WPT Nottingham, High Roller Day 2So first off don't get me wrong, I ran well on day 2 of this tournament, I'm going to mention hands I lose but its in no way a moan, I was very happy with the end result and would have taken it going into the day.
Throughout the day I played more pots than anybody else which is rare for a highroller, I usually play tight, but I just felt so on my game throughout that I wanted to play pots and battle.
My starting table was pretty tough and reggy, I immediately lost a really big pot. I raised cut off with AJ, Simon Higgins, a perceived recreational player flat on the button and Sergio Aido (petgaming online) who had fired 3 bullets into this tournament jammed around 38k at 2kbb. I had 63k to start the hand and made the relatively easy rejam. He had AQ and we were really dented and on the brink of busting.
I won a nice pot raising AK, min betting q22 and calling vs leads on 94 vs 87o and winning vs Dhru Patel. I chipped up and won around 7 hands in a row when I had pretty good starting hands but didnt get to show them down unfortunately. Very early in the day I got KK in vs Middy to put me on around 130k when average was 65k and he rivered an ace. I was down to 6bbs at 3kbb so it felt for the second time within an hour "gg".
Shortly afterwards we got it all in again, me for 18k this time and with AJ and he had KK, however this time I won the 30/70 and doubled up. I took a lot of different lines to chip up and was accumulating a lot of small pots that were essential to my stack. Mike Sexton moved to our table and I jammed around 14bbs with A7 and beat his JJ to give me 30bbs which was more than fine in this structure.
I got moved tables to Toby Lewis, Craig Mccorkell, Stevie Chidwick, Paul Newey and a few others and was playing around a 65% vpip. For transparency I played 2 debatable hands.
It was the last hand before the break, I limped button with 9Ts into Stevie Chidwick in the bb and John Haigh in the sb. John raised to 7.5k and I called. The flop was K23 and I decided to raise his cbet of 8k to 19.4k with 50 behind as I felt he folded a lot in this exact spot. He called and we checked down and he had KQ.
Another hand was against Vamplew, I opened cut off into his bb 3 orbits in a row, I had 20bbs in the last one and he decided to 3bet me, I had ATs and I just didn't want to fold. He had chunks and I expected he was pretty light. If he jammed I was 100% snapping. The flop came q73ssx he checked and I think the Queen is the nut card for me and hits me really well so bet. He called and I gave up on the 8/J run out but was super super close to piling river. He had 99.
We were playing with 14 left for 2 full levels and nobody was busting and I was manipulating my stack sizes as I moved from 12-20-30-40-60bbs by adjusting my game accordingly. I won a lot of pots defending my bb and other spots and went from 45k to around 280k. It felt very assuring to get this stack without showing down much and I felt very comfortable.
The pivotal hand of pre-final table then happened, it was 6k bb and Craig went all in for around 80ish. I called with jacks with the intention of calling everybody except Stevies rejams and Toby quickly jammed the bb with QQ for around 93-103k and told them that one of us would flop a set, fortunately it was me and that gave me a really nice stack to abuse the final table bubble and got there with a pretty good stack. I took a lot of lines against certain players because of tendancies in their games and despite wanting to give a good report can't go into some of the hands unfortunately.
Final tableWe eventually got to the final table and it looked something like
Seat 1 - Steve Warbutton, 250k
Seat 2 - Stu Rutter, 350k
Seat 3 - Oliver Price, 60k
Seat 4 - Stevie Chidwick, 350k
seat 5 - John Haigh, 200k
Seat 6 - Pablo Fernandez, 250k
seat 7 - Me, 400k
Seat 8 - Bryn Kenney - 450k
Seat 9 - Dhru Patel - 500k
Pay outs were
£100k
£60k
£45
£30
£25
£18k
Obviously the first thing to realise here is a min cash is absolutely huge. 3x the buy in and the equivalent of around $30,000. I have a very good record in final tables online, generally converting a top 3 finish and went with that approach going in. Basically chipping up as slowly and steadily as possible, pushing it as much as possible and then if theres a major set back give up and get into a top 3 position (in this case ITM) before trying to go for the win.
I won the first 4/5 pots I played and my stack kept creeping up, I had gone from a little under 400 to over 600. One hand was against Bryn that was interesting.
BB12k, I make it 25k in the hijac, in the cut off with 350k he made it 54k. With this sizing I am going to flat a lot, I probably will flat AA/KK too and with AQcc it seems to me like a perfect hand to have in my flatting range that will continue well as the streets develop. I'd be more inclined to jam AQo He checks back T82 and then bets the T on the turn. I call and on the As river it goes check, check and he berates me a little "if you played your hand properly you'd have busted me" implying he had JJ-KK but it didn't go to showdown. I think he was a little tilted that I had won. Bryn came across throughout the final as a really, really good guy. He played exceptional throughout and really helped the overall mood of the final.
I then played a very important hand. We were 8 handed I was chip leader and Stu Rutter was 2/8. He had been playing aggressively against the mid stack guys as he should but we hadn't played any pots of significance.
It folds to me on the button and I make it 24k with KcJc off 600k, he has around 400k and 3bets me to around 55k. This felt very, very, very weird to me, in theory I think he shouldnt have a 3bet range as I have a really easy 4bet with so many hands and there were two guys with basically 100k and less. He had also satalited into the event through a tournament won and knew that it was a big cash to him as it was me and everybody else (excpet Bryn perhaps)
I decided to call and we got a beautiful
, he checked and I decided to check back, I figured if he has AK then its pretty hard for me to get beat due to having both clubs and a King and he will probably just c/f as his range will look weak and I have a great stack manipulation bet on the turn.
The turn was the
and he bet 65k. I called which I don't think is close.
The river is the
and he bet 109k.
This was really weird to me, in my mind he would never 3bet a hand like QJ,KQ almost ever at this point of the tournament, I also figured it would be highly, highly unlikely he 3bet AQ pre flop because of the icm implications and we have to expect that AA/KK cbets flop a decent amount of the time. I considered shoving because I expected him to cbet back door spades often and obviously if he does have a one pair hand he's going to be very hard pressed to call. I eventually decided to call, mainly because I would still be 2/8 if I lost and if I won I'd be a huge 1/7 whilst still thinking it was probably a profitable call anyway. He had AQ which really surprised me at the time, wp though and in general Stu really didn't play money shy around the bubble, he was playing as aggressive as anybody throughout.
Anyway the bubble bursts and first hand after the bust out Pablo jams 13bbs from the cut off and I have a7cc on the button. Painfully close but I gotta gii and I lose to KJ on the xxxxJ for rubs. My mindset was so wrong after the bubble I think, I'm not sure why but I had a winning process from just min cashing instead of trying to win, not sure exactly why this was. We had a break and I kind of got back on track and was more focused and thinking more through bets and sizes etc Don't get me wrong, I wasn't punting, just previously for 7 hours I was super A+ game and then I slipped into c game for 20 minutes and it was a little frustrating.
One orbit after the break Pablo opens, I 3bet TT, he piles and I call and beat his AQ.
I then play a crippling pot for John Haigh. I open AdAc from UTG to 25k and he defends his BB. The flop comes
, he checks and I bet 15k, trying to induce something from an aggressive player who had been handcuffed throughout the final so far. He raised to 50k and I called. The turn was the
completing the rainbow and he bet 70k. I didn't particuarly liked it but called. The river was a beautiful
. This takes away his 66/j6/64 combos considerably and he bets 90k. Now I think he has a hand like Jx, but I doubt he can ever call a river jam and he has J4 for a counterfitted two pair. His river bet is perhaps not optimal, but when you're in a pot like that and expect to stack the kid raising and winning every pot sometimes you do that kind of thing. Again a word on John, he was a top guy, we went to dinner and I thought he played really good throughout.
Dhru Patel busted to Rutter and Rutter took Stevie Chidwick, Warbutton and somebody else out and had chunks. We were 3 handed
Rutter 1.2m
Me 600K
Brun 400k
Estimated chip stacks. 3rd hand into 3 handed, I opened 88 otb, my first button open and Bryn 3bet the sb, I jammed 40bbs and he called it off with A9. Pretty gangster and we were flipping for a big stack. It came Axxxx and we were short again, this time we were still very focused and wanted to play as perfectly as possible.
We battled for around 3 hours, maybe 4 hours 3 handed, it was a truly really great battle with loads of strat, counter strat and counter counter strat going on. We ended up with me having 1.3m, Bryn 320k and Stu 700k. S At bb 15k I gii with
bvb vs Bryn's A9 for his 300k but lose and put the stacks back to 1m, 600k, 700k. Stu and I had a really interesting dynamic where I was min raising his button, min betting the flop and 2x potting the turn, it was putting really big ICM pressure on him and I guess he didn't have any really strong hands to continue with as it was boards like J762 and Q544 etc where he was forced to continue on the flop because of my sizing.
Bryn eventually showered Stu in a cooler and we re-positioned ourselves for heads up. If anybody was watching heads up you would have been 99% sure we had chopped it, we were playing very lax and very laid back, theres a great picture on my twitter (4bet2induce) of him, check it out
We hadn't dealt, honestly I think Bryn probably wouldn't have dealt with me to be honest. I just think he's a huge gangster who doesn't give a fuck and is a huge boss. I respected that and was looking forward to the battle, but playing hu for $62k is pretty crazy. We went into HU with exactly 1.2m each and we had 60bbs each.
We both changed our strat alot from limping/raising out buttons. I was pretty card dead for a while and lost a really crucial pot. He had around 1.4m and I had around 1m. He raised to 50k otb and I defended
. The flop was 7s4s2d I checked and he bet 65k and I called. The turn was the
and I checked and he bet 115k, at this point he 100000% thought I was a station and not aggro on streets past the flop. I decided to raise to 395k leaving a nice river sized jam. He took a while and called and I check/folded on the
river and he said he had a flush.
I doubled up from limping A5 on the button and calling his 18bb jam, pretty unorthodox, but it was right for the spot.
Then the big crucial hand of heads up happened, he limped button and I had lost the last 6/7 pots so decided to raise to 100k at 24kbb he called.
The flop was Q82 and I cbet 65k and he called. The turn was an amazing Q and I bet 180k and he called. At this point I was just very sure he had 8x, he could have Qx too, but just everything felt like 8x. I had also watched a video of him randomly heads up a few weeks ago at WSOP where he check/called turn with 2nd pair to a big bet, called the river jam and told his opponent he couldnt fold river if he called. I decided I'd overbet any river and this was the "win"
The river was the
and I bet around 500-600k and he sigh'd whilst I fistpumped inside and called with 8... A. Pretty annoying as I'm sure he calls all 8x on the river.
He puts me all in next button, I call looking at one Ace for 18bbs and then flip over another Ace and double. We then get it AJ vs 22 and he flops a 2.
Hard for me to really describe much here as we played short handed for literally the whole day and I played a 65% vpip there was obviously 30+ really interesting spots.
I really enjoyed playing the tournament, meeting some new people and battling with players I knew of but hadn't played before. As everybody knew I had bricked the 6 or so big live tournaments that I had played previously so this really gave me some more confidence going forward.
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