I don't think I've ever written a tournament report on my own play before. Done plenty of tournament reports on events of course, but never one just focussing on my own play. Of course before you say it, paragraph after paragraph of me describing different ways to pass might not make for the most riveting viewing, but hey. Allow me the luxury, prompted by tikay's request, to have a stab at one...
So its the
dtd £300. 10,000 starting chips, 45 minute clock and 128 runners. A bumper field over which I submit I have absolutely no edge whatsoever. It had been a long day before I arrived. My son's 12th birthday, up at 8am and at a Go-Karting circuit with 15 kids for 10am, followed by a lunch. Arrived home just in time to watch the first half of the rugby, in the car for the two hour trip up the M1 just as the second half started and I listened with mounting incredulity to England choke before my own ears.
Arriving at
dtd I was, in football parlance, "up for it". A combination of family commitments and an extremely busy time behind the scenes at blonde has really curtailed my live play since last September and checking this morning I see that this is the first £100+ event I have played in that time. This period has also coincided with my worst ever run since I played my first comp in Oct 2004 with only one live MTT victory in over three months. Online has been, in non-football parlance, pants too. So out of form, playing poorly (they merge into one I feel after time!) and ill prepared I wasn't feeling like the life and soul of the party. I quietly sloped to the Internet terminal, did a bit of modding (no, I'll never learn) and at 7.30pm sat down on a table inclding Marcus Bebb-Jones,
Dave Colclough, Notts'
Anthony Nicholls and unknowns to me.
I had a characteristically slow start. The table played reasonably passive, with plenty of limping pre-flop. This gave me an opportunity to do the same, and on four seperate occasions in the first hour saw unraised flops with pairs in the 33-77 range only to see paint flops on each occasion. Won my first pot with
, limping UTG, flopping
and raising a bet from the blinds.
I was feeling comfortable, saw
but no action, raised with
called in the blinds - missed the flop and c-betted only to be check raised and was sitting on 9,000 when another limp fest occurred. Four limpers before me, I look down at
on the button. I limp, and all 18 of us see a flop of
. Marcus bets 1,000 in early position and I flat call. The turn blanks we both check and the river misses me too for a rainbow board. Marcus checks again. My hand has no showdown value, my opponent is showing no aggression so I have to take a stab. I make an ostensibly value bet of 1,200 into 2,500 - careful not to bet too much, I need to make it look like I want the call-and Marcus passes the
. That's my image for you!! This gave me confidence that perhaps I was competitive with the field.
A short time later our table breaks and I move to a table with RED-DOG two to my right, Adam Vinson on my right and b4Matt across the way. The last time I played matt was over two years ago and on a table where I knew no other players he and I began to banter. Soon (thank you Matt) the whole table knew that I was the biggest rock since rocks were invented. My progress was slow, hands were scarce so I decided to risk a few manoeuvres to maintain my stack on what was a more absorbing with several players being more aggressive. Firstly after several limpers I raised out of the Small blind with
, taking the pot uncontested. Then following Matts UTG raise I re-raised in MP with
knowing I faced a toughie if Matt pushed, and a probable pass. Matt deliberated, reminded me once again what a rock I was, and passed
face up! I returned the favour, just to show everyone that of course I had the goods. Finally in this passage, and facing another button steal from Vinson, I re-stole from the blinds with the premium
and took it down.
Following the second break it was a level or two away from crunch time. I had 11,000 or so with blinds at 200-400, antes had kicked in and stealing was rife. It was at this point that I feel I made my only mistake of the tournament. A Mediterranean gentleman who had played comparatively few hand raises UTG and I call for 1,200 with
in mid position. I don't really want to play a huge pot at this point against an UTG raiser , so decide to play smallball. We're heads-up to the flop. It comes
. Surprisingly he checks. I feel he bets any Ace there Out of position on a flushing board. He doesn't bet and I am thinking he has a pocket pair, and I'd like to win the pot there and then. However I think I betrayed a slight facial expression when the Ace fell. Something that's very easy to do when you are slightly out of practice. I may be being self-critical, but I believe I acted slightly differently than when I "had the goods" on other hands. Anyway, I bet 2,000 into a pot of 3,000. My foe sits forward and looks at me, and I realise I've been rumbled. He knows I haven't got the Ace. I am also pretty sure he hasn't. He still check-raises me all in. Into the tank. A call, if I make one, is for my remaining 8,000 chips. I'm pretty torn as to whether he has KK/QQ or an underpair to my Jacks. I don't think he's flushing with say
with an UTG raise on a full table. I decide that discretion is better than the "hero" call and decide to re-focus having been outplayed.
