Then, BINK, 5 on the river giving me my straight along with a few gasps from the rail. The 7th place finisher I knocked out then started bitching with my opponent about how good I was running, which I wasn't disputing mind you. This reputation wasn't exactly lost when I finally knocked out the same player the next hand with QQ55ds against Aces, once against hitting that miracle 5 on the river. Even though I'd won these 2 successive pots, I still only had an average chipstack but at least I'd made the money, as well as a few enemies I'm sure.

My exit wasn't too exciting, I got into a large pot with the English Mr Farha with myself holding top pair and an open ender on the turn on which we'd committed the majority of our stacks. When the 3rd club hit the river I knew he'd hit it but with only 20k behind and around 150k in the middle, I couldn't really make the fold. Turned out that I had him covered by few 1k chips which he promptly mopped up on the very next hand. Mr Farha eventually won the tournament which was deserved because from what I'd seen, he'd played the LAGtard role very well and managed to get important folds and calls in the right spots.

I was pretty happy with 5th and the £180 cash but considering I ran so good on the final table, I was hoping to take it a bit further. I guess I must've played so bad that running good just wasn't enough lol. This is usually the part where I say, "Most importantly, I had a great time". Forget that, most importantly, I got my first Hendon Mob entry! Woo! Jokes aside, I had a great time, the club was great place to relax and play some cards and the tournament was run smoothly and efficiently. I'll definitely be back again to play the next festival. Thanks to Fran and his mates for giving me a place to stay and donating £40 to me in a 5p/10p DC game that night, and thanks to The Full House for hosting the tournament.

More trip reports to come this weekend as I make another trip to a London card room, which to be decided, and possibly a report of a deepish run I made online on Wednesday. Peace y'all!

Empire Trip Report

So on Wednesday I took a little trip to the Empire Casino in London with a buddy of mine to play the afternoon £20+5+3 KO Bounty tournament. We’d started with the intention of playing the almost identical tournament over at the Fox Poker Club but my obviously forward-thinking friend forgot to bring any form of identification and without a membership at the Fox, made playing there very difficult. Luckily for us, he does have a membership at the Empire, and luckier still, their KO tournament began half an hour after the Fox’s. The lad was clearly running good even before we had taken a seat.

The tournament was a small field with a fast structure. With only 25 entrants, 15 minute levels and a 2500 chip starting stack, the game played more like a 27 man turbo SnG on Pokerstars, perfect for myself. Our table lined up as followed:

Ø  Seat 1: Friendly Injured Man

Ø  Seat 2: Elderly First Timer

Ø  Seat 3: Talky Talkerson

Ø  Seat 4: Myself

Ø  Seat 5: Bad Spaniard

Ø  Seat 6: My Buddy

Ø  Seat 7: Good Spaniard

Ø  Seat 8: American

Ø  Seat 9: Nitty Indian

Ø  Seat 10: Quiet Man

The game started almost immediately. Good Spaniard cheekily check called all the way to the river on a TT7JQ board with 77 and got paid with his check raise on the river by Quiet Man with trips.  The very next hand, Quiet put in his final 250 chips and got called in 5 spots, including myself with very speculative JTs. The flop came down KKx with 2 clubs. Elderly First Timer bet out, I folded, and was called by Good Spaniard and Friendly Injured man. The turn brought the Ac. Elderly First timer bet, Good Spaniard shoved, Friendly folded, and Elderly called with AJ no clubs. Spaniard turned over a 6 high flush which was good for both main and side. Friendly admitted to the table he folded trips. Quiet Man was duly replaced by Dealer? (Yes, that’s what I’m calling him). The game was self dealt and Dealer? automatically offered to deal the whole game, and with no hesitation, everyone accepted. Elderly was replaced by Arab Woman. I had whittled my stack down to around 1750 after some bad calling and an equally bad turn bet with 2 pair against Good Spaniards obvious straight, before I woke up with JJ in MP. With the blinds 50/100, Friendly opened to 300 UTG, I re-shoved and was called by Friendly’s AK. I won the resulting flip and was back up to a decent stack.

