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!
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