A long flight to singapore and a short flight to cebu and I arrived at the shangri-la resort and the pics on the stars website didnt do it justice as the place was incredible. I had purposely gone a week early to have a holiday of sorts and do some diving. Managed to get 3 days of diving in which was great despite not seeing anything too spectacular (sharks etc..) The stars party before the main event was held on the shangri-la private beach, pretty fkin ballin tbf, and was a blast and managed to meet a few drinking buddies for the rest of the trip.
Onto the tournament and day 1 was almost a non event as we started with 20k chips and i bagged up 19650 or something at the end of the day, lol. Day 2 would be more eventful and I doubled up almost straight away 99 > 77 and then went to work chipping up without showdown and the standard was woefully low. I think over half of the players were qualifiers for the metro card club in manila providing tons of value imo. I ended day 2 on 120k with the blinds starting at 1.5k/3k on day 3 but we weren't in the money yet. On days 2/3 of big tournaments i think i open the first hand of the day like 100% of the time unless I'm mega short but this time it folds to the BB who just piles 40bbs right in my eye, nh sir.
Won a good pot with AA at the start of day 3 and then I had a pretty easy ride until 2 tables out because of 1 guy on my right. He would sometimes open fro like 3.5x and show his strong hands once everyone folded but then sometimes he would open for like 2.5x after a little think. Everytime he did this i 3b him and he snap folded. He didn't seem to cotton on what was happening and kept on with this pattern for like 6hrs with him never 4b or even calling me :-). We redraw tables with 16 left as we were playing 8 handed and my meal ticket is separated from me but I had like 419k at 4k/8k so was in pretty good shape. New table was a disaster right off the bat as I 3b some guy with AJ and then some1 found QQ cold when i was getting even money on the call and bricked. Lost another big pot soon after when a guy raises LP and I call from Bb with AT, flop is ATx one heart and I c/c 3 streets but his 93hh hit running hearts to take the pot and I was now short with 13 left. Jammed the button with 97s and lost to KJ to bust 13th for $6k, was $135k ftw, asdfghjsdfg. Received the usual tilting congratulations from the cashier and headed back to my room to geeg the mini-bar....
Was meant to flying to Barcelona for the EPT but after the 13th I was pretty deflated and decided to hang around Cebu for a few more days before heading back to London for GUKPT grand final. Touched down in London at 7pm Wednesday night but since I change timezones on such a regular basis I'm pretty much an expert at dodging jet lag. Hardly slept on the flight from Singapore to London and therefor crashed for a good 12hrs Wednesday night and was good to go on day1a of grand final 2pm yesterday...
I busted the GUKPT at around midnight last night after a pretty frustrating day. I was seated next to stuart rutter which was cool as stuart is one of the good guys on the tour, always a pleasure to talk to at the table and ready to instingate a night out at the drop of a hat once the poker is over and done with. During the first couple of hours I ran KK into AA and 67 into QJ on 89T flop as well as losing with KK again and TT 2x and missing every other flop.. Never got going and never won a meaningful pot and clung on as well as i could until the very last hand of 4/800 when it folded to me in the cutoff and I jammed 11.5k with A9 and found the button holding AJ and I was a gonner. Don't felt I played bad at all, just ran into shitty situations all over the place which can happen pretty easily in tournament poker. My only complaint was having to play 10 handed all day in a £2500 tournament which is something I hope they can address for next years comp. Made a swift exit from London and am currently on the train back to Doncaster after the 2 nights in my London hotel cost more than a months rent for my 3bed semi house, lol.
After my break I'm motivated to grind online again so will be trying to put in some good volume as well as playing champion of champions in Coventry next weekend and then the £1k monte carlo event at DTD later in december. Could be be tempted to throw EPT prague in as well but I'm a bit sick of travelling atm and wanna just stay at home for a few weeks including xmas. January throws up a few options with PCA, aussie millions as well as few friends of mine getting a house in thailand to grind online for a while... Need to formulate a plan as well as setting myself some goals and aspirations for 2011. Sorry for the long post, as usual ill promise to try n update more regular but the chances of me doing so are slim/none so look forward to another essay in 6 weeks time :-) Ill attach a few pics i took on my phone of shangri-la...
