A few years ago, when my local non-league football club fell on even harder times than usual, I was one of a small band of local people who contributed some funds towards its prosperity, and last Monday saw this club, Bedford Town, away at Bath City in the Southern League Semi-final Playoffs. I, safely installed in the Vice Presidents’ hospitality portakabin, quickly abandoned this for losing my voice on the terraces as we stormed to a 1-0 win and a trip to Chippenham in the final on Saturday. The reward for the winners being a place in Conference South next season.
Look closely and you’ll see me in the bottom picture
http://www.fansfocus.com/forum/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/839259/an/0/page/0#839259
Many thanks to the cameraman for not catching me in mid kit-kat and coke!
I arrived in Blackpool at 9pm and headed straight for my hotel and an early night. At 4am that was, having made a quick pitstop at the Sandcastle to see a few familiar faces playing the first event of festival week en route. Of course I wasn’t actually sad enough to play poker after seven hours on the road was I? Read on….
So here I was in a one table satellite, £55 each, 2000 points and a ten minute clock looking around at my fellow combatants including Royal Flush, Thewy, and Barry Neville. Beginning an unwelcome theme to which I will return as we go through the week, I draw Seat Three, with the understated Mr Neville on my left. These one table sats are the crapshoot to end all crapshoots. A ten minute live clock equated to about three hands per level by the time Flushie and Barry had showboated their way through each hand (passing for either not being an option) and at 20x bb starting stacks it was lump it in, double up or get out time. Needless to say I found, for only the 83rd time in my poker career, that the merits of 7-4 off to a raise and a reraise are somewhat overdone and I departed to find a cash game list or six.
Sometimes though I really must learn when to shut up. Barry never stopped calling Flushie a 'big poof', and words to that effect, throughout the whole satellite. I am still wondering now what possessed me to say the following:
“You know Barry, psychologists reckon that those that accuse others of something constantly are actually trying to divert attention from the same thing concerning themselves.”
I notice Julian nodding sagely from across the table in Seat 10, brave man, whilst Barry gives me a look that would unfreeze Antartica. This might be because I used big words or just he was working out where his nearest baseball bat was. Relations remained frosty for the remainder of my stay.
Tuesday dawned, or rather Tuesday afternoon did, and it was time to explore. A walk along the promenade, a quick ride on a tram and a trip around the Pleasurebeach covered most of the obvious things. In one sense Blackpool was as I expected: a large traditional seaside destination, but, in others, it didn’t. It was extremely quiet and my newfound hotelier friend told me that Blackpool has stayed much the same for 25 years yet the size of the tourist market interested in the types of holidays it offers has shrunk dramatically. Hence these days the length of high season has shrunk and those who rely on tourists for a living really only survive on the weekend hen and stag market and the short holiday summer season.
Tuesday night sees the £300 Pot Limit Hold 'Em Freezeout. Now this I am really looking forward to. Lots of play with 5000 chips and 45 minute clock and I have a good track record in the bigger PLHE events… I have long reckoned that the more technical aspects of PL versus NL suit my style. Poor form is a worry but we all know that can turn in an instant
I liked my table line up. RED-DOG… well I know a bit about how he plays, Burnley John ditto, Joe Grech ditto, Pete Singleton well ok and a few unknown lads who look and sound like they are a Happy Mondays cover band. This satisfaction with the line up begins to unravel when RED proceeds to raise the pot UTG on the first hand with T-7 off and wins after a showdown!
Things progress unremarkably until I look down at K-3 off in the big blind in a three way pot, Burnley John having limped on the button, and Grech making up the small blind. The flop comes K-K-4. Well well well. Everyone checks, I was expecting John to have a pop at it as is his wont in position. The turn brings a second heart and I lead out just in case anyone has hearts and John flat calls. The river brings the third heart and instinct tells me I am struggling. John is already looking down at his chips and I decide I will check call. Simply don’t fancy betting and feeling compelled to call a raise. I check, John bets three-quarters of the pot and I feel I have to pay him off. He turns over K-5 two hearts for the King flush and bigger trips on the flop!
With under 1000 chips gone in the hand where I could have lost a lot more before the flush came, I am actually pleased with myself for limiting the damage.
I am surviving with the odd raise to take the blinds, seeing no action with A-K twice and limping with suited connectors/baby pairs but not hitting any flops when I pick up A-A UTG mid way through the second level. I would describe the table at this point as 'middling'… not overly passive but very few hands are unraised by the time we see a flop. I’m looking to get back to even and above on the hand and limp looking for a raise. Of course RED and Burnley John limp in late position and the blinds complete and we are five way to the flop! At this point I remembered something I saw on the Hand Analysis board a while ago which said effectively, 'Yes play Aces that way but don’t get wedded to them if you end up in a multiway pot."
The flop comes 2-4-9 rainbow and it’s checked to me, time to win the pot now or at least thin the field and I bet the pot. It is passed round to Joe in the big blind who has previously lost a sizeable pot versus RED and is down to less than half his starting stack. He pushes all-in. I have a quick think about two pair in the big blind but I’m calling here every time even before one allows for the knowledge that Joe is an impatient shortstack player… with him its chip up or move on. On their backs he has T-9 and I am well ahead until with instant service for Joe the turn delivers another 9 and I am down to 2200 chips. RED looks at me. I look at him and smile. Inside I am churning.