Because of Dealer? our table seemed to receive around twice the number of hands than the second table, a point we made across to Dealer? He’d made a few comments about other clubs so we assumed he’d learnt the trade from one of the other poker venues dotted around London. However, when I asked him where he dealt I was met with the response, “Oh no, I don’t deal, I just picked it up from playing a lot! It’s hardly difficult is it?” After witnessing this man pass around cards faster than some online sites, there was a noticeably stunned silence after his revelation.

Back to the poker, American and Nitty Indian had moved to the other table for balance, Good Spaniard had amassed a fairly large stack, closing in on 10k,  Friendly had been replaced by South American after busting his short stack following our flip and my friend had built up his stack nicely by shoving over Arab Lady and South American’s constant limps. I had kept my stack buoyant by re-shoving twice over an open, firstly with AQ and then KQs. Then, my bust out hand.

With the blinds at 150/300, my stack was hovering around 4000. From early position, I raised to 700 with QQ. My buddy re-shoved which was folded round to me at which point I snap called and straight away the look on his face gave it away that I was ahead. I flipped over my Queens jubilantly and jumped for joy after my friend tabled his pocket Eights. Now, seeming as I’ve already mentioned that this was my bust out hand, you should know that I did not win this pot. Talky Talkerson had already warned me that I shouldn’t have celebrated too early when the dreaded 8s was laid down on the river. Life is cruel isn’t it. Now I’d like to say that I took my bad beat with quiet dignity and calmly sat down at another table to rail my friend with a now decent chip stack, but we all know that there’s nothing worse than being knocked out of a tournament by a good friend and no one at the table minded when I berated my friend incessantly with the “insult”, “YOU RUN LIKE F*CKING GOD!!”.

I stuck around a while to watch Bad Spaniard, Talky Talkerson and Arab Woman just made truly horrible cEV folds when getting crazy immediate and also to rail my friend, who although making the correct shoves strategically, ran into hands on 3 occasions, the final blow coming after shoving KTs from the CO and losing the resulting flip against the 99 tabled by the SB. Yes, this man can hit his miracle 2 outer on the river, but can’t win a simple 50/50, crazy world. On returning to the poker room to retrieve a forgotten jumper, we saw Good Spaniard chopping up the tournament against a player from the other table, a sight I did not mind considering I would label the lad one of maybe 5 half decent players in the field.

All in all, a frustrating trip, but one I intend on repeating, given the softness of the field and the affordable buyin.  This will be the first in a line of trip reports as in the coming days I’m due to make a trip to the local casino in Portsmouth to grind the 1/1 NLHE cash game there and next week I’m making a trip to Reigate to play the £75 PLO Double Chance event in their summer festival. Hope to see a few of you there.

I'm Back Everybody!

Hi everybody. Apologies for the lack of recent blog posting but as many of you might know, I’ve been on holiday in Turkey for the past week and a bit. Had a great time, mainly drunk off my ass, but have come back relaxed, refocused and ready to grind.

Before I left, I was in the midst of a terrible downswing, so if I’m honest, a long break did me well. I never had the dejected mindset that I was sitting down to lose, but it had come to a stage where even a small win was enough to put a large grin on my face. Emotionally, it’s not a terrible place to be, after all, no expectations, no disappointments, but if I’m to take poker more seriously this summer, I can’t be hanging on to those $15-$20 wins. It just won’t pay the bills. So what am I going to do now you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Exactly the same as I was doing before.

Poker, as we know, entails a large amount of variance and PLO8 is no exception, contrary to the beliefs of certain 2+2ers. I still believed I was playing a decent game and after posting a few hands in the forums, as well as debating the hand’s of others, my belief was reaffirmed. Not to say that I am playing a perfect un-exploitable game, I still have more leaks than a collinder, but I was playing the type of game that should be profitable at that level. What I would like to do, however, is to game select better. Because so few PLO8 tables run, at any stakes, it was near enough impossible to game select properly, it still is, but if I am to focus mainly on my MTT game, then it becomes easier to only play 2-3  highly profitable tables. Sure, this will hurt my Supernova pursuit, but if my plan pays off, then I will have a sufficiently large bankroll to absorb the swings should I return to mass-multitabling the low stakes.

So although this wasn’t the most exciting blog post ever, it’s been a good exercise for me to flex my writing muscles, and in the future, more captivating entries will follow. Good luck at the table everybody.