blonde poker

Due to work commitments I was originally unable to play this event, however a last minute reprieve meant that I was able to take my seat with another 85 hopeful poker players at the DTD opening weekend main event.

Upon my arrival at the club I was greeted with a glass of champers and lots of friendly smiling staff. I know Rob Yong has spent a fortune on this place and you can see exactly where it’s been spent. My first impression was that the club is a lot larger than I had imagined, the décor is second to none, and the main poker playing area is huge with plenty of space all around the tables.

Nick Whiten and Simon Nowab gave a few others and myself a guided tour of the club, and although the whole place is simply superb, I have to say that the V.I.P. room is truly outstanding.

Soon we were called to take our seats and the tournament started on time, I sat down along side tablemates including the in form Julian Thew and WSOP finalist Jon Kalmar. I got off to a good start hitting the nut straight twice with a gut shot draw, I played them both aggressively and had soon managed to double up to 15k playing lots of small pots.

I lost my first big pot in a hand with Jon Kalmar, raising utg +2 with As-Ah. Jon smooth called in the big blind and the Flop came Ten high with three spades. I bet two thirds of the pot and Jon quickly called. The Turn was an off-suit rag and again I bet about half the pot. Jon now moved all-in and with the over-pair and nut flush draw I felt obliged to call. Jon had flopped the flush and with no spade on the River I am back down to about 10K.

I sat for the next 4 hours totally card dead and hardly played a hand before being moved to a table with the chipped up Matt Tyler. I’ve played with the mega aggressive Matt a few times before and when he has chips he’s a nightmare to play against.

I soon start to find a few hands and begin making a lot of raises. I slowly build my chips back up to above average when this hand happened. I raise in early position with K-K, another player flat calls and Matt moves all-in from the big blind. I also move all-in and the other player folded what I think was J-J or maybe Q-Q. With all the money in the middle I have Matt out chipped and he turns over A-K. He spikes an Ace but I also hit the case King to knock Matt out of the comp.

Now with more than double the average chips I go on the attack and try to build a stack to go on and win the comp, but although I am the new table captain, I seem to be in yoyo mode and lose a lot of chips during the next couple of levels. I end up having to make a couple of really big lay downs just to keep slightly below average chips.

During the 300/600 and 500/1000 levels I do find another couple of hands and manage to double up through Sondre Sagstuen (left) with T-T against his A-K. Back on track with 65k, the average being about 30k, I improve my position during the next two levels and become the new chip leader, thus ending the first day in a great position with 125k, the average being about 60k with eleven players remaining.

Down to just eleven players I returned to DTD in great shape as chip leader with more than double the average chips. My best game without a doubt is short handed play, I feel confident that I can push on from here and build an unassailable stack during the bubble. Once again I start off making a lot of raises and re-raises trying to push players off hands pre-flop which works well, but by the time we start the 9 handed final table I have lost the chip lead to Sam Trickett, a fine young up and coming player from Nottingham I think.

Still comfortable in second place and with eight players remaining, I pick up 8-8 in the blinds and call an all-in raise from one of the short stacks and we are down to seven. Then a few hands later I get lucky when another short stack raises in early position, I look down to find 3-3 in the big blind and re-raise all-in hoping to push him off his hand. He insta calls making a good read with 6-6, but a Three on the Turn regains me the chip lead and we are now only six-handed.

Now I have about 250k of the 650k chips in play. The game quickened at this point, even though the stack sizes were very big in relation to the blinds and it wasn’t until we were three-handed that things calmed down a bit. We had lost three players in a flash and were now playing for the top places. The other remaining players were Sam Trickett and a Scandie called Sondre Sagstuen who this year finished sixth in the WSOP event that Ram Vaswani won his bracelet in.

Sam Trickett (left) had taken a few hits to his stack by Sondre Sagstuen but was still playing aggressively when he raised my blind for the umpteenth time. I set him all-in with my A-Q and Sam called with A-9. It wasn’t to be for Sam this time as my A-Q held up, but this guy is definitley one for the future and a big payday is surely not far away.

We took a short break before starting heads up play, and thank the lord we did. What followed was the most shattering heads-up battle I have ever encountered, the chip lead swinging one way then the other, maybe fifteen or twenty times. We finally managed to get it all in with my T-9 off against A-5 unsuited. I luckily managed to hit a Nine on the Turn to put an end to this three hour heads-up epic contest.

No deals were necessary as DTD have a very fair, and much flatter than the norm payout structure that everyone I spoke to was very happy with. Many thanks to all of the staff and management at DTD for giving us poker players such a marvellous club to play in. Finally, thanks to all of the other players for their support throughout the two days play.