Hi Alex, very well done - I can assure you, you’ll get an invite back (should you want it!) - hard to forget those hands (from his perspective ☺️). The whole ‘angel investor’ thing too, lol.

NB - I saw you once in the Empire, approached to say hi, you were very courteous - could tell you were a good guy who wasn’t letting success swamp ego (stay true to that whatever happens). 🙂

Dwayne

Option 3, claim refund - who knows if they’ll still be trading in 2022? Get the refund claim in early. Waiting until September for full refund beats a few pence in the £1 ‘dividend’ via an insolvency process, one day. And believe me, as wealthy as Branson is, he’ll enjoy the benefit of limited liability >  pumping money into a loss-making business until he runs low, if it comes to it. I believe Mr Buffett sold some significant investments in major US airlines already.

One eventful moment, Martin Jacobson has just got knocked out (last 27-ish) and is about to scarper off..., my long time table mate, soon to be event runner up, Getnet, rubs (was going to correct this, but actually...) after him for a chat and photo. Mid-chat I drop in ‘so, Martin, have you ever ran well in a big tournament?’ Top bloke actually, very down to earth, must be tough when you hit the stars 🌟

I’ll be honest, last 27 to FT is a blur, was well 🍻 by then, so not much recall on hands - it was a bit of a cruise, always slightly above average, and last 15 or so cracked quickly enough....

Bagging up chips when the bubble burst was one of those moments I’ll never forget - £11k locked up, the absolute world ahead, every pay jump (for me) truly life changing  - when you have a one year old baba, and child care round the corner, it doesn’t half focus the mind 😎

The 7’s hand put me in a comfortable spot, and then I woke up with  in the BB... folds round to the SB who jams 120k with  😃

No sweat, and we’re upto 650k.

Shortly after I open at 6-12k to 30k in late position and get three-bet to 77k by the SB. I call, and flop comes:
 
   

Check - check

 

Bet 80k, I call

 

Check-check

SB shows Kings, and with that we’re upto 1 million.



An uneventful level of two, in which I drifted back to maybe 850k, and then look down at in the hijack.

I raise to 35k at 16k BB....

Button goes all in for around 350k....

Small blind snap RESHOVEs for around 800k 😲😲😲

Button shows 
SB shows 

A lovely  board and we hit the 2m mark

I believe both! Phonetically it’s something like ge-nay

[day 2 - continued]

day 2 - continued

Before more hand updates, I’ll share some interesting background:

- when I was young, foolish, and wanted ‘the lot’ too soon, I racked up a lot of debt playing online at stakes beyond my bankroll and ability. An example of my folly was buying into a 25-50 Euro big blind game with 5,000 Euros, pretty much my entire bankroll, to see if I could spin up. I played for twenty minutes, and soon realised that ever single open was being three-bet, so of course I defaulted to a open/four-bet strategy! 🤣 Remarkably, it worked four or five times without a five bet, and I span upto 6,800 Euros before snap closing table - shaking from the adrenaline and madness of it all. It is literally a completely different game at those stakes. With such a sound bankroll strategy,  you can imagine it wasn’t long before I’d exhausted all lines of monies.... this led to me self-excluding from online accounts and veering away from online poker, primarily restricting myself to the occasional small-medium range, live tournament. One of the closed online accounts was 888, who sponsored the WPT500, and so before setting off to play the £30 satellite I emailed then to check if I could play as ‘I didn’t want to encounter any issues should I be lucky enough to cash’ 🤣. Fortunately, they came back really quickly, and so I set off to Stratford - if it’d been another hour I’d have missed the satellite and that would have been that!

- I only played as my partner happened to be away for the week, and I was home alone, bored - any other week and I don’t play, life is weird 🤨

- throughout day 1, day 2 and the FT I sat next to Getnet (eventual runner up) aside from maybe two hours on day 2 - he was always on my right, raising like a machine for the whole tournament - this definitely worked in my favour as I can recall several spots where I would have opened and got myself into potentially tournament ending spots.... I was happy to let him pick up lots of small pots and pick my battles with weaker spots, 3-betting him with premiums / calling certain ranges in the B.B.

- Getnet has a silent ‘t’, but I pronounced it Get Net.... he didn’t correct me once, despite playing together for thirty hours or so ☺️

- Our day 1 FT also had Charles Akadiri, who I commented played really well on the opening page, with Charles, Getnet and I qualifying in first, second and third position from our day 1. I think there were maybe 17 day ones, and us three would go on to finish 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the tournament - what are the odds, eh!

More updates to follow, about to board a ✈️

I played ‘relatively solid’ (I believe this was a later comment made on the WPT final table updates, backhanded compliment..,. ☺️), and then thisnhand happens at 4-8k:

I have 

Big stack who took out Mr Ace-Jack opens to 17k from cut off, call, button raises to 47k. Button had opened lots, c-bet lots, I have 200k and just feels a dream spot to go all in.

So I, go ALL IN, naturally..,


Fold, fold..,, button tanks....CALL

Turns over  

He kept referring to the chips in the middle and how it was a perfect spot for me to jam, but he’s playing maybe 350k and I’ve barely played a hand. I’m folding in his spot - thoughts?

  blank  

Upto 467k, average was around 350k 😃

[Day Two]

Day Two

So we come back to day two with 309k, blinds 2.5-5k, and receive the immediate good news that the guarantee wasn’t hit and the min cash has gone upto £1,500 odd...

92 return, with an immediate pay jump to around £1,790 after one player goes. Which brings me to this hand...

I can’t recall the action in full, but the board was along lines of :

 

I’m not involved in hand, but found it interesting as it was on the immediate pay jump bubble - the big stack secured an early double and was opening up a fair bit. Fella to my immediate left came in with around 180k.

Big stack raises, call; flop - bets, call; turn - bet- call ; river - check - ALL IN

Big stack tanks and calls with K-Q, no hearts

Smaller stack shows  

Thoughts?

My immediate thinking was, easy check behind, SOOOOO much showdown value and at the same time the King smashed the raiser’s range. He didn’t have that much behind relative to pot either, maybe 60-65%

He did have the  , which I get, but also think a lot of players over-consider - rightly or wrongly, the raiser isn’t folding a king ...


So, immediately upto £1,800 ish, nice! ....

I’d suggest they’re actively looking for a new sponsor, but in the meantime have an informal agreement to leave up as they don’t mind the association to a relatively big brand name in the poker world.

🤣

Thanks all, incredible couple of days, I’ll do a write up tomorrow but for now it’s 💤....

Final hand thoughts? I’m happy with the jam.... 😑

So, we made the FT folks.... 😃

2.45m, 20 bigs - average around 3m - locked up 11.3k

Will do hand updates maybe later, or tomorrow for sure.

Absolutely hanging too 🍻 🤣🤣

Watched a recent one of Jaime Staples winning a tournament (uploaded in last couple of days) - they let him video hands throughout which I found interesting

Does anyone who has played this know what the earliest finishing day 1 has been so far? The day 2 level is based on that, so would be interesting to find out 🙂

I watched highlights of the day before and D day on YouTube, was actually fascinating - a lot of work went in! Jaime Staples
is a natural speaker / presenter, can see how he’s done well from the streams.