dtd is the bomb and will no doubt become my 2nd home!
Nice to meet some blonde faces, inc Ironside, fran, and nice to bump in to YoYo again!!
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Thanks mate, i've just written a tourny report and sent it to snoopy and
Simon Trumper so hopefully that might be posted here soon. I couldn't remember weather it was jj or qq.
regards
Steve Read[/quote]
DTD opening weekend £500 buy in main event
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 that 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, 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 inform Julian Thew and John Kalmar. I got off to a good start hitting the nut straight twice with a gut shot draw, I played them both aggressively and I had soon managed to double up to 15k playing lots of small pots. I lost my first big pot in a hand with John Kalmar, I raised utg +2 with As Ah, John smooth calls in the bb, the flop comes 10 high with 3 spades, I bet 2/3 of the pot and John quickly calls. The turn is an off suit rag and again I bet about ½ the pot, John now moves all in and with the over pair and nut flush draw I feel obliged to call. John 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, then I got 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 start to make a lot of raises and I slowly build my chips back up to above average when this hand happened. I raise in early position with KK, another played flat calls and Matt in the bb moves all in, I move all in also and the other player folded what I think was JJ or maybe QQ. With all the money in the middle I have Matt out chipped and he turns over AK, 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, although by now I am the new table captain, I seem to be in yoyo mode and end up losing 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 with 10 10 against his AK.
Back on track with 65k, the average being about 30 I improve my position during the next 2 levels and become the new chip leader and end the first day in a great position with 125k the average being about 60k and 11 players remaining.
The final day
Down to just 11 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 confortable in second place and with 8 players remaining, I pick up 88 in the blinds and call an all in raise from one of the short stacks and we are down to 7. Then a few hands later I get lucky when another short stack raises in early position, I look down to find 33 in the bb and re-raise all in hoping to push him off his hand. He insta calls making a good read with 66 but a 3 on the turn and I regain the chip lead and we are now only 6 handed.
Now I had 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. It wasn’t untill we were 3 handed that things calmed down abit, we had lost 3 players in a flash and we were now playing for the top places. The other remaining players were Sam Trickett and a scandie called Sondre Sagstuen who this year finished 6th in the WSOP event that Ram Vaswani won his bracelet in.
Sam Trickett had taken a few hits to his stack by Sondre Sagstuen but was still playing aggressively when he raised my blind for the upteenth time, I set him all in with my AQ and Sam called with A9. It wasn’t to be for Sam this time as my AQ held up but this guy is definatley one for the future and a big pay day is not far away for this star of the future.
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 15 or 20 times before we finally managed to get it all in with my 9 10 off against his A5 off. I luckily managed to hit a 9 on the turn to put and end to this 3 hour heads up epic contest.
No deals were necessary as DTD have a very fair, and much flatter than the norm pay out 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 marvelous club to play in. Finally thanks to all of the other players for there support throughout the two days play.
Kind regards,
Steve Read.
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