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.
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