Heres my trip report x-posted from my blog another excellent weekend where fun was had by all. Shame I got my rush too early but I guess it wasnt called the table of death for nothing.
APAT Newcastle Trip Report
After playing in the Birmingham event I had told myself I was going to play every APAT event I had permission to go to. Whilst I had some difficulties buying my seat (the payment site couldnt cope with the demand) I made it in and was off to Newcastle on the 2/3rd Dec.
Drove down Saturday morning couldn't check into the hotel so dumped the bags and headed to the casino done the whole registration thing and chilled in the bar til start time.
First thoughts on Aspers casino its a bit on the bright side... they look like they copied the Atlantis Orbs in their casino and decided to recreate it with 100w coloured lightbulbs.. but anyway im not there to look at the interior design and the card room itself was excellent and away from all the faux vegas of the main casino.
The tournament itself was on from the word go 10k in chips I was table 3 seat 1 and the very first hand goes like this...
UTG+1 makes it 200 all fold to the CO who raises to 600... back round to UTG+1 who makes it 1200.. CO flat calls.
Flop Q high all clubs...
UTG+1 bets 2500... CO shoves UTG+1 calls... 20075 pot on the first hand!!!!!!!!!!!
black Aces for UTG+1 , Red A King of clubs for the CO... no help for the big slick and he gets knocked out of a deepstack event on his birthday.
It started off frustratingly for me.. my first pot was against a fellow scot sat in the 10 seat. My BB blinds 25/50 two limpers and the small blind completes I look down at
and rap the felt.
Flop
Limper 1 bets 150 , SB calls I bump it up to 600.. limper gets out the way SB calls.
Turn
I bet 1200 and it gets called...
river
completing the flush draw..
SB leads for 2400... I think I outhought myself in this one.. I can't put him on the flush draw and I hadn't seen him play enough to have any sort of read... I make the crying call and sure enough he has me outkickered with J8 ..
It all gets a bit frustrating after that having to lay down JJ on a Q high board and find myself at a tournie low of 3300..
Raises 99 with the full intention of going all the way with it with the 150/300 blinds. Pilf from the first event flat calls and we see the flop of K9K I shove and he calls with AK and doubles me up pretty cold deck that one.
Double up with KK v QQ and KK v QQ lol and am sitting on a healthy 30k ish for the remainder of the day until the dinner break..
Return from dinner (after nipping out to the burger van because the buffet queue was out the door and up the stairs and then they ran out of food oops) and play one hand in 2 blind levels.. that was raising A2 in late position and taking the blinds.
Tournie supervisor takes the BB and thankfully its me and I move to a new table... this is where the rush begins!!!
I go on a mad rush with AA / KK / AK / KQ / AK / AA busting 5 players in quick succession and amassing a juicy 170k in chips at its high point. Then things started going wrong.. I was raising and being shoved in by short stacks... getting decent enough odds to call i did so and both times had dominated Aces this took me right back down to 120ish this didnt seem to stop people pushing over my raises and found myself having to laydown hands after raising first in and facing allin bets from the aggressive players on my left.
As quickly as I had all my chips with 30 players remaining i was on the 90k mark and with 2000-4000 blinds whilst not in trouble I was going to have to accumulate chips to get to the final table... unfortunately for the last two levels the cards didnt come and with all the big stacks at my table I was unable to getadecent enough hands to try to win big pots enough times to be profitable.. thus at the end of day 1 i had 75k in chips returning the next day with blinds of 5 and 10k meaning my M was about 5 with 24 players and the money starting at 21.
I was absoultely shattered and had no trouble sleeping through my pre-paid for breakfast (doh) however I was feeling refreshed and good about trying to go deep into day 2.
It started off well I took a 40k or so pot in a SB/BB battle with K9 against A3 on a 7AK2K board I shoved the river but my opponent was having none of it.. He knew me better than to pay me off there.
I coast into the money at that point but still having nothing playable and the 15k a round really taking its toll.
We get broken up down to 2 tables and ive got a little less than 90k for the final 20 players. I find 55 in MP and make it 25k MP3 flat calls and the BB shoves for like 200k ... i go into the tank and ham it up but theres noway i can call here and i pass and MP3 passes. Great bet from the BB no matter what she had but I reckon it was a monster.
so with like 50k left after posting my now 12,000 (6k/12k) BB with
I get to see a flop as only the sb completes. It went something like K25 rainbow. Check Check. The turn brought a
and the SB min bet 12,000 into the 24,000 pot with about 100k behind. I shoved for the following reasons...
a)I have no read on the guy but a half pot bet on a non threatening board does not seem to be strong at all.. even if he has a K i thought he might let me do the betting first.
b) ive got an open ended straight draw and a little bit of folding equity ( i represent just over half his stack inc the BB already in here) and my allin bet can win it in two ways... he folds or I hit one of my remaining outs on the river.
Sadly he had K9 and the 5 on the river was meaningless. I definitely had to make a move and it was only after Claret1 / Tallpaul who busted out in 21st tells me "Oh yer he min bets a lot with a strong hand he did it to me a couple of times" probably meant I coulda passed but hindsight as they say is a wonderful thing. Another great weekend and another cash which will probably be spent on wallpaper or paint or something wonderful like that smile
See you in wales boyos!
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