I drift along, card-dead and slightly solemn beneath the bravado, until my chance arrives. I am in the bb with only 6,000 chips behind (the blinds and antes have been eating away) and look down at
.
Billy Ngo who has been playing an erratic game short-stacked pushed UTG and Adam Vinson, also short having been mugged by 77 against his AA, re-pops all in from the small-blind. I insta-shove and find myself in a nice coup. AK vs the SB's QQ and Billy's 10 7 suited. The
flops, I eliminate two players and am up to the heady heights of 18,000 and average chips.
In the next level (7 I believe ) I raise with
in MP, to 1,800 (blinds 300-600). My Mediterranean foe who has drifted low shoves in the bb for 10,000 total. With only 13,000 or so in the pot and 8,200 to call I don't think I am quite getting the odds to call but I'm thinking. I'm thinking that he pegs me as someone who he can push around. He's hardly played a hand since we clashed, he has a nice "re-shoving" stack against a medium stack like me and I have 10,000 left if I lose. I can play a short-stack extremely well. I think, as he stares at me, that he thinks I'll pass a lot of hands there. He's beginning to perspire, barely noticeably. I give it another minute to try and detect a breathing pattern, he definitely wants me to pass. Adding it all up I decide to call. He flips over
(get in there!) and I river the nut flush and am in, for me, nosebleed territory at 30,000 chips. I'm elated, finally I have a stack and maybe the last three months pain is about to turn.
Or maybe not. I drift along stealing to keep my stack constant as others do the same to me and two levels pass. Blinds are 600- 1,200, its 2.45am and play ends for the night at 4a,
I find
in the Cut off, and raise to 4,000. The Small blind, the rotund Shane Warne look-alike from Featherstone has been getting good humoured stick from b4Matt all night ("There's only two things I don't think I'd ever hear you say" says Matt to him "1. Raise and 2 I'm not hungry" . Well at least he didn't say it to me!!) and shoves for 12,000. 8,000 to call, 16,000 in the pot. Standard stuff. He flips
and the
comes on the river.
Down to 16,000 and I am conscious that I need to make a decision as I want to come back the long drive for day 2 (I need to be home on Sunday morning) with a workable stack or die trying. I ideally want to re-shove the raises from medium stacks while I still have fold equity. If playable hands come along, great. If not, its get creative. One thing's for sure - none of the table expect me to get creative! By this time M3Boy, littlemissc and MPower have passed through my table and I wanted to re-shove past them, my image being strongest with those who know me from reputation but the opportunity never arises. Finally it does. Sadly though its against the table chip-leader. He raises in the cut off to 5,000 and I find
in the Small blind. The time for passing AK has long gone, its the stage of the tournament with my stack where it has to go in. So it does. He hums and hars and I thiunk I must be in good shape. Odds dictate I should get a call from his stack. Its a 40,000 chip pot. He calls. My
is against his two red sevens. I miss, and am eliminated in 35th.
So that was that. Cliche time, in the late-ish stages of tournaments you need to win with AK and beat AK. I just so happened to lose my two crucial races when it mattered, but I'd won one earlier to keep me in it too. Sadly, and this is a perennial problem of my style/image I never built up the stack to withstand losing races, but then again I never had the set versus/overpair, paint pair versus paint pair, flush versus set type of "stack making" hands that set you up in a competition.
It was 4am. I passed tikay in the car park, waved my goodbyes and turned the radio on. Soon, heading for the M1 I was singing along to Don Mclean "American Pie" on the radio and I smiled inwardly as I heard the immortal line
"Drove my chevy to the levee,
But the levee was dry."
Well, dear reader, once again I did come up dry.
Bed at 6am this morning, refereeing my son's football match at 10am I am currently in desperate need of the second half of my night's sleep where I am headed now
Just remember, next time you play me I am, indeed, the rock you all expect.
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