Aug 11th - £100+£10 NL Hold'Em - Sportsman (London W1)

As I've said in my blog a million times before (if you'd been counting that is) there is a very fine line to success & failure in poker. A missed draw here...some scabby outdraw there. (Scabby means 10 cards or less to hit). Well that just about sums up my weekend really!!

Friday night was the £100 NL Hold'Em event at the Sportsman in London W1. Tonight was a full house (60 runners) and the 1st prize came out at £7800 so you can assume there was plenty of action, and money, flying around!

I stayed out of bother for the rebuy period but duly took the add-on which brought me upto circa 10k in chips for the proper part of the event.

This particular Friday night was like a ghost town of old poker players from distant past! Faces I'd known for 15 years were playing. People like Rory Liffey, Koresh, Harold, blahdy blahdy blah. I only mention this because even after 15 years they still generally play the same way!

A case in point was Koresh. I'd been plopped next to him with ante's at the 200-400 stage (he was to my right) and I knew full well he'd attempt to pop the pot any chance he got! I get 3-3 in the SB...its passed around and I raise Koresh upto 2k. He immediately re-raises to 5k and I go all-in! Why? Koresh will play any two cards which gives me an edge over his play any day of the week! He, of course, calls and flips K-10. Not exactly a monster but pretty much par for the course for him! I avoid the outdraw and my chip stack now sits at 24k.

This gets upto 32k before I make my ONE mistake of the evening. In LP I get Ks-7s and flat call the 800 blinds. Koresh comes to the party and four of us see a flop of K-5-3. Its checked to me and I bet 4k. Koresh immediately goes all-in! All pass back to me and, without much thought, I call figuring him to be on a draw or playing shite like 5-2!!

He flips K-10..doh..and I can't catch up. Hmmm...down to 11k. Next hand though I go all-in with A-7 and get called by player with J-10. A flop of A-7-9-10-J gets me home and I'm back at the races!

Final table! With around 30k and antes still at 800-1600 there wasn't THAT much time to get lucky. One famous face at the table was Sir Clive Sinclair! Inventor of the Z80 Spectrum computer from days of old and multi-millionaire to boot! I took 20k off him when my A-9 ran over his A-2 on an Ace high flop and was nicely upto 60k.

With 6 of us left I look down to see Ks-Qs and duly raise it to 10k only to see another player re-raise himself, and me, another 70k. I felt very confident as I called and he flipped A-J. Not the worst case scenario for me but a flop of 9-6-4-7-6 squished me into 6th place and a £975 payout. It could have been so much more!

Entries ->60 - Place -> 6th - Win -> £765 ($1415) Profit/Loss for 2006 -> +$13666

(As from 7th August rate of exchange is calculated at £1 = $1.85)


Sunday night I played on Willy Hills. Attempted to win a seat at the Grand Prix...uh oh...104 players and only THREE prizes...uh oh...50th or so! I attempted a shot at the £50k guaranteed tourney..uh oh..247th! I also attempted to win a seat at an EPT event of my choice..and this is where things got interesting.

113 runners and 5 payout spots. Two seats. Three cash prizes!

With 10 left I have 12k in chips with everybody else at the table in the 30k bracket. I double through when my 9-9 beats A-J. I double through again when my A-A beats Q-Q and suddenly I'm chip leader with 8 left!

I continue to knock out players including another 54k to my stack when my A-A beats up 5-5 and with THREE of us left I'm chip leader on 130k. Another player has 80k and another on around 70k. I then get Js-8s on the button and this is what happens next...

Game #2175637853: Hold'em NL (800/1600) - 2006/08/13 - 22:10:00 (GMT)
Table "EPT 6600 Final 3173053 - 1" Seat 9 is the button.
Seat 5: shuffle10 (78010 in chips)
Seat 7: P.LeGuen (76370 in chips)
Seat 9: Ukpoker1 (128120 in chips)
shuffle10: posts the ante 200
P.LeGuen: posts the ante 200
Ukpoker1: posts the ante 200
shuffle10: posts small blind 800
P.LeGuen: posts big blind 1600
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to P.LeGuen [4d 4c]
Ukpoker1: raises to 4800
shuffle10: folds
P.LeGuen: calls 3200
----- FLOP ----- [As 4s 8h]
P.LeGuen: checks
Ukpoker1: bets 20800
P.LeGuen: raises to 71370 and is all-in
Ukpoker1: calls 50570
----- TURN ----- [As 4s 8h][7s]
----- RIVER ----- [As 4s 8h 7s][8c]
----- SHOW DOWN -----
P.LeGuen: shows [4d 4c] (A Full House, Fours full of Eights)
Ukpoker1: shows [Js 8s] (A Flush, Ace high)
P.LeGuen collects 153740 from Main pot
----- SUMMARY -----
Total pot 153740 Main pot 153740 Rake 0
Board [As 4s 8h 7s 8c]
Seat 5: shuffle10 (small blind) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: P.LeGuen (big blind) showed [4d 4c] and won (153740) with A Full House, Fours full of Eights
Seat 9: Ukpoker1 (button) showed [Js 8s] and lost

I'm shouting at the computer 'no pair up...no pair up'. The guy has 10 outs! Three A's, two 4's, three 7's and 2 8's. A poxy 8c falls on the river and I'm hero to zero in zip time!

Ok..I still have 50k left but for the next 5 mins I can't find a hand and am ante'd away to 35k when I get 7d-6d and decide to try my luck. All-In!! As it happens Mr SB has 8-8 and calls. No miracle and I'm out in 3rd for an €853 consolation prize which I immediately withdraw as a sign of my disgust with Willy Hills software!!

Update: I find that the player who gets lucky on me is David Barrie from Glasgow! He has a blog which describes his fortune in this hand and berates me as a player!

Wot a TOSSER! He obviously thinks the sun shines from his arse if he thinks HE's a good player. I look forward to reading about his demise at his chosen EPT tournament which he has NO chance of winning! Scottish git!!!