Almost immediately the table is broke and I move with 11xbb to a table of complete strangers resolving to stay patient and play my way back into it. This table is much more aggressive, especially to my immediate right. I am not seeing too much and have blinded away to 1800 chips when aggressive hoody boy in first position raises the pot for the fourth hand in a row and I am in second position with J-J. Immediately I move in and actually feel supremely confident that I have found a good spot to double up. Passed back round to UTG, who I later discover is 'Sarah Jane', a high stakes Ladbrokes player, and he thinks and thinks and I know I must be winning or at the very least racing an iffy Ace. To call is half his remaining stack and with the phrase “oh sod it” he calls and turns over Pocket Nines and hits a 9 on the flop
I am out before the end of the third level to two outdraws and feel deflated. Not in the right frame of mind for cash or satellites I leave the casino and trundle though Blackpool’s deserted streets back to the Hotel
I am playing the £500 NLHE on Wednesday night before I have to leave for home and my weekend with the children. I must say, that night sleep came fitfully.
The £500 double chance freezeout was going well. Again I was familiar with most on my table. Iwan Jones is a nice guy but seemed to be out of form. Kevin O’Connell I had never played against but he seemed to be taking it all a little less seriously than some. Of the rest I had battled with most before and knew that my mental player notes were in order.
Kevin O’Connell is an experience to play with. First of all I am bombarded by texts from Colchester Kev telling me to ask if Kevin wants another drink? What a stupid question, he always seems to want another drink! Secondly he is playing very fast and loose and scoops a monster pot by calling a huge series of bets in a Multi Way pot with two cards to come for ALL his chips needing a Gutshot Jack and a Gutshot Jack only to hit a nut straight. It comes sending multiple players who have hit a variety of sets and top pair hands completely dizzy.
However the chips are clearly still on offer, yet they disappeared elsewhere in very curious circumstances. How about this for shooting an angle?
Kevin is in the big blind holding T-8 and it is limped round to him and he checks.
Flop T-T-6
Everyone checks
Turn 6
Mid position player bets, Kevin min raises, flat called behind
River a blank
Kevin leads out and mateyboy silently raises by merely throwing in a few more purple chips. Kevin doesn’t realise, thinks he has merely been called, and flips his cards over and goes to scoop the pot. The dealer says, “No, he raised” and an almighty kerfuffle starts with the dealer trying to declare Kevin’s hand dead and mateyboy declares, sweet as pie
“No, it is only fair to let him call if he wants, it was an innocent mistake.”
After a ruling declaring that Kevin is allowed to call the raise but not re-raise for his handful of extra chips, Kevin understandably calls
Matey boy turns over 66 for quad sixes.
Ouch!
Unfortunately Mateyboy is looking very smug. I keep out of it but I am wondering about the ethics of it all as Kevin departs two hands later in a blaze of Jack Daniels, cussing and tiltiness.
My tournament is uneventful… I pick up a pot post flop with A-A versus one caller, my raises are being repsected and I have added 30% to my stack when in the last hand before the break I pick up K-K on the button and make a standard raise. The small blind does what he has done twice previously and re-raises. On those two previous occasions I have let A-J suited and A-Q off go and he has flashed K-K and Q-Q at me and this is one of those 'he thinks I haven’t got a hand and will lay it down' situations. I push all in, he instantly calls with Q-Q and yes out it comes. Out they come. Queens. Two of them. I'll take the double chance now please!
So I go from the prospect of 10,000 chips after the break to the reality of 4000 and 20xbb. Marvellous. Quite a trip this is turning into!
After the break comes a swift table break. The new table is a completely different kettle of fish. elblondie has just called a raise and a reraise with 74 off and hit a straight to knock out mateyboy with Q-Q. Des 'Bling Bling' Jonas is chattering away nine to the dozen and every single pot is raised and the aggression level is high.
What a time to hit the coldest run of cards I have ever experienced in a big competition. At the end of two levels where I have somehow managed to keep my stack within touching distance of 10xbb the whole table is commenting that I haven’t played a hand. Well actually I’ve played three, stealing the blinds twice with 87 off and 54 (Suited) and betting small blind versus big blind with nothing and mercifully seeing I KNOW IT charitably fold.
My image couldn’t be tighter and I really need to find something, and quick. I try another steal from the cut off with K6 suited to trade off this image and this time get snapped off by the big blind who raises me all in, having firstly astutely calculated that I had left enough to pass and have one move left! Thanks for telling me that! Maybe just shove it in with the King next time and take my chances... but at the time I remember thinking, “just one open spot with a hand and I can get back in this,” so I passed.
Frustratingly, a break begins with me at 3,500 chips and the blinds moving up to 600-1200, and I am firmly in the Dead Zone and thinking in reverse order: beer/food/lapdancing.
Two hands before I hit the big blind and two hands after the break and I need what little first in vigorish I have left to push with something. Here it comes. A monster. A pair of twos.
In it goes, really looking to be called by a reasonable Ace and take my chances. I KNOW IT immediately re-raises all in next to me with two rather reasonable Aces and that’s that.
Time to slope off again.
Making the long drive back home the next morning I thought and thought. Nothing one can do about outdraws or bad beats, they are a fact of life, especially so for someone who plays as much as me but I tried very hard to think if I had had missed any spots to pick up chips and not leave me so short-stacked and having to push in such a disadvantageous situation. With hindsight I would have left the final steal alone, but apart from that it was a nasty combination of short stack, card dead and aggressive table.
I am noticing a very different style in these festival events though. One which emphasises getting chips early and gambling if necessary, the JP Kelly mantra if you will. As such these players can withstand the inevitable beats and go on to recover. My approach, the accumulate steadily with solid hand values approach, is looking a bit outdated in these. I am feeling like dead money. Of course if I hit form again I won't be feeling like dead money! Time to re-assess again.
More of which another time.