GUKPT, EPT, DTD and looking ahead to 2010 - Long Post....

So I have been really lazy over the last few weeks when it has come to updating my blog, for anyone that has followed me for a while this is pretty much routine.... After the ftops concluded at the back end of November I have pretty much not played online at all which has been a nice break but not great for my pocketfives ranking as I hit a peak of 8^th but have slid down again now due to not putting up any results. Hopefully when I start playing regular again in the New Year I can get back into my groove and start moving up again.

At the end of November I went to London in order to play the £3k GUKPT main event which I managed to luckbox last year (sick brag) I arrived in time to play the £1k side event which only managed to attract 60 something runners but still worth playing with about £20k going to the winner. I never had a stack the whole tournament and from when the antes kicked in I was grinding between a 10-15bb stack. I managed to double just before the final and then take a few pots uncontested until we formed a final table of 9. I had about 40bb’s and was in decent shape and one of the micro stacks busted so we had 8 ppl left with 7 places paying. I had raise/folded twice on the final when I picked up AKhh and raised again finding a guy with 50bb’s just jamming (lol) I get it in for almost chip lead stack and can’t get there vs JJ after a hh flop, sigh. Not the greatest start to the week, ha

Just got drunk for the rest of the week donking around in some low limit cash and doing chunks on blackjack, sigh. On to the main event and I had a mixed starting table as I knew 3 players, sunny chatta, pyrian de mel and Matt perrins. I don’t know that much about their games but guessed they were all solid and were not going to be spewing chips about. After playing for a while though it came apparent there were some good spots on the table so would be looking to capitalise on them to chip up. I made one really bad call against sunny when my set was almost never good on the river but paid off his straight like a mug. Was winning enough pots though in order to keep around average stack though before the table broke. On my new table I managed to get a stack going when I won a race vs Roberto romanello at 300/600-75 level. The penultimate level of the day was a terrible one for me when I cold 4 bet from the BB only to find the original raiser snap 5 bet shoving, sigh. After that I also butchered 77 and donked ¾ of my stack off leaving me with around 12k going into the last level 500/1k. I did manage to double up with AK vs 88 and then found AA when some1 else had JJ and ended up with 55k to end the day and the dream of back2back titles was still alive.

My starting table on day 2 had Stuart rutter and Julian thew both on my direct left so wasn’t planning to get out of line really. However Julian had a brutal run of hands/situations and was sent to the rail early in the level. I had a really good start to the day when I got a somewhat fortunate double up. We had some crazy Italian guy who ended up finalling that would limp 90% of hands and almost never fold post flop if he caught a piece. Anyway the Italian guy limps for 1200 and I make it 4000 with JJ and every1 folds back to him who peels. Flop is T73 rainbow, he checks and I bet around 5500 and he basically sets me in for 50k, I call and he shows T7 off but the turn and river is 6,6 ship!

My next big confrontation would come vs Stuart rutter when I made it 4200 blind on blind at 800/1600 and he shipped in around 40k, I called with AQ but lost the rave vs his TT I think. I was grinding for the rest of the day and was picking some good spots to 3 bet to keep my stack intact but no hands of note or big confrontations meant that I was treading water. Then mid-way through the 1500/3000 I opened AK to 7500 and a guy re-ships a 55k stack on me with KQ, flop comes JxxTA, wonderful. This left me with around 10 bb’s and I bust shortly after absolutely gutted :-( Tilted off around £2k playing blackjack with Jeff kimber while knocking back JD n coke before heading to a club with JP Kelly, and a couple of others to drink myself into oblivion and forget poker existed!!!

After the drinking exploits of Saturday I sacked off online tournaments on Sunday as I was in no state to be playing and then headed to Prague for the EPT on Monday. I had managed to win a seat on stars for this so that was a nice bonus and I was playing my first EPT since they Improved the structure to a 30k start stack and longer clock. I had a pretty soft starting table and I was winning a decent amount of pots without risking a lot. I had slowly chipped up all day without any bog confrontations or memorable hands and the last level of the day we would be playing was 300/600 -50 and I had 60k stack at the start of this level so was very comfortable with my position. This is when disaster struck when I managed to bust in the very first hand of this level. I 3 bet and oldish guy with 57 suited, he peeled and the flop came j53 rainbow. He check/raised me on that redic dry flop and I just couldn’t really put him on a hand that he could call my jam with and imo he was the type of player that would check/raise KJ there to ‘find out where he was’ and then pass to my 4bet jam on the flop. I thought for a little while and shipped in my 60k stack, he had me slightly covered and snapped me off with JJ for top set, lolololol gg Prague. I have spoken to a few people about the hand as I was pretty pissed off myself for donking out, but others reassured me my move was ok. The only debate we were having was despite my move being good, albeit very risky, is there any need when the field is pretty weak with lots of easy chips on offer. Looking back I don’t really need to make plays like this at this stage of the tournament but it did free up my time to enjoy drinking in Prague, :-)

After this I came home for a few days before heading to DTD in Nottingham for the £1k ‘monte carlo’ event that boasted an EPT structure as well as a £250k guarantee that they easily surpassed with a turnout of 300 and a £93k 1^st prize. This is the first time I’ve been to DTD and was very impressed with the facilities and all the dealers etc as well as how efficiently the tournament was run. My day 1 was going quite well picking off bluffs at the right time and chipping up nicely especially once the antes kicked in. I then got involved in a monster pot at 300/600-50. I raised 89 suited utg to 1500 and got called in the next seat, on the button and by the big blind. The flop came 963, big blind checked and I bet 3600 and was called by utg+1 and the other guys folded. I wasn’t happy at all with my hand at this point and would be giving up on most turns, but the turn was an 8 but brought out 2 flush draws. I now bet pretty big, 9000 and the guy jammed on me for about 30k total, I called and was in pretty good shape vs his JJ, not good enough though as the river paired the 3, sdfghjdfghjdfghj. That pot would have taken me to around a 95k stack at 300/600 and loving life. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful with me grinding a short stack and eventually won a pot towards the end of the day after busting rivermanl when he shoved the button with A3 and I found AQ and held. Came back for day2 with 38k at 800/1600 so quite short but a stack I’m very comfortable playing and not likely to make many mistakes with. I didn’t get anything going in the first level so I was playing around 30k a 1k/2k when my exit hand occurred. The button opens to 5k and I jam from the BB with AT and he calls with KQ and turns a K, gg. No complaints really, things just didn’t go my way. Ended up going out on Saturday night in Nottingham with about 12 others doing all types of shots as well as witnessing 3 fights in 20 mins in walkabout, lol.

OK, looking back on the year I am really happy with how it has gone online but pretty disappointed with my live performances. The most annoying thing was playing most of the NLH holdem events at the WSOP and not even managing one cash, fml! Looking forward to 2010 I plan on putting in a much improved performance at the WSOP. I am playing the PCA and aussie millions in January so plan A is to bink one of those and take the rest of the year off but if for some reason that doesn’t happen I’ll be grinding online until EPT grand final in Monte Carlo. Shortly after that it will be time to make the annual pilgrimage to Vegas!

Think I’ve rambled enough now, so hope everyone had a great Christmas and have a good new year, good luck in 2010. Also ive decided to moderate all comments as the amount of spam is tilting me....

Pab