So it's Friday afternoon and I was on my way to Grosvenor Casino Sheffield to meet up with a few of the lads for food before we set off to Blackpool for a weekend at the GUKPT 25 series.
Me, James Bolly Conway, Matt Eardley, Chris Canadine and Aaran Fletcher headed over to TGI's for food. I can't get enough of the TGI's steaks with that Jack Daniels sauce. So good!
3 hours later and we have checked into the B&B (bail hostel) and take a short walk over to the casino to check out any cash games or possibly jump in the 7pm flight.
Anyway once me and Bolly see the cash game line up, all thoughts of flicking in the 1st flight disappear and we settle in for the night to play 1/2. We both take down some nice pots, and I even called a rare Bolly bluff and we both win chunks off the Blackpool locals. Good start to the trip....
Back to the hotel and me, Matt and Aaran play OFC till 5am with 2 jokers and Fantasy Land. I end up winning 25 points and Aaran winning 8 points. All plans of getting up for the 12pm Saturday flight is pretty slim so we set the alarm for 2pm to try and get some good sleep in.
Wake up Saturday morning hearing My room-mate Bolly getting ready for the 12pm flight and the other 2 of our group, Tom 'GaggleofKings' Ambler and Stef Woodward have arrived make about as much noise as a 7ton lorry driving through our room so I wake up for abit but then go back to sleep and don't wake up till 3pm and watch one of the most embarrassing fA cup games of Leeds United's history, meakly going down 2-0 away to league 1 side Rochdale.
Head over to the casino to see how Bolly's doing and see him sat on what was defo the toughest table in the room with Richard kellet and a few of the only people I recognise in the whole room.
Me Matt Aaran meet up with Ant Gardner (Sheffield Wednesday football Captain) who has travelled up to play the comp, he just loves the game, for some 'breakfast' and watch the FA cup game on TV and play some Open Face while we wait for the comp to start which is now 7:45pm were told. It's okay though because we crushed open face again for 42 points
The comp goes hilariously wrong for me busting inside the first 2 levels, we re-enter and double up in a short space of time and play pretty well, until 'zippy' (dtd 300 deep stack winner) joins the table and opens most hands. We 3b him a few times and with 99 on a King high dry board we put him all in on the turn for the stack and he calls off with King Jack... Sigh. So we're back in the pack again and were joined by former UFC fighter Terry Etin. Super nice guy. He eventually went on to chop it as the chip leader so officially won the tournament. He played pretty good. He 3b me in position a lot and made some good calls. Well done to him. Anyway so with 25bbs we open button with KTss and get 3b by a random guy in the bb and then we pile it in his face to get the tank followed by the 'I'll gamble call' with A4. The flop of A66 didn't help matters lol and we bust with 1 level to go of day 1.
We wait for a seat of what looks like a really nice cash game for what seemed like ages, a seat opened and within 30 seconds, the 10 handed game just broke with people leaving all over the place leaving us 3 handed!?! Wtf... I would like to think it was because I now have a reputation of being a good live cash game player, however it's more than likely it was just bad timing.
After playing 3 handed for 10 mins, the other 2 decide they don't wanna play anymore so the game just breaks completely
I head back to the hotel and we all pile in matt's room for some pizza and Open Face which I just run golden in, making fantasy about 8 times and winning another 50 points
Didn't run good with the pizza, I ordered a BBQ chicken and received a beef meat feast of some sorts. Rang up to complain and got 'but it is chicken sir' to then 'sorry about that' to then ' well you ordered just before we closed so goodbye' haha.
Didn't sleep till 7am so the scheduled 10:30pm checkout was never gonna happen.
Woke up at 5pm lol...felt like shit and not looking forward to the long drive home but was cheered up by the double news that Aaran was already in a cash game and our mate Tom Ambler was still in the comp, so we got up and headed over to the casino to see how Tom was doing.
Not sure if many people would know who Tom is, as he doesnt play many live comps but hes been on a huge heater online recently winning ipokers major for $35k and 12th in the $2k WCOOP thing few weeks ago for $10k to go on the back of a SCOOP win last year. He lost a big flip on the final table eventually busting out in 8th place.
After getting breakfast me and Bolly jump in the cash game which is looking pretty good from the start. We decide to leave no later than 9:30pm so I could try to aim on being back for around 11pm but didn't end up leaving the casino till 3am! Lol.
We held with AAvQQ, lost chunks with KQv22 on Q52QA to the table fish. Won chunks with AKvJJ on 59Kxx. Pulled off some nicely timed bluffs and got many a value bet paid off to end up winning another £600 so put me up on the trip for cash games almost 1.5k which is a deece start on the first trip to the year's live travels.
We still get time to fit another couple of hours Chinese poker in playing £5 a point heads up against Aaran and we win another 19 points to make it worthwhile. Arriving home at 7am.... Very tired but a profitable and enjoyable trip.
Apologies if some of my spelling is off, as I typed all this on my phone.
GPS at DTD on Friday, should be hugeeee. Can't wait.